Reminds me of the assignment system from Wizardry. Good characters help the old lady across the street. Neutral characters help the old lady across the street because they're heading that way as well. Evil characters help the old lady across the street and then charge her a fee for it. The evil that you're all supposed to be fighting is described as the kind of person who helped the old lady cross _half_ the street.
JossCard42 An evil character would help the old lady cross the street... in the middle of rush hour traffic that is, then he would steal her purse and run away laughing.
And even Chaotic doesn't mean "OMG RANDOM LOL". The Joker is Chaotic Evil. Even The Joker has a goal. A plan. He doesn't just blow up hospitals and orphanages for shits and giggles. He gets his shits and giggles because of what comes after or before those actions, usually in the form of irritating Batman. The general rule still stands, though. Don't play Chaotic Evil. You are neither smart enough nor charismatic enough to pull it off. Echoing the "Crossing the line" statement, to me G/N/E is basically "How far you are willing to go?". Good is...Good, but can dip into some dark territory in a moment of crisis and desperation. Neutral can go either way as the situation permits, or as directed by a moral compass (Because Neutral doesn't have to mean "IDGAF"). Evil is usually fast and dirty, but has touching moments of heart and mercy.
Antithesis what he's saying is like a person who wants to burn evil from this earth, like batman. He really just hates crime, but he has a super strict code of conduct and always does good. He seems shady, and is definitely not nice, but he is lawful good.
I had a DM who would allow out of alignment actions, but there was a limit. However, rather than telling them "you can't do that" he would say "If your character keeps acting that way, you'll need to change alignments". So there were characters in that campaign that went from neutral good to chaotic good and other such changes. I personally like this way of dealing with alignment because it allows the characters to be dynamic.
I've never thought of that, and that sounds legitimately kind of cool. It's still ambiguous though, because alignments aren't kept numerically, and trying to do that would be a pain in the ass. But it'd be cool.
Tandem Gray, my Neutral Good fighter took down a really powered up cultist non-lethally so we could ask some vital questions. The questions worked out great, we got all the info we needed, however the cultist said "If I'm left here they'll torture me to death for my failure!" so being the honorable sort, my character offered a quick and painless death, or be knocked unconcious to assure he doesn't warn anyone for some time, then he can try to get out of his death through bluffing his superiors (we were trapped somewhere ourselves and literally could not take him with us). The DM then interjected saying "Okay but Tandem I'm telling you now, if you do kill him, your alignment will change to chaotic evil". Naturally my reaction was "what?! what the heck? I just killed like nine people! now you're changing my alignment? he's chaotic evil himself and I'm offering him a choice!". According to the DM, since he wasn't strong enough to fight back at that time, it would count as me murdering an innocent person for no reason at all, which is chaotic evil. Honestly let's be real; what IF I'd killed him and been forced into chaotic evil? I'd play my character exactly the same as before, but that kinda tells me the DM would start hinting that I should go kill some innocent people because that's my alignment now.... That DM was being ridiculous in my opinion.
Your DM was definitely being ridiculous, for the following reasons: 1. Being defenseless does not make the cultist *innocent.* 2. "No reason" should only apply if there is no reason. Your post explains the reason quite well. This seems like a *Lawful* act, actually. 3. A single action should not be grounds for an alignment change. It needs to represent a shift in attitude.
Man, I nearly want to make extra accounts just to agree with you more: The character should be categorised with the alignments, Not defined by them. Almost a shame that can't be done with classes, though that's for pretty obvious reasons. Though even then, Some DnD systems can get pretty close to that.
I fully agree. I treat allignement as a fluid thing that changes as your character develops. People don't stay the same as they grow and experiance new things why should a character?
A True Neutral character in a losing battle would NOT flip flop...that's more Neutral Evil. A True Neutral character would realize this is just the world and how it is balancing itself. Yes they don't want to die but for an adventuring group that they have been with, they would NOT try to kill them.Easiest way to think about it is, what would an animal do? They may be cowardly and flee the situation, they may fight to the death, but a zebra would never go "we are fucked...let me join the lions"
Two main ways I have seen true neutral being played are wizards that only care about their research and philosophical characters trying to maintain the balance of the world and not throw it into disorder. But animals tend to true neutral as well.
To be fair that zebra would not give a damn about his family because zebra don't have a family structure like horses do, and as such care only about themselves. If the lions wouldn't eat him instantly, i'm sure that zebra WOULD join them. In summary: Horses and wolves are a much better analogy because the horses actually care.
My DM often simply ask us to change our alignment depending on what our characters do just as a way to remind us how they are like when we read our character sheets a while later. It makes sense for me like for example I once made a neutral chaotic rogue but as time went on I started to go out of my way to save people..I still stole for myself and to get rich but I steadily started to do good deeds because I honestly started to care about the NPC's that my DM made. I remember it starting with not wanting to kill some guards that I had talked to a while after got a job as one so that I could learn their routines simply because "well fuck they are just doing their job..I will just knock them out!" And it just kept going like that "I can't steal from her..she have 3 kids..damn well that lady is a bitch and have a lot of money..maybe I should leave a little donation to the other woman though" and so on..Actually kinda awesome. Pretty easy way for my DM to manipulate me into robbing the people he wanted me to rob though since I would go out of my way to get everything of value from assholes..
True, I personally use an alignment as a starting point. If I'm not sure how I want to play out a concept I'll choose an alignment which gives me a better framework to live in, but allowed myself to expand upon.
Exactly, DnD is a collective story telling. One mark of a great story is character development. If your character was stuck and had to be played a certain way, they would never be allowed to grow.
He opened by talking about how he's seen people get into fights over what the alignments mean, and now every comment thread is a fight over what the alignments mean. Jared knew what he was getting into when he made this.
I know, right? As someone who's not a DnD player (yet), it's actually kind of scary. Which I feel bad saying because I know Jared wouldn't want one of his videos contributing toward scaring off people who are interested in the game. But I don't really want to put the effort toward learning the game and finding a group if it's just gonna' devolve into arguments over alignment all the time.
I think it's like anything where a lot of people are fans at different levels of proficiency and experience: the people that are really into it want the chance to talk about it. D&December is supposed to be a forum (on this channel) where people can talk about it and find others who will keep the conversation going. That being said, while a lot of arguing can certainly be daunting, it's no guarantee that everyone in a game will bicker over alignment (or any other rule, for that matter). I think part of what Jared was getting at is the notion of trying to collaborate (since D&D is, at heart, collaborative story-telling). Don't let alignment get in the way of a good story, but having an alignment is like a prop in improv; it gives people around you something solid to work off of, but it can be discarded if the story goes in another direction.
Honestly Alignment as a feature has been gutted and a lot of the attributes that made Alignment so contentious has been moved to the significantly better character bond, ideal, and flaw system.
Lawful Evil is the most fun flavor of evil. Do good deeds to rack up hero points, always be the one to step up to interrogate, max out your charisma, and achieve your goals in ways the rest of the party doesn't have the guts to do. Mua, ha, ha.
Had a friend that, long story short, ended up helping me steal from the lord of a town, accidently get caught but bluffing his way into making it seem like the one that caught him was the bad guy after killing him..that gave him serious credit by the lord since he got wounded while trying to help and he ended up becoming one of the generals..All the while I got away since they had nothing to tie me to the crime with what so ever..
I agree, but chaotic neutral is the best. Your character just does whatever he wants and he does what it takes to get the job done. If a bad guy has been captures by the party and has some info he isn't sharing? Just torture the guy, cuz u don't care about the rules and you simply want answers asap.
For me, the perfect illustration of Lawful Evil character would be Littlefinger from GoT: his famous "chaos is a ladder" speech encapsulate what Lawful Evil is all about: achieving personal power at any cost while climbing up the (social) ladder.
Well, that would be - a rare - case of character who willingly follow evil, not for any kind of personal gains but rather for the idea itself. "Battle doesn't need a purpose; the battle is its own purpose. You don't ask why a plague spreads or a field burns. Don't ask why I fight." - that's pretty much "noble" lawful evil for you (it's flavor text from Black Knight from MTG)
Chaotic Neutral is the best, if you play as a wizard in Baldur's Gate 2 you will get a Cat familiar if youre chaotic neutral. Also with CN you don't need to justify your actions, so you can be lazy all day spending the party's gold on booze and prostitutes.
I think any alignment, even Chaotic Evil, can be played within the group. But it's dependent on one thing. That the player not be a dick. That they not use that as license to turn on the party on a whim. They need to have their Chaotic Evil character be stable enough to at least say, "I'm not gonna turn on you guys. I like you guys." Even if the in game explanation for why they like them is, they're effective meat shields.
It could go to something as dumb as "I have to put my murderspree on hold because the world is ending and I can't kill anyone with the world being gone"
@@TotallyCluelessGamer Or as simple as "I enjoy their company, so it's in my interest that they stay alive so we can hang out". Even horrid selfish people enjoy company.
Or hide his actions. I had a player that was in a bar and a woman passed out from drinking. So he gets up walks towards her and kicks her in the stomach. The rest of the party didn't even know how to react... I am "chaotic evil" he said. That guy didn't last long. We never invited him back because the way he played chaotic evil was making people feel awkward. People were "should my good ranger say anything or are we gonna end up in an argument in real life?" Now IF instead he said "i am helping her get to her room" and came back after an hour or two the other party members could make up excuses for their characters like "my good fighter is too stupid to understand that something strange happened so i will let it go".
What about completing the campaign, but right at the end when they finally get their treasure, they finally act according to their chaotic evil needs and get their treasure for themselves?
Lawful Good: "Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat. They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar. So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.” -- Terry Prachett
TiroDvD That doesn't make sense to me. Evil is not stupid. They don't have to gloat. They can just kill and feel nothing. That's evil. And acting like a good person would never hesitate to kill someone is such an extreme outlook as to practically be a contradiction in terms. Basically, no part of that made sense.
In the book from where the quote is, the very goody-two-shoes Lawful Good character Cap. Carrot does the last sentence. I.e. lawful good isn't lawful stupid and that unquestioningly or directly killing stuff wouldn't violate "Good" requirements.
TiroDvD That's neat, but I don't understand how that correlates with what I said. I still think it's a pretty busted, extreme philosophy. There's more good and evil than a handful of archetypes could ever account for.
Orrenn, The quote is from a book in the discworld series. It is said by the main character who has a peculiar outlook on life and he believes that a good person would kill as an act of mercy whereas an evil person would toy with the person they are about to kill. Since the discworld series is rather comical, most of the characters are intended to be bizarre caricatures of fantasy tropes and the quote makes sense in the context of the world they inhabit.
What the quote is saying is that an evil person will enjoying exercising power over another person and thus make them squirm before killing them. Whereas a good person if they have to kill won't drag it out for their enjoyment.
I had a Lawful Good priest Cleric called Father Jackson who would be reluctant to kill anything that isn't evil but if he wanted to kill something, he'd go all out on it. Needless to say, when my party had to fight Aberrations, Jackson would go all out, screaming about The Lord (He didn't have a deity to follow) and smashing everything with his mace and casting spell upon spell.
Aaron Kennedy I played a chaotic good fallen paladin, he fell away from his order because he used evil to save innocent people, so he is willing to do anything to save the innocent and punish those he thinks deserves it
i had a lawful good paladin that had a drinking problem which often got him in to trouble in towns. it actually worked to help other people at the table see that "lawful good" didn't mean perfect or zealous and even a flawed character who got into trouble once in a while could be lawful good. i did suck that the character was always broke from buying alcohol and paying restitution though, lol.
I'm gonna bring up another character in the party, an Elf Rogue named Perseus Rootleaf. Perseus was Chaotic Good, so every single time he had to do a task, he'd do it the way it was intended, except with a few "creative" twists. Such as one time when the party had to take out a camp of Orcs, Perseus decided to knock them all out one by one, and once the Orcs were all knocked out, Perseus threw them all into a pile and lit them on fire.
"Raiders are attacking your farm? Sure, I'll help." Doesn't mean you're going to up and say the raiders are gonna be spared, or brought before a court. For all we know those raiders could be beaten to a bloody pulp in the name of justice and safety for the civilians (protecting the farms)
Thats my big problem with Lawful Good. Depending on the player it is actually played as chaotic good or lawful good. The chaotic good paladin is the worst.
shifting alignment can be a great storytelling tool for games. I was playing a Warforged Monk that had been in stasis for 200 years. the monastic Order that created him had been destroyed and he was wandering the world without purpose. an evil librarian had convinced me that my model of Warforged had a "programming flaw" that had turned them all chaotic evil and they destroyed a nation. this caused my character to have a crisis of Faith and a temporary shift to chaotic evil. when the deception was discovered and the librarian slain, my character visited a local (non-denominational) shrine and prayed to his gods and was granted a vision. his faith and original lawful good alignment were restored. and the next leg of our journey was influenced into being a penitent Quest.
True Neutral random goes turncoat? True Neutral? Are they high? Betrayal isn't exactly a neutral thing to do to your friends in the middle of a battle.
ImJTHM but what if that was to later betray the evil guy from the start and prevent the party from dying? Or rather, to gather information working for the evil guy?
gotenksta Ok, a neutral character wouldn’t be THAT hardcore. That’s like a chaotic good, not going by any sort of code whatsoever, but always doing stuff for good in the end.
Personally, I love what Pathfinder did with alignment in the "Pathfinder Unchained" book. Basically, they added an alternate system. Rather then having "Lawful-Neutral-Chaotic" and "Good-Neutral-Evil", each player writes down 3 "loyalties". For example, you might have a Loyalty to your Family, your Honor, or Money. Essentially, your loyalties are what your character considers "good", because in real life, no one sees themselves as the villain, and everyone thinks they're doing the right thing. Whatever might be classified as the opposite is "evil" to your character. All spells and abilities which negatively effect evil characters can be used against characters who either have opposed loyalties or have recently made a serious move against your loyalty. All spells and abilities which positively effect good characters work on characters with similar loyalties. What I really like about it though, is how it actually makes you think about your character's story and outlook on the world. The classic alignment system is too general in my opinion, and shouldn't be used as a roleplaying tool.
So, "Good" spells become "Aligned" spells and "Evil" spells become "Unaligned" spells. Makes sense, especially in a religious kind of setting if you're playing a cleric and while you might not do 'good', your patron will likely still offer support to those who at least have the same set of values despite perhaps being of another religion.
Hey, I just want to say that I absolutely adore D&December and it’s probably my favorite month of the year for that reason. Even though you only make D&D videos for one month a year, you’re still probably my favorite D&D youtuber. I love these videos and hope you’ll be doing a lot more.
Personally I feel like alignments are taken too literally. They are broad definitions, not guidelines. For true neutral, to me that means being an opportunist. It doesn't mean you have to always just be a palm tree in the wind, it just means doing what feels advantageous at the time. Just my thoughts.
The new supplement, Xanithar's guide to everything (i think that's right?) has an alignment table for generating family and friends of your character. Anyway, the most common result on that table is just neutral. I personally think the intention is that a neutral character is most like a normal person; they would rather stay in their lane and go with the flow of life, not doing anything heroic or revolutionary unless they were compelled by duty or necessity.
In my opinion, True Neutral are more like guardian of balance than a self-centered person. A self center person is more like a chaotic neutral, a lawful neutral are more like secular soldiers whose interest lies not on his personal self interest but on the interest of society (or whatever order/affiliation he subscribe to) as a whole. True neutral however see value in every-side... so if the "goodness" is tipping the balance to their favor and in the act of annihilating the evil components of the society a true neutral will fight goodness and side with evilness it even if there is no personal reward or convenience in doing so.
I think it having some weight in the worlds is something that only DnD has. Like weapon only an evil character and use or portal door that can only be tough by one type.
An example for what Leviathan said being "Compelled by duty or necessity" could be a true neutral farmer who joins a party of heroes, not because they think they themselves are a hero, but because the only way they can return to normal life is when the raiders (or government) stop pillaging their crops. The end of campaign for such a character would literally be them settling back down to what they were before, or growing out of their original true neutral alignment because the events that occurred with the party changed their perspective on the world. (Whether for better, if say they vowed to protect others from suffering the same fate they did, or for worse, if they became a neutral evil who's view is "If the world is cruel, then I guess I have to be, too.")
Playing evil characters, even CE ones, isn't hard to do within a party setting. You just have to have one rule you follow: Your party is not an outlet for your evil. A truly evil character is going to see his party as his henchmen. He WANTS an audience for his evil acts. And as such, you want to keep them alive as best you can, and as happy as you can. Evil doesn't also have to be synonymous with "unlikeable," and chaotic doesn't have to be synonymous with "blathering lunatic." That's not how alignments work. Simply put, your alignment is simply a base from which we, as players, perceive morality. How often have we, in video games, movies, books, etc., run into evil characters, who, once we sit down and examine their purposes and reasons why they do the evil shit they do, usually have a good reason to do it? Ozymandius is a good example. He killed thousands of people to inevitable save millions, because HE thought he was right. Is he evil? Hell yeah. But his conviction was no different from that of a morally good character. His worldview was simply different. Morality, and by extension, alignment, are subjective. I have a cleric who's lawful evil, and worships a God of Murder. She murders for coin. But she believes that it is a necessary function of society, but has, as a personal ethic, a very specific rule. No unnecessary murder (i.e., murder must be contracted, or only done to save herself or an ally), and she will not accept a contract for a child or a beggar who's poor for reasons they can't control (i.e., mental problems, injuries, personal vendetta from a higher authority, etc.). Subjective is the word of the day.
Thomas Poteete lawful evil or neutral evil are my favorite alignments if I wanted to be evil character. Hell even my chaotic good main tends to do evil things for money
I like Evil campaigns because they can be a lot of fun and allow things that you generally wouldn't get to do in good campaigns. Some of my favorite games were Evil campaigns.
We played a good guy campaign and I played a chaotic evil necromancer....... Story time The only one who knew I was an evil bastard was my fiancee. Because her character had sense evil on permanent due to mixing her blood with a unicorns blood. So she spent most of the campaign trying to convince the party that I was evil. However, because my charisma was so high, she never could. ALOT of shady shit happened on my part, and we eventually had to rescue a few gods from being trapped in another realm where they were more or less equal to a regular person in terms of power. My Necromancer split from the party saying, " It is my job alone to rescue my goddess." ( Again, charisma for the win) Longer story short, killed her, absorbed her power, went on a god killing spree, absorbed more power, became a lich god, and became the final boss...... take a guess at who won the final fight.
