Evil vs. Being a ****

[Pilo]

If the character behaviour is the problem, cursed items are for you:
This could be change in a nice crown instead of a regular helmet.

This could be change in a nice not so expensive gem.

This would be fun too.

Stealing from friends should be a bad thing. Furthermore, even if they don't see him steal them, they may find out something they used to own is missing. If it happens while someone out of the group can't do it, then they can confront eachs other and find out.

This may help: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=248164

I think stealing from party member could be considered as betrayal.

[Wise Green Bean]

Getting his chaotic dumb ass caught will likely put a damper on his urges to steal from the party. So long as the party is a forgiving bunch or there are extenuating circumstances or he'll repay them or something like that.

[CthulhuEatYou]

Stealing, evil or not, is in most civilized parts of DnD wrong, and even more so for the paladin. Can't see why a Lawful good paladin wouldn't just shackle him and throw him in jail if he keeps stealing from his own party. He is Lawful after all.

[Rejakor]

Stealing stuff, or playing practical jokes, is not necessarily Evil, it depends on why it is being done, how it is being done etc.

However, it is certainly Chaotic.

Paladins are both Lawful AND Good.




That said, this player and his dad sound like they both subscribe to the Lawful Stupid view of the alignment system. They probably think Fireball is a super powerful spell, and that faerun is a great example of realistic geopolitical world design.

I'd be barracking to not have either of them run a game, especially not one I was going to play a neutral character in.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Originally Posted by ABEW19043

Just for the record, he has and would. He's perfectly fine with the consequences of his actions.

Even when the last straw breaks in the paladin's mind and he finds himself at the wrong end of a holy avenger?

[only1doug]

I was playing in a WFRP game (low magic, gritty, low wealth) with a kill hungry GM once, we'd been playing for 4 months or so and a couple of new players wanted to join, the GM introduced them by having one of the party knocked into the river and washed downstream only to be save by the two new PCs. New PC 1 pulls him out but charges him 30gold (most of his money) and makes him swear a vow of alleigance to her husband (New PC 2).

When the rest of the party arrive the New PCs introduce themselves and New PC 1 gives a big speech including "I hate thieves, if I ever find a thief I'll kill them, with no further warning". We all agreed that this was fair and reasonable.

The game proceeded and we eventually stopped for the night, sleeping on the deck of a river barge.

I spoke to the GM privately and he grinned. The next session started the next morning with New PC b noticing that New PC A was missing and the PC who had been washed down river noticing that his purse was 30gold heavier.

Spoiler

I was playing a Thief, I hadn't appreciated the death threat or the theft from my ally (demanding money with menaces is theft in my book), so I asked the GM if I could Cut New PC A's throat during the night and ease the body into the river.

TL;DR steal from the party and act like a donkey and your life expectancy will be drastically reduced.

[Acathala]

Another thing to remember if Pally gets his wish and makes the rogue evil, the Pally can't actually adventure with the rogue. He loses his class abilities if he willingly associates with evil characters.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Originally Posted by Acathala

Another thing to remember if Pally gets his wish and makes the rogue evil, the Pally can't actually adventure with the rogue. He loses his class abilities if he willingly associates with evil characters.

Take a closer look at your PHB. The associates section of the paladin's class description is seperate from the CoC section. A paladin should dissaprove of evil characters that aren't trying to mend their ways, but he doesn't lose anything for associating with them unless he can be held responsible for their evil actions; something that's very difficult to do by RAW. Paladins falling for having evil associates is either an error or a DM being a D-bag.

[ABEW19043]

There's also something I've completely forgotten to mention again- This does NOT cause major issues with the group. The Pally, while annoyed out of character and mad in character, doesn't get mad or fight with the rogue, and the rest of the party finds it fairly funny. Neither causes issues to the group and we still have a lot of fun playing.

Originally Posted by Felyndiira

Coming from this problem in a very different angle (free-form roleplays), it is very much possible for one character to not be cooperative with the rest of the party and for the entire table to still have an enjoyable roleplaying experience. It really depends on what the players at your table is looking for: inter-party conflicts can lead to a bad gaming experience if your players just wants to roll some dice and kill some monsters, but character development and a richer RP experience can result from such in-context acts if all of your players (including the rogue player himself) are willing to do so.

