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[Harry Baldman]

I'm playing a 5e game and SOMEHOW, the neutral characters have committed more evil acts than my evil character. In fact, I'm pretty sure in order to keep his alignment a secret since he's manipulative, he's done more good things than bad (or made it seem that way). Its strange how neutral characters always pull off the stupidest shit and get away with it because they're neutral

Chaotic neutral means nobody can tell you you're acting inconsistently with your alignment.

Though not really, I suppose. Might depend on what motivates the character to do things. Even if you're chaotic evil, you can save your loved ones from a certain death - for instance, if you consider them akin to your possessions (say, an orc berserker toward his wife and children), or if you have some kind of other plan in mind for them. All that matters is that you save them because it benefits you rather than because it benefits them. And it might still make you uncomfortable as an evil character to go out of your way to help people (probably because it's irritating to help people you hold in contempt, or you consider them undeserving of help because they need help to begin with).

Though what is neutrality really, though? The standard approaches appear to be "uncommitted good", "let's get the good and evil numbers exactly equal on the spreadsheet" and "still the hero, but with license to be a dick to people sometimes", neither of which seem to approach any form of moral framework. What motivates a neutral character to do things? The purest neutral motivations I can think of are inconvenience or boredom to start the adventure, and inertia to keep them going. Maybe also pure glory, or greed that's kept reasonably in check, though the latter does seem like it's more on the evil side.

Well, sometimes alignments make no sense even by their own standards. Like: Drow are Chaotic Evil. They live in this highly ordered and hierarchic society with social castes and all that crap, they have laws up the wazoo and it's very tightly controlled. But they are Chaotic, because they like to spread chaos or something...? Their deity is Chaotic Evil, which would mean something like evil for its sake, or manifestations of anger or something. But Lolth is actually a fallen goddess, with a clear agenda. She probably owns a trapper keeper with a long list of all the evil she's planning to do. Yet, she's Chaotic Evil, because she likes chaos or manages chaos or represents chaos or whatever. Yet she doesn't act "Chaotic" at all. So she's "Team Chaotic" just because she has a membership card.

I mean, she doesn't care for her followers but makes deals with them a lot and apparently respects those deals to some extent, otherwise she wouldn't have a huge underground society willing to keep making deals with her.

And apparently chosing to ignore gods in FR is worse than worshipping evil ones because... you go to some purgatory? Or become nonexistential or something, which is worse than getting tortured forever by demons for some reason.

Chaotic Evil isn't evil for its own sake, it's unprincipled evil. And Drow society does reflect that, given that they murder each other all the time to gain power and status and often have nothing but contempt for their own family members and try to surpass them to gain favor themselves. It's a society that rewards selfish behavior and inventiveness, and if I recall correctly has a lot of potential for upward mobility if you're both unprincipled and clever about it. And considering how much infighting happens there, wouldn't say it's tightly controlled or anything.

You see, abusing a system is a chaotic act. Sort of like how if you lie to someone, you're also abusing a much less clearly worded system where people trust you when you tell them things. Being chaotic doesn't mean you're allergic to laws and upholding obligations or anything, it just means you can take a system of rules set in place to control your perceived lessers and then ignore it spectacularly. And in Drow society they eat that stuff right up and promote you. Or they should, if they're properly chaotic.

Oh, and not worshiping a god is terrible because gods need that to live. And so they put you in the Wall of the Faithless if you don't do it, because gods need their food.

[Twinwolf]

I play True Neutral characters as just doing whatever the heck they feel like, good or bad. If they want to kill that dude, doesn't matter to them either way if he's the resident malevolent dictator or the benefactor of an orphanage.

[Harry Baldman]

I play True Neutral characters as just doing whatever the heck they feel like, good or bad. If they want to kill that dude, doesn't matter to them either way if he's the resident malevolent dictator or the benefactor of an orphanage.

The real question is why you would want to kill a dude, and not what killing them does to your alignment spreadsheet. If it's because he's got money, that's greed - a borderline evil motivation, greatly evil if it goes into the extreme. If he's in the way, or merely annoying, that might be actual no-further-questions Evil with a capital E. If a character is genuinely unconcerned about who they kill to further their aims, are they not actually evil?

What do truly and properly Neutral (not chaotic, not lawful) characters really stand for? Do they stand for anything? Are they nihilists? People harp on about evil, but evil you can at least somewhat define.

