Ransacking and rummaging rogue - is he evil?

[Vlos]

First, have to agree with LordPen above. I have played thieves in many campaigns (probably one of my more favorite toon types) and stealing never came into an issue. The paladin knew I was a thief in fact, and often yelled at me as he suspected, as he never caught me in the act. He took it in his code to try and show me the proper way as others should act.

IIRC the thief did say he was going to go off and check for other raiding members. If he came across one, he probably would of acted, but he came across "a pile of treasure" first. Being a thief (which he is regardless of alignment), means he steals. He just decided that before he finished looking for more bad guys, he would check the pile out, incase one was hiding in the trunk on the bottom.

Also since he is a thief, and could not handle a lot of thugs at once, his party mostly died in the process, he may think he can find something in the luggage that will help him, or even better yet, the item that the thugs were looking for so he can "safe guard" it.

He is a thief, he steals. As stated by many others, stealing from dead is part of the DnD game so I would not penalize him for that. If he had to go in to a jail cell to free his party members who were caught, and killed a guard, and while retreaving the keys found some coins, I don't think the party members would yell at him for pocketing the coins even though it did take him longer to free him.

 

[Imperialus]

Just an idea but instead of using the alignment system to solve this why not look in game. After all if I were to find the body of a murder victim in NYC take his wallet and start using his Visa card suspision would quicky fall on me irrigardless of any moral impications tied to what I was doing. I'd suggest that in the course of the insuing murder investigation one of the investigators gets it in his head that the thief must have had something to do with the crime. While I wouldn't go so far as to have the character found guilty and executed it would cirtanly serve as a way to scare the pants off of him.

 

[Captain Tagon]

Imperialus, that is a great way to look at it. Both with the outcomes and a good modern analogy.

Vlos, the character isn't a thief anymore. It is rogue. There is a difference there. Any character can be a thief.

 

[TheEvil]

The following is vastly oversimplified, but works as a general rule of thumb on the dividing line between neutral and evil:

If you enrich yourself at the cost of innocents, you are commiting an evil act.

Sure, it isn't baby-killing, eating, hyperbole, overthetop, etc..., ad nauseum. Evil isn't a switch you just flip, it starts somewhere.

Now awaiting the argument justifying how people you have never met might not be innocent (ESPECIALLY if they have nice luggage), so stealing from their luggage is okay.

 

[Felonious Ntent]

Now as is, I agree the character is not evil. However if he willfully continues down this path (primarily the robbing and stealing whenever he has a chance, without regards to others), then I am going to be forced to take action.

Wow I am actualy responding to a gaming thread.

Anyways.
You have described the character as a Thief not a Rogue. I don't understand your point. He is acting like a Thief how is that evil? What a Thief does is steal(it's in the job description) often without regards to others. I would give this player bonus xp for role playing properly.
I think you should re-examine what you think is a proper way to play a Thief and compare with the player. Find a middle grounds. I fore see a lot more issues like this if you don't.

 

[UniversalMonster]

(First- to point out that I'm not Peter Ellis! I'm just some guy.)

I dont think the rogue was doing evil as long as the other party members weren't bleeding to death. He was being chaotic neutral, and taking advantage of the situation (which is exactly what he should have done), but not really doing evil.

I play a CN wizard in another campaign, and once we had to fight these kobolds who were out to kill us. One survivor left eventually surrendered and consented to a brief interrogation but it became clear that he planned to turn on us (like Gollum in LoTR) at some point. Later on, when we came to a narrowly avoided pit trap, I pushed him in, to the horror of the other players.

My reasoning: it was clear from sense motive and other clues that he was planning something against us. He was of no more use to us because I had milked all the good info from him. These were evil kobolds. The other party members weren't willing to do it because they had different personal codes...

I just thought.."what would Elric do?" (WWED?)

=)

 

[Tiberius]

I get some sleep for a few hours, and Green Slime comes along and posts what I was going to say. That'll learn me. GS is right, in order to gauge the evilness of the stealing itself, you need to determine whence the laws come. Do the anti-theft laws exist because some great cosmic force says "Theft is a no-no", or do they exist because people don't like having their stuff ganked? If you go the "great cosmic force" route, that brings added complications.

