Why do I tend to be evil ?

[rythm_rampage]

Hey folks,

Everything worked as usual, we had a 4-player group with cleric, barbarian, necromancer (that's me) and a druid. We sticked to neutral/good at the beginning of the campaign (some weeks ago), with me playing CN (it's still a necromancer ).
After a few sessions we encountered some bad guys, e.g. a crimelord who wanted us to kill some people in exchange for information. Alright, that's fine for me. Well it was fine for the rest of the party, too. I think this is where trouble started. In-game everything worked fine for us (we needed the info, no social character at hand) but we kinda sticked to the concept. But OOG it felt wrong to me.
Our DM just told us that we're to pragmatic, that's why we do it that way.


Some sessions later we started killing prisoners ("cause they would come back with reinforcements"), well just me and the evil dwarf actually. My AL changed to CE at that point. Actually I try to be good and I really want to be good, but in an evil world with evil mofos and betrayal everywhere and a controlfreak (the dwarf) in the group how can I motivate myself to be good/become good ?
Our DM told us that acting good will "come back to us" in the long run, but I can't recall any significant situation where that happened before...
I don't blame him, because we never sticked to playing good long enough to see any consequences. I feel like dragging the group into evil AL, but I don't want that.

IMO it would look kinda cheap to just change my ingame way of behavior without any apparent reason. I hope for a situation that will let my character see that killing and betraying aren't the best ways to reach a goal but it doesn't seem to happen soon. Just today I myself came up with a plan to kill a crimelord who believes that we won't kill him if he hands us certain information and take the bloodmoney offered by another crimelord to us.
The plan is to kill him anyway and take the information if provided and the bloodmoney.
We already killed 2 of his sons
Evil vs. Evil :/
The rest of the group is very close to evil if not evil already.

Help me ! Give reasons to play good if surrounded by evil guys everywhere ! Give reasons to a change of AL, just help me !

 

[ceratitis]

dude if you want to play good just do it. there's nothing we can do for you, its all about playing your char for goals other then get money fast and be powerful.

have someone give you a cursed item that permanatly changes you, turn paladin. show your party and the crimelord the error of his ways, lead the people in a revolution to establish democracy or marxism and over throw corrupt leaders...
Z

 

[ChristianW]

After a few sessions we encountered some bad guys, e.g. a crimelord who wanted us to kill some people in exchange for information.

I think that's where you went wrong. Next time, try the following.

Crimelord: I will give you the information you want if you kill some of my enemies for me.
You: You want us to do your dirty work? Insult my integrity one more time and it'll be your corpse the city watch finds floating in the harbor. Now try again, please.

Or something like that.

 

[Klaus]

Just say "Man, I'm having the weirdest dreams, about going to the Abyss and suffering for eternity as a larva... How do they treat people in Elysium?" and start being NG. If your character bites the dust, be content with the fact that he WILL go to a better place where wines and feasts and half-dressed Cha 25 celestial ladies abound.

You'd have to refrain from casting [Evil] spells, though.

 

[Dei]

Resources, that's why you play good aligned. Once a party becomes well known as defenders of the weak and as being relatively merciful suddenly gather information checks no longer require a concurent intimidate check, the druid will no longer attack you when you pass through his grove and the town guard will no longer constantly ask you to move along. If a party gets enough of a reputation people will start coming to them with info and propositions and suddenly important people will start listening when you speak, and it won't be because you've got a knife at their ribs anymore either.

It doesn't even require that much of a change in play style. Next time, instead of killing the prisoners, knock them out and tie them up (use their own clothes to save on rope). Instead of killing the crime lord, beat the snot out of him, take the info, take the gold and then hand him over to the local watch for the reward money. This will not only mean that the next time you're involved in a fracas they'll arrive in order to aid rather than arrest you but you might even start getting bonus exp and the reward money which should motivate the less well-inclined among your party. Sometimes it's not as convenient to do so but more often than not it opens doors that were previously closed to you.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Crimelord: I will give you the information you want if you kill some of my enemies for me.
You: You want us to do your dirty work? Insult my integrity one more time and it'll be your corpse the city watch finds floating in the harbor. Now try again, please.

