good aligned villainous plan

[dragsvart]

I am currently writing a campaign that has a lot of questioning of alignment and morality and as part of it there is a strongly good aligned group of NPCs (mostly paladins and clerics and the like but with all types scattered in) which I intend to be one of the possible (depending on how to PCs turn out) villains. As part of this I plan for said good aligned group to have some plot that is villain worthy for the PCs to uncover over time, to that end I ask what are some good villainous good aligned characters and what made them such good villains (pun semi-intended).

I'm hoping to go beyond the basic overzealous paladins (although there is going to be one) and make the PCs really question their morality and alignment. Any suggestions are welcome.

[Red Fel]

The first question: What's the system? I ask because, in an objective morality system like D&D, what you're describing becomes incredibly difficult to do; by contrast, in other systems without objective morality, it can be much easier.

By way of illustration, consider the alignment system proposed in many of the Shin Megami Tensei video games. You have the Angels, who are more Lawful than Good; they would protect humanity by protecting it from itself, by creating iron-clad order and stripping away free will, for the benefit of everyone. You have the Demons, who would nurture humanity by nurturing its passions, particularly the nasty ones, creating a world of chaos and bloodshed. And then you have the Third Option, which involves allowing humanity to choose its own path, at the cost of making enemies of both Heaven and Hell, and is generally achieved by having somebody attain apotheosis.

In D&D and similar objective morality systems, that's a lot harder to pull off, because truly Good people are truly compassionate, truly understanding. It's very hard for Good to fight Good, given that they tend to have the same goals at heart - even though they may have vastly different ways of pursuing them. Even the classic "overzealous Paladin" cliche doesn't quite work, because "smite all the nonbelievers" is genocide, which is generally pretty Evil. Truly Good characters, characters who aren't simply deluding themselves into thinking that they're Good, couldn't countenance such action. That's not to say they wouldn't smite Evil when confronted with it, but they probably wouldn't want to put an entire kingdom to the sword just to be sure that they got all the bad ones.

Now, one area which kind of works is the area of free will. Free will tends to fall into the Lawful-Chaotic spectrum, as opposed to the Good-Evil spectrum; there are canonical illustrations of forced brainwashing and conversion being a tool of Good, when it results in a net increase in Goodness. That could be your in; a team of Good NPCs attempting to perform a ritual that would basically strip away the ability to choose, by forcibly converting the alignment of huge swaths of the population. To up the ante of twisted, you could have these same NPCs intend to slaughter anyone who was not converted - obviously, such people must be Evil, and can therefore be crushed with impunity.

I mean, it's not inherently bad, is it? Sure, these people have been fundamentally altered, but now they're positive, altruistic, and selfless, right? That's good, right?

Right?

[Lurkmoar]

A border dispute could be an easy good versus good without streching the imagination too much.

The Kingdom the PCs hail from is currently undergoing a minor economic slump. Some enterprising merchants hire some fellows to harvest high quality lumber at the very edge of the border. Problems arise when it turns out each tree represents the grave of an Elf that died in battle, and the Wood Elves start killing the lumber men for defiling their sacred place of rest.

A Chaotic Good thief is making a mockery of the city guard as he prowls into the estates of the wealthy and takes everything that's not nailed down and can fit into a Bag of Holding. The PCs find some leads, and it turns out the Chaotic Good thief is directly donated is ill gotten gains to local charities and the poor. And they will not assist the PCs in bringing the thief in, because he does more for them then the city guard or the nobles have ever done. And they suspect that a Neutral Good Cleric is covering for him. Hey, if it worked for Robin Hood...

A remote area of the country declares independance after the death of the reigning King. They were absorbed into the Kingdom by force of arms only a few decades ago, but just far enough away from cultural absorpbtion doesn't have an impact on their local customs. For the past few years, they've assembled arms and recieved aid from other countries hoping to weaken a rival. The PCs can either choose to help them defend their freedom at the cost of dividing the country and perhaps setting precedent for other factions to break away or crush the rebellion made of mostly honest men who wish to swear fealty to no one.

Good doesn't have to get along with good. Culture clash, different ideas of 'good' and the idea of your good will bring evil to me are some starting points as well. Hope this helped. Have a 'good' day!

[dream]

Big Issue: Paladins and a few other classes can lose abilities if they cross the alignment trail. D&D probably wouldn't be the best system for this, with that. I'd suggest GURPS or any other system that allows "ambiguous morality". With D&D/PF, you only end up punishing PCs for uninformed player decisions that may not conform to alignment.

[dragsvart]

The first question: What's the system? I ask because, in an objective morality system like D&D, what you're describing becomes incredibly difficult to do; by contrast, in other systems without objective morality, it can be much easier.