I've never played D&D before, but being chaotic evil sounds fun. Forming allegiances just to backstab, slowly plotting your evil betrayal. What is Jared saying rit now?
its very difficult, but potentially rewarding. You have to be trustworthy enough to get away with the bullshit you pull, if you do, I suggest charisma out the ass. Its the only reason I got away with so much shit....... Like burning down an orphanage. ( I convinced the party that it was a front for a demon Resurrection cult)
I've played a chaotic evil tiefling bard In a mostly good/neutral party, how he worked was that he was with them to profit off their hard work, he would loan shark/con the area they traveled to for profit, then he would talk down the prices of the merchants for the parties benefit so they might look the other way
To me, true neutral characters typically fall into 1 of 2 areas. With some, they're just trying to live their lives as peaceful as possible. They have no lofty ideals of heroics while holding no malice towards others. With others (particularly old school druids and Dragonlance wizards of the red robes), they understand that the world around them has a natural balance of good, evil, order and chaos and they must do their part to uphold that balance. While this may place them at odds on occasion with good characters, it's a little more frequent for evil to try and upset that balance on average. That doesn't exactly mean that a balance based true neutral character will shift their allegiance based on what's happening, so much as voice their opinion much like a lawful good character may
I had a chaotic evil cleric in my last Campaign and he was the most popular character. But then again I'm a veteran DND player who knows how to be a bloodthirsty maniac without derailing everything so I think its possible just watch what kind of group your in and don't kill your team-mates, chaotic evil does not mean your incapable of having friends who your character won't kill like Jared was implying or murdering random people in the street.
The biggest issue with the alignment is that, by default, if you truly follow the core idea, it will be very hard to care long term about a party or a quest. Your character will resent sitting down with other people and working efficiently to accomplish a goal. He can make friends and fall in love, but his views on honor and loyalty are hazy at best. if you ever sit down to make a character that is chaotic evil, there lies your biggest challenge. how do I play this kind of character, but tune it down or tweak it enough that I'll be tolerated by a party, and may find excuses to follow them in their quests? You must ackowledge that no matter what the bppl describe, you may have to tune it down a bit in order for the game to take place. That isn't purely limited to chaotic evil. Every alignment has to bend a bit to follow the adventure. A lawful good may have to go against his principles to accomplish a goal. A true neutral character may have to get out of his chair and follow the party on trivial quests, even tho he personally doesn't feel concerned about the issue. A chaotic good character may have to step up and play by the rules of some organisation instead of being a loose canon. The moment where you value the words lawful or evil over the word game is when the game loses its fun.
I see Chaotic as "rebel". Chaotic Evil is like the one who wants to change the system for egoistic purposes. They don't need to be backstabbers or something like that. They can have trustworthy allies and respect them during their journey. Just because your character don't like to abide by some rules it doesn't mean they won't abide by any rules. A Chaotic character can believe in their own rules and condemn anyone who acts against their believes. They are "Chaotic" mostly because their own rules goes against the rules of something bigger, like a society or a government. Btw, I see those "True Neutral" who changes sides for advantage as evil. It's very egoistic to abandon your allies and have the intention to kill them for this "advantage".
This was brought up with me while I was playing one of my favorite characters. He was Owain Vandrin, a lawful good human fighter who was a 20-something retired soldier, a displaced Noble who’s ancestral home was stolen by his uncle. During the raid on Greenest in Hoard of the Dragon Queen, a group of kobolds attacked us as we were getting out of a sallyport. After fighting them, the last three ran away and hid. I said that Owain would follow them and kill them. The Dungeon Master asked if he’d do that, being Lawful Good. I said, “Owain would weigh the sacrifice of those kobolds, creatures who have already attacked a village and killed innocent people against the possibility that should they escape, they might tell the cult of the Dragon where the sallyport was, and use it to get into the keep. Yes, Owain felt it was wrong, but the greater good outweighed the wrong of it.
I once played this Neutral Evil Tiefling Sorceror in Pathfinder and it was a lot of fun. He was prone to anger very quickly(one of the most fun things to play), and he would "help" others if he saw it as a way to better himself, but if someone tried to take his stuff, like a prized magical and powerful staff he had gotten earlier, he wouldn't hesitate and throw lightning bolts and fire balls at the enemy, even if it resulted in harming innocents or helping in burning a part of a city to the ground.
Currently playing a nephilim paladin lawful good, though my "initial" perception of a lawful good paladin was akin to the Adeptus Astares from warhammer 40k or Judge Dredd. Thusly when a group of bullywugs surrounded my kobold companion i did not hesitate to immediately SCAR AND BRAND ONE OF THEIR WARTY HIDES WITH SEARING HOLY MAGIC INFLICTING THE EXCRUCIATING PAIN OF A THOUSAND SUNS! My playgroup thought that was CE and not LG Edit: meanwhile i was thinking "these fat toads are surrounding one of my, admittedly annoying evil, party members that i was foretold to journey with to save the world, you bet your ass i am going to teach them to not fuck with fate." Afterwards they said that talking would've been good enough and that searing pain doesn't befit a LG character, INCLUDING THE THIEVING KOBOLD BARD I JUST TRIED TO PROTECT.
Well, because we all were on the run from this Scribbler dude who was really a Raksasha in disguise, plus the staff was an ancient artifact that we needed to keep safe. Don't get me wrong though, our monk berated my sorcerer for doing that. My guy just responded with "Then don't let anyone take my shit".
Jared forgot to mention the problematic Chaotic Neutrals that steal from the party, kill clearly important NPCs, and be like "hurr durr, that's just what my character would do".
Doge Archon I was gonna say the same thing. I say that chaotic neutral characters could easily use Bender, Belkar, or the entire ASIP crew as inspiration, but the neutral part is your excuse to not stab your entire party.
i've actually had to kill a party member before because he was stealing from the party. it was several game sessions in which we had important artifacts come up missing and finally caught him doing it. needless to say, it was an interesting time at the table that night.
I believe Chaotic Neutral is a hard one to nail down. I generally play Chaotic Neutral as guys who will generally go with the flow, but will stand firm for their beliefs as it comes to it. I play a Chaotic Neutral Goliath Druid named Apakon Stomcaller Kalukavi. He joined the party because some thunderous battles were drowning out his thunderstorms, and he merely wanted it to stop. He eventually became the biggest opponent of the BBEG of the campaign, because the BBEG corrupted the one non-animal being he ever trusted. Chaotic Neutral is all about being like water. Calm and cool when things call for it, but rough and roaring when you need to thunder down.
I like chaotic good, I've had a chaotic good thief and barbarian that were completely different. The thief was chaotic good because he believed laws and traditions got in the way of a good time also he didn't understand the concept of personal possessions. I decided he didn't kill, so every time we got into a fight he would knock people unconscious rather than kill them. So when he almost took someone's life the party talked him out of it and took a long look at themselves. The barbarian however believed that the gods were ever watching and to do the extraordinary was to win favor, he also believed that wearing clothing was a shameful act that denied the gods view of their creations. Also that acts of cruelty only gave favor to lesser gods but acts of great love or creation could even give godhood. Anyways he got arrested for assaulting a priest in a water fountain and eventually the party made him wear a cloak to meet the king. Currently playing a lawful neutral Paladin/Warlock that's personal code is to raise mankind from its dependence on gods and demons through knowledge gained or stolen from the heavens or the abyss. He is just pure logic so the few times he has done un logically sound things like save the little girl from demonic possession or burn that priest out of vengeance they become more meaningful than the moments he's done the correct alignment thing. Basically I see lawful neutral as someone upholding their code beyond morality, in fact morality doesn't even enter the picture.
I play a chaotic good thief at the minute; he kills as a last resort and prefers to spare lives if he can get away with it, though if he's attacked and it's life or death, he'll naturally choose his own life; he didn't ask to have that choice brought on him after all. I've always liked playing characters who don't escalate as it is. He also won't steal things people actually need... usually :P
Kinda glad you talked about shifting alignment because that is how I've seen it too, now if it considered something that should be possible as for the DnD rules (no one I know to play with, havn't looked) I always figured traumatic or some instances could cause a good or evil person to change ways.
UnknownFox yeah, i remember the book saying that. Actually, that is how a Paladin can break their oath with their god, if they end up changing their ways. :v
I remember one time, one of characters saw a massacre of thousand of legitimately innocent goblins by a god because they were "innately evil." He shifted to true neutral as he suddenly recognized the tyranny of imbalance.
There was actually a Dragon/Dungeon magazine rules extension that gave hard numbers and formulae for how many things a character could do that were contrary to their alignment before they changed alignment. It was based off of wisdom, as it was a measurement of how well a character understood themselves and their place in the world. It was a bit rough around the edges, but it might be a good fit for some playgroups. The biggest issue I have with alignment is magic that instantly changes character alignment, because it changes an entire character with no reason or buildup whatsoever, and reduces a well developed character to a flat character.
i've had newbie players that wanted to play paladin but took random evil decision without really knowing what they were doing, reminding them that a lawful good paladin would not ''kill those orphan just because they are a bit annoying'' is acceptable
You gave an extreme example, and even in that situation, you don't word it like that. You could have said, "Why would a holy and good paladin kill an orphan for a trivial reason?" and let them explain their reasoning. They will either see your point, or give an explanation. If they give a good one, go with it. If they don't, you might want to check what kind of player they are. They might not be the kind of player you want to play DnD with. In none of those outcomes should you EVER tell them how to play. Because its not YOUR game, its EVERYONE'S game.
I think the perfect way to play "Chaotic Evil" [and *NOT* harm your party] is to make suggestions of horrific deeds that your party could commit to gain something. You gave them the choice; it's up to the rest of the players to decide whether they'd want to do something evil just to gain extra goodies, or even a necessary key-item. Also, during battle, just come up with the most sadistic ways possible to kill an enemy of the party.
The only way I choose make mine Chaotic is if they get a bad roll. My character is a warlock, but they sometimes have bad aim. But, since my character's CHA is not really good, the party doesn't believe that at times, but they'd rather deal with the enemy than put up with him.
I have been that guy who points out when an act is at odds with an alignment. In my defense it was with new players who were still learning what the alignments were and they had asked me to do so. " Shanking the priest to steal the donation box is not a lawful good act" was something i had to say. I also did have to remind the evil character to be evil. Turns out the evil character was a devious little bastard. He knew evil. He turned out to be an experienced roleplayer pretending to be a newb and was in cohoots with the DM. the back up characters we created were needed that day.
On this issue I agree with you and disagree with Jared. *There is no point having characters with an explicitly declared alignment IF players are free to ignore it without justification or consequences.* The GM should decide if he wants alignment to be an explicit trait or an implicit one. Explicit alignment is SUPPOSED to be restrictive because it epitomises the moral values of the character.
@@GonzoTehGreat Ok, no. Thats being a rules-lawyer. That isn't ok even a little bit. You NEVER tell another play how to play unless they explicitly ask what they should do next, and even then it should be a suggestion, not a declaration. If the entire party comes together with the DM and all want to play a game where they MUST stick with the alignments, then they can do that if they wish, but if even a single player doesn't want to, then it can't happen. At that point either explain to the player how the game will be run and let them decide what to do, or allow them to be fluid with their character. I don't care what the rules say, that isn't how role playing works. Characters are fluid and dynamic, not lifeless robots. To play a character like that is to do the opposite of role playing. Characters SHOULD do things outside of their preconceived notions of themselves. If they don't, they are boring and unimaginative.
@FattyMcFox Never be that guy, ever. If they ask, give them a suggestion and then drop it. Never TELL a player what to do. That is beyond wrong. rules-lawyers are literally the worst kind of people to have at the table, next to "No you can't do that" DM's
@@shadowlife15 You've misunderstood my comment. I suggest re-reading it more carefully before jumping to the wrong conclusion. I said there's is no point having explicit (declared) alignments if characters are just going to ignore them. You should EITHER have an explicit alignment and use it to guide how your character acts OR play without a declared alignment, allowing your actions to determine it. You also seem to misunderstand how alignment works. It's not an unchanging straight jacket which constrains what a character can/can't do but a guideline as to how they'd behave. If they choose not to behave that way then, depending on their choices, their alignment can/will change. _I don't care what the rules say, that isn't how roleplaying works._ It's hypocritical of you to criticise others for following the rules while claiming that isn't how roleplaying works. You don't get to determine how others play. That's something agreed between a DM and his players.
Unless he is somehow freed during the campaign and suddenly wants to take down the party from with in. (which if you could keep it a secret would be awsome )
Done it. CE Ghul Barbarian (A 'half-ghoul' abomination from Dragon Magazine for 3e) Bound by a Mark of Justice and shepherded by a priestess. Entire game was her slowly altering his alignment through literal aversion therapy and gentle guidance, I had a ton of fun with it really - because he was the gish of the party, and the priestess would literally set him loose on monsters and he'd get to revel in combat like a crazy person for a bit. He actually ended up Chaotic Good at the end of the campaign, having had her at one point literally save his soul and make him a whole person again.
You don't have to betray, kill, or steal from your fellow party members if you're Chaotic Evil. The reasoning behind being an Evil character with a group of adventurers with Good intentions can be as simple as, "Being with them will give me strength in numbers and a means to carry out my goals." In most cases, a Chaotic Evil character, or any Evil character in general is going to realize that the rest of the party is more useful to them on positive terms rather than negative. You could steal another player's magic ring, or you could just go on a few adventures and find or buy your own with your earnings. You could sell them out to an evil king, or grow more powerful with them and overthrow that king, installing yourself as a ruler of that kingdom in his stead. In the case of True Neutral, you don't have to be totally aloof and detached from any sentiment towards others, but rather just skeptical of the ideas of all extremes. A True Neutral character may find the idea of absolute Law/Order to be asphyxiating, while total Chaos and a might makes right mentality may seem far too detrimental to society to hold merit. Similarly, such a character may recognize that total Good can be just as hostile toward mortals as Evil can be, since on the level of Gods, morality hits a much broader scale and the quality of life for some mere mortals can amount to little more than a speck of a God's vision. Someone that doesn't put their trust in any of the four extremes and seeks a more balanced life for themselves and perhaps for those around them. People working for each other, rather than having law imposed on them forcefully or left to fend for themselves.
I have a friend who has played a chaotic evil character for a long while now. He solved the issues of disloyalty to the party. Long story short his backstory involves his world being destroyed around him when his character was a child his party are his childhood friends from a nearby village who saved his life during the experience. The ordeal drove his character insane, and because of this he wants to see the world burn. However; he holds total loyalty to his friends and their decisions as recompense for saving his life. It has lead to some pretty interesting situations and we all have enjoyed it. But like you said for every good player there can be a bunch of shitty ones. I am just hoping this gives an idea of a good way to set up a chaotic evil character in the party.
One of my favorite examples of lawful not necessarily meaning "The law of the land" is the bounty hunter/mercenary who has a code of conduct that says if he takes a job, he's gonna see it through to the end no matter how much the odds go against his favor, and won't accept a bribe or be payed off by the enemies of employer, no matter how much the counter offer may be. Or literally just the alignment of lawful evil which will happily break the law of the land for their own gain, while having their own "Rules" that they follow. (For example "I will not kill children, or betray those who support me, but woe unto my enemies and those who oppose me")
I love playing a Paladin who a genuinely nice guy,getting along with his friends, tries to talk down his enemies, and will drink you under the table at any Tavern. A guy who will defend his friends to the death, and not allow an innocent to be harmed. I've been told by my groups in the past that was their favorite Paladin they've ever dealt with. Only the group that I mentioned in a post I made previously on this video ever had a problem with this character archetype.
DrPluton I prefer chaotic good. I have no need for the law to help people...I help people who are in a dire need like stealing from nobles and give them the innocent half of the gold I gained
for me Alignment are not one type of character they can be play in many different ways and have different personalities, a thief with a heart of gold and a barbarian raised in the wild that care for the weak are both chaotic good, but they have completely different personalities and goals
IMO the best part about this video is that it is not a bunch of pieced togther clips. Being able to keep your thoughts coherent and getting your points across all in one take without getting side-tracked is a tough thing to do. Props Jared!
Your advice about not writing down your alignment until later on is really good advice! It's better to play your character, see what you think they're like, *then* decide.
If your player breaks their aliment, you don't tell them "you can't do that". That's bad GMing. You say "Your aliment shifts towards X or Y", write that down, or "you have to pick a new aliment from these". Of course, the player can always redeem themselves and go back to their entry aliment. There are ways to play Chaotic Evil well with some tricks that I enforce on my players that wanna be evil. That is to have joint backstory with another player that involves bonds of blood, pacts for life and stuff like that. Simply you have to build a story reason from the beginning that makes it impossible for them to stab their party. As for if you should or shouldn't have an alignment to begin with: if you're new, you want an alignment. It's a tip, a guide on how to role play for players that aren't used to role playing. When inexperienced people pass on guidelines like these, they will end up acting in the most effective way game-wise. They will just do whatever gets them the most loot or exp or whatever, and will end up having no valid personality.
'Diath has done things that are considered evil' Like that time he killed that child. Or burn a lot of dwarven prisoners to death with a giant fire elemental.
welp, the whole killing a child thing DID (eventually) result in the defeat and imprisonment of a vampire lord that terrorized the land and it's people for centuries, so that's more of a "for the greater good" situation. i mean there were other options, like fight it and potentially die with the rest of his party, or kill a party member instead but yeah....killing kids is bad. as for the burning a dozen plus dwarven prisoners/slaves to death thing...that's pretty much mainly on diath, sense it happened because he underestimated the elemental and intent alone didn't really justify or remotely break even with the result.
Our one guy whose characters name is Otto....he is chaotic neutral and has a 20 in charisma and a 19 in Dex .........he has literally taken the clothes right off of people and while holding them has convinced them it wasn't him that did it. #D&December
Thank you so much for making this video, Jared. I recently started playing at a new table as a paladin and I have been feeling pressured and restricted sometimes by the DM and other players because in our story we have to do some illegal things and they expected me to be totally against it and have, like, an internal conflict or something. I also feel I'm never allowed to tell a lie or be intimidating because of my alignment and, well, hearing you say these things really reassured me. Seriously, thank you.
I am a 3.5 DM, i struggle with alignment rules, i tend to tell my player to just do what they want and when i spot them doing something out of character (but not necessarily out of alignment) i stop them and ask them if that's what their character would really do, if they insist that their LG character with a heart of gold would punch the baby because the crying was annoying then i allow it, and then swiftly hold it over their head so they will never forget that they punched the kings baby DERAILING THE ENTIRE CAMPAIGN, SERIOUSLY! HE WAS A LG PALADIN WHO LOVED KIDS!
When I used to DM, I usually used the system that Neverwinter Nights 1/2 used: Good/Evil-Law/Chaos Axis was a numeric value. This way if players deviated from either axis, it would just add a small modifier to the value, no big deal (ex. chaos would be -100, neutral 0, lawful 100). This was if they persisted in constantly acting outside of their player alignment, it would change over time. I also agree about chaotic evil (also chaotic neutral). People usually just pick those to be chaotic stupid, and just act like an 8yr-old throughout the campaign.
