Forcing Players to create GOOD characters...

[Wombat]

Back when I still worked with alignment I had a No Evil rule. Then again, I didn't demand that people become Good, only Not Evil. I wanted the characters to be heroes, however flawed, rather than villains.

This was because I had a fairly firm notion of what Evil was and I had no desire for my players to go that way; anyone who became Evil became an NPC, no questions asked

Only one player did go down the dark path; he did it very well, very logically, and irrevocably. When he became an NPC, he accepted this with good grace and full knowledge

Evil is not "cute". It is not something to play with. Disney Evil, Saturday Morning Cartoon Evil is just not something that shows up in my games. The evil characters in my games are self-serving or have a very, very twisted sense of how they are serving something larger. It is not merely kicking little old ladies or killing party members to gain a few gold coins; it is deeper, more vile, more insidious. I have had politely evil characters, utterly vile evil characters, and morally lax evil characters, but I do not let my players go that route.

Evil is not something to be played out.

I weep for the people who truly think evil is fun.

 

[Gnarlo]

Not only were they ninjae, they were teenage DUERGAR ninjae with helms of opposite alignment!!!

But were they mammals?
And did they flip out and kill people ALL the time?

 

[Gothmog]

But were they mammals?
And did they flip out and kill people ALL the time?

Doesn't that go without saying if they were ninjae?

 

[Squire James]

I don't regard alignment restrictions to be a sign of a bad DM. I've seen bad and good DM's alike do this sort of thing. This sort of requirement usually has one of two causes: (a) the DM is sick and tired of being the one who has to justify Lawful Neutral and Chaotic Good characters getting along (or not) in the same party, or (b) the Story demands that the characters be Good.

On one hand, the DM may be limiting the scope and fun of the story by placing alignment restrictions. On the other hand, you may be limiting your own scope and fun by insisting on playing the same kind of character every time.

This sort of situation is one of those times I would whip up a paladin and start roleplaying him in a somewhat irritating fashion. I don't mean smite Chaotic Good guys, just play him for mindless laughs when he's not doing what he's best at. Make a social faux-pas, then shrug and point at your astronomical Charisma score (noting that the character probably found a "better way to say that" than you could). I assure you, this can easily be as much fun as playing a brooding Neutral guy who knows how to do everything!

If the DM start making noise about "serious" characters, then pull out your Neutral guy who broods a lot and ask him who he'd rather you be playing. You'll either get him off your back or you'll get the guy you originally wanted to play.

 

[Ogre Mage]

Forcing players to create good characters

I think players should generally be allowed to play good or neutral characters. Having good and neutral characters allows enough variation that there can be an interesting level of inter-group conflict without having the game break down. Anyway, forcing players to good alignment kinda limits some of the classes. How many times can you play the "robs from the rich, gives to the poor" CG rogue anyway?

On a related note, it's a bad idea to have both good and evil characters in a party. If the players are roleplaying correctly, there should be a massive amount of intergroup conflict which can and should rip the party apart. An all evil party, however (with no good characters) can be an interesting change of pace with mature roleplayers. Be cautious, however. With immature players an all-evil group quickly gets out of control.

 

[the Jester]

On a related note, it's a bad idea to have both good and evil characters in a party. If the players are roleplaying correctly, there should be a massive amount of intergroup conflict which can and should rip the party apart.

No offense, but I think this is representative of an overly simplistic view of evil.

The selfish fighter, loyal to his friends but callous and indifferent to others, who gets pleasure from destroying his enemies; he's LE but hangs with good guys, and they don't mind because he doesn't shake his evil at them, just the party's foes. That's just one example. Speaking as a dm who's run mixed-alignment parties a lot, I've found that the good guys pick the fights at least as often as the bad guys.

Edit: ...and that such parties can do quite well for years without breaking apart.

 

[Endur]

You can certainly do what you want below regarding slowly migrating a neutral or evil character to good alignment over the course of a story.

However, both you and the GM have to know that is what is going on. Otherwise, the situation may not be developed sufficiently for the character to change her alignment.

Likewise, some D&D games last a single night, others last years. And even the ones that last a long time, are very unpredictable in duration. How long do you plan on taking to migrate your alingment?

I sometimes require that all players make "good" characters (although I'm running a campaign right now that requires all "chaotic evil" characters initially). The point is that I want, in some cases, to focus on characters that "fit" a specific storyline.

If someone comes to me and says they have this cool character concept they want to play, my inclination is always to approve it, even if they want to play an amoral robot from Mars in a 3e D&D game. But I will warn them that I don't think the character concept is appropriate to the game and suggest alternatively, are you sure you don't want to play a NG Sorceror who inherited his powers from an ancestor who was an outsider.

