D&D 5E Player agency and Paladin oath.

[Lanefan]

Aside from the guy that wants to play DnD as a co-operative game, and doesnt want to deal with being shoehorned into playing a game with a psychotic monster.

Seriously, in a party where I was playing a LG PC, I simply wouldnt allow an evil monster into the party, and you'd be booted out the instant your tendencies came to the fore.

That'd depend on the rest of the party, I think. One of us would go, but it might not necessarily be me. (having seen just this happen many a time - the LG or LN minority-of-one in a mostly CG-CN party ends up getting run off one way or another)

Also, who says it's exclusively your call as to who can join or not join the party? "I simply wouldn't allow..." is an attitude I've seen far too many a time from LG/LN players - never mind their PCs - and it's something I'll fight against just on principle.

That being the case, whats the point of even creating that PC? You're wasting your own time, and simply deliberately (or at least recklessly) creating conflict at the table.

I'm only wasting my time if I'm the one whose PC ends up dead or punted, and that's a known and accepted risk.

That, and unless the game's being run far too soft most of the starting PCs won't be around all that long anyway.

How is that fun? To me it just sounds like a jerk move.

If I'm the outlier, perhaps. But if I'm part of the majority in the party and the LG (or LN) type is the outlier, which seems to be the case in the OP's group, there's no jerk move here.

 

[Lanefan]

Your players should've talked to each others and aligned themselves to each other's characters. Group cohesion is very important in all games unless you had a very precise agenda or a story about betrayal (or something like this) and the concerned player(s) agreed. Otherwise, allowing either the paladin and the warlock or the two CN was a mistake.

I see this as a set-up for a thumping good game! You're almost without question going to get great in-character RPing and maybe, if you're lucky, even some in-fiction discussion of morals and ethics. And if they end up throwing down and one or two PCs die, in the end it's no different than had some Kobolds or Orcs killed them.

The only caution for the DM is she might have to put her story aside for a bit while this all gets sorted.

 

[Lanefan]

Chaotic Neutral is a person who is neither morally Evil nor Good (being morally in the middle, generally self serving) who is impulsive, spontaneous, unconventional and cares little about family, honour or tradition.

Examples include Captain Jack Sparrow (PotC), Deadpool (the Superhero), Hondo Ohnaka (Star Wars) Bronn of the Blackwater (GoT) and Daryl Dixon (TWD).

One of my recently-active characters is directly based on Jack Sparrow, other than she's female; and when I first saw Bronn it felt like another of my long-time characters (in fact, the one whose name I use here) was staring back at me from the screen.

 

[TheSword]

Just allowing CN and Evil alignment is asking for trouble with capital letters. Group cohesion was down the drain the moment the PCs were created. Two good aligned vs two evil aligned PCs disguised as neutrals. As Flamestrike more or less said, one good act does not bring forgiveness and peace of mind from murder and psychotic behavior.

Your players should've talked to each others and aligned themselves to each other's characters. Group cohesion is very important in all games unless you had a very precise agenda or a story about betrayal (or something like this) and the concerned player(s) agreed. Otherwise, allowing either the paladin and the warlock or the two CN was a mistake.

It’s another good reason to allow alignment in the game...

... to allow you to proscribe unwanted behaviors without having to list all of them. No CE, CN, LE, LN is a standard in our sessions and it works.

[Edit: That should say NE not LN ]

 

[Lanefan]

It’s another good reason to allow alignment in the game...

... to allow you to proscribe unwanted behaviors without having to list all of them. No CE, CN, LE, LN is a standard in our sessions and it works.

I think you're the first DM I've ever seen or known that banned LN. Interesting call.

What's your rationale?

 

[TheSword]

I think you're the first DM I've ever seen or known that banned LN. Interesting call.

What's your rationale?

For typographical reasons!

A mistake may have been made but because it was already written down, the Lawful Neutral powers were too lawful to change it.

Whole generations of players never come into existence all because of one letter in the wrong place... the very definition of LN bureaucracy at work!

 

[Flamestrike]

It’s another good reason to allow alignment in the game...

... to allow you to proscribe unwanted behaviors without having to list all of them. No CE, CN, LE, LN is a standard in our sessions and it works.

