to be clear, i define the classic murder hobo type character as evil. DM: "You find a goblin, stuck in a pit along the side of the road. 'please help jengis! jengis not bad gobbie!'" do you: a - question him to find out that he was attacked by bandits then help him out of the pit? Good aligned. do you: throw him some loose branches he can use to get himself out? Neutral aligned. Do you: kill him and take his money? Evil aligned. "but he's a goblin!" you might argue. EVIL! DM SAYS YOU'RE EVIL! GET OUT!
example game: DM tells the group, "no evil characters, please." so we join the game with goodie two-shoes characters with classic paladin mindsets. the other players show up with 1) a gnoll the player boasts is "rabidly unlikable." and 2) a character with multiple personality disorder with a personality for every one of the 9 classic alignments. these two character are later found out to be the kind to burn a village down because they were annoyed with the people.
"my character sheet says neutral. so the character is neutral."
no. that's a lie.
murdering people because they annoy you is a reprehensible act of evil in every culture in the world.
quote:
not good or evil is neutral. Which is fine. We're just saying no evil. But if you like, I could list what we mean by "evil". Primarily, it isn't evil itself so much as "My character is going to do things that cause the team to try to kill or imprison my character". We just want you to have a character that will be able to stay in the team
objection!
https://youtu.be/D4y5-KRoXNA !
*watches video*
it sounds like i could sit down with the guy in the video and the two of us would be in agreement on "the alignment system is dead."
i could also agree with him that darth vader is an interesting character. among my favorites in movie history.
so is hannibal lecter. the joker. lex luthor. etc. etc. there's a LOT of movies that are that much more amazing because their antagonist.
but would batman team up with hannibal lecter? probably not. would lex luthor go on a dungeon crawl with spider man? unlikely. much more likely would be an adventuring group of darth vader and dracula. because their ideals are compatable.
i do not run the darth vader meets dracula type game because things quickly spiral down to very dark places of player's guilty pleasures. S&M, snuff films, child abuse, etc. etc.
i enjoy movies on a very different level than gaming. i game to escape from reality, not to be reminded of the horrible things of real life. hence my very strict "G rated only" dialogue and "no evil characters."