How many times...?

[Seeker95]

And what if the character goes around helping people otherwise? What if he's heroic and would give his life to save the town? What if he routeinely gives to the poor and needy?

Then he is just like every other evil-in-a-pretty-wrapper individual.
Good simply will not willingly do evil.
Evil does not feel so compelled to avoid doing good.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Short answer:

Not Good: He threw fire at an old lady instead of using non-lethal means. (face it, a baseball bat is "gentler" in game terms)

Evi?: Depends on if he enjoyed throwing fire at the old lady.

If he's less than thrilled that throwing fire was the best he could come up with, he's neutral. If he'd do it again, no problem, he's evil.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Slaughtering little old ladies because they litter is definitely indicative of some deeper unbalance of the soul, and shows a callous, cavalier approach to other people's lives.

And what if the character ALSO shows concern for others? He's in this town to restore order, and could do good deeds in addition to what most people would term an extremely violent outburst. A character is defined by more than one incident, particularly a neutral character. If you have a tendency to vary between good and evil acts, wouldnt that place you in the middle?

 

[JohnSnow]

I should make it clear that I no longer use alignment in my games, since I find the d20 Modern allegiance system makes for much more interesting and complex characters. There's a certain level of cliche-ism that naturally gets attached to a campaign with black and white alignment.

Moreover, look at how older socieities view violence. For seduction purposes, Cassanova rented a room overlooking a square where prisoners were being eviscerated and tortured... It was considered romantic. Jeremy Bentham was basically run out of England for daring to propose the ludicrous notion that perhaps orphans SHOULDNT be forced to fight dogs for people's amusement. Was every roman who went to see bloodsport shows evil?

YES.

Most evil people don't think they're evil. They don't usually regard being evil as a good thing, so they justify their actions along some other grounds (preserving order, defending the state, I was provoked, blah, blah, blah). Monte Cook had a choice comment in The Book of Vile Deeds on what the standards would be for "good" and "evil" in a world where good and evil are concrete things, rather than just abstract concepts. I don't have it handy at the moment, but maybe someone else does. The basic point is that the standard has to be set VERY high.

A quick list of things older societies have condoned or even encouraged from those in positions of "authority:"

• Slavery
• Torture
• Rape
• Mutilation for minor offenses
• Summary Execution for minor offenses
• Human Sacrifice
• Bloodsports
• Assassination

Evil is evil is evil. Often, throughout history, individuals or societies have had to choose the "lesser" of two evil actions. Occasionally, they chose wrong. Or they chose to do evil things to perpetuate the society in the belief that good would come from the spread of civilization. Or, they chose to do evil because morality is a grey area and they didn't really find it THAT evil. After all, if I'm in power, who are you to tell me I can't do whatever I want?

The teeming masses in Rome enjoying Christians being thrown to lions? Or slaves dying for their amusement? Umm...yeah. It's definitely evil. And don't get me started on those actually RUNNING the arenas.

Slavers buying and selling other human beings like cattle to make themselves rich? Evil.

Queen Elizabeth having traitors executed slowly, painfully, and deliberately so that people would think twice before committing treason? Perhaps necessary to ensure the continued existence of her kingdom, certainly cruel (and she knew it), and, without a doubt, evil.

People are forced to evil actions all the time in "the real world." They rarely think themselves evil. In D&D, killing when it's not necessary to prevent further violence is evil (yes, in society where prisons work, this would include the death penalty, but not self defense). Likewise, maiming people unnecessarily is evil. So, basically, a crueler world permits crueler actions. Many historical examples probably went too far, as it's VERY easy to do.

Most people are usually self-interested, not self-sacrificing. However, many can be prompted to "good acts" by appealing to something they hold dear - family, country, organization, an individual, or, even a moral philosophy. The last is just as often a particular religion as it is an abstract ideal like "good."

Which is why for most games, I prefer Allegiances to Alignment, as I said to start with.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

YES.

Most evil people don't think they're evil. They don't usually regard being evil as a good thing, so they justify their actions along some other grounds (preserving order, defending the state, I was provoked, blah, blah, blah).

Except in D&D, which has a juvenile concept of good/evil as concrete knowable tangible forces. Its concrete, you know and embrace it, and wake up in the morning and think to yourself "its a great day to do evil!".

Monte Cook had a choice comment in The Book of Vile Deeds on what the standards would be for "good" and "evil" in a world where good and evil are concrete things, rather than just abstract concepts. I don't have it handy at the moment, but maybe someone else does. The basic point is that the standard has to be set VERY high.

