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Kruploy
2014-09-17, 09:30 AM
This has been bugging me for a while. Say that a good character has a lovely wife he loves above all else. Then some backhat shows up, kidnaps her, locks her up and then blackmails the good character to do evil acts.

The good character does these acts because he is afraid of losing his wife not because of any malice on his part.

Does this still make him evil?

satcharna
2014-09-17, 09:39 AM
I don't believe he could be held responsible for his actions if under compulsion or duress, but whether that means strictly magical or including mundane probably depends on both what game you're playing and the guy in charge of it.

Nobot
2014-09-17, 09:40 AM
(...) The good character does these acts because he is afraid of losing his wife not because of any malice on his part.

Does this still make him evil?

Giving in to fear leads to the dark side!

Honestly, I don't think there is an answer to this question. It depends on the character, the game master and the specific alignment. It is possible to do wrong things for the right reasons and vice versa.

Segev
2014-09-17, 11:26 AM
At least in the US system of law, I believe I have read that it is considered an affirmative defense to most crimes (though maybe not all) to act under duress, whether that duress is afflicted against yourself or another (presumably about whom you care). As far as alignment goes, it likely depends on what he does, how willingly, and in response to what inducement.

Particularly for D&D alignments, I tend to personally fall into the, "You are responsible for your own actions, performed of your own volition," camp. So I would be actually pretty unforgiving of the good man who performed significant enough evil actions to cause his alignment to slide (under normal circumstances) in order to appease the monster holding his wife captive. I would say that a good man might compromise his principles, certainly, in that circumstance. It might be a cause for him to perform more of those less-than-good acts which, alone, are not enough to cause alignment shift, but which can lead to a pattern of behavior. I would even go so far as to say that the pattern of behavior is not truly established while he does it only under duress, because it's a choice between personally sacrificing some of his morals and knowledge that his wife will suffer or die.

If he actually performs one or more acts which could warrant alignment shift (or even very stern warnings), the mitigating factor of his motives will help, but he's probably sliding towards neutral.

That said, a neutral man in that situation could perform acts of utter evil without really slipping too much further, as long as he was doing it expressly at the command of the extortionist, and kept the evil to the barest minimum he could while obeying the man. Neutral has a lot of leeway, and the motive is counter-balancing the choice to commit the act. He still COULD slip further, but it would take a LOT, unless he starts making choices to act that way for his own purposes.

Aedilred
2014-09-17, 11:27 AM
This has been bugging me for a while. Say that a good character has a lovely wife he loves above all else. Then some backhat shows up, kidnaps her, locks her up and then blackmails the good character to do evil acts.

The good character does these acts because he is afraid of losing his wife not because of any malice on his part.

Does this still make him evil?
I think it's an entirely grey area and one that largely comes down to personal philosophy, judgment, and so on. The scale of the evil acts performed would also play into it.

In many legal systems, coercion is an acceptable defence, although not a complete one (i.e. admitting partial culpability), and while law and morality don't always align, it's often a useful benchmark.

If you want a fictional example, along with acceptability of torture in extreme circumstances, acts committed as a result of blackmail or coercion was one of the major moral themes of 24, especially early in its run, and I don't think it really offered any easy answers to either quandary. In a lot of cases the consensus seemed to be "I understand why you're doing this, but what you're doing is still wrong, so you have to be stopped", but then a lot of the people saying that were presented as strangled by red tape or Lawful Stupid. If you can work out the D&D alignment of Jack Bauer and (early) Tony Almeida, you probably have your answer to this question, but that's just substituting a question for a different question.

PrincessCupcake
2014-09-17, 12:04 PM
Blackmail is what I would call "Extreme Duress" or "Control of another". The acts will not technically affect their alignment, but the theoretical character in the example might get nightmares or bouts of guilt and seek atonement anyway. (Of course I am that DM that goes into detail about a character's nightmares.)

Sith_Happens
2014-09-17, 12:32 PM
Good characters are distinguished by their willingness to make personal sacrifices for the sake of their principles. If one of those sacrifices is "the villain does horrible things to your loved ones," then so be it. Of course, for the exact same reason, a Good character is that much more obligated to attempt a rescue of said loved ones.

jedipotter
2014-09-17, 02:16 PM
Nothing happens to the good guy in my view. You can't force an alignment change by blackmail. Every person has a hear/soul and mind, and when both agree, then that makes your alignment. So if you have a good heart and you choose to take good actions, then you are good. Same way if you have an evil heart and take evil actions your evil. But if you have a good heart, and take evil actions, then nothing happens. The ''universe/cosmic alignment'' knows your heart and knows that it has not changed.

Sure, lots of fiction and crazy DM's like to the the ''if you don't cross one ''T'' then you fall to evil forever...muuhahahahahahah. But you could never have a universe like that.

After all, all characters are(mostly) mortal. And mortals will make mistakes...they really can't avoid it.

Just take lying. So the ''cosmic alignment'' says a good person can never, ever lie and if they tell a lie they fall from good and become evil. Jon and Jack are on a farm. Jack tells Jon we have five cows to sell. So Jon goes to town and tells folks they have five cows for sale. But Jack miss counted. They only have four cows. So as soon as Jon tells anyone he has five cows for sale...he is lying and not telling the truth. Granted he does not know he is lying, but it is still a lie ''cosmic wise''. And Jack for that matter falls to evil too, after all he mistakenly lied to Jon.

And this is why the intent of the heart matters. Neither Jack or Jon meant to lie. Both were just mistakes and would not count at all. After all it is impossible to know if anything is true. Anyone can say anything. It's not like every good person can take a week to fact check everything that anyone says.

Talakeal
2014-09-17, 02:19 PM
I believe according to 3.5 RAW you are responsible for actions you are forced to do and they will affect your alignment, but a casting of the atonement spell will undo it.

Sartharina
2014-09-17, 02:27 PM
Good characters are distinguished by their willingness to make personal sacrifices for the sake of their principles. If one of those sacrifices is "the villain does horrible things to your loved ones," then so be it. Of course, for the exact same reason, a Good character is that much more obligated to attempt a rescue of said loved ones.But it's not the Good Person's place to sacrifice the life/well-being of his loved one. Me feeding my best friend to a lion so I can escape is NOT a Good Sacrifice, even though I'm sacrificing my close friend.

