Alignments - a digression from ‘Goodbye from me’ thread (moved by Eye)

I'll take your word for it

I appreciate that kind of work - and I'm careful to criticize moderation because I know how much effort it takes.

Still, there's no such thing as a neutral human being.

StintDArt said:

I'll take your word for it

I appreciate that kind of work - and I'm careful to criticize moderation because I know how much effort it takes.

Still, there's no such thing as a neutral human being.

Click to expand...

According to dnd there is

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

Pladio said:

According to dnd there is

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

It's my favorite alignment

Which reminds me, we should do a poll about favorite alignments!

Gaming an alignment is different from a real alignment, assuming there even is such a thing as set alignments in the real world.

In any game which measures alignments the concept of neutral has nothing to do with making neutral decisions.

You will be nice to the first NPC by going and getting their shopping for them, +2 to good, then when you encounter the next NPC you will think "Ooo, nice sword, I want that" and then think "it's ok, I've got some good points in the bag and I'm paying neutral so this wont alter my alignment" and proceed to kill the NPC for their sword.

Resulting in a neutral stat.

And so Neutral is likely the most common choice for players of RPGs [supposition], both p&p and cRPG, because it's the option which allows people to 'never say never'. It represents the opportunist personality, the personality most suited to random adventuring into the unknown.

But it's not really neutrality.

A True Neutral would sit on a chair and watch his team fight the goblins, completely unable to decide who has the moral high ground in the conflict. "If they are not attacking me at this precise moment then I shan't get involved".

Which isn't really useful or pleasant to cope with over the course of an entire epic adventure for everyone else in the party.

It's the ultimate 'not a team player' personality.

But it is the perfect personality for single-character games, and particularly simulationist open-world games, a common scenario in the RPG market where you can literally pick and choose you're every encounter.

But even here, the concept is failed upon by the player because they will invariably choose to do quests, for the stat gains and entertainment value, quests that will usually require the player to pick sides in some conflict they don't actually give a shit about if their alignment is to be believed.

As was once a common meme, True Neutral is by far the hardest alignment to play. Not because it's too complex though, but because you don't really have a game by going that route. It's an absurd notion.

So gaming's neutral is usually just someone switching regularly between good and evil acts in an opportunist and usually selfish way (usually completing entire games without ever performing a single neutral action) and because this is basically how most humans naturally behave in real life is also the most commonly chosen alignment.

Because the notion of pure evil and pure good are also absurd alignments, but worse, these two absurd alignments are also unnatural to human beings.

It's Chaotic Neutral for the WIN!!!!

lackblogger said:

Gaming an alignment is different from a real alignment, assuming there even is such a thing as set alignments in the real world.

In any game which measures alignments the concept of neutral has nothing to do with making neutral decisions.

You will be nice to the first NPC by going and getting their shopping for them, +2 to good, then when you encounter the next NPC you will think "Ooo, nice sword, I want that" and then think "it's ok, I've got some good points in the bag and I'm paying neutral so this wont alter my alignment" and proceed to kill the NPC for their sword.

Resulting in a neutral stat.

And so Neutral is likely the most common choice for players of RPGs [supposition], both p&p and cRPG, because it's the option which allows people to 'never say never'. It represents the opportunist personality, the personality most suited to random adventuring into the unknown …..

Click to expand...

I realize (or assume) you are most likely talking about the average or general player here. But it isn't true for those who enjoy role playing.

I don't game the system … if I do I feel guilty and often re-load. I don't like to make decisions on meta-gaming. I don't explicitly role play someone completely different. I role play myself but myself as I might consider myself to be in X situation, world, etc.

I would never assume being neutral just meaning being an opportunist unless I was playing CN. CN is pretty much whatever your mood is at the time. Or at least certainly less predictable.

Whether the game gives a penalty or not for choices I still go with with my character. It matters to me anyhow. So my choices tend to follow my character.

