Alignments

ANY alignments are allowed in this game, provided you have a reason to get along with the campaign and the party members. This includes evil alignments, although I recommend against them. D&D has historically been a game telling the tales of heroes and heroines on a great quest to improve the world. Improving their own conditions is usually part and parcel of the story but are not the main goals of the story. They are the main goals of evil characters.

I have problems with the following alignments because I have seen them played poorly:

Chaotic Neutral Characters are so greedy and self-centered that they cannot be trusted, most of them are also insane, with no foundation for a moral character that is acceptable in society. They are true mavericks and so can't be trusted. Many chaotic playing characters claim that theft is chaotic, and no that is wrong. Theft is evil, chaotic characters just don’t care about ownership. The most common example given is that of Robin Hood. Robin Hood was actually Robin of Loxley and he worked against the evil of King John and what he stole from the evil King John he gave to the poor peasants who the king was stealing from. I have seen many characters abuse the chaotic alignment because they want to enrich themselves at the expense of others; and that is just plain evil. Play evil, when you are not evil, and I will call you own it and beware there will be karma.

Neutral Evil Characters are self-centered, there is nothing wrong with that but when it means robbing the party to enrich themselves it becomes too excessive. Neutral Evil is one of the most dangerous of alignments because they only care about themselves.

Lawful Evil Characters: Have a code, it just isn’t a good one. They believe in law and order, they just prefer the laws that benefit them. Lawful evil character usually try and use the laws to their advantage.

Chaotic Evil Characters can be a great asset to the party because they are willing to go to any lengths to get the job done. That can be a problem when they do so at the expense of the party, or its mission.

That is why many DMs want to confine the party to good alignments. More often than not players who want to choose non-good alignments, so they can "screw" with the party, a self-centered, selfish goal. The whole idea of heroic fiction is the morality play of good vs. evil. And the game itself is a saga of that epic struggle. With the heroes working together to defeat the bad guys, who are usually cruel, evil, and with plans to rule and ruin the world.. However, most modules are designed so that anyone of any alignment can complete the adventure, they just go about it in different fashions.

The main idea of "good" is those who are willing to advance the cause of others even at the expense of themselves. This is why it is considered “good” to give to charity. It is also considered “good” to attend a church service, but in a fantasy world a “good” church can be just as valid as an “evil” one.

In the real-world things are all in shades of gray. Even Hitler was nice to his friends and was honestly trying to improve the lot of German Aryans. He took his nation out of an economic crisis and depression and made them into a world power. The problem with Hitler was in his methods and many of his warped goals. For example, the "Final Solution" was first applied against Jews and gypsies, but it would eventually have been applied to any non-Arayan race, including blacks, Hispanics, and native peoples. He is a classic example of the saying "absolute power corrupts absolutely."

The best working definition of "Good" is a philosophy where the person is willing to sacrifice for the welfare of others. Some of the historical paragons of "good" like Christ, Joan of Arc and Martian Luther were all willing to give their very lives to help others. Good characters by definition will want to cooperate with the party and the campaign. That is not to say that all good characters are pure good, Christ himself admitted that he succumbed to temptation and Martin Luther King may have had affairs with other women. In the end we are all flawed in some way and part of good storytelling is how the characters work to overcome their flaws and improve themselves.

The best working definition of "Evil" is a philosophy where the person is willing to sacrifice the welfare of others to improve their own condition. Most dictators fall into this category, especially ones like Kim Jong-il, or Saddam Hussein who lived a lavish lifestyle while ruthlessly suppressing the freedom of their people and forcing most of their citizens to live in poverty, some even in abject slavery. They want things their own way and have little tolerance for those that do not see it their way; not an ideal attitude for an adventuring party.

The Neutral philosophy's sit somewhere in the middle. Usually, they are more complex than the black and white issues of absolute good and absolute evil. They may be a bit selfish and greedy, but they are willing to work together. This is why many players are drawn to a neutral alignment.

Chaos and Law are two contradictory ideas; chaos favors personal freedom, adaptability and flexibility, while law favors organization, a code, honor, trustworthiness and discipline. All of these are righteous ideals.

In 2nd and 1st edition of D&D Alignments were strait jackets with the loss of a level as a consequence of changing alignments. Few people really played their alignments though; most party members had the alignment of Chaotic Greedy. Good and Evil are more than just a point of view they are a way of bringing about that viewpoint. Most of the DM story lines are outlined with the ideal of good triumphing over evil. This is also the theme present in most fiction, myths and stories of society. These stories become a fundamental part of that societies nature.