[Edit: That should say NE not LN ]

A few weeks back @Helldritch did just that.

Apparently a Good aligned PC only engages in genocide 'occasionally and reluctantly', and is totally OK with slaughtering Orc POW's out of hand.

We literally even RP'd a quick scenario where my LG Paladin was ordered to engage in genocide by my (allegedly) Good aligned King.

When I refused, and instead suggested we try a non-violent solution to the Orc menace first, such as negotiation or trade, I was publicly berated as being as bad as the Orcs and a coward, stripped of my command, and also arguably my Paladinhood (although that last bit wasnt clear).

 

[Flamestrike]

That'd depend on the rest of the party, I think. One of us would go, but it might not necessarily be me.

Fun game you have there.

And again, how is that not affecting player agency? Literally at least one player loses their entire character because of your decision to insert your CE PC into a good aligned party!

You're not just stripping agency, you're negating it entirely.

A DM that allows such a thing is failing in his duties as a DM. If you want to play some kind of Dark Side Sith Necromancer Murder Rapist, wait till we play an evil campaign thanks (and we have the consent of all players for such a campaign and character).

DnD is a co-operative game, and a group game. No-ones fun or enjoyment should trump anyone elses right to the same.

 

[Helldritch]

Ergh. That's awful. That's also not what CN is.

Chaotic Neutral is a person who is neither morally Evil nor Good (being morally in the middle, generally self serving) who is impulsive, spontaneous, unconventional and cares little about family, honour or tradition.

Examples include Captain Jack Sparrow (PotC), Deadpool (the Superhero), Hondo Ohnaka (Star Wars) Bronn of the Blackwater (GoT) and Daryl Dixon (TWD).

Morally Neutral (not a murderer, and not a saviour), generally self serving, and unpredictable, and not beholden to any codes or traditions.

The chaotic neutral is a self serving egoist that cares only for him. For me, Deadpool is evil. Not neutral one iota.
I see chaotic neutral as a person that goes on whims of immediate self gratification. The chaotic neutral will have trouble keeping money for long therm investment such as building a castle, a temple etc... The only reason a CN is not a psychopath killer is the Neutral aspect.

A few weeks back @Helldritch did just that.

Apparently a Good aligned PC only engages in genocide 'occasionally and reluctantly', and is totally OK with slaughtering Orc POW's out of hand.

We literally even RP'd a quick scenario where my LG Paladin was ordered to engage in genocide by my (allegedly) Good aligned King.

When I refused, and instead suggested we try a non-violent solution to the Orc menace first, such as negotiation or trade, I was publicly berated as being as bad as the Orcs and a coward, stripped of my command, and also arguably my Paladinhood (although that last bit wasnt clear).

And rightly so. You tried to impose the view your world into mine. You decided that orcs were not evil monsters bend on destruction. You see, orcs are the servants of evil deities and they do so because they have no choice in my world (and even if they could do otherwise they would not. An orc would simply be killed on the spot by his fellows for "good" behaviors). Had you listened and played along that after hundred of years of constant raid and warfare, a country decided that any orc along its border would be killed, you would have understood. BUT you decided that the orcs you were sparing were Eberron style orcs. On Eberron, your paladin would have been praised for his actions. IN my Greyhawk, you would only have allowed evil monsters to retreat to breed more of themselve so that they would come and kill more innocents. Innocents blood that you would have on your hands. I clearly said that orcs in my current game were evil to core. But you decided to apply your visions of orcs as a free willed species which they are not in my games. They are just mortal demons in my games and I had been clear about that.

I may not see things as you wish me to. You seems to have bone to pick on me by citing me everywhere there is morally ambiguous things. If so, I invite you to a private chat. Otherwise, I would like you to stop.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It might be worth mentioning that in some computer games, such as Baldur's Gate, if you include good and evil characters in the same party they are likely to end up fighting and killing each other.

The solution in the computer game is to build your party out of compatible characters. And the same goes for the PnP game. It doesn't matter if the party are all self-serving scoundrels or all Dudley-Do-Rights, but you have to make sure they are all on the same page from the start.