Gannji and Enor's alignments [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

AxeD

2010-06-10, 05:49 AM

Anyone have any idea what kind of alignments Gannji and Enor might have? I'm guessing:

Gannji: Lawful Neutral
Lawful since he seems to have some sort of personal code that he follows. He doesn't want to tarnish their fine profession (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0728.html) by being dishonest to his employers. He also seems quite used to/comfortable with legally required paperwork (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0717.html)
Neutral because, well, he doesn't really show any serious evil tendencies. All we have seen of him so far is him capturing (with non-lethal force) some people who he assumed were highly dangerous and wanted criminals. (I'm almost certain that some d&d book or magazine out there would disagree with what I just said.) Its not like he tortured any of his captives or particularly enjoyed hurting them. Well, he did make some puns while getting the jump on Haley, but verbally lambasting your friends and foes doesn't necessarily mean that you are evil (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0490.html)

Enor: Chaotic Neutral
He seems fairly Chaotic from what I've seen so far. He doesn't seem to have any particular ideology or personal code, and I doubt he knows enough about the law to follow it.

Its kinda sad, but he seems to stupid to be evil. He's childish and its hard to imagine an inherrently evil/good child. Also, as with Gannji, he doesn't seem to particularly take pleasure in hurting people and he doesn't commit any inherrently evil acts.

Anyone pick up something I missed? (Or gotten completely wrong)

gibbo88

2010-06-10, 06:15 AM

Its kinda sad, but he seems to stupid to be evil. He's childish and its hard to imagine an inherrently evil/good child. Also, as with Gannji, he doesn't seem to particularly take pleasure in hurting people and he doesn't commit any inherrently evil acts.

Raymond Feist's books make some interesting points on this, that some things/people are just born with anger and evil...ity. Not that I'm arguing with the not-evil comment. I think neutral also works because he also didn't show any real need to hurt the captives, just wanted to "get more yummies". Just getting the quickest means to serve your end seems pretty neutral to me?

Nilan8888

2010-06-10, 07:22 AM

We haven't seen them react to any conflict and it hasn't been for an extended period of time we've been aquainted, so it's a bit early to pin anything down on them yet. But your guesses work.

The thing about neutral alignments is that they're way too broad. What really defines a "neutral" alignment anyway? It's definition is merely that it's not something else.

Gannji does at least seem lawful. From his latest speech he if anything seems... libertarian? I don't know if we'd see him attending Tea Party rallies or anything, but he seems to have a certain ethical-political mindset. Which seems, strangely, the inverse of RedCloak: whereas RedCloak has something of Communist Revolutionary imagery to him, Gannji is a lot more about inedependance and the ethos of the individual.

As you said, Enor seems a bit dim to make all that many judgements on good or evil. Even to say he's Chaotic at this point is a bit much since he might just be True Neutral.

MacGiolla

2010-06-10, 07:29 AM

TriForce

2010-06-10, 07:48 AM

their motivation and actions at the moment are still a bit vague, however, they do not seem to be evil, since they do not use any unneeded force to capture their target, and didnt display any form of cruelty or even dishonesty. if they only target people who are actually a threath they can even be considered good, but bounty hunters work best when they are neutral or evil, and since the latter isnt likely, i guess neutral for now

Grogmir

2010-06-10, 07:51 AM

Scarlet Knight

2010-06-10, 07:59 AM

I would say Enor is more true neutral. Like a tiger or snake, he does what's in his best interest without really considering neither right & wrong, nor rights & rules.

MacGiolla

2010-06-10, 08:15 AM

The Return of the Gannji & Enor show! Yay! With all the Tarquin going on right now - good to have these two back to remind others that all the new characters kill posterour

MacGiolla - 1 I agree with - these guys do imprision people for a living -
2) That was more a cute / stupid suggestion - that was dismissed - like you say - but doesn't that imply Neutral?
3) Again this seems like could be Neutral too - as well as evil -

I'm going with the OPs - wouldn't surprise me if they're evil - but lovable Evil guys is being done with Tarquin.

Grog

I wouldn't call a suggestion of kidnapping completely innocent people cute. Yes it was rejected, but because Gannji doesn't want to sully his "noble" profession of "beating people unconscious and transporting them accross international borders."

Aldrakan

2010-06-10, 08:19 AM

I would say Enor is more true neutral. Like a tiger or snake, he does what's in his best interest without really considering neither right & wrong, nor rights & rules.

Doesn't that tend more towards neutral evil? Not considering any moral implications is a bit different for an animal than when done by a creature of human inteligence.
That said I'd consider them neutral with evil tendencies, particularly when one takes the influence of their culture into consideration.

Nilan8888

2010-06-10, 08:20 AM

Well we have seen them: 1) kidnap others for a living (with little regard for why the person might be wanted), 2) consider grabbing people randomly off the street (only to reject as be unworkable, not immoral), and 3) sympathize with slavers.

1) Errr... technically you just described a cop. They "kidnap others" (except they call it arresting) and when they do it, they often have little regard for why the person might be wanted. Usually they just know there's an APB out for someone.

Is that in any way an argument that cops are evil? I don't think it's necessarily an evil act to not question why someone might be wanted or that it's a lie. You're not in the bounty hunter business to presume a notice saying a man is a murderer is a trumped-up lie. You're not an investigator.

2) Enor considers it, Gannji doesn't at all really. And the argument he DOES give only starts out with the notion that it's unworkable. He continues on ethical grounds, and even makes reference to the importance of an 'honest living'. It seems to me that you're basing his alignment on his failure to be adequately horrified at a hypothetical scenario.

3) One throwaway line does not really give creedence to much in the way of sympathy. Gannji might know the details of the slavery situation better than we do, and the context.

Again, he seems more if anything a Libertarian. Although it should be mentioned that Libertarianism is one of those things a lot of people talk the talk about, but don't walk the walk. When you think of the implications, it's really a tough set of ethics to live by.

Darcy

2010-06-10, 08:30 AM

MacGiolla

2010-06-10, 08:40 AM

1) Errr... technically you just described a cop. They "kidnap others" (except they call it arresting) and when they do it, they often have little regard for why the person might be wanted. Usually they just know there's an APB out for someone.

Is that in any way an argument that cops are evil? I don't think it's necessarily an evil act to not question why someone might be wanted or that it's a lie. You're not in the bounty hunter business to presume a notice saying a man is a murderer is a trumped-up lie. You're not an investigator.

2) Enor considers it, Gannji doesn't at all really. And the argument he DOES give only starts out with the notion that it's unworkable. He continues on ethical grounds, and even makes reference to the importance of an 'honest living'. It seems to me that you're basing his alignment on his failure to be adequately horrified at a hypothetical scenario.

3) One throwaway line does not really give creedence to much in the way of sympathy. Gannji might know the details of the slavery situation better than we do, and the context.

1) What Enor and Gannji do for a living is not at all like cops. They are bounty hunters. Their concern is not with justice, but with how much money they can make off the bounty. While you could argue that they are operating (at least in this case) on behalf of a legitimate authority in the Empire of Blood, the Empire is pretty clearly evil. I would consider collecting bouties on behalf of an evil regime to be evil. If they are willing to collect bouties for the Empire of Blood, I'm sure they are willing to do it for other, less legitimate sources.

Also, when they attacked V and the others they shot first and asked questions later. This is not what cops do. Gannji even admits that their M.O. is to beat people senseless before bringing them in.

2) Granted this is more an argument for Enor being evil rather than Gannji, but it doesn't demonstrate that Gannji is not evil, it is more evidence that he is lawful.