There is a place for the other alignments though. There are Anti-Heroes and cases where those who could be called "good" and "evil" worked together. Stalin was a cruel despot, but he worked with Great Britain, the United States and the Allies to defeat the evil that was the Axis. None of the Allies were perfect, but their common goal of defeating the Axis Alliance could be considered a "good" one. If Hitler had won, his "Final Solution" would have been applied to most of the world; resulting in the extermination of the majority of the world's population. Stalin was evil he promoted his definition of communism to the detriment of his people, for example he had people worked as slaves in labor camp conditions to build a canal that was engineeringly unsound, it was too shallow, but no one dared to tell Staling this, and so it failed. He was guilty of many other crimes and created a society that tried to import his brand of communism to the rest of the world, emplacing dictators in charge of East Germany, China, North Korea, and North Vietnam. Churchill and Roosevelt both thought they could contain “Uncle Joe,” but Roosevelt died, and Churchill lost the post of Prime Minister leaving Stalin uncontrolled and in charge. Just like WWI left problems that had to be addressed in WWI II, we are still facing the consequences of WWII in the problems with North Korea that we have today.

Vigilantes in comic books are often portrayed as chaotic. The Punisher has no problem with killing his foes, that is why he can be considered to be Chaotic Evil, but his motivations are not selfish, he actually wants to make the world a better place. He is just willing to use immoral means to do so. The motives for what you do matter as well as the method and while the Punisher’s motive may be good, his methods are decidedly evil. Batman is portrayed as Chaotic Good, since he doesn’t kill the criminals he pursues. That was true in the 1960s and on the TV show from that era, but that portrayal was a departure from his roots as the Dark Knight, who would happily hang a villain off the side of a building and threaten to drop him, just to get information. He also frequently beat up criminals to impress on them that they should mend their ways. The Dark Knight’s motives may have been pure, but due to his methods his alignment is more Neutral Evil. Superman is usually seen as Lawful Good; when superheroes had to register he lined up to register, he worked to help the U.S. government in war and peace and was a friend of most presidents. When he fights criminals he beats them, using the minimum amount of force and then takes them to the police officers and turns them in. Most of the time. Darkside has manipulated Superman, plotted against him, endangered the Earth and is one of Superman’s greatest foes. There is a line in the Superman cartoon series where Superman gets into a fight with Darkside: “Cardboard, I live in a world of cardboard, always having to be careful not to hurt people, but you, I think you can take it.” When Superman fought Darkside he went full out, no holds barred, and would have happily killed Darkside. This shows that even a lawful good character can do some evil actions, given the right motive.

If you stray from your alignment once or twice I am not going to penalize you or make you change your alignment. If I see a continuing pattern of this then I am going to call you upon this and order an alignment change. I have had this done to me, I have seen it done in several games, but I have not done it in my game, yet. I plan on giving out warnings before forcing alignment changes. Alignment isn’t how you act in a situation or two, it is how you generally act in most situations. Just discussing an evil act or bringing up an issue that might be evil doesn’t imply an evil alignment, again it is determined by a general pattern of actions. Most people are neutral good in some aspects of their live, most people are also law abiding, but they may not like those laws, and most people speed when driving their car. Most people pay their taxes, but how many complain about those taxes? This is why I say that most people aren’t exactly lawful good, but then alignment is a deeply personal thing and set by a pattern of personal actions. I do not like telling a player how to play their character. There are a few classes that are dependent on the character’s alignment, but even that can be an interpolation. For example; a paladin may be bloodthirsty killer, but he may tamper it with only killing evil creatures. One of the postulates of D&D is that it is “good” to kill evil creatures and as a reward for that the killers may loot the bodies of the evil creatures.

I will tell a player how their animal friend or cohort will act, typically they are under the player's control, but if that player asks them to perform actions that the animal friend or cohort is not willing to perform, they will resist. For example; in one game a player wanted his new cohort, a drow slave, to attack some undead. Instead she took control over those undead and had them stop attacking the party.

Personally, I feel the following.

Chaotic Good; are people who want to promote the welfare of themselves and others without doing so at the expense of anyone, or only of evil creatures. They also don’t want to be limited by laws, or a code. In general, they follow laws, but they are willing to go outside or beyond them when needed. Robin Hood is often held up as the prime example of this alignment; but people have taken that to mean that theft is not wrong. You need to remember that Robin Hood and his Merry Men stole from the cruel evil King John, and the equally cruel Catholic Church. They then gave their profits to the poor, keeping only a little for expenses. Robin Hood became a hero to the people not for his crimes, but for his actions which embarrassed King John and because of his acts of charity. He even developed good relations with the Catholic Church in that Friar Tuck became a supporter. They would have great problems with someone using torture to get information, or doing other evil actions.