By way of illustration, consider the alignment system proposed in many of the Shin Megami Tensei video games. You have the Angels, who are more Lawful than Good; they would protect humanity by protecting it from itself, by creating iron-clad order and stripping away free will, for the benefit of everyone. You have the Demons, who would nurture humanity by nurturing its passions, particularly the nasty ones, creating a world of chaos and bloodshed. And then you have the Third Option, which involves allowing humanity to choose its own path, at the cost of making enemies of both Heaven and Hell, and is generally achieved by having somebody attain apotheosis.

In D&D and similar objective morality systems, that's a lot harder to pull off, because truly Good people are truly compassionate, truly understanding. It's very hard for Good to fight Good, given that they tend to have the same goals at heart - even though they may have vastly different ways of pursuing them. Even the classic "overzealous Paladin" cliche doesn't quite work, because "smite all the nonbelievers" is genocide, which is generally pretty Evil. Truly Good characters, characters who aren't simply deluding themselves into thinking that they're Good, couldn't countenance such action. That's not to say they wouldn't smite Evil when confronted with it, but they probably wouldn't want to put an entire kingdom to the sword just to be sure that they got all the bad ones.

Now, one area which kind of works is the area of free will. Free will tends to fall into the Lawful-Chaotic spectrum, as opposed to the Good-Evil spectrum; there are canonical illustrations of forced brainwashing and conversion being a tool of Good, when it results in a net increase in Goodness. That could be your in; a team of Good NPCs attempting to perform a ritual that would basically strip away the ability to choose, by forcibly converting the alignment of huge swaths of the population. To up the ante of twisted, you could have these same NPCs intend to slaughter anyone who was not converted - obviously, such people must be Evil, and can therefore be crushed with impunity.

I mean, it's not inherently bad, is it? Sure, these people have been fundamentally altered, but now they're positive, altruistic, and selfless, right? That's good, right?

Right?

The system is D&D 5e which has alignment as more a guideline than a hard rule than other systems, and paladins can be evil and not fall so long as they don't violate their oath.

[goto124]

5e works with Oaths, not alignments. Oath of Vengeance, for example.

Paladins don't 'fall' in that they lose all their class abilities. Even if a 5e paladin breaks hir Oath, sie merely loses the skills and spells related to that particular Oath.

I would mention Oathbreaker, but that's more Blackguard.

[dream]

5e works with Oaths, not alignments. Oath of Vengeance, for example.

Paladins don't 'fall' in that they lose all their class abilities. Even if a 5e paladin breaks hir Oath, sie merely loses the skills and spells related to that particular Oath.

I would mention Oathbreaker, but that's more Blackguard.
Haven't read-up on Oaths, but the concept does seem cool.

My point, bolded above, remains though.

As much time and creativity as it takes to design a character you'd like to RP, it kind of blows when a GM hobbles a player's character with "Gotcha!" tactics. As long as there's a choice for the players to not go along with the evil plan, it should work without possibly frustrating players.

[dragsvart]

Haven't read-up on Oaths, but the concept does seem cool.

My point, bolded above, remains though.

As much time and creativity as it takes to design a character you'd like to RP, it kind of blows when a GM hobbles a player's character with "Gotcha!" tactics. As long as there's a choice for the players to not go along with the evil plan, it should work without possibly frustrating players.

The whole questionable morality I'm going for certainly would avoid that. The players would know going in that good and evil would be relative and paladins falling wouldn't be some thing that just happens.

[hamishspence]

The system is D&D 5e which has alignment as more a guideline than a hard rule than other systems, and paladins can be evil and not fall so long as they don't violate their oath.

4e was similar but even more so - no penalty whatsover for changing alignment- even for paladins. And also, no Detect X alignment spells.

[Scowling Dragon]

Santa Claus.

Hidden base with minions?

And a worldspanning master plan. Throw in a summoned demon and your all set.

Honestly I find "OMG Morality is so Grey" stories so overdone. And even without Morality systems.

A tale of two families on the verge of vengeance is a good tale. Both trying to regain, honor, or punish those who they feel is guilty.

[Vercingex]

On the subject of a villain, I was part of an excellent campaign where the villain did good acts, and had a stated goal many of the players agreed with. The onlY reason we didn't trust him was because every good act he did increased his power, and we were never sure whether those acts and ideals were genuine, or merely a means to an end.

[NecroRebel]

Incomplete information can be used to turn good people against each other. If one group is going around killing people, seemingly at random, heroes would be perfectly justified in going after them. But what if the seemingly-random people the first group is killing are actually evil monsters in disguise and their killers know it? You have a side of Good monster-hunters and a side of Good protectors of the innocent, standing against one another. If the hunters believe the protectors are knowingly working with the monsters, you can even get the conflict between them to be two-sided, and even wipe out the monsters entirely without necessarily ending it.