How to Play a Good-Aligned Character

[vasilidor]

I know in some settings a dragon would change color if there alignment changed. to be honest I like Ebberon. in that setting any dragon could be any alignment. the monster manual alignment was a listing of majority alignments in that setting, and that varied by location (in civilized parts of the world goblins and orcs would actually gravitate towards neutral)
I just realized this has nothing to really do about this topic and this thread has been seriously derailed.
OK scenario: how does your character respond to an orc and a human each calling the other a murderous bandit asking for aid to kill the other? you are trying to play the good guy here, remember that.

[Kantaki]

OK scenario: how does your character respond to an orc and a human each calling the other a murderous bandit asking for aid to kill the other? you are trying to play the good guy here, remember that.

Tie them both up, then sort things out.
Well, maybe not the tying up part, unless they are completely unwilling to listen to the voice of reason.
Resolve things as peacefully as possible anyway.

[Pleh]

OK scenario: how does your character respond to an orc and a human each calling the other a murderous bandit asking for aid to kill the other? you are trying to play the good guy here, remember that.

Let's get this one out of the way: Detect Evil. A true murderous bandit would no doubt ping as evil.

Now the counterarguments to save the scenario: it could be that neither are truly bandits or murderous and it's all a misunderstanding, or both could be evil for totally different reasons, etc. Moving on from the divination answer.

Diplomacy. If both characters are attempting to call upon my good alignment to assist them by claiming the other to be evil, I will tell them, "if you are not a murderous bandit, lower your weapon and back off ten paces. Any act of aggression will be taken as admission of guilt." I'm assuming it was a melee engagement, so if this was ranged combat with both combatants firing from cover, replace "back off ten paces" with "step out into the open."

Essentially, it boils down to: "you are both claiming to be good while the other evil, so demonstrate the goodness of your character and act as a good character would; submit to a non-violent solution to establish justice at the risk of your own welfare."

Now, assuming that one person is a bandit and the other is not, we have generally 4 outcomes to the strategy:

A: Both combatants lower their weapons and step back ten paces. The Bandit has elected to maintain the ruse and I have bought myself some time to begin some deeper investigation and/or diplomatic resolution.
B: Neither combatant lowers their weapon and possibly fighting breaks out. I would have to attack whichever combatant made the first move to attack, unless I had some other information to advise my decision, but I would also have to work to keep the damage non-lethal and prevent the other combatant from murdering the aggressor before I could arrest them.
C: The non-bandit lowers their weapon and the Bandit decides to use the opportunity to drop the ruse and attack. At this point, he'd better hope he stands a good chance at beating the two of us (optimally that his first attacks incapacitates the other combatant instantly).
D: The Bandit lowers their weapon while the non-bandit attacks. This is an unfortunate scenario where the Bandit exercises a great deal more patience and diplomacy than their intended victim and the possibility of this scenario is the exact reason I need to be careful to use non-lethal damage regardless how anything seems.

[vasilidor]

Spoiler: it is a rant, i am ranting.

Show

cant sleep, and i gots the stupid trolley, fat man, bridge scenario in my head. the fat man has to way something along the lines of half a million pounds to bring the trolley to a dead stop. less than that and the trolley may still plow through. was anyone on the trolley, most likely yes, and now they are dead by my pushing the fat man in the way. was anyone to the sides on the side walk? if so they may have also been hit. if this is still the san francisco trolley there is a good chance of hitting and killing someone on the sidewalk. realistically, the only action you can take in this scenario that actually has any hope of reducing casualties is no action at all, and the further we get from reality on he question, the less merit it has in any sort of morality test what so ever. (looked it up, those trolleys weigh 15500 pounds completely empty. now add in the conductor, and anywhere between 0 and fifty passengers that you cannot see (who will most likely die on impact from runaway speeds). I am really incapable of giving this scenario any serious thought beyond how absurd it is and now I am ranting. oh, and the fattest person on record is just shy of 1000 pounds, and the trolley is hitting at anywhere between 30 mph and 90 mph. theses little details add up in my head very quickly to tell me that pushing the fat guy just increases the death toll by one, at minimum, and it gets potentialy worse than that if, some how, I actually succeeded in my goal.

other than that not bad on the responses for two guys fighting.

[Calthropstu]

Let's get this one out of the way: Detect Evil. A true murderous bandit would no doubt ping as evil.

