Could an action be arbitrarily evil or chaotic?

[Jon_Dahl]

I was thinking that there could be an evil and/or chaotic meditation guru (LE monk?) in my game that designs a very sophisticated and demanding meditation and breathing exercise program. A character to gain +1 morale bonus to saves vs. poison and to Concentration checks if the character devotes a certain amount of time each month to do all the steps in the program. However, only the guru knows that the doing all the steps is an [evil] or [chaotic] action and thus carry the appropriate descriptor*. There is no game mechanical way to determine this. Someone doing the program each month is thus continuously performing an evil or chaotic act but there is no way to infer that from the program itself.

The plan here is to challenge players to stop an evil that appears in an unconventional manner and also to sow more chaos and evil to my game world so that interesting stuff could happen.

I would like to hear your views on my idea and also if [alignment] descriptor actions have to be intuitively such or if they could be sometimes assigned rather randomly, such as disturbance in the universe that assigns milking cows to be an evil act. This is not far fetched because we could have a lake where hundreds of people have drown and the lake became evil. But how a lake can be evil, it's just water?

*In this case, arbitrariness refers to off-game, not in-game. In-game there is a reason why the action, or better, a set of actions, is evil/chaotic, but we cannot understand off-game what that reason is.

[the_david]

I'm not sure how breathing techniques can be evil. Maybe you should add some kind of mantra in Infernal or Abyssal. Something like: "my soul belongs to Asmodeus" or "Pelor is the burning hate".

[GrayDeath]

I'm not sure how breathing techniques can be evil. Maybe you should add some kind of mantra in Infernal or Abyssal. Something like: "my soul belongs to Asmodeus" or "Pelor is the burning hate".

Why would stating the truth be Evil though? ^^

[Elvensilver]

What you try to describe sounds really complicated. Summarizing as far as I understand it: In game, there is a reason (unknown to the characters) why an act/a lake/a routine is evil/chaotic. Out of game, you don't share this reason with your players.

This sounds strange at best. Alignment is hard enough with just the normal ethic questions, adding some randomness could only work in silly campaign (save the dairy farmers!) or in a more epic Quest to reverse the universal disturbance.

When a (seemingly) random action risks the class abilities for some people, I as a player would get frustrated or paranoid fast.

But this is also a question of scale: if this breathing exercise just tempts you, to follow a more evil way, instead of being -for no apparent reason- evil in itself, it could be an intriguing way to slowly corrupt a city. Maybe through mental exercises it helps you overcome empathy, compassion or common sense or other such hindrances on your way to your betterment.

In my opinion, alignement is about choice. You should not be able to do evil/good/chaotic/lawful without consciouly deciding to do so.

[Jon_Dahl]

In my opinion, alignement is about choice. You should not be able to do evil/good/chaotic/lawful without consciouly deciding to do so.

Yes, but no, this is not how it is. We already have plenty of confusion about alignments and actions and if we look at the RAI or RAW instead of your opinion, we can see that what I'm talking - arbitrariness and alignment - already exists. Examples:

1. Torture is evil but psionic power Inflict Pain is ok. A lawful good psion can inflict "horrible pain" on his or her enemies, no problem. This is to say that causing the worst possible suffering is ok when it's combat and you want to win, but still, you could have chosen another power for your psion.
2. Making someone physically sick is categorically evil (Contagion) but making someone permanently insane is ok (Insanity).
3. Summoning a good creature to possibly die in combat is probably ok, but summoning an evil creature to kill evil creatures is always evil.

What is my point? I think that the alignment system is great, but saying that alignment isn't partly just random labels put on certain things isn't very helpful, because we already have those randomly-assigned labels.

[gkathellar]

What is my point? I think that the alignment system is great, but saying that alignment isn't partly just random labels put on certain things isn't very helpful, because we already have those randomly-assigned labels.

Well ... yes. Taken exactly as written across all available sources, alignment is definitely somewhat incoherent. That said, it's on you to make sense of it. Just because alignment can be annoying, and indeed has many written examples that are quite dumb, doesn't mean you have to run it that way. In general, I'd argue that the concept should be a toolbox, and a way of adding gravitas and tragedy and moral investment, and to hell with anything that gets in the way of that goal. YMMV.

Having a set of breathing techniques that are Evil Because Reasons is, you're right, pretty much in line with the kinds of deeply questionable moral assertions that appear here-and-there in the books already (Ravages, I'm looking at you). If you think that's all well and good, and Evil Because Reasons is a perfectly valid approach, well ... more power to you. Personally, that goes against my understanding of how alignment can be made emotionally interesting, and it's reasonably likely to annoy your players unless they share your views.