[Twinwolf]

An interesting statement that I can not easily answer. Perhaps good, in this instance, could be described as being motivated by the betterment of society as a whole? Neutral... is harder to define. Maybe it's a mix of the two, or just going with the flow?

[Sergius]

Oh, and not worshiping a god is terrible because gods need that to live. And so they put you in the Wall of the Faithless if you don't do it, because gods need their food.

Well, now that I read more about it, even becoming a Petitioner for an evil deity can mean he gets to eat your soul for whatever reason if you're unlucky enough.

Still, it's a bit pointless to have an alignment if it's not even required by the standard Wheel Pantheon of LawChaosEvilGood. From what I saw, you go to whichever plane of the deity you worshipped as a petitioner, unless you're a bad follower then they kick your ass to be judged (to the same plane as the Faithless but to be punished for eternity rather than as Purina God Chow). But at no point they cast Know Alignment on you, I think. Maybe I missed it. Since you can be one step removed from the actual deity alignment, your actual alignment doesn't determine which plane you go to, just the deity. And you only get kicked out if you betrayed your deity, or did things that the deity didn't like, or something, which goes beyond just "good" and "evil" but the actual things that the deity likes, like long walks on the beach or illegal urination.

After that, you're a petitioner for the deity, where all bets are off, and the deity still gets to eat you if it needs some extra carbs. Or reward you for... extra-good petitioning, I guess.

[Rolan7]

Alignments are useful both for gameplay and setting.  DND setting by default have extraplanar forces trying to influence the material plane along those 2 axes.  Dealing with demons or devils, or even casting evil spells, contributes to the influence of evil.  A good character who does such things is supporting evil, and will be influenced to turn evil themselves, even if they're doing it for good reasons.  Vice versa applies also, evil characters can be tempted to the side of good by practicing good acts (even reluctantly, like as part of a ruse).

So we have in-game support for some classic tropes:
The lawman who keeps breaking protocol, becomes a loose cannon vigilante
The hero who makes sacrifices for the greater good, then for themselves
The rogue who "befriends" some naive marks, but finds comfort in their idealism and trust
The villain who "falls in love" with a hero, then falls in love because "woah compassion feels awesome"

Grey morality is fine, but it shouldn't let a character wield Book of Vile Darkness spells all day without becoming evil.  The GM can allow it of course, but those spells are designed and described as tempting casters to evil.  Casting them at all is an evil act, because (as a side effect) they increase the influence of evil outsiders over the material plane.  And it's not just spells, of course, they just have explicit descriptors.  Even if they don't seem to make sense, like Deathwatch being [evil].

So *I* wouldn't let a cleric of a good god use such spells freely.  Or for a non-cleric, maybe one day their Luminous Armor (BoED spell, requires good alignment) no longer protects them.

A lawful good character could cast them too.  Paladins are a class, not an alignment.  The srd has paladins of all four extremes, even.

Also, reposting a private PM is an evil act   Taking a conflict to PMs is deescalation, and should be respected.

[Harry Baldman]

Well, now that I read more about it, even becoming a Petitioner for an evil deity can mean he gets to eat your soul for whatever reason if you're unlucky enough.

Still, it's a bit pointless to have an alignment if it's not even required by the standard Wheel Pantheon of LawChaosEvilGood. From what I saw, you go to whichever plane of the deity you worshipped as a petitioner, unless you're a bad follower then they kick your ass to be judged (to the same plane as the Faithless but to be punished for eternity rather than as Purina God Chow). But at no point they cast Know Alignment on you, I think. Maybe I missed it. Since you can be one step removed from the actual deity alignment, your actual alignment doesn't determine which plane you go to, just the deity. And you only get kicked out if you betrayed your deity, or did things that the deity didn't like, or something, which goes beyond just "good" and "evil" but the actual things that the deity likes, like long walks on the beach or illegal urination.

After that, you're a petitioner for the deity, where all bets are off, and the deity still gets to eat you if it needs some extra carbs. Or reward you for... extra-good petitioning, I guess.

Well, why do people follow evil gods in the first place? In the Forgotten Realms, closest to mainstream evil is Umberlee, who's followed for her sea mojo because the only somewhat-alternative is Talos, who's just as bad or maybe even worse morally, considering he's really an aspect of Gruumsh, god of orcs.