3) To me, slavery is pretty much always evil, despite whatever context there might be. The one slave we do see looks to be treated pretty poorly in any case.

Edited to add: What darcy said.

AxeD

2010-06-10, 08:51 AM

I wouldn't call a suggestion of kidnapping completely innocent people cute. Yes it was rejected, but because Gannji doesn't want to sully his "noble" profession of "beating people unconscious and transporting them accross international borders."

Yes, but they weren't "innocent". Gannji and Enor had a wanted poster that matched their description. Furthermore, they were classified as dangerous criminals. I mean, if killing was automatically bad, it would be practically impossible to maintain a good alignment in D&D. Its the details that accompany the killing that determines whether it is an inherently good or evil act.

For example, if you capture criminals using non-lethal means and hand then over to the authorities (ie, "beating people unconscious and transporting them accross international borders.") I wouldn't class that as an evil act. If you were capturing innocent people and selling them into slavery, I'd call that evil.

Leecros

2010-06-10, 08:52 AM

Doesn't that tend more towards neutral evil? Not considering any moral implications is a bit different for an animal than when done by a creature of human inteligence.
That said I'd consider them neutral with evil tendencies, particularly when one takes the influence of their culture into consideration.

+1 for the neutral with evil tendencies. They go bounty hunting with little regard to what the person in the bounty did so they can live comfortably.

and actually, most of the time the cops are the ones figuring out who's committed a crime, so yes, they do care why. That's like 90% of what cops do. The "driving around arresting people" part is just a small part.

Not true, normally the police department calls in investigators if the culprit isn't clear. The normal everyday police officers rarely have anything to do with the investigative part except in the (probably more common) cases where they just need witnesses to say and point and say "Joe Schmo over there did it". You're thinking along the lines of a Detective which do most of the investigation for a police department, and they're not quite the same as a uniform-wearing officer.

MacGiolla

2010-06-10, 09:10 AM

Yes, but they weren't "innocent". Gannji and Enor had a wanted poster that matched their description. Furthermore, they were classified as dangerous criminals. I mean, if killing was automatically bad, it would be practically impossible to maintain a good alignment in D&D. Its the details that accompany the killing that determines whether it is an inherently good or evil act.

For example, if you capture criminals using non-lethal means and hand then over to the authorities (ie, "beating people unconscious and transporting them accross international borders.") I wouldn't class that as an evil act. If you were capturing innocent people and selling them into slavery, I'd call that evil.

That comment was in the context of Enor's suggestion that they just grab people off the street and say that the poster was confusing. In that scenario the people grabbed would be innocent.

And I agree that in this case they were acting on behalf of authorities (albeit a pretty evil authority), I would be surprised if they only took bounties on behalf of a legitmate authority, rather than based on who was willing to pay.

Nilan8888

2010-06-10, 09:15 AM

Technically, cops arrest people because they commit crimes or at least are suspected of it, not because someone offered them a reward... and actually, most of the time the cops are the ones figuring out who's committed a crime, so yes, they do care why. That's like 90% of what cops do. The "driving around arresting people" part is just a small part.

Nice try, but...

1. 'Reward' is just how you chose to define it. Cops are "rewarded" just in the way Gannji and Enor are: they're paid for their work. It just so happens that the state "rewards" them on a regular basis.

2. "Most" of the cops are not the ones figuring out who committed a crime. That's actually a minority of police. The ones who are actually walking the beat and apprehend a suspect, they're usually not involved in any of that. Figuring out if they're innocent or not is in the hands of either police investigators -- for instance, homicide detectives -- or the courts.

The "driving around arresting people" is actually what MOST cops do with regards to apprehending suspects where they haven't witnessed any crime themselves, as is the case here. After all for any given case you're only going to dedicate a handfull of cops at most, even if it's a major think like a task force. All the rest... even detectives not attached to that case, can be said to function like bounty hunters. Only a small minority of cops are dedicated to the figuring out and piecing together of what happened at a given crime scene. The rest function like Gannji and Enor, going out and, if they see a suspect in an APB, bringing them in.

Darcy

2010-06-10, 09:15 AM

Nilan8888

2010-06-10, 09:22 AM

My point was simply that cops don't just go around arresting people with "little regard for why the person might be wanted." That's ridiculous. For one, a lot of arrests made by beat cops are crimes in progress- in that case, they're the one establishing who has committed a crime. Second, if a civilian calls the cops, when the cops show up they have to figure out themselves who they're arresting and why, they can't just immediately take the caller's word for it. Third, detectives are cops, and if they tell fresh-from-academy Gumshoe Greg to arrest someone, he's got a very, very good reason to listen. Even young, fresh cops are often involved in things like surveillance, gathering evidence, etc.

You can't take the "crime in progress" route: that's not a proper analogy. I was talking with respect to this situation, a situation where Gannji and Enor, like most cops on any given crime, have not witnessed the crime themselves.

You also can't take the figuring out at a scene EITHER, becuase that's also not a proper analogy. The analogy here is an APB: the "powers that be" have said THIS is thier guy. So they go and get him. My point was that cops in this situation, like Gannji and Enor, do not for instance see thier suspect and say "ok, but wait a second are we sure if this guy is innocent? This might be a trumped up charge."

Cops don't take the word of witnesses at the scene for granted, but by and large they do take the word of the establishment for granted. They'd have to in order to function.

AxeD

2010-06-10, 09:23 AM

sihnfahl

2010-06-10, 09:25 AM

For example, if you capture criminals using non-lethal means and hand then over to the authorities (ie, "beating people unconscious and transporting them accross international borders.") I wouldn't class that as an evil act. If you were capturing innocent people and selling them into slavery, I'd call that evil.
On the other hand, if you beat someone unconcious and transport them across international borders to a country known for executing political dissidents, institutionalized slavery, and a dictatorial leadership...

... is that evil?

AxeD

2010-06-10, 09:27 AM

That comment was in the context of Enor's suggestion that they just grab people off the street and say that the poster was confusing. In that scenario the people grabbed would be innocent.

And I agree that in this case they were acting on behalf of authorities (albeit a pretty evil authority), I would be surprised if they only took bounties on behalf of a legitmate authority, rather than based on who was willing to pay.

I see your point, however we don't know anything about their other bounties. So its kinda useless to speculate whether they only arrest criminals. (Although, I think that they probably also kidnap people for not-so-legitimate authorities - I doubt that they can afford to be that picky)

Totally Guy

2010-06-10, 09:32 AM

They could be a Han Solo and Chewbacca type of presence.

Or they could be more like Timon and Pumbaa.

Somewhere in between.:smalltongue:

Darcy

2010-06-10, 09:32 AM

Darcy

2010-06-10, 09:33 AM

Or they could be more like Timon and Pumbaa.

That's... perfect.

AxeD

2010-06-10, 09:44 AM

On the other hand, if you beat someone unconcious and transport them across international borders to a country known for executing political dissidents, institutionalized slavery, and a dictatorial leadership...

... is that evil?

Well, is it an evil act if you hand over an evil criminal to an evil government? Its a bit of a gray area.