[zlefin]

re: op
No it could not. not without a whole lot of fiat rulings. ofc with enough fiat anything is possible.
there's too many objective ways in game to measure evil/chaos.
you'd have to rule that those all somehow fail, AND it still generates evil/chaos.

note my issue is with the "without it being detectable/observable" clause; you can have the action be evil fine; but making it undetectable gets weird.

as a simple example the phylactery of faithfulness
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems...ofFaithfulness
should be able to tell a LG cleric of an LG deity that it's a problem if they do the exercise.

[Zaq]

Does this ACTUALLY sow more “chaos and evil” in the world? If so, how? Specifically.

If there isn’t a specific, definable, understandable (by the players!) reason why this breathing exercise (?) is directly making the world more Evil, then honestly, this feels like railroading at best and gotcha GMing at worst.

Yes, the alignment rules (if one wishes to call them that) are arbitrary, inconsistent, and often troubling. But that doesn’t justify intentionally making things worse by saying that breathing the wrong way somehow increases the amount of Evil in the world.

The GM has the prerogative to declare whatever they want, as long as the players stick with the game. So the answer to “can this happen?” is “technically, yes.” But I honestly don’t see a way that this results in more fun for everyone involved. Especially if you’re arbitrarily declaring that the game world, which has all kinds of stuff that works with and interacts with alignment, can’t detect this.

[Segev]

There are two ways this could be:

1) The meditation ritual is actually a clandestine magical ritual which actively causes chaos and evil to occur, possibly by letting slaadi or tana'ri through into the world while the ritual-performer is in a meditative trance. Maybe just red slaadi or quasits, but still.

2) The meditation ritual has the user focusing on selfish and rebellious impulses, things which encourage evil and chaotic thoughts and behavior, possibly in the name of "power" and "liberation" of one's chi. This gradually tips the character towards Chaotic or Evil alignment because his thought patterns turn that way and performing other Chaotic and Evil actions becomes easier and more natural to him.

In either case, the actual mechanical empowerment can come from becoming in tune with and channeling chaotic or evil energies into oneself, granting an anarchic or profane bonus.


Where this really fails the OP's idea is the notion that there'd be no way for people to figure it out. If it's channelling those energies, detect chaos and detect evil should be able to sense this. If it's just adjusting thought patterns, then anybody who is also a skilled philosopher/guru should be able to analyze the meditative exercises and the philosophy they encourage to determine that these things are chaotic and/or evil motive-drivers. The notion that it's entirely undetectible is the problem, because sufficient study should always be able to detect such things.

[King of Nowhere]

I'm with segev here. the only way it would make sense would be one of those two scenarios he described - and the meditation encouraging evil thoughts should really be obvious to any practicioner, so 1) is the more likely case.

Now, it is fully reasonable that an evil mastermind would manage to slip an evil ritual into a meditation exercice - in fact, it could be a great setup for a villain; that's the kind of smart plans that make great villains - and it would also be reasonable that it would be very hard to detect. You have, however, to give some chances to your players to figure it out eventually.

As for the people's alignments, I say performing an evil ritual does not tarnish your soul if you were tricked into it and have no idea what you're actually doing. I mean, if someone rigs your tv control so that it will blow up a kindergarten when you turn your tv on, it does not make you a murderer, the deed is entirely on the conscience of the guy who rigged the control and set the bomb up.
now, having a paladin becoming weaker and weaker because the ritual is poisoning his soul without his knowledge, and having him trying to figure out why, if he's always as heroic as ever, he's becoming less good, could be a good way to kickstart the plot. but don't annoy the pplayer too much

[Kish]

Yes, but no, this is not how it is. We already have plenty of confusion about alignments and actions and if we look at the RAI or RAW instead of your opinion, we can see that what I'm talking - arbitrariness and alignment - already exists.

I'm not sure what you're looking for here, is the thing.

Obviously as DM you have the authority to declare that tying your left shoe before your right one pushes you toward Chaotic Evil, if you want. And it's evident that you knew that before you ever posted this thread, and also that you weren't looking for advice on whether you should do it. What does that leave?

[TheYell]

It's a curse. The meditation seems harmless but actually gives ritual power to an Evil outsider for his own purposes. He's harnessing the thought power of focused consciousness.

The meditation is addictive, so that the victim is inclined to spend more and more time in the meditative state. The victim takes WIS damage - DC 15 Will save-- if she doesn't spend 1 hr/level in meditation per day.


The victim should notice the gradual need to meditate and may even discover the purpose behind it. At that point it has moral consequences for the victim if she chooses to continue to meditate. Without cognizance of the consequences or the evil nature of the procedure, I don't see it being intrinsically evil to perform.

[Jon_Dahl]

Great feedback so far, thank you. Keep it coming. It is great to see everyone understood my idea. I was a bit worried about that.