Tvtyrant
2014-09-17, 02:33 PM
Without free-will there is no alignment, hence animals/none-magical vermin being unaligned. So actions taken while under duress are not aligned in any way IMO.

Also Oozes and Constructs having alignments is silly.

Sartharina
2014-09-17, 02:35 PM
Without free-will there is no alignment, hence animals/none-magical vermin being unaligned. So actions taken while under duress are not aligned in any way IMO.

Also Oozes and Constructs having alignments is silly.You always have free will, unless the 'duress' is actual possession.

Tengu_temp
2014-09-17, 02:41 PM
In this scenario, a good character should try to find a way to rescue the kidnapped wife, and to do the blackmailer's bidding in the least evil way possible. Overall, though, this is an extremely morally complicated situation, and one where the demands of of the guy matter a lot ("evil acts" can mean a lot of things, from stealing stuff to commiting genocide). I don't think it should result in an alignment change in most cases, though, if the blackmailed good guy shows at least reluctance and tries to minimize the evil he's forced to do.

Amaril
2014-09-17, 03:50 PM
You always have free will, unless the 'duress' is actual possession.

This, exactly. Short of either physically overpowering someone and forcing them to carry out an Evil act, or magically subverting their will, no compulsion is irresistible. If a villain threatens to harm your loved ones unless you do Evil, you're expected to not do it, and to do everything in your power to stop them from harming said loved ones or anyone else. If a villain holds you at gunpoint (or some equivalent) and tells you to kill someone else or be killed yourself, you are expected to let yourself be killed rather than commit murder, assuming you fail to find some third solution. I wouldn't call doing otherwise an Evil act, but rather a Neutral one, since it's motivated by self-preservation or the desire to protect people who are personally important to you, rather than by any real malice. So it couldn't push you from Good to Evil, but it could possibly pull you into the Neutral area, depending on your actions and motivations in other situations.

Sith_Happens
2014-09-17, 07:43 PM
But it's not the Good Person's place to sacrifice the life/well-being of his loved one. Me feeding my best friend to a lion so I can escape is NOT a Good Sacrifice, even though I'm sacrificing my close friend.

This isn't about feeding your friend to a lion to spare yourself, it's about feeding a random bystander to a lion to save your friend (or rather, if you're Good, not doing so).

Aedilred
2014-09-18, 06:25 AM
I'm reminded of a very long and increasingly acrimonious argument had a few months ago about self-sacrifice and sacrifice of others and so on and how that relates to Good, and so on.

As others have said, it's a very complex situation, and what makes it even more complex is that it's not you that's directly under threat. If someone is threatening your life, it's easier to make the argument that you should prioritise your own well-being lower than those of others, and take the hit yourself. But if someone is threatening a separate, autonomous individual who happens to mean a lot to you, how do you evaluate that? If you refuse on the basis that to do what they're asking would be evil, is that actually placing your own moral integrity above the life of someone else, and thus even more selfish than prioritising your life? Are you treating them merely as adjuncts to your own life (if they die, I suffer, but it's better that I suffer than $random) rather than as people in their own right whose life matters independently of yours?

It depends a lot on the evil act(s) you're being asked to perform.

I guess from a RP perspective the character for whom alignment is most important is the paladin, and in this instance performing an evil act might not be enough to turn his alignment to Evil or even to Neutral, but it's still an evil act and that's enough to fall regardless (you could argue over "willingly", but I'd say it's enough to qualify for the purposes of the class). For other characters, I would exercise caution in inducing an alignment change, unless they really throw themselves into it or something.

hamishspence
2014-09-18, 06:33 AM
I guess from a RP perspective the character for whom alignment is most important is the paladin, and in this instance performing an evil act might not be enough to turn his alignment to Evil or even to Neutral, but it's still an evil act and that's enough to fall regardless (you could argue over "willingly", but I'd say it's enough to qualify for the purposes of the class).

While the class description itself says "willingly" at one point, and "willfully" at another, the Atonement spell description mentions neither, and strongly implies it is possible for various classes to fall for unwitting deeds, or even ones committed under magical compulsion:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/atonement.htm

If the atoning creature committed the evil act unwittingly or under some form of compulsion, atonement operates normally at no cost to you. However, in the case of a creature atoning for deliberate misdeeds and acts of a knowing and willful nature, you must intercede with your deity (requiring you to expend 500 XP) in order to expunge the subject’s burden.

A paladin who has lost her class features due to committing an evil act may have her paladinhood restored to her by this spell.

Mastikator
2014-09-18, 07:40 AM
If the psychological damage of being forced to cause suffering to others causes you to start to become apathetic to the suffering of others then yes, it would cause alignment shift against your will.

You could always shift back though.

Lord Torath
2014-09-18, 08:26 AM
My position on this has always been that I am responsible for my own actions, and no one else's. I have no control over the Hostage-Taker's (HT) actions. He can kill or not kill the hostage, and I have no way of really affecting that. Sure, I can carry out HT's will. Will that stop HT from killing the hostage? Only if HT decides it will. There's nothing I can do (short of Charm, Domination, or similar effect) to affect what HT is going to do. So my point would be that yes, doing evil actions when directed by HT is an evil act I am responsible for. Refusing to carry out HT's instructions may result in the death of the hostage, but that death is not on my hands. HT is responsible for the lives of those under his control.

Segev
2014-09-18, 01:24 PM
Eh, I would give more leeway to somebody acting in hopes that the HT will live up to his word. By the same token, though, I wouldn't hold them responsible if they refused on moral grounds and the HT killed the hostage. A good person might agonize over the decision, or might make it firmly but with regret, while a neutral or evil person might refuse more callously, but refusing to do evil does not decide the villain's actions...only fails to give him more incentive not to go through with it.

Mr.Moron
2014-09-18, 01:44 PM
Your DM allows you to find or outright gives you an alternative to giving into their demands, assuming they're not trying to go for some really dark tone. non-issue.