After all, the game is not about the Player's character. It is not about the GM's NPCs. It is about the combination of all the PCs and the NPCs and events surrounding them. The game is about having fun. If a Player is playing a character inappropriate for the setting or the storyline or the party, then the Player is not going to have as much fun.

I like movies that start with neutral or bad guys that slowly take a real interest in their world and the people around them...until suddenly they are powerful Good guys. Can a D&D experience be like that?

 

[rushlight]

No offense, but I think this is representative of an overly simplistic view of evil.

The selfish fighter, loyal to his friends but callous and indifferent to others, who gets pleasure from destroying his enemies; he's LE but hangs with good guys, and they don't mind because he doesn't shake his evil at them, just the party's foes. That's just one example. Speaking as a dm who's run mixed-alignment parties a lot, I've found that the good guys pick the fights at least as often as the bad guys.

Edit: ...and that such parties can do quite well for years without breaking apart.

I disagree. If your LE fighter killed a starving mother and her two young children for trying to steal his food, he would be perfectly within his alignment. If your good player stood by and watched this without action, then he's not playing a good character.

Perhaps for a while the evil character can keep his actions hidden, but eventually the others will find out - and then you've got a split in the party. Unless your story is ABOUT party division and strife, then all you've done is muddled your story and distracted the players from it. That's not how you tell a good story, IMHO.

There should be a common thread running between the characters. While they don't need the same alignment, they do need to hold the same primary goal (your story) - and creating conflict in the party makes it difficult to keep focus on the goal.

Personally, I don't allow any evil, or CN in the campaign I'm running now. The characters are all fighting for the good of the world, and they aren't being financially compensated for doing so. That restricts the alignments available, and I'm fine with that. The players all understood the story concept before joining, and they are fine with that, so no problem.

I have in the past run stories focused on party interaction, where they were bound together by a different goal - survival. They were forced to rely on each other to escape the situation, and forced to make a party work. In a sense, the story there was more about, "How do 'good' people deal with the actions of 'evil' people they must rely on?" It was fun, and something I'd only attempt with very good roleplayers.

 

[Tessarael]

As DM:

I really don't expect my players to be a paragon of good or any other particular morality, and I prefer not to use an alignment system.

That said, I like to keep conflict within the party to a minimum. Characters need to fit in to some extent, and while I'm happy for you to be unpleasant to the game world, I'd prefer you didn't beat up on your fellow character.

I can't really thing of any my players that ever played an evil character. There was a rather chaotic pseudodragon PC that unintentionally caused some allies to be killed, but that was in character ... had some game consequences though (main guy who was working with them stopped doing so).

As a player:

I have enjoyed played Lawful Evil characters and characters with questionable or changing morality. I've had problems playing a Bedine paladin, who I wanted to be savage but Lawful Good. (Apparently, leaving a warning to get out of the town in Zhentish blood for the Zhentarim was not Lawful Good, according to my DM. Fair enough, but that's one of the problems with cut and dried morality.)

In particular, one of my characters was a ex-Zhentarim Lawful Evil follower of Tempest. Basically honorable in battle, bit of a bully. Never came through as strongly evil, but would quite happily leave slaves to die when they were drowning and there were enemies to fight (of course the rest of the party saved the slaves). The party were occasionally annoyed at my character's callousness, but it seemed to work ok.

I also like to be able to avoid hostage situations: so you have some random person (PC or NPC) that I should care about? Why the hell would I lay down my arms, die for the presumption! Hostage situations suck, and surrendering because you're a good guy and don't want the slaves to die is lame. Maybe some people would do that, but I don't want to play that sort of character usually.

Addendum:

I have of course seen major internal party conflicts between good and/or neutral characters. Some of these were solved ok, and some really needed the group to sit down and storytell an acceptable solution to the players to the conflict. And then sometimes the players couldn't agree either ... It's difficult, breaks the immersive experience, and at the end of the day, your character does something for a reason, and sometimes you will highly upset another player ... should be handled with a mild apology and game explanation.

 

[Umbran]

I think that saying that the statement "DMs who require only Good characters are bad DMs doing it for one of two reasons..." is about as incorrect and as much an overgeneralization as "Evil characters are all psychotic." Some DMs use such a rule for good reasons, some don't.

I think few, if any, of us play in so many games as to really make such broad generalization about DMs, and making such generalizations is IME counterproductive. It leads to pigeonholing a person before giving them a chance. Treat a DM who uses such a rule as an individual, not as a member of the group "Those cheating, weak, untrusting DMs".