Allfearsalsa I hate how people have ruined the name of chaotic evil by playing chaotic stupid with chaotic evil as their "justification". When you play a chaotic evil character or evil in general, it doesn't mean you cant do good, it means when you do good it probably wasn't for the sake of good. Playing a chaotic evil character you might do good deeds, like help the paladin save the children from the burning building, not because you want to save the children, but because you want to help your paladin.
I'm not sure what's worse, people picking Chaotic to act like dumb 8 year olds...Or my Ex (I think 23 at the time) who made her character in Changeling in the New World of Darkness campaign I was DM-ing....A LITERAL 8 year old who did nothing but derail things and interrupt so many moments with "WAAAAAAAAAH". I shit you not. x_x Looking back I feel kind of fortunate that we broke up (and another couple at game broke up), destroying the whole group because GOD the three games we had got unbearable at times. x_x Legit the only thing that I had fun with was one character who'd been screwed by an Ice-themed Fae who my ex would always pester with her ice-related powers because "Look see snow is fun!" only for the guy to at one point react by trying to stab her because "Actions have consequences, you know..."
I like alignment when it comes to Clerics, like you said. My favorite character, Hauksen, is a Chaotic Good Cleric of Pelor. I use that to flavor his backstory a bit. He discovered there would be a "coup" inside the clergy and that his people were "saved" by priests that were dealing with evil entities. That made him question his faith, which he got because his family promised him to Pelor, as a tribute for being saved from the fabricated evil. He tried to expose the corrupt clerics, but was expelled from the order, and lost his holy symbol. Mechanically, this explains some things: His alignment is a little off from the Neutral Good Pelor; his Charisma is low, and that means he has a weaker bond with his god; and his holy symbol is a belt buckle, made by a friend.
The way we do it in our group is that we generally just use Alignment like a rough idea of how they will act, as long as we can give some justification for why. For example, one character is a Chaotic Good rogue. He doesn't like to help others, but at the same time he's got too much of a conscience to just stand by and let people die and so keeps getting dragged into adventures even though he'd like to just retire. Another character is a Lawful Evil warlock. He tries to act like a hero not out of a desire to do good, but because he desperately wants people to look up to him, and he doesn't care much for how or why, being a hero just seems like the best way to do it.
I`d agree with you, but this one time we had a dude where he said due to his backstory he would never kill a humanoid. He then tried to dump a tied and unconscious guard into a freezing lake. We told him that his character would not do that. Eventually he relented when an in game character physically stopped him, but he ended up leaving the campaign.
Jonathan Stares Everyone says, in real life, there are things we would never do, (like kill someone, for instance). We don't have access to a crystal ball when we make these statements. Things change, circumstances change, and your yourself can change. It is not someone else's place to tell you "you wouldn't do that".
I'm currently playing a CE character. He's a conman, and will go town to town, conning people out of their money. He joined the party because he's a pacifist, and uses the party for protection. I feel like having the party as protection for a CE character is good motivation for that character to remain with the party and to not murder hobo. I dunno though.
Feels more Neutral Evil to me. A guy who is really only out for himself but isn't about to go full blow crazy. Neutral evil is the character that has a generally defined set up morals or beliefs, with all of them in some way deriving to his own personal benefit. He is never going extend himself to doing more than what is necessary to achieve his goal and will probably walk away if the things get a bit too hairy for him to deal with. Chaotic Evil is the guy that will do whatever he wants, without care for anyone else and has his own belief on how the world works that is also never stable with nothing staying the same for next day. Think Joker from most Batman stories. The character that see nothing wrong with burning down a whole town, then would feel bummed out the next day because that own bar in the town he burned down had that all that he liked and now he can't get it. He has no set goal from the get go or just has enough of a goal that allows for him to shift whatever direction that goal is in on a whim and will do everything under the sun if he thinks it will either help his goal or help. Burn down the village? Okay, sure, I think that might help. Sacrifice this poor old woman to a dark god? Who the hell cares about her anyway! Trick two factions into war with each other other? Hey, its Tuesday!
Probably very similar but I always thought of it as Chaotic Neutral is the character that will have some other ties than only himself. He will have his own skin to worry about but might have more people to care about as well. I also think that the Chaotic Neutral character will 'at times' put the lives of some other people above his own, though this is very rare and only occasional occurrence. The Neutral Evil will never have any other care above himself. He might care about other people sure but never of them are above his own life and well being. Doesn't matter if they have important things that party needs or might want, if the Neutral Evil character is with them, they are going to pick their own life always. They would argue that whatever they party needed or wanted from that person isn't exclusive to them and they could get it from anyone. But you can't get me (as in the Neutral Evil character) anywhere so I'm clearly more important. I always thought the way to separate the difference between the two alignments is that the Chaotic Neutral character's priorities might change with how the situation goes along but a Netrual Evil character's priorities will always stay at himself no matter how the situation changes or evolves. Not much a difference but it helps.
I always felt that chaotic neutrals will have tendencies toward one way (evil or good), but will switch if it is becoming way too much of a pain in the ass to continue that tendency(generally doesn't happen though). Even so, they can be loyal to those they truly trust, so it is easy to roleplay someone a CN in a party(I will get you out of a burning house, but I won't care about your clothes getting dirty... shame on you for getting shot, man.) Neutral evils, on the other hand, are focused on getting what is most advantageous to himself, with no thoughts of the consequences for the other side. Generally, he will make a deal seem fair, or even legitimately fair, if it will help him get what he wants. How else can they get a large amount of money and power, then with a party that dungeon delves and slays powerful beings that carry great magical items and artifacts of unknown power?
I actually have a pretty sweet concept for a chaotic evil barbarian I play. I will talk with the players of this party and find someone who teams up with me. Then we'll write our backstorys together and at some point their pc will have saved my ce barbarians life. Sure, he'd like to rape, murder and burn down villages when he sees fit, but there is this life debt and his life belongs to that other pc, so he has to bow to that pc's wishes. That way I can play a chaotic evil character in a neutral or even lawful good party.
The problem here is at some point that life debt is going to be repaid or seen as repaid by someone. You could build a meaningful connection during that time and decide to practice continued restraint or something, but I'm just sayin', could easily turn south. But then again most opportunities for things to turn south can turn out good based on our decisions- even if he returned to evil it might make a good story.
I totally agree with you about the Lawful aspect. Lawful can be personal code or public code, but whichever it is it is something the character adheres to as a guiding principle. Allowing for this flexibility is part of what adds infinity to the possibilities of how we play this game.
I once played a chaotic neutral character and my DM kept insisting that I was being evil and kept giving me shit for it. It frustrated me to no end. He would say things to me like "you can't do that, that is evil", when I would do things like barter for higher payments from quest givers or shake down captured enemies for extra loot. My character was self serving, not evil. Needless to say, he was a bad DM who had very strict self-definitions of alignments. I stopped playing under him within a few weeks
Cameron Armstrong Music those two alignments can act very similarly to each other. At their simplest, Chaotic Evil does things because it can, and Chaotic Neutral does things because it is entirely self-interested, and it can be impossible to tell if the PC murdered somebody to get money to eat, or they murdered somebody for shits and giggles.
I have to agree with your dm that self serving is evil. In-fact that's how i define evil to new players. Especially with as religious as people tend to be in my area. Bad does not mean evil, good characters can do bad for good reasons. Its when bad is used for your own reasons that makes you evil. This being said, being strict about it is not alright. Having an alignment is not a detriment (unless you are playing certain classes in 3.5 or earlier editions) what matters is that you have reason to be with the party. Starting with alignment is not a good idea in this case... it should be something understood later. Id love to tell you a story tho, recently i ran a game where i was teaching several new people (there were only 2 players out of the 7 who were in and out over the course of the year whom have played before.) To start the campaign and get the ball rolling i opened with a very stern "You cannot play an evil character. You can play good, or neutral, but your alignment cannot be evil." and i never said anything about alignment for months after that, no matter what the players did or said. Eventually (near the end of the campaign) the topic about alignment came up and one of the guys i was with from the beginning asked "wait... im kind of a dick. I would define myself as evil. Im sorry" "yeah, but you didn't try to be a dick from the onset, you stuck with the party, and everything really just fell where it needed to, theves guild and causing monsters to wreak havoc aside. Don't worry about it. Alignment is more of a guideline, not a definition." Its a matter of perspective. As long as you don't go in trying to create a CE character but they end up that way thru good reasons you wont upset the party or the dm, and everyone can have fun.
Chaotic Neutral is rough ground to tread and I can see it from both sides. There's a reason why it's called "the other evil." That being said, I do agree with you more than I do your GM. Bartering for higher pay is hardly what I would call "evil". Shaking down enemies for extra loot is a bit more of a grey area, but I'd still not define that as evil. At least as far as alignment is concerned.
The only time a Chaotic Evil character has worked in any of my games was when a player was playing one who was incredibly dumb and easily deceived. So typically the worst the character would do is steal candy from babies and that ilk, while the party would easily be able to convince him to do things with them under the pretense it would be evil. "Oh yes... Let's kill this goblin nest plaguing the city. Think about how evil it would be to kill all of these goblins and steal their things.", or "There is nothing more evil than following the law when you think about it. Think of how many corrupt politicians there are that you are supporting because you are following the law."
Chaotic evil I believe can work but only for short campaigns or one shots. You can play them as long as the character has a strong obligation to be there
As a Dungeon Master, I have gone back and forth on alignments in my game. But usually I stick to just outright not allowing evil characters in the party unless I know the player is experienced and they give me a solid backstory. Reason being is I know someone is going to play a good character in the party(because they are very common) and good and evil characters will inevitably clash at some point, tearing the party apart and leaving somebody without a group to play in because their character is dead and nobody likes them anymore. Now if it is done right, evil characters can be really cool to have in a party and even the players might not know about the fact that someone is just lawful evil within their group. But usually it just doesn't go well. And usually if someone tries to do something that would go against their character's alignment and a change in alignment would actually effect their spells or what have you, I usually warn my players "hey that action might start to change your characters alignment". Just so they know that typically someone of their alignment might not do that thing. I have had a lot of players who didn't really develop a cohesive character idea and so sometimes when I say that they will be like "oh you are totally right! My guy would never do that!" but it also doesn't force them to change their idea to fit their alignment. I just kind of make alignment flexible throughout the campaign so that it doesn't feel restrictive. That is just how I have handled it. I don't have as much experience DMing as some others(Only about 2 years maybe and right now I don't even have a group) but I feel like that is a good way to handle it in my opinion. It's still important, but it should be more a reflexion of how you are playing your character rather than how you HAVE to play your character.
If I was playing an evil character, I would do good things and help the party and and people because the end goal would be to make everyone like me so that when I seize power in the distant future, I will have a lot of people who support me cause they think I am a great hero. Of course that end goal would be way far in the future and the party would not need to ever see it unless they want to which could have great story potential. Former allies have to take down someone they were friends with kind of thing, but that would probably be an endgame thing or something if it happened. Basically, my character would be helpful now so he can be evil far in the future. As for the good members, they can see me being helpful and think I am good or that I am having a change of heart or something. That is a summary of how I would do it. Of course evil actions will be used to, just as long as they help the party. The only ones to worry about are the ones who can know my character is evil regardless of anything he does.
That would actually create some very promising RP potential, so long as people knew about it beforehand out-of-character so it didn't create problems at the table.
NinjaKIngAce I mean I feel like as long as he's not feeling bad at all about betraying and just lying to everyone like that it sounds more like chaotic evil. Since there's a difference between that and chaotic stupid I can't see why he wouldn't think of a plan like that.
Well if the character gains a position of power though lawful means, and they use that power for evil, then I'd assume that would make them Lawful Evil
Here's what I think about each allignment: Lawful Good: Someone that follows the laws of society, which happen to be great laws that are ethical and good. Neutral Good: Someone that likes doing the right thing no matter what the law thinks, but otherwise abides to it since law isn't that bad anyways. Chaotic Good: Someone that thinks society is wrong and the right thing is different from what the law demands. Lawful Neutral: Someone that thinks the law is right, no matter if it's evil or not and should be followed for order and peace to be maintained. True Neutral: Someone that lives according to what is best for them, flexibility is key. Chaotic Neutral: Someone that does not agree with the law because it doesn't sound fair, it should change to what they think is better, which happens to not be evil or good. Lawful Evil: Someone that follows the laws of society, which happen to be evil and unethicall. Neutral Evil: Someone that doesn't care about law and really only thinks others and possibly themselves should suffer for some specific reason and will go out of their way to make that happen. Chaotic Evil: Someone that hates law because it stops them from acting the way they want, which is... Evil.
law/chaos is really easy. Lawfull ones think that some rules and order is needed to keep the peace and be eficient as a society. Chaotic ones think that people don't need any rules or order, they must be and do whatever they like.
I always liked to imagine that alignment was fluid and could change based on the development of the character. Some old friends of mine even created a sort of "system" where a character could act out in anyway the player wanted, but said actions would pull the alignment to whatever appropriate direction on the grid. Usually it would be only to adjacent alignments, but completely hopping to the other side of the grid was entirely possible. We treated it more as a superficial reference, though still generally obeyed the mechanics of the game when it came to things like usage of magic. I once played as a rogue that I used to consider to be "Lawful Evil" because she followed a set of ethics that she believed to have been right, though in doing so would end up acting what would appear to be wrong doing. Then she became "Chaotic Good" because her ethics could be deemed as the right thing to do, however she would often act violently or out of sheer impulse. Afterwords, she became "Neutral Good" since later in the campaign, she learned to become a bit more calculated, but still spontaneous in not always good ways. Eventually I found her to fit comfortably in "True Neutral" because no matter what she did - either a good aligned action or a bad one - it always resulted in a way that was beneficial to the campaign, but detrimental to the party and vise versa.
I'm a new player, and I've been feeling a little mixed up about how to play my Neutral Evil character for a while- but it really assures me that I can play him how I want thanks to this! Thanks so much!
"We just live in a rightfull good Imperialistic Society that opress all Chaotic allignment.".... Oh this gme would be so much fun. Finally next to Social Justice Warrior we might see a Social Justice Rouge or Priest.
I do have a complaint: A few months back, I was DMing a 5e campaign. My adventurers had a lul between story missions, so they went to the city job board. There were two wizards, a rogue, and a fighter - the fighter in question was basically playing as a paladin: he was a by-the-book knight of his kingdom who was very proper and kind hearted. At the job board there were a few others looking for employment - or simply browsing the news, local folk. The fighter asks one of them "do you know where I might find a local smithy, good sir?" To a dwarf looking for work. The dwarf said "yes," and gave some very complex directions to the cities' smithy, then said "if you want, I can escort you there for 2 gold" The party members were loaded, and the dwarf's request could have easily been ignored. But instead - the lawful good white-knight started threatening this small man. After a failed intimidation check, the fighter noticed the dwarf pull his cloak back to reveal a sheathed blade. The fighter decided to take a dagger out and THROW IT AT THE DWARF. After missing pathetically, the dwarf armed to defend himself - so the Lawful Good White Knight RAN HIM DOWN and began PUMMELING HIM WITH HIS FISTS. When the guard came, he RESISTED ARREST, then THREATENED THE GUARD, and ATTEMPTED ESCAPE! All because the audacity of a little dwarf to ask for a relatively steep fee for an escort. I believe in free RP, but my player completely broke his character with that. Didn't make any sense within the scope of his character and kind of ruined things IMO.
Other than "The guy was acting defensive / he could have attacked" and "I wasn't about to let this crazed man get away with drawing a weapon / defending himself after I attacked him" It didn't add up IMO.
@@ffffffffffffffff5840 No - he was just being an idiot. He was relaxed the entire time like "Oh... well why is he resisting? I punch him to subdue him, right?" Not high strung or filled with rage - just completely and utterly disconnected from the world and reality.
I have just started out with DnD with my friends are still sort of stuck between neutral good and chaotic good, but now i feel way more comfortable just seeing what it becomes as i go. Thanks for this vid Jared!
Thank you for this insight. So many times has our DM told the party that our characters wouldn't do specific things because of their alignment; especially the Paladin.
You won't be Good for very long that way, since Devilish Law (Demons, which are Chaotic Evil Exemplars, have no need for Law) is not just Lawful, but involves a lot of Evil acts.
"You are charged with the crime of freeing celestial slaves. Your punishment shall be enslavement for the combined terms of the slaves that you freed." "As you did not read the fine print on the contract, you missed that you forfeited your soul to Asmodeus by requesting to read the contract and not refusing to forfeit your soul within the standard terms of 24 hours." etc. etc. Devilish Law does not allow for Good to be done within it, though Good can be done on its periphery. There are, of course, situations where a Lawful Good person could hold a Lawful Evil person or devil to the word of a contract they signed that was worded more neutrally, where the Evil entity wasn't the one who wrote the contract but confirmed that it aligned with Devilish Law and signed it, but constantly working within such a system will push you towards Lawful Neutral, at the very least.
One of my reasons for Chaotic Evil going with a party is that they're FORCED INTO HELPING. My Chaotic Evil character, Drut the Wicked, somehow had been caught by the militia. The militia, knowing his power, uses his power to take out other evil creatures. They figure that him dying in the battlefield would kill another bird. BUT, they don't allow him to walk free. Drut has handcuffs on him at all times, and he has to be watched over at all times by his bodyguard. Even though he's a shapeshifter and a warlock, those handcuffs make it so they always are on him, no matter the spell and thing he changes into. My warlock is also weak, so he's not going to break free any time soon. Another thing is that even though he's wise, he sometimes has "horrible aim". When he gets a horrible score, he sometimes "accidentally" hits other players. Though, because his charisma sucks at times, the other party members think he's full of crap. But, they'd rather deal with the enemies than deal with his shenanigans.
I've only done one D&D campaign. Our party was a drunk lecherous warlock, a super dumb half orc barbarian, a gambling addict half elf cleric, a human fighter that literally couldn't say no to anything, and me as a thieving dwarf monk. We technically had alignments but the DM never really restricted us to them and no one ended up acting how we initially put down, but as a team we basically became...close to chaotic neutral. Tbh, our DM was really amazing. He kept having to come up with stuff on the fly because of the outrageous stuff we thought up.
Hello, I have been a game master for somthing like two to three years now. At the beginning I was following the core rule book "by the letter" because it was easier for me as the GM, but as time passes I kinda came to what you are saying. Now I'm using the alignments as a mean to put my players in situations in wich the characters they are playing will strugle. It goes something like this : "Okay, he/she is playing his/her character in a way that can be generaly assimilated to loyal evil, so if I put them in a situation where there is a tough choice to make about loyalty to the group that shoul be intersting". I try to make that for all my players and I have four, it's quite a lote of work, but I enjoy it because it pays alot with very intresting session.
