r/dndmemes • u/sonofsarkhan Paladin • Mar 25 '21
No, you’re not chaotic neutral, you’re just an a**hole eDgY rOuGe
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u/Burning_Toast998 Mar 25 '21
Sorry, I'm a caprisun! It's in my nature!
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u/BloodBrandy Warlock Mar 25 '21
So you stab people with a tiny yellow straw?
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u/Mobius1424 Mar 25 '21
You'd need ungodly high rolls to hit with that though. Those tiny yellow straws are notorious for slipping on the sections they're supposed to pierce.
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u/josborne31 Mar 25 '21
Easiest to just flip the bag over and shove the straw through the bottom of the pouch.
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u/Dinsy_Crow Mar 25 '21
Innocent NPC: Why are you murdering me!?
Edgy Rogue: I'm a scorpio lol!3
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u/GloInTheDarkUnicorn DM (Dungeon Memelord) Mar 26 '21
Lmao in my experience the Scorpios that have to tell everyone they’re a scorpio are the absolute worst about this.
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Mar 25 '21
"Sorry I'm a saggytits, so naturally I'm..."
*googles*
"...disappointed by the fact that I'm not good at everything? So I'm prone to abuse substances???"
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Mar 25 '21
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u/Gazelle_Diamond Mar 25 '21
I mean.... that's not even neutral. If you do whatever you want that's chaotic in the first place and probably evil if you literally do not care for anyone but yourself.
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Mar 25 '21
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u/Paladin_Ultra Mar 25 '21
So much this. It's perfectly reasonable to have a LE character with a good aligned party if their goals match up. The only difference for the LE character would be the ends justifying the means which can create some interesting tension, and some compelling character development whether the good of the party rubs off on them and they go through a crisis of morals, or they double down and become a BBEG now in the hands of the DM.
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u/UndercoverDoll49 Mar 25 '21
It's perfectly reasonable to have a LE character with a good aligned party if their goals match up
The evil druid in a campaign I played had the best excuse: "I have no problem saving the world, I live here"
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u/Agravicvoid Mar 25 '21
When I DM, once all the characters are done, there is sometimes that one player that wants to be evil while the rest good. Typically, this resolves in that the party doesn’t actually like character, but due to story circumstances they need their help to “win”, and it always turns out really fun as long as that person plays roleplays well and realizes that the alignment system is flexible, that just because they are lawful evil does not mean they are gonna do something bad at every available opportunity.
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u/Ettina Mar 25 '21
Don't even need to be lawful. Unfortunately the campaign fell through, but I built a chaotic evil cultist of Juiblex for a campaign where Zuggtmoy was going to be the BBEG. They pretty much just want to watch the world be devoured by Juiblex. But to that end, they're willing to actively team up with others to stop someone else from destroying Juiblex's intended meal.
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u/Pixel_Inquisitor Mar 26 '21
Quite fitting, since I recall that Juiblex and Zuggtmoy have a rivalry with each other.
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u/BeMoreKnope Mar 26 '21
My neutral evil character is the face and leader of a non-evil group. He’s selfish and vain and has no problem doing the heroic deeds, as long as he gets proper credit and reward.
Which is also why he’s also secretly fulfilled an assassination contract on someone who didn’t deserve it, really. That one just earned him rep with some seedier people. But in general, he wants people to hero worship him, so he usually ends up on the side of right for all the wrong reasons.
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u/demon_fae Sorcerer Mar 25 '21
Assuming none of the rest of the party are set to “Kill All Evil On Sight”, this wouldn’t even be a campaign-ender. L-E would do their evil, and the party could take them prisoner on the charge of Doing Evil and cart them around until they’ve stopped being so evil.
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u/desenpai Mar 25 '21
Yea evil characters don’t mesh well with not evil ones bc you know they are evil.
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Mar 25 '21
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u/SemanticSchmitty Mar 25 '21
Just because you are bad guy, doesn’t mean you are bad guy
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u/perp00 Necromancer Mar 25 '21
Yeah, what about the lawful evil guys?
It's in the name, they are lawful.