( @Kish - Of course I could have used "should" instead of "can", but the conversations tend to get more interesting this way. Relax.)

[Kish]

( @Kish - Of course I could have used "should" instead of "can", but the conversations tend to get more interesting this way. Relax.)

I'm perfectly relaxed. You, on the other hand, seem quite distressed to have gotten the answer "no" to the "should" version of the question, in what I quoted. Were you only looking for, "Yes, that sounds good, go with it" answers?

If we're discussing "should," I agree with Elvensilver (with a caveat: You should not be able to commit evil/etc. acts by accident or without making a moral choice, but you should absolutely be able to commit evil/etc. acts without recognizing that they are evil acts. For one obvious example, genocide remains monstrously evil however sincerely the person committing it believes that it's justified).

[Telok]

Hmm. The addiction idea could work. I've heard about people (friend of a friend style, needs salt) who replaced smoking with jogging and turned out to be just as bad if they didn't get their mid-day runners high as when they had not had their mid-day smokes.

So, the meditation is addictive. The meditation is more effective with one of two incenses. One incense in very expensive, the other requires some evil process (made by zombies, torture, kicked puppies, whatever).

After several months of practice the user is addicted to the meditation and suffers penalties for not meditating. At that time the meditation starts to lose some effectiveness, which can be restored by the incense. The user then has a choice, suffer several months of withdrawl and years of cravings, buy the cocaine model expensive incense, buy the evil production method incense.

I'd say have the meditation initally give a +3, and the incense gives a +1 or negates the reduced effect from addiction. Every month check for addiction at a cumulative -1 penalty, after 3 months if someone is addicted the bonus reduces to +2, after 6 months the bonus reduces to +1, after a year the bonus reduces to +0. The incense restores the bonus to +3. There's a 3 month withdrawl period with a -2 +(months addicted / number) penalty to whatever the bonus was for. Then a one year per month of addiction craving period that requires low monthly addiction checks to keep from falling off the wagon.

Enough benefit to be tempting, gradual addiction that too slow to easily notice, enough penalty to push victims towards the incense, not directly evil in and of itself but certainly can cause evil behavior.

[Telonius]

I do think that if you're going to have some kind of a ritual magic active in the area, it has to have some sort of mechanical effect that's detectable, otherwise there's no hook to get the players to investigate. If Guru Evil is just increasing the general amount of Evil in the universe without spreading it to the townsfolk specifically, there's no avenue for the PCs to investigate. The only spike for them to notice it would be to Detect Evil on the Guru. Presumably he's got some way to fly under the radar (Undetectable Alignment, etc) or he'd have been caught before now.

This is kind of a tricky point for D&D ethics. By the rules of the game, there are certain acts that are objectively Good and Evil (and less commonly noticed, Lawful and Chaotic). All of those alignments are actual, measurable forces in the world. Most of the game's defined [aligned] actions are ones that would be pretty hard to do un-knowingly. You have to cast the spell, perform the Lich ritual, etc. But it's certainly within the realm of possibility for a "good" person to commit an Evil action that comes short of murdering innocents, without knowing it's Evil.

The important thing for both you and your players to "get," if you're going to do this, is that past results do not imply future performance. Any creature's alignment is only its current state. Generally, alignment doesn't dictate personality or determine what a character is going to do in the future. (Some specific magical effects like a Helm of Opposite Alignment will change personality too, but the effect is always spelled out; I'm talking about general decisions here). If somebody un-knowingly accumulates enough "Evil points" to flip their alignment, the only effect on their character is going to be how certain spells and class features interact with them. They don't suddenly start kicking puppies just because the G on their character sheet turns into an E.

For some classes (Fighter, Ranger, Rogue) it's not going to have any effect on what their characters can do. For certain classes, this is going to be problematic. Anything with an alignment restriction is going to have trouble. Cleric and Paladin are going to be your most likely targets, but anything with alignment requirements is at risk. I would keep this passage firmly in mind when adjudicating the effects:

If the atoning creature committed the evil act unwittingly or under some form of compulsion, atonement operates normally at no cost to you.

The scheme you're talking about would pretty clearly fall into that category.

EDIT: Exalted is a whole other can of worms; I would not allow any BoED material if you're going to have a campaign like this.

[Jon_Dahl]

I'm perfectly relaxed. You, on the other hand, seem quite distressed to have gotten the answer "no" to the "should" version of the question, in what I quoted. Were you only looking for, "Yes, that sounds good, go with it" answers?

If we're discussing "should," I agree with Elvensilver (with a caveat: You should not be able to commit evil/etc. acts by accident or without making a moral choice, but you should absolutely be able to commit evil/etc. acts without recognizing that they are evil acts. For one obvious example, genocide remains monstrously evil however sincerely the person committing it believes that it's justified).