Lets look at your actual actions:

1. You arrested a criminal. You stopped him/her from, supportedly, commiting more crimes. [Good]
2. You used non-lethal force to arrest said criminal - ie, didn't kill them. If you outright killed them without offering a chance to surrender or without evidence of their crimes, that would be an evil act. [Neutral/Good]
3. You transported said criminal (illegally, I assume) across international borders. This is necessary for the said criminal to receive trial and justice. Whether or not you broke laws is irrevelent to the good/evil axis.[Neutral]
4. You handed said criminal over to a legitimate authority (ie, recognised by other countries). Whether or not the country is known for executing political dissidents, institutionalized slavery, and is a dictatorial leadership, is also irrelevant. [Neutral]

The only other factor that comes into it is:
5. You handed over said criminal to someone who plans on possibly torturing/gruesomely executing said criminal, which is probably an evil act. By default, you are probably guilty by association if you are aware of this. [Evil]

I'd say that all in all, its probably neither good or evil.

AxeD

2010-06-10, 09:46 AM

They could be a Han Solo and Chewbacca type of presence.

Or they could be more like Timon and Pumbaa.

Somewhere in between.:smalltongue:

What? I'm confused. (Its midnight over here in Australia, I'm really tired)

Leecros

2010-06-10, 09:56 AM

Third, detectives are cops, and if they tell fresh-from-academy Gumshoe Greg to arrest someone, he's got a very, very good reason to listen. Even young, fresh cops are often involved in things like surveillance, gathering evidence, etc.

no

Most detectives are university graduates who join directly from civilian life without first serving as uniformed officers. I think in the UK is the only place i can think of where you need any substantial officer work(2 years) to become a detective.

but being a detective is completely different from being a cop.

MacGiolla

2010-06-10, 09:57 AM

I see your point, however we don't know anything about their other bounties. So its kinda useless to speculate whether they only arrest criminals. (Although, I think that they probably also kidnap people for not-so-legitimate authorities - I doubt that they can afford to be that picky)

Granted that it is speculation, but I'd argue that it is reasonable speculation. If they are willing to take a bounty from an obviously evil empire it seems reasonable that they would take bouties from less legitimate authorities. And as you say it is doubtful that they could be so picky.

Anyway, to sum up my arguement again (and this is meant to be evidence, not necessarily proof.)

1) They are bounty hunters (nature of career choice is likely to be evil)
2) Known to act on bounties from an evil empire (which is very likely to treat its prisoners poorly)
3) At least one of the group has no problem with capturing and turning in innocent people
4) They have been shown to support slave drivers.

Darcy

2010-06-10, 10:07 AM

no

Most Private detectives are university graduates who join directly from civilian life without first serving as uniformed officers, even many Police Detectives only have to pass a written exam. I think in the UK is the only place i can think of where you need any substantial officer work(2 years) to become a detective.

but being a detective is completely different from being a cop.
OK, they're not "cops" in that they aren't uniformed officers who give people speeding tickets but they're a member of the police organization, involved in making arrests. You are vigourously missing my point- cops aren't bounty hunters. A bounty hunter, broadly speaking, captures people because there's a reward for it. A cop arrests someone because they're a criminal. Very often, the cop making the arrest is the one who determined that fact.

Leecros

2010-06-10, 10:15 AM

OK, they're not "cops" in that they aren't uniformed officers who give people speeding tickets but they're a member of the police organization, involved in making arrests. You are vigourously missing my point- cops aren't bounty hunters. A bounty hunter, broadly speaking, captures people because there's a reward for it. A cop arrests someone because they're a criminal. Very often, the cop making the arrest is the one who determined that fact.

i've never said that cops were bounty hunters.

although one could argue that police officers are being paid for it, they get a weekly(or bi-weekly in some cases) paycheck:smallbiggrin:

Nilan8888

2010-06-10, 10:16 AM

1) What Enor and Gannji do for a living is not at all like cops. They are bounty hunters. Their concern is not with justice, but with how much money they can make off the bounty. While you could argue that they are operating (at least in this case) on behalf of a legitimate authority in the Empire of Blood, the Empire is pretty clearly evil. I would consider collecting bouties on behalf of an evil regime to be evil. If they are willing to collect bouties for the Empire of Blood, I'm sure they are willing to do it for other, less legitimate sources.

Also, when they attacked V and the others they shot first and asked questions later. This is not what cops do. Gannji even admits that their M.O. is to beat people senseless before bringing them in.

Cops also shoot first and ask questions later if you're literally concerned with the chronology of the use of force and the asking of questions. If they think you are a suspect, they do NOT ask you questions first. They will first identify you and then either use the threat of force or force itself to get you under thier control. THEN they will ask you questions... after you are brought in. And usually it's not they themselves who will be asking those questions.

As for the authority of the evil regime, I'll address that in point 3.

2) Granted this is more an argument for Enor being evil rather than Gannji, but it doesn't demonstrate that Gannji is not evil, it is more evidence that he is lawful.

This is true and I agree.

3) To me, slavery is pretty much always evil, despite whatever context there might be. The one slave we do see looks to be treated pretty poorly in any case.

The context is not whether the act is good or evil but if it's 'the only game in town', so to speak.

If you're a bounty hunter and that's your job, and your entire homeland is dominated by empires that are ALL evil, slave-holding entities, your choices are:

A: Move

B: Give up bounty-hunting

C: Work with what you have

You know, just becuase Gannji made one comment in a previous comic might not even prove that he APPROVES of slavery. It's not like he's going to voice his actual opinion right in the middle of the slave-holding palace. And why not give the impression he symapthizes with the slaveholders? He can't do anything about it either way at the moment and it wouldn't make any sense to arouse susupicion. And by saying something supportive it might avert it.

That's all a fair amount of supposition, but what I'm trying to say is that there are a number of possible reasons why Gannji might have said what he did. The expression "words are cheap" is true in more ways than one.

It might just be that Gannji's only ever been good at fighting and for some reason he needs to stay within the borders of these lands. When the only paying "authorities" are all evil, probably the most "good" thing you can do to keep working as a fighter with a paycheque is to work for them indirectly to ensure you're never given an order to go massacre a villiage or something.

Sure, you could just refuse to work and participate in the society. You'd also starve. And the desert environment of this continent does not strike me to be particularly forgiving if you fall into poverty. You could try to find work as something else, but who's going to teach you? That costs money. You could try to overthrow the society -- but with what army and what means or promises to feed, clothe, train and pay them?

The thing is, is that when you're surrounded by evil it's easy for the man who is 'only as good as the world allows him to be' who lives in a moral society to admonish you for not making a stand that would either ensure your poverty or your death and accomplish nothing else. 9 times out of 10 these same people would do the same or worse in that situation. It might just be that Gannji's doing the best with the cards that have been dealt him.

Yogi

2010-06-10, 10:17 AM

Gannji is probably Lawful Neutral. He fulfills legitiment bounty contracts to the best of his ability, and doesn't look too kindly on fraud. The nature of the governments he takes contracts from (in this place, they're all evil) prevents him from being really Good.

Enor is Neutral Evil. He does whatever is good for him. He doesn't hate others, but he doesn't really care how much they get screwed over as long as he gets his food.

Darcy

2010-06-10, 10:18 AM

Yeah, they get paid for it, but you get paid to be a cop whether you're writing traffic tickets, guarding cells, chasing sex offenders through a swamp, or giving bicycle safety lectures at public schools. The "arrest someone because someone told you to" part of policing is just one facet of many.

sihnfahl

2010-06-10, 10:18 AM

1. You arrested a criminal. You stopped him/her from, supportedly, commiting more crimes. [Good]
A crime committed against an Evil state.

If a Paladin and his compatriots tried to overthrow the EoB, and the EoB puts out a bounty on the Paladin and his compatriots for that 'crime'... where does that land you?

