D&D 5E What Alignment am I?

[Cap'n Kobold]

Fairly classical Lawful Evil. Possibly Neutral Evil.
You abuse your position in the watch to make yourself richer. You make a show of upholding the law, enjoying the power it grants you over others while breaking it in secret for your own ends. You evidently do not feel guilty enough to stop doing it, so its not just a case of an honest person with a a single moment of weakness.
That you have set out to deprive the victims of the criminals the goods that they stole, even while accepting a watchman's pay for preventing that sort of thing puts you fairly solidly in the Evil camp. Breaking the law and the personal oath you swore as a watchman might push you towards Chaos, but I think the fact that you are actually performing your crimes within the structure of the watch and abusing the power it gives you probably means that you're still Lawful.
You aren't the only criminal who acts honest when not currently breaking the law. As a corrupt official,

If you've only just started doing this, you may just be transitioning to that alignment. I think it will be how you act as the watch starts investigating what is happening to these missing goods that will be the real tell of your alignment. Do you start killing the criminals, so there will be no one to claim that the goods were there? When a watchman discovers your corruption, will you confess and try to make amends, or try to bribe or kill the watchman?

 

[Maxperson]

What Alignment am I?
I am a Changeling Rogue Thief.

Background. I am a Sgt in the City Watch who uses shape-shifting to track down murderers and bring them to justice. This lets me work alone and gives me a lot of leeway. I have recently turned on to the fact that I can take all the criminal's stash for myself. This is exciting me.

So by day (so to speak) I uphold the law and imprison criminals, and this is something I enjoy and do wholeheartedly. On the sly, after I capture/kill the criminals, I take their stuff (gold, contraband, stolen Items, anything). This is not allowed by the rules of the city watch. Therefore I am a thief.

If by bringing criminals to justice and embracing the policeman's job I am Lawful, what does this mean for my other activities.

If I am not Lawful, am I deceiving everyone all the time during my day job?

If by being a thief I am the opposite of Law (Chaos), how do I not exhibit any of that behaviour during the day job

Ps. I do not deliberately just set out to kill Criminals for enjoyment or just to take their stuff, so I don't believe myself to be Evil.

What Alignment would you consider me to be, and why?

This is why I just tell my players that if they really want alignment, toss something down on the sheet. Otherwise leave it blank. Like you, they are capable of, and do create complex characters. Staying true to the character, growing and changing as your character did when he started taking the gold and hating himself as it became easier, is far more important than whether he is LN or LE.

Alignment is a very useful tool for those who have trouble creating those sorts of personalities, but is redundant at best, and completely drowned at at worst for those who do create personalities like that.

 

[iserith]

Easy: You're the same alignment as Batman.

 

[Maxperson]

Easy: You're the same alignment as Batman.

You left off the "s". It's alignments

 

[dmnqwk]

There's evil, and there's eeeeeeeeeeeeeevil.

Think about a lawful good paladin, how uppity, self righteous and annoying he could be in 3rd edition. Then think of the lawful good fighter who enjoys tavern brawls, likes to sleep around and generally causes a ruckus... but within the confines (mostly) of the law.

If we break down your characters' motives we get:
1. You like arresting bad guys. You don't do the job because it's the right thing to do, you do it because you like it.
2. You've decided to steal because you want the money, not because the criminals must pay.

You are becoming corrupted by your position - first stage is enjoying your work. Second stage is abusing your position. I would firmly plant you as evil (barely) based on your decision and see where you go from there. As for lawful, there's no way I would attribute you as lawful from your description of enjoying breaking the rules, while still following them to some degree.

If you're wanting to play Lawful Neutral, you would need to stick to enjoying enforcing the law without concern for feelings, and not try to steal everything like a criminal.
If you're wanting to play Lawful Evil, you need to ensure the law is respected above all else, using it to benefit yourself (for example if someone pays you for your patrol route so they can know when not to bump into you with their "supplies").

This is, of course, open to interpretation but were I to DM someone with a character like yourself I would definitely not accept them as Lawful while abusing their position so frivolously.

 

[TheLoneRanger1979]

The way i see it, your PC doesn't hold any regard to either law or chaos, but works based on either circumstance or personal gain/attitude. This makes me think he is on the neutral side of things. But is he good, evil or true neutral? That would depend on his personal motives. if he steals solely for his personal gain, then neutral evil. If he has no other choice and deeply regrets his actions, then neutral good. If he strives for some cosmic balance.... then true neutral?

 

[Maxperson]

The way I see evil, if it isn't Evil with a capital EEEEEEEEEEVIL!, then it's not an evil act. A little theft from criminals, while not good, would not rise to the level of true evil. The same goes for good. Risking your life to save someone else is a good act. Helping a little old lady across the street just doesn't rise to that level. It's nice of you to do it, but it's not really GOOOOOOOOOD!

Most people never make it to either good or evil.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Lawful Evil.
Lawful (bringing criminals to justice) evil (enriching yourself and killing on the sly).

The fact that you do not believe yourself to be evil is irrelevant: everyone is the hero of their own story.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

The way I see evil, if it isn't Evil with a capital EEEEEEEEEEVIL!, then it's not an evil act. A little theft from criminals, while not good, would not rise to the level of true evil. The same goes for good. Risking your life to save someone else is a good act. Helping a little old lady across the street just doesn't rise to that level. It's nice of you to do it, but it's not really GOOOOOOOOOD!

Most people never make it to either good or evil.

Where do you draw the lines though? Just because some acts aren't of life-changing or world-shaking magnitude it doesn't mean they aren't Good or Evil. There was a Dragonshard on the WotC site on a similar theme IIRC: Evil can mean deliberately short-changing customers or enjoying beating your dog, and to these people, a Paladin would talk to to try to persuade to change their ways rather than using violence.

Its possible to be an Evil person and carry out Good acts, and possible to be a Good person and carry out Evil acts. It is overall balance that determines the alignment. Unless that character is killing criminals, he probably isn't very evil, but he is still evil overall.

 

[Maxperson]

Where do you draw the lines though? Just because some acts aren't of life-changing or world-shaking magnitude it doesn't mean they aren't Good or Evil. There was a Dragonshard on the WotC site on a similar theme IIRC: Evil can mean deliberately short-changing customers or enjoying beating your dog, and to these people, a Paladin would talk to to try to persuade to change their ways rather than using violence.

Its possible to be an Evil person and carry out Good acts, and possible to be a Good person and carry out Evil acts. It is overall balance that determines the alignment. Unless that character is killing criminals, he probably isn't very evil, but he is still evil overall.

Let's take theft. Stealing some M&Ms from a store is not evil. Heck, even breaking into a house and stealing a TV is not evil. Bilking a little old lady out of her life savings that she needs to survive........that's evil. Stealing the cancer medication from someone who will die without it......that's evil. A line has to be crossed before something is truly evil. Where that line is may be a bit fuzzy, but it's still far enough down that the theft of gold from criminals isn't anywhere close.