Lawful Good; are people who want to promote the general welfare of themselves and others without doing so at the expense of anyone or society, except maybe that of evil creatures. They feel the best way to do this is laid out in the laws and a moral code. Typically, they follow all laws, unless they see them as unusually unjust. Then they would try to act, within the system to change those laws. Paladins are the ultimate expression of Lawful Good, but are not the only example. The Batman of the 1960s TV series was lawful good; he was called directly by Commissioner Gordon, the ultimate of law enforcement in Gotham City, and assigned the cases he got involved in over 90% of the time. He was a masked enforcer, and he acted outside the law, but he never kept the criminals for punishment himself, he was always willing to turn them over to the law. Superman is a better example of lawful good. When the DC universe came out with a registration act for all super-powered aliens, Superman came in for registration. He acted on behalf of the United States as a dually deputized law enforcement officer. He didn’t carry a badge, but he was all but empowered with one by the Federal Government and he acted on behalf of the government and he answered to the government. He was known as the "boy scout." The law, often, forbids the use of torture so they wouldn’t resort to it. Theft is wrong, it is not only against most laws, it is usually an evil act.

Neutral Good; is a little harder to define. In general, these people promote the welfare of themselves and others, but they usually don’t want to promote the welfare of others over that of themselves. Its not that they aren’t charitable, its that they make sure they are taken care of first. Laws are obeyed when convenient and most of the time it is convenient. They don’t worry about breaking the law though. Most people are good natured and good aligned, but few closely follow the speed limit when driving. In this respect they are being neutral good, few of them would go 100 mph in a 30 mp zone. Neutrality also appeals to those who look toward nature like druids, in fact druids are required to have a neutral component of their alignment. Nature lovers are far from the only neutral ones, but many neutral people follow the laws of nature and look for the natural order as a model for how to live their life. Torture is an evil act, so they wouldn’t resort to it. Theft from an organization would be wrong, unless of course it was an evil organization.

Lawful Neutral; sees the laws, as more important. A good example of Lawful Neutral is the Clint Eastwood police officer Dirty Harry. He carried a badge and he worked hard to enforce the laws. When a crazed madman took hostages and shot people, Dirty Harry hunted him down. He was called Dirty Harry, because he was the one you gave the dirty jobs to. When he caught the madman, he tried to arrest him. He pulled his gun and held the madman at point blank range, telling him to surrender. When the madman went for his gun, only then, did Dirty Harry shoot him dead. Previously he had arrested the guy, and predicted that he would escape and cause more harm to the city. He did not do anything to the bad guy though. The madman got out of jail, because he claimed that Dirty Harry used police brutality on him. In fact the madman went and paid someone to beat him up so he could file that claim against Dirty Harry. Dirty Harry was suspended from the police force, but when the madman went on a rampage again the chief of detectives reinstated Dirty Harry to track him down. Dirty Harry was impartial, he was cruel when he had to be, but he stayed within the confines of the law. His job was to enforce the law and he tried to do so to the best of his abilities. In the sequel movie he was starring down a crook. He, famously, told the crook. “I don’t know if I have fired 5 or 6 shots, but considering this is the .44 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world. How lucky do you feel? Go ahead and make my day.” The crook wanted to live so he put down his gun and Dirty Harry arrested him. The criminal had to know though so he asked Dirty Harry how many bullets he had left in his gun. Dirty Harry aimed his gun at the criminal and fired, it was empty. Later in that movie when a maniac was in the same situation he went for his gun and this time Dirty Harry's gun was not empty. Torture is often illegal, so they wouldn’t resort to it. However, if the torture was done in the name of the state, with the support of the state, then they would have no problem with using it or doing it. Theft is often illegal, but it is morally wrong to profit off the work of others.

True Neutral; is the most unusual alignment—they would most probably follow the law of laws of nature; where the stronger or more deadly animal wins. Most people of this alignment are rangers or druids. They don’t care about law or chaos, and they don’t care about good or neutral. They wouldn’t go out of their way to harm someone, but they wouldn’t go out of their way to help someone either. Torture is just an aggressive method of questioning. Theft is rare among these people, and when they do steal it is to survive, their needs are often simple and they don’t weigh themselves down with too many things.