AxeD

2010-06-10, 10:18 AM

1) They are bounty hunters (nature of career choice is likely to be evil)
I wouldn't say that bounty hunters are by nature likely to be evil. Miko for example acted in the role of a bounty hunter (although working for a good legitimate authority) and she still maintained her good alignment.

2) Known to act on bounties from an evil empire (which is very likely to treat its prisoners poorly)
Read my above post that considers whether or not is it an evil act to work for an evil empire. Its not as black and white as it may sound.

3) At least one of the group has no problem with capturing and turning in innocent people
Firstly, that guy is an idiot - he was going to also sue the restuarant for its soup not being hot enough. Secondly, he was only considering doing it - he hadn't done it yet. Lastly, I still think that Enor is too stupid to be evil.

4) They have been shown to support slave drivers.
I kinda feel that their support for the slave drivers was mostly for the sake of humor. Although that is an excellent point - another aspect I missed. Then again, "supporting" (not actually doing anything about it, however) isn't the same as actually carrying out acts of slavery. Hell, Haley briefly considered selling that Sorceror chick and her father into slavery (for large profit) and she's not evil.

Darcy

2010-06-10, 10:19 AM

AxeD

2010-06-10, 10:32 AM

A crime committed against an Evil state.

If a Paladin and his compatriots tried to overthrow the EoB, and the EoB puts out a bounty on the Paladin and his compatriots for that 'crime'... where does that land you?

Its not an inherrently good or evil act to arrest a criminal. If you arrest the paladin and hand him over to the EoB while following the letter of the law (or in this case, while following your code of conduct as a bounty hunter), it should be a neutral act. Its not up to the cops (in our universe) to determine whether the laws are just or injust - its their job to uphold them.

Lawful Neutral, “Judge”: A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs her. Order and organization are paramount to her. She may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or she may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government.

So while it still seems like an evil act to arrest a paladin for doing "whats right", the bounty hunters are only following laws and not getting caught up in whether they are doing a good or evil act.

A cop may think that its evil to chop down a forest for profit, but they still have to arrest hippies (who they may personally agree with completely) who are trying to damage the logger's equipment.

AxeD

2010-06-10, 10:33 AM

Probably inside a dragon.

Hahha, I think its the sleep deprivition, but thats the funniest thing I've heard in ages.:smallbiggrin: Help yourself to a cookie. I'm going to bed.

MacGiolla

2010-06-10, 10:45 AM

The context is not whether the act is good or evil but if it's 'the only game in town', so to speak.

If you're a bounty hunter and that's your job, and your entire homeland is dominated by empires that are ALL evil, slave-holding entities, your choices are:

A: Move

B: Give up bounty-hunting

C: Work with what you have

They have been shown to have access to Teleport scrolls, its a hard arguement to make that they are stuck working for a single regime.

I wouldn't say that bounty hunters are by nature likely to be evil. Miko for example acted in the role of a bounty hunter (although working for a good legitimate authority) and she still maintained her good alignment.
I wouldn't call Miko a bounty hunter, she wasn't doing it for a reward, and the point really was that on balance I would argue that bounty hunters are more likely to be evil than not. In general bounty hunters don't care about why people are wanted or what will happen to them when they are turned in, they are just in it for the money. I will concede that there may be some who are not evil, but I would argue that most are. As I said this is just evidence, not necessarily proof.

Read my above post that considers whether or not is it an evil act to work for an evil empire. Its not as black and white as it may sound.
May not be exactly black and white, but again more evidence. And as I stated above, I think they have shown to be mobile enought to work for others if they so desired.

Firstly, that guy is an idiot - he was going to also sue the restuarant for its soup not being hot enough. Secondly, he was only considering doing it - he hadn't done it yet. Lastly, I still think that Enor is too stupid to be evil.

I don't buy this arguement. This is the same arguement that was used as to why Thog wasn't evil, and I believe The Giant himself had to state explicitly that he was. He is at least intelligent enough to come up with that plan (even if it isn't a very good one), then he is intelligent enough to be evil.

I kinda feel that their support for the slave drivers was mostly for the sake of humor. Although that is an excellent point - another aspect I missed. Then again, "supporting" (not actually doing anything about it, however) isn't the same as actually carrying out acts of slavery. Hell, Haley briefly considered selling that Sorceror chick and her father into slavery (for large profit) and she's not evil.

Agreed, but contrast their reactions to it to Elan's. None of these may be definitive proof but it is all evidence which to my mind points in a certian direction.

If it walks like a duck, and Occam's razor and all that.

Nilan8888

2010-06-10, 11:13 AM

They have been shown to have access to Teleport scrolls, its a hard arguement to make that they are stuck working for a single regime.

Not a single regime, a single continent -- presuming the other empires and nations are the same way (and that seems quite probable, given how 'Darksun' reflective this setting is with its Dragon rulers and all). And those teleportation scrolls cost a lot of money, which they have made mention of a few times. More than likely they wouldn't make any money that way unless they made a permanent move to another continent.

If there was any sort of family or other situation tying them down to THIS continent... well there you go.

Kish

2010-06-10, 11:29 AM

I don't buy this arguement. This is the same arguement that was used as to why Thog wasn't evil, and I believe The Giant himself had to state explicitly that he was.
This is Telephone Game; Rich has never stated Thog's alignment.

MacGiolla

2010-06-10, 11:31 AM

This is Telephone Game; Rich has never stated Thog's alignment.

I stand corrected then.

I still maintain that being stupid doesn't prevent you from being evil.

SPoD

2010-06-10, 11:54 AM

The fact that they could work for any government actually strengthens the case for Neutral. If a bounty hunter works for any government available, regardless of that government's moral and ethical policies, then they are likely Neutral with regards to moral alignment. They simply don't care. It doesn't factor into their decision-making process.

The fact that the Western Continent may provide them with more Evil potential bosses than Good potential bosses is outside of their control. Yes, they could choose to limit their activity to only-Good nations, but then they wouldn't be Neutral anymore, would they? And since we have absolutely no evidence that Gannji wouldn't take a job from a Good-aligned state, we can't really conclude anything about his alignment other than "probably not Good".

And they can't exactly leave the continent and find work elsewhere, because lizardfolk and half-dragon ogres probably can't walk around Cliffport without getting attacked by adventurers.

hamishspence

2010-06-10, 11:54 AM

Might depend on which splatbooks you're using, or if it's just matters of opinion.

Can attempting to betray and overthrow an evil regime be an evil act?
I'd say- yes- if your plan is to replace it with your own evil regime with you as its head. Since betrayal is dubious at best (BoVD), the fact that the aims of this betrayal are especially selfish, might push it over into Evil.

Is execution evil if it's for serious crimes?
No- according to BoED.

Is it evil to put out a bounty on someone- if its for serious crimes, which are also evil acts?
I'd say not.

Is being eaten by a dragon significantly more painful than various nonevil methods of execution? And does it matter, that the dragon's a sentient being rather than a nonsentient one?

I'm not sure.

Is delivering a bounty (who has committed serious crimes that are evil deeds) to execution, evil, if the execution is painful enough that it can be called Torture as well?

Yes if you go by BoED- "delivering somebody to people you know will torture them is evil- even if the victim is thouroughly evil and the torturers are a legitimate authority"

So- if death by dragonbite is morally equivalent to death by torture, and the bounty hunters knew that this was the normal method of execution in the EOB- then even if it had actually been Nale they'd caught, handing him over would have been evil.