There have been inter-party conflicts with them in previous campaigns, but it was all fun for out of character. We enjoy a deeper RP and the current campaign is EXTREMELY story heavy.

Also, your entire post was amazing with very well thought points. +1 to you, good sir.

Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera

Even when the last straw breaks in the paladin's mind and he finds himself at the wrong end of a holy avenger?

It's happened before, trust me XD. It was quite funny, and the rogue was still okay (And cracking up) when he ended up rolling up a new character. (The pally was justified as the rogue was evil [The N wizard was masking his alignment for party unity])

[Kelb_Panthera]

Originally Posted by ABEW19043

There's also something I've completely forgotten to mention again- This does NOT cause major issues with the group. The Pally, while annoyed out of character and mad in character, doesn't get mad or fight with the rogue, and the rest of the party finds it fairly funny. Neither causes issues to the group and we still have a lot of fun playing.



There have been inter-party conflicts with them in previous campaigns, but it was all fun for out of character. We enjoy a deeper RP and the current campaign is EXTREMELY story heavy.

Also, your entire post was amazing with very well thought points. +1 to you, good sir.



It's happened before, trust me XD. It was quite funny, and the rogue was still okay (And cracking up) when he ended up rolling up a new character. (The pally was justified as the rogue was evil [The N wizard was masking his alignment for party unity])

Bold for emphasis.

This is what I was concerned about. If those two people (not their characters) have a long-standing relationship, in which they regularly annoy one another, then I suppose it's okay. If, however, the rogue is only annoying the paladin like this at game time, it has the potential to blossom into genuine resentment and put a nasty strain on the relationship.

Again you know them better than I do, but it looks to me like this may well require taking action at some point, if not immediately.

Everybody's there to have fun. We all get more than enough annoyance from our lives in the mandatory settings (work/school/public places/etc.) that it can be downright infuriating to get more annoyance in the optional settings too.

[ABEW19043]

Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera

Bold for emphasis.

This is what I was concerned about. If those two people (not their characters) have a long-standing relationship, in which they regularly annoy one another, then I suppose it's okay. If, however, the rogue is only annoying the paladin like this at game time, it has the potential to blossom into genuine resentment and put a nasty strain on the relationship.

Again you know them better than I do, but it looks to me like this may well require taking action at some point, if not immediately.

Everybody's there to have fun. We all get more than enough annoyance from our lives in the mandatory settings (work/school/public places/etc.) that it can be downright infuriating to get more annoyance in the optional settings too.

It's the former. The rogue is like that in and out of D&D (Though not actually stealing out money XD)

He's well liked by all of us, and the pally was laughing while taking him out, not doing it because he was pissed

[Kelb_Panthera]

Ah. In that case, carry on.

Like we've all been saying, about that original question, the line between jerkwad and evil jerkwad is whether the jerkwad in question is knowingly and willfully causing harm with his thefts.

To count as knowingly and willfully, by RAW, it needs to be something pretty obvious and immediate. Stealing an anti-undead magical doohicky from a wealthy lord, a few weeks before a major undead incursion that you knew nothing about isn't evil. It becomes evil if you knew about the upcoming zombie-fest, or if you stole it during the zombie-fest for any reason other than to put an end to the undead that are eating the town.

[Lord Vukodlak]

In my experience chaotic neutral PC's are bigger **** to the party then a lone evil character.

[Greyfeld85]

Originally Posted by Medic!

I've always had a huge problem with players using their PC's alignment as a justification to be awful people.

Our games at home have had some very very similar circumstances, particularly with a player ganking an entire level's worth of wealth from the party and hiding it from them.

I love playing an evil character because it feels a little more realistic to me, but there's always a way for an evil PC and a good party to get along just fine. Arguements and conflicts can show the evil distinction without shafting the party or wrecking the plot/game.

In the case of a greedy PC, I usually play them as covetting their share of the loot, refusing to spend money helping someone else, offering to loan it to another PC with some interest if needed, going the extra mile to loot things (prying sconces off the walls, etc). Not stealing from the party.

The way I explained it to our resident klepto was like this: Taking money from the party puts them at a disadvantage on their WBL, making future encounters unnecessarily more difficult if not nearly impossible to overcome. It weakens the entire party, meaning it puts your PC in danger, no matter how he spends that money. Completely ignoring the OOC side of life, where it's totally a **** move, IC it's only going to hurt you in the long run.

