Is it possible to be evil and innocent (in D&D)?

[Will]

Innocent in the spiritual sense, to me, implies neutrality (animals are innocent).

Otherwise, I go with alignment being intent.

A cruel and malicious person who commits no actual crime, but does his best to say rude things to old ladies and get his kicks confusing schoolchildren is evil.

The problem with alignment in D&D is that any scaled quality suffers an aversion to the ends. That is, 1/3 of people in D&D are evil. It does not mean they are at the heights of diabolic terror, it simply means they are at least selfish and mean.

If it was a 5 point scale, people would be more comfortable putting stuff in the 'somewhat evil' category. However many points you have, people shy from the ends. They do statistics to massage accurate info from questionnaires, for example, since on a 5 point graded scale, people will overwhelmingly avoid the ends. Unless they are annoyed at somebody.

 

[Will]

This is, by the by, why paladins can't go around killing anyone who detects as evil... because of their Lawful part.

Paladins are about prosecuting evil _acts_, IMO. Someone detecting as evil is suggestive... but it's possible they haven't done anything. This is what keeps paladins from the old fashioned 'evil?? Slay slay slay!' behavior. Or should.

 

[Estlor]

Alignment in D&D is too black and white for some of these things. A good way to view the moral axis in D&D is like this:

Good = Benevolence
Neutral = Selfishness
Evil = Maliciousness

Now, if the person in question shows themself to be benevolent or malicious, they're good or evil respectively regardless of how selfish/selfless they are. If they show no preference of one trait over the other, then they're neutral whether they're selfish or just self-centered.

And by "self" I mean the individual, their family, and their friends.

 

[WizarDru]

You obviously haven't been around a lot of kids!!

My kids would tend to disagree with that.

 

[Will]

Estlor, that's a good translation. I like it.

 

[Wombat]

You obviously haven't been around a lot of kids!!



Have a good one! Take care!

edg

I dunno...

Actually, I've met several kids in my life who would qualify for Actively Evil...

Most would fall into the Not Thinking Through Actions So Still Neutral In Intention category, no matter what they may or may not have done with Fluffy and the clothes drier...

 

[LostSoul]

Well, if you define Evil as selfishness, most 2-year olds would be Evil. Not really having done anything captial-E Evil, but they live lives that revolve around themselves and their wants.

I don't think that somebody who had not yet done anything Evil would be Evil. So I guess you can't really have an innocent Evil person.

In your example - do you consider the constant insults an Evil action? That would be pushing it, I think. I think the guy is Neutral.

 

[Gez]

Alignment is defined by actions. If you're innocent, you're not evil. If you're evil, you're not innocent.

It is sometime a hindrance ("I detected evil in him! He's guilty!"), but not that much actually, unless you have stupid players ("I know he's guilty!" "Guilty of what, exactly?" "Err, I don't know. He's just evil, so he must have made something bad, but, err, I haven't digged dirt to back up my accusations.").

 

[Will]

Gez: Where is it indicated that alignment is defined by actions?

 

[Kalendraf]

I would say that it is possible. Someone who constantly dreams of doing evil things, yet never acts on them for whatever reason (such as lack of opportunity) would be evil. Yet they have done no crime and therefore would be innocent.

Obviously, the reverse is possible as well. A do-gooder could commit a crime, possibly be accident and no longer be innocent, yet not evil.