SPoD

2010-06-10, 11:59 AM

Yes if you go by BoED- "delivering somebody to people you know will torture them is evil- even if the victim is thouroughly evil and the torturers are a legitimate authority"

Bolding mine. There's no proof that Gannji knew what might happen to Nale. For that matter, there's no proof that if it were Nale, he would be fed to the dragon at all. It was only Malack who was willing to feed Elan to the dragon, and only once it became clear that he was NOT Nale (or Not-Nale).

EDIT: Also, I would say that death by dragonbite is no worse than the guillotine, at least in the Empress' case. She doesn't strike me as someone who would draw out the process, like the ABD would. She'd bite their head off and be done with it.

hamishspence

2010-06-10, 12:05 PM

Which is sort of the point- we don't know what the normal method of execution in the EOB is.

We can hypothesize that its Death By Dragon, but we can't be sure.

And even if it is, we can't be sure that Gannji & Enor knew that.

And even then, it's not clear if it's a punishment that is "automatically evil".

MacGiolla

2010-06-10, 12:40 PM

The fact that they could work for any government actually strengthens the case for Neutral. If a bounty hunter works for any government available, regardless of that government's moral and ethical policies, then they are likely Neutral with regards to moral alignment. They simply don't care. It doesn't factor into their decision-making process.

Just one quibble with this. Just because you are willing to work for both good guys and bad guys isn't more likely to make you neutral, it is more likely to make you evil, at least in my opinion.

A possibly bad analogy. Committing one good act and one evil act doesn't balance you out. Saving the life of one stranger and then randomly killing another one isn't Neutral, its evil.

hamishspence

2010-06-10, 12:48 PM

The difference is, doing "good things" for bad guys, isn't as much of a problem.

Now if there was evidence that some of the people Gannji & Enor had "bounty hunted" were people that it was wrong to place a bounty on, then it would apply.

Like, if they mentioned capturing people whose "crimes" weren't something the average player would label as something deserving of any punishment.

But capturing people, on behalf of evil people, isn't automatically Evil itself.

Capturing Nale, on behalf of the Empress, is a bit like capturing Xykon on behalf of Greysky, would be, if Xykon had attacked Greysky and the citizens had requested he be captured for trial.

Or, for another example- suppose Cliffport had been an evil regime, and after Nale's murder spree, made an offer that the Order capture him, for pay.

Would accepting that offer have been evil merely because the regime is evil?

Nilan8888

2010-06-10, 12:56 PM

I still maintain that being stupid doesn't prevent you from being evil.

That's true. But from what we've seen of Thog it doesn't quite occur to him that killing is wrong, and in his mind he's helping Nale, who he more or less sees as "good", right? So it might be that he helps Nale selflessly.

So for Thog, there's maybe a possibility his actual alignment could be radically different from what we expect.

Take the Empress of Blood in contrast, who also seems pretty dim. It might be she doesn't completely comprehend the morality of eating sentient beings, but the reasons she does it are petty and selfish in any event. So really at best you be able to say "Maybe she's not THAT evil.", but at the very least, she's still pretty selfish. She's not chowing down on people because she thinks it will help Tarquin or anyone else.

Enor... tough to say. Maybe somewhere between Thog and the Empress.

The Pilgrim

2010-06-10, 01:00 PM

This is Telephone Game; Rich has never stated Thog's alignment.

Maybe Rich has not, but Elan almost had in #387:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0387.html

:elan: Hilarity ensues when two adventurers from different ends of the alignment spectrum must work together in the feel-good comedy of the year!

Given that Elan is Good-aligned, Thog must belong to the other end of the spectrum: Evil-aligned.

*damn it, where is my flak jacket?*

Kish

2010-06-10, 01:02 PM

Maybe Rich has not, but Elan almost had in #387:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0387.html

:elan: Hilarity ensues when two adventurers from different ends of the alignment spectrum must work together in the feel-good comedy of the year!

Given that Elan is Chaotic Good, Thog must belong to the other end of the spectrum: Neutral or Chaotic Evil (a Barbarian can't be Lawful).

*damn it, where is my flak jacket?*
How would Elan have any more knowledge of Thog's alignment than any poster on this forum?

(I'm pretty sure Thog's Chaotic Evil, just not 'cause Rich said so explicitly [he didn't], and not because Elan implied it [he has atrocious Intelligence and Wisdom and no more evidence of Thog's alignment than any one of us do].)

The Pilgrim

2010-06-10, 01:03 PM

How would Elan have any more knowledge of Thog's alignment than any poster on this forum?

He spent prison time with him! obviously that must have given him some insight into the barbarian´s alignment. :smallbiggrin:

Nilan8888

2010-06-10, 01:05 PM

And they can't exactly leave the continent and find work elsewhere, because lizardfolk and half-dragon ogres probably can't walk around Cliffport without getting attacked by adventurers.

See, now THAT'S something.

Yeah, maybe they're Neutral. And/Or maybe they're on this continent becuase they can't work elsewhere for precisely that reason, and it costs a lot of money to sojurn over to the other lands although they can get there.

And given that, maybe only a select few nations on THIS continent are anything like "good". Maybe they prefer to work for those nations, but restricting themselves like that doesn't pay the bills. That brings some of the notions from "Start of Darkness" back over into the main online comic.

I would be awesome if Gannji and Roy encounter each other and at some point have an argument over this -- which would be the later Miko/Roy dynamic (er, POST-infatuation of course) but REVERSED, with Gannji in the Roy position and Roy in the Miko position.

Roy would be initially be saying "Bounty Hunting is wrong, you're working for evil people, etc.", and standing in judgment a la Miko. And Gannji would be the one to give him a verbal smackdown on how... he doesn't really have much of a choice in the matter, as as far as he's concerned he's as good as his world allows him to be.

Querzis

2010-06-10, 01:07 PM

That's true. But from what we've seen of Thog it doesn't quite occur to him that killing is wrong, and in his mind he's helping Nale, who he more or less sees as "good", right? So it might be that he helps Nale selflessly.

Thats quite false. Nale is freaking scared of Thog:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0252.html

They have to keep feeding him just to stop him from killing people and both Nale and Sabine seems to assume he could just kill them too if he ever get too bored. Thog is childish but it really doesnt make him any less evil, hes still killing people for fun.

Anyway, I agree that Gannji is most likely Lawful Neutral as far as I'm concerned. Enor is either true neutral or neutral evil, I'm not sure, after all there is a big difference between talking about something and doing it.

hamishspence

2010-06-10, 01:10 PM

in Dungeon Crawling Fools, they are referred to as "evil counterparts" imply that, at least at the time, all were supposed to be evil-aligned.

In the Creating the Linear Guild chapter, it stressed that they were supposed to be "everything their OoTS twin opposes". And for Thog:

Thog is everything that Roy despises- a dumb fighter. Even if he weren't evil, this fact would guarantee that Roy disliked him. Of course, Thog isn't just dumb, he's painfully dumb as well as childlike, which accounts for his popularity.

Nilan8888

2010-06-10, 01:11 PM

Q: Ah, I stand corrected.

hamishspence

2010-06-10, 01:31 PM

For another quote- Paladin Blues, in the Banditopia commentary:

Prior to this, the Order had fought only Xykon's minions and the Linear Guild, all of which were assuredly Evil.

Shale

2010-06-10, 01:35 PM

The best thing you can say about Thog is that he's the kind of Evil that hurts people without any actual evil goal in mind, and can be kept under control or even made to work for Good if pointed in the right direction or given something else to do that he enjoys. Not unlike Belkar.