Chaotic Neutral; was the most common alignment taken in early D&D. People who took this alignment often took it because most DMs prohibited evil alignments and most people who took it wanted to screw with the party and only cared about themselves. A chaotic neutral person has no code, doesn’t care about the laws, doesn’t care about the fight between good and evil. In fact, pretty much all they care about is themselves. Many criminals and madmen have this alignment or are chaotic evil. Most people don’t trust Chaotic Neutral people because they don’t know what they stand for, and they know that they don’t respect the law or have any personal code. Torture would be fun, and a great way to gather information, as long as it was fun of course. Theft is not often practiced, but it is a great way to get rich. A subcategory of this alignment could be seen as Chaotic Greedy—the most common alignment of early D&D characters.

Neutral Evil; this is the favorite alignment of many criminals; they don’t’ respect the law, they don’t’ respect the fight between good and evil and many of them only want to get rich and care all about themselves. They will happily harm others or see that they come to ruin in order to enrich their own lives. They often lack a “heart” and could be guilty of many depravities. They would have no compunction about using torture to obtain information from someone. Torture would be an excellent way to gather information, period. The Batman of the comic books could fit this alignment; he would see nothing in holding a criminal over the edge of a tall building threatening to drop him if he doesn’t tell him what he wants to know. His fingers might even slip a little. Batman does care about the war between good and evil, but he is fighting a one-man war, and doing it his way. Batman has often been hunted by the law, and he is hunted by the criminal underworld. He works to his own code, which he is never that specific about, and his sidekicks can’t work with him until they graduate from HIS training program, which is always tough. As Bruce Wayne he does charitable acts, but he sees Bruce Wayne as a cover identity. His real identity is that of the Batman. Often characters of this alignment think that theft is just a way to get by. Creating and using undead is by its nature an evil action in Pathfinder. That is because the soul of the person is kept from passing on to its reward in the afterlife (my personal definition). Even creating undead like skeletons and zombies is considered to be an evil act, despite the fact that they have no free will of their own.

Lawful Evil; is the favorite alignment of the mafia. They follow the code of their organization and are willing to see others harmed to improve their own condition. They plan on advancing in their organization and will occasionally use cut-throat tactics to do so. Many street gangs have this alignment. They will work to improve their rank in the organization and often commit crimes like selling drugs to do so. The organization they belong to would most likely have rules on how to use torture. They often use low grade torture in their organization’s initiation ritual. Gang members often call it “jumping in” when the new potential member of the gang gets beat up by all the gang members before becoming one of them. Theft is often the principle task of the organization that these people join. The Lottery was originally a mafia plan, people would pay for a chance of winning a pot. Of course the pot was not worth the entire take, the mafia made sure to keep some money for "operating expenses." Such people would see Undead as tools to be used nothing more. The action of creating them is irrelevant to their final goal.

Chaotic Evil; don’t care about the law, or any code, and they will work hard to deprive others to improve their own lot. Many of these people are criminals, a good number are even insane. The typical embodiment of this alignment is Batman’s the Joker. He commits crime just for the sake of fun. His biggest goal in life is to get the Batman to laugh. Members holding this alignment wouldn’t just use torture to gather information they would sharpen the instruments to make them more effective, and they would practice on a few bystanders beforehand to insure they do a good job. Theft isn’t just fun, it’s just a way to keep score, and a way to fun future crime and games. Often free willed undead become chaotic evil because they seek to drain strength or life energy from others to live or just because they want to.

You can differ in how you define alignments, but in my game you need to follow these definitions, because that is what I will be using. You can play any alignment, but I will be holding them to the standard as I have explained above.

So, you want to play an unapproved alignment, usually this means evil. Pathfinder is a heroic fantasy game a story about heroes coming together to do missions to save the world. Usually, an evil character doesn’t fit in this mold.

I am not going to say you can’t play evil, but if you do want to play evil I do have some advice for you.

1. Have a goal or a mission, that is beyond messing with the party. Remember the party are probably the only ones in this world who have your back and are willing to work with you. Betraying them is hardly a good way to survive. So, you need a mission beyond screwing with the party. Assassinate the king, or overthrow the king, or liberate the queen. These are ideas of the types of goals you can take. You don’t have to work against the party; now if it turns out that the party decides the king needs to stay in power and he wants them to be their champion then you are going to have a hard time. I strongly discourage you from taking a stance that goes against the party.

2. How are you evil? Do you try to kill elves whenever you can, or do you consider halflings to be destined to be slaves and to be less than human? Slavery of halflings is a fact in Chelax, and not only accepted it is enforced. So, a lawful creature from Chelax would have no problem with halflings as slaves. Now an evil creature would be one who hunts down halflings and tries to return them to Chelax to be put back into chains. The question then becomes one of how does your evil ethics influence your character’s life? Do you routinely rob peasants because they are easy marks and whenever you come to town you try to find someone to rob, or do you plan elaborate heist plans to rob the nobles and enrich yourself?

