Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Blibbering_Humdinger 10-27-07, 03:31 AM	Each of us has our own alignment, much like a D&D character, and that means we also have our own likes and dislike when it comes to reading and role-playing. As this is a Forgotten Realms forum, this thread is limited to the Forgotten Realms (naturally). Now that we have that rule down, here's the question I'd like y'all to discuss, in its entirety: What character types, particularly alignments (Lawful Good, Neutral Good, etc. ... Neutral Evil, Chaotic Evil), do you prefer to read about and role-play as, and why? If you enjoy reading about heroes, why do you do so? If you hate reading about heroes, why? If you like reading bad guys, why? If you hate reading bad guys, (you guessed it, guys), why? And how do the answers to those questions relate to your own personality? What "alignment" are you? Myself, I enjoy reading heroes most of all. That, I suppose, is why I'm such a fan of Drizzt Do'Urden. I admire characters like him. I also admire characters like Cadderly Bonaduce, though the pious aspect of his character is one I can't quite see eye-to-eye with. I can't help but wish, when reading of these characters, that we had more people in the real would like Drizzt and, yes, even like Cadderly. All the same, I enjoy reading about bad guys on occasion--I guess for the same reason that otherwise decent people get such a kick out of playing Grand Theft Auto and watching The Sopranos (though I am a fan of neither--not because I disapprove, simply because I'm not interested). I'm interested in how their minds work, for one, and for another, it's like living another, much different, life, and there's a certain thrill in that. My own alignment, I would guess, is Neutral Good. Not only is that the alignment description I most agree with, it's typically the one I assign my Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale protagonists, as the character whose role I assume is usually just my own "echo" within the Forgotten Realms--myself pretending I'm in the Realms, as opposed to playing the part of someone else.
Straploknight 10-27-07, 12:26 PM	I prefer chaotic good and chaotic neutral, and occasionally neutral good. I'm not really a fan of the polar alignments.
MarkusTay63 10-27-07, 12:58 PM	neutral anything, because no-one is purely anything. A typical human being is capable of great good and great evil, so anything other then neutral just seems a bit silly to me. Non-human races can do whatever they want, because they are designed to be good or bad, but humans are basically all over the place alignment-wise, depending on the exact circumstances they are in.
Straploknight 10-27-07, 01:29 PM	Depends on how you look at it and your good and my evil might be entirely two different things given the scope of the action and what it might mean to me and you personally and the world at large.
MarkusTay63 10-27-07, 01:32 PM	Case in point - people who blow up abortion clinics consider themselves 'good', even if they kill people in the process. Morality is too objective for alignments to be anything BUT silly regarding humans.
Charles Phipps 10-27-07, 04:37 PM	I like reading about neutral characters in moderation. But mostly, I like Lawful Good characters who aren't Lawful Stupid.
johnkretzer 10-27-07, 05:57 PM	Personaly I like reading about intelligent competent characters of all alignments...I usualy play the same. To me it isn't so much about the alignment as I think characters have more depth then just being LG.
Rinonalyrna Fathomlin 10-27-07, 09:22 PM	Personaly I like reading about intelligent competent characters of all alignments...I usualy play the same. To me it isn't so much about the alignment as I think characters have more depth then just being LG. Agreed, although I am fond of LG characters.
Straploknight 10-27-07, 10:21 PM	I'll tell you what i really hate and thats chaotic evil played as psychotic, for no other reason than to justify why a CE has kill thier fellow party members. A buddy of mine has a son that likes to do that (then again right now, he likes to play the "I gotta win" game). I can dig the double crosses and the sellouts, thats CE to me, but man psychopathic murderers that go on a killing spree for no better reason than because they are CE really tick me off.
Malkor_The_Mad 10-28-07, 12:03 AM	Most of my characters that I have played have been either Neutral or Neutral Evil. Myself I would say I tend more Neutral but some days at work the Neutral Evil really kicks in :D .
