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View Full Version : Are NPCs always aware of their own alignment?



hamishspence
2010-04-25, 02:10 PM
This was spawned from a debate in another thread, where it was being argued, that the SRD comment:


Being good or evil can be a conscious choice. For most people though, being good or evil is an attitude that one recognizes but does not choose.

is proof, that RAW explicitly states that all characters are aware of their true alignment.

And that any splatbook that states evil characters can believe themselves to not be evil, is wrong, because it contradicts Core.

Is this argument right?

theMycon
2010-04-25, 02:35 PM
There are several holes in that argument.

1) That quote is exactly as good evidence that "most people" are aware of everyone's alignment (on the good-evil axis). This is, obviously, untrue.

2) "most people ... recognize " and "all characters... always aware" are contradictory statements.

3) If someone recognizes a good/evil act, but cannot choose to do a good/evil act, this means they have no control and are thus of neutral (or, really, null) alignment.
---------------

My interpretation of your quoted statement is "when most people see a good/evil act, upon reflection, they can tell if it's good or evil."

Yora
2010-04-25, 02:42 PM
I think a character would for example recognize that he believes all beggars should just starve to death, and the orc race should be exterminated. He recognizes that many people consider that cruel, and that some even call him evil for that.
But that doesn't change anything about the fact, that this would be the right things to do.

He doesn't chose, "I want to be evil". He may know that others consider him to be evil, but to him it's not evil, it's just the truth.

Ernir
2010-04-25, 02:48 PM
The SRD comment says that some people choose their alignment, and that most people recognize their alignment. These two statements do not prevent the existence of people who are not aware of their correct alignment.

hamishspence
2010-04-25, 02:48 PM
The claim was that there are two types of characters-

those who consciously choose an alignment,

and those that don't choose an alignment, but have one anyway- an attitude that they recognize but don't choose (possibly Always X alignment monsters).

Which seemed silly to me.


The SRD comment says that some people choose their alignment, and that most people recognize their alignment. These two statements do not prevent the existence of people who are not aware of their correct alignment.

That's what I said at the time. The response was "Alignment is objective and not a matter of opinion"

Which fails to recognize that a character can hold an objectively wrong opinion of their own alignment.

Ashram
2010-04-25, 03:18 PM
So, a Lawful Evil tyrant knows he's doing "evil", but he can't think of it as good by RAW, if he thinks he's cracking down on the law for the "greater good"?

Aron Times
2010-04-25, 03:21 PM
Godwin time!

Hitler honestly believed that he was the good guy. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the worst villains are those who think they are right.

Mewtarthio
2010-04-25, 03:51 PM
The tyrant stared out over the massacre. "They were criminals," he said somberly. "Their protests were disrupting the nation. If I had given in to their demands, I could have jeopardized the fragile peace I've worked so hard to achieve. Tell me, Minister, does that make me evil?"

"I'm not sure," said the minister,"let me check. Detect Evil! Uh, yep, you're definitely evil. Sorry about that."

Deme
2010-04-25, 03:55 PM
The tyrant stared out over the massacre. "They were criminals," he said somberly. "Their protests were disrupting the nation. If I had given in to their demands, I could have jeopardized the fragile peace I've worked so hard to achieve. Tell me, Minister, does that make me evil?"

"I'm not sure," said the minister,"let me check. Detect Evil! Uh, yep, you're definitely evil. Sorry about that."

Now, if you were a cleric working for a lawful evil tyrant, would you tell him that? I wouldn't unless I was already planning to kill him the moment after I said that. Or if I were planning to be killed by him, which is more likely.

Murdim
2010-04-25, 04:04 PM
So, a Lawful Evil tyrant knows he's doing "evil", but he can't think of it as good by RAW, if he thinks he's cracking down on the law for the "greater good"?
The existence of a cosmic Good centered on being generally helpful with other sentient beings, wouldn't necessarily prevent people to have their own moral system that contradicts it to some degree. He may not call what he does "good", since the term is intrinsically associated with said cosmic Good and its altruistic moral system, but he would certainly call it right, and is perfectly able to call himself righteous.

He may consider cosmic Law to be the real arbiter of right and wrong, dismissing Good as the refuge of the weak while not really caring about his Evil alignment either way, except maybe as a proof of his boldness. He may be a "black is white" Nietzsche wannabe type who considers might really makes right, especially if this might is used to crush other people, and actively oppose Good as the epitome of immorality. Or he may reject alignment altogether, consider Good, Evil, Law and Chaos to be meaningless in terms of morality, and center his ethics either on himself, on his personal values and goals (like, say, peace and social order, or racial purity), on his overlord, on his god, on a powerful non-divine entity, on an abstract concept...