True neutral does NOT mean you can’t be loyal to your party, form bonds with people, or be loyal to a cause. That’s letting the alignment play the character, not putting an alignment on a character.
D&Dbeyond said it best for me. ( ua-cam.com/video/CrRChyYhNl0/v-deo.html ) Good: You do thing for others. Neutral: You do things for yourself, but not at the cost of others. Evil: You do things for you even at the cost of others. Also, a webcomic I used to read called DLComics had some good Ideas too. ( www.darklegacycomics.com/264 ) LG: I DO GOOD TINGS!!! NG: If it's a bad law, work to change it. LN: I let money decide my morals. N: I like food.
True Neutral to me is an opportunist. They don't go out adventuring to save the world, they do it for fame, fortune, a 10th statue of gold, and for their name to told through out the ages. Another way to think about it would be as a snake oil salesman. The snake oil is not the real product, it's the hope that's the real product. If a Bard is dressed up as a Priest and heals the large life threatening gash across your chest saying this miracle is the will of some god, does it really matter if that he's not a Cleric?
I have a hard time putting "authoritarian" in the normal GNE list, I feel that in the extended alignment list "lawful Impure" would fit authoritarian's best. LN fits best for mercenaries to me, as long as it's legal and it pays they will do anything.
@ 2:50 Finally, someone who gets it! So many people who try to break down the alignments seem to assume that "Lawful" means "obeys the laws of the place they are currently in". No. A Lawful character cares about _consistency:_ they care about coming up with rules that can be applied across all possible situations. They think it desirable that there be rules that can help one navigate an entirely novel situation. It's entirely possible for a :Lawful character to be an outright revolutionary if their personal code conflicts with the regime they find themselves under. It's that personal code that makes them Lawful, not whether or not they follow the letter of the law.
Jared makes several amazing points. The one group I played with would constantly say so and so would do this or not do that etc etc etc to the point where it did cause party conflict. We also did have an a fair amount of evil characters in our group. Three of them to be exact. One was played well, the other was a min/maxer, and the third was only around to try and sabotage the story's goal. ANYWAY, the good RPer basically played a Death Knight and he was only around to use to party to gain even more power, kind of a stock template for most villains but he still did it in a way that didn't ruin our chances to progress the story. The mix/maxer...well nuff said. The other guy, well...like I said he wanted to sabotage the party from ever reaching our goal which was to collect 4 books, he managed to mangle one with bookworms. He was constantly getting into fights with the parties Monk. Needless to say, despite that our DM told those three guys, "Just so you know, Good Always Prevails." So playing an evil character in a campaign with friends is just a dick move tbh,
Really depends...For the Death Knight, that could work, as long as he has an endgame that can work, such as using his influence as a hero to establish himself as a king(or something like that). For that party problem, since I play Paladin, I would have just decided he was not worth the trouble of working with(the other two are worth the trouble) and just smote his ass.
From an inexperienced player's perspective, if you think of Lawful Good as also being allowed to follow "your own personal set of ethics", then what's the point of Chaotic Good or even Neutral Good? The way you explain it, it seems like you could play a Lawful Good character as any kind of Good-aligned character, as long as it fits in with whatever "code" you've made for yourself. What if a Lawful Good player says that their code has them believe that all Elves are scum and must die, no matter what? They're just following their own personal code, after all. I'm not trying to spark a huge debate or anything. I just wonder what Neutral/Chaotic Good characters look like if you think of Lawful Good in this way. It's always good to look at other people's points of view and use them to refine your own, though!
A LG character would follow that personal set ethics all the way and avoid breaking them by any means possible, while a NG and CG will be more likely to break it or flatout don't care. For example, a LG character who has a "thou shall not lie" code will avoid lying will ever they can and if forced to do so will view such an action as a black mark for them, while a NG or CG character would probably go "Yeah, you should be honest but sometimes you have to lie."
As a DM i would want a couple things from the player to have a LG character with an "elf genocide" personal code 1) a damn good justification/backstory for this personal code, if they mange to argue their case and it fits within the setting then all g. 2) I would then pay very close attention to how they enact this code, if they somehow managed to slay elves in a way that is considered good they would retain their good status. 3) and because i'm a bastard i would almost certainly eventually put them in a situation where the character would have to choose between their lawful and good sides (orphanages, philanthropists, other party members)
Think Batman as opposed to Spider-man. Batman has all kinds of personal rules that he has pretty much defined short of writing them down, and if he breaks them he will pretty much retire (see Batman Beyond). Spider-man meanwhile has generally good and altruistic intentions, but will sometimes let himself go further than normal, or do something unpleasant if the situation forces his hand (see when he broke into prison to beat the shit out of kingpin for hurting Aunt May).
Beast Master My DM has a similar view on everything, not just alignments. Literally just "If you can explain it well enough, I'll let you do it." So if the Paladin could give a legitimately convincing argument for burning an ordinary fishing town ultimately being an act of good, he wouldn't suffer any divine retribution from his deity. If the Rogue could properly explain exactly HOW he managed to turn three bear traps, a lamp, and a crossbow into a jetpack, the DM would allow it (with appropriate crafting rolls). This is the best advice I've EVER been given as a D&D player: if you can explain it in a way that makes sense, it makes sense in-game.
I feel like you misunderstood a bit. The "lawful" part is how the character behaves in society. A lawful character typically tries to obey the rules set down by society. A lawful good character would be a policeman, someone who obeys the letter of the law to help people. A lawful evil character would be a mobster; someone who obeys the laws of the gang they're in to seek profit. And the second part is typically how the character handles their own demeanor. Essentially it boils down to evil characters being inherently selfish and good characters being inherently selfless. For example, V from V for Vendetta is chaotic good because he breaks the laws of society to serve others, while the Joker would be chaotic evil because he follows no law of society to serve himself. Meanwhile, someone like the Kingpin from Marvel would be lawful evil because he operates with some form of moral restriction in order to profit.
Alignments - Like Chaotic Evil, Lawful Good, Neutral what-ever "You might've heard of these before, but this is what they are. And I'm gonna go over them them" So like, ""might've heard of""? -- More like; I've seen them for years, all-over the web without any idea of thier context or knowing their mening. It was a *D&D-thing* all along... - Thanks, Jerd.
Alignment can be a fun spark of inspiration. One of my favourite characters came from a whim of wanting to play a necromancer. I got to alignment and thought about what might be interesting. So, I made him Lawful Good, cause it really made me sit down and think about what kind of person that would be.
For all the people out here that say CN is the best alignment because you don't have to justify actions it's bad character building. I hate when a player does something and someone asks him why and the answer is well I'm CN instead of saying anything actually interesting on why that character would commit an act.
I once became chaotic evil by accident by playing an erratic record label CEO who had gotten bored and met the rest of the party while "on sabbatical." She didn't do anything explicitly evil with the party, but when I had to make up the stuff she'd done while CEO it got wild fast. DM let me make it canon that I destroyed a planet for a music video once.
D&D is a game of "House Rules" so it is the DM's job to balance it, control the world so that the characters can interact in a way that can be moved toward the goal of completing the quest. The way we had always solved the alignment problem was by constantly tabulating it based on player turns and actions. For instance a character that had started as lawful good, upon doing something like stealing an item from a shop that was needed or lying to a guard would then take a permanent movement in alignment towards evil. From lawful good to neutral good for instance. In turn, a person who started as a chaotic evil, upon being teamed up with a band of heroes and co-operating with them would take permanent moves towards good. Alignment was never meant to be a static attribute. As Jared put it very well in the video, the Alignment of your character never really controlled how you acted in situations but your ability to Join certain guilds, interact with and/or convince certain NPCs, use magical spells or items that required Alignment of a specific kind. I still play using Alignments but it is defiantly a good preface for those new to Dnd. I always thought it was funny how Advanced Dungeons and dragons has the same Abbreviation as attention deficit disorder. Like ADD there are alot of rules that you can get distracted with, which may be better used once players become more adept at the game, and don't really add to the fun of the game for newbies. The game turns very quickly to ADD (Attention deficit disorder) when characters try to hard to play "like" someone who is on a spectrum instead of just playing the individual character they have created with their own unique motives.
When a person says "your character wouldn't do that" as a DM I ignore it. Jared is right about change of heart. I'll instead tell the player that if their character continues to act outside of their alignment consistently, then I'll change it for them. I have only had to do this once, changing the Ranger from starting at CG to CN then finally at CE. His character was pretty clearly a bad guy.
that's how it should be. my DM wouldn't even let us pick alignments when we started our characters. we would slowly earn them over the course of the game. he also wouldn't let one or two things dictate an alignmnet change. it would take a pattern of behavior before he would change it.
Having a start, and then slowly changing over the course of time. That's character development and it works. Like a Paladin slowly losing his faith and becoming a Dark Knight or a Puckish Rogue who doesn't want to get involved becoming a Stalwart Warrior for those in need.
This may be slightly off topic but my qualm with the alignment system is that "evil" is such a ill defined concept. I mean what does it really mean to be evil, you never question it when it's your enemy but you kind of have to when it's you. Slaughtering a town is evil right? But why would you rationally slaughter a town? Maybe you had a greater plan which benefits from the slaughter but in that case is it really evil if the cause is worth the slaughter (for example, imagine there is not enough food for an upcoming siege so you kill a town, either they die all you all die)? Is it only evil when you had other options but you chose the evil one? But then, if there were better options, what madman would chose the evil one just for the sake of being evil? To be evil seems to align with madness and delusion more than it should, and I feel like that is a whole other dimension of character which should have nothing to do with alignment.
I don't play chaotic evil as a guy who steals from anyone and kills anything, I regulate my stealing and killing by asking myself "what will be the best thing to do to benefit me" and so I don't try to steal or kill party members since that would make them not trust me, even if their character doesn't know that I stole from them they'll still know as a player that I stole from them and so they'll stop helping me and stuff
The thing with alignment is also that it doesn't matter how the world sees them... it's how THEY see it. So if for example that same Paladin was deceived by his order to do very uncanny things but in his heart and mind he is fully obeying the will of his deity that does not make him evil, it just makes him screwed over by an NPC. The same however doesn't go for a lawfull good minotaur cleric who is supposed to be an ambassador and meanwhile goes around making cow-puns and that is the only thing he really does... this almost automatically makes your character chaotic neutral or chaotic good because they just do whatever they feel like and aren't doing what they were supposed to... which is being a strict, honourable ambassador.
The way you describe lawful good is how I describe chaotic good. That's where you play to your own code of ethics and always follow it. That's what chaotic good is. Lawful good is literally following someone else's law to the letter and thinking that is good for everyone. True neutral doesn't mean they will switch sides if they are losing a fight. I've never seen anyone say that or play that way. True neutral (and neutral in general) means always going for what side needs help regardless of what side is right. If a group of paladins want to cull an evil kobold tribe, the true neutral person would more than likely help the kobolds fight the paladins in that case. Lastly, chaotic evil doesn't mean doing this shit to your party. You need your party for selfish reasons, so you won't harm them in any way. Instead you cause chaos on everyone else, be it town npcs, or possibly monsters in the dungeon you are in. Like you like to torture anyone that you don't see as useful to you. Your party is useful. I know you probably play more dnd than I do, but it really feels like you don't understand allignment at all. If you want to get a better understanding of allignment and roleplay in general, go play on a neverwinter nights persistant realm.
I always had self conflicts on whether I should act one way or another. This video really helped me clear that self imposed restriction, thank you! I don't mean to brag, but I have trouble playing as "dumb" characters, characters that would have no intuition on solving puzzles. I seem to be the one in my party that is able to do such things. I would be able to solve a puzzle, but I hesitate to give out the answer, as it is me, the player that knows, but not the character. Is there a solution to this? Do I just say, "I'm not smart enough to understand this puzzle," or do I just solve it?
I feel this is something to bring up with your DM. If YOU know the answer but your character does not or should not, perhaps you can relay the information to another player for THEIR character to use? That way you, the player, gets the credit at the table, while the other character will get the credit in-game.
That is a good idea! At that time, I just asked my DM, and he allowed it, with the reason as me playing my character, and that character was essentially me, sort of. I didn't really agree, but I wasn't going to argue anyways, so I just went with it. But now, for future reference, I'll discuss this with the whole party. Thanks!
I found that out of character note passing works well in this situation. You just write down your solution to the puzzle, and pass it to the person whose character would most likely be able to solve that puzzle.
I say without playing even one game of D&D, but even the least intelligent of people can solve puzzles. In that scenario, I would give the answer in character but make it aware that the character either struggled to solve it, or had some very uncommon knowledge that made the puzzle elementary to the character, such as finding a "walk through" of sorts written in some ancient language that is the only thing of intelligence you knew. Think of it this way, there are at least 2 different kinds of knowledge well accepted in society, book and streets. Maybe your character is good at one, but not the other and that lead him to think of the solution faster than those who specialize in the other type and those that have to reference both types to find the solution. When all else fails, the expression "even a stopped clock is right twice a day" may save the day. Just a few potential solutions that don't require teamwork to explain.
anime riff raff intelligence and problem solving skills are two different things. Even people who aren't smart can solve puzzles. The opposite can also be true. I consider myself fairly intelligent but I'm not a good puzzle solver.
Chaotic evil doesn't mean that you're stupid. Why would you actively hinder your party members when that will directly harm yourself. CE is a very interesting alignment to play because it fills several niches that other alignments can't, or at least it works better as CE.
The issue is that an evil character is going to do something evil, eventually. But the rest of the party might not tolerate that, even if it was in earnest service to their shared goals. It can make for interesting drama, sure, but not all players want that.
For any DnD based game, a discussion should take place between the GM and the characters to determine what alignment means and what impact, if any, it will have in the game. Going into alignment with that mutual understanding circumvents any arguments and rules lawyering. I've always preferred the sacrifice model for moral alignment. In any given scenario, a good aligned character is inclined to sacrifice of himself for others, while an evil character is inclined to sacrifice others for himself and a neutral aligned character is inclined to make no sacrifices whenever possible. Characters are absolutely free to act against those instincts but alignment determines where a character's inclinations lie. Ethical alignment can be even more straight-forward, depending on whether your character sees laws, order, structure and personal codes as beneficial (lawful), a hindrance (chotic), or simply something to exploit (neutral).
As I watch this I remembered a time when I played a true neutral character with my friend who was running a chaotic evil character. It was just us and the DM, and I think that played a part in why it worked so well. Going into it we knew our characters would have disagreements but since we had a common goal it worked out. A lot of fond memories there.
Reminds me of the assignment system from Wizardry.
Good characters help the old lady across the street.
Neutral characters help the old lady across the street because they're heading that way as well.
Evil characters help the old lady across the street and then charge her a fee for it.
The evil that you're all supposed to be fighting is described as the kind of person who helped the old lady cross _half_ the street.
JossCard42 An evil character would help the old lady cross the street... in the middle of rush hour traffic that is, then he would steal her purse and run away laughing.
DarkAnimeCommander Soto no that’s a villain. OP was right, evil PC would help them across and then extort money. Or use them as an alibi later.
It's not that simple in D&D. NE would do as you say but CE might do what *Soto* described while LE would demand payment upfront in advance
oh god
it depends on their intelligence. a low int CE would just steal her purse, a high int CE would convince her to join his suicide cult.
This is my favorite phrase in D&D:
"Lawful Good doesn't mean Lawful Nice."
just like "evil" doesn't translate to "mean." evil is simply defined by how easily and often that character is willing to cross that line.
Yet evil characters seem to be a lot more tolerant than the good ones, in my experience at least.
And even Chaotic doesn't mean "OMG RANDOM LOL". The Joker is Chaotic Evil. Even The Joker has a goal. A plan. He doesn't just blow up hospitals and orphanages for shits and giggles. He gets his shits and giggles because of what comes after or before those actions, usually in the form of irritating Batman. The general rule still stands, though. Don't play Chaotic Evil. You are neither smart enough nor charismatic enough to pull it off.
Echoing the "Crossing the line" statement, to me G/N/E is basically "How far you are willing to go?". Good is...Good, but can dip into some dark territory in a moment of crisis and desperation. Neutral can go either way as the situation permits, or as directed by a moral compass (Because Neutral doesn't have to mean "IDGAF"). Evil is usually fast and dirty, but has touching moments of heart and mercy.
Mine is "chaotic stupid is not an alignment".
Antithesis what he's saying is like a person who wants to burn evil from this earth, like batman. He really just hates crime, but he has a super strict code of conduct and always does good. He seems shady, and is definitely not nice, but he is lawful good.
I had a DM who would allow out of alignment actions, but there was a limit. However, rather than telling them "you can't do that" he would say "If your character keeps acting that way, you'll need to change alignments". So there were characters in that campaign that went from neutral good to chaotic good and other such changes. I personally like this way of dealing with alignment because it allows the characters to be dynamic.
I've never thought of that, and that sounds legitimately kind of cool.
It's still ambiguous though, because alignments aren't kept numerically, and trying to do that would be a pain in the ass. But it'd be cool.
This, so much. The video doesn't factor in alignment change. If you act outside your alignment, it can just be changed to something more appropriate.
I think I'd rather the DM said nothing and then let their alignment-related spells fail because they killed/helped too many babies or whatever.
Tandem Gray, my Neutral Good fighter took down a really powered up cultist non-lethally so we could ask some vital questions. The questions worked out great, we got all the info we needed, however the cultist said "If I'm left here they'll torture me to death for my failure!" so being the honorable sort, my character offered a quick and painless death, or be knocked unconcious to assure he doesn't warn anyone for some time, then he can try to get out of his death through bluffing his superiors (we were trapped somewhere ourselves and literally could not take him with us).
The DM then interjected saying "Okay but Tandem I'm telling you now, if you do kill him, your alignment will change to chaotic evil".
Naturally my reaction was "what?! what the heck? I just killed like nine people! now you're changing my alignment? he's chaotic evil himself and I'm offering him a choice!".
According to the DM, since he wasn't strong enough to fight back at that time, it would count as me murdering an innocent person for no reason at all, which is chaotic evil.
Honestly let's be real; what IF I'd killed him and been forced into chaotic evil? I'd play my character exactly the same as before, but that kinda tells me the DM would start hinting that I should go kill some innocent people because that's my alignment now....
That DM was being ridiculous in my opinion.
Your DM was definitely being ridiculous, for the following reasons:
1. Being defenseless does not make the cultist *innocent.*
2. "No reason" should only apply if there is no reason. Your post explains the reason quite well. This seems like a *Lawful* act, actually.
3. A single action should not be grounds for an alignment change. It needs to represent a shift in attitude.
Remember people: Your character defines your alignment. Your alignment doesn't define your character.