The player is given a chance best the baddie without giving into their demands because they evil guy is just a bit sloppier, just a bit dumber, just a bit slower or just has fewer allies than the player.

Red Fel
2014-09-18, 02:18 PM
In my interpretation, a Good character is defined by his "Thou shalt not"s. His principles. The lines that he will not, under any circumstances, cross.

This debate has raged across these forums in myriad forms. What if he's blackmailed? What if the lives of innocents are at stake? What if it's commit Evil or do nothing? It's essentially the same question - under what circumstances can a Good character violate his principles without consequence?

And the answer, in my experience - the technical, specific, if painful to accept answer - is "None." For a Good character to remain truly Good, he cannot, under any circumstances, compromise his moral code. He can't.

That's not to say that performing an Evil act under coercion or duress causes a Good character to instantly join Team Evil. It doesn't. What it does is to carve out an exception. "Thou shalt not" becomes "Thou shalt not, unless." And the unlesses are what form the slippery slope. Again, it's not to say it's inevitable. But when you're willing to compromise your morals, even for the very best reason, you've demonstrated a willingness to compromise your morals. It's a tautology, but it's a valid one. If you can do it at all, even under an extreme circumstance, you can do it. Being able to compromise your morals - more than that, having actually done so - is what distinguishes non-Good from Good.

Now, there are lines. If the DM informs you that you have no choice but to do X, you are being railroaded, and under no circumstances should a PC have his alignment change because the DM literally forces an action. Similarly, as mentioned by others, actual possession - a total inability to control ones actions - should not cause alignment change.

But when a hero is given a choice between two Evil outcomes, he doesn't take the lesser of the two Evils. He takes a third option. He finds a way, even at the cost of his own life, to avoid both. That's Good, at least in my estimation.

Segev
2014-09-18, 03:12 PM
But when a hero is given a choice between two Evil outcomes, he doesn't take the lesser of the two Evils. He takes a third option. He finds a way, even at the cost of his own life, to avoid both. That's Good, at least in my estimation.

I assume you mean he tries, gives it his all, and if he fails, he fails only because he literally lacked the capacity or luck to succeed.

Because I don't think you mean to say that he committed an evil act if he tried to find a third option...and did not succeed, so evil happened anyway.

Raimun
2014-09-18, 03:50 PM
Do note that Alignment-issues depend on GM a lot.

However, if we follow Alignment as presented in the books, blackmailing is not a mitigating factor. If you are Good and someone asks you to commit Evil acts and you do as you are told, you will lose your Good Alignment and first go to Neutral and then Evil if you keep that up. The reverse is also true for Evil characters and you can apply this to Law-Chaos-axis as well.

At the very best, you could claim that compromising your principles for blackmail is a Neutral act. If you only do as told and don't cross that line, you remain Neutral for a longer time before finally and inevitably turning Evil.

Thing is, the intent doesn't determine the Alignment as it is presented in the books, only actions do. Evil actions strengthen the Evil in the world (and vice versa) and you are responsible for the actions you take, barring Dominate Person and such magical compulsions, where the caster is responsible for the actions he makes you commit.

In the original example, the Good character should play time if possible and try to defuse the situation by somehow rescuing his wife, directly or indirectly. If the wife dies during the rescue attempt, it is very sad but the Evil act is on the blackmailer's hands, not the husband's, even if that is not much of a condolence.

However, if that doesn't happen, and the character does as he is told, he begins his fall to Evil. That said, if an outside force suddenly defuses the situation and rescues the wife, things might change for the better.

If the character had Good intentions the whole time, didn't commit Evil that wasn't required of him, forsakes his Evil ways immediately after the rescue and atones by doing Good deeds thereafter, the said character will change his Alignment again, first to Neutral and perhaps even back to Good if he keeps it up.

D&D-Alignment is absolute but it is never final... until you die, of course.

Sith_Happens
2014-09-18, 05:20 PM
But when a hero is given a choice between two Evil outcomes, he doesn't take the lesser of the two Evils. He takes a third option. He finds a way, even at the cost of his own life, to avoid both. That's Good, at least in my estimation.

This is exactly what I was getting at. When the villain kidnaps your wife, you don't give in to their demands, you rescue your wife.

Red Fel
2014-09-18, 07:19 PM
I assume you mean he tries, gives it his all, and if he fails, he fails only because he literally lacked the capacity or luck to succeed.

Because I don't think you mean to say that he committed an evil act if he tried to find a third option...and did not succeed, so evil happened anyway.

Correct. The third option is a non-Evil act; failure when you at least tried is not an Evil act, but a noble (if futile) gesture.


This is exactly what I was getting at. When the villain kidnaps your wife, you don't give in to their demands, you rescue your wife.

And become every bada** action hero ever. Only hopefully with better dialogue.

Kruploy
2014-09-19, 07:15 AM
He takes a third option.[/I] He finds a way, even at the cost of his own life, to avoid both. That's Good, at least in my estimation.

While this is all well and good; this kind of thinking turns good into a luxury, something only the powerful or the rich can afford to be.

You see, not everyone has the talent or the resources to overcome powerful, evil adversaries and these people cannot hope to find a third option because they are too weak or too poor to actually afford one. They are simply pitted against too great an adversary and they cannot deceive him. As such; they are doomed to either compromise their principles or fight an impossible battle against evil and most certainly end up dead, having accomplished nothing and leaving their loved one to rot.

This effectively turns good into a commodity that only the elites of the society and people foolish enough to undertake tasks they cannot accomplish can have. Something that the powerful may choose to adhere to because they can and I really don't think that being good should be something that only a resourceful man can afford to have.

Furthermore; even if the good guy possesses the capacity to deceive the coercer; he may not necessarily realize it or have the courage to take such a risk. As Yoda said fear leads to the dark side but I don't think someone who commits evil deeds due to fear becomes evil himself. Tell that to the victims though. I am reminded of the Salem Witch Trials. I highly doubt I wouldn't consider a guy who would burn me at the stake evil just because he was motivated by fear and not malice.

Red Fel
2014-09-19, 08:47 AM
While this is all well and good; this kind of thinking turns good into a luxury, something only the powerful or the rich can afford to be.