3. How does your evil manifest? Do you have an evil laugh, do you wear a dastardly grin, do you twist the sword when you stab someone to increase their pain? What clear signs are there of your evil, or do you hide it away form the world? How does your evil alignment affect what you say and do? Your alignment shapes your entire point of view, so it has got to come into effect somehow some way.

4. How does your being evil shape your interactions with the party? Will you be the first to volunteer to torture the prisoner because the party needs information? Will you try to rob and steal from the party (hopefully, not) when it comes time to count the treasure, or will you be running side hustles in your downtime to get wealth and power? What happens if these side hustles come to life or the party finds out about them? What are you going to do if the party finds out about your evil habits? Are you going to turn on the party and kill them, are you going to try to bribe them, or will you just say, “easy come, easy go” and try something else? How you interact with the party and what you do to them is going to be of great importance.

5. Just how evil are you? And what kind of evil are you? This goes beyond the question of if you are LE, NE, or CE, it goes to the point of how evil you are on a scale of 1-10 with the Joker being a 10? Do you try to kill random citizens just for fun, or do you only torture and inflict pain for profit? Do you strive to be evil in all that you do, or do you only occasionally act evil? Batman once had a villain who robbed a bank on every April 15^th. Robin suggested that he did it to pay his taxes, hardly a good motive, but you can argue that it is not that evil of a reason. The Joker liked to use his Joker gas to inflict smiles and death upon dozens if not hundreds of people. He will do it randomly, will little motive or reason, he is truly chaotic evil. The only motive he has is to have fun and he actually gets a kick out of killing people. This makes him a truly monstrous evil. A few monsters, mostly demons and daemons are this kind of evil. Most evil creatures are just greedy and want to improve their lot at the sacrifice of the welfare of others. Goblins have a gnawing hunger that knows no bounds, an innate hatred of horses and dogs, and a fear of big-uns. They are unquestionably evil, believe that might makes right, believe that they are justified in all that they do, no matter how outrageous, and will go to unusual lengths to get what they want. These attributes help to define how evil they are. A goblin will seek out horses and dogs to kill, they don’t just kill those that they encounter, they try to engineer encounters that put them in proximity of dogs and horses, so they have the opportunity to kill them. They also will happily rob big-uns to steal their food to feed themselves. They don’t care if they take this food from peasants, the poor, or the starving. This food belongs to them by the right that they can take it and so they are stronger. This food belongs to them because they want it and answering that want is all important. They try to rob weaker big-uns because goblins know they are weak and they take advantage of the weaknesses of others.

Now how does your evil look in light of this discussion? Do you rob the rich to redistribute the wealth making sure to take a healthy cut for yourself? Do you plan and pull con jobs, miscellaneous thefts and other “jobs,” or do you go for an occasional big heist? Are you a serial killer who sates their need to kill with the party, but occasionally goes outside for their kills, or do you kill so frequently that you leave a trail of bodies behind and have the cops lapping at your heals? Or do you consider murder to be too far, would you just rather rob somebody, or do you plan on robbing, killing, and slandering a person.

Think about these things when you plan your character. Evil is just not a box you check on your character sheet it is how you explain and develop your character.

Inspried by Neal Litherland’s blog improved Initiative:

Evil Characters need a code, a reason for what they do and limits to what they do. Catwoman doesn’t like to kill, and likes to rob the rich because they have the best and the most money. Joker will kill just because he wants a lift to his day, he will rob anyone to fund his future operations and he has no limit on how far he will go, but he won’t attack people in Arkham. He likes Harley Quinn so much that he tried to turn her into a carbon copy of himself. He will neglect her, punish her, but he won’t try to outright kill her. She thinks too highly of him and in his own twisted way he loves her.

If your party is lawful evil they could be made to swear an oath to serve with and cooperate with the party. A neutral evil character can be trusted to work in their self interest so they are reliable to a degree. Chaotic Evil creatures typically have no limits to their depravity.

Gregor from “Game of Thrones” may be a walking nightmare, but he knows which side his bread is buttered on. Tywin could take away everything he has, and cease protecting him for his “fun,” and he wants to make sure that doesn’t happen so has his limits. He will not offend Tywin and if Tywin doesn’t want him to do something he is likely to comply.

An evil character or a CN character might have a “minder” someone who is responsible for them and who “holds their metaphorical” or even literal leash to make sure the evil character tows the line and behaves. It is important that you select a PC who will actually use that leash though.