Scarlet Knight

2010-06-10, 02:37 PM

Thog may have been evil, but no longer! :smallwink:

:thog: "Prison change Thog!"

:elan: "You were in prison for 40 minutes!"

:thog: "Prison change Thog quickly!"

RedCloakLives!

2010-06-10, 02:44 PM

Gannji is Lawful and Good.

He is Lawful because we see him following rules, keeping his word, etc.

And he is Good. He believes in right and wrong, and follows the right. Frame 6. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0728.html)

PHB page 103: "Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others." Same Frame 6; Gannji could benefit himself by scamming, but utterly rejects the idea; his sacrifice benefits society at large, other members of his profession, and his profession in the abstract.

PHB page 104: "A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished." Bounty hunter!

Enor: Lawful ... dumb? He's probably good too; he chooses Good company.

Wardog

2010-06-10, 02:47 PM

Cops also shoot first and ask questions later if you're literally concerned with the chronology of the use of force and the asking of questions. If they think you are a suspect, they do NOT ask you questions first. They will first identify you and then either use the threat of force or force itself to get you under thier control. THEN they will ask you questions... after you are brought in. And usually it's not they themselves who will be asking those questions.

Erm, really?

Cops always shoot first?

Cops always threaten or use force on anyone they want to bring in for questioning, without any investigation other than identifying you?

What police force are you talking about? (If its not too political to ask?)

krossbow

2010-06-10, 02:57 PM

I think the current comic seems to lean pretty well towards lawful neutral. They have no compunction against the morality of things; Just they have a very clear cut and strong sense of honor about things.

Doug Lampert

2010-06-10, 03:05 PM

I would say Enor is more true neutral. Like a tiger or snake, he does what's in his best interest without really considering neither right & wrong, nor rights & rules.

Callus disregard for the welfare of others is EVIL in D&D terms.

Now, we haven't seen much of them, any alignment could still fit. But your argument for Nuetral above is actually a flat statement that he is in fact Evil.

Enor: Chaotic Neutral
He seems fairly Chaotic from what I've seen so far. He doesn't seem to have any particular ideology or personal code, and I doubt he knows enough about the law to follow it.

Its kinda sad, but he seems to stupid to be evil. He's childish and its hard to imagine an inherrently evil/good child. Also, as with Gannji, he doesn't seem to particularly take pleasure in hurting people and he doesn't commit any inherrently evil acts.

Anyone pick up something I missed? (Or gotten completely wrong)

Law doesn't mean obeys someone else's legal code, so not knowing the law has NO RELEVANCE to Enor's alignment. None. He need not obey any nation's legal code to be completely lawful, and thus he need not KNOW any nation's legal code to be completely lawful. And we KNOW how stupid you have to be in D&D land for stupid to mean "not evil", you need to be too stupid to have a spoken language.

And as has been pointed out with Thog, we know that with regard to this, Rich follows the rules.

The "too dumb to have an alignment" in the rules is given for animals and vermin, who are so stupid they're dumb (using dumb in the literal sense as "unable to speak" rather than as an insult).

Nilan8888

2010-06-10, 03:14 PM

Erm, really?

Cops always shoot first?

Cops always threaten or use force on anyone they want to bring in for questioning, without any investigation other than identifying you?

What police force are you talking about? (If its not too political to ask?)

I happen to be talking about every police force.

For every person they bring in for questioning that is a suspect on an APB, there is always the threat of force involved, because you ARE coming along. Even if you come along willingly, the threat of force if you do not is implied.

Other people that they bring in for questioning aren't out on an APB. They are not "Wanted" in the sense that Elan is wanted in this scenario. They are usually specifically visited by a specific select detective(s) in relation to a case.

If the cops are going to shoot at all -- if they are going to use force at all -- it is most certainly before they will ask you any questions. Because "Sir could you come along please?" is not really a question. It's a direction to action and the threat of force for you to comply is implied... becuase if you're a suspect they're not going to just let you walk away.

And they're certainly not going to ask you pertinent questions about a crime and THEN shoot you...

So yeah: when you think about it, ALL police departments shoot first and ask questions later. They'd be stupid not to. "Shoot first and ask questions later" is a discription of a mindset, but if it was to describe literal procedure, it would probably epic fail.

EDIT: Sorry, if the OPPOSITE of "shoot first and questions later" were the literal procedure. I worded that backwards.

Darcy

2010-06-10, 04:18 PM

Nilan8888

2010-06-10, 08:17 PM

You're ignoring just how much procedure there is, and how many questions are asked, before they actually engage a suspect. That's what a warrant is for. It's a piece of paper saying "we have looked into this matter enough (ie. asked lots of questions and found answers confirming our suspicions) to arrest this person, with force if necessary." If a cop doesn't have a warrant, and otherwise doesn't have reasonable cause to think you've committed a crime, they can't force you to do a thing. There is either an immediate need to make an arrest, or a period of inquiry to justify them compelling a suspect to come with them.

Right -- "doesn't have probable cause to think you've committed a crime". Officers are, rightly, given leeway. Leeway enough that if they happen upon two people in the manner of Enor and Gannji and they have word out from "the system" that this person is wanted, they can go and apprehend them.

You keep drawing out comparisons that are not the situation from the comic, which is where the comparison is being drawn from. The comparison was made because that poster was saying that the manner in which this was done was leaning to evil because the bounty hunters did not question thier own bounty instead of persuing it. Why are we going through all these other situations which don't apply?

They're members of an organization, not independent people acting alone. An individual cop acts on behalf of and is answerable to that organization, which is in turn answerable to the government it serves (municipal, regional, federal or what have you), which is, in a democracy at least, answerable to the people. So even if the particular cop who makes the arrest isn't the one who gathered the evidence to make that arrest, they are a part of that organization.

So? I fail to see the distinction as relevant in this case. Cops get it on authority to apprehend a criminal bearing a given description. Gannji and Enor ALSO got it on authority: they were not acting on the behalf of private individuals or even a guild.

For Gannji and Enor to take it upon themselves to question thier own bounty because the bounty might not be what it says it is despite the fact it's definately a valid document from the Empire of Blood is, I think, similar to a cap calling into dispatch and saying "hey, I see the suspect here from that APB this afternoon... but like, our government's lied to us before, so I want some sort of confirmation up the ladder that this guy is actually guilty and not taking the fall for something".

AxeD

2010-06-10, 11:54 PM

I wouldn't call Miko a bounty hunter, she wasn't doing it for a reward, and the point really was that on balance I would argue that bounty hunters are more likely to be evil than not. In general bounty hunters don't care about why people are wanted or what will happen to them when they are turned in, they are just in it for the money. I will concede that there may be some who are not evil, but I would argue that most are. As I said this is just evidence, not necessarily proof.

Miko was pretty much a bounty hunter in the permanent employ of her liege - she hunted down criminals (outside the jurisdiction of Azure City) and brought them to face trial.

I still argue that the act of capturing criminals for reward isn't a evil act. It's not evil to try and make a living - no one would hunt down dangerous criminals if they weren't being compensated for it. I mean, even the Sapphire guard receives stipends (and I assume) wages.

If your job consists of capturing criminals and turning them into legitimate authorities so that they are forced to face their crimes, I don't know how that can be seen as evil. If the bounty hunters were particularly brutal in capturing the criminals, or were willing to injure innocent bystanders in order to do their work, I'd classify them as evil.

That said, I doubt that Gannji and Enor only capture criminals. I bet that they have/would be willing to work for criminals like the OotS equivalent of the mob, or some crazy BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy).