You see, not everyone has the talent or the resources to overcome powerful, evil adversaries and these people cannot hope to find a third option because they are too weak or too poor to actually afford one. They are simply pitted against too great an adversary and they cannot deceive him. As such; they are doomed to either compromise their principles or fight an impossible battle against evil and most certainly end up dead, having accomplished nothing and leaving their loved one to rot.

Then they fight an impossible battle against evil and most certainly end up dead. Not every story of epic heroism has a happy ending. Sometimes, what defines a hero is his ability to struggle against impossible odds, futile though it might be.


This effectively turns good into a commodity that only the elites of the society and people foolish enough to undertake tasks they cannot accomplish can have. Something that the powerful may choose to adhere to because they can and I really don't think that being good should be something that only a resourceful man can afford to have.

I don't even understand what this has to do with anything. We're talking about murderhobos in tabletop games, not the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Does having resources help? Yes. But sometimes it boils down to (1) brains, and (2) guts, and that's all a hero truly needs. Everything else just makes his job a bit easier. A hero is ultimately defined as a hero, not by what he has at his disposal, but by the ends to which he directs his resources (if any) and abilities.


Furthermore; even if the good guy possesses the capacity to deceive the coercer; he may not necessarily realize it or have the courage to take such a risk. As Yoda said fear leads to the dark side but I don't think someone who commits evil deeds due to fear becomes evil himself. Tell that to the victims though. I am reminded of the Salem Witch Trials. I highly doubt I wouldn't consider a guy who would burn me at the stake evil just because he was motivated by fear and not malice.

And that's one view. The one I espouse for purposes of this discussion, however, is the one employed in some tabletop games with arbitrary bright-line morality rules, such as D&D: The action is evil. Whatever your reasons for taking that action, doing so voluntarily is evil. In your illustration, a person - motivated by fear, but not by malice - chose to set fire to an innocent person. By arbitrary tabletop morality rules, that is an evil act. It doesn't matter that there was nothing personal. It doesn't matter that he sought no personal gain apart from the relief from fear. All that matters is that, of his own volition (admittedly under some emotional duress), he took up fire and consciously set it to an innocent, knowing what would probably result. Again, by arbitrary tabletop morality rules, that's evil.

Here's the alignment shift, in a nutshell. A hypothetical. Able is a Naughty Person in a small, impoverished, ignorant, superstitious town. Baker is not evil, just ignorant and frightened. Able is highly charismatic, and periodically organizes mobs to root out and kill people he doesn't like. And because Baker doesn't want to be on the receiving end of these mobs - motivated by fear - he joins in. He helps the mob destroy buildings, ruin homes, and burn people alive. And every time, he goes back home, sobbing, and repeats to himself, "It wasn't my fault, I was too scared to stop them. It wasn't my fault, I was too scared to stop them."

So here's the hypothetical: At what point does that abdication of moral responsibility - "It wasn't my fault" - stop acting as a shield? My contention is that, at a certain point, Baker has so surrendered control of his moral decisions to an evil person committing evil acts that he has, himself, justified his own descent into evil. He has allowed it, by justifying his evil actions. A moral person would have a breaking point, a point at which he says, "I can't do this, it's wrong." Maybe he's not brave enough to stand up against Able, but he could at least run away. Frightened people are good at that. He would do something to avoid having to take evil action. By using his mantra - "It wasn't my fault" - as a shield, Baker is justifying his acts. Justification is the easy road down the slippery slope of evil. Even if Baker never becomes Evil, he certainly can't remain Good if he's willing to abdicate his moral responsibility.

Ebon2014
2014-09-19, 01:02 PM
This has been bugging me for a while. Say that a good character has a lovely wife he loves above all else. Then some backhat shows up, kidnaps her, locks her up and then blackmails the good character to do evil acts.

The good character does these acts because he is afraid of losing his wife not because of any malice on his part.

Does this still make him evil?

It can, yes. He's still making the choice to do bad things and that is really the crux of the entire alignment thing - did you choose to do it, knowing that death or worse is also a choice you can take to stop it. Coercion is more of a legal concern; morally, he's still choosing to elevate the needs of the one above the needs of the many. One could hoo-haa around about the relative 'worth' of the people involved - for instance if the wife is a good and wise queen whose rule has brought prosperity and freedom to many, then you could make the argument that she's 'worth' more than what ever it is you're being blackmailed to do, but that only takes you so far.

Sartharina
2014-09-19, 01:45 PM
In my interpretation, a Good character is defined by his "Thou shalt not"s. His principles. The lines that he will not, under any circumstances, cross.
This is LawfulGood, not True Good. True Good actually pays attention to circumstances.

Red Fel
2014-09-19, 01:59 PM
This is LawfulGood, not True Good. True Good actually pays attention to circumstances.

Put it to you this way. Would a True Good character ever kill an innocent child? Can you come up with a circumstance in which a truly Good character - regardless of C-L alignment - would voluntarily kill a genuinely innocent child? I don't mean a demon disguised as a child, or a child who is actually Evil, or a child who is already dying or suffering - I mean a perfectly normal, healthy, innocent child. That, I would argue, is one of those "Thou Shalt Not" lines - a Good character, whether Lawful, Chaotic, or Neutral Good - wouldn't do that. Not to save a village. Not to stop a plague. Not to slay the lich who has turned the child into a phylactery. Not even if the child said he was willing to die. I contend that a truly Good character simply wouldn't do that, regardless of circumstances.

Fiery Diamond
2014-09-19, 09:42 PM
Put it to you this way. Would a True Good character ever kill an innocent child? Can you come up with a circumstance in which a truly Good character - regardless of C-L alignment - would voluntarily kill a genuinely innocent child? I don't mean a demon disguised as a child, or a child who is actually Evil, or a child who is already dying or suffering - I mean a perfectly normal, healthy, innocent child. That, I would argue, is one of those "Thou Shalt Not" lines - a Good character, whether Lawful, Chaotic, or Neutral Good - wouldn't do that. Not to save a village. Not to stop a plague. Not to slay the lich who has turned the child into a phylactery. Not even if the child said he was willing to die. I contend that a truly Good character simply wouldn't do that, regardless of circumstances.