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Mar 25 '21
I always like to run evil campaigns like working at a big corporation. Welcome to LichCorp! You died and have been resurrected by one of our middle manager lich, Keith. Onboarding will start in 15 minutes so grab your free LichCorp robes and goblets from the swag table and come sit by the projector to learn about our mission statement and core values
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Mar 25 '21
In my first go at WDH, our Draconblood Undying Warlock from the Zhentarim had a pact with Manshoon himself. He started working with the party just to take down the Xanathars and use the wealth to depose Manshoon and take the Zhents for himself, but over time he forged valuable bonds with them- he's still NE and will still try to overthrow, steal and kill with little qualms, but he's turned from a great machinator who would probably murderhobo if solo to the team's Necessary Evil who, for example, would be the one to make the call between sacrificing a commoner to a cult to save a city or leaving the innocent alive and dooming the city, whereas the rest of the party couldn't do either on principle, not even the Vengance paladin- he follows the Fight the Greater Evil tenet but only when faced with conflict. Otherwise, he will not hurt an innocent.
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Mar 25 '21
Not true. Evil people can have people they care about. They might want to conquer the world or kill your local lord to get their status but they might not wanna kill you
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u/Kizik Mar 25 '21
Yea evil characters don’t mesh well with not evil ones bc you know they are evil.
Depends. I've found having one or two people with radically different alignments - if played well - can make a game so much more interesting.
In my case, the party is stuck dealing with the unrepentantly LE character because they need them. The Paladin of Bahamut in the group actually trusts my murderous githyanki more than the rest of the group because they all fall on the chaotic spectrum and the gish is at least predictable and intelligent enough to restrain themselves in society.
If they ditch my character they lose their main front liner, their wizard, and their only person with an intelligence or strength above 10 and any proficiency in the associated skills. Meanwhile said githyanki is in the middle of a vast, alien-to-them city and needs the rest of the group to navigate it physically and socially to achieve their goals.
It's a give and take thing. You have to find a reason to stick with the group, and both sides have to flex. My character tries to keep the Paladin happy, because in the Astral wounds don't heal on their own - even if they're currently in the Material plane, it's still an ingrained instinct to keep the healer on good terms or you bleed to death from a scratch.
On the other hand, the Paladin has had to accept that sometimes people are going to die if we're forced into urban combat because I'm running a build meant to emulate a class that was, until 4e renamed it to "Pyroclast", known by the terribly insensitive but wonderfully evocative name Holocaust Warrior. As a result, "Collateral Damage" has the exact same meaning as "Acceptable Casualties".
If you can get the balance right, and every player is onboard, and everyone is both willing and able to roleplay at a decent enough level, sprinkling some divisiveness into the group makes for a wonderfully tense game at times. I'm slowly corrupting the nominally neutral Fire Genasi Wildfire Druid and it's beautiful.
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u/gjgidhxbdidheidjdje Mar 25 '21
I have a chaotic neutral character.
He was raised to be an assassin, and his mentor is dead because those he trusted betrayed him. He doesn't kill randomly, so he's not evil, but he is also not good. He's chaotic because he needs to look out for himself and will do things for his own benefit.
Backstories exist for a reason and the indiscriminate hate towards chaotic neutral is quite annoying. A lot of newer characters use it to do whatever they want, but it's still a valid alignment that dictates what a character may do.
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u/shinra528 Mar 25 '21
Most negative tropes in D&D come down to players taking something in the game and twisting it to fit their own scummy behavior.
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u/gjgidhxbdidheidjdje Mar 25 '21
I can agree to that, it just sucks that all characters are judged because of the bad ones.
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u/YDAQ 🏆 World's okayest DM Mar 25 '21
Backstories exist for a reason and the indiscriminate hate towards chaotic neutral is quite annoying.
I've played a lot over the years and long has it been my wish that I could say my character is chaotic neutral without people cringing.
My interpretation has always been that a CN character's loyalties simply don't extend beyond arm's reach; there's no greater good for them to serve and their focus isn't broad enough to care about the world at large until it affects them or their loved ones personally.
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u/gjgidhxbdidheidjdje Mar 25 '21
That's exactly my thoughts. Chaotic neutral is just someone who acts without a real code that they follow and they don't necessarily want to hurt anyone but don't necessarily want to help either.