May not be exactly black and white, but again more evidence. And as I stated above, I think they have shown to be mobile enought to work for others if they so desired.

Mobility isn't much of an issue. I don't think just because you capture evil criminals (who consort with demons) for an evil empire you are evil by default. I agree that we need more evidence though.

I don't buy this arguement. This is the same arguement that was used as to why Thog wasn't evil, and I believe The Giant himself had to state explicitly that he was. He is at least intelligent enough to come up with that plan (even if it isn't a very good one), then he is intelligent enough to be evil.

I guess you make a good point. I got pretty tired of people claiming that Thog wasn't evil because he was too stupid. However, Thog killed lots of people and enjoyed doing it. We still haven't seen Enor kill anyone or commit any particular evil act. Thats why it makes me think that he's chaotic rather than evil. Although we need more evidence to determine this further.

Agreed, but contrast their reactions to it to Elan's. None of these may be definitive proof but it is all evidence which to my mind points in a certian direction.

Well, there's quite a difference between someone being Evil and someone being Neutral. Without seeing more evidence (ie, a definitive act of evil), I don't think we can classify Gannji as Evil.

If it walks like a duck, and Occam's razor and all that.

I kept thinking along those lines when I was discussing above about capturing a paladin being a neutral act. Even after all of my reasoning, it still seems to be evil, no matter what, if you arrest a paladin for doing good and hand him over to a bad guy.

Bongos

2010-06-11, 12:08 AM

Gannji is Lawful Neutral surely, Enor probably Chaotic Neutral. These guys are no more evil than Dog the Bounty Hunter is.

AxeD

2010-06-11, 12:12 AM

Gannji is Lawful and Good.
He is Lawful because we see him following rules, keeping his word, etc.
And he is Good. He believes in right and wrong, and follows the right. Frame 6. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0728.html)
I agree that he's probably lawful. Where does he belive in Right and Wrong? He believes in not deceiving his employers, which is a lawful trait, not an evil one. Lawful people keep their word.

PHB page 103: "Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others." Same Frame 6; Gannji could benefit himself by scamming, but utterly rejects the idea; his sacrifice benefits society at large, other members of his profession, and his profession in the abstract.

Firstly, Gannji admits that the scamming wouldn't work, which make this a hypothetical that he wouldn't ever carry out since it wouldn't profit him in the slightest. Where does he make personal sacrifices? He carefully calculates the risk/reward ratio (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0721.html) before performing his actions - this strikes me as a neutral act.

PHB page 104: "A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished." Bounty hunter!

They didn't care if the criminals went unpunished - they didn't want to follow them out of the throne room - they didn't think it was worth the risk.

Enor: Lawful ... dumb? He's probably good too; he chooses Good company.

We still haven't seen Enor follow any ideology or laws. He seems willing to hurt/capture people to ensure he gets his yummies. Since we haven't seen him (or heard him talk about) killing people, I think that puts him somewhere between Chaotic Neutral/Chaotic Evil.

FeanorFireHeart

2010-06-11, 02:06 AM

I'd say they are true neutral, they didnt really care about the innocent or guiltiness of their target. they just want the money without stopping low for it (except this one time with the can of tomato soup)

RedCloakLives!

2010-06-11, 03:42 AM

He carefully calculates the risk/reward ratio (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0721.html) before performing his actions - this strikes me as a neutral act.

Applying a cost benefit analysis is not a sign of neutrality or even of evil. It is a sign of intelligence. Good does not equal dumb. Gannji is good and smart. He applies a cost benefit analysis because he is smart. And that he can coolly apply it under pressure shows that he is disciplined.

Failure to apply a cost benefit analysis is the hallmark of the obsessive lunatic: namely, Roy. Ah, Roy, one of my favorite characters. (One of the most profoundly humorous, too - Roy is much more than a mere straight man.) Supposedly, Roy is Good. OK, we'll let that one ride for a moment. But he is dumb. He fails to apply a cost benefit analysis. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0430.html) Epic fail! (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0443.html)

Roy: does not apply cost benefit analysis. Result: fail.

Gannji: regularly applies cost benefit analysis. Result: he succeeds in his endeavors.

Roy: fails to kill Xykon

Gannji: successfully apprehends an extremely dangerous mass murderer (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0639.html), a vicious (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0327.html) robber (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0648.html), and a serial (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0026.html) streaker (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0302.html). (Sadly, an Evil Warlord worked behind the scenes to get them released.)

It's easy to think less of Gannji because he's a lizard and a bounty hunter. But approach it rationally:

Gannji's actions are Good. Gannji's philosophy is Good. Conclusion: Gannji is Good.

AxeD

2010-06-11, 08:08 AM

Applying a cost benefit analysis is not a sign of neutrality or even of evil. It is a sign of intelligence. Good does not equal dumb. Gannji is good and smart. He applies a cost benefit analysis because he is smart. And that he can coolly apply it under pressure shows that he is disciplined.

Failure to apply a cost benefit analysis is the hallmark of the obsessive lunatic: namely, Roy. Ah, Roy, one of my favorite characters. (One of the most profoundly humorous, too - Roy is much more than a mere straight man.) Supposedly, Roy is Good. OK, we'll let that one ride for a moment. But he is dumb. He fails to apply a cost benefit analysis. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0430.html) Epic fail! (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0443.html)

Roy: does not apply cost benefit analysis. Result: fail.

Gannji: regularly applies cost benefit analysis. Result: he succeeds in his endeavors.

Roy: fails to kill Xykon

Gannji: successfully apprehends an extremely dangerous mass murderer (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0639.html), a vicious (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0327.html) robber (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0648.html), and a serial (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0026.html) streaker (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0302.html). (Sadly, an Evil Warlord worked behind the scenes to get them released.)

It's easy to think less of Gannji because he's a lizard and a bounty hunter. But approach it rationally:

Gannji's actions are Good. Gannji's philosophy is Good. Conclusion: Gannji is Good.

Making your decisons based on monetary reasons rather than say, upholding the law, or ensuring justice is a sign of an chaotic character. Yes you can say that it is intelligent not to do overly risky jobs/duties, but that's what being lawful good is all about.

The very reason why Roy got into the LG heaven was because he died in trying to fufil his duty.

Therefore Gannji isn't Lawful. And being smart, or good at what you do, doesn't make you Good.

Darcy

2010-06-11, 08:39 AM

Right -- "doesn't have probable cause to think you've committed a crime". Officers are, rightly, given leeway. Leeway enough that if they happen upon two people in the manner of Enor and Gannji and they have word out from "the system" that this person is wanted, they can go and apprehend them.

You keep drawing out comparisons that are not the situation from the comic, which is where the comparison is being drawn from. The comparison was made because that poster was saying that the manner in which this was done was leaning to evil because the bounty hunters did not question thier own bounty instead of persuing it. Why are we going through all these other situations which don't apply?
I'm responding to the idea that cops "always shoot first and ask questions later." That's something you brought up. It is the job of police, of the police force, to determine who is a likely suspect for a crime before apprehending them. Enor and Gannji see a poster on the wall that says "bring us these guys and you will get money" and grab them. That's very different. An individual officer is an part of the organization that identified the criminal, E & G are independent contractors whose reasoning and motivation primarily relies on "there's money in it."