His reply was that his PC followed his own god, Greedocious, and the next session his PC snuck off in the middle of the night to join the bad guys as an NPC, taking all the wealth he stole from the party with him. As he spent literally 45 seconds explaining this to everyone, he smiled and whipped out a new character sheet, already completed, (and this really galled me) at the new level of the party, who'd just gained a level, with the full WBL for the new level.

Needless to say, he doesn't play with us anymore.

I've had a lot of experience playing an evil character amongst good-guys, and I've never had a problem with stepping on [Good] toes, there's always a way around it, and any action in the world can be justified from every single spectrum of the alignment. As I and many others have said many times (even in this thread), "It's what my character would do" is never an excuse. Unless it's the specific purpose of the game in question, players playing [Evil] as "I kill/rape/defecate on/steal from/insult everything with a pulse and many things without" always strikes me as...sad.

Playing as an evil character in a neutral/good party was a challenge for me, but a challenge that I eventually got frustrated with, and caused me to create a new character.

My evil character in question was a ranger from a tribe who worshiped Lolth. He was your typical, "protect the forest" type of ranger, but he took it to an extreme. Every person caught "defiling" the forest was to be immediately killed. Withholding important information from the tribe (or in this case, the party) resulted in death (and actually did result in my character killing one PC, and bringing a second PC into the negatives). And not only did he do these things willingly, he actively enjoyed them.

Unfortunately, I got tired of every bit of downtime being filled with in-character bickering about beliefs and the sanctity of life, and everything. It kinda became a drag after a while, and I had the DM take over my ranger, so I could make a new character.

[Gnaeus]

Originally Posted by Felyndiira

Coming from this problem in a very different angle (free-form roleplays), it is very much possible for one character to not be cooperative with the rest of the party and for the entire table to still have an enjoyable roleplaying experience. It really depends on what the players at your table is looking for: inter-party conflicts can lead to a bad gaming experience if your players just wants to roll some dice and kill some monsters, but character development and a richer RP experience can result from such in-context acts if all of your players (including the rogue player himself) are willing to do so.

Very much this. I played in a D&D group where all the players were friends from a vampire larp. It was widely accepted that the game was cooperative only within a loose framework, but that if there were legitimate IC reasons for characters to plot against others, it was accepted as part of the game. Theft from, or even murder of a party member was regarded as a much lesser offence than to abstain from this activity for OOC reasons, (which would be regarded as metagaming, maybe even cheating). In a different game this same attitude would be highly disruptive. It is all about the expectations of players and what they find fun.

[Acanous]

It seems now that you're attempting to justify your friend's possibly evil IC behavior.

We don't mind. Really. Evil is an alignment. You're not being judged as a bad person for playing an evil character.
But if your DM says "Your character has been acting evil, his alignment has shifted", roll with it.

Take a step back, tell yourself "It's just a game, they're not actually making judgements about my playstyle or my person, simply my character".

If you take it this personally, I suggest you ask your new DM to roll a character for you, and play it as close to written personality as you can. This will help keep the character seperated from you, and allow you more creativity and freedom. (I know it sounds like less, but really it breaks you out of a rut.)

If your new DM is really old-school as implied, this may be for the best, as old school DMs tended to kill PCs frequently.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Originally Posted by ABEW19043

So, I've been the DM for a while in a campaign with my friends, and we usually get along all pretty well, except for one thing.

We have a chaotic neutral rogue and a paladin in our party. As players, they are about as opposite as you can get, and the paladin always complains about the things I let the rogue get away with for the terms of breaking laws or just being mean. You see, the rogue has a tendency to steal from the party (Which we do by him rolling where I can see while others aren't looking and me rolling the other character's opposing checks), steal things from anywhere he can get them (Including a temple to Heironeous once), and just overall being a **** to the Pally and somewhat to the party.

The paladin has always argued I should make the rogue have an alignment shift, but I don't see these acts as evil. They are simply things he does out of greed, not out of malicious intent.

