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>So what would a chaotic neutral player have done instead of killing the shopkeeper?
Attempt to bully and cajole them or leave town before the authorities cracked down on them.

And committing cold blooded murder does indeed make you evil.

There was a justification, the entire group, possibly even lawful good player by association, would be rounded up and hanged if they were caught. OP didn't guve us a lot of details, but I would say it would be neutral if the shopkeeper stumbled upon them as they robbing the store, and evil if they planned to kill anyone in the shop in the first place to prevent witnesses.

>justification
There is an excuse, justification requires a 'good' reason. As it is in OP's post they robbed her for selfish reasons and the one player killed her, again, for selfish reasons.

Robbing a store for the lulz is not Chaotic Good.

Like, breaking the law to, for example, feed a starving orphan or breaking into a toy factory to steal toys for kids, that's one thing...but this sounded like "lol monkeycheese let's rob this store oh shit witnessess um lolrandom neck slit."

That's pretty squarely evil.

Ok, to clarify a bit
>Party consists of CG elf wizard, human fighter, and half-orc barbarian, and a LG human cleric
>They go to a shop to get some equipment after killing a few bandits
>Half-Orc sees an item he wants, so the elf tries to sell a crystal he picked up
>Shopkeeper tells them that she only takes coin
>Fighter intimidates her into buying the crystal while the elf distracts the cleric
>She obliges, now scared
>She tries to go into the back of the store to escape, but the barbarian and fighter stop her from fleeing
>While the orc goes back to the front of the shop to start looting the place, the fighter slits the shopkeeper's throat
>Nobody except the wizard (who stole nothing) notices anything off about the fighter after he comes back, shopkeeperless
>They leave the store and the town before anyone can find the body
>Decide to change only the alignment of the fighter since he committed an unprovoked murder and left the half-orc, wizard, and cleric be since the first one left some money on the counter, the second one took nothing, and the third one was oblivious to the robbery
>Now another LG player (a fighter) has entered the fray and has no idea that he's grouped up with a sociopath, a worshiper of a fake god, a wizard (in more ways than one), and a dumbass who are on a quest to find out what a mysterious key once owned by a guy named The Lord leads to
I'm making shit up as I go here,
it's almost everyone's first campaign

He doesn't need a "good" reason, he needs at least a "neutral" reason. Killing an innocent is obviously outside the sphere of good, but neutral? One senseless death on his hands isn't going to change his character so much that he becomes a homicidal maniac.

Boo.

But Fighter to CE, Barbarian to CN possibly CE depending how they acted after the murder and Elf unchanged as from what I can tell they only knew about the Fighter wanting to intimidate the shopkeeper into accepting nonstandard payment, which is more a chaotic act than an evil one.

3edgy5me

This.

Intimidating a shopkeep because they won't take your gemstone and then trying to keep them from escaping isn't good, since nothing but their own selfish interest was being served.

>Evil means homicidal maniac.

Evil means being a selfish cunt. That one guy at work who skives off, steals from his employer and cheats on his wife is evil. Personal satisfaction/greed is not a good or a neutral reason, it is also evil but not evil enough to shift alignment immediately.

The mentally ill are hard to place in the alignment chart, but typically if one does awful things they're evil. Murder is pretty damn awful.

Okay, after reading that, who slit the shopkeeper's throat definitely should be evil, holy shit why did he kill her out of nowhere? They got her to take the crystal for whatever the orc wanted, right? And the orc should be changed to neutral, why did the orc just start looting the place? Didn't he just want that one item?

This

Good is actively helpful to others
Neutral is basically AnCap
Evil violating the NAP

He bought two handaxes, hide armor, and stole a greataxe. I let it slide this time, but he knows that any further looting and killing will land him in the Neutral/Evil spectrum. Like I said, first time playing D&D Fifth edition

Only one I err on is the Elf, I certainly wouldn't call it evil to make a transaction using non standard goods so long as the recipient of the non standard good doesn't lose out on the deal. Same with bullying/coercion (isn't necessarily evil/neutral so long as lasting harm doesn't occur, in before 'hurr durr psychologically scarred')

So your players, to save a trip to the moneychanger, decided to threaten, loot, and murder a shop keeper?

Are you playing with teenagers, by any chance?

"Alignment" isn't supposed to be a meter that tracks every time you pet a kitten or slit a throat. CG means they're supposed to be rebellious heroes. If they break out of that character, you remind them they're supposed to care about other beings, and they can buy the fucking item by selling a crystal elsewhere.

If this happens frequently, I recommend fast-forwarding through any civilian life scenes so they don't get bored and stupid.

That's Evil.
Now, had he just beat the shopkeeper so hard that he couldn't speak- that'd be evil, earn a roll on the vile darkness table, and switch his alignment to CN

>If this happens frequently, I recommend fast-forwarding through any civilian life scenes so they don't get bored and stupid.

If it happens frequently, you alignment shift them. Alignment isn't a straightjacket that's set in stone, it changes based on character actions.