Mr_Miscellany 10-28-07, 03:36 AM	When playing in the Realms, I prefer chaotic good characters. Lawbreaking do-gooder is a style of behavior I identify with, and always have. ;) The only excpetion to this is when I play priests/clerics. This is when I like to choose alignments that most closely identify with the patron my character will be following, from my point of view. Not much into having a preference wrt heroic character alignments.
Blibbering_Humdinger 10-28-07, 08:12 PM	neutral anything, because no-one is purely anything. Indeed--alignment is more of a spectrum than a set of categories, though when considering one's views on the world, law, and order, many people do qualify as Lawful or Chaotic more than they do Neutral. The six alignments available in D&D are basically just chunks of the spectrum. A typical human being is capable of great good and great evil, so anything other then neutral just seems a bit silly to me. It's not what you're capable of--it's what you're inclined toward, based on your own views and how you've grown into them (or been indoctrinated into them, in many cases).
johnkretzer 10-28-07, 08:46 PM	neutral anything, because no-one is purely anything. A typical human being is capable of great good and great evil, so anything other then neutral just seems a bit silly to me. Actualy I have to disagree with the above stements on serveral points. 1)It is impossible to say absolute statements about human. There are people who are purely on thing or the other...though granted they are very rare. 2)Actualy I don't belive most people a capable of great evil as you seem to think. We are for the most part victims od a sub-conscience that prevents this. Edger Allen Poe wrote at lengths about this. Also just because you are capable of something doesn't mean we are that thing. It is what we do the defines us after all. Though I agree people can be random in in alignment which is why the alignment system is not meant to be strait jacket. Even a LG Paladin can have a bad day. It is more meant to be a loose defination of the character for the affects of spells and other things that is really it. Heck personaly I just use it as a default to determine a player's action if the player is not there.
meto30 10-28-07, 10:52 PM	LN. Makes for great NPCs with easy plot hooks, and as a DM I have no interest in playing a PC.
GothicDan 10-28-07, 11:04 PM	In real life, I tend towards LN with Good tendencies. As far as playing/reading? Honestly, I love them all. I've played a CE Abyssal Lord (Incubus base), Proxy of Shar, Shadow Mage, who did some terrible, terrible things - which I wrote about. And I've played a LG Aasimar Paladin (Solar descendant) of Lathander, and LG Paladin Were-Lion (Human) of Nobanion. And I've played a CG/CN Tulani Wizard/Fighter, my second longest-running online character (after the Abyssal Lord). I've played a CE Chosen of Talos, Epic-level Druid/Barbarian. I've played a low-level CG Priest of Sharess/Sune/Lliira. Then I played a mid-level CN Priest of Sharess. I've played a NE Necromancer/Cleric of Myrkul. There was the mid-level Fighter/Blackguard of Bane I did, too, who was LE/LN border, believing in extreme authoritarianism being the true path to safety and security - raised in Zhentil Keep as an orphan by the Church of Bane. He also paid a lot of respect to Helm, Loviatar, and Tyr. I really like CLASHING of alignments, and extremes, in writing and reading. Honestly, the one alignment I tend to play the least, is probably NG.
Red_Wizard 10-29-07, 09:54 AM	I have played most, if not all of the alignments, but the one I find I drift to the most....call me a n00b fan boi if you must.....is Lawful Evil. For reading I have no qualms with any alignment so long as the characters, both PC and NPC alike, are intelligent and believable, but when it comes to DnD I honestly don't like the non evil alignments. Perhaps it is because I myself, like Markus above, don't see things in RL so black and white, and the only way to get that balance within the rules IMO is to be evil. *shrugs* I played a LG Aasimar Paladin once, and I can honestly say that it will never, ever happen again. :P
Suin Bahhar 10-29-07, 10:32 AM	I like reading about characters, heros or otherwise. I played and love to play heroes though. Played evil only once before. In 2nd ed AD&D I played a disturbed CN Halfling runner(fighter/thief), a CN lost sorceress, a LG Kinasi Paladinprince horse-archer. A CG thief in Lankhmar. In the realms a crazy but LN dwarf fighter of Moradin; a NG half elf ranger of Silvanus; also a NE Calimshan Psion of Shar. There were several others of NG and CG alignment that didn't get to play that often. In third ed D&D I have a CG thetyrian daredevil swordsmith. Alignment is not that big a deal in my games most of the time. We mostly start playing and choose or shift alignments after a few moments of getting the feel of the character.
