Neutral Alignment
-
This discussion focuses more on the Neutral side of things, not the evil or good side of things. That means no NG or NE.
No TL;DR. Wanna be a part of the discussion, gotta read. Lazies. :P
So I was thinking about what it means to be neutral today. I've never played a neutral aligned character(Not talking about the NG or NE aspects). Basically..I feel like way too many people play neutral to the extremes and aren't quite grasping what neutral means. For example, many people think Neutral people are just as likely to do good, as they are evil.
However, I think that's wrong. I think it's more of Neutral people don't feel strongly inclined to do good or evil. For example, many people play chaotic neutral as "I don't give a fuck, anarchy, down with the man, I do whatever the hell I want." I believe CN is more like the rebellious young youth who ignores his parents curfew to sneak out and night, not an
anarchist. The previous example I made in quotations is chaotic-dick more than CN.Also, doing one evil thing and then one good thing doesn't make up for what you did. I believe to be good, you have to do good things to actually do good things, not to simply make up for the evil thing just to make up for your neutrality. If that's what you are doing, you should be shifting towards evil IMO. Darth Vader willingly blew up a planet, killing probably millions. Just because he acts like a father and saves his son does NOT make him a good guy.
Where does the line from neutrality begin, and where does it become "You're aiding a necromancer who wants to kill the planet. You're getting an evil alignment shift."?
-
I generally roleplay neutral as an unwillingness to do anything that I don't have a vested interest in to begin with, selfishness and general uncaring towards those that one doesn't have interactions with.
-
Neutral is essentially apathy, wherever it is on the chart.
LN - Uncaring about right or wrong, only order. If things are in order, case closed. Enlightened monarch or tyrant is irrelevant. A good example (apart from the overdone soldier) is the steward or operations guy in a kingdom, who doesn't care what the king is doing as long as order is maintained in the kingdom. He'll serve king after king, good or evil, as long as his realm is untroubled by anarchy. Varys is a sort of example of this. Varys will put down a good king if he's threatening a righteous war, he'll support an evil king like Joffrey (regardless of personal douchiness) because he can be controlled and keep from destabilizing the realm. This is not because he likes Joffrey or approves of his sadism. These guys are the most likely to turn to the "greater good" excuse (though some good guys do that as well, these guys will rarely hesitate to employ non-good methods if the ultimate result is good)
TN - Average joe who pays his taxes, worries about his kids getting into college. He's isn't a bad man, but he isn't going to go out of his way to save people from a burning building either. Most people are this alignment in general, as are all animals. No strong feelings about good or evil, law or chaos, just what's good or bad for him personally. If he doesn't break the law, it's because of fear of reprisal, not because he believes in it. If he fudges tax returns, it's for his benefit, not because he wants to oppose the rule of law or good.If it benefits him to break the law and get away with it cleanly, he very well might; Not because he wants to oppose "the man", but because it benefits him and no other reason. A TN guy breaking the law doesn't necessarily warrant a shift to chaotic; It depends on the intent.
CN - This is a little tricky. Essentially, this is a person who actively opposes imposing order upon anything or anyone. He'll fight the paladin king as readily as he'll fight the overlord of Bane; He doesn't want people telling him or anyone else what to do. This does not mean he's insane or capricious; He simply opposes the idea of order. He's a rebel without a cause. A dude who wilfully opposes the sysem because he believes the system itself should go down, regardless of personal benefit or even personal harm, is chaotic neutral. It is not an alignment that implies complete randomness in action. In fact, the most random people would be TN, because you never know what they'll do next unless you know what they consider good or bad for themselves. A CN guy you can count on to always oppose imposition of order. Even if forced to go along with it, you can bet he'll be simmering with resentment.
It's important to understand that chaos is not the absence of order, and that good is not the absence of evil in the Realms. It goes empathy, apathy, antipathy. Or social, asocial, anti-social.
NE for example, doesn't care about law or chaos; He just takes what he likes regardless of who is hurt in the process. A TN will think twice about actively stepping on someone to get what he wants, because he doesn't really derive pleasure from causing pain. NE doesn't care about stepping on people to get what he wants. He opposes altruism, he is not indifferent about it. NG will not only balk, but try to prevent something like that from occuring.
Rule of thumb; Both good and evil, law and chaos, involve taking a stand for something you believe in. Neutral is indifference. Combine these and you get all five of your neutral alignments. NG - Stand for good, meh about order or anarchy. CN - Stand for chaos, meh about good or evil.
-
Well,
you can be neutral by not caring about good and evil, as you said (ie, you may get some minor points for either direction every now and then, but in the end it all balances out)
And you can also be neutral by avoiding being good/evil altogether (trying to actively avoid being good or evil at all times)
But I think you can also be neutral by purposefully making up for the evil deeds with the good deeds.