There's no such thing as genuinely, completely innocent.

Also, why is killing a child worse than killing an adult?

I disagree. If killing the child is wrong, killing an adult is equally wrong, and any argument to the contrary is simply rationalizing. "Oh, he has so much future ahead of him!" "But adults have certainly done bad things that the child hasn't had a chance to do yet!" Yeah, neither of those arguments have any meaning.

Try again.

Aedilred
2014-09-19, 09:52 PM
Killing an innocent child isn't a baseline evil act, either. "A good character would never kill an innocent child whatever the reason. Killing an innocent child is an evil act. Therefore a good character would never commit an evil act" - it doesn't follow: there's a whole world of grey between the first two relatively uncontroversial propositions and the purported conclusion.

This is why in the situation posited by the OP the precise nature of the evil acts being demanded are of critical importance to determining the ultimate effect on the character's alignment.

Red Fel
2014-09-20, 08:37 AM
There's no such thing as genuinely, completely innocent.

Also, why is killing a child worse than killing an adult?

I disagree. If killing the child is wrong, killing an adult is equally wrong, and any argument to the contrary is simply rationalizing. "Oh, he has so much future ahead of him!" "But adults have certainly done bad things that the child hasn't had a chance to do yet!" Yeah, neither of those arguments have any meaning.

Try again.

So, wait. Your position is that killing an adult is equally as wrong as killing a child, right? Okay, let's assume that's true. How does that make killing a child any less wrong?


Killing an innocent child isn't a baseline evil act, either. "A good character would never kill an innocent child whatever the reason. Killing an innocent child is an evil act. Therefore a good character would never commit an evil act" - it doesn't follow: there's a whole world of grey between the first two relatively uncontroversial propositions and the purported conclusion.

This is why in the situation posited by the OP the precise nature of the evil acts being demanded are of critical importance to determining the ultimate effect on the character's alignment.

That's not quite my logical syllogism. It's more like: A Good character abstains from Evil acts. Killing a child is an unjustifiably Evil act. Therefore, a Good character will not kill a child.
My logic is that a Good character has lines he will not cross - such as "Thou Shalt Not Kill a Little Kid Who Hasn't Done Anything, For Any Reason, Not Even That One."

Ettina
2014-09-20, 11:07 AM
If the psychological damage of being forced to cause suffering to others causes you to start to become apathetic to the suffering of others then yes, it would cause alignment shift against your will.

You could always shift back though.

I think that's a good way of looking at it.

Alignment isn't just your actions, it's how you think. Being forced to do evil can make you evil, not because you tick off a certain number of checks toward evilness, but because you start to think it's OK to do those things.

Ettina
2014-09-20, 11:11 AM
This is exactly what I was getting at. When the villain kidnaps your wife, you don't give in to their demands, you rescue your wife.

But what if you try to rescue her and fail, and both of you die and the villain goes and kidnaps some other guy's wife to blackmail him?

I think it's a cop-out to always make 'taking a third option' a viable solution. Certainly, if you can do it, it's worth doing. But sometimes all your options are bad, and there is no 'third option' that'll make it all OK.

Ettina
2014-09-20, 11:12 AM
Put it to you this way. Would a True Good character ever kill an innocent child? Can you come up with a circumstance in which a truly Good character - regardless of C-L alignment - would voluntarily kill a genuinely innocent child? I don't mean a demon disguised as a child, or a child who is actually Evil, or a child who is already dying or suffering - I mean a perfectly normal, healthy, innocent child. That, I would argue, is one of those "Thou Shalt Not" lines - a Good character, whether Lawful, Chaotic, or Neutral Good - wouldn't do that. Not to save a village. Not to stop a plague. Not to slay the lich who has turned the child into a phylactery. Not even if the child said he was willing to die. I contend that a truly Good character simply wouldn't do that, regardless of circumstances.

I'd be willing to call a character Good if they killed one innocent child to save many more. Though the trauma might lead them to start changing alignment.

Sartharina
2014-09-20, 11:22 AM
Put it to you this way. Would a True Good character ever kill an innocent child? Can you come up with a circumstance in which a truly Good character - regardless of C-L alignment - would voluntarily kill a genuinely innocent child? I don't mean a demon disguised as a child, or a child who is actually Evil, or a child who is already dying or suffering - I mean a perfectly normal, healthy, innocent child. That, I would argue, is one of those "Thou Shalt Not" lines - a Good character, whether Lawful, Chaotic, or Neutral Good - wouldn't do that. Not to save a village. Not to stop a plague. Not to slay the lich who has turned the child into a phylactery. Not even if the child said he was willing to die. I contend that a truly Good character simply wouldn't do that, regardless of circumstances.

Maybe the innocent child happens to have a cow for a mother instead of a human, and our hero's in the mood for veal this week?

Diachronos
2014-09-20, 11:23 AM
Going by D&D "logic" in terms of alignment as spelled out by the Book of Exalted Deeds, the act itself is all that matters. According to Wizards, an evil act is irredeemably evil even if killing the one innocent orphan would literally save the entire Multiverse from complete destruction.

And D&D gods have mercy on your soul if you have one of the Vows at the time!

Red Bear
2014-09-20, 03:26 PM
I think the alignment of the person isn't affected. Morals are relatives, but if you suppose that a good person would not do evil act even when blackmailed, then if a "good" person does it, it wasn't good in the first place. In other words your alignment is not correlated to the circumstances. If a person has never committed an evil act but is totally willing to do it, she's evil. And in a world with omniscient dungeon master and detect x spells you can know that.

Diachronos
2014-09-20, 03:40 PM
I love how it only seems to be the Good-aligned characters that have to deal with forced alignment shifts based on their own actions. Neutral characters have to do a lot more to shift one way or the other, and Evil characters only ever seem to shift by their own choice or by having it forcibly changed with magic of some kind...

Sith_Happens
2014-09-20, 06:03 PM
But what if you try to rescue her and fail, and both of you die and the villain goes and kidnaps some other guy's wife to blackmail him?