Rinonalyrna Fathomlin 10-29-07, 01:07 PM	As far as playing goes, I prefer any good alignment.
ChuutRiit 10-31-07, 11:45 AM	Me too. I seem to have a natural tendency towards altruism and liking life and stuff. Unless something really pisses me off and I want to go all Angry Marines (Warhammer40k Space Marine chapter, unofficial but fun :D)... So yeah, Neutral good and heroic characters ftw. With brains, of course.
captaincarot 11-04-07, 11:52 AM	what ever alignment i try to play it usually ends up tending towards some form of chaotic mayhem. so coming to the conclusion that i as a person am only capable of playing a limited number of alignments. i tend to chose some where within 1 step of CG if you also class true neutral as being within 1 step. though i did once get told i managed to play a rather good fighter based bounty hunter who was lawfull neutral, with slight tendencies towards lawful evil, basically a nasty piece of work who could be quite ruthless in chasing down his targets but wouldn't in any way cross any local laws to do it. the 2 alignments that i can't get on with are lawful good and lawful evil, the lawful good is just too restrictive for me to get some fun out of and lawful evil is just too cruel.
Rinonalyrna Fathomlin 11-04-07, 07:36 PM	I actually don't think of LG as being restrictive. Being a paladin is, but simply being LG need not be.:)
Stigger 11-04-07, 07:44 PM	I'm not sure even being a paladin is all that restrictive... not really even sure why it would be in the first place to be honest.
Rinonalyrna Fathomlin 11-04-07, 08:11 PM	I'm not sure even being a paladin is all that restrictive... not really even sure why it would be in the first place to be honest. IMO: going by the description of what a paladin is supposed to be, I don't think they should be free to act just like any other average joe. Obviously, I'm talking about old-school paladins here--I have no clue what they'll be like in 4E.
Blibbering_Humdinger 11-04-07, 08:13 PM	Every alignment is restrictive. A neutral character can't be too heroic, even if they're a Harper. Jaheira keeps complaining about my poor leadership in Baldur's Gate simply because I've allowed my reputation for being a goody two-shoes extend as far as 20. In the meantime, her husband, Khalid, won't shut up about how proud Gorion would be of my actions. -_-'
Stigger 11-05-07, 03:57 AM	IMO: going by the description of what a paladin is supposed to be, I don't think they should be free to act just like any other average joe. Obviously, I'm talking about old-school paladins here--I have no clue what they'll be like in 4E. Well of course there's supposed to be certain restrictions of the sorts of behavior a paladin engages in, but that's part of the core character concept, and has little to nothing to do with alignment. There's nothing that says a paladin can't be a lusty, carousing fellow, the only real difference is how a paladin goes about doing that. I'd argue that paladins of Sune are a rather good example of paladin's don't have to be the stiff-necked, tee-totaller stereotype that many people seem to envision them as. There's not much in the religious dogma of the Realms that I've seen that really mandates that sort of behaviour. The attitude that they should be those chaste, idealized paragons of chivalry is more of a projection of our modern interpretations of what Knights might have been like, even if the historical record doesn't do much to justify that view, and is really quite the opposite of what they seemed to actually be like.