Slothsong only if you want it too
Man, I nearly want to make extra accounts just to agree with you more: The character should be categorised with the alignments, Not defined by them.
Almost a shame that can't be done with classes, though that's for pretty obvious reasons. Though even then, Some DnD systems can get pretty close to that.
Unless you're playing ad&a lol
Trying to explain this to my dm but he is stuck to the old ways
I fully agree. I treat allignement as a fluid thing that changes as your character develops. People don't stay the same as they grow and experiance new things why should a character?
A True Neutral character in a losing battle would NOT flip flop...that's more Neutral Evil. A True Neutral character would realize this is just the world and how it is balancing itself. Yes they don't want to die but for an adventuring group that they have been with, they would NOT try to kill them.Easiest way to think about it is, what would an animal do? They may be cowardly and flee the situation, they may fight to the death, but a zebra would never go "we are fucked...let me join the lions"
I love the idea of a zebra just joining a herd of lions and continuing to attack his zebra family. I don't know why.
Two main ways I have seen true neutral being played are wizards that only care about their research and philosophical characters trying to maintain the balance of the world and not throw it into disorder. But animals tend to true neutral as well.
To be fair that zebra would not give a damn about his family because zebra don't have a family structure like horses do, and as such care only about themselves. If the lions wouldn't eat him instantly, i'm sure that zebra WOULD join them. In summary: Horses and wolves are a much better analogy because the horses actually care.
Wasn't there a version where true neutral was reserved for animals and animalistic species?
I think its more Chaotic Neutral
The best thing you said was "Don't even worry about it". Your character is yours. People are nuanced, and so are their characters
I agree wholeheartedly, I once ran a true neutral warlock, since he didn't fit on the alignment spectrum the way I ran him.
exactly. your alignment isn't defined by one or two things you do. it's the cumulative actions that really have an effect.
My DM often simply ask us to change our alignment depending on what our characters do just as a way to remind us how they are like when we read our character sheets a while later. It makes sense for me like for example I once made a neutral chaotic rogue but as time went on I started to go out of my way to save people..I still stole for myself and to get rich but I steadily started to do good deeds because I honestly started to care about the NPC's that my DM made. I remember it starting with not wanting to kill some guards that I had talked to a while after got a job as one so that I could learn their routines simply because "well fuck they are just doing their job..I will just knock them out!" And it just kept going like that "I can't steal from her..she have 3 kids..damn well that lady is a bitch and have a lot of money..maybe I should leave a little donation to the other woman though" and so on..Actually kinda awesome. Pretty easy way for my DM to manipulate me into robbing the people he wanted me to rob though since I would go out of my way to get everything of value from assholes..
True, I personally use an alignment as a starting point. If I'm not sure how I want to play out a concept I'll choose an alignment which gives me a better framework to live in, but allowed myself to expand upon.
Exactly, DnD is a collective story telling. One mark of a great story is character development. If your character was stuck and had to be played a certain way, they would never be allowed to grow.
He opened by talking about how he's seen people get into fights over what the alignments mean, and now every comment thread is a fight over what the alignments mean.
Jared knew what he was getting into when he made this.
I know, right? As someone who's not a DnD player (yet), it's actually kind of scary. Which I feel bad saying because I know Jared wouldn't want one of his videos contributing toward scaring off people who are interested in the game. But I don't really want to put the effort toward learning the game and finding a group if it's just gonna' devolve into arguments over alignment all the time.
I think it's like anything where a lot of people are fans at different levels of proficiency and experience: the people that are really into it want the chance to talk about it. D&December is supposed to be a forum (on this channel) where people can talk about it and find others who will keep the conversation going.
That being said, while a lot of arguing can certainly be daunting, it's no guarantee that everyone in a game will bicker over alignment (or any other rule, for that matter). I think part of what Jared was getting at is the notion of trying to collaborate (since D&D is, at heart, collaborative story-telling). Don't let alignment get in the way of a good story, but having an alignment is like a prop in improv; it gives people around you something solid to work off of, but it can be discarded if the story goes in another direction.
MoeChicken I just hope I can find people who understand that... ^^;
Honestly Alignment as a feature has been gutted and a lot of the attributes that made Alignment so contentious has been moved to the significantly better character bond, ideal, and flaw system.
Lawful Evil is the most fun flavor of evil. Do good deeds to rack up hero points, always be the one to step up to interrogate, max out your charisma, and achieve your goals in ways the rest of the party doesn't have the guts to do. Mua, ha, ha.
Had a friend that, long story short, ended up helping me steal from the lord of a town, accidently get caught but bluffing his way into making it seem like the one that caught him was the bad guy after killing him..that gave him serious credit by the lord since he got wounded while trying to help and he ended up becoming one of the generals..All the while I got away since they had nothing to tie me to the crime with what so ever..
I agree, but chaotic neutral is the best. Your character just does whatever he wants and he does what it takes to get the job done. If a bad guy has been captures by the party and has some info he isn't sharing? Just torture the guy, cuz u don't care about the rules and you simply want answers asap.
For me, the perfect illustration of Lawful Evil character would be Littlefinger from GoT: his famous "chaos is a ladder" speech encapsulate what Lawful Evil is all about: achieving personal power at any cost while climbing up the (social) ladder.
Well, that would be - a rare - case of character who willingly follow evil, not for any kind of personal gains but rather for the idea itself. "Battle doesn't need a purpose; the battle is its own purpose. You don't ask why a plague spreads or a field burns. Don't ask why I fight." - that's pretty much "noble" lawful evil for you (it's flavor text from Black Knight from MTG)
Chaotic Neutral is the best, if you play as a wizard in Baldur's Gate 2 you will get a Cat familiar if youre chaotic neutral.
Also with CN you don't need to justify your actions, so you can be lazy all day spending the party's gold on booze and prostitutes.
I think any alignment, even Chaotic Evil, can be played within the group. But it's dependent on one thing. That the player not be a dick. That they not use that as license to turn on the party on a whim. They need to have their Chaotic Evil character be stable enough to at least say, "I'm not gonna turn on you guys. I like you guys." Even if the in game explanation for why they like them is, they're effective meat shields.
It could go to something as dumb as "I have to put my murderspree on hold because the world is ending and I can't kill anyone with the world being gone"
@@TotallyCluelessGamer Or as simple as "I enjoy their company, so it's in my interest that they stay alive so we can hang out".
Even horrid selfish people enjoy company.
Chaotic evil most of the time means they are an anti hero not full on villain.
Or hide his actions. I had a player that was in a bar and a woman passed out from drinking. So he gets up walks towards her and kicks her in the stomach. The rest of the party didn't even know how to react... I am "chaotic evil" he said. That guy didn't last long. We never invited him back because the way he played chaotic evil was making people feel awkward. People were "should my good ranger say anything or are we gonna end up in an argument in real life?" Now IF instead he said "i am helping her get to her room" and came back after an hour or two the other party members could make up excuses for their characters like "my good fighter is too stupid to understand that something strange happened so i will let it go".
What about completing the campaign, but right at the end when they finally get their treasure, they finally act according to their chaotic evil needs and get their treasure for themselves?
Lawful Good: "Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat.
They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar.
So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.” -- Terry Prachett
TiroDvD That doesn't make sense to me. Evil is not stupid. They don't have to gloat. They can just kill and feel nothing. That's evil. And acting like a good person would never hesitate to kill someone is such an extreme outlook as to practically be a contradiction in terms.
Basically, no part of that made sense.
In the book from where the quote is, the very goody-two-shoes Lawful Good character Cap. Carrot does the last sentence. I.e. lawful good isn't lawful stupid and that unquestioningly or directly killing stuff wouldn't violate "Good" requirements.
TiroDvD That's neat, but I don't understand how that correlates with what I said. I still think it's a pretty busted, extreme philosophy. There's more good and evil than a handful of archetypes could ever account for.
Orrenn, The quote is from a book in the discworld series. It is said by the main character who has a peculiar outlook on life and he believes that a good person would kill as an act of mercy whereas an evil person would toy with the person they are about to kill. Since the discworld series is rather comical, most of the characters are intended to be bizarre caricatures of fantasy tropes and the quote makes sense in the context of the world they inhabit.
What the quote is saying is that an evil person will enjoying exercising power over another person and thus make them squirm before killing them. Whereas a good person if they have to kill won't drag it out for their enjoyment.
I had a Lawful Good priest Cleric called Father Jackson who would be reluctant to kill anything that isn't evil but if he wanted to kill something, he'd go all out on it. Needless to say, when my party had to fight Aberrations, Jackson would go all out, screaming about The Lord (He didn't have a deity to follow) and smashing everything with his mace and casting spell upon spell.
That's neat! It's an excuse for him to be excessively violent because unholy abominations.
Aaron Kennedy I played a chaotic good fallen paladin, he fell away from his order because he used evil to save innocent people, so he is willing to do anything to save the innocent and punish those he thinks deserves it
i had a lawful good paladin that had a drinking problem which often got him in to trouble in towns. it actually worked to help other people at the table see that "lawful good" didn't mean perfect or zealous and even a flawed character who got into trouble once in a while could be lawful good.
i did suck that the character was always broke from buying alcohol and paying restitution though, lol.
I'm gonna bring up another character in the party, an Elf Rogue named Perseus Rootleaf. Perseus was Chaotic Good, so every single time he had to do a task, he'd do it the way it was intended, except with a few "creative" twists. Such as one time when the party had to take out a camp of Orcs, Perseus decided to knock them all out one by one, and once the Orcs were all knocked out, Perseus threw them all into a pile and lit them on fire.
all this stories sound pretty awesome.
I don't even play Dungeons And Dragons yet I still watch these videos because ProJared is cool.
5e is the easiest edition yet to get into, give it a try!
You again...
speed wagon is best wagon
I'm looking for a new group, if interested
At least try to find a group to play it, it's great!
Lawful Good: It doesn't mean Lawful Nice.
Agreed. It also doesn't mean Lawful Stupid or Lawful Naive. Also common misconceptions.
Depends what you think "nice" is.
"Raiders are attacking your farm? Sure, I'll help." Doesn't mean you're going to up and say the raiders are gonna be spared, or brought before a court. For all we know those raiders could be beaten to a bloody pulp in the name of justice and safety for the civilians (protecting the farms)
Thats my big problem with Lawful Good. Depending on the player it is actually played as chaotic good or lawful good. The chaotic good paladin is the worst.
shifting alignment can be a great storytelling tool for games.
I was playing a Warforged Monk that had been in stasis for 200 years. the monastic Order that created him had been destroyed and he was wandering the world without purpose.
an evil librarian had convinced me that my model of Warforged had a "programming flaw" that had turned them all chaotic evil and they destroyed a nation.
this caused my character to have a crisis of Faith and a temporary shift to chaotic evil.
when the deception was discovered and the librarian slain, my character visited a local (non-denominational) shrine and prayed to his gods and was granted a vision.
his faith and original lawful good alignment were restored. and the next leg of our journey was influenced into being a penitent Quest.
True Neutral random goes turncoat? True Neutral?
Are they high? Betrayal isn't exactly a neutral thing to do to your friends in the middle of a battle.
ImJTHM but what if that was to later betray the evil guy from the start and prevent the party from dying? Or rather, to gather information working for the evil guy?
gotenksta
Ok, a neutral character wouldn’t be THAT hardcore. That’s like a chaotic good, not going by any sort of code whatsoever, but always doing stuff for good in the end.
@@gotenksta but then you wouldn't do it in the middle of combat and help finish off your party
Personally, I love what Pathfinder did with alignment in the "Pathfinder Unchained" book. Basically, they added an alternate system. Rather then having "Lawful-Neutral-Chaotic" and "Good-Neutral-Evil", each player writes down 3 "loyalties". For example, you might have a Loyalty to your Family, your Honor, or Money. Essentially, your loyalties are what your character considers "good", because in real life, no one sees themselves as the villain, and everyone thinks they're doing the right thing. Whatever might be classified as the opposite is "evil" to your character. All spells and abilities which negatively effect evil characters can be used against characters who either have opposed loyalties or have recently made a serious move against your loyalty. All spells and abilities which positively effect good characters work on characters with similar loyalties. What I really like about it though, is how it actually makes you think about your character's story and outlook on the world. The classic alignment system is too general in my opinion, and shouldn't be used as a roleplaying tool.
So, "Good" spells become "Aligned" spells and "Evil" spells become "Unaligned" spells. Makes sense, especially in a religious kind of setting if you're playing a cleric and while you might not do 'good', your patron will likely still offer support to those who at least have the same set of values despite perhaps being of another religion.
Hey, I just want to say that I absolutely adore D&December and it’s probably my favorite month of the year for that reason. Even though you only make D&D videos for one month a year, you’re still probably my favorite D&D youtuber. I love these videos and hope you’ll be doing a lot more.
Ditto
look up web dm
If your looking for a good d&d youtuber I mean he does do other stuff but he does really good d&d vids his channel is Matt Colville
Ditto
Personally I feel like alignments are taken too literally. They are broad definitions, not guidelines. For true neutral, to me that means being an opportunist. It doesn't mean you have to always just be a palm tree in the wind, it just means doing what feels advantageous at the time. Just my thoughts.
The new supplement, Xanithar's guide to everything (i think that's right?) has an alignment table for generating family and friends of your character. Anyway, the most common result on that table is just neutral. I personally think the intention is that a neutral character is most like a normal person; they would rather stay in their lane and go with the flow of life, not doing anything heroic or revolutionary unless they were compelled by duty or necessity.
LeviathanLP That sounds right. Alignments have really turned into more of a soft idea to what a character is like more than rules.
In my opinion, True Neutral are more like guardian of balance than a self-centered person.
A self center person is more like a chaotic neutral,
a lawful neutral are more like secular soldiers whose interest lies not on his personal self interest but on the interest of society (or whatever order/affiliation he subscribe to) as a whole.
True neutral however see value in every-side... so if the "goodness" is tipping the balance to their favor and in the act of annihilating the evil components of the society a true neutral will fight goodness and side with evilness it even if there is no personal reward or convenience in doing so.
I think it having some weight in the worlds is something that only DnD has. Like weapon only an evil character and use or portal door that can only be tough by one type.
An example for what Leviathan said being "Compelled by duty or necessity" could be a true neutral farmer who joins a party of heroes, not because they think they themselves are a hero, but because the only way they can return to normal life is when the raiders (or government) stop pillaging their crops. The end of campaign for such a character would literally be them settling back down to what they were before, or growing out of their original true neutral alignment because the events that occurred with the party changed their perspective on the world. (Whether for better, if say they vowed to protect others from suffering the same fate they did, or for worse, if they became a neutral evil who's view is "If the world is cruel, then I guess I have to be, too.")
Playing evil characters, even CE ones, isn't hard to do within a party setting. You just have to have one rule you follow: Your party is not an outlet for your evil. A truly evil character is going to see his party as his henchmen. He WANTS an audience for his evil acts. And as such, you want to keep them alive as best you can, and as happy as you can.
Evil doesn't also have to be synonymous with "unlikeable," and chaotic doesn't have to be synonymous with "blathering lunatic." That's not how alignments work. Simply put, your alignment is simply a base from which we, as players, perceive morality. How often have we, in video games, movies, books, etc., run into evil characters, who, once we sit down and examine their purposes and reasons why they do the evil shit they do, usually have a good reason to do it? Ozymandius is a good example. He killed thousands of people to inevitable save millions, because HE thought he was right. Is he evil? Hell yeah. But his conviction was no different from that of a morally good character. His worldview was simply different.
Morality, and by extension, alignment, are subjective. I have a cleric who's lawful evil, and worships a God of Murder. She murders for coin. But she believes that it is a necessary function of society, but has, as a personal ethic, a very specific rule. No unnecessary murder (i.e., murder must be contracted, or only done to save herself or an ally), and she will not accept a contract for a child or a beggar who's poor for reasons they can't control (i.e., mental problems, injuries, personal vendetta from a higher authority, etc.).
Subjective is the word of the day.
Thomas Poteete lawful evil or neutral evil are my favorite alignments if I wanted to be evil character. Hell even my chaotic good main tends to do evil things for money
We did this with a lawful evil cleric, we were his scheming henchmen which is fun.
do you think there can be a cleric that is evil like CE, there god could be tiamat or somthing
whole-grain waffles actually they are evil clerics and that's the priests of talos
thanks :)
Chaotic Evil can work great if the players are the villains. I've DM'd that before, and it is surprisingly fun.
I like Evil campaigns because they can be a lot of fun and allow things that you generally wouldn't get to do in good campaigns. Some of my favorite games were Evil campaigns.
We played a good guy campaign and I played a chaotic evil necromancer....... Story time
The only one who knew I was an evil bastard was my fiancee. Because her character had sense evil on permanent due to mixing her blood with a unicorns blood. So she spent most of the campaign trying to convince the party that I was evil. However, because my charisma was so high, she never could. ALOT of shady shit happened on my part, and we eventually had to rescue a few gods from being trapped in another realm where they were more or less equal to a regular person in terms of power. My Necromancer split from the party saying, " It is my job alone to rescue my goddess." ( Again, charisma for the win)
Longer story short, killed her, absorbed her power, went on a god killing spree, absorbed more power, became a lich god, and became the final boss...... take a guess at who won the final fight.
I've never played D&D before, but being chaotic evil sounds fun. Forming allegiances just to backstab, slowly plotting your evil betrayal. What is Jared saying rit now?
its very difficult, but potentially rewarding. You have to be trustworthy enough to get away with the bullshit you pull, if you do, I suggest charisma out the ass. Its the only reason I got away with so much shit....... Like burning down an orphanage. ( I convinced the party that it was a front for a demon Resurrection cult)
I've played a chaotic evil tiefling bard In a mostly good/neutral party, how he worked was that he was with them to profit off their hard work, he would loan shark/con the area they traveled to for profit, then he would talk down the prices of the merchants for the parties benefit so they might look the other way
To me, true neutral characters typically fall into 1 of 2 areas. With some, they're just trying to live their lives as peaceful as possible. They have no lofty ideals of heroics while holding no malice towards others. With others (particularly old school druids and Dragonlance wizards of the red robes), they understand that the world around them has a natural balance of good, evil, order and chaos and they must do their part to uphold that balance. While this may place them at odds on occasion with good characters, it's a little more frequent for evil to try and upset that balance on average. That doesn't exactly mean that a balance based true neutral character will shift their allegiance based on what's happening, so much as voice their opinion much like a lawful good character may
I had a chaotic evil cleric in my last Campaign and he was the most popular character. But then again I'm a veteran DND player who knows how to be a bloodthirsty maniac without derailing everything so I think its possible just watch what kind of group your in and don't kill your team-mates, chaotic evil does not mean your incapable of having friends who your character won't kill like Jared was implying or murdering random people in the street.