Then that's out of your hands. Even when the "third option" is still just the least of three (figurative) evils, if it's the only one that's not (literally) Evil then it's the one you should go with if you're the type to especially care about not doing Evil things.


Maybe the innocent child happens to have a cow for a mother instead of a human, and our hero's in the mood for veal this week?

If you're implying that the "child" is in fact a calf, then that's a non sequitur and you know it.


I love how it only seems to be the Good-aligned characters that have to deal with forced alignment shifts based on their own actions. Neutral characters have to do a lot more to shift one way or the other, and Evil characters only ever seem to shift by their own choice or by having it forcibly changed with magic of some kind...

Were I DMing a supposedly "Evil" character that wasn't actually acting Evil at all I wouldn't hesitate to tell that player to change the "Alignment" line on their sheet.

Jeff the Green
2014-09-20, 09:29 PM
While this is all well and good; this kind of thinking turns good into a luxury, something only the powerful or the rich can afford to be.

Agreed. At some point the chance of success of a third option is so small that it effectively becomes suicide with the death of your hostage as a side-effect. Expecting a Good person to do this in every case is nonsensical in many cases.

Plus, everyone is ignoring the fact that there is a broad variety of Evil acts. If someone kidnaps your wife and threatens to kill her unless you discriminating against half-elves at your restaurant, then it's probably Evil (and is at the very least callous) to keep serving them.

Mr.Moron
2014-09-20, 10:51 PM
Agreed. At some point the chance of success of a third option is so small that it effectively becomes suicide with the death of your hostage as a side-effect. Expecting a Good person to do this in every case is nonsensical in many cases.


Only if your GM is running the game with a mind towards having a particularly cynical or dark tone. In which case one should really be aware going in that playing to play a good-aligned character is going to be anywhere from a challenging to impossible.

The GM is the one who decides if a hostage taking happens and under what circumstances and ultimately they're one who decides what the odds of victory are for any one path. If doing anything but giving in demands is suicide that's entirely on the GM and how they're choosing how to present the world.

Red Fel
2014-09-21, 11:00 AM
Only if your GM is running the game with a mind towards having a particularly cynical or dark tone. In which case one should really be aware going in that playing to play a good-aligned character is going to be anywhere from a challenging to impossible.

The GM is the one who decides if a hostage taking happens and under what circumstances and ultimately they're one who decides what the odds of victory are for any one path. If doing anything but giving in demands is suicide that's entirely on the GM and how they're choosing how to present the world.

This. If your GM wants you to fall, he will engineer a situation in which there is no Good action which can succeed. (That's a jerk move, by the way.) If he doesn't, he will allow for the possibility of the success of a third option.

We're not talking about real-life alignment here. We're talking about alignment in a tabletop setting. And alignment in a tabletop setting takes place in a tabletop game, where narrative causality - in this case, the will of a DM - is in effect. That means that, unless the situation is designed around your PC's failure, there will be a third option with some possibility of success. You just have to figure it out.

hamishspence
2014-09-21, 11:14 AM
This. If your GM wants you to fall, he will engineer a situation in which there is no Good action which can succeed. (That's a jerk move, by the way.) If he doesn't, he will allow for the possibility of the success of a third option.

The only guaranteed Fall is for Evil acts, not "non-Good acts"

If the act which could succeed is "non-Good" but not exactly Evil either, there's room to manoeuvre.

Jeff the Green
2014-09-21, 06:39 PM
We're not talking about real-life alignment here. We're talking about alignment in a tabletop setting. And alignment in a tabletop setting takes place in a tabletop game, where narrative causality - in this case, the will of a DM - is in effect. That means that, unless the situation is designed around your PC's failure, there will be a third option with some possibility of success. You just have to figure it out.

There are degrees of success, though, and I think a game where there aren't situations where complete success (e.g. save the orphanage and the hostage and don't commit any evil acts) is impossible would actually be kind of dull and would eventually stretch suspension of disbelief too far.

Plus, you're being way too strict about Good characters committing Evil acts. It's assumed Good characters will commit the occasional Evil act. Otherwise there wouldn't be special options (e.g. Paladin, exalted feats) that require never committing an Evil act or atonement. Yes, these should be relatively minor and/or infrequent (a Good character could kill an unarmed prisoner in a blind rage or even cold-blooded practicality, but he wouldn't do it repeatedly and would probably regret it and repent afterwards), but they happen. A character can most definitely be forced into doing Evii and keep his alignment if he regrets it and tries to make restitution.

Segev
2014-09-22, 10:16 AM
Put it to you this way. Would a True Good character ever kill an innocent child? Can you come up with a circumstance in which a truly Good character - regardless of C-L alignment - would voluntarily kill a genuinely innocent child? I don't mean a demon disguised as a child, or a child who is actually Evil, or a child who is already dying or suffering - I mean a perfectly normal, healthy, innocent child. That, I would argue, is one of those "Thou Shalt Not" lines - a Good character, whether Lawful, Chaotic, or Neutral Good - wouldn't do that. Not to save a village. Not to stop a plague. Not to slay the lich who has turned the child into a phylactery. Not even if the child said he was willing to die. I contend that a truly Good character simply wouldn't do that, regardless of circumstances.
I've bolded some key clauses to the above for discussion.

First off, I would contend that one of the things that makes children seem more sacrosanct than adults is that children are innocent. Genuine children fall into the "know not what they do" category, and cannot be held accountable for their misdeeds in the same fashion as adults. (They must be disciplined, corrected, and even punished when they do wrong, but it is to teach and in extreme cases to prevent further harm, not to exact retribution or even teach others a lesson by example, and leniency should be maximized to give them a chance to learn better.)

However, I can think of extremely narrow circumstances where such a thing may be justified as a good act. {Scrubbed} It would have been tragically, horribly misguided, and such things can make the rest of society rightfully think the parent may be unfit, but even madness is not necessarily evil. It's just tragic. (And societies must and do take steps to prevent the mad from harming themselves and others.)

Similarly, if the child truly understands - and it's hard to tell if they do - what is being asked of them, or comes to realize it and offers, it is not necessarily evil to let them make a sacrifice for a greater good. It's hard, and most good people will balk and/or take convincing, but it is not inherently evil to allow anybody to make such a sacrifice.