Now the counterarguments to save the scenario: it could be that neither are truly bandits or murderous and it's all a misunderstanding, or both could be evil for totally different reasons, etc. Moving on from the divination answer.

Diplomacy. If both characters are attempting to call upon my good alignment to assist them by claiming the other to be evil, I will tell them, "if you are not a murderous bandit, lower your weapon and back off ten paces. Any act of aggression will be taken as admission of guilt." I'm assuming it was a melee engagement, so if this was ranged combat with both combatants firing from cover, replace "back off ten paces" with "step out into the open."

Essentially, it boils down to: "you are both claiming to be good while the other evil, so demonstrate the goodness of your character and act as a good character would; submit to a non-violent solution to establish justice at the risk of your own welfare."

Now, assuming that one person is a bandit and the other is not, we have generally 4 outcomes to the strategy:

A: Both combatants lower their weapons and step back ten paces. The Bandit has elected to maintain the ruse and I have bought myself some time to begin some deeper investigation and/or diplomatic resolution.
B: Neither combatant lowers their weapon and possibly fighting breaks out. I would have to attack whichever combatant made the first move to attack, unless I had some other information to advise my decision, but I would also have to work to keep the damage non-lethal and prevent the other combatant from murdering the aggressor before I could arrest them.
C: The non-bandit lowers their weapon and the Bandit decides to use the opportunity to drop the ruse and attack. At this point, he'd better hope he stands a good chance at beating the two of us (optimally that his first attacks incapacitates the other combatant instantly).
D: The Bandit lowers their weapon while the non-bandit attacks. This is an unfortunate scenario where the Bandit exercises a great deal more patience and diplomacy than their intended victim and the possibility of this scenario is the exact reason I need to be careful to use non-lethal damage regardless how anything seems.

Actually, let's be honest here. Most bandits are chaotic hungry. Yeah, there are those that do it for fun or malice, but most law breakers do so out of necessity (or what they see as necessity) so detect evil will rarely ping. If it's pf they don't even ping at all unless they are 5th level or higher.

Also, it is entirely possible for an evil bandit to attack an evil merchant on the road. What happens when both ping as evil?

[vasilidor]

If I was running it, and they pinged as evil, they are probably murderers or worse. In those games I run in order to be evil, and detect as evil, one must have actually done evil.

[Calthropstu]

If I was running it, and they pinged as evil, they are probably murderers or worse. In those games I run in order to be evil, and detect as evil, one must have actually done evil.

Or have an evil item. Or have donned a helm of oppisite alignment. Or have been born in the Abyss. Or have the evil subtype. All of those will ping as evil.

[hamishspence]

Plus, as Eberron (and Fiendish Codex : Tyrants of the Nine Hells) demonstrate, there are plenty of acts of evil in between "not evil at all" and "murder"

"Having actually done evil" does not mean "murderer or worse".

[Calthropstu]

Plus, as Eberron (and Fiendish Codex : Tyrants of the Nine Hells) demonstrate, there are plenty of acts of evil in between "not evil at all" and "murder"

"Having actually done evil" does not mean "murderer or worse".

True. A landlord who terrorizes his tenants who can't afford to move, a baron who rapes every woman on his land, a merchant who swindles everyone to the point of destroying lives, a 15 year blasting bieber music...

All are examples of evil that don't involve killing.

[The Glyphstone]

True. A landlord who terrorizes his tenants who can't afford to move, a baron who rapes every woman on his land, a merchant who swindles everyone to the point of destroying lives, a 15 year blasting bieber music...

All are examples of evil that don't involve killing.

Only the first three are Evil. The fourth one has the [Vile] descriptor.

[vasilidor]

It really depends on which crime you consider worse.

[Pleh]

Yes, detect evil is quite insufficient (by itself) if the DM is employing any degree of moral complexity at all (which admittedly is more likely to be true if they present the given scenario).

That said, if I kill an evil baron being attacked by a chaotic hungry bandit, I won't probably feel very badly about that. I'd be more concerned about reprisals and possible political instability for the baron's presumably oppressed subjects.

[vasilidor]

on the whole detect evil thing, I went through my old campaign notes to confirm that only those that had done evil had detected evil, and was able to confirm for myself that even those with evil ancestory had detected as evil only when they had committed evil (had one play a teifling, one a damphire) had detected as evil. alignment changing had never come up. something to keep in mind for future campaigns i guess.