Awesomeness11 Thank you. Finally someone who gets it.
Chaotic evil doesn't mean chaotic stupid.
The biggest issue with the alignment is that, by default, if you truly follow the core idea, it will be very hard to care long term about a party or a quest. Your character will resent sitting down with other people and working efficiently to accomplish a goal. He can make friends and fall in love, but his views on honor and loyalty are hazy at best.
if you ever sit down to make a character that is chaotic evil, there lies your biggest challenge. how do I play this kind of character, but tune it down or tweak it enough that I'll be tolerated by a party, and may find excuses to follow them in their quests? You must ackowledge that no matter what the bppl describe, you may have to tune it down a bit in order for the game to take place.
That isn't purely limited to chaotic evil. Every alignment has to bend a bit to follow the adventure. A lawful good may have to go against his principles to accomplish a goal. A true neutral character may have to get out of his chair and follow the party on trivial quests, even tho he personally doesn't feel concerned about the issue. A chaotic good character may have to step up and play by the rules of some organisation instead of being a loose canon.
The moment where you value the words lawful or evil over the word game is when the game loses its fun.
I see Chaotic as "rebel". Chaotic Evil is like the one who wants to change the system for egoistic purposes. They don't need to be backstabbers or something like that. They can have trustworthy allies and respect them during their journey.
Just because your character don't like to abide by some rules it doesn't mean they won't abide by any rules. A Chaotic character can believe in their own rules and condemn anyone who acts against their believes. They are "Chaotic" mostly because their own rules goes against the rules of something bigger, like a society or a government.
Btw, I see those "True Neutral" who changes sides for advantage as evil. It's very egoistic to abandon your allies and have the intention to kill them for this "advantage".
This was brought up with me while I was playing one of my favorite characters. He was Owain Vandrin, a lawful good human fighter who was a 20-something retired soldier, a displaced Noble who’s ancestral home was stolen by his uncle. During the raid on Greenest in Hoard of the Dragon Queen, a group of kobolds attacked us as we were getting out of a sallyport. After fighting them, the last three ran away and hid. I said that Owain would follow them and kill them. The Dungeon Master asked if he’d do that, being Lawful Good. I said, “Owain would weigh the sacrifice of those kobolds, creatures who have already attacked a village and killed innocent people against the possibility that should they escape, they might tell the cult of the Dragon where the sallyport was, and use it to get into the keep. Yes, Owain felt it was wrong, but the greater good outweighed the wrong of it.
I once played this Neutral Evil Tiefling Sorceror in Pathfinder and it was a lot of fun. He was prone to anger very quickly(one of the most fun things to play), and he would "help" others if he saw it as a way to better himself, but if someone tried to take his stuff, like a prized magical and powerful staff he had gotten earlier, he wouldn't hesitate and throw lightning bolts and fire balls at the enemy, even if it resulted in harming innocents or helping in burning a part of a city to the ground.
JohnnyFireFlame I Am Geussing You Burnt A City To The Ground
More then once presumably.
Currently playing a nephilim paladin lawful good, though my "initial" perception of a lawful good paladin was akin to the Adeptus Astares from warhammer 40k or Judge Dredd. Thusly when a group of bullywugs surrounded my kobold companion i did not hesitate to immediately SCAR AND BRAND ONE OF THEIR WARTY HIDES WITH SEARING HOLY MAGIC INFLICTING THE EXCRUCIATING PAIN OF A THOUSAND SUNS! My playgroup thought that was CE and not LG
Edit: meanwhile i was thinking "these fat toads are surrounding one of my, admittedly annoying evil, party members that i was foretold to journey with to save the world, you bet your ass i am going to teach them to not fuck with fate." Afterwards they said that talking would've been good enough and that searing pain doesn't befit a LG character, INCLUDING THE THIEVING KOBOLD BARD I JUST TRIED TO PROTECT.
+JohnnyFireFlame
Why did the other PCs continue to adventure with your PC?
Well, because we all were on the run from this Scribbler dude who was really a Raksasha in disguise, plus the staff was an ancient artifact that we needed to keep safe.
Don't get me wrong though, our monk berated my sorcerer for doing that. My guy just responded with "Then don't let anyone take my shit".
Jared forgot to mention the problematic Chaotic Neutrals that steal from the party, kill clearly important NPCs, and be like "hurr durr, that's just what my character would do".
Doge Archon I was gonna say the same thing. I say that chaotic neutral characters could easily use Bender, Belkar, or the entire ASIP crew as inspiration, but the neutral part is your excuse to not stab your entire party.
i've actually had to kill a party member before because he was stealing from the party. it was several game sessions in which we had important artifacts come up missing and finally caught him doing it. needless to say, it was an interesting time at the table that night.
That's Chaotic Stupid; sadly, they ommit that alignment in the books.
speaking of, i'm stealing that, weigrafdx, lol.
I believe Chaotic Neutral is a hard one to nail down. I generally play Chaotic Neutral as guys who will generally go with the flow, but will stand firm for their beliefs as it comes to it. I play a Chaotic Neutral Goliath Druid named Apakon Stomcaller Kalukavi. He joined the party because some thunderous battles were drowning out his thunderstorms, and he merely wanted it to stop. He eventually became the biggest opponent of the BBEG of the campaign, because the BBEG corrupted the one non-animal being he ever trusted. Chaotic Neutral is all about being like water. Calm and cool when things call for it, but rough and roaring when you need to thunder down.
I like chaotic good, I've had a chaotic good thief and barbarian that were completely different.
The thief was chaotic good because he believed laws and traditions got in the way of a good time also he didn't understand the concept of personal possessions. I decided he didn't kill, so every time we got into a fight he would knock people unconscious rather than kill them. So when he almost took someone's life the party talked him out of it and took a long look at themselves.
The barbarian however believed that the gods were ever watching and to do the extraordinary was to win favor, he also believed that wearing clothing was a shameful act that denied the gods view of their creations. Also that acts of cruelty only gave favor to lesser gods but acts of great love or creation could even give godhood. Anyways he got arrested for assaulting a priest in a water fountain and eventually the party made him wear a cloak to meet the king.
Currently playing a lawful neutral Paladin/Warlock that's personal code is to raise mankind from its dependence on gods and demons through knowledge gained or stolen from the heavens or the abyss. He is just pure logic so the few times he has done un logically sound things like save the little girl from demonic possession or burn that priest out of vengeance they become more meaningful than the moments he's done the correct alignment thing. Basically I see lawful neutral as someone upholding their code beyond morality, in fact morality doesn't even enter the picture.
I play a chaotic good thief at the minute; he kills as a last resort and prefers to spare lives if he can get away with it, though if he's attacked and it's life or death, he'll naturally choose his own life; he didn't ask to have that choice brought on him after all. I've always liked playing characters who don't escalate as it is. He also won't steal things people actually need... usually :P
Kinda glad you talked about shifting alignment because that is how I've seen it too, now if it considered something that should be possible as for the DnD rules (no one I know to play with, havn't looked) I always figured traumatic or some instances could cause a good or evil person to change ways.
UnknownFox yeah, i remember the book saying that. Actually, that is how a Paladin can break their oath with their god, if they end up changing their ways. :v
I remember one time, one of characters saw a massacre of thousand of legitimately innocent goblins by a god because they were "innately evil." He shifted to true neutral as he suddenly recognized the tyranny of imbalance.
There was actually a Dragon/Dungeon magazine rules extension that gave hard numbers and formulae for how many things a character could do that were contrary to their alignment before they changed alignment. It was based off of wisdom, as it was a measurement of how well a character understood themselves and their place in the world. It was a bit rough around the edges, but it might be a good fit for some playgroups.
The biggest issue I have with alignment is magic that instantly changes character alignment, because it changes an entire character with no reason or buildup whatsoever, and reduces a well developed character to a flat character.
rename it to "apparent alignment" so its not completely forced upon you
i've had newbie players that wanted to play paladin but took random evil decision without really knowing what they were doing, reminding them that a lawful good paladin would not ''kill those orphan just because they are a bit annoying'' is acceptable
You gave an extreme example, and even in that situation, you don't word it like that. You could have said, "Why would a holy and good paladin kill an orphan for a trivial reason?" and let them explain their reasoning. They will either see your point, or give an explanation. If they give a good one, go with it. If they don't, you might want to check what kind of player they are. They might not be the kind of player you want to play DnD with. In none of those outcomes should you EVER tell them how to play. Because its not YOUR game, its EVERYONE'S game.
I think the perfect way to play "Chaotic Evil" [and *NOT* harm your party] is to make suggestions of horrific deeds that your party could commit to gain something. You gave them the choice; it's up to the rest of the players to decide whether they'd want to do something evil just to gain extra goodies, or even a necessary key-item.
Also, during battle, just come up with the most sadistic ways possible to kill an enemy of the party.
Sooo, Belkar Bitterleaf, the halfling ranger from The Order Of The Stick?
*_"I AM A SEXY SHOELESS GOD OF WAR!!"_*
The only way I choose make mine Chaotic is if they get a bad roll. My character is a warlock, but they sometimes have bad aim. But, since my character's CHA is not really good, the party doesn't believe that at times, but they'd rather deal with the enemy than put up with him.
I have been that guy who points out when an act is at odds with an alignment.
In my defense it was with new players who were still learning what the alignments were and they had asked me to do so.
" Shanking the priest to steal the donation box is not a lawful good act" was something i had to say. I also did have to remind the evil character to be evil.
Turns out the evil character was a devious little bastard. He knew evil. He turned out to be an experienced roleplayer pretending to be a newb and was in cohoots with the DM.
the back up characters we created were needed that day.
On this issue I agree with you and disagree with Jared.
*There is no point having characters with an explicitly declared alignment IF players are free to ignore it without justification or consequences.*
The GM should decide if he wants alignment to be an explicit trait or an implicit one. Explicit alignment is SUPPOSED to be restrictive because it epitomises the moral values of the character.
@@GonzoTehGreat Ok, no. Thats being a rules-lawyer. That isn't ok even a little bit. You NEVER tell another play how to play unless they explicitly ask what they should do next, and even then it should be a suggestion, not a declaration. If the entire party comes together with the DM and all want to play a game where they MUST stick with the alignments, then they can do that if they wish, but if even a single player doesn't want to, then it can't happen. At that point either explain to the player how the game will be run and let them decide what to do, or allow them to be fluid with their character. I don't care what the rules say, that isn't how role playing works. Characters are fluid and dynamic, not lifeless robots. To play a character like that is to do the opposite of role playing. Characters SHOULD do things outside of their preconceived notions of themselves. If they don't, they are boring and unimaginative.
@FattyMcFox Never be that guy, ever. If they ask, give them a suggestion and then drop it. Never TELL a player what to do. That is beyond wrong. rules-lawyers are literally the worst kind of people to have at the table, next to "No you can't do that" DM's
@@shadowlife15 You've misunderstood my comment. I suggest re-reading it more carefully before jumping to the wrong conclusion.
I said there's is no point having explicit (declared) alignments if characters are just going to ignore them.
You should EITHER have an explicit alignment and use it to guide how your character acts OR play without a declared alignment, allowing your actions to determine it.
You also seem to misunderstand how alignment works. It's not an unchanging straight jacket which constrains what a character can/can't do but a guideline as to how they'd behave. If they choose not to behave that way then, depending on their choices, their alignment can/will change.
_I don't care what the rules say, that isn't how roleplaying works._
It's hypocritical of you to criticise others for following the rules while claiming that isn't how roleplaying works. You don't get to determine how others play. That's something agreed between a DM and his players.
@@GonzoTehGreat you need alignments for many spells and interactions in the game. I didnt misread your comment, you just didnt think of that fact
A chaotic evil character shackled in the bondage of magic; sentenced to an eternity of doing good deeds.
Unless he is somehow freed during the campaign and suddenly wants to take down the party from with in. (which if you could keep it a secret would be awsome )
Done it. CE Ghul Barbarian (A 'half-ghoul' abomination from Dragon Magazine for 3e) Bound by a Mark of Justice and shepherded by a priestess. Entire game was her slowly altering his alignment through literal aversion therapy and gentle guidance, I had a ton of fun with it really - because he was the gish of the party, and the priestess would literally set him loose on monsters and he'd get to revel in combat like a crazy person for a bit.
He actually ended up Chaotic Good at the end of the campaign, having had her at one point literally save his soul and make him a whole person again.
@Jadon Pennell Nice :)
You don't have to betray, kill, or steal from your fellow party members if you're Chaotic Evil. The reasoning behind being an Evil character with a group of adventurers with Good intentions can be as simple as, "Being with them will give me strength in numbers and a means to carry out my goals." In most cases, a Chaotic Evil character, or any Evil character in general is going to realize that the rest of the party is more useful to them on positive terms rather than negative. You could steal another player's magic ring, or you could just go on a few adventures and find or buy your own with your earnings. You could sell them out to an evil king, or grow more powerful with them and overthrow that king, installing yourself as a ruler of that kingdom in his stead.
In the case of True Neutral, you don't have to be totally aloof and detached from any sentiment towards others, but rather just skeptical of the ideas of all extremes. A True Neutral character may find the idea of absolute Law/Order to be asphyxiating, while total Chaos and a might makes right mentality may seem far too detrimental to society to hold merit. Similarly, such a character may recognize that total Good can be just as hostile toward mortals as Evil can be, since on the level of Gods, morality hits a much broader scale and the quality of life for some mere mortals can amount to little more than a speck of a God's vision. Someone that doesn't put their trust in any of the four extremes and seeks a more balanced life for themselves and perhaps for those around them. People working for each other, rather than having law imposed on them forcefully or left to fend for themselves.
I have a friend who has played a chaotic evil character for a long while now. He solved the issues of disloyalty to the party. Long story short his backstory involves his world being destroyed around him when his character was a child his party are his childhood friends from a nearby village who saved his life during the experience. The ordeal drove his character insane, and because of this he wants to see the world burn. However; he holds total loyalty to his friends and their decisions as recompense for saving his life. It has lead to some pretty interesting situations and we all have enjoyed it. But like you said for every good player there can be a bunch of shitty ones. I am just hoping this gives an idea of a good way to set up a chaotic evil character in the party.
Ah yes, time to rewatch all his D&D vids to psyche myself up to run my campaign.
Props to anyone who comes back in 2020.
To me, Lawful is the following: consistent, sane, orderly, even predictable. I don't know what confusion there is about this.
more or less. you aren't perfect and you can even be very flawed. it basically just means you have belief in some kind of order.
One of my favorite examples of lawful not necessarily meaning "The law of the land" is the bounty hunter/mercenary who has a code of conduct that says if he takes a job, he's gonna see it through to the end no matter how much the odds go against his favor, and won't accept a bribe or be payed off by the enemies of employer, no matter how much the counter offer may be.
Or literally just the alignment of lawful evil which will happily break the law of the land for their own gain, while having their own "Rules" that they follow. (For example "I will not kill children, or betray those who support me, but woe unto my enemies and those who oppose me")
Om Lo actually most people wouldn't define it like that
I love playing Lawful Good characters. I like showing other players that there is more to that alignment than zealotry.
I love playing a Paladin who a genuinely nice guy,getting along with his friends, tries to talk down his enemies, and will drink you under the table at any Tavern. A guy who will defend his friends to the death, and not allow an innocent to be harmed.
I've been told by my groups in the past that was their favorite Paladin they've ever dealt with. Only the group that I mentioned in a post I made previously on this video ever had a problem with this character archetype.
Good for you, man!
DrPluton I prefer chaotic good. I have no need for the law to help people...I help people who are in a dire need like stealing from nobles and give them the innocent half of the gold I gained
Dante Vera, Never was a fan of Robin Hood archetypal characters, but hey, maybe you play them better than what I typically witness.
Diniece Henderson two things I do to get loot from nobles in Baldur's gate. I polymorph them to a rabbit or knock them out cold with sleep
for me Alignment are not one type of character they can be play in many different ways and have different personalities, a thief with a heart of gold and a barbarian raised in the wild that care for the weak are both chaotic good, but they have completely different personalities and goals
IMO the best part about this video is that it is not a bunch of pieced togther clips. Being able to keep your thoughts coherent and getting your points across all in one take without getting side-tracked is a tough thing to do. Props Jared!
Your advice about not writing down your alignment until later on is really good advice! It's better to play your character, see what you think they're like, *then* decide.
If your player breaks their aliment, you don't tell them "you can't do that". That's bad GMing. You say "Your aliment shifts towards X or Y", write that down, or "you have to pick a new aliment from these". Of course, the player can always redeem themselves and go back to their entry aliment.
There are ways to play Chaotic Evil well with some tricks that I enforce on my players that wanna be evil. That is to have joint backstory with another player that involves bonds of blood, pacts for life and stuff like that. Simply you have to build a story reason from the beginning that makes it impossible for them to stab their party.
As for if you should or shouldn't have an alignment to begin with: if you're new, you want an alignment. It's a tip, a guide on how to role play for players that aren't used to role playing. When inexperienced people pass on guidelines like these, they will end up acting in the most effective way game-wise. They will just do whatever gets them the most loot or exp or whatever, and will end up having no valid personality.
My marathon of rewatching, liking, and commenting on every Jared video continues. Video 73
'Diath has done things that are considered evil'
Like that time he killed that child.
Or burn a lot of dwarven prisoners to death with a giant fire elemental.
welp, the whole killing a child thing DID (eventually) result in the defeat and imprisonment of a vampire lord that terrorized the land and it's people for centuries, so that's more of a "for the greater good" situation. i mean there were other options, like fight it and potentially die with the rest of his party, or kill a party member instead but yeah....killing kids is bad.
as for the burning a dozen plus dwarven prisoners/slaves to death thing...that's pretty much mainly on diath, sense it happened because he underestimated the elemental and intent alone didn't really justify or remotely break even with the result.
indeed
Our one guy whose characters name is Otto....he is chaotic neutral and has a 20 in charisma and a 19 in Dex
.........he has literally taken the clothes right off of people and while holding them has convinced them it wasn't him that did it.
#D&December
Thank you so much for making this video, Jared. I recently started playing at a new table as a paladin and I have been feeling pressured and restricted sometimes by the DM and other players because in our story we have to do some illegal things and they expected me to be totally against it and have, like, an internal conflict or something. I also feel I'm never allowed to tell a lie or be intimidating because of my alignment and, well, hearing you say these things really reassured me. Seriously, thank you.