Why even concern yourself with alignment? It doesn't add much to the game, and it's almost always a source of contention. Forget alignment, just make their actions have consequences. For murdering a shopkeeper in cold blood I'd suggest sending a bounty hunter after them. Make the other pc's suffer for their companion's actions enough and they should solve that problem themselves

If you go into a store to commit a felony and commit a different felony in order to assist in the first felony, that's even worse. That means you're compounding your mistakes.

Drop em to evil until they show appropriate behaviour.

There is exactly one system of morality in existence throughout all of human history that would even remotely consider randomly deciding to rob a store and murder the rightful owner 'good' and it was invented by a borderline-retarded milk-addicted schizophrenic. Make them CE. No one who's 'neutral' would consider fucking robbery and murder because they're bored.

No, you should have made them straight-up Evil. Robbing a store = Evil. Assaulting people = Evil. Murdering people = Evil.

Chaotic Neutral should not mean "I break the law for personal gain, and maybe rape a nun on the way out." It should simply mean that you look out for yourself and don't go out of your way to commit acts of extreme Good or Evil.

Also, while I'm at it, why do I see so many stories of DMs totally legitimising the mindset that Chaotic Neutral is even more Evil that Chaotic Evil?

I am in full support of this.

Being confronted with the decay of your own morality can come as quite a shock.

youtu.be/V0k99bZocCQ

Considering that "neutral" on the DnD alignment chart essentially means that you do not go out of your way to be "good" or "bad", and chaotic means that you don't obey the will of someone else as a matter of course, a chaotic neutral character might rob the store, may even knock the shop keeper unconscious, but they would most certainly not go out of their way to rob a store or to knock the shop keep unconscious.

If the robbery happened as a spur of the moment situation (you are already in the shop and have the opportunity, being chaotic means you are not compelled to not rob the store), and the character felt they absolutely had to knock the shop keeper out (they were caught in the act, and the only way to avoid the law was to escape), they'd be acting chaotic neutral.

The fact that the chaotic "good" PC's decided to rob a store while a lawful good PC was distracted means there were not good PC's to begin with. They were, at best, chaotic neutral.

You have no idea what "neutral" means, especially in the context of DnD alignment. A chaotic neutral player might decide to rob a store, but they would not purposefully murder a shop keeper simply to leave no witnesses. A chaotic neutral character realizing there'd be witnesses would probably not take the action to begin with.

None of that is "good". They are chaotic neutral at best. The fighter is absolutely evil, mostly likely chaotic evil. A "neutral" character would not pursue a fleeing, defenseless person to murder them in cold-blood, and good characters would not continue to loot the place, whether they realized a murder had happened or not.

Neutral in DnD alignment terms means "is not compelled to act in the name of good nor evil, nor goes out of their way to ensure either happens", not "do whatever the I feel like to anyone without moral conundrums".

A good person would have asked the shopkeeper if they could do something for them in exchange for the goods. A good person would have warned her of the oncoming plot to rob her store.

A neutral person would have tried to rob her stole when she was asleep or otherwise occupied. If things got messy they would have tried to knock her out or simply escape (I assume their identity was concealed?). A neutral onlooker would probably have voiced their concern to the would-be robber but not warned the shop keeper.

An evil person does what you just described.

>instead of selling this crystal to somebody else we'll intimidate her into buying the crystal
>instead of letting her close her shop after being intimidated we'll chase her down
>and kill her

All your players who took part in this without protest are evil.

Meh, if it is their first campaing, and their first mistake mistake I would kinda let it slide, just make sure to explain to them that actions will have consequences, and at the end of the day those actions are what define their characters, not their intentions.

Or, better yet, let the change to chaotic evil stick, and let them learn to deal with the consequences of their actions, but let them know that the opportunity for redemption exists (limitations not withstanding, kind of hard to come back from cold-blooded murder).

Also, intentions is literally all that matter. That's why we recognize a legal difference between unintentional manslaughter, intentional manslaughter, murder in the heat of the moment, and pre-meditated homicide. That's why people can forgive police snipers who miss when trying to save hostages. That's why we think Hitler is strictly worse than what the American governments did to the Native Americans.

>milk-addicted
Que?

...

they're murderhobos

their alignments should all be "murderhobo"

Not robbing a store.

>the justification is that if I didn't murder her I would be hanged for my crime of robbing and fucking killing her
Or you know you you could avoid this situation of being at risk of getting hanged by not being an evil piece of shit that robs stores and kill people. Stealing things is evil to begin with and you already deserved to be hanged.

Before we get too bogged down in the details of OP's scenario, let's also consider the more general discussion.

>Does a single unjustifiably evil action totally shift one's character to evil? Should it?
>Do the circumstances of an evil action mitigate the gravity of the crime? How substantially?
>How much does intent & premeditation matter when determining the character's moral culpability?

Character intention matters a lot, I think. Someone who commits an evil action (like a murder) on impulse in extreme circumstances can pretty easily be argued as falling anywhere on the good-evil axis.

>Totally unrepentant character got away with it because they could? Evil.
>Character reluctantly took the course of action that seemed like the best one at the time, however awful? Probably Neutral.
>Character committed the action in the heat of the moment, instantly regretted it and anguishes over it, haunted by the memory? Seems like a truly Good character that just made a terrible mistake.