Yora
2010-04-25, 04:10 PM
Even if one sticks very close to RAW (which, regarding alignment, is usually a really bad idea), evil is neither better or worse than good. The cosmic alignments are good, evil, law, and chaos, all of which are equal in their regard to neutrality.
If you believe that there is a right way to do things in the universe, it's the neutral way. Neither good nor evil are the standard way the universe works. Even if you aknowledge that you are evil, that doesn't mean that you're actions are any less "right" than those of a good guy. Many societies just decide that they consider good better than evil, but on a global (or cosmic) scale, it doesn't really make a difference.

Mastikator
2010-04-25, 04:17 PM
Except that better means "more good than", and good is more good than evil. You might say they are just two different side of the same coin, fine, but they are certainly not the same side.
It's like saying that the left side is not more left than the right side. Or that white is not lighter than dark. Or that boiling water isn't hotter than ice.

Sydonai
2010-04-25, 04:20 PM
This is how Paladins fall, by not knowing their alignment is about to change until they loose their powers.

Ormur
2010-04-25, 04:34 PM
In a world where good and evil are objective things someone's preferred way of doing things or even their goals may be obviously evil. Most self aware creatures would therefore recognize that they are evil even though they don't aim to fit in a certain alignment. The Lawful evil king might say his actions are necessary and that it's too bad it made him evil but so be it. When we do something bad most of us know we shouldn't but do it anyway. It may be a bit like that except evil doesn't even have to equal wrong from someone's perspective in D&D. Actions and attitudes just have ascribed arrows that lead to certain categories.

But there are people that don't recognize a connection between morality and what they're doing. In real life people are capable of incredible cognitive dissonance and I don't see why the same shouldn't apply to D&D. Someone may identify himself with a certain aliment (LG for example) even though his actions and attitudes don't fit, he just refuses to recognize it. Expecting everyone to be completely sane even about objective facts is too much.

DabblerWizard
2010-04-25, 04:39 PM
Recognizing an "attitude" (as stated in the SRD) is semantically not the same thing as recognizing one's "alignment".

"Alignment" as it's used in d&d, is an artificial, mechanical construct, made to speciously illustrate and label moral standards. It doesn't make sense to say that a character understands alignment in this sense.

It is fair to say, however, that characters can be aware of how they "align" along certain moral axes. But, not all characters will take the time to think of their morality along these dual modes. Even if we allow for this statement, it's not necessary to conclude that a character would come to the exact moral dichotomies used by d&d alignment mechanics.

In other words, why assume that a character would think of the law-chaos distinction? It does make some sense theoretically, but take note that real world moral structures don't limit themselves to these simple dualities, so it's fair to suggest that characters don't either.

Orzel
2010-04-25, 04:46 PM
Most sane, smart, non-confused npcs know their alignment.
This is because changing alignment is dramatic or take a iong time, thus noticeable.
Therefore a npc has to lose a couple of marbles to not be able to find their right alignment.

Mewtarthio
2010-04-25, 05:05 PM
"Alignment" as it's used in d&d, is an artificial, mechanical construct, made to speciously illustrate and label moral standards. It doesn't make sense to say that a character understands alignment in this sense.

[...]

In other words, why assume that a character would think of the law-chaos distinction? It does make some sense theoretically, but take note that real world moral structures don't limit themselves to these simple dualities, so it's fair to suggest that characters don't either.

Ah, but real world moral structures don't really have any physical structure. DnD alignments, on the other hand, are just as real as mass and volume (possibly even more so, since any decently powerful caster can transmute your physical properties however he wishes, but only powerful magic can directly alter alignment). Good, evil, law, and chaos can all be easily verified. You can detect their presence with simple magic. You can summon entities that are literally made out of pure alignment. You can hop on over to the Outer Planes and demonstrably verify that people who detect as Lawful Good get one corner of the afterlife while people who detect as Chaotic Evil get the opposite one.

TheMadLinguist
2010-04-25, 09:39 PM
Yes, it's in the lower left corner of their HUD, right next to hp.

hamishspence
2010-04-26, 05:23 AM
Most sane, smart, non-confused npcs know their alignment.
This is because changing alignment is dramatic or take a iong time, thus noticeable.
Therefore a npc has to lose a couple of marbles to not be able to find their right alignment.

Unless they've been raised in an environment that teaches that certain Evil acts are Good.


any decently powerful caster can transmute your physical properties however he wishes, but only powerful magic can directly alter alignment).

True- though some quite low-level rituals can alter alignment in Savage Species. What they do is change an alignment subtype- a side effect is that sometimes, the creature's actual alignment changes as well- unless they pass a Will save by 5 or more.


You can detect their presence with simple magic.

True- though a character can't necessarily detect their presence, in the character itself, without simple magic.