Many would argue that this is still evil - you've just shifted the focus of your evilness from inocents onto an evil person. But evil is still evil regardless of to whom it is done.

You want to be a good character? Make a character who doesn't kill intelligent beings. I'd suggest not killing at all, but baby-steps ... right? A character that beats them up, sure. Takes them prisoner, sure. Makes sure their opponents are thrown so far into prison they'll never see the light of day again ... sure.

I know people play good and kill all the time. My personal problem with that is that when fighting evil it can be far too easy to sound like Hitler but justify it because the people you are killing are evil. Is it okay to kill a demon but not a good fairy? Why? Is the life of the fey more intrinsicly valuable than the life of the fiend?

Now, I am certainly not wanting to start arguments with the many people on this board who play good characters that end up killing things. Because, after all, I do the same thing so I'd have to argue with myself. But if you are looking for a hard and fast character reason to be good, you'll need something like "I don't require payment," "I'll help anyone for a just cause," or "I value the sanctity of all life" as a rallying cry. For people that are tempted to evil easily, playing good requires a hard character attribute that for all intents and purposes is unbreakable for that character.

A good place to look is the Book of Exalted Deeds. I love that book for coming up with character ideas. I especially love the idea of redeeming evil. Why not create a character who refused to kill and desired to bring to justice evil? By justice I mean either imprisonment or redemption. What better way to introduce a cohort to your character than one who is redeemed and now fiercely loyal!

Anyway, I've gone on long enough. To play good, find an positive absolute that your character wouldn't break and play off of that.

 

[rythm_rampage]

Hm I see some decent advice here.
I'm not sure yet how to change my character, I think about religion atm. Maybe the next time we are in a big city he's gonna visit a temple and talk to the priest.
He killed a lot of people in a few weeks and might look for atonement or something comparable. The plotarc we're in at the moment looks like it will end soon so maybe I will change characters. I'm not sure if a change of AL will work with the group and our dwarf's player already stated that his character won't change at all.

Thanks for all help offered but obviously it seems to be a problem we have to discuss in our group.

 

[rgard]

Hm I see some decent advice here.
I'm not sure yet how to change my character, I think about religion atm. Maybe the next time we are in a big city he's gonna visit a temple and talk to the priest.
He killed a lot of people in a few weeks and might look for atonement or something comparable. The plotarc we're in at the moment looks like it will end soon so maybe I will change characters. I'm not sure if a change of AL will work with the group and our dwarf's player already stated that his character won't change at all.

Thanks for all help offered but obviously it seems to be a problem we have to discuss in our group.

Have an epiphany. You don't need to talk to a priest first, you just become overwhelmed by a sense of guilt and decide to make a change in your life. Change your alignment to good, start behaving that way or go even more radical and multi-class to a good aligned cleric.

You can then begin to re-dress your previous bad behavior.

Sounds like you will need to kill the dwarf or he will kill you.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Torm]

Being evil only to evil beings as a way of being good isn't Good or Evil - It's Chaotic Ironic.

The best way to start being Good is a change of broad goals - from what you've said, right now your parties goals are all oriented toward HARMING people (even if those people are evil) and focused on helping no one but yourselves. If you reoriented yourselves to determine to HELP some particular Good group or cause, you could straighten things up.

Maybe you could talk to the player for the Cleric and get him to give the group a "back on track" sort of speech?

 

[Felon]

Well, without evil there could be no good, so it must be good to be evil sometimes...

A lot of folks (especially young folks) who get into gaming value expediency over ethics. Certainly when I started gaming my friends never thought twice about killing kobold prisoners after interrogating them. When we moved on to treating human beings as disposable, we didn't give it a second thought. You need to figure out if your characters actually have any goals or care about anything. If the only thing you value is money or power, then evil might be a good fit.