It's sad that chaotic neutral gets such a bad rep when it can really make for interesting characters and can be a driving force for interesting stories if played right.
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Mar 25 '21
You're basically saying this yourself in a slightly different way but yeah people don't hate chaotic neutral. They get tired of chaotic stupid, which often happens to label itself as chaotic neutral or chaotic evil.
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u/gjgidhxbdidheidjdje Mar 25 '21
I agree that people are more against chaotic stupid, which i will definitely have to steal if you don't mind. I just feel that often times the hate is directed towards any chaotic neutral or chaotic evil without specifying the bad ones
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u/melez Mar 25 '21
I also have a chaotic neutral character. He's an alchemist who's core motivation is the search for knowledge. This means he's fairly willing to work with anyone, good or evil if it furthers the pursuit. It's put him at odds with his party before, but it's always been arguments related to that motivation.
He's loyal to his party, they've saved his life numerous times. So he will never just screw them over, but he will argue with the lawful good paladin on if letting the evil wizard live or not is ok. The paladin might want to be judge, jury, and executioner but the alchemist will want to use the evil wizard for his information.
I've also never used his alignment to justify an action, always his core motivations.
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u/gjgidhxbdidheidjdje Mar 25 '21
I think your last sentence is actually a really good point, i think it's important for actions to be reasoned out using a combination of backstory, recent events in the story, and alignment.
Also, that character idea sounds really cool, i think a character in search of knowledge would be fun to play
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u/thebeandream Mar 25 '21
Not all evil people kill randomly. Specifically for the chaotic category it’s broken down like this:
You see a slave
Chaotic good- freedom is important. We must find a way to free them because it’s the right thing to do.
Chaotic neutral - my freedom is important. I should probably figure out a way to break this system so it doesn’t affect me. If it happens to help them then that’s nice if not oh well.
Chaotic evil - only my freedom is important. Those weak enough to be enslaved deserve it. I see no need to intervene. The only reason for me to get involved is if I am in the market for a slave or someone is paying me.
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Mar 25 '21 edited Mar 26 '21
Neutral means that a character is confused between selfish and selfless motivation, Jack Sparrow, for example, or a character who can’t be selfish or selfless, like a Sladd or Modron. If a character is just constantly being selfish then they’re just evil.
Chaotic Evil doesn’t need to be a Joker-level psychopath. It could mean a selfish complete dick with no moral principles like Huey Emmerich from Metal Gear.
Joker wants to watch the world burn. Huey makes money off the world burning. Is there a difference? Apathy to others’ pain and desire that harms them is still evil. It just as accurate of a way of portraying evil as sadism, although sadism will always comes off as more evil to an audience.
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Mar 25 '21
Neutral can also mean that a character just doesn’t really care about morals or laws but also doesn’t choose to harm others or cause chaos for practical reasons.
For instance, a neutral character might see someone getting robbed and not care to intervene because there’s no benefit to them. That’s not evil, and it’s certainly not good. But that same neutral character wouldn’t rob someone (without really good reason) because it’s not worth the risk of facing a bounty, getting jailed, etc.
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u/DarkKnightJin Artificer Mar 25 '21
"Actions determine your alignment, not the other way around."
Just like how "It's what my character would do" is a piss-poor excuse for being an asshole to your fellow players and DM.
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u/forgotmyoldaccountf Potato Farmer Mar 25 '21
"Yet you are the person who made said character. Interesting" - some meme here, can't remember when
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u/OwORavioliTime Mar 25 '21
I personally use neutral for one character who is lawful neutral because the things they follow aren’t entirely good or entirely bad, but they are fairly consistent. The issue is true neutral kinda sucks if you aren’t amoral
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u/EverydayBison Essential NPC Mar 25 '21
Yeah some people see true neutral as just doing whatever you want, but I see it more as a character that has other ideals that aren’t strictly good, evil, lawful, or chaotic. (Family, Knowledge, etc.)
The important thing is that they have to have some kind of other ideal to flesh out their character, because they don’t get the basic moral ones that other alignments get.