Heck, you could shape the scenario such that it's "that child alone, or everybody, including that child," at which point the child's willingness to go out to save everyone else makes it justifiable. Finding a third option is, of course, preferable, but when you're down to the wire and there's literally no time left for a miracle...

Again, tragic, but not evil.


There's no such thing as genuinely, completely innocent.Children are; they fall into the category of not yet knowing better. And, in theory, one could live a totally sinless life. But since even in religious text, that's literally happened only once...it's not likely you're playing Him.


I love how it only seems to be the Good-aligned characters that have to deal with forced alignment shifts based on their own actions. Neutral characters have to do a lot more to shift one way or the other, and Evil characters only ever seem to shift by their own choice or by having it forcibly changed with magic of some kind...It happens a lot because people seem to think that moral quandaries are somehow evidence that good is impossible. And in order to create that proof, they define "good" in a way that sounds reasonable on the surface, but ultimately is false in order to make the moral quandary insoluble.

The moral relativists are never trying to prove "absolute evil" to be impossible because there really aren't people who hold up "being evil" as a moral standard to which they must adhere. Those who do in fiction come across as vaguely comical precisely because evil's allure is mostly centered around doing what you WANT to do and not being "stifled" by all those petty rules and the needs of others.

The "moral slide" version of alignment shifting is, unlike the "moral quandary where anything you choose is evil," just as prevalent, I think, for both alignments. (And possibly for L-C, as well, though I think ethical dilemmas tend to be written about differently.) The evil man who thinks he's in it for himself and not so foolish as to be sentimental about others slowly finds something to care about in spite of himself.

It's a lot easier to see the falsehoods behind any evil moral quandaries you try to construct, because it seems cartoonish to claim that because, if Snidely Whiplash evicts Nell and the orphans, they'll get a check from Daddy Warbucks to move into a palacial new mansion with an endowment to support it, Snidely is being Good by evicting them. (The other choice would be allowing them to stay free of charge or at a reduced rate, which is also Good, in this contrived scenario.) Oh no! No matter what he does, Snidely Whiplash does some Good! He'll lose his evil alignment!

Nobody tries to prove to bad guy players that their moral lowground is flawed. The truth is, the supposed moral quandaries for good guy players are just as false, but they're easier to obfuscate behind an outcomes-based analysis.


Agreed. At some point the chance of success of a third option is so small that it effectively becomes suicide with the death of your hostage as a side-effect. Expecting a Good person to do this in every case is nonsensical in many cases.

Plus, everyone is ignoring the fact that there is a broad variety of Evil acts. If someone kidnaps your wife and threatens to kill her unless you discriminate against half-elves at your restaurant, then it's probably Evil (and is at the very least callous) to keep serving them.I'd say it's actually mostly neutral to discriminate, anyway. Unless you're going out of your way to enforce racial abuse and "keep those halfies in their place," you're really just being selfish by taking advantage of the system as it stands to your benefit or by choosing to avoid people who make you uncomfortable and making no effort to get over it even if they might be deserving of that chance.

The soft bigotry of low expectations causes a lot of harm, but is rarely malicious, and thus is likely neutral. And it's very much a form of discrimination. Evil takes action and, on some level, malice. Even if it's a malicious disregard for others' well-being in favor of your own goals.

Denial of service type racism veers on the southern end of the neutral alignments, but still doesn't really push into evil. Evil takes positive action, active pursuit of (or at least reckless disregard for) harm to others.

It's certainly not Good. But it's neutral enough that I would not say a man whose wive is being held hostage is slipping towards evil based on following the hostage-takers' orders to refuse to serve half-elves in his restaurant.

Red Fel
2014-09-22, 10:56 AM
First off, I would contend that one of the things that makes children seem more sacrosanct than adults is that children are innocent. Genuine children fall into the "know not what they do" category, and cannot be held accountable for their misdeeds in the same fashion as adults. (They must be disciplined, corrected, and even punished when they do wrong, but it is to teach and in extreme cases to prevent further harm, not to exact retribution or even teach others a lesson by example, and leniency should be maximized to give them a chance to learn better.)

Agreed.


However, I can think of extremely narrow circumstances where such a thing may be justified as a good act. {Scrub the original, scrub the quote} It would have been tragically, horribly misguided, and such things can make the rest of society rightfully think the parent may be unfit, but even madness is not necessarily evil. It's just tragic. (And societies must and do take steps to prevent the mad from harming themselves and others.)

Valid. If an epitome-of-Good deity instructs one of his clergy or followers, directly, that an act is a Good act, it can be taken for granted that the act is a Good act. However, in the instance of tabletop games, I cannot think of an epitome-of-Good deity who would advocate killing a child. The logic is similar - a Good character would not kill a child unless instructed by a Good deity, but the Good deity would not kill a child, and thus would not instruct a Good character to do so. And while I agree that the actions of a person following an Evil instruction which they believed to be Good are tragic and misguided, those actions are still (objectively, which is the general rule in tabletop games) Evil.

Madness, I'll acknowledge, is a separate category. It's much more nuanced, because it's questionable whether the subject of madness is acting under his own volition. In some ways, it operates similar to possession, where the person's actions are hijacked by another entity, and he is unable to resist or prevent them. In others, however, it operates similar to intoxication, where the person's actions are his own, but less inhibited or checked by conscious thought. Depending on the nature of the madness, it is certainly questionable whether the person could be held morally responsible for his conduct. However, under those circumstances, I would argue that a madman cannot be truly Good, for the same reason that his actions could not be truly Evil - if he has no control over his actions or grasp of their nature, he is incapable of making any moral decisions, positive or negative. His intentions, Good or Evil, become incidental; he simply acts, irrespective of outcome or morality.


Similarly, if the child truly understands - and it's hard to tell if they do - what is being asked of them, or comes to realize it and offers, it is not necessarily evil to let them make a sacrifice for a greater good. It's hard, and most good people will balk and/or take convincing, but it is not inherently evil to allow anybody to make such a sacrifice.