Regarding your example of darth vader, being a good father doesn't make up for slaughtering a planet beacause it's 1 good point vs 100 evil points (on a scale from 0 to 100). On the other hand, aiding a necromancer escape from a lynchmob is a minor evil act, but later helping a paladin to escape from said necromancer is a minor good act, so they should balance each other out.
Or, willingly killing an innocent person, obviously a strong evil act, balanced out by selfles sacriface for greater good later, a strong good act.Neutral could also mean that you're not really inclined to either good or evil, don't really care about it, but rather, are just as likely to do either. An example: You're a neutral guy, who sometimes steals food to live (stealing is evil) but when he does have some extra, he gives it away (charity being good). You stumble upon your only two true friends, good paladin and an evil paladin, at a standstill - One attempting to kill the other to sacrifice him to the dark gods (insert a suitable reason, for example, saving other people with the sacrifice or ressurrecting a long dead wife), and the other trying kill him for being such a horrible evil cultist, and because he's convinced that there must be another way apart from human sacrifice. The two are equally matched and can't overpower the other, but you can tip the scale.
Good/evil people may choose which friend to aid/save based on alignment, but neutral person might choose one friend over the other because the other one is a better friend, or because they are more convincing about why their cause is the right one - or maybe even throw a coin cause they can't really force themselves to choose between two equally close friends.Good and Evil are objective, dictated by the gods, in dnd. Thus, given money to charity is good, and it doesn't depend on why you did it. Likewise, murder is always evil, no matter why you did it. I basically see no reason why there couldn't be a super villain somewhere who regularly donates to charity and churches so that paladin's don't catch wind of the fact that he's funding and supporting the local assassins' guild.
Also, Polaris' post is a really good one! I still think, though, that you can also be neutral by actively balancing between, or actively avoiding, the extremes.
-
I don't think Darth Vader got any good points for what he did. Is what he did "good" for the galaxy? Absolutely. Why did he do it? To save his son, NOT because he repented his ways. If his son wasn't there, he wouldn't have killed the Emperor. His actions were ultimately selfish, not altruistic.
Neo abandoning the chance to set things right to save Trinity isn't a good action, either. He loved her, but did that make it okay to sacrifice the chance to save everyone to save her? I don't say it's an evil action, it's merely a selfish one; It is neutral. He didn't care then about Zion or ending the war, just getting what he wanted back. This doesn't mean he actively opposed Zion either, despite the fact his actions ultimately cost Zion a lot more lives than it otherwise would have.
Evil people are perfectly capable of love and closeness. It's about their complete indifference to the harm they cause to others to get what they want.
Doing good and evil in equal amounts to stay neutral is indicative of total insanity or bi-polar tendencies. It sounds like something a crazy cult would do, not a druid.
Stealing food because you're hungry and have no other means to feed yourself is not an evil act. Stealing a jewel because you covet it and for no other reason IS an evil act. Stealing bread and giving it away to a hungrier person is actually a GOOD act. It's all about intent and action together, not either one in isolation.
-
As far as alignments go, I usually view them through the lens of 'everyone thinks they're right.'
The Lawful Evil villain? He might realize that tormenting other people is wrong, but he does it anyway because his personal gain is more important. Maybe he even has delusions that what he's doing is 'good for the people.' Pillars of Eternity has a great example in the Baron of Dyrwood, who has ordered the deaths of most children - in order to save the greater community from the monsters they might become due to a curse. This is why Paladins can fall so quickly, and it's something I've always toyed with - the line between good and evil is very very thin.
The Good people? Well, they're much more compassionate, of course. Neutral good? Good above all other things, and a willingness to change ideals. Chaotic? Super-willing to see things in a different way. Where am I going with this? I am establishing that neutral thinks about good and evil in this way; there might be good people in the world, or evil people, but everyone in the end believes themselves to be a 'good' person.
Neutral.
Neutral neutral neutral.
Well, perhaps the Lawful Neutral steward thinks that the best way for people to be, is duty-bound. He might believe that people, in general, require order - or that order is what makes people good in the end. And even if they don't turn out 'good', perhaps simply by doing their duty they'll not fall into evil.
Chaotic neutral - there's no rules that are going to touch you. A lot of people put 'insane' in this category, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you're insane, only that you've decided that whatever happens, the individual comes first. You aren't motivated by a driving sense to help other people, or take from them; you would likely laugh if someone told you that 'goodness' came from law and order and duty. You'd probably also laugh at the hedonist who pursues his own goals above all other things. You aren't evil. You're just a regular person who doesn't give this sort of nonsense much thought, and who does whatever it is your own personal feelings dictate at the time without bothering about what other people think of you. After all, it's your life. You aren't trying to convert anyone. Why are they?