Trance Kuja 11-05-07, 04:52 AM	I enjoy reading about noble, heroic good guys occasionally, but I tend to prefer characters such as Artemis who cares only for himself and will do what it takes to survive no matter who may get hurt in the process and Erevis who while being a "good guy" in the sense that he tries hard to make things right in the world, is willing to go about it in a more dark and morally questionable way. Essentially I'm more of an Anti-hero / Dark hero fan. As for characters in games, I tend to migrate to TN or LN with a more leaning on the evil side of the G/N/E axis in the same morally ambiguos sort of way or in darker, more backstabbing / intrigue sorta campaigns, me and alot of people I play with also have played alot of Vampire so these types of campaigns are pretty common, I tend to go NE or occasionally LE if I want to have a character who has some principles, even if he is a black hearted monster. I'm not a big fan of chaotic since I prefer to play characters as calculating and methodical, I always have contigencies and plans to keep myself alive, even if it means abandoning my "friends" to whatever horrible fate I just escapped from. I also pretty much always play a caster of some sort because they always provide more options of escape and ways to protect yourself.
Stigger 11-05-07, 05:00 AM	Bloody Tremere....
Rinonalyrna Fathomlin 11-05-07, 11:32 AM	Well of course there's supposed to be certain restrictions of the sorts of behavior a paladin engages in, but that's part of the core character concept, and has little to nothing to do with alignment. There's nothing that says a paladin can't be a lusty, carousing fellow, the only real difference is how a paladin goes about doing that. I'd argue that paladins of Sune are a rather good example of paladin's don't have to be the stiff-necked, tee-totaller stereotype that many people seem to envision them as. There's not much in the religious dogma of the Realms that I've seen that really mandates that sort of behaviour. The attitude that they should be those chaste, idealized paragons of chivalry is more of a projection of our modern interpretations of what Knights might have been like, even if the historical record doesn't do much to justify that view, and is really quite the opposite of what they seemed to actually be like. Not trying to argue with you about this (I believe everyone can envision characters how they like) but I did ask Ed about paladin love on Candlekeep, and he did actually agree that paladins don't act just like any other person with regards to relationships. I can probably find you Ed's answer later if you like, unless you'd rather just find it yourself.
captaincarot 11-05-07, 01:53 PM	I actually don't think of LG as being restrictive. Being a paladin is, but simply being LG need not be.:) the only use for paladins is so you can out run them when you're being chased by a dragon. self sanctimonious jumped up pains in the aaaaggghhh! i much prefer the ranger or thief type, or the bog standard dwarven fighter. or if i'm feeling in an intelligent mood then a mage. but if i'm feeling in the mood to wind people up then it has to be the cleric of tempus, i just love brow beating the fighters about taking care of their weapons and armour, castigating the theives for being dishonourable and sneaky, and arguing over the relative merrits of a strong sword arm when compared to spells with the mage. that and the fact that if i do a cleric of tempus, i usually go the heavy armour route and clomp round driving the stealthy people mad.
GothicDan 11-05-07, 02:08 PM	I despise Thieves, but really like writing/roleplaying Paladins and Fighters. Rangers are a third - I'd rather play a Barbarian or a Druid. This is pure online roleplaying of course - more writing than anything else.
Stigger 11-05-07, 04:30 PM	Not trying to argue with you about this (I believe everyone can envision characters how they like) but I did ask Ed about paladin love on Candlekeep, and he did actually agree that paladins don't act just like any other person with regards to relationships. I can probably find you Ed's answer later if you like, unless you'd rather just find it yourself. Think I've read it actually. Wasn't my point though, as I was actually kinda agreeing with you up there... I'd pretty much agree that paladins don't act like others, that is what sets them apart and makes them special after all. My point was that it isn't nearly as limiting as some would make it out to be... it's not really so much what you do, so much as why and how you do it sort of thinking is what I'm getting at.
Rinonalyrna Fathomlin 11-05-07, 08:15 PM	Think I've read it actually. Wasn't my point though, as I was actually kinda agreeing with you up there... I'd pretty much agree that paladins don't act like others, that is what sets them apart and makes them special after all. My point was that it isn't nearly as limiting as some would make it out to be... it's not really so much what you do, so much as why and how you do it sort of thinking is what I'm getting at. I think I would agree with that.:)