Note this does not mean I am a slave to the alignment either. That is just as bad as making decisions for meta-gaming reasons. I don't think anyone is always the match to their alignment. Instead its more like a road map, a general guideline, that can be used to predict how someone will act in most situations.

Playing CG I still made some LG choices. Not because it netted me a reward or a bonus or earned me points but because it felt correct - it felt right to the character. I also made some CE choices because my character also had a quick temper sometimes. But overall he made consistent choices - to the point he shifted from CG to NG in the end - not because it was my goal or that it earned me anything special but because they were the decisions my character made based on who he is.

EDIT: And I agree totally on any pure alignment, which I think is a shorter way of describing what I was getting at above. I do think people have general tendencies though.

Interesting topic.

Not to digress further - and maybe this belongs in a separate thread? Maybe our wise moderators can do some magic in that way.

Anyway:

For me, True Neutral is the least annoying alignment - because it's the only one that vaguely resembles actual human nature.

As in, human beings may consider themselves good or lawful - but there's no such thing as good, and no one in the entire world is entirely lawful. Beyond that, laws vary from culture to culture.

As an example, game piracy - here in Denmark - is all but universally accepted in our culture as something inevitable that everyone does - and you can speak very openly about it.

I know that's not the case everywhere in the world. However, it's still against the law to pirate games.

I don't think there's a single human being out there who considers himself or herself evil.

To me, the concepts of good and evil are invariably connected to some kind of objective morality - which doesn't exist as far as I know. So, I can't accept them as actual ways to be. No single human being would be considered "good" in all the important ways - by every other single human being.

Beyond that, we can't possibly know all there is to know about any single human being.

I prefer the concepts of benefit and harm, though those are also extremely subjective. But they're slightly more tangible in most cases.

I'm not going to talk about how other people play their alignment choices - because my experience is that it's all subject to interpretation. I've certainly encountered my share of interpretations - and more than enough to understand that there's no one way to handle it.

I tend to pick True Neutral - especially in computer games - because I have a great dislike of being forced into the much more rigid "Good" alignment, which is really how I usually play.

As in, my own interpretation of the "good" choice tends to mirror the interpretation of the developers - almost 1:1.

So, I'd say 9 out of 10 of my actions in any given CRPG would probably be considered the "good" action - but I absolutely do not consider myself a good person.

I just do what makes sense to me, and trying to benefit almost always makes more sense to me than trying to do harm.

That said, most games don't allow for a "neutral" path - so I tend to play the goodie two-shoes in most games - allowing for the occasional "non-good" choice when my interpretation differs from that of the designers.

This sort of simplistic and traditionally binary approach to "morality" is one of the reasons I strongly prefer C&C in games like Skyrim or Fallout 3/4/76 - to how it works in games like Witcher or Dragon Age. Witcher admittedly less so, because it's a lot more "grey area" - and I find myself agreeing with Geralt more often than not. Still, it's predefined and rigid all the same.

I feel Skyrim and (modern) Fallout games allow for a much more freeform kind of roleplaying - where you PLAY your character's choices more than you pick them in pre-defined dialogue trees.

Of course, that also means you don't get the consequences in predefined ways that are nicely presented. You sort of have to draw your own conclusions as to the consequences of murdering someone during a quest - or stealing valuables from a merchant, etc.

To sum up:

I've never liked the alignment system from D&D - but given how some of their systems are integrated into alignments (like with Paladins and Clerics) - it certainly used to be something of a necessary evil (no pun intended).

Not sure if that's still the case with 5E D&D? I seem to have heard they've relaxed those systems a little.

I usually play lawfull good. And lawful neutral when I feel a bit naughty. Although, like the blogger suggests, by my actions I inevitably end up with becoming good.

I have tried playing evil alts, but never succeeded. It is stupid, but it makes me uncomfortably numb.

A pibbur who realises he has revealed yet another weakness of his character.

Chaotic good, chaotic neutral, or chaotic evil.

Everything "lawful" I find really boring, either it's denouncing a crime to the authority (booooo) or following a dark cult (bleh).