Neutral is the alignment of animals, perhaps because it's so difficult to keep a true neutral state of mind; it seems to require that you don't feel strongly about anything. You neither do anything because someone tells you, or despite what people tell you. You don't really do much out of a sense of 'good', or some selfish, evil desire. Neutral is a difficult alignment, I think, because it requires an almost zen-like indifference; good and evil are the same. Law and chaos are the same. Naturally arising things, about which you could act, or decide not to act, but the action itself isn't inherently one way or the other.
So I think that True Neutral either has to be 'I am an animal and do not consider morality', or 'I have considered morality for a very long time, and believe in some overarching philosophy of neutrality.'
Those are my thoughts.
-
Polaris knows so much shit about FR, I normally trust whatever he says. He also provided some really insightful alignment ethos there that I will keep in mind. Ultimately though, I just follow my PC and forget about my alignment… Pick what is closest and let my story progress from there.
-
I would agree with Polaris - But this has been asked before, and before, the answer has been that aligment, and good and evil, are objective, not subjective. This means that stealing is always evil (or actually, chaotic), no matter your intent, and selling your soul to the devils is always evil, even if you have them save an orphanage full of children.
Actions matter, intent does not. "Greater good" does not make evil actions good, or even less evil.
From ask a DM:
viewtopic.php?t=85210&p=499741&hilit=alignment#p499741And I know this has been discussed/answered before elsewhere as well.
Doing good and evil in equal amounts to stay neutral is indicative of total insanity or bi-polar tendencies. It sounds like something a crazy cult would do, not a druid.
In real world, yes. In DnD, no. Good and Evil are very tangible things, and there are people/spells who can discern alignment of people.
For example, you're a secret agent and generally help good people prevail - But you're headed for an undercover mission in to the group of evil people. Sure, there are other ways to conceal your alignment, but there's practically no reason why you couldn't kick puppies until your friend's "protection from good" stops affecting you if you don't want to take that risk that the amulet of hidden intentions is found/confiscated by the evil people.
Likewise:
Also, doing one evil thing and then one good thing doesn't make up for what you did. I believe to be good, you have to do good things to actually do good things, not to simply make up for the evil thing just to make up for your neutrality.
This is simply untrue. If it were true, it would lead into situations where said undercover agent wouldn't get evil points for kicking puppies, because he's doing it so that he can save the world by infiltrating the evil people.
Slavery: It's always evil. It doesn't matter if it's captured slaves, or putting criminals into lifetime slavery so that "they can make it up for the society for their crimes". If you're whipping them around and they are moving in shackles, breaking down stones in the quarry, it doesn't matter that one of the dudes is a farmer who was captured and the other is a criminal who slaughtered your family - both acts are still evil.
Judging aligment by actions only, and not by intent, makes the world quite harsh, but it must be so. Otherwise that evil villain everyone is fighting would actually be good, because he's doing it all to make the world a better place and is just misunderstood. Factoring in intent makes the alignment subjective, which doesn't work when it's "hardcoded" into the world and deities watch over it.
-
yup
-
yup
TL:DR
I find TN one of the hardest alignments to play because of the apathy aspect. I struggle with playing characters that are not driven in some way. But I do tend towards the KingDobby approach of playing the character rather than the alignment.
-
My hardest issue over this is how to avoid the whole setting turning completely inhuman.
-
My hardest issue over this is how to avoid the whole setting turning completely inhuman.
Character's are still human. The dude kicking puppies may lose some of his more faithful good friends who don't condone his actions. Some, on the other hand, may see his actions as "good" because they serve the greater good. Characters still have subjective views of what is good and what is evil, and someone may very well think some good things are evil, and that some evil deeds are good - It's just that from the objective (or Gods) point of view, they are misguided.
On that note, gods are and should be very inhuman anyway, so it kinda makes sense that the system they use to judge mortals is also inhuman.
Anyway, I don't put much weight to the aligment system, and play the character, not the alignment, because frankly, it doesn't make much sense at times. It's way too complex to represent mechanically, and way too simple to represent reality. It may work in PnP which is effectively PvE all the way, but makes little sense in pvp enviroment.
At least, that's how I feel about it. -
I pick whatever alignment i feel closest to my concept, then i never think about it again.
-
I would agree with Polaris - But this has been asked before, and before, the answer has been that aligment, and good and evil, are objective, not subjective. This means that stealing is always evil (or actually, chaotic), no matter your intent, and selling your soul to the devils is always evil, even if you have them save an orphanage full of children.