The Book of Vile darkness and its cousin are generally laughed at by most serious gamers, for taking a bad concept to new heights of stupidity. Remember kids, its not ok to poison someone, that causes undue pain. But its A-OK to fireball them, or melt them with acid arrows. And if you invent a substance that duplicates the effects of poison but only works on evil creatures, well thats kosher too.

 

[JohnSnow]

If you have a tendency to vary between good and evil acts, wouldnt that place you in the middle?

Nope. It makes you Evil Complicated. As opposed to Evil Simple. Probably, such a character wouldn't even REALIZE he was evil (most people don't). I know, in D&D you claim he would...or might he think that those telling him he was "evil" were in fact "evil" themselves?

Not feeling COMPELLED to do good makes you at best, neutral. Doing good things? Well, it's a start, but why are you taking the risk? Even an evil character can risk his life to save a child. It doesn't automatically make him good (or even neutral).

I suppose in some cosmic balance sense, you may come out okay (we'd all like to believe that) but redemption is a thorny issue. What does it take to atone for evil? Self-sacrifice (or potential self-sacrifice) for the benefit of others is pretty good. Minor evil acts require minor acts of goodness.

One good example: Magneto in X-Men. Good, evil, or neutral?

Your definition says neutral (he does both good and evil). But Magnus does some pretty horrific things. So, which is it?

Most people are uncomfortable with the notion of good and evil as absolutes. They tend to favor a more "flexible" philosophy oft-described as "Moral Relativism." This is probably because most people, are themselves neutral or evil, by D&D terms. We all want to think we'd be classified as "good" in such a setting. Most of us would be wrong.

And yes, I agree that the Book of Vile Darkness is laughably simplistic. The line I'm referring to went something like this:

"In a world where good and evil are concrete things, sacrificing yourself to help someone else is a good act. Exploiting someone else for your own benefit is an evil act. It's a high standard, but that's the way it is."

He then proceeds to jump through hoops for 200 pages to explain why, in this world of concrete good and evil, PCs can murder monsters for their gold and still themselves BE "good." That's only because to do otherwise treads on the genre conceits of the game.

But the initial summary line is still a very good comment about good, evil, and what it MEANS for them to be concrete things, rather than abstract concepts.

My two cents.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Nope. It makes you Evil Complicated. As opposed to Evil Simple. Probably, such a character wouldn't even REALIZE he was evil (most people don't). I know, in D&D you claim he would...or might he think that those telling him he was "evil" were in fact "evil" themselves?

Ahh, so its perfectly clear. Good characters do good all the time, evil characters do good and evil things as they see fit, and neutral characters dont actually exist, because if they perform an evil act, they are evil. Gotcha.

 

[Felix]

What we had was an old women flinging insults and garbage, both very non-lethal. Not a mob closing in with the intent to kill.

Here's my understanding of the situation.

A mob of people and one crazy lady, none of whom were behaving themselves towards the PCs.

The PCs use Diplomacy/Intimidate checks to calm the crowd down to move on with the pressing job of making the town safe.

One lady does not listen and continues to do exactly what everyone else was doing in the first place.

The PCs are stuck saying, "Calm down lady" repeatedly, but no response was forthcoming. This suggests to the mob that there are no reprisals for disobeying.

werk endures more of the little lady, and after repeated warnings, which both the lady and the other civillians heard, cast a spell at her.

What this says: the PCs will try their best to get everyone calm through peaceful means and disperse the crowd with a minimum of damage. But you had better listen to their advice to disperse because they are willing to respond with lethal force. This willingness supports their authority, because authority without any force is either ignored or assualted.

Yes, I think it would have been better to knock her unconscious, or to Diplomacy the crowd into calming her, but this also worked in a region of Martial Law.

Not evil, though an evil character can do this sort of thing.

 

[Thunderfoot]

This particular response was inappropriate. If you had hit her with a stick in the puss, then you would be ok, but to actually melt her face, WAY OVERBOARD!. Now if you had just saved a bunch of orphans from a fire by single-hadedly dousing it with your spit while simultaneously re-building the building with your free hands...then I'd be good with it. Simply for keeping the balance, of course.

 

[Crothian]

Ahh, so its perfectly clear. Good characters do good all the time, evil characters do good and evil things as they see fit, and neutral characters dont actually exist, because if they perform an evil act, they are evil. Gotcha.

You can do non good, non evil acts. Welcome to neutral.