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u/OwORavioliTime Mar 25 '21
I personally think that stuff falls more under lawful, but yeah it can depend. My party has a player who is lawful good but their moral code doesn’t prohibit them from doing evil things, because their morality is based on community. It’s complicated how it works
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u/natgochickielover Mar 25 '21
People also confuse chaotic neutral and evil a lot I think
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u/austsiannodel Mar 26 '21
they falsely conflate "doing what I want" with "harming others" which says to me that what they want to do is harm others, and that's kinda fucked up
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u/High_Seas_Pirate Chaotic Stupid Mar 25 '21
Currently playing a lawful good vengeance paladin. I consider my oath to be the "Lawful" part, and lawful good does not mean lawful nice.
I've told this story before, but it's one of my favorites.
Curse of Strahd campaign (minor spoilers). The Barron of the local town is an abusive dictator. We tried in good faith to work with the dude to fight back against Strahd, but he had us thrown in jail. Well we gave him a few days (he said he would investigate our claims), but the he never came back. Also, the town guards were clear to us that attendance was mandatory for everyone in town at this upcoming festival honoring the local god, so we broke out of prison to attend.
We arrive at the festival just in time to see him beat a civilian who mocked him then tie the civilian behind his horse to drag him through the mud. We were already waffling on what to do about him after one of the other locals suggested we overthrow him. Well, this was the final straw. For the good of the people this guy needs to be stopped, and so help me Kelemvor I swore an oath to punish the wicked.
The bard starts whipping up a frenzy in the crowd, turning everyone from scared to furious. Meanwhile, I move through the crowd into range of one of the Baron's guards and use Command on him to have him pick a fight with a civilian.
Powder keg, meet match.
The crowd looses their shit and turns into a full scale riot. The Baron runs to his horse to flee, but with a Misty Step I'm on him before he can mount his horse. I pass a strength check to haul him down and in one fluid motion I throw him to the ground at the feet of the angry mob. They've lived in fear of this dude too long, so I let them exact their own justice.
After he's been hanged by the mob my party leads a march on the Baron's house. Inside we find and kill all of his lieutenants. We show no mercy and give no quarter, with the exception of one: the guard who slipped us a lockpick in prison and asked us to help.
Over the next few days we install a popular town hero as the new leader, release the political prisoners and get the wine shipments started to the town again. Everyone's happy. Except the Baron. He's still dead.
Don't piss off the paladin.
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u/Eliteguard999 Mar 25 '21
As someone who’s DM’ed for almost twenty years, there’s quite a lot of people I’ve encountered who write neutral on their sheet but then play their character as neutral evil.
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u/Sir-Pirate Mar 25 '21
What do you mean you're playing a holy paladin? How dare you justify saving the village with your alignment!
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u/Fuzzleton Mar 25 '21
Conform to the unspoken hivemind or you're being rude :(
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u/CobaltCam DM (Dungeon Memelord) Mar 25 '21
For me it's more of a read the room situation. Evil characters aren't appropriate for every campaign, and neither are wholly good characters. This is one reason session 0 is so important. Setting expectations and the type of play to expect before characters are created. Believe it or not it's a lot more fun to play a character that fits the campaign and meshes well with the group than the random iconoclast you dreamt up six weeks before the campaign was even mentioned.
Evil characters are fine. Good characters are fine. In the right context.
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Mar 25 '21
One of my personal favorite characters is an oath of vengeance paladin that wants to cleansed the world of evil via killing everyone with the evil alignment. Not everyone cares for the concept though
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Mar 25 '21 edited May 02 '21
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Mar 25 '21
Neutral alignment is a thing. As is good aligned characters being tricked into thinking the party is evil. There is also the idea of an evil character in a position of authority. Or a foreign society that has different moral values. Really there are plenty of ways to crate nuanced moral ambiguity
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u/youngcoyote14 Ranger Mar 25 '21
Wait until you are a DM, keep it as a story element to harass your evil aligned or murder hobo players. Use this tool only for good
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u/The_Evilreetman Mar 25 '21 edited Mar 25 '21
Character Alignment is fun to use, but when you don't understand your actions dictate what alignment you get, that's where the problems begin.
Saying "My character is Lawful Good, so he's a good guy" doesn't mean anything. To you, you might be LG, but everyone else might say "You're Lawful Evil."