Well, to be honest, I didn’t read your reply that carefully. It's ok.

[denthor]

Alignment is actions and words over time.

Direct quote Nuetral Evil actively looks and plans to trap and kill paladins.

A tale of two player characters this happens at a table.

In my party we have a stated alignment True Nuetral dwarf.

This dwarf kills a Nuetral good red 1/2 orc. The 1/2 orc had a 3 Charisma wisdom and intelligence score. So with both players at the table he puts negative bleeding out the 1/2 orc no warnings just right after a battle walks up and attacks him. Declares that the character was worhless so he took care of the problem. Is this evil?

Later the paladin in the party detects evil tells 2 players the dwarf one of the two. That they ping slightly evil but redeemable.

At the table it is a scale of 1 to 10 on all points. lawful, evil, good chaotic

They both ping 1/4 on the scale.

Later the dwarf in a fight is 10 feet from the paladin that is calling for help. He jumps in kills the opponent. States openly at the table. It was the last opponent on the field so I killed it.

DM asks does that mean you would ignore the paladins cry for help under normal circumstances.

Dwarf yes I would ignore.

What is his alignment in your judgement?

Character two 1/2 orc stated alignment Chaotic Nuetral.

Same battle red 1/2 orc is at 3 stats. He moves with stated intent to kill the red 1/2 orc. Get there late due to movement takes a blow on a negative dying body. Killing blow.

As above paladin detects evil same 1/4 evil scale.

Two days in game later he seeks out a chaotic good priest. And asks what he can do to correct this problem. Then accepts an atonement spell to come back to chaotic good. Same actions at the start. Different role play and actions afterwards.

This alignment not I summon a good thing to die I am good. I summon an evil being I evil. Those are choices that say what side you lean. Your actions as a player for your role play are much more important.

I ping the dwarf as Nuetral Evil scale 1 of 10.

I ping the blue 1/2 chaotic neutral trending a weak good. Actions will tell.

How about you?

[Nifft]

*In this case, arbitrariness refers to off-game, not in-game. In-game there is a reason why the action, or better, a set of actions, is evil/chaotic, but we cannot understand off-game what that reason is.

Anything that exists in-game can be understood by at least one of the humans playing that game.

So no, there can't be something which is comprehensible in-game (to characters) yet inexplicable out-of-game (to all players) -- though you can get tricky Chinese Room answers with sufficient DM props, but those are merely tricky and not exceptional.

[Ken Murikumo]

The meditation is actually the somatic components for the silent prayer of a long defunct evil god(dess). The breathing exercises are just breathing exercises but also a way to keep people from speaking to spoil the prayer. The more popular this phenomenon becomes the more power said being attains, eventually moving back into the active roster of evil gods.

Just think of how quickly this would spread among the stay at home wives of the setting. Like yoga classes, popping up everywhere. It would be literally unstoppable.

[MoogleMcGee]

This reminds me of the book "Good Omens". If your not familiar with the book there is a section that mentions one of the evils things that was done by the "Angel that did not so much as fall but saunter vaguely downwards" Crowley. He moved construction markers and altered building plans so that a clover leaf highway was done in the shape of a demonic symbol and people would draw it out by driving it, this pumping out low grade evil all day.

Maybe your yoga could do something similar. Rather than affect the people directly have it change the environment slowly.

Edit: What I mean by environment is more broad than just the yoga studio. Think like gaining an aura of corruption or something so that the unwitting villagers carry it around and ruin everything when going about day to day activities.

[Nifft]

The meditation is actually the somatic components for the silent prayer of a long defunct evil god(dess). The breathing exercises are just breathing exercises but also a way to keep people from speaking to spoil the prayer. The more popular this phenomenon becomes the more power said being attains, eventually moving back into the active roster of evil gods.

Just think of how quickly this would spread among the stay at home wives of the setting. Like yoga classes, popping up everywhere. It would be literally unstoppable.

"It's a Buddhist meditation technique. Focuses your aggression."

[Inevitability]

There's ways to give spells the [Evil] subtype (Corrupt Spell, Violate Spell), which doesn't meaningfully alter the spell in a lot of cases. By RAW, casting a Corrupt Detect Poison is morally damning where regular Detect Poison isn't, even though the two spells have exactly the same effects except when they are specifically being affected by alignment-dependent effects.

Furthermore, a character can cast such a spell without having the relevant feat or even choosing to corrupt it, because Incantatrices exist. By using Cooperative Metamagic, such a character can apply Corrupt Spell to arbitrary spells cast by their allies, which amusingly enough also puts the moral burden of using [Evil] spells on said ally.

So yeah, I'd argue an action can be arbitrarily Evil or Chaotic.