What does "Always" mean with regards to alignment descriptions?

[wingsandsword]

Forked from: Was V's act evil? (Probable spoilers!)

One thing that the discussion on the Good or Evil of V's acts has hinged on is what exactly does a term like "Always Chaotic Evil" mean in a Monster Manual description.

By the 3.5 Rules As Written, that means that the overwhelming majority of them are of the listed alignment, but exceptions can and do exist. The Book of Exalted Deeds goes into some length about redeeming evil creatures to nonevil alignments.

Many posters stated they interpreted that statement as very literal, if an entry says "Always" that means every single one of that creature is that alignment, no exceptions.

Some posters also pointed out there is a inherent distinction to creatures that have the [Evil] subtype and thus are inherently evil, such as Fiends that by their fluff are evil alignments made physically manifest. A case could also be made that undead also have some amount of inherent evil since they are only in existence due to Negative Energy (which is associated with Evil).

So, at your table, how do you interpret alignment frequency for your games?

 

[Drowbane]

I interpret "Always Evil" as evil unless I, the DM (or whoever is DM at the time), deem otherwise.

Edit: 99.9%
Edit 2 (voted): Exceptions can exist, but for certain creatures or creature types there are no exceptions. You will find no Good fiends IMC (a redeemed demon would become celestal again?).

 

[I'm A Banana]

For me, it works a bit like this:

There is a literal "Evil Energy" in the world (also good and law and chaos). Certain actions attract this energy and house it in you, coating your being (your soul) with it. This energy is what composes the physical stuff of the lower planes, of most undead, of demons, devils, and the like -- it is evil made flesh, physical philosophy, the material essence of baby eating and puppy-kicking. Magic can interact with this energy, detecting it, pushing it away, enhancing it...most often divine magic, but arcane magic, too.

This evil energy is attracted by actions that the game deems "evil." It doesn't care about the mitigating factors or the context, very much, it just cares about the action. Casting an evil spell, or burning down an orphanage and collecting the insurance money, or going out of your way to torment something, all are evil -- they attract "evil energy."

Now, most people have a mix of energies of most alignments in them -- good, evil, law, and chaos all flow through them, none of them gaining a real hold. Most people are thus neutral/unaligned. They do bad things, they do good things, they don't really dedicate themselves to one or the other.

With conscious choice, you can change your actions to attract different sorts of energies. This is what having an alignment means -- your soul is filled with this kind of energy, and, when you die, it will go to become the substance of the outer planes, the stuff of which angels are made.

Alignment is thus descriptive: it tells you what kind of person you have been in the past and, from that history, perhaps what you're most likely to do in the future. An unapologetic baby-eater who really likes eating babies isn't likely going to stop, unless someone changes their mind with force.

Because it's descriptive, it's about your past, and it is not an accurate predictor of future action. Any creature with an Intelligence score -- any creature that is not an automaton, who has free will, is capable of change.

So, that's how I understand the RAW: "Always" just gives me the likelihood for such a change to occur. In my own games, this varies based on how "made of evil" you are, too. A mortal might change their mind with a solid beat down, but pit fiend is less likely to change their mind, given that it would be changing part of what they are.

For me, this also means that your appearance, as an outsider, is linked to your alignment -- if a fiend were to become Good, they would, eventually, turn into an angel. If an angel were to become Evil, they would eventually turn into a fiend. They change who they are.

Tieflings, IMC, have wrestled with this most of all, being creatures literally made of evil, but also impure evil, with some diversity stuck in there, and fully capable of making up their own minds about what they are.

I've found this has actually added a LOT of interesting moral angles to my games, which are usually painted in big swaths of shades-of-gray despite having an objective alignment system. A big portion of the moral struggles in my games comes from how easy, how logical, and how appealing evil is, even how RIGHTEOUS it can be, and how you can be rewarded, not even punished for it. You just have to know that you're adding to the obliteration of everything if you become it. Still, that might be a totally logical choice. If yo're Good, you're adding to the continuation of everything. Neutral folks don't help or hurt. (Law is about the harmony of everything, while chaos is about the freedom of everything).