I like waiting a session or two, before stating my characters alignment. It's more fun, and it could be an eye opener if you character isn't aligning the way you meant. Allows for fun character development.
Edit: Just realized this is meant for IRL stuff. Yea, using alignments for IRL things is silly and irresponsible. Don't do that.
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Mar 25 '21
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u/praysolace Mar 25 '21
This reminds me of when my dad tried to run a game for my brothers and their friend when they were little. I forget which edition but it would’ve been an older one. At some point Dad threatened an alignment change on the youngest brother’s Paladin because he had gleefully suggested that, to spare the Elf Rogue from potential permadeath, the Wizard summon kobolds to check for traps by forcing them to walk in front of the party. Apparently he was unmoved by the kobolds telling him they had families and begging for their lives. Children are kind of psycho.
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u/iCoeur285 Mar 25 '21
Also feel free to change your alignment. My current character started as Lawful Good, but one of his teammates died and he realized that the constraints of the law could prevent stopping evil from hurting innocents. So now he is Neutral Good.
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u/jorgelino_ DM (Dungeon Memelord) Mar 25 '21
Edit: Just realized this is meant for IRL stuff. Yea, using alignments for IRL things is silly and irresponsible. Don't do that.
Wait, is it? Wtf, that's so stupid
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u/adroth90 Mar 25 '21
To be faaaiiiiir. The alignment system exists to provide a role play guideline. If you have a party member that is any of the evil options you should expect dick behavior from that character. If you dont want that, then that should have been discussed in session zero.
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u/LeCringeRedditMod Mar 25 '21
thisss
Played for my first time and was confused with a lot but the whole alignment thing made sense, I picked my alignment and then the DM is just like "fuck off that's stupid only dumb idiots pick that alignment that's not allowed we will change that later"
And it was like well what the fuck is it even for then if you don't like my choice
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u/Otterable Mar 25 '21
I have a current character that is a thief. It wasn't my first choice, but I chose them specifically because the rest of the part is super goody two shoes kinds of players and I thought that it would create interesting storylines to have some difference of opinion and gameplay. I do my best to not be overly disruptive or evil.
In my character sheet I have a line that I wrote day one that essentially says 'when needing to choose between the high risk/high reward option, and the safe/low reward option, I will always choose the risky one'
We all knew this but I still get flak for being the one with a more neutral alignment. Everytime I even think about stealing something all of a sudden every NPC has a tragic backstory and every mark is a nice old lady and the entire party is begging me not to.
As a result I don't really feel like I can actually roleplay as the character. Any attempt to make a roleplaying choice is met with frustration that I would possibly choose a risky option or bring even tangential harm to some NPC.
I don't want to be the stereotypical edgy rogue disrupting the party but I also feel like the other people aren't really roleplaying and viewing the party as a monolith instead of a collection of characters. It's a weird balance to strike.
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u/LeCringeRedditMod Mar 25 '21
Tell.me about it I was about to off myself when our "tax collecting vampire" went on some 30 minute roleplay about collecting taxes and yet I'm not allowed to be a chaotic character
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u/AdmJota Mar 25 '21
The problem is that those players often won't call their alignment evil; they'll call it "chaotic neutral" and convince themselves that any evil dish-ish behavior they want to engage in somehow falls under that.
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u/phdemented Mar 25 '21
So after a few sessions, DM says "you've shifted, you are now CE"
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u/above_average_nerd Mar 25 '21
I don't use alignment to justify behavior. I use my well thought out and plot driven backstory to justify my behavior.
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u/Tyler_Zoro Mar 25 '21
My only problem with people describing themselves in terms of D&D alignment is that they're usually wrong.
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u/MaxSupernova Mar 25 '21
Alignment is DESCRIPTIVE not PRESCRIPTIVE.
How you play defines your alignment, not the other way around.
Alignment is not a straight jacket, it’s a simple two word descriptor of how you have acted up to now.
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u/Lemonic_Tutor Mar 25 '21
Listen, it’s not my fault I got wasted and threw up on that Rabbi’s face and ruined that Bar Mitzvah, I’m just such a Pisces Moon Libra Sun Capricorn!