This wouldn't be a problem, except for the fact that the reason the pally is like that is his father, who is a D&D vet (Been playing since Red Box first came out) has made him think this way. Said father is going to be our DM for a campaign we're starting very soon, where I and the rogue plan to most likely both be chaotic neutral.

So, two questions:

1. Is there a fine line between being a **** or having a lust for money and evil?

And 2. How do I explain or justify it to our resident Paladins (His dad played a Pally whenever available)?

At the moment I'd say that the character might be more neutral evil than chaotic neutral, if he's constantly stealing from everyone. By your description, it really does seem like it's everyone he runs into, even his friends. It seems especially clear when you start stealing from good temples.

May I ask what the character does that is particularly "chaotic," other than breaking laws? Does he do any other anti-party actions? Does he do any other anti-lawful/good actions? How much does he steal from the party?

May I also say that if you're going to let the Rogue constantly try and steal, you shouldn't stop a party from trying to hang him if he is caught multiple times.

[White_Drake]

My first character was a thief. After stealing a party member's purse (and all 30 sp therein) he was knocked into the negatives and then coupe de graced; fortunately, the party saw level-loss and reincarnation on the 2e tables to be sufficient punishment. I came back as an ogre. Now when I want to steal things, I play in a two-man, all thief party, and great fun is had by all. The moral of the story is, that ogres make very poor thieves.

[Gnaeus]

Originally Posted by Squirrel_Dude

May I also say that if you're going to let the Rogue constantly try and steal, you shouldn't stop a party from trying to hang him if he is caught multiple times.

Multiple times? Evil PCs will off a rogue who steals from them once. A lawful PC may press charges. Even a less harsh PC is likely to want to kick the offending rogue out of the group. Barring campaign fiat, why would anyone adventure with someone who they think will steal from them.

[HunterColt22]

Originally Posted by Acanous

It seems now that you're attempting to justify your friend's possibly evil IC behavior.

We don't mind. Really. Evil is an alignment. You're not being judged as a bad person for playing an evil character.
But if your DM says "Your character has been acting evil, his alignment has shifted", roll with it.

Take a step back, tell yourself "It's just a game, they're not actually making judgements about my playstyle or my person, simply my character".

If you take it this personally, I suggest you ask your new DM to roll a character for you, and play it as close to written personality as you can. This will help keep the character seperated from you, and allow you more creativity and freedom. (I know it sounds like less, but really it breaks you out of a rut.)

If your new DM is really old-school as implied, this may be for the best, as old school DMs tended to kill PCs frequently.

Agreed, you seem to be justifying the players actions after describing them, which either one leads us to think you are either absent minded, which is understandable and a flaw everyone shares at least once in their lives. On the other hand though, it also leads us to believe that you are trying to give excuses for a person who knows what they are doing, but doesn't really understand the ramifications he is having even if his friend the pally is still laughing, but doing it in an annoyed fashion.

I would sit both of them down with you together, and then individually, to see if everything really is all right, because honestly, chaotic neutral is the same as lawful good at times with players. Some people play them lawful/neutral stupid. Which is never, never, ever a good thing.

[Origomar]

I would say don't make him evil because i see it going something like thos.

"okay change your alignment to evil"

Paladin: i use detect evil.

Paladin: i use smite evil.

At the very least thats what i would do if someone was being a jerk.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Originally Posted by Gnaeus

Multiple times? Evil PCs will off a rogue who steals from them once. A lawful PC may press charges. Even a less harsh PC is likely to want to kick the offending rogue out of the group. Barring campaign fiat, why would anyone adventure with someone who they think will steal from them.

I've found that OOC interaction normally means people will be forgiving. Obviously an NPC isn't. Parties also have to take into account that at least to some degree they will need the rogue's skills, so maybe they are willing to let the first time slide, and punish him if he continues to do so.


OT: Let me add that I'm not sure his alignment is the problem here. If other players have a problem with his actions, then they do need to stop, or be dealt with in-game. Hell, it could even me a small story hook:

Spoiler

The Rogue is arrested for something he did not commit because he has the reputation of a thief, or there is some crooked cop. He's going to be executed in 14 days (some time for the party to plan), so the party has to break him out. Even the Paladin will be obligated to save him from being unjustly punished. , and the rogue would be shown that stealing isn't always the answer.

