What happens if the DM decides a PC's alignment should change to a restricted (evil) one?

Question

Adventurers League Player's Guide says, that we may not play characters with the neutral evil alignment:

we’ve decided to restrict alignment choices to keep groups from becoming too self-destructive. You may not play characters with either the neutral evil or chaotic evil alignments in the D&D Adventurers League.

Does it concern only newly-created characters, or is it true for the rest of the game? What if alignment was changed by the DM? Could it be?

Example 1. I've created a neutral character. Later in the game he killed someone, and the DM considered this act as "evil" one. Let's say there were several such acts. Should the DM forcefully shift my alignment to "neutral evil", effectively turning it into an inappropriate one (hence, kick the character out of the campaign)? Or how is this alignment rule supposed to work?

Example 2. A lawful neutral character committed several "evil" acts, and the DM shifted their alignment to "lawful evil" accordingly. However, ALPG says "you may play a character with the lawful evil alignment, but only if you are a member of either the Lords’ Alliance or Zhentarim factions". The character isn't a member of Alliance nor Zhentarim for now. As the result, should they be kicked from the campaign indefinitely? Or how this situation should be resolved?

Answer 1

The 7.0 version of the AL Player's Guide has a slightly different wording:

As D&D Adventurers League play focuses on creating a welcoming, fun environment, neutral evil and chaotic evil characters aren’t allowed.

As an Adventurer's League player, I'm hugely in favor of this. I'm giving up my Saturday or weekday evening to join together and go on an adventure.

The nature of the structured, drop-in format means that these sessions are generally "go through and solve a pre-written module" rather than "it's the DM's world — or the table's world — and any module content is simply a behind-the-screen aid to reduce prep time". This means there's less latitude to explore alternate paths and still, you know, get through to a satisfying end. Adventurer's League modules aren't written with evil characters in mind, and by going against that, you're wasting everyone else's time.

Additionally, unlike a home (or school or workplace or whatever) gaming group, you're not necessarily my friend. In a gaming group, it's important for everyone to be on the same page, but since in public play there's no preexisting social dynamics to work that out, cooperation with the alignment rule is much more important. In Adventurer's League, it's expected that as a team, we're the good guys.

So, if you show up and act out of coordination with that, you're hurting the fun for other people at the table. And since they don't necessarily know you well enough to feel comfortable objecting, they may just have their fun ruined without any real recourse.

In a home game, you might accept the alignment change and then ask for some way to find atonement. In AL, ain't nobody else got time to make this thing all about you.

So, yeah, the appropriate thing to do in example 1 is retire that character from play. Make a new one, and make her or him a hero like Adventurer's League asks for. (Or, as the exception lists, be lawful evil but with a bond which ties you to getting along nicely with others and doing the adventure.)

In example 2 — lawful evil — you could have the added option of switching factions. I don't see any reason why the DM wouldn't allow this. You loose all existing renown and benefits from your current faction, and starting with no reputation or rank it's probably fair for you to not get any in-game faction benefits this session.

The section of the guide on Factions has this further guidance, which underscores my basic point and should definitely be kept in mind if you decide that a faction switch is the way to go:

No Undermining Other Characters. Adventurers are brought together by common cause, and they’re expected to work together to overcome challenges. Though certain factions might find others distasteful, the characters must put that aside and work as a team.

The only exception to retiring or changing the character would be if you feel the alignment change is unfair — you weren't acting out of an evil impulse, but an accident happened, or something. In that case, talk to the DM and ask to a) not have an alignment change after all or b) accept it for the session, but promise to actually behave and cooperate, and figure out what to do next when the session is done. If you can't work something out with the DM, talk to the organizer.

Answer 2

The AL Rules:

AL Player's Guide: as you've noted, alignment is covered in the section character creation; the notion that one's alignment might change isn't really contemplated.

AL Dungeon Master's Guide: doesn't even mention alignment.

AL FAQ: only mentions alignment in a clarification on Hazirawn, a magical item found in one of the hardcover adventures.

So there's almost nothing to go on here. But the top-matter of the "Alignment" section of "Character Creation" explicitly spells out the intent:

As D&D Adventurers League play focuses on creating a welcoming, fun environment, neutral evil and chaotic evil characters aren't allowed in the D&D Adventurers League.

Analysis

• You may not create a CE or NE character, and LE only if associated with Lords' Alliance or Zhentarim.
• The intent-phrasing makes it pretty clear that you cannot play a CE or NE character, and may only play LE if associated with Lords' Alliance or Zhentarim. (Which restrictions are put in place to give a GM a bit of arm-twisting ability to rein in un-welcoming and -fun behavior.)

But now we're at the sticky point as to whether the GM may declare your character's revealed alignment, or whether that's a decision for you, the player, to make.^* It doesn't matter.

You and your GM need to work together on this. Talk to them, not us.

You're clearly at odds in terms of expected gameplay and style. You are playing the way you want, and the GM is using in-game methods to signal that what you're doing is not acceptable to them. They may be acting reasonably, they may not. We can't know.

If you can't talk to your GM about this, involve your site coordinator--that's exactly the job they signed up for. (Speaking as a site coordinator.)

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^{* - Note: this is a really sticky point. Enough that we have a meta on what types of alignment questions can even be asked here, the (full) DMG says nothing about it, and Angry GM went ahead and devoted a whole post to using it well or not at all. And a separate Angry rant}

Answer 3

Well, that should probably be a clue, if the DM wasn't being unreasonable in his judgments about the acts. The prohibition isn't there to make sure that no character sheets have the letters "NE" of "CE" written on them. The prohibition is to exclude disruptively evil behaviors. If you want to play AL, you should refrain from behaving in an NE or CE manner, so as to foster cooperative play; that's the point.

Answer 4

The Rules

What the DDAL Player's Guide v9.1 has to say about alignment is two fold. On page 2 in Character Creation, we have:

Alignment. Generally, Forgotten Realms characters can be any alignment but evil. However, members of either the Lords' Alliance or Zhentarim faction (see Step 5, below) can be lawful evil.

On page 4 in Planning for the Future, we have:

Character Rebuilding. [...] Non-mechanical aspects of your character, such as alignment, gender, choice of deity, or personality traits can be changed between sessions regardless of level.

While a player is bound by the rules of magic items or module/adventure content that may impose "permanent" changes, neither the DDAL Dungeon Master's Guide nor the DDAL FAQ provide anything that would allow for a DM to impose an ad hoc permanent change on a character. That would be a house rule, and DDAL DMs are not allowed to create, use, or impose house rules. DDAL is RAW, unless modified by the DDAL admins in DDAL documentation.

Even if a DM could change a character's alignment, the player could change it back at the end of the session.

The Reality

If the character you're playing is actually a horrible, monstrous, no good, very bad person, that's a different story. It's a regrettably common story, too. At conventions and game days, I've encountered plenty of players that wrote "Neutral" or "Chaotic Neutral" on their character sheet, but are actually playing Neutral Evil or Chaotic Evil (the later is the more common).

However, those players are running afoul of Wheton's Law¹ - "Don't be a dick."

It may be that the player is a horrible, monstrous, no good, very bad person, but that's not a game rules issue. It's a social contract issue, and needs to be resolved among the players and any event organizer. In that context, the DM has no more weight in the conversation than any other player.

¹_{In the past, DDAL actually codified thier own version of Wheaton's Law, but in recent season the specific text has been lost on the cutting room floor:}

_{No Undermining Other Characters. Adventurers are brought together by common cause, and they’re expected to work together to overcome challenges. Though certain factions might find others distasteful, the characters must put that aside and work as a team.}