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u/chain_letter Mar 25 '21
chaotic neutral is picked because the DM said no evil characters and the player wants to do it anyway
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u/TaysteePotayto Mar 25 '21
I kept telling a player if you're gonna keep acting like a stupid asshole I'm not gonna heal you anymore. Long story short he died and spent the rest of the session super salty.
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u/retroman1987 Mar 25 '21
This is totally wrong sorry. You should be RPing your character as your alignment. This issue arises when you don't have out-of-character conversations about it. Intra-party conflict is fine for some groups and can be really fun, but you have to square it with the other players first.
For example: I'm currently playing a LE paladin. I just whipped up a crowd into a frenzy to execute someone with a show trial. The victim was definitely a bad dude (Red Wizard bent on stealing powerful artifacts) but the rest of the party showed up right before the beheading and insisted on a fair trial etc, etc. I was a little bummed that I didn't get to have a really cool RP moment but the party's barbarian player pulled me aside afterwards and asked if that was ok... how I was feeling about my RP moment being ruined, if I felt ok with how he had handled it.
These sorts of conversations are essential for happy groups unless everyone is really firmly of the same alignment. I applaud him for this and more people in more groups should do this kind of thing.
There is no need to make blanket statements like this post.
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Mar 25 '21
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u/retroman1987 Mar 25 '21
Alignment has taken a backseat in this edition to the point that, for mortal characters at least, it is basically meaningless.
In 5E discussions, alignment seems to just be shorthand for character personality and morals. I agree with basically everything else you are saying though.
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Mar 25 '21
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u/retroman1987 Mar 25 '21
I agree with a lot of what you're saying but not your conclusions.
I personally wouldn't even bother playing an LE character if my fun RP is gonna get cockblocked.
Sure, it wasn't super fun to have a cool RP moment ruined, but such is life. At the end of the day, these are my friends and I care a lot more about maintaining good relationships with them and keeping the game moving than I do about specific successes in-game. If it became a running theme of being foiled, then sure I might be upset.
that would've been a good opportunity for your DM to create consequences for your party interrupting
I agree, but he's a first time DM. He's competent and he tries and I really like him, but going off-script isn't his strong suit yet and that's ok. I'm committed to improving our experiences together and I don't expect to be an expert off-the-cuff narrative builder right away.
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u/soepie7 Mar 25 '21
I think it's more about making a CE character, then stealing from the party and being a murder hobo, while saying "I'm CE, it's what I am supposed to do."
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u/retroman1987 Mar 25 '21 edited Mar 25 '21
That's fine too as long as you clear it with the other players first. A player who values the experience of the other players and of the DM (i.e. not a narcissist) will understand that certain character behaviors have the potential to disrupt group play but some groups might like intra-party conflict. Some groups might like looking over their shoulder and having a potential wildcard nutjob in the mix.
The key, as always, is communication and coordination with other players rather than labeling certain alignments or personality traits as unplayable. CE characters are challenging to run in a party sure, but not impossible and potentially incredibly fun - especially if you are open to having an arc that modifies your alignment down the road. The party paladin setting a CE assassin rogue on a redemption arc can be incredibly satisfying for both players.
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u/WrestlingCheese Mar 25 '21
You should be RPing your character as your alignment.
Nobody in the real world thinks like this. Nobody wakes up and says "I'm going to do lawful evil today, because that's my alignment". Player-set alignment is a ridiculous premise that makes absolutely no sense in the real world, never mind in a shared, fictional one.
If you decide to play a character, all of whose actions are made in service to a meta attribute that only exists in your head, you have to play a crazy person, because sane people don't think like that. Anything else is playing the character dishonestly to the shared fictional world for meta reasons, and that often makes for shitty RP.
The reason people agree with OP is that if you are using your Alignment to justify your actions, you are playing a crazy person that nobody else in the group can reason with, because you're not playing a character whose motivations are tied to the fiction, you're playing a character whose motivation can be reduced to "play the alignment I chose in advance", and you might as well play solo for all that other players get to be involved.
You have decided the story you're going to play, and everyone else is along for the ride.
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u/jlmckelvey91 Mar 25 '21
There have been moments where playing dnd with certain people and seeing how they "roleplay" their characters made me realize that these particular persons were genuinely awful people hiding in plain sight.