[Gnaeus]

Originally Posted by Squirrel_Dude

I've found that OOC interaction normally means people will be forgiving. Obviously an NPC isn't. Parties also have to take into account that at least to some degree they will need the rogue's skills, so maybe they are willing to let the first time slide, and punish him if he continues to do so.

I haven't. If you are in a party where the teamwork dynamic is in play and people metagame to support the team, then the Rogue's actions are way out of line to begin with, and should probably result in a stern OOC lecture by DM and other players. If you are in a IC driven play environment, no one is going to want to adventure with (i.e., put their lives and treasure in the hands of) someone who is known to be untrustworthy. The IC solution in this case is likely to find a new trapfinder or deal with traps in another way. If you are in a more PVP friendly environment with competitive aspects, you are way more likely to find disproportionate responses (like, he stole my wallet, so I will mutilate him and leave him staked out over an anthill, or the paladin version thereof, which is to arrest the rogue and kill him when he resists arrest).

[pwykersotz]

I game with a group that often puts me in the position of this paladin. Short version, I don't like it at all when it happens. The rest of the game is fun enough where I tolerate it, but to my mind that kind of inter-party fighting really detracts from how I want to play. It's the sheer pettiness of it that gets frustrating. An analog was made to the rogue in real life, but I'll bet he doesn't steal money from friends and then loanshark them.

Now d&d being a game where elder evils, dark gods, and vile spells are in play, I probably wouldn't support the rogue being evil for what ultimately amounts to tomfoolery in the big picture. His actions are somewhat evil perhaps, but probably not enough to have a smite evil work on him.

So to your question, unless something else more major goes down, I would not change the alignment. As far as the paladin goes, be sympathetic to him. Don't coddle him, but consider that he might be hiding some frustration because he doesn't want to come off as a jerk or killjoy.

[GunnDancer]

Originally Posted by pwykersotz

So to your question, unless something else more major goes down, I would not change the alignment. As far as the paladin goes, be sympathetic to him. Don't coddle him, but consider that he might be hiding some frustration because he doesn't want to come off as a jerk or killjoy.

I completely agree with this assessment. But I will go one step further and say if he continues it, he may find himself slowly shifting from chaotic neutral to neutral evil... mainly in the part where he is charging people interest on the gold he "loans" them which is their own gold.

As an additional point, I have been in this paladins shoes and as much as he might be laughing about it, odds are inside he's pretty ticked off. It's very irritating when you KNOW someone is getting away with things and their excuse for doing it is "Hey, I'm just playing my character" which, btw, makes that guy sound like an A.C.M.

And please don't take this the wrong way, but it sounds like you let him get away with stuff because you find it humorous too. And that's fine if it's a once in a while thing, but having stuff like that happen regularly to characters would eventually make me just up and quit. If the paladin is anything like me, he deals with enough people who want to steal your stuff, screw you over, and all around irritate you on a daily basis. I role play to relax and have fun, not deal with irritating a******'s in a game.

But, you know your party a heck of a lot better than I do. I just know what it's like to play with PC's who think that a roleplaying game gives them carte blanche to be a huge d-bag.

[Razgriez]

*snip*

Now d&d being a game where elder evils, dark gods, and vile spells are in play, I probably wouldn't support the rogue being evil for what ultimately amounts to tomfoolery in the big picture. His actions are somewhat evil perhaps, but probably not enough to have a smite evil work on him.

*snip*

Except... seeing as certain actions, and dogmas are partly what fuels some of these deities their powers, technically, by letting someone commit an act, you're letting them give power to a god's will. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating that Paladins start leading Prohibition era style raids against taverns and speak easies for people supporting a CN god of drinks and partying. But I am saying, that eventually, with repeat offenses, some anvils need to be dropped.

Now, I won't discuss about the dangers of Lawful Stupid, it's been discussed quite often. And before you can say Law and Order, I think many people here know the dangers of having Jack McCoy as your Paladin. ("I can break the law or code of ethics because their evil and I'm on the side of justice" is not the Paladin way). But discussions of Chaotic Stupid actions never ceases to amaze me, at the double standard between a Lawful Stupid character, and a Chaotic Stupid Character.

Far too often, especially with Chaotic Neutral, people try to cite the excuse "Well, it's my alignment, and I'm just acting my alignment" That is excuse number one when it comes to this issue.

