Why no Evil characters?

[Oxarhamar]

I know its quite silly. But think of it from the scripting perspective, not from common sense. Where do you put the callbacks to have the prisoner run when its not talked to?

The script(s) would have to run consistently in the background after the callbacks for the door opening is active to check if there are any guard corpses laying around, adding to performance hit, i.e. lag.

the scripting call back should be on the door opening it should trigger the escape & any thank you dialogs no need to run anything constantly in the background at all

Just like when there is a trap on a door & you open it trap goes off

[DRoark]

The real question that should be asked is why evil characters should be allowed. The DM has spoken and now you have to convince them otherwise.

Evil characters in D&D are already there by default. You're going into monsters homes who (in many cases) don't even live near the city, to kill them in droves. You're stealing anything
you can pawn off, breaking the furniture, and slaughtering their pets. When you get back into town, a random guy who's never seen them, pays you for mass murder based off rumors
they're dangerous. The area leader recognizes the deed, and gives you perks (faction), again without ever getting his hands dirty.

Your motivation for doing all that? Someone you've never met, offers you money to kill humanoids you've never met. I'd like to see anyone convince us they're good. )

---------------------------------

NPC: There's some Orcs in a cave 57 miles away. We need you to make them move. For safety.
Player: Sure.
...(One day later)...
Player: Ok, I killed 47 Orcs, including the kids, a couple trained dogs, and burned everything else.
NPC: Killed? Uh, wow, I didn't know Clerics were that ruthless. Here's a reward.
Player: Thanks.

Faction Guy: So, murdered them all?
Player: Yup.
Faction Guy: I'll let you sell here now.
Player: Cool, less walking.

[Uska]

Love that Epic NPC series. On an Evil note, the Assassin in my campaign killed the entire party with ingested poison (even setting up a fake rescue and "thank-you" feast). Only the Barbarian
survived, having enough HPs to soak the damage ... later on he shanked the above Barbarian while sleeping, since nobody else was left alive to stand watch. That same Assassin's now under
a new disguise, grouped with the players backup characters. Who's the real monster? ))

I’d quit a group like that

[DRoark]

I’d quit a group like that

Usually I'd not allow that type of action, but the group abandoned the Assassin and left him for dead (without reason), so we allowed him to act accordingly.

The part that's hilarious, is the actions taken by the Assassin we're written out to me in advance, and he used NPCs (now dead) to do the "rescue" plan. He
was "catching up to the group" (aka - watching) while the entire thing went down. To this day they don't know he was responsible for wiping out 10 people.

[Raithe]

Evil characters in D&D are already there by default...

Yes, they are, which brings up the point that the alignment attribute on a D&D character sheet is not really about what a character decides to do and ends up doing. What is listed on the character sheet is a targeting reticule of sorts that lets both the player of that character and other PCs and NPCs that interact with that character make decisions based on something that only exists in fantasy worlds - some innate force or signal that identifies how a living thing will behave that is independent of how it is currently acting. It's about the Detect Alignment spell.

Without magic being able to determine how a character is likely to act (without studying its current behavior) there would be no real purpose to having an alignment attribute. People would be able to label a character by its actions and those alone, just how it is done in the real world without the aid of magic. And yes, I fully agree that most of the characters in DDOland are evil by any rational categorization in that manner.

As for evil alignment, without the spell being part of the game, I think Chaotic Neutral, True Neutral, etc. work well enough for a character that needs to justify his role in the game on his character sheet window - but I haven'tt really noticed anybody that would actually care about that, at least not for a really long time.

[DRoark]

... the Detect Alignment spell.

True, now the only way to determine (by spell) an alignment, is indirectly. The Glyph of Warding has an alignment trigger.
It's not used that often, either. That's about it, so people have to do the work as you mentioned. Investigation check time!

We usually throw alignment out the window, but I do track "major" actions for when that scenerio actually happens.

DM: OK. You just set off a Ward, I need you to roll a Dex save!
Assassin: HOW?? Seven people just walked over that. (Rolls a 2).
DM: Detect Evil.
Assassin: You know it says here I'm Neutral, right?
DM: Good luck with that, you just burned down an Orphanage an hour ago.
Assassin: It attacked me first!
DM: You take 97 Radiant damage.
Assassin: But, I....
DM: Shhh. Ashes can't talk.