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u/DragantaMM Mar 25 '21
my obsessed alchemist having to argue that he is chaotic neutral because he just doesn´t give a f*ck about anything else besides alchemy and his experiments and only acts with a desinterest or just very "efficiently" with everything else to not waste time that could be spend on more experiments
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the Neutral Cat-man Rogue, that seeks to kill just about anyone he doesn´t like, even killing one of the most important npc´s "cause he was a dick", whose backstory of playing with some elven children brought him a pretty powerful starting weapon.. somehow
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u/forgotmyoldaccountf Potato Farmer Mar 25 '21
A lot of the time, players just want to use whatever they can to avoid consequences.
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u/phdemented Mar 25 '21
So... why would MY character trust your character... if they clearly do not have the party's interest at heart and could betray us in a moment. If you get to play your alignment and character, I have to play mine as well.
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u/Loinnir Mar 25 '21
If you ever need to mention your character's alignment under any circumstances - you fucked up. Personality should be shown through actions, not some vague and stupid label.
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u/Wamblingshark Mar 25 '21
Was driving Uber one time and got two girls that were really into astrology.
They started going on about some girl they think was a homewrecking bitch and saying it's all because she's a pisces. Then they just kept shit talking pisces as just being the absolute worst so I decided to chime in that my wife was indeed a pisces.
Never seen anyone backpedal so fast. It was pretty funny and this post just reminded me of it because they are the only people I've met that openly believed in astrology. At least in my presence.
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u/Dovahkiin419 Mar 25 '21
I think that we should be clear and make a distinction between bad behaviour in game and bad behaviour out of game.
For example becoming the despotic ruler of a kingdom is obviously worse than killing a group of 5 random travelers.... but if those random travelers are your fellow PCs, then you have done something actually worse because you are no longer just fucking with the fictional people's of this imagination land you are fucking with 5 other people's friday night. Being all evil and villanous is fine but unless you are trying to make high art or some shit, as a general rule your behaviour should be done with the main goal of everyone having fun.
A PC turning disney villain is fun, a PC picking a random ass fight that takes 3 sessions to resolve because of course it would Steve waterdeep has a lot of god damn guards is not.
In game vs out of game. Keep it in mind.
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u/_Black_Stag_ Horny Bard Mar 25 '21
Alignments are stupid anyway. People are inconsistent, changing from regimented, to chaotic, to conforming with the norm ar every damn moment. I tell my players to use them more as guidelines, but as long as they have a thought process behind their actions and motives that makes sense to THEM, I won't ever punish a breach of alignment.
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Mar 25 '21 edited Mar 25 '21
What? You don't like my rogue who has to steal everything he sees, is violently afraid of people to the point of attacking anyone who talks to him, and obsessive-compulsively has to rape a puppy everything he blinks? But why? I'm just playing my alignment.
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u/PunnyHoomans Mar 25 '21 edited Mar 25 '21
I’m my opinion “It’s what my character would do” is completely out of wack. No, no rogue would do the stupid crap you’re pulling because they would’ve been killed long ago.
The only time you should do it are when you’re not actually playing your Skyrim character. Things that you wouldn’t do but your character WOULD.
WOULD I sneak into a loaded hideout in order to steal plans for an upcoming raid to tell my party what’s going on? Of course not I’m a coward! But my rogue doesn’t wanna miss her heavy payday so she’ll volunteer for reconnaissance. She’s good at sneaking. That’s her thing.
Now, one can justify small bad behaviors like if said rogue found 100gp while she was down there and kept it. She wanted money and did all the legwork there. She can justify it to herself.
If my rogue also decided she was gonna kill the party in their sleep for their cut of the pay (or even just take all of their gold and run) that cannot be explained and the DM would probably make me roll a new character before they let me continue because you do NOT wanna anger the barbarian. If they even let me keep playing after that.
Just...Murderhobos, enjoy your RP. I’m in a heavy combat campaign but I’m still having fun playing my character as the overconfident (but not overbearingly so) character that they are. Balance yourself and make a character people would be able to be near for hours without working the psych ward.
