Ransacking and rummaging rogue - is he evil?

[takyris]

Have to join in with the dissenting views. Stealing potions of healing from the Dark Lord Kryok is not the same as stealing from innocent folks on a train. Stealing from evil people, or from the neutral flunkies that work for the evil people, isn't evil, no. Depending on your motivations, it can even be good.

Stealing from innocent neutral or good people is not good behavior, and my personal feeling is that it's not even neutral behavior. I'd lump it solidly into evil, and only bump it into neutral if it were out of necessity rather than greed. This is purely greed.

If you want to be a thief (regardless of your character class) and you want to not be evil, don't have him steal from innocent people.

And per the story, his character knew that folks were unconscious. Whether or not he knew they were stable is a different story.

And also, the player should have said "fewer witnesses", not "less witnesses".

Tacky's conclusion: The character is sliding toward evil, and it ain't gonna be a long slide. Maybe it's just because Tacky has had his car broken into enough times that "But I didn't roast babies on a spit while ordering my succubus girlfriend to kill everyone in the chuch -- all I did was steal from some innocent people for no reason other than greed! I can't possibly be evil!" no longer flies with him as a valid excuse.

 

[Corsair]

I gotta say, I'm surprised how many people don't consider stealing from innocents to be an evil act. Honestly I gotta say I don't have a personal problem with playing with minor evil in the party, though I don't prefer it. The reason it is a major issue for me is because there is a paladin in the group.

Class-wise, he is a rogue.

By action, he is a thief.

 

[Felonious Ntent]

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
I must say I love to play Thieves, not Rogues but Thieves and I am glad I don't play for some of the DM's in this thread. I don't believe the act of theft to be evil either under D&D definitions of alignment or in todays society. It is immoral and reprehensible but not evil. Killing and raping are evil. I find it hard to believe others do find this evil.

 

[spectre72]

I gotta say, I'm surprised how many people don't consider stealing from innocents to be an evil act. Honestly I gotta say I don't have a personal problem with playing with minor evil in the party, though I don't prefer it. The reason it is a major issue for me is because there is a paladin in the group.

Class-wise, he is a rogue.

By action, he is a thief.

IMO the difference between rogue and thief are symantics.

And I never stated that the paladin would be happy that the rogue/thief was stealing.

I believe that there would be a confrontation eventually, but I will still not agree that the thief is "Evil".

So the Paladin and the rogue have words, and the rogue becomes much more carefull about when and how he acquires stuff.

Maybe he even fakes being reformed, but then is very carefull about taking stuff.

And at this point it does not appear that anyone in the party knows what the rogue was doing because he/she went off on their own. In fact it sounds like the character was very carefull about taking things out of view of the rest of the party.

And as far as the luggage, maybe it belonged to someone who wasn't "Innocent".

Perhaps it belonged to the BBEG, and he wants it back.

There are many ways to curb rogues stealing everything that is not nailed down, but I have never labeled anyone as "Evil" because they take things that don't belong to them because if that is the criteria then almost every character is "Evil". There are circumstances when a rogue takes things and it is evil, but what he did was no more evil than looting the bodies of dead orcs.

And as far as the Paladin associating with "Evil" characters and losing their powers, that has been discussed to death and really falls upon the DM in question to look at their campaign and decide. I am not even going to touch that topic.

 

[Sejs]

IMO the difference between rogue and thief are symantics.

Rogue is a class - it's a highly skilled, agile guy. A thief is anyone who steals from others. Rogues don't have to steal; thieves don't have to be Rogues.

Sort of like how an assassin is someone who kills another in exchange for payment. But an Assassin is a member of the Assassin PrC. So assassins don't have to be Assassins, but they do have to get paid for killing people.

 

[reveal]

I gotta say, I'm surprised how many people don't consider stealing from innocents to be an evil act.

Good and evil are not black and white. If it was that easy, the world would be a much different place.

When I was younger, I got caught stealing from people's homes. Did that make me an evil person? No. Misguided? Yes.