I friggen love the production value of this series. The lighting and the way the camera is set up makes it feel old school, you know?
my favorite part is the earrape from the mic rubbing on his shirt
I am a 3.5 DM, i struggle with alignment rules, i tend to tell my player to just do what they want and when i spot them doing something out of character (but not necessarily out of alignment) i stop them and ask them if that's what their character would really do, if they insist that their LG character with a heart of gold would punch the baby because the crying was annoying then i allow it, and then swiftly hold it over their head so they will never forget that they punched the kings baby DERAILING THE ENTIRE CAMPAIGN, SERIOUSLY! HE WAS A LG PALADIN WHO LOVED KIDS!
canofdeath221 XDDD
When I used to DM, I usually used the system that Neverwinter Nights 1/2 used: Good/Evil-Law/Chaos Axis was a numeric value. This way if players deviated from either axis, it would just add a small modifier to the value, no big deal (ex. chaos would be -100, neutral 0, lawful 100). This was if they persisted in constantly acting outside of their player alignment, it would change over time.
I also agree about chaotic evil (also chaotic neutral). People usually just pick those to be chaotic stupid, and just act like an 8yr-old throughout the campaign.
Allfearsalsa I hate how people have ruined the name of chaotic evil by playing chaotic stupid with chaotic evil as their "justification".
When you play a chaotic evil character or evil in general, it doesn't mean you cant do good, it means when you do good it probably wasn't for the sake of good. Playing a chaotic evil character you might do good deeds, like help the paladin save the children from the burning building, not because you want to save the children, but because you want to help your paladin.
I'm not sure what's worse, people picking Chaotic to act like dumb 8 year olds...Or my Ex (I think 23 at the time) who made her character in Changeling in the New World of Darkness campaign I was DM-ing....A LITERAL 8 year old who did nothing but derail things and interrupt so many moments with "WAAAAAAAAAH". I shit you not. x_x
Looking back I feel kind of fortunate that we broke up (and another couple at game broke up), destroying the whole group because GOD the three games we had got unbearable at times. x_x
Legit the only thing that I had fun with was one character who'd been screwed by an Ice-themed Fae who my ex would always pester with her ice-related powers because "Look see snow is fun!" only for the guy to at one point react by trying to stab her because "Actions have consequences, you know..."
I like alignment when it comes to Clerics, like you said.
My favorite character, Hauksen, is a Chaotic Good Cleric of Pelor. I use that to flavor his backstory a bit.
He discovered there would be a "coup" inside the clergy and that his people were "saved" by priests that were dealing with evil entities. That made him question his faith, which he got because his family promised him to Pelor, as a tribute for being saved from the fabricated evil. He tried to expose the corrupt clerics, but was expelled from the order, and lost his holy symbol.
Mechanically, this explains some things: His alignment is a little off from the Neutral Good Pelor; his Charisma is low, and that means he has a weaker bond with his god; and his holy symbol is a belt buckle, made by a friend.
The way we do it in our group is that we generally just use Alignment like a rough idea of how they will act, as long as we can give some justification for why. For example, one character is a Chaotic Good rogue. He doesn't like to help others, but at the same time he's got too much of a conscience to just stand by and let people die and so keeps getting dragged into adventures even though he'd like to just retire. Another character is a Lawful Evil warlock. He tries to act like a hero not out of a desire to do good, but because he desperately wants people to look up to him, and he doesn't care much for how or why, being a hero just seems like the best way to do it.
I`d agree with you, but this one time we had a dude where he said due to his backstory he would never kill a humanoid. He then tried to dump a tied and unconscious guard into a freezing lake. We told him that his character would not do that. Eventually he relented when an in game character physically stopped him, but he ended up leaving the campaign.
Jonathan Stares Everyone says, in real life, there are things we would never do, (like kill someone, for instance). We don't have access to a crystal ball when we make these statements. Things change, circumstances change, and your yourself can change. It is not someone else's place to tell you "you wouldn't do that".
I'm currently playing a CE character. He's a conman, and will go town to town, conning people out of their money. He joined the party because he's a pacifist, and uses the party for protection.
I feel like having the party as protection for a CE character is good motivation for that character to remain with the party and to not murder hobo.
I dunno though.
That sounds more like chaotic neutral to me.
Feels more Neutral Evil to me. A guy who is really only out for himself but isn't about to go full blow crazy. Neutral evil is the character that has a generally defined set up morals or beliefs, with all of them in some way deriving to his own personal benefit. He is never going extend himself to doing more than what is necessary to achieve his goal and will probably walk away if the things get a bit too hairy for him to deal with.
Chaotic Evil is the guy that will do whatever he wants, without care for anyone else and has his own belief on how the world works that is also never stable with nothing staying the same for next day. Think Joker from most Batman stories. The character that see nothing wrong with burning down a whole town, then would feel bummed out the next day because that own bar in the town he burned down had that all that he liked and now he can't get it. He has no set goal from the get go or just has enough of a goal that allows for him to shift whatever direction that goal is in on a whim and will do everything under the sun if he thinks it will either help his goal or help. Burn down the village? Okay, sure, I think that might help. Sacrifice this poor old woman to a dark god? Who the hell cares about her anyway! Trick two factions into war with each other other? Hey, its Tuesday!
Aren't neutral evil and chaotic neutral very similar? A person who is out for themselves but isn't necessarily lusting for chaos and destruction?
Probably very similar but I always thought of it as Chaotic Neutral is the character that will have some other ties than only himself. He will have his own skin to worry about but might have more people to care about as well. I also think that the Chaotic Neutral character will 'at times' put the lives of some other people above his own, though this is very rare and only occasional occurrence.
The Neutral Evil will never have any other care above himself. He might care about other people sure but never of them are above his own life and well being. Doesn't matter if they have important things that party needs or might want, if the Neutral Evil character is with them, they are going to pick their own life always. They would argue that whatever they party needed or wanted from that person isn't exclusive to them and they could get it from anyone. But you can't get me (as in the Neutral Evil character) anywhere so I'm clearly more important.
I always thought the way to separate the difference between the two alignments is that the Chaotic Neutral character's priorities might change with how the situation goes along but a Netrual Evil character's priorities will always stay at himself no matter how the situation changes or evolves. Not much a difference but it helps.
I always felt that chaotic neutrals will have tendencies toward one way (evil or good), but will switch if it is becoming way too much of a pain in the ass to continue that tendency(generally doesn't happen though). Even so, they can be loyal to those they truly trust, so it is easy to roleplay someone a CN in a party(I will get you out of a burning house, but I won't care about your clothes getting dirty... shame on you for getting shot, man.)
Neutral evils, on the other hand, are focused on getting what is most advantageous to himself, with no thoughts of the consequences for the other side. Generally, he will make a deal seem fair, or even legitimately fair, if it will help him get what he wants. How else can they get a large amount of money and power, then with a party that dungeon delves and slays powerful beings that carry great magical items and artifacts of unknown power?
I actually have a pretty sweet concept for a chaotic evil barbarian I play. I will talk with the players of this party and find someone who teams up with me. Then we'll write our backstorys together and at some point their pc will have saved my ce barbarians life. Sure, he'd like to rape, murder and burn down villages when he sees fit, but there is this life debt and his life belongs to that other pc, so he has to bow to that pc's wishes. That way I can play a chaotic evil character in a neutral or even lawful good party.
But if he adheres to an oath, doesn't that make him lawful?
would he follow that code? hes chaotic right? ;)
The problem here is at some point that life debt is going to be repaid or seen as repaid by someone. You could build a meaningful connection during that time and decide to practice continued restraint or something, but I'm just sayin', could easily turn south. But then again most opportunities for things to turn south can turn out good based on our decisions- even if he returned to evil it might make a good story.
LeviathanLP Or at the very least, neutral.
SolarFlair Or he could just change alignments (Goes from Chaotic Evil to Chaotic Neutral)
I totally agree with you about the Lawful aspect. Lawful can be personal code or public code, but whichever it is it is something the character adheres to as a guiding principle. Allowing for this flexibility is part of what adds infinity to the possibilities of how we play this game.
Jared, I am loving your D&D content. Loved your DM work with the Grumps, and D&Dcember! Keep it coming!
Both of my shoes approve of Lawful Good!
Tommy TwoShoes XDDDDDD
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH
I once played a chaotic neutral character and my DM kept insisting that I was being evil and kept giving me shit for it. It frustrated me to no end. He would say things to me like "you can't do that, that is evil", when I would do things like barter for higher payments from quest givers or shake down captured enemies for extra loot. My character was self serving, not evil. Needless to say, he was a bad DM who had very strict self-definitions of alignments. I stopped playing under him within a few weeks
Cameron Armstrong Music those two alignments can act very similarly to each other.
At their simplest, Chaotic Evil does things because it can, and Chaotic Neutral does things because it is entirely self-interested, and it can be impossible to tell if the PC murdered somebody to get money to eat, or they murdered somebody for shits and giggles.
I have to agree with your dm that self serving is evil. In-fact that's how i define evil to new players. Especially with as religious as people tend to be in my area. Bad does not mean evil, good characters can do bad for good reasons. Its when bad is used for your own reasons that makes you evil.
This being said, being strict about it is not alright. Having an alignment is not a detriment (unless you are playing certain classes in 3.5 or earlier editions) what matters is that you have reason to be with the party. Starting with alignment is not a good idea in this case... it should be something understood later.
Id love to tell you a story tho, recently i ran a game where i was teaching several new people (there were only 2 players out of the 7 who were in and out over the course of the year whom have played before.) To start the campaign and get the ball rolling i opened with a very stern "You cannot play an evil character. You can play good, or neutral, but your alignment cannot be evil." and i never said anything about alignment for months after that, no matter what the players did or said. Eventually (near the end of the campaign) the topic about alignment came up and one of the guys i was with from the beginning asked "wait... im kind of a dick. I would define myself as evil. Im sorry" "yeah, but you didn't try to be a dick from the onset, you stuck with the party, and everything really just fell where it needed to, theves guild and causing monsters to wreak havoc aside. Don't worry about it. Alignment is more of a guideline, not a definition." Its a matter of perspective. As long as you don't go in trying to create a CE character but they end up that way thru good reasons you wont upset the party or the dm, and everyone can have fun.
Chaotic Neutral is rough ground to tread and I can see it from both sides. There's a reason why it's called "the other evil." That being said, I do agree with you more than I do your GM. Bartering for higher pay is hardly what I would call "evil". Shaking down enemies for extra loot is a bit more of a grey area, but I'd still not define that as evil. At least as far as alignment is concerned.
I think the problem was that he didn't understand that "chaotic" didn't mean "evil".
i feel chaotic evil can work if the "evil" of your actions are to not your party, but to the other people around like enemies and so forth
BLSN Gaming And randos while making sure shit don't bounce back on them.
The only time a Chaotic Evil character has worked in any of my games was when a player was playing one who was incredibly dumb and easily deceived. So typically the worst the character would do is steal candy from babies and that ilk, while the party would easily be able to convince him to do things with them under the pretense it would be evil. "Oh yes... Let's kill this goblin nest plaguing the city. Think about how evil it would be to kill all of these goblins and steal their things.", or "There is nothing more evil than following the law when you think about it. Think of how many corrupt politicians there are that you are supporting because you are following the law."
Make the character a total sadist to the enemy. Make him insane when fighting. Make him torture the enemy. That's arguably evil and chaotic.
Your good aligned characters will stop you. Even I'm just trying to steal things as a chaotic neutral they typically don't just let it fly.
Chaotic evil I believe can work but only for short campaigns or one shots. You can play them as long as the character has a strong obligation to be there
As a Dungeon Master, I have gone back and forth on alignments in my game. But usually I stick to just outright not allowing evil characters in the party unless I know the player is experienced and they give me a solid backstory. Reason being is I know someone is going to play a good character in the party(because they are very common) and good and evil characters will inevitably clash at some point, tearing the party apart and leaving somebody without a group to play in because their character is dead and nobody likes them anymore. Now if it is done right, evil characters can be really cool to have in a party and even the players might not know about the fact that someone is just lawful evil within their group. But usually it just doesn't go well. And usually if someone tries to do something that would go against their character's alignment and a change in alignment would actually effect their spells or what have you, I usually warn my players "hey that action might start to change your characters alignment". Just so they know that typically someone of their alignment might not do that thing. I have had a lot of players who didn't really develop a cohesive character idea and so sometimes when I say that they will be like "oh you are totally right! My guy would never do that!" but it also doesn't force them to change their idea to fit their alignment. I just kind of make alignment flexible throughout the campaign so that it doesn't feel restrictive. That is just how I have handled it. I don't have as much experience DMing as some others(Only about 2 years maybe and right now I don't even have a group) but I feel like that is a good way to handle it in my opinion. It's still important, but it should be more a reflexion of how you are playing your character rather than how you HAVE to play your character.
Projared is chaotic good.
Just here to say, go for it Jared!
If I was playing an evil character, I would do good things and help the party and and people because the end goal would be to make everyone like me so that when I seize power in the distant future, I will have a lot of people who support me cause they think I am a great hero. Of course that end goal would be way far in the future and the party would not need to ever see it unless they want to which could have great story potential. Former allies have to take down someone they were friends with kind of thing, but that would probably be an endgame thing or something if it happened. Basically, my character would be helpful now so he can be evil far in the future. As for the good members, they can see me being helpful and think I am good or that I am having a change of heart or something. That is a summary of how I would do it. Of course evil actions will be used to, just as long as they help the party. The only ones to worry about are the ones who can know my character is evil regardless of anything he does.
That would actually create some very promising RP potential, so long as people knew about it beforehand out-of-character so it didn't create problems at the table.
So your character would be Lawful Evil then
NinjaKIngAce I mean I feel like as long as he's not feeling bad at all about betraying and just lying to everyone like that it sounds more like chaotic evil. Since there's a difference between that and chaotic stupid I can't see why he wouldn't think of a plan like that.
Well if the character gains a position of power though lawful means, and they use that power for evil, then I'd assume that would make them Lawful Evil
Here's what I think about each allignment:
Lawful Good: Someone that follows the laws of society, which happen to be great laws that are ethical and good.
Neutral Good: Someone that likes doing the right thing no matter what the law thinks, but otherwise abides to it since law isn't that bad anyways.
Chaotic Good: Someone that thinks society is wrong and the right thing is different from what the law demands.
Lawful Neutral: Someone that thinks the law is right, no matter if it's evil or not and should be followed for order and peace to be maintained.
True Neutral: Someone that lives according to what is best for them, flexibility is key.
Chaotic Neutral: Someone that does not agree with the law because it doesn't sound fair, it should change to what they think is better, which happens to not be evil or good.
Lawful Evil: Someone that follows the laws of society, which happen to be evil and unethicall.
Neutral Evil: Someone that doesn't care about law and really only thinks others and possibly themselves should suffer for some specific reason and will go out of their way to make that happen.
Chaotic Evil: Someone that hates law because it stops them from acting the way they want, which is... Evil.
Gonçalo Carneiro Chaotic good 4 life
Define alignments however you like; just stay consistent and enforce good roleplaying.
This is wonderful for my new players! Thank you!
law/chaos is really easy.
Lawfull ones think that some rules and order is needed to keep the peace and be eficient as a society.
Chaotic ones think that people don't need any rules or order, they must be and do whatever they like.
I always liked to imagine that alignment was fluid and could change based on the development of the character. Some old friends of mine even created a sort of "system" where a character could act out in anyway the player wanted, but said actions would pull the alignment to whatever appropriate direction on the grid. Usually it would be only to adjacent alignments, but completely hopping to the other side of the grid was entirely possible. We treated it more as a superficial reference, though still generally obeyed the mechanics of the game when it came to things like usage of magic.
I once played as a rogue that I used to consider to be "Lawful Evil" because she followed a set of ethics that she believed to have been right, though in doing so would end up acting what would appear to be wrong doing. Then she became "Chaotic Good" because her ethics could be deemed as the right thing to do, however she would often act violently or out of sheer impulse. Afterwords, she became "Neutral Good" since later in the campaign, she learned to become a bit more calculated, but still spontaneous in not always good ways. Eventually I found her to fit comfortably in "True Neutral" because no matter what she did - either a good aligned action or a bad one - it always resulted in a way that was beneficial to the campaign, but detrimental to the party and vise versa.
I'm a new player, and I've been feeling a little mixed up about how to play my Neutral Evil character for a while- but it really assures me that I can play him how I want thanks to this! Thanks so much!
Alignment fluid "Did you just assume my alignment?"
Justin Main This is the best comment of the year
Pretty sure that's CE.
"We just live in a rightfull good Imperialistic Society that opress all Chaotic allignment.".... Oh this gme would be so much fun. Finally next to Social Justice Warrior we might see a Social Justice Rouge or Priest.
The way I approach alignments is by renaming good and evil, to selfless and selfish, respectively.
I do have a complaint:
A few months back, I was DMing a 5e campaign. My adventurers had a lul between story missions, so they went to the city job board. There were two wizards, a rogue, and a fighter - the fighter in question was basically playing as a paladin: he was a by-the-book knight of his kingdom who was very proper and kind hearted.
At the job board there were a few others looking for employment - or simply browsing the news, local folk. The fighter asks one of them "do you know where I might find a local smithy, good sir?" To a dwarf looking for work.
The dwarf said "yes," and gave some very complex directions to the cities' smithy, then said "if you want, I can escort you there for 2 gold"
The party members were loaded, and the dwarf's request could have easily been ignored. But instead - the lawful good white-knight started threatening this small man.
After a failed intimidation check, the fighter noticed the dwarf pull his cloak back to reveal a sheathed blade.
The fighter decided to take a dagger out and THROW IT AT THE DWARF.
After missing pathetically, the dwarf armed to defend himself - so the Lawful Good White Knight RAN HIM DOWN and began PUMMELING HIM WITH HIS FISTS.
When the guard came, he RESISTED ARREST, then THREATENED THE GUARD, and ATTEMPTED ESCAPE!
All because the audacity of a little dwarf to ask for a relatively steep fee for an escort. I believe in free RP, but my player completely broke his character with that. Didn't make any sense within the scope of his character and kind of ruined things IMO.
Did he attempt to justify his actions at all?
Other than "The guy was acting defensive / he could have attacked" and "I wasn't about to let this crazed man get away with drawing a weapon / defending himself after I attacked him" It didn't add up IMO.
Valik I love this story
@@DantheAuthor seems like this knight was pretty high strung
@@ffffffffffffffff5840 No - he was just being an idiot. He was relaxed the entire time like "Oh... well why is he resisting? I punch him to subdue him, right?" Not high strung or filled with rage - just completely and utterly disconnected from the world and reality.
I have just started out with DnD with my friends are still sort of stuck between neutral good and chaotic good, but now i feel way more comfortable just seeing what it becomes as i go. Thanks for this vid Jared!
Thank you for this insight. So many times has our DM told the party that our characters wouldn't do specific things because of their alignment; especially the Paladin.
