Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Staple 03-21-07, 08:43 PM	I read the section in the Player's Guide about alignments, but there are some scenarios that I'm unclear about which alignment it would indicate. Here are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Scenario 1: There is a demon possessing someone in the town. Almost every night, it comes out and kills someone in the town. It's been decided that whoever is possessed needs to be killed. Which alignment would: A) Stay up each night in a different house, trying to find the demon, since killing people without proof is wrong, even if it saves the lives of other innocents. B) Kill each person in the town, one by one, until the demon is found, since they would have died anyway, and now the demon is killed. C) Kill everyone in the town, just to make sure there was only one demon and it won't terrorize anyplace else. Scenario 2: An certain minority group (we'll say Halflings) has been rounded up by the King. All their belongings have been confiscated and they are being used as slave labor and kept in deliberately horrific conditions with the explicit goal of this setup being their demise as a group. Any sort of charity towards the captive Halflings is strictly forbidden. Other than his hatred of Halflings, the king in question has been kind and exemplary, a true saint among monarchs. What alignment would: A) Leave the Halflings to rot, since the king has made his decision and defying so noble a man is wrong. B) Sneak the Halflings food and clothing because breaking the law is usually wrong, but this law is unreasonable. C) Break the Halflings free, breaking the law but saving their lives. A knight swears loyalty to a particular Noble House--that is, his lord and his lord's heirs. After a few years of this, his noble and just lord dies, leaving his son "Lyster the Merciless" to his throne. Lyster proceeds to run the kingdom into the ground. What alignment would the knight have to be to: A) Obey Lyster's orders, even though he knew them to be morally reprehensible and against the common good. B) Break his oath and leave the country. C) Remove Lyster from power and instill another member of his former Lord's bloodline with temperament more similar to his father's. I realize that alignment isn't always a clear-cut thing, but I'm trying to get a better handle on the system as a whole.
ieattrollsforbreakfast 03-21-07, 10:02 PM	My take: Scenario 1: A) Any Good B) Any Evil (or Neutral at a stretch) C) Any Evil The point here is that characters carrying out B or C, while they might believe they are working for the greater good, are carrying out an evil act: killing innocents and not respecting life. Any good (or even neutral) character would find another way, or take the chance the demon is found before everyone dies. Scenario 2: A) Lawful Evil or Lawful Neutral B) Any Good C) Chaotic or Neutral Good With A, no good character would stand by and do nothing. With B, I think that position is reasonable for any good character, whether lawful or chaotic (though the chaotic character would not worry about breaking the law). The point of this scenario is that Lawful Good character should not mindlessly obey the law (no, not even paladins). Scenario 3: A) Lawful Evil or Lawful Neutral B) Any C) Any B and C are tricky because any character do those things for any number of reasons. A good character might leave to seek help from other nations, an evil character might leave to seek power elsewhere...they can still be lawful, but with more focus on the good/evil side. Plus, a lawful character might decide that since he has sworn loyalty to the House, and it is in the best interests of the House to remove the Mericiless, that he is duty-bound to remove him or seek help to do so.