But note the distinction. In your example, the child (who we are assuming, for this thought exercise, is capable of comprehending) is choosing to sacrifice himself. It is not a case of a Good character sacrificing a child, but a child making the sacrifice on his own behalf. That's another defining aspect of Good - a sacrifice is something you offer of yourself; it's not your place to offer another in sacrifice. I would agree that, assuming the child were capable of understanding the nature of such an action (which would raise the question of whether we would still consider them a "child," and therefore purely innocent) it would be able to make that kind of sacrifice.


Heck, you could shape the scenario such that it's "that child alone, or everybody, including that child," at which point the child's willingness to go out to save everyone else makes it justifiable. Finding a third option is, of course, preferable, but when you're down to the wire and there's literally no time left for a miracle...

That's when heroes shine, though, isn't it? :smallwink:

Wardog
2014-09-22, 04:48 PM
Agreed. At some point the chance of success of a third option is so small that it effectively becomes suicide with the death of your hostage as a side-effect. Expecting a Good person to do this in every case is nonsensical in many cases.

Plus, everyone is ignoring the fact that there is a broad variety of Evil acts. If someone kidnaps your wife and threatens to kill her unless you discriminating against half-elves at your restaurant, then it's probably Evil (and is at the very least callous) to keep serving them.

Well, you could always Take a Third Option and commit seppuku, because as established above, a truly good person will always be prepared to sacrifice their life rather commit a single act of evil.


Also, I'm reminded of this comic (http://existentialcomics.com/comic/23):

Jeff the Green
2014-09-22, 05:07 PM
I'd say it's actually mostly neutral to discriminate, anyway. Unless you're going out of your way to enforce racial abuse and "keep those halfies in their place," you're really just being selfish by taking advantage of the system as it stands to your benefit or by choosing to avoid people who make you uncomfortable and making no effort to get over it even if they might be deserving of that chance.

The soft bigotry of low expectations causes a lot of harm, but is rarely malicious, and thus is likely neutral. And it's very much a form of discrimination. Evil takes action and, on some level, malice. Even if it's a malicious disregard for others' well-being in favor of your own goals.

Denial of service type racism veers on the southern end of the neutral alignments, but still doesn't really push into evil. Evil takes positive action, active pursuit of (or at least reckless disregard for) harm to others.

It's certainly not Good. But it's neutral enough that I would not say a man whose wive is being held hostage is slipping towards evil based on following the hostage-takers' orders to refuse to serve half-elves in his restaurant.

Well, sub in some minor evil, then. Consort with an imp it's well in your power to destroy, mug the high priest of Pelor, or start a bar fight over a half-elf's race. All those are so minor that refusing to do them to save someone just because they're Evil seems rather selfish.

Segev
2014-09-22, 11:48 PM
Well, sub in some minor evil, then. Consort with an imp it's well in your power to destroy, mug the high priest of Pelor, or start a bar fight over a half-elf's race. All those are so minor that refusing to do them to save someone just because they're Evil seems rather selfish.

Consorting with the Imp, maybe. The others...

Is it right to demand of others that they suffer even a little pain in order to save somebody they do not know? To demand, not ask. Picking a bar fight definitely causes some amount of suffering and hardship (and at the least costs the tavern owner damages to his property). You might think the cost small, but what if you unknowingly picked a fight with a half-elf who was striving to keep his race a secret in order to prevent his own summary execution by a gang that's looking for him? You knew the act you were performing was wrong, so you don't have the "but I didn't know it was wrong" excuse. You may not have known how wrong, but you knew it was wrong.

While I'm generally one to give a lot of leeway to somebody who genuinely thinks they're doing the right thing, even if it turns out to be tragically wrong, when you know what you're doing is wrong, but you're making the judgment that the risk is low, you're taking responsibility for the consequences of that wrong action, no matter what they are. It may be a "small" wrong, in your mind, but the harm it causes could be much graver than you imagine.

However, I also am willing to give a lot more leeway to one acting under duress, provided he does his best to mitigate or minimize harm done by his coerced actions. It can reduce the sins to neutrality rather than flat-out evil. Still, the good act is to strive to save the hostage, even if you and they die trying. It's not you that killed them; that lies on the head of the villain who actually performed (and/or ordered) the act.

Jeff the Green
2014-09-23, 02:50 AM
However, I also am willing to give a lot more leeway to one acting under duress, provided he does his best to mitigate or minimize harm done by his coerced actions. It can reduce the sins to neutrality rather than flat-out evil. Still, the good act is to strive to save the hostage, even if you and they die trying. It's not you that killed them; that lies on the head of the villain who actually performed (and/or ordered) the act.

I fundamentally disagree with this. If there's good reason to think that the villain is genuinely acting like a transistor like they should under game theory and pragmatic villainy—input an evil deed and he releases the hostage, no input and he kills them—then it is truly your choice whether they live or die. I mean, there's always going to be more uncertainty when it's a villain holding a hostage than if you're doing the deed yourself, so it's a decidedly lesser culpability, but it's still there. (To factor in the uncertainty, just compare it to how much of a murder you consider a mugging worth. If it's 1% of a murder, than even if you think that there's only a 2% chance of the villain actually killing his hostage, you're statistically better off with the mugging.)

Now, there is the fact that the difference between Good and Evil is that, while both make sacrifices, Good expects it of themselves while Evil expects it of others. However, in this circumstance you're not choosing between you suffering and someone else suffering, you're choosing between one person dying and another person getting mugged. It's roughly the runaway train thought experiment.

hamishspence
2014-09-23, 03:27 AM
If there's good reason to think that the villain is genuinely acting like a transistor like they should under game theory and pragmatic villainy—input an evil deed and he releases the hostage, no input and he kills them—then it is truly your choice whether they live or die.

Villain's aren't transistors though - they are the people who make the choice to take hostages, in the first place.

Jeff the Green
2014-09-23, 03:31 AM
Villain's aren't transistors though - they are the people who make the choice to take hostages, in the first place.

That doesn't mean that a decision they make can't hinge entirely on someone else's actions in such a way that they could be replaced with a transistor with no noticeable change. I know mine have at some point.