Acting your alignment, does NOT make you immune to the reaction of your actions. It's not a "get out of jail free card" for doing morally questionable things. If you do such actions, a player should be ready for the consequences of their actions.

As a player, recently I had an incident in my party, where the party's sole Chaotic Neutral character, went off without warning the party what she was doing, and did something very stupid

Spoiler

She Polymorphed self into a Black Dragon, move towards a city at top speed, trespass into the home and office of a major leader in the game's world council because she wanted to beat the rest of the party there first when all we were going to do was talk to him peacefully) This put not only her into hot water, but that of an NPC follower who she dragged along with her because the guards thought a dragon was attacking the town. A Good (Lawful or Neutral, I'm not sure) Cleric, in the party, as well as my self, an LG Fighter/Homebrewed knight style PrC with a code of conduct requirement that states I must make sure that reasonable laws are followed and to bring criminals to justice (preferably alive). We managed to argue on her behalf enough to have the sentence reduced to essentially a misdemeanor with a short bit of community service as punishment.

You'd think she'd be happy. And you would be wrong. Instead she basically decides to "play her alignment" and goes "to heck with your authority" teleports out of the court room, taking the NPC follower she already got in trouble before because of her previous actions, with her, even though the NPC got dragged into it by her. Now all of us good types hard work has been wasted, we look like fools and have to explain to the court that we didn't know she was going to do that so that we don't look like accomplices to these latest actions. End Result? Community service get's turned into her and the poor NPC victim (who's a young teenager) of her antics, into exiled from the lands we were in, with arrest on sight orders against them. (Lethal force authorized if they resist). And if arrested, they would spend at least 2 months doing hard time before being booted from the place again.

A few hours game time latter, she teleports back to the group after it leaves the city to finally go handle the quest the Council member we were trying to see in the first place, gave us. She shows up (polymorphed again into yet another creature, and polymorphed the kid as well for disguises. At this point, I finally had enough at these constant breaks of the law, and I had to tell the CN party member that she had to leave, and wait for us to get done our task in the area before she joined us again or that I would arrest her personally and hand her over to the authorities. The majority of the party agreed with me, and thus she went back into her exile to rejoin us after this quest.

And I've also had to drop an anvil, as a DM, on a particularly greedy CN Mercenary recently as well.

Spoiler

The player, was a half orc mercenary, who was originally hired by a Good oriented Kingdom, for information on local orc tribes and habits that had been attacking caravans of innocents on the roads of the kingdom. Room and board (An unused dorm room of the kingdom's local military academy) was provided to them. However, the Half orc would constantly insult the guards, frightened a young servant of the royal family who had been sent to the dorms to provide a request of the kingdom, and food for the mercenary (All because the girl was following the instructions given to her by the king), when one of the two prince of the kingdom (a Paladin no less) confronted the Mercenary about this, the Half orc blew him off as well. Finally, a critical mission came in, asking the mercenary and the rest of the party to help search and rescue two academy students who had been captured by a local orc tribe, with a reward offered depending on how successful the mission was. The Half Orc mercenary kept demanding to be paid upfront. The kingdom refused, because the reward was A. not ready yet due to more focus being on initiating the search and rescue. B. The reward is based on the mission being completed, and it's total value being how successful it is.

After 10 minutes of trying to assure the character, and player, that they would be paid if the mission was at least completed but that right now the kingdom was focusing on trying to rescue the prisoners was a more pressing concern, the player kept on demanding that their character be paid up front.



This here, is where as a DM, I stop being nice to the player, and go "Fine, you want to be more concerned with your greed, rather than the safety of people who need to be rescued from orc raiders, you'll get your reward up front"

Remember folks, just because your a PC, still means that certain actions cause NPCs to shift from Neutral or friendly, to Unfriendly with poor decisions. Said player was "rewarded" with having their free room and board cancelled, the mission offer to that player was cancelled (meaning reduced reward for that player) and future request of services for the kingdom are no longer needed, with those who have had to deal with the mercenary, now hold zero respect for the mercenary.

In closing, it may be a game, but still from a Role play, and fairness aspect, don't let the more abrasive and annoying actions go unpunished to much.

[pwykersotz]

Good points all, Razgriez.