 

[Michael Silverbane]

IMC... While it technically means what it says in RAW (that there may be exceptions), practically speaking, it means what it says. That is, while there is the possibility that (for instance) a good-aligned black dragon may exist, you (the players) are never going to see it.

 

[Knightfall]

For me as a DM, a monster's alignment as listed in any monster book is a suggestion only. I decide a creature's alignment on a case-by-case basis.

It's my game. I decide. Period.

When someone else is the DM, it's their game. They decide. Period.

 

[Shemeska]

The vast majority of that creature's race is going to be evil. Somewhere in the high 90% range, with non-evil creatures being rare exceptions to the rule. You'll find non-evil black dragons, non-evil vampires, etc even if they're exceedingly rare.

However unless the race has the actual [Evil] subtype, they aren't a monolithic, uniformly evil race. Such races are physically composed of the base essence of evil and they go above and beyond any other (usually mortal) race who happen to be listed as "always evil". For instance with fiends (demons, devils, 'loths, etc), in utterly rare circumstances you might find one that changes alignment to something other than evil, but given the nature of such a being, the moment it changes alignment, it ceases to be what it originally was. A risen fiend ceases to be a fiend, as its (meta)physical nature is changed in the process of changing alignment.

 

[Nymrohd]

Tbh devils, loths and most demons are just extremely tortured forms of evil mortals that have been further corrupted by ruthless societies perfectly adapted to accomplish said corruptions (read Faces of Evil, best book ever ). So let's say that even those should be redeemable on rare occasions. But even creatures that are alignment incarnate have been made to change alignment in D&D. There is a LE secundus in Acheron and a former throne is ruling a layer of Hell. Heck it is not just creatures. The very planes themselves can be shaken by the power of belief. An entire layer of Arcadia was shifted in Mechanus and part of the Abyss looks like an Arborean paradise. In short, in D&D alignment is never absolute. The power of belief and its evershifting undercurrents, the often violent wars of morality are the only constant. So in a multiverse where even a reality that is the conceptual realization of alignment cannot stay perfectly centered on its birthing concept, expecting that from any creature is ridiculous.

 

[Celebrim]

It means 'always'. If an exception exists, and generally they don't, it's a once in the history of creation sort of thing. The exception is a unique creature, and generally treated like a unique creature, and has a unique stat block. For example, a 'fallen angel' ceases to be a celestial in any meaningful way, and no longer has a stat block that looks like a celestial's stat block. Closer to home, a black dragon that ceased to be evil, would similarly be a unique creature and would acquire a new unique stat block representing its type and the extraordinary incomprehensible change that had occurred that allowed the evil dragon to be something other than its nature as an evil dragon dictated. For example, it would lose its ability to corrupt water and to cast darkness, and gain something in its place appropriate to its new nature. In essence, it would have truly ceased to be itself and become a totally new and unheard of thing.

I'm not sure options '#1', '#2', and '#3' are nearly as different as you seem to suppose.

While its within the rights of the DM to do anything he pleases, I wouldn't do anything like that without a very good reason because once done, it begins to lose it's power. Done less than extremely rarely, it transforms the extraordinary in to the mundane. Once everything effectively ceases to lose the 'always' descriptor, then everything becomes effectively just humans in different skin. That seems to me to diminish the very things that make them interesting. Or to paraphrase the current cliche, "And when every beast defies its sterotype, then none do."

 

[ProfessorCirno]

90-95%. It's meant to be a definite rarity, but having anything without exceptions is utterly, utterly boring.

 

[Klaus]

#1. It means what it was meant to mean in 3.x: the vast majority of specimens have that alignment, but exceptions, though extremely rare, are known to exist.

Yes, this means that somewhere, in some backwater pub in Sigil, a LG pit fiend and a LG balor are planning a way to overthrow the Lower Planes.