And it's not clear if Detect spells include the caster in their area of effect- so you may have to rely on someone else to tell you "You are Good" or "you are evil"

valadil
2010-04-26, 09:12 AM
I doubt most people, PCs, or NPCs know their own alignment, regardless of what that quotation says. If people are good at anything it's justifying their own actions. The more evil someone is, the better they are at convincing themselves that their actions serve the greater good. I'd even go so far as to say that a majority of evil people, PCs, and NPCs think themselves good.

Indon
2010-04-26, 10:04 AM
The actual attitude that determines alignment on the moral axis is not "I am good" or "I am evil", and that part could easily be misidentified by an individual, eg "Eating the poor is a good thing, and therefore by setting up this buffet I am a good person".

Starbuck_II
2010-04-26, 10:07 AM
The actual attitude that determines alignment on the moral axis is not "I am good" or "I am evil", and that part could easily be misidentified by an individual, eg "Eating the poor is a good thing, and therefore by setting up this buffet I am a good person".

I think that is a very modest proposal. :smallbiggrin:

DabblerWizard
2010-04-27, 02:06 PM
.... Good, evil, law, and chaos can all be easily verified. You can detect their presence with simple magic. You can summon entities that are literally made out of pure alignment. You can hop on over to the Outer Planes and demonstrably verify that people who detect as Lawful Good get one corner of the afterlife while people who detect as Chaotic Evil get the opposite one.

You make a good point. In the d&d universe, there are many nifty ways to understand and experience these moral states, in more or less direct and tangible forms.

If all else fails you can ask the gods of law and good to tell you whether you're actually being (or at least acting like) an appropriate worshiper of that deity. In other words, a unique kind of metaphysical disambiguation can occur. My character could come to experience the essence of goodness. Plato would be proud, and extremely jealous.

Even PCs and NPCs that don't have the money to acquire a spelljammer, could theoretically experience the afterlife and come back to talk about it. Talk about avoiding teleology (the study of the ending of an experience or behavior as integral to its purpose).

However, barring great riches and a serendipitously short death, most people (especially NPCs) in the d&d world, probably don't have the means to access the objective, tangible reality surrounding moral states. They're like us real life people.

Some of us follow deontological ethics codes that prescribe how we can act and proscribe how we cannot. Others of us have personal preferences for or against certain kinds of actions in and of themselves, since killing is icky of course. While others focus on the effect that their behaviors will bring about... and so on.

That to me, seems like how most NPCs and even some PCs would act in the d&d world. Verifying that I fit a particular alignment, consistently and infallibly, making sure that my actions don't sway off of the moral course I have set before me, seems to require a great deal of insight, logic, introspection, and intuition. This takes a lot of work, and plenty of people enjoy being lazy.

hamishspence
2010-04-27, 02:18 PM
However, barring great riches and a serendipitously short death, most people (especially NPCs) in the d&d world, probably don't have the means to access the objective, tangible reality surrounding moral states. They're like us real life people.

Some of us follow deontological ethics codes that prescribe how we can act and proscribe how we cannot. Others of us have personal preferences for or against certain kinds of actions in and of themselves, since killing is icky of course. While others focus on the effect that their behaviors will bring about... and so on.

That to me, seems like how most NPCs and even some PCs would act in the d&d world. Verifying that I fit a particular alignment, consistently and infallibly, making sure that my actions don't sway off of the moral course I have set before me, seems to require a great deal of insight, logic, introspection, and intuition. This takes a lot of work, and plenty of people enjoy being lazy.

This is pretty much what I think- and several of the splatbooks (BoVD, Champions of Ruin, Exemplars of Evil, Waterdeep City of Splendours, Tome of Magic) take a similar approach.

"Misguided evil guy who thinks he is good" makes more sense, in the context of the splatbooks and the D&D novels, than "all Evil characters know infallibly that they are evil"

amaranth69
2010-04-27, 06:17 PM
I would have to say that most people see themselves as mostly good to some extent. The question comes to call in how the rest of the world sees said person. The given attributes of good and evil are, therefore, a matter of perception of outside sources. The consensus says that crushing the masses and taking away all freedom and choice is an evil act. To the evil tyrant, this is a necessary step in eliminating crime, etc. So, no I don't believe most evil mortal beings think of themselves as evil. Alignment affects the way a person views his or her surroundings and develops answers to (real or imagined) problems.

taltamir
2010-07-22, 09:06 AM
question... have most people been at least once to a church?
if so, the paladins and clerics (who got permanencies detect alignment) should be able to tell at a glance who is what.
And likely would say something "turn away from your evil ways, lest they consume you!" or "I am sorry, but your aura is tainted, you are not welcome in this church of goodness!"

EDIT: Oh crap, thread necro! I am so sorry I didn't notice!