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

Evil alignments are already in DDO and are purposefully, mislabeled.

they are mislabeled purposefully as an avoidance of responsibility of implementation,
mitigation of problems the labels may have, and rhetoric to bypass the truth they are already in the game.

Where? Three examples of Evil alignments in DDO are Fiend Warlocks, Apostate Priests, Tieflings.
These three are purposefully mislabeled with the vague phrase 'cannot be good'

This is simple circumlocution.

It would be better if they removed alignments flat out since they are only flavor,
rather than leave them incorrectly in.
Gygax used the paradigm for a reason and its plausible the 5e has moved past that.
No reason for DDO to lug around something
that is not enhancing game play -

For anyone who thinks having evil alignments would lead to griefing, etc;
that is another laughable falsehood - there is already
griefing, trolling, player killing, bullying, stealing, hacking, exploiting -
because, as I said,

evil exists already in DDO,

it is just incorrectly labeled.

[Arkat]

Where? Three examples of Evil alignments in DDO are Fiend Warlocks, Apostate Priests, Tieflings.
These three are purposefully mislabeled with the vague phrase 'cannot be good'

Wrong.

Tieflings can be Good in DDO, D&D (all versions that have them), and Pathfinder (also all versions).

Careful, your prejudice is showing.

[Artos_Fabril]

What if for those people with hundreds of DDO reaper points... why not let them do something except twisting their fingers?

They can have alternative XP progression as in monster XP like in LoTRO:

For total monster XP in 0 -> say 1 million, they get to be playing a kobold.

the progression is perhaps every 1 million monster XP, they get to upgrade?

1. Kobold (melee with clubs) -> Kobold Commandoes (that uses alchemist fire and range attacks) -> Kobold Shaman (spells)
2. Ogre (melee with clubs) -> Ogre Ninjas (the ones that disappear as in Redwillow Ruins) -> Ogre Magi (casters)
3. Yuan-ti (melee with spears) -> Medusa -> Marilith (with 6 khopeshes like the Demon Queen)
4. Hill Giant (melee with great clubs) -> Fire Giant -> Storm Giant
5. Beholder -> Chaos Beholder -> Doomsphere
6. Baby Red Dragon -> Baby White Dragon -> Baby Blue Dragon
7. Mature Red Dragon -> Mature White Dragon -> Mature Blue Dragon

So to get a play a Blue Dragon, that is 7x3 - 1 = 20+ million monster XP required.

Sounds Cool? Of course to unlock these they need a character with <developer determined> number of reapear points. They could also merchandize this and sell the higher options in the store or sell monster XP elixirs... or just make regular XP elixirs work. These monsters can have evil alignments. They will not join the Stormreach (or Forgotten Realms) heroes in fighting, but will be fighting on the monsters team against these heroes.

Upon wiping the party (i.e. hero's party cannot complete dungeon), monster will deem defended the dungeon and will be rewarded with monster loot and monster XP.

However, to do this, they must convert one character with those <X> reaper points to a monster; and loose all reaper points and all past lives, since monsters do not have such things.

They can join any party in progress at random, and that party will be make aware of a "smarter" than normal champion monster. That attached party will gain increase XP upon completion of the dungeon, as determined by the developers; if the monster player failed to stop the party from completion.

Sounds like a cool idea?
The drawbacks of this idea is that the monster player cannot solo. They must join a party in progress.

To what purpose? Setting aside the problem of further splitting the player base, SSG is barely able to hold the game together as is, and you want them to develop, code, and manage an entire secondary progression path for the few players who have "finished" their characters?

[Talon_Moonshadow]

But good characters are still happy to do Purge the Heretics.

I just went in there to talk some sense into those guys; and THEY attacked ME!

[Arkat]

I just went in there to talk some sense into those guys; and THEY attacked ME!

EXACTLY.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

[misterski]

I just went in there to talk some sense into those guys; and THEY attacked ME!

My Paladin is a follower of the Sovereign Host and they even attacked me. I was fully justified in slaughtering every last one of them for their perfidy.

On another note, there is one thing that is odd to me. Paladins should be able to see through Gnomon's disguise like they see through the tieflings' disguises in Party Crashers.