A dude who steals out of greed is evil. A dude who steals from the rich and gives to the poor is good. By your logic, both should be evil, and yet, robin hood is the classic example of "chaotic good" widely accepted by almost all. Clearly, there's more than just the action of stealing to factor in. It's about context, and by extension, intent.
Alignments are objective, of course, and some actions are stone cold good or evil. There is however, considerable ambiguity even in the setting because Ao does not release guidelines to objective good and evil.
Let me point out that even good and evil gods disagree on what constitutes good and evil. Selling your soul to save an orphanage is super evil, not because your heart is in not the right place, but because you just gave up your essence to beings composed of pure evil. This is a good example of your Good - 1 points and Evil - 100 points scenario.
Also, let me point out that doing evil in the name of "greater good" is not good by any stretch of the imagination. No one cares what you "think" is right, just what is actually right. You are correct about objective good and evil, my only point is both intent and action are measured by this objective standard, not just one or the other. The tyrant of Bane feeding poor people to get more soldiers into his army doesn't get good points because the action is "good".
If it were up to me, I'd just remove alignment from the game entirely, though. Just pick your alignment and play your character. Your alignment will be shifted to match your playstyle.
-
I would agree with Polaris - But this has been asked before, and before, the answer has been that aligment, and good and evil, are objective, not subjective. This means that stealing is always evil (or actually, chaotic), no matter your intent, and selling your soul to the devils is always evil, even if you have them save an orphanage full of children.
A dude who steals out of greed is evil. A dude who steals from the rich and gives to the poor is good. By your logic, both should be evil, and yet, robin hood is the classic example of "chaotic good" widely accepted by almost all. Clearly, there's more than just the action of stealing to factor in. It's about context, and by extension, intent.
I respectfully disagree. Intent is not factored in at the time of the action, but it does factor in when your intent is realized - Doing a small evil action results in few evil points no matter what your intent, but if you did it with the intent of causing greater good later, then the larger amount of good you do later outweight the few evil points, resulting in a gain of good. Likewise, if you do the small evil thing with good intentions, but are prevented from actually doing that good deed, you end up with a few evil points. In the example case of Robin Hood, Robin would be CG because what evil he does is relatively small, and he uses the results to do bigger good things.
So, yes, intent does matter, but only when you get to bring your intent into realization.
Otherwise, what would happen if you did a small evil thing with large good intents, but changed your mind before you could do it? Would you retroactively lose the good points you got/get evil points? What if you're prevented from doing what you intended?A side note, I think stealing is more chaotic than evil, anyway, but I suppose it depends on a lot of factors. Maybe it's always chaotic, but also evil when you steal from those who are really in need?
I think the Tyrant of Bane would, indeed, get good points for feeding the poor people, but they would be outweighted by all the evil stuff he does, so he wouldn't actually "turn good" through those actions alone.
-
Please forgive me for this.
I'm neutral on the issue.
-
For the record, Polaris, I'm reading your posts as opinions in this discussion, not as the word of a DM -
Obviously, if DM's say that intent does factor into wether an action is evil or good in CoA, then that's what happens. I'm just in this since I find the subject of morality and good and evil in dnd (and FR in particular) interesting ^_^ -
Im with Tomppa in this the ideal behind the action does not alter the action in itself only the intent later.
The reason is thus,D&D has defined evil and good as facts not opinions so doing something that is evil is always evil,and doing something good is always good no matter the later intention,bringing real world morality into it doesn't work.Good,evil,law and chaos should shift in characters all the time the fact that the only way to measure this is when a DM decides to give points breaks the system,due to them not being there for all the times points should of been awarded as they would be in a table top game.
Im not having a go at the Team here just making the point that the system as it is doesn't translate well into the server when DM's hand out points as it will never balance correctly.So to stay neutral a character that believes the the status quo can spend there time aiding various evil,lawful,chaos and good factions/ideals etc.
Gaining points the whole time from each actions and remaining neutral,this is what Druids do to maintain the balance. -
Rulings and word of DM are on a case by case basis. It depends on context. I am speaking as a private citizen, as it were, not as the voice of the DM team.
-
for me, with the exception of druids,
a true neutral character will always do whatever is in there own best interests.Druids work for the best interest of nature.
LN– as long as it is not illegal ( or they wont get caught) will do whats best for themselves.
CN-- Legal or not, no difference for their character, as long as they come out on top.NG ( if it harms none, do as you will, for the greater good)
NE whatever it takes to get ahead, legal or not.probably over simplified, but thats ok, some people think Im simple :-)