 

[takyris]

Thief and Rogue are not synonymous, as other people have noted. A bard who picks pockets is a thief. A sorcerer who uses Teleport, Invisibility and Open Lock to break into someone's safe is a thief. A rogue who specializes in tumbling, high-wire acts, diplomacy, and information gathering is not a thief.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
I must say I love to play Thieves, not Rogues but Thieves and I am glad I don't play for some of the DM's in this thread. I don't believe the act of theft to be evil either under D&D definitions of alignment or in todays society. It is immoral and reprehensible but not evil. Killing and raping are evil. I find it hard to believe others do find this evil.

I agree with you -- it's a good thing you're not in my campaign. If you don't believe that theft is evil in real life, then... well, you say "immoral and rephrehensible", which is interesting. How is something that is immoral and reprehensible not evil? Are you putting theft on the same scale as, say, cheating on your spouse? I find that immoral and reprehensible, but am unsure as to whether I'd classify it as evil. Possibly a slightly evil action, but not one that in and of itself causes an alignment change.

Possibly this is a question of semantics. In my mind, "evil" is not an end value. Evil is the equivalent of a negative sign in front of a number. For example, "Theft for the sake of greed" is a -5, while "Murder" is a -40 or something like that. I don't keep track of the numbers with that level of granularity -- I don't necessarily think that eight thefts equals a murder -- but I think it's possible to think theft is evil without thinking that it's as evil as murder.

But yes, I do find theft evil. I've had my stuff stolen, and I don't believe the people who stole it did so because their families were starving. I think they did it because it was easier than working to make spending money, like I was doing. I'm sorry if you find my judgment upon the people who stole my personal possessions to be, uh, judgmental.

 

[shilsen]

Good and evil are not black and white. If it was that easy, the world would be a much different place.

When I was younger, I got caught stealing from people's homes. Did that make me an evil person? No. Misguided? Yes.

In a D&D game, good and evil are black and white. That being said, there are degrees of good and evil, which is why some definition from the DM is always essential, to set out exactly where the boundaries lie in his campaign.

In a D&D game, I would personally see stealing as low-grade borderline evil, but evil nevertheless. And if my PCs found party-members sneaking off while they were incapacitated to quickly loot some people's luggage, they would not be amused. If it continued, unless there was a very good reason for the thief to remain in the party, he would quickly become an ex-member.

My advice - let the other PCs deal with it in-character. And NPCs too, depending on how/whether they find out about the thefts and related activities.

 

[Black Omega]

I personally consider what happened to be evil, certainly illegal by the laws I know. But in the game/rules sense whether it is evil is trickier.

Imperialus beat me to my main point though. Stealing in the situation he did seems pretty foolish. The murders are bound to be linked to the thefts by anyone looking into it. And the easiest thing to track will be the items stolen.

I can't accept the suggestion that stealing from someone with rich luggage is ok since they are rich, we don't know the context. Someone fleeing an attack might grab a suitcase and put all their valuables in it when running. Stealing it leaves them as penniless as any poor peasant. On the other hand, if they really are wealthy, then they can afford to take steps to get their stuff back and the thief would have to know some people in his group would not defend him in that case.

Other situations seem less clear, if the thief left most of the party in negatives and knew he was doing so, it's again very foolish, unless there is some good way for the character to know no other trouble might find them while he's gone.

I know the feeling of being a highly greedy, borderline evil CN thief in a party. But CN doesn't need to mean foolish.

 

[reveal]

But yes, I do find theft evil. I've had my stuff stolen, and I don't believe the people who stole it did so because their families were starving. I think they did it because it was easier than working to make spending money, like I was doing. I'm sorry if you find my judgment upon the people who stole my personal possessions to be, uh, judgmental.

And this is why questions like "Is this evil?" don't work on EnWorld.

People have different moralistic values. Personally, if someone stole something from me, I wouldn't call them evil. What if their family actually WAS starving? What if stealing was the only way they could afford the medicine for their sick brother? Would it still be evil? Depends on your value set. I'm not saying what you think is wrong, I'm just saying that there can be huge differences in personal beliefs so asking a question like "Is this evil?" on a message board makes no sense.