I'm usually LG or NG, depending on how "good" the authorities are. I try to be lawful but if I am expected to do evil things to obey the law then I'll break it. I hate it when to play a thief character you have to be N or E. My prefered role is a scout: I go in ahead alone, map the area finding/disabling traps, grabbing useful stuff, noting enemy positions while avoiding combat. This suits the Thief type, but I'm not doing it for selfish reasons.

Always an interesting topic. For myself I see good and bad (don't like the word evil, too many religious/supernatural connotations in my head) as general constructs useful for society that are to a large degree relative to the society/culture someone is in. Calling good "beneficial" and bad "harmful" also works. Could say that is semantics, although less baggage with those words than good/bad.

What I don't know myself, but feel that it might be true (while at the same time knowing what I feel is heavily influenced by who I am and my past experiences), is whether there are some general universal validity to a concept of good and bad, that crosses culture/society. Not specifics but ideas that are shared in other members of the animal kingdom as well, that in general harming another is bad and helping another is good. Of course behavior is also extremely situational, but you can't define good/bad as absolutes in my opinion.

That doesn't make them useless though. They are important for every-day society. Much like in physics when you learn that chair you are sitting on isn't really solid, its mostly empty space. For every day purposes it is more useful to consider it solid.

That is my mindset anyhow. I try to keep an open mind and remember good/bad is both relative and learned but at the same time I think the concepts and words still are useful and important to society and interacting with others.

Another issue is behavior is also governed by what you can get away with. When their are zero consequences, and no one else knows, people are more likely to resort to purely selfish behavior.

Well too many tangents and a long topic. So while aware of how relative, situational, and vague the concept of good/bad is I still find it useful myself to help label and define my own behavior as well as others.

So when adapting to a game world I might ponder the philosophical discussions I still enjoy dealing with the more concrete issue at hand.

So True Neutral - that tends to be everyday animals in many definitions since they don't have a learned sense of morals imposed on their behavior like humans do. They mainly follow their instincts and survival needs. Although some studies on certain animals suggest some have a low level concept of acceptable or not-acceptable behavior … but another very large topic with many disputes. Gamewise I see TN as those who seek balance and remain impartial to concepts of law/chaos and good/bad. Consequently I find it a very difficult alignment to play because being that impartial is difficult. It is the most demanding as you try to weight all consequences and strive to act at some deeper philosophical level, while chosing your actions based what you hope is logical and not emotional.

Even there I have some issues with it. What's the purpose? Is it in some ways a "good" purpose in the sense that keeping everything in harmony and balance is ultimately good for everyone and everything?

I admit I don't fully understand its goals beyond some sense of balance of all forces and not letting emotion sway decisions. Maybe why I avoid it as I am not sure how to "play" it.

LN I also don't fully get. You are neutral in your choices but only as long as they don't break any laws? I suppose that could work as a definition. I also see it as a colder alignment, like the Vulcans from Star Trek.

CN is what I see as more human out of all the alignments. TN to me means no learned concepts of good/bad or law/chaos getting in the way, more the natural world and its animals. Or for humans TN focuses on controlling your actions so you keep everything in balance/harmony. But CN means just doing what you want (as long as you feel you can away with it). Impulsive, acting mostly on your emotions. You can still be smart and logical about things but you lack structure and care nothing for laws. It means good/evil is much more irrelevant as long as you don't get caught or punished.

Lastly for good/bad axis I return to my start by saying the terms are useful for day to day and hence use my own concepts of those terms, which often align with that of most people I find - the developers, people in other countries I chat with, and so on. Getting into specifics or grey areas start to mean more disagreement on whether something is good/bad but that, to me anyhow, doesn't make them pointless as I still find common ground with most people I have met in life on the idea that hurting others is bad and helping others is good.

EDIT: Forgot to comment that I also like Skyrim/FO for the reason you make your own morality versus the developers overall. Meaning I have to control my own actions (impose my own morals) on doing things. I tend to like that as it provides a lot of freedom.

