Evil with morals?

[SableWyvern]

Where does it say evil involves killing? Someone like scrooge (dickens), who asks people for money they have lend from him, even if they are hungry and its christmas. I think you can account him as evil, but he doesn't kill

PHB clearly states that evil characters kill without qualm, for sport or out of a sense of duty. While it would be plausible to have evil characters who choose not to kill because of cowardice or respect for law, I think a desire to kill, or at the very least an amoral lack of concern with regard to killing in some form or other, are fundamental to evil as written. Any divergance from that as a standard, IMO, would need to be made clear by the DM.

As for scrooge, in d&d terms, I'd see that as closer to Lawful Neutral than evil. In real-world terms I'd call it misguided, cruel or wrong, but not evil. OTOH, some religious viewpoints could bring his actions into the realm of evil.

 

[SableWyvern]

See what I mean? Now ask 99 more people. 99 other different answers.

I expected no less. Although there has been a fair amount of consensus - so far.

 

[Henry]

Another vote for Evil Child-preservers here.

Just because you are evil would mean you didn't have a code of some sort. However, I think that the Chaos/Law axis would assist in governing this to some respect.

To me, a chaotic character is one who may have a code, but this code is to a certain extent flexible. A Lawful character would not disobey his code except in the most extreme of circumstances.

A Lawful Evil person who wouldn't kill children would possibly do so, if it came down to a life-threatening situation. Under most circumstances, he wouldn't violate that code. He would stick to it until ALMOST the very end, because he would be capable of causing harm to others, but he is loath to violate his code.

A Neutral Evil person would weigh his code in the light of whether or not violating that code would result in a "sure thing" of power gain or prestige. In a hardship situation, he might find such a thing distasteful, but would probably in the end violate his child-killing code.

A Chaotic evil character would probably have no qualms on child-killing, widow-burglarizing, or anything else unless doing so threatened his personal safety. In any event, if the child were REALLY causing him hardship or trauma (say, the child and he have to share water, and the waterskin is down to the last mouthful), then he would have no qualms whatsoever in choosing himself over the child. If the Chaotic Evil and the child were the last two in the Donner party, you KNOW he'd be dining on kiddie chow that very night.

This is just my take on alignment discrepancies. As many long-term board-members know, I am more of the "Lawful = order" camp than the "Lawful=law abiding" camp. Otherwise, IMHO, A Paladin could never break an evil law, and that doesn't set well with me.

 

[Thaumaturge]

I am currently playing an evil character who was raised in an orphanage. He is protective of children, but once a person is past the age of 13 they are on their own. He even made a deal with his goblin captors to free a human baby from the goblins' dinner pots. Then he risked everything to return the child to the nearest town. It is part of his ethical (lawful) code that children should be protected from harm, but he sees most adults as power hungry and self-serving so he must look out for himself as well. This reminds me of the question "Can evil people have friends?", which I answer with a resounding, "I do!".



Thaumaturge.

 

[Sodalis]

all this talk reminds me of the movie Snatch a great movie... one of my all time favs.

Spoiler
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In the movie, there is Tony the tooth- who was shot 6 times in one sitting, and lived.

The first scene you see him in, he is pounding teh crap out of some guy using a car door, and then answers the phone with a graceful "Bonjour..."

In his final scene, he is told to slit open a dog that supposedly swallowed a diamond. He looks at the guy with a winy face and says, "It's a dog..."

Showing that even though he is a hitman- and has no qualms about shooting, beating,a nd killing people, he has a soft spot for dogs, which by no menas would make him any less evil than a normal killer without that quirk.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Right on.

PHB also clearly states that Alignment should be a guide and not a straitjacket. Anything that makes an NPC more interesting as a character should be used, IMO.

"LE," "CE" or "NE" is not a personality description.

 

[AFGNCAAP]

I'd have to say Lawful Evil, like many others here. This sort of Lawful Evil character is reminscent of the Abberant Evil alignment from the Palladium system---follows their own code of honor, & there are even certain things they wouldn't do, but this os only as long as it fits within their personal code.

For example, a LE character may believe in being loyal to his friends. That's good, but it all depends on who he considers a friend at the time. Also, those people who he once, but no longer sees as friends, would no longer benefit form this part of his code.

 

[SonOfLilith]

Evil just means you will do anything and everything for your own gain. You can be Sadistic and love to touture people as well, but you don't have to to be considered evil. If you don't kill kids, I would say you are lawful evil, because you think there are certain rules one must follow.

 

[JoeGKushner]

In the situation you mentioned, it's passive evil. No child jumped in front of him and threatened to delay him where the police would catch him. He didn't actively endanger any children true, but there coudl be many reasons for that ranging from the statted one to knowing what happens to child murders who get caught.

And as others have mentioned, evil isn't necessarily stupid. Orcs do not fall upon one another as soon as one is injured and devour them. There are other concepts at play in addition to alignment that are important to judge and incorporate into the theme and mood.

 

[Remus Lupin]

I'm reminded reading this discussion of John Woo's Hard Boiled. There are a number of characters that skirt the limits of the alignment grid, including a good cop that will kill without qualms to preserve his cover, and another cop that is the standard "Good Guy" action movie hero. But also interesting are the villains. There is the BBEG, who in the end hijacks and entire hospital, including the nursery, and one of his hentchmen, who finally turns against him when the BBEG runs in and starts killing children that the hentchman is specifically trying to not harm.

Good movie. One of Woo's best in my opinion. It's rife with moral ambiguity, but you can get a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of using alignment to decide these things.