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u/guy-who-says-frick Mar 25 '21
As a DM I just don’t use alignment shit because of how hard some actions are to justify what alignment they would be. I let the characters determine who they are and what they do because I don’t like getting in 3 hour debates about the concept of good and evil/ lawful and chaotic
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u/lsspam Mar 25 '21
I let people act as they wish and change their alignment if a pattern emerges. Alignment becomes less a guide for how to act and more a barometer on your actions. You never shift more than a step at a time. One evil thing doesn’t make you an evil person, but you might be teetering on neutral. But it creates a dynamic where alignment is less a strait jacket and more aspirational. If you want to be “lawful” you have to diligently and thoughtfully guard that. And I’m not going to argue with you when you do something shady, your alignment just might shift.
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u/tw1zt84 DM (Dungeon Memelord) Mar 25 '21
Alignments are descriptive, not prescriptive. I don't get the hate for alignment based on a few bad players.
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Mar 25 '21
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u/Sikloke18 Mar 25 '21
Apparently people love alignments and how they work mechanically but abhor the RP aspect of them, so a Chaotic character who acts selfishly(A.K.A. literally how you play the alignment) is practically anathema and a big no-no.
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u/Max_G04 DM (Dungeon Memelord) Mar 25 '21
But, there is no mechanics in the alignment system... (not in 5e at least)
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u/Fynzmirs Mar 25 '21
Evil characters are selfish. In fact, the whole evil alignment is defined around being selfish.
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u/UrbanDryad Mar 25 '21
Don't design a character that is going to act like an asshole, then say 'but...it's my alignment!' There are ways to play every single alignment that aren't dickish.
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u/Moonlover69 Mar 25 '21
Alignments are a pretty shallow descriptor. You should be able to back up your decision making with a little more substance, otherwise it feels metagamey.
Real people can be evil or selfless, but their justifications have some form of logic behind them.
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u/RuefulRespite Warlock Mar 25 '21
I usually see alignment as a RESULT of your actions; not a justification of them. In the same way that you're not killing people because you're a murderhobo, but you're a murderhobo, dear player, because you're killing people.
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Mar 25 '21
This is why alignment sucks. Just build a character who’s responsible for his own actions.
If a rogue had to steal to survive and thus sees nothing wrong with it, he’ll steal. You don’t need alignment to justify it.
As a writer, alignment honestly drives me up the fucking wall because there’s absolutely no way that any given person can be put into one of nine labels.
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u/DONTSALTME69 Essential NPC Mar 25 '21
PC will murder NPCs for looking at them funny and then be like "Can't help being Chaotic Neutral!"
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u/DemonHouser Mar 25 '21
This is why I tell new players to ignore alignment and just play their character. That way, it's harder to justify stupid shit
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u/Celebreon Mar 25 '21
I ignore man's laws and try to do what I think is right.
It's fun to be chaotic good... Except the jail time. Less fun.
I hate that most people bastardize chaotic-neutral. The PHB is very clear that even neutral characters prefer some order to absolute bedlam. I think the assumption is that because the C-N is wiling to break rules, means that they must WANT other people to do the same... IDK
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u/Cat-Got-Your-DM Rules Lawyer Mar 25 '21
No, you're not "A Leo" you just acknowledge your character flaws and refuse to work on them because you have a shitty excuse.
Also No, chaotic neutral doesn't mean you can do all the bad stuff with no consequences or negative reactions from the party. If u behave like an a-hole then no one's gonna believe you when you say "I'm not an a-hole because I have money to a beggar once"
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u/Sikloke18 Mar 25 '21
Flaws help make the character, if you get rid of them or "fix" them then there goes your original character.
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Mar 25 '21
As a gemini, I must constantly have bipolar or split personality disorder in everything I do.
And that's why I'm chaotic neutral
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u/BeastlyDecks Mar 25 '21
Or maybe. Just maybe, this is just a case of different expectations to the game that should have been resolved in session 0. Tired of this trend of just condemning playstyles entirely.
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u/the6crimson6fucker6 DM (Dungeon Memelord) Mar 25 '21 edited Mar 25 '21
My chinese zodiac is the horse and my element is metal.
And Motörhead once sang "Iron Horse, born to lose".
And somehow that's a pretty much on point description of my life.