That being said I can also fully enjoy a game like PF:KM where some of that is more imposed because you have to make choices with consequences in the game itself. I also find that very enjoyable .. how much so I suppose depends on how well I agree with the overall design.

I certainly didn't always agree with the developers alignment choices and thought some were way off ... but that was fine. For me the fun is watching my alignment shift around, seeing how choices play out (love that) and so on. But for pure RP freedom find Skyrim and FO a bit better. Both are good for me though.

Philistine said:

I'm usually LG or NG, depending on how "good" the authorities are. I try to be lawful but if I am expected to do evil things to obey the law then I'll break it. I hate it when to play a thief character you have to be N or E. My prefered role is a scout: I go in ahead alone, map the area finding/disabling traps, grabbing useful stuff, noting enemy positions while avoiding combat. This suits the Thief type, but I'm not doing it for selfish reasons.

Click to expand...

Quoting simply because it resonated with me. I often play a thief type but in most games that is more just a way to classify certain skill sets - stealth, traps, locks, etc. One can be a thief and not be the dark nasty evil types fully about self-interest. At least not in my head on how I consider them. It is more the skill set and I think thieves should be no more constrained in alignment than other general classes.

Should assassins be always evil? In the way Paladins are always good? Or druids always neutral? I think religion plays a big part in Paladins though while Druids are linked to nature and balance. Maybe one was trained as an assassin and got the skills but only killed for "noble" causes or changed their life path? Still I see assassins as more defined on a darker path then just that of a general class (i.e. Fighter, Mage, Thief, Cleric).

Always so subjective, relative, and situational

In our gaming group we had a dude that we all called "chaotic stupid" because of some weird choices he'd constantly make while gaming. Forty years later that term is still stuck firmly in my head!!

I used to play almost always "chaotic good", but that has changed in the recent years into "neutral good".

I still have problems understanding how an "lawful evil" character might behave ?

LE is about the power trip. Controlling others for your benefit, forcing them to your will.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

I still have problems understanding how an "lawful evil" character might behave ?

Click to expand...

Someone very loyal to someone very evil.

Jaime Lannister in that scene (NSFW?) is pure lawful evil for example:

Winterfart said:

Someone very lawful to someone very evil.

Jaime Lannister in that scene (NSFW?) is pure lawful evil for example:

Click to expand...

Hm, I'm not sure I agree. Jaime Lannister does break a law afterall. It's not evil for the joy of it (chaotic evil). It's evil for his own (or his sister, children) sake -> neutral evil.

From my point of view, a lawful evil character follows / upholds a system of law that is based on "evil" concepts. Without remorse, of course.

Examples:
- A slaver (operating in a system where that is legal).
- A Gestapo officer.
- An evil king / leader (who consistently follows his own rules/laws)

Alrik Fassbauer said:

I still have problems understanding how an "lawful evil" character might behave ?

Click to expand...

Said before, I'm lawful evil. Mostly… Sometimes one needs to go against the flow.
And now you'll say you don't understand me.

The Lannister scene, no, that's a neutral evil deed. No background in (not) doing it, just a chance taken for self profit.
Lawful evil scene is the decision of a monk (Sparrow) sentencing Cersei onto walk of shame.

There's nothing inherently evil about being in love and saving what you love - even if it means killing an innocent. That's basic human nature.

Again, the concept of evil is flawed.

That said, in D&D terms - being Lawful Evil means your laws and beliefs are more important than the well-being or laws and beliefs of others.

The closest thing to it would probably be a fanatic or fundamentalist of some kind.

No it's not a basic human nature, it's animalistic and barbaric nature. Although in some cultures is (or was) a tradition, but these cultures never understood the difference between love and possession. Similar to animals.

The concept of evil is not flawed.
You hurt someone else while you didn't have to = you did something evil.
What's flawed is d&d concept, noone is evil 24/7. Also, I enjoy socializing with people different than me so I'm unsure why the d&d party per rules can't have a variety of characters.