Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Sep 01, 2004 3:04:15	As I believe my previous Alignment based writing was not clear or good enough, I took it, revised it with new ideas and brought to you guys. [size=3]1. Alignments and Actions When I say ‘evil’ which acts does it make you think? Stealing, lying, murdering... Are they evil? A paladin kills an orc in order to save a child, a lawyer lies at the court in order to save a clean person, a mother steals just to feed her children but not for herself –are those acts evil? A chaotic person would work disciplined just to get his freedom back. A lawful person would act confusing and meaningless just to get accepted to a chaotic society. A good person would steal from a rich evil person just to give the money to the ones the rich guy robbed. An evil person would give money to a beggar just to bring him on his side. How can someone judge an act with good-evil or lawful-chaotic axises? 1. 1. Aligned Acts In order to align certain actions, we need to know the purpose of the action (most important) and causes of the action. Should a paladin torture a person, even an innocent person in order to save the whole world? Would a blackguard feed each and every poor he meets to bring them to her side and build her own secret army? I say why not. 1. 2. Alignments and Restrictions Should a villain just manipulate anything, everything? Should a hero always fight the wickedness of the world? Alignments shouldn’t be seen as black & white rules. Each and every person is free to do anything and alignments just give us an idea what the person is going to do next. Even a Lawful Good person might get angry to a person and hurt him willingly or even a Neutral Evil person feel sorry for a poor child and might get him some help. In my campaigns, I use the % lawful-chaotic and good-evil axis. Those who’re at around 0 and 33 are evil, 34 and 66 neutral and 66+ are good and same for lawful-chaotic. Whenever a person does something judged as good, he takes positive points and whenever he does something evil he takes negative points. 2. Good, Evil, Law, Chaos and Neutrality 2. 1.Good, Goodness Good is the state of feeling responsible for himself and for others. Goodness can be selfish, too, just to sleep better at night, good people try to act as good as they can. Goodness is often called moral, but I reject to that statement, for in different societies, there are different moral norms. Good people do not just try to help people, they try not to hurt or harm people too. They try to be just, equal when it comes to act good. They can not always know who deserves goodness and who doesn’t. They are only mortal, with a tool in their hand, not gods who gave the tool. “Good” implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings and positivity. Good people do not always fight evil, but the people who fights evil are always good. 2. 2. Evil, Evilness Evil is the state of concerning self, seeing self superior than others. An evil person is selfish, but different from a good person in that he doesn’t feel responsible for the people around him and doesn’t bother to use people around him to satisfy himself. An evil person does not always make plans to kill everyone, hurt people and behave in a cruel way. Instead, he only does what he can do to gain power, money, or whatever he is after. For example, a fighter who fought for a patron and never betrayed to him because of fear of death or arrest, who then retires can be evil (probably lawful). I read a really interesting column about evil angels, not to be mistaken for fiends. Evil angels know and admire good although they can’t be called ‘good,’ These evil angels work for good gods yet act purposely evil. “Evil” implies no respect for life or dignity, and implies negativity. Evil people do not always fight good, but the people who fights good are always evil. 2. 3. Chaos, Anarchy: Chaos is the state of being free / disordered. Freedom is not something unlimited, though, chaotic people do respect other people’s freedom too. Freedom is ability to do anything without violating any other’s freedom. Chaotic people feel uncomfortable in a usual society and can’t find a place for themselves. A chaotic person respects other’s freedom and tries not to violate it, but he usually doesn’t bother to protect other’s freedom. Avoiding rules and traditions, chaos favors new over old. Times change, so do conditions, and the societies must be built to adapt to the new, for chaotic people. Remember that chaos-law are not chosen like evil-good, chaos and law represent the way you / your character feel, not think or decide. “Chaos” implies freedom, adaptability, and flexibility. Any chaotic person fights order, traditions and law. 2. 4.Lawful, Axiomat Lawful is the state of depending on certain rules, traditions, or personal truths. Lawful people usually support these ideas. A lawful person respects other’s rights and fights for them when it’s necessary. ‘Rights’ are restricted versions of freedom, edited to fit the purpose of the community. Most societies are lawful, although there are some evil-good societies. Chaotic societies are almost unheard of. A lawful person believes that protecting other’s rights is equal to protecting his own rights, thus, he fights for everyone. A lawful person knows his place in the society, and his duties, always tries to do what’s expected from him. “Law” implies obedience to authority. Any lawful person fights chaos and anarchy. 2. 5. Neutrality: 2. 5. 1. Undecided: An undecided person simply don’t know the differences of good-evil and law-chaos, or just doesn’t bother to know. He does whatever seems like a good idea. He chooses lawful and good friends, neighbors etc. for chaos and evil make trouble in his eyes. Although he doesn’t fight anyone who isn’t hostile to him. 2. 5. 2. Philosopher: A philosopher sees good-evil and chaos-law as extreme ideas which are early the same. To him, world spins with a neutral balance of good-evil and law-chaos axises. He knows that these ideas do and must exist, but doesn’t favour any of them.
#2 zombiegleemax Nov 25, 2004 1:43:02	Man, I really appreciate this and your other stuff. I play a Lawful Good Paladin (Unearthed Arcana, what else is there?), and find it immensely difficult. For instance. For the first 9 levels, we've been killing orcs and monsters and other such things, so being attacked is precedent to chop its head off. Now, we head over to the big city (one hell of a conversion coming up) and get mugged in an alleyway. Well, naturally out comes the brilliant energy falchion, and in a couple of criticals two of three are dead. Aaaand here comes the third with the Watch. Aaaand now my party hates me for not using subdual. Grrr.... Reading this helps put stuff in perspective. I'm also getting tons of ideas on what to do. We turned the situation around with Zone of Truth, but we pretty well broke the guy and left him in jail. My character wasn't really torn about that (I mean come on. He shot me! But in questioning, he and his brothers just needed some money for food and stuff. So. What say you to the paladin going back, setting up the guy, essentially going vow of poverty (only minus the actual vow and plus the giving away money bit) and striving for redemption? And saying thus is the glory of [enter Deity here] made manifest whilst doing so can't hurt too much. You really do have to consider what your character would actually do instead of modeling him after yourself (Hahahaha! Me! Lawful Good! Hahahaha!)
#3 zombiegleemax Dec 02, 2004 19:26:57	Good people do not always fight evil, but the people who fight evil are always good. What precisely do you mean by "fight evil" here? If you mean something like "fight evil people" then those claims just aren't true. Hitler fought evil, he fought Stalin, the Nazi regime was still evil though. Likewise a mafia assassin who spends his days killing (evil) mobsters of rival families would certainly count as evil. Evil people do not always fight good, but the people who fights good are always evil. Same complaint here. Good people can disagree about what's best. They can even fight about it. They're still good. Plenty of conflicts in the real world consist of good people on both sides who *disagree* about what's best, or what's just. Now mind you, if you have some more complicated notion of what it takes to count as "fighting evil" or "fighting good" then these complaints may not apply, but if so you should elaborate that notion rather than leave it to our imagination to fill in the gaps. -Stephen