The alignment shift on that one should be "attacked and killed/jailed by the city watch"

At least there weren't any witnesses to the murder of a witness

Well the chaotic good character did wait until their LG companion was distracted to rob a store, then murdered a woman in a very painful way when in fact they could have either not robbed that store or just distracted the shop owner instead. I'd say that's deserving of an alignment change.

>Neutral is basically AnCap
As a player of primarily neutral players, I take offense to this.

chaotic neutral is basically AnCap, the other neutral alignments are more nuanced though.

You were lenient.

>a) alignment is dumb

>b) murdering someone so you don't get fined for shoplifting is evil.

>c) killing someone is a neutral act at best because it slams the door on any chance of them being redeemed

You totally did.

Ignore the people who say you should've made them straight CE. Alignment shifts shouldn't be instant- it should be a slope. From CG to CN is 'more towards evil' than before.

Wait, so a single action immediately changes your entire core personality? It just shifts you from being one person into someone else? You're a fucking faggot and that is unrealistic.

If your core personality makes this kind of single action feel and sound like a good idea, you were never good to begin with.

>Alignment isn't a straightjacket that's set in stone, it changes based on character actions.

No, it literally does not.

Players choose an alignment to tell the DM what side their on. If they don't live up to that, such as being psychopath murderhobos when they're supposed to be heroes, the DM is encouraged to rain the wrath of the gods down on them.

It would be more accurate to say that Ancaps are Chaotic Neutral.

But then a lot of inconsistent philosophies would be as well.

A single act generally shouldn't cause an alignment shift.

Unless you're sacrificing babies to satan or something, a single act doesn't dictate your alignment. It's about patterns in your actions, not "you stole something, now you're evil".

Hey, you remember that scene where Jon Snow sees a hat he liked, but didn't want to pay for it? So he stabs the merchant in the heart and pushes the body down a well?
No, you fucking don't. Because he's the good guy.
> A single act generally shouldn't cause an alignment shift.
It does if it's nonsensical bullshit running contrary to any sense of rational character motivation.

I don't watch shitty TV shows based on shitty books.

The barbarian started robbing the place as soon as the shopkeeper went out back. What's neutral about that?

The quality of the show or books has dick all to do with the point he was illustrating. Which high quality book has heroes acting like psychopathic murderhobos?

You're looking at alignment backwards. It doesn't define them, it reflects what they are. In this case, they're murderhobo fucking shits who had 'Good' written on their character sheet by mistake.

I did say CN to CE. I guess mainly due to robbery being less reprehensible than murder.

So as long as I intermediate my murders with charity it's OK?

Alignment is a reflection of the characters core personality. Alignment only changing when their attitudes do.

You know, there actually IS a specific answer in the rules to how many evil acts it takes to become Evil, and how much more certain kinds of evil acts count. It was in Fiendish Codex volume 2: Tyrants of the Nine Hells, page 30.
thyamath.com/donjons/[DD]Fiendish_Codex_II_-_Tyrants_of_the_Nine_Hells.pdf

To summarize: Evil characters are condemned to the Lower Planes, and Lawful Evil characters specifically go to one of the Nine Hells of Baator. But how many does it take t o be condemned (i.e. to be Evil?) Simple: a character that commits certain Evil acts has a Corruption score. If you collect nine Corruption Points, you are considered evil in the eyes of the Gods and will go to Hell. Murder is worth five corruption points, cold-blooded murder is worth six, murder for pleasure seven. The distinction, linguistically, is basically "murder, but with feelings of remorse or the like", "murder, but callous and emotionless", and "murder, and you enjoyed it". I'll assume you are in "murder": you *were* chaotic good, so you should have felt some remorse.

That murder is combined with "betraying a friend and ally for personal gain" (2 corruption points), as they are acting against the wishes of their Lawful Good ally in a way that could get the whole group (LG ally included) killed. That's seven points.

If the shopkeeper was needy, it would add two more points (Stealing from the Needy), but I'll assume she was financially fine, before her death. So in conclusion, you are not yet Evil, though teetering very close, unless you did other corrupt acts before or after, in which case you're damned in the eyes of the Gods.

>So as long as I intermediate my murders with charity it's OK?
You say murders, I said SINGLE act.

>"lawful good" paladin attempts to murder attempted thief in cold blood
>later bribes corrupt guards to get away with >6 counts of murder
>said guards have probably cost dozens of lives at this point through not doing their work
>paladin remains LG
This is why paladins are shit.

my rule of thumb is that anybody doing something which results in me saying 'jesus christ, what's WRONG with you?' gets their alignment dropped to evil.
...this little interlude certainly had me question wtf was wrong with your players, so yes. Everybody involved is evil because, good god, those are not the actions of a rational person.

The only thing dumber than alignments are your players.

>im doing it to protect myself from consequences of my own shitty actions
>yeah that sounds neutral

He wouldn't have had to commit a fucking murder if he hadn't made the decision to rob a store. Burglary is a bad act- Going as far as to commit murder to make sure you're not found out is undeniably evil and selfish.