In a monotheistic religion, it's easy to say "X is evil because $DEITY says so!". In a polytheistic seting, like most D&D, you have situations where one deity might say things like "Theft deprives another of his rightful goods, and as such is evil!" while another says "(SHRUG) It's not particularly nice, but forceful redistribution of wealth is not in and of itself immoral." Lands who adhere more to one deity than another might have their property crime laws tailored to suit their patron's thoughts on the matter, but deities with conflicting opinions muddles things. Which is right? They can't both be. Ultimately, it's up to the DM to decide whether he (and thus the cosmos at large) finds the act evil or not.

Though I suppose it would be a bit of a tip-off as to who is correct if all the worshippers of a neutral god of thieving, for instance, sooner or later fell into evil.

 

[reveal]

1) Paladin should NOT loose their abilities. The paladin had no idea the rogue was doing what he was doing. Once the paladin learns of it, then he "knowingly" associates with someone who goes against his/her code and only then should the paladin have a chance to loose their abilities (if he/she does something with/to the rogue whatever that may be).

2) The rogue did not commit an evil act. He did not murder anyone. Did he know his comrades were bleeding? Not the player, the character? Did he know they were, apparently, getting slaughtered while he was rummaging through luggage?

The rogue was stealing things, which is not an evil act per se. Seems very neutral to me. If they had killed simply to loot, that's different. The rogue saw an opportunity to make quick cash and took it. Yes, at the expense of his comrades, but, again, did he KNOW he was doing it at the expense of his comrades? His intentions were still to come back and help them.

I would say he was doing something more along the lines of True Neutril and Chaotic Neutral. I'd probably lean more to CN.

3) What I would recommend is talking to the player before the next session and asking them if they thought they were commiting an evil act. Shifting from good/neutral has huge ramifications in the world of D&D and could cause a lot of trouble. If you plan to shift the rogue to evil, you need to talk to him. Especially since it seems your morals and the players morals differ as to what constitutes an "evil" act.

 

[J-Buzz]

My feeling are that this is not an evil act and it is un-lawful, so he seems to be playing his alignment in IMO.

However, if I was DMing this I would give the party members spot checks to notice that the Thief has new luggage. I might even have the passengers complain at the end of the trip about the stolen items. Possiably the conductor would approach the paladin to solve the mystery. A family member might complain about a lost heirloom from the steward.

Looting is one thing, but if the thief is going to steal there should be possiable re-actions. He might have to use some bluff/diplomacy skills to talk his way out of it, or slieght of hand skills to put the stuff back, or risk the ire of the paladin/party. I don't think it would warrent an alignment check.

 

[spectre72]

I really don't understand where "Stealing" makes the rogue evil.

Over this last weekend my CN druid took a few wands and scrolls off of dead enemies that we had killed during an assault on an orc stronghold and I didn't tell the rest of the party.

Does that make my character evil also?

Is my character evil because I did a CDG on one of the Orcs instead of healing them?

from the SRD...

'Chaotic Neutral, “Free Spirit”: A chaotic neutral character follows his whims.'

Also from the SRD...

'"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others.'

I think anyone who reads that the thief or my druid had hurt anyone by taking things from dead people (murdered or not) is really stretching things IMO.

And as for the party, no one was dying so how did he hurt them?

Is my character evil because I pocketed some items that may have helped someone else in the party (so I hurt them).

If I have a healing potion and do not use it to heal a stabilized companion am I evil?

And as for the person who suggested hanging the "Thief" out to dry to teach him a lesson I am glad that I am not playing in the same game as you.

If teh thief did not murder anyone then as a GM I would have to have one h$## of a story reason for doing something like that to a player, and teaching them a lesson is not on the list for me.

Apparently my view of "Evil" is different than a bunch of other people on this list.

The biggest distinction in my mind would be if the hurting or oppression is first party or a result of circumstances.

For example, the thief stole from one of the dead bodies on the train and the child of that person died of starvation (consequences of action unknown to the rogue). I would not consider this evil.

If the person did the same thing knowing that the man's children would die then that would be an evil act.

And I would add that I personally as a GM will not act as a characters conscious and say "you realize that the man probably has children and this will hurt them."

On the other hand if the children showed up and asked about their father, and the money that he had which would pay for the mortgage, seed, or medicine for little Timmy that is different.

IMHO Stealing, theft, bribery, ...etc. are not evil.

Selfish definitely, but not evil.