Mostly, though, I suppose it's the feeling of power. Imagine if you're following the god of storms, and you can go to his priests with offerings and have them actually smite your enemies with thunder and lightning. Or worship Umberlee and feel marginally less uneasy on the high seas because you're paying her protection money. Or have a Dark Brotherhood-like arrangement with the priesthood of Bhaal (hilarious that he's back in 5e along with Myrkul, by the way). Or you follow Talona and you never have to fear disease again, because your job is now to spread it to others. I don't think the people who typically worship evil gods think their choices through very well. Or maybe they find the ability to have something to actually do in the afterlife (that being the Blood War) more appealing than, say, farting around on Mount Celestia for all of eternity. A transhuman impulse that makes them want to be not unlike a fiend (I mean, who doesn't want to be a pit lord)? A belief that surely they are worthy enough to see a reward from their masters?

But in an extreme example, why would someone worship Dread Tharizdun? He just wants to destroy everything, and is genuinely and completely insane. Maybe awe of a being that could create the Abyss and cause the entirety of the gods to rise up against him? Or maybe just the power to decide the fate of basically everything should they succeed at fulfilling Tharizdun's harebrained schemes and avoiding an afterlife altogether?

EDIT: I forgot to tie this into alignment coherently. So you've followed a deity your entire life (or less, if you're one of those born-again Talona adherents or whatever) to one degree or another, and then you go to their home in the Lower Planes, where they sort out the wheat from the chaff. The average evil worshiper, having a high opinion of themselves (indeed, being evil practically requires you to consider yourself better or at least noticeably different than the rest and thus exempt from many rules of functioning society, and if you're neutral and worshiping an evil god this probably goes double for you, since you probably feel terribly clever about that), naturally would believe they're the wheat while the others are chaff. Sometimes they might even be right. Or you, having no hope for your afterlife, lay all your bets on freeing Dread Tharizdun and destroying the multiverse so that at least everyone else gets the axe in the process.

[Sergius]

Also, reposting a private PM is an evil act   Taking a conflict to PMs is deescalation, and should be respected.

Nah, it had already been re-escalated by the sender by publicly pasting a passive-aggressive signature all over the forums (which, funny enough, now makes every post he makes violate the rules of his own thread).

EDIT: and seriously... People should just move on, this is turning more into bizarro land, where leaving a debate and following you home to scream obscenities at your face keeps growing from reasonable, to mature, to constituting "deescalation".

[Rolan7]

His signature states his position and doesn't mention you...
You would remove the private message if you actually wanted to move on. He withdrew from the argument,  you dragged it back here.
Sorry for contributing to this detail in part of my last post.

[highmax28]

I'm playing a 5e game and SOMEHOW, the neutral characters have committed more evil acts than my evil character. In fact, I'm pretty sure in order to keep his alignment a secret since he's manipulative, he's done more good things than bad (or made it seem that way). Its strange how neutral characters always pull off the stupidest shit and get away with it because they're neutral

Maya hasn't done much bad since the game started, besides steal stolen property back from rich people, which is technically against the law.

Your Achilles heel slashing raised a lot of concerns for me. I know you were trying to stop him and you thought that he would recover, but that is the one tendon you can never properly heal from in real life. You need a wrench forced into your leg to hold it in place and anytime you move your leg, it shoots back up your leg. It's so painful, you wish you were dead. Even with magic, chances are he'd bleed out before we could heal him before he stops trying to touch the vampire.

To be fair though, I was about to kill him because I thought he killed the vampire and he showed signs of madness/possession

[Twinwolf]

I didn't know that, actually... If I did, I would have suggested something else.

[highmax28]

Yeah, you scared the crap out of me with that. We probably would have had an even more crippled cleric, who apparently had like 5hp total (so actually just stabbing him may have killed him instantly, since he was considered helpless since he was out of control of his own body)

[Twinwolf]

At least the DM stopped my stupidity.

[highmax28]

DM told me in RL that he had to pull divine intervention like several times in order for things he wanted to happen, happen.

Btw, I was totally turning Carric into a vampire with that potion to give him better stats

[Twinwolf]

Does being a vampire give you better stats? I couldn't find that info anywhere in the rulebook. Or is it a homebrew rule?