Personally, I find chaotic good to be more merciful than lawful good. Alignment is just subjective.
Personally, Neutral Good is my preferred alignment, because any action that helps others out is acceptable with a minimum of justification.
You can be Lawful Good and still be following Demonic Law.
You won't be Good for very long that way, since Devilish Law (Demons, which are Chaotic Evil Exemplars, have no need for Law) is not just Lawful, but involves a lot of Evil acts.
Kain Yusanagi the character could be misinformed on the right law, so like an idiot character who is lawful good.
Kain Yusanagi Not necessarily. It doesn't REQUIRE you do those evil acts, it just sets it up easily.
"You are charged with the crime of freeing celestial slaves. Your punishment shall be enslavement for the combined terms of the slaves that you freed."
"As you did not read the fine print on the contract, you missed that you forfeited your soul to Asmodeus by requesting to read the contract and not refusing to forfeit your soul within the standard terms of 24 hours."
etc. etc. Devilish Law does not allow for Good to be done within it, though Good can be done on its periphery. There are, of course, situations where a Lawful Good person could hold a Lawful Evil person or devil to the word of a contract they signed that was worded more neutrally, where the Evil entity wasn't the one who wrote the contract but confirmed that it aligned with Devilish Law and signed it, but constantly working within such a system will push you towards Lawful Neutral, at the very least.
One of my reasons for Chaotic Evil going with a party is that they're FORCED INTO HELPING. My Chaotic Evil character, Drut the Wicked, somehow had been caught by the militia. The militia, knowing his power, uses his power to take out other evil creatures. They figure that him dying in the battlefield would kill another bird. BUT, they don't allow him to walk free. Drut has handcuffs on him at all times, and he has to be watched over at all times by his bodyguard. Even though he's a shapeshifter and a warlock, those handcuffs make it so they always are on him, no matter the spell and thing he changes into. My warlock is also weak, so he's not going to break free any time soon.
Another thing is that even though he's wise, he sometimes has "horrible aim". When he gets a horrible score, he sometimes "accidentally" hits other players. Though, because his charisma sucks at times, the other party members think he's full of crap. But, they'd rather deal with the enemies than deal with his shenanigans.
I've only done one D&D campaign. Our party was a drunk lecherous warlock, a super dumb half orc barbarian, a gambling addict half elf cleric, a human fighter that literally couldn't say no to anything, and me as a thieving dwarf monk. We technically had alignments but the DM never really restricted us to them and no one ended up acting how we initially put down, but as a team we basically became...close to chaotic neutral.
Tbh, our DM was really amazing. He kept having to come up with stuff on the fly because of the outrageous stuff we thought up.
Hello, I have been a game master for somthing like two to three years now. At the beginning I was following the core rule book "by the letter" because it was easier for me as the GM, but as time passes I kinda came to what you are saying. Now I'm using the alignments as a mean to put my players in situations in wich the characters they are playing will strugle. It goes something like this : "Okay, he/she is playing his/her character in a way that can be generaly assimilated to loyal evil, so if I put them in a situation where there is a tough choice to make about loyalty to the group that shoul be intersting". I try to make that for all my players and I have four, it's quite a lote of work, but I enjoy it because it pays alot with very intresting session.
True neutral does NOT mean you can’t be loyal to your party, form bonds with people, or be loyal to a cause. That’s letting the alignment play the character, not putting an alignment on a character.
Lawful evil is always the best alignment. Determination without hesitation.
But isn't that neutral evil?
D&Dbeyond said it best for me. ( ua-cam.com/video/CrRChyYhNl0/v-deo.html )
Good: You do thing for others.
Neutral: You do things for yourself, but not at the cost of others.
Evil: You do things for you even at the cost of others.
Also, a webcomic I used to read called DLComics had some good Ideas too. ( www.darklegacycomics.com/264 )
LG: I DO GOOD TINGS!!!
NG: If it's a bad law, work to change it.
LN: I let money decide my morals.
N: I like food.
I'd personally peg LN as "the law above all."
True Neutral to me is an opportunist. They don't go out adventuring to save the world, they do it for fame, fortune, a 10th statue of gold, and for their name to told through out the ages. Another way to think about it would be as a snake oil salesman. The snake oil is not the real product, it's the hope that's the real product. If a Bard is dressed up as a Priest and heals the large life threatening gash across your chest saying this miracle is the will of some god, does it really matter if that he's not a Cleric?
I have a hard time putting "authoritarian" in the normal GNE list, I feel that in the extended alignment list "lawful Impure" would fit authoritarian's best.
LN fits best for mercenaries to me, as long as it's legal and it pays they will do anything.
CE: Morals require thought.
I didn't remember this one. LOL
keishii2648 that's chaotic stupid XX
@ 2:50
Finally, someone who gets it!
So many people who try to break down the alignments seem to assume that "Lawful" means "obeys the laws of the place they are currently in". No.
A Lawful character cares about _consistency:_ they care about coming up with rules that can be applied across all possible situations. They think it desirable that there be rules that can help one navigate an entirely novel situation. It's entirely possible for a :Lawful character to be an outright revolutionary if their personal code conflicts with the regime they find themselves under.
It's that personal code that makes them Lawful, not whether or not they follow the letter of the law.
Props Jared! Our DM also ignored alignment and let us do what we wanted with our characters. It really felt like the right way to play.
Jared makes several amazing points. The one group I played with would constantly say so and so would do this or not do that etc etc etc to the point where it did cause party conflict.
We also did have an a fair amount of evil characters in our group. Three of them to be exact. One was played well, the other was a min/maxer, and the third was only around to try and sabotage the story's goal.
ANYWAY, the good RPer basically played a Death Knight and he was only around to use to party to gain even more power, kind of a stock template for most villains but he still did it in a way that didn't ruin our chances to progress the story.
The mix/maxer...well nuff said.
The other guy, well...like I said he wanted to sabotage the party from ever reaching our goal which was to collect 4 books, he managed to mangle one with bookworms. He was constantly getting into fights with the parties Monk.
Needless to say, despite that our DM told those three guys, "Just so you know, Good Always Prevails."
So playing an evil character in a campaign with friends is just a dick move tbh,
Really depends...For the Death Knight, that could work, as long as he has an endgame that can work, such as using his influence as a hero to establish himself as a king(or something like that). For that party problem, since I play Paladin, I would have just decided he was not worth the trouble of working with(the other two are worth the trouble) and just smote his ass.
9:28 oh yeah, like that time he murdered a child his bard friend had just put to sleep.
yeah, i 'member that.
'member when he released a giant fire primordial and burned a dozen plus slaves alive?
From an inexperienced player's perspective, if you think of Lawful Good as also being allowed to follow "your own personal set of ethics", then what's the point of Chaotic Good or even Neutral Good? The way you explain it, it seems like you could play a Lawful Good character as any kind of Good-aligned character, as long as it fits in with whatever "code" you've made for yourself. What if a Lawful Good player says that their code has them believe that all Elves are scum and must die, no matter what? They're just following their own personal code, after all.
I'm not trying to spark a huge debate or anything. I just wonder what Neutral/Chaotic Good characters look like if you think of Lawful Good in this way. It's always good to look at other people's points of view and use them to refine your own, though!
A LG character would follow that personal set ethics all the way and avoid breaking them by any means possible, while a NG and CG will be more likely to break it or flatout don't care. For example, a LG character who has a "thou shall not lie" code will avoid lying will ever they can and if forced to do so will view such an action as a black mark for them, while a NG or CG character would probably go "Yeah, you should be honest but sometimes you have to lie."
As a DM i would want a couple things from the player to have a LG character with an "elf genocide" personal code
1) a damn good justification/backstory for this personal code, if they mange to argue their case and it fits within the setting then all g.
2) I would then pay very close attention to how they enact this code, if they somehow managed to slay elves in a way that is considered good they would retain their good status.
3) and because i'm a bastard i would almost certainly eventually put them in a situation where the character would have to choose between their lawful and good sides (orphanages, philanthropists, other party members)
Think Batman as opposed to Spider-man. Batman has all kinds of personal rules that he has pretty much defined short of writing them down, and if he breaks them he will pretty much retire (see Batman Beyond). Spider-man meanwhile has generally good and altruistic intentions, but will sometimes let himself go further than normal, or do something unpleasant if the situation forces his hand (see when he broke into prison to beat the shit out of kingpin for hurting Aunt May).
Beast Master
My DM has a similar view on everything, not just alignments. Literally just "If you can explain it well enough, I'll let you do it."
So if the Paladin could give a legitimately convincing argument for burning an ordinary fishing town ultimately being an act of good, he wouldn't suffer any divine retribution from his deity.
If the Rogue could properly explain exactly HOW he managed to turn three bear traps, a lamp, and a crossbow into a jetpack, the DM would allow it (with appropriate crafting rolls).
This is the best advice I've EVER been given as a D&D player: if you can explain it in a way that makes sense, it makes sense in-game.
I feel like you misunderstood a bit. The "lawful" part is how the character behaves in society. A lawful character typically tries to obey the rules set down by society. A lawful good character would be a policeman, someone who obeys the letter of the law to help people. A lawful evil character would be a mobster; someone who obeys the laws of the gang they're in to seek profit.
And the second part is typically how the character handles their own demeanor. Essentially it boils down to evil characters being inherently selfish and good characters being inherently selfless. For example, V from V for Vendetta is chaotic good because he breaks the laws of society to serve others, while the Joker would be chaotic evil because he follows no law of society to serve himself. Meanwhile, someone like the Kingpin from Marvel would be lawful evil because he operates with some form of moral restriction in order to profit.
Alignments - Like Chaotic Evil, Lawful Good, Neutral what-ever
"You might've heard of these before, but this is what they are. And I'm gonna go over them them"
So like, ""might've heard of""? -- More like; I've seen them for years, all-over the web without any idea of thier context or knowing their mening.
It was a *D&D-thing* all along... - Thanks, Jerd.
Alignment can be a fun spark of inspiration. One of my favourite characters came from a whim of wanting to play a necromancer. I got to alignment and thought about what might be interesting. So, I made him Lawful Good, cause it really made me sit down and think about what kind of person that would be.
For all the people out here that say CN is the best alignment because you don't have to justify actions it's bad character building. I hate when a player does something and someone asks him why and the answer is well I'm CN instead of saying anything actually interesting on why that character would commit an act.
Isn't using chaotic as an excuse to do crazy things known as 'chaotic stupid'?
alignments are your moral guidelines. you don't always follow your morals. its all down to how you justify your actions and your life experiences.
I once became chaotic evil by accident by playing an erratic record label CEO who had gotten bored and met the rest of the party while "on sabbatical." She didn't do anything explicitly evil with the party, but when I had to make up the stuff she'd done while CEO it got wild fast. DM let me make it canon that I destroyed a planet for a music video once.
You make me think Grand Moff Tarkin escaped the destruction of the Death Star, but used that sequence of Alderaan for a mix tape.
THANK YOU for mentioning the concept of "Personal Law" for lawful character. That's something I've been arguing for since forever.
D&D is a game of "House Rules" so it is the DM's job to balance it, control the world so that the characters can interact in a way that can be moved toward the goal of completing the quest. The way we had always solved the alignment problem was by constantly tabulating it based on player turns and actions. For instance a character that had started as lawful good, upon doing something like stealing an item from a shop that was needed or lying to a guard would then take a permanent movement in alignment towards evil. From lawful good to neutral good for instance. In turn, a person who started as a chaotic evil, upon being teamed up with a band of heroes and co-operating with them would take permanent moves towards good. Alignment was never meant to be a static attribute. As Jared put it very well in the video, the Alignment of your character never really controlled how you acted in situations but your ability to Join certain guilds, interact with and/or convince certain NPCs, use magical spells or items that required Alignment of a specific kind. I still play using Alignments but it is defiantly a good preface for those new to Dnd. I always thought it was funny how Advanced Dungeons and dragons has the same Abbreviation as attention deficit disorder. Like ADD there are alot of rules that you can get distracted with, which may be better used once players become more adept at the game, and don't really add to the fun of the game for newbies.
The game turns very quickly to ADD (Attention deficit disorder) when characters try to hard to play "like" someone who is on a spectrum instead of just playing the individual character they have created with their own unique motives.
When a person says "your character wouldn't do that" as a DM I ignore it. Jared is right about change of heart. I'll instead tell the player that if their character continues to act outside of their alignment consistently, then I'll change it for them.
I have only had to do this once, changing the Ranger from starting at CG to CN then finally at CE. His character was pretty clearly a bad guy.
that's how it should be. my DM wouldn't even let us pick alignments when we started our characters. we would slowly earn them over the course of the game. he also wouldn't let one or two things dictate an alignmnet change. it would take a pattern of behavior before he would change it.
Thomas Jenkins
Now that's what I mean! EARN your alignment.
Having a start, and then slowly changing over the course of time. That's character development and it works.
Like a Paladin slowly losing his faith and becoming a Dark Knight or a Puckish Rogue who doesn't want to get involved becoming a Stalwart Warrior for those in need.
This may be slightly off topic but my qualm with the alignment system is that "evil" is such a ill defined concept. I mean what does it really mean to be evil, you never question it when it's your enemy but you kind of have to when it's you. Slaughtering a town is evil right? But why would you rationally slaughter a town? Maybe you had a greater plan which benefits from the slaughter but in that case is it really evil if the cause is worth the slaughter (for example, imagine there is not enough food for an upcoming siege so you kill a town, either they die all you all die)? Is it only evil when you had other options but you chose the evil one? But then, if there were better options, what madman would chose the evil one just for the sake of being evil? To be evil seems to align with madness and delusion more than it should, and I feel like that is a whole other dimension of character which should have nothing to do with alignment.
I don't play chaotic evil as a guy who steals from anyone and kills anything, I regulate my stealing and killing by asking myself "what will be the best thing to do to benefit me" and so I don't try to steal or kill party members since that would make them not trust me, even if their character doesn't know that I stole from them they'll still know as a player that I stole from them and so they'll stop helping me and stuff
The thing with alignment is also that it doesn't matter how the world sees them... it's how THEY see it. So if for example that same Paladin was deceived by his order to do very uncanny things but in his heart and mind he is fully obeying the will of his deity that does not make him evil, it just makes him screwed over by an NPC. The same however doesn't go for a lawfull good minotaur cleric who is supposed to be an ambassador and meanwhile goes around making cow-puns and that is the only thing he really does... this almost automatically makes your character chaotic neutral or chaotic good because they just do whatever they feel like and aren't doing what they were supposed to... which is being a strict, honourable ambassador.
I love DnDecember! I look forward to it all year! Your insight is much appreciated!
The way you describe lawful good is how I describe chaotic good. That's where you play to your own code of ethics and always follow it. That's what chaotic good is. Lawful good is literally following someone else's law to the letter and thinking that is good for everyone.
True neutral doesn't mean they will switch sides if they are losing a fight. I've never seen anyone say that or play that way. True neutral (and neutral in general) means always going for what side needs help regardless of what side is right. If a group of paladins want to cull an evil kobold tribe, the true neutral person would more than likely help the kobolds fight the paladins in that case.
Lastly, chaotic evil doesn't mean doing this shit to your party. You need your party for selfish reasons, so you won't harm them in any way. Instead you cause chaos on everyone else, be it town npcs, or possibly monsters in the dungeon you are in. Like you like to torture anyone that you don't see as useful to you. Your party is useful. I know you probably play more dnd than I do, but it really feels like you don't understand allignment at all.
If you want to get a better understanding of allignment and roleplay in general, go play on a neverwinter nights persistant realm.
I always had self conflicts on whether I should act one way or another. This video really helped me clear that self imposed restriction, thank you!
I don't mean to brag, but I have trouble playing as "dumb" characters, characters that would have no intuition on solving puzzles. I seem to be the one in my party that is able to do such things. I would be able to solve a puzzle, but I hesitate to give out the answer, as it is me, the player that knows, but not the character. Is there a solution to this? Do I just say, "I'm not smart enough to understand this puzzle," or do I just solve it?
I feel this is something to bring up with your DM.
If YOU know the answer but your character does not or should not, perhaps you can relay the information to another player for THEIR character to use? That way you, the player, gets the credit at the table, while the other character will get the credit in-game.
That is a good idea! At that time, I just asked my DM, and he allowed it, with the reason as me playing my character, and that character was essentially me, sort of.
I didn't really agree, but I wasn't going to argue anyways, so I just went with it. But now, for future reference, I'll discuss this with the whole party. Thanks!
I found that out of character note passing works well in this situation. You just write down your solution to the puzzle, and pass it to the person whose character would most likely be able to solve that puzzle.
I say without playing even one game of D&D, but even the least intelligent of people can solve puzzles. In that scenario, I would give the answer in character but make it aware that the character either struggled to solve it, or had some very uncommon knowledge that made the puzzle elementary to the character, such as finding a "walk through" of sorts written in some ancient language that is the only thing of intelligence you knew. Think of it this way, there are at least 2 different kinds of knowledge well accepted in society, book and streets. Maybe your character is good at one, but not the other and that lead him to think of the solution faster than those who specialize in the other type and those that have to reference both types to find the solution. When all else fails, the expression "even a stopped clock is right twice a day" may save the day. Just a few potential solutions that don't require teamwork to explain.
anime riff raff intelligence and problem solving skills are two different things. Even people who aren't smart can solve puzzles. The opposite can also be true. I consider myself fairly intelligent but I'm not a good puzzle solver.
Chaotic evil doesn't mean that you're stupid. Why would you actively hinder your party members when that will directly harm yourself. CE is a very interesting alignment to play because it fills several niches that other alignments can't, or at least it works better as CE.
The issue is that an evil character is going to do something evil, eventually. But the rest of the party might not tolerate that, even if it was in earnest service to their shared goals. It can make for interesting drama, sure, but not all players want that.
For any DnD based game, a discussion should take place between the GM and the characters to determine what alignment means and what impact, if any, it will have in the game. Going into alignment with that mutual understanding circumvents any arguments and rules lawyering.
I've always preferred the sacrifice model for moral alignment. In any given scenario, a good aligned character is inclined to sacrifice of himself for others, while an evil character is inclined to sacrifice others for himself and a neutral aligned character is inclined to make no sacrifices whenever possible. Characters are absolutely free to act against those instincts but alignment determines where a character's inclinations lie.
Ethical alignment can be even more straight-forward, depending on whether your character sees laws, order, structure and personal codes as beneficial (lawful), a hindrance (chotic), or simply something to exploit (neutral).
As I watch this I remembered a time when I played a true neutral character with my friend who was running a chaotic evil character. It was just us and the DM, and I think that played a part in why it worked so well. Going into it we knew our characters would have disagreements but since we had a common goal it worked out. A lot of fond memories there.