Darcy

2010-06-11, 08:49 AM

Miko was pretty much a bounty hunter in the permanent employ of her liege - she hunted down criminals (outside the jurisdiction of Azure City) and brought them to face trial.
She didn't do it for the sake of a bounty, though, she did it because it was her sacred duty as a paladin. A bounty hunter specifically does that so they can claim the reward- the "bounty"- on the person or thing they're retrieving. A good bounty hunter might occasionally do a job for free or whatever, but bounty hunters go after targets primarily because of the reward. That's why they're called bounty hunters, not "wanted person hunters".

Snake-Aes

2010-06-11, 08:50 AM

I agree that he's probably lawful. Where does he belive in Right and Wrong? He believes in not deceiving his employers, which is a lawful trait, not an evil one. Lawful people keep their word.

Actually, Lawful Evil has some glee in twisting expectations. It's the guy that does exactly what Enor suggested. Deceit is hard to "align" because it's linked to intent, and that's exactly where it stops mattering because intent is disconnected enough to cause people to act in manners their alignments usually oppose, though believing they're doing it right.

We think Gannji's probably lawful because he gives importance to his job's consistency. He likes the reliability and the resulting confidence he can get from others. connecting with order like that is lawful.
Him not wanting to bend it in his favor through deceit is much harder to align, though it suggests he's Neutral.

Gannji is not against the global concept of deceit. He did set up a trap and grabbed every advantage he could get on the way, and fought for compensation for his work even when he failed utterly, but playing Lawyer Mercenary is below him.

Anterean

2010-06-11, 09:13 AM

Bongos

2010-06-11, 09:58 AM

Regarding bounty hunters and police. Police have a jurisdiction, they can't arrest people outside of their own jurisdiction. Bounty hunters have no jurisdiction. However, bounty hunters do have to follow the laws of whatever jurisdiction they are currently in.

Nilan8888

2010-06-11, 10:17 AM

I'm responding to the idea that cops "always shoot first and ask questions later." That's something you brought up. It is the job of police, of the police force, to determine who is a likely suspect for a crime before apprehending them. Enor and Gannji see a poster on the wall that says "bring us these guys and you will get money" and grab them. That's very different. An individual officer is an part of the organization that identified the criminal, E & G are independent contractors whose reasoning and motivation primarily relies on "there's money in it."

Ok, then this is something slightly different than I thought. However it's still not off from what I was saying. Firstly you're making this out to be the situation of Gannji and Enor versus an entire Police Department rather than one or two individual cops.

Usually the individual cop who actually does the arresting for someone that is "at large" does not ask any questions. Those questions have been or will be asked by OTHER cops who are not there to bring the suspect in. They take it as a matter of trust that these questions have been asked. But they do not take the consideration of guilt or innocence at the point of apprehension, mrerely the identity of who they are arresting.

For the intents and purposes of THAT individual cop or THOSE individual cops, the difference in the situations is minute. "Bring us these guys and you will get money" for Gannji and Enor just becomes: "Bring us these guys", becuse they're already getting thier money.

Yes, police officers have other duties for which they earn that money. Those duties were not the point of comparison.

Likewise, a cop that is IN that situation by necessity, if there are questions that are going to be asked and shots that will be fired, will chronologically shoot before the asking of the questions, if both are going to take place. To do otherwise would infer that the officer would need to ask questions to the suspect and THEN shoot the suspect. As a literal matter -- which I noted in my original post was if you were to take that phrase literally -- it actually has to be that way.

Darcy

2010-06-11, 12:28 PM

Ok, then this is something slightly different than I thought. However it's still not off from what I was saying. Firstly you're making this out to be the situation of Gannji and Enor versus an entire Police Department rather than one or two individual cops.
But that is what it's about, that's my point- an individual cop is acts on the behalf of the police department, which is itself an extension of the legal system. A bounty hunter is not. Ignoring the police officer's connection and responsibility to the system of which s/he is a part makes the whole observation pointless.

But they do not take the consideration of guilt or innocence at the point of apprehension, mrerely the identity of who they are arresting.
Because that has already been determined. Being a part of a police force means you can be assured that the person you're arresting is at least suspected of a crime and can legally be arrested and charged. E & G have no such assurance, they just know there's money for them if they get them first.

Literally, yes, a cop making an arrest may use a threat of force before intensive questioning occurs. That's not really what "shoot first and ask questions later" means. It means using possibly unnecessary violence to apprehend someone being unconcerned with the necessity of violence or even the probability of guilt. A cop might not have individually, personally determined that the person they are arresting committed the crime, but they will only shoot their gun when they or someone else is in real mortal danger, and they are making the arrest because they've been assured that the person they're arresting has committed a crime. So over the course of an arrest they might have shot their gun, and afterwards asked some questions, but that is not really what "shoot first and ask questions later" means, and interpreting it as such renders it meaningless. It's not meant to be a chronological sequence of events, but an attitude one takes towards apprehending criminals and the use of violence to do so.

hamishspence

2010-06-11, 01:28 PM

It wasn't just "bring these guys and you will get money" but:

"bring these guys who are wanted for murder, treason, and conspiracy, and you will get money"

We don't know how they'd behave in circumstances where the bounties are offered on people for reasons other than "they've committed serious crimes".

Luzahn

2010-06-11, 04:19 PM

Now, i forget, do we define individuals on the morality axis by intent or action?

hamishspence

2010-06-11, 04:20 PM

Both. Depending on the circumstances.

Some actions (like torture, according to BoED and FC2) are always evil, and no amount of good intent will upgrade them to neutral.

Some acts depend strongly on intent and context, though.

Luzahn

2010-06-11, 04:22 PM

hamishspence

2010-06-11, 04:27 PM

Yup. That might be due to D&D tending to follow modern morality- where torture is considered an especially serious crime- and the torturer is an "enemy of mankind"

There's plenty of philosophers who take the approach that "if utopia could be maintained by the torture of one person, it would still be evil"

So "torture to keep a heavenly world thriving" is considered evil by some.

Same can apply to "torture to save many"

Tolkien took a similar approach, arguing that it's wrong to torture even orcs, even if it would provide the location of the next big orc attack.

Luzahn

2010-06-11, 04:33 PM

Interesting, good to have some clarity on the morality restrictions.

The Pilgrim

2010-06-11, 06:12 PM

Yup. That might be due to D&D tending to follow modern morality- where torture is considered an especially serious crime- and the torturer is an "enemy of mankind"

Except if the torturer is Jack Bauer, of course.

hamishspence

2010-06-12, 03:44 AM

Jack Bauer in D&D terms would probably be "a flexible neutral" at best, as per Heroes of Horror- a character who uses evil means toward good ends.

Just because an act is defined as evil by the splatbooks, doesn't mean that a character who commits such acts is evil- if most of their acts are good, they might be able to stay at Neutral alignment.

"Torture is evil in D&D" is not a new thing, either- going right back to 1977, the Eric Holmes version of Basic D&D uses torture as the example of what would cause a Good character to change alignment.

Coidzor

2010-06-12, 06:02 AM

"Criminal" is a very vague term in a place which doesn't necessarily use democratic, humanistic values as its basis of government. A bounty hunter is a morally ambiguous job because you are picking people up because they are wanted- it doesn't always matter why or for what. Of course, there may be bounty hunters who prefer to hunt down scumbags for fun and profit, but it doesn't go without saying.

Exactly. So we don't really have anything hard on them. For me, they seem like to be either Neutral or Neutral Tendencies on the Moral scale for me precisely because they're ambiguous characters. Foiling LNish and CNish together also seems like something Rich might do for the dramatic narrative.

Enor certainly gives off the air of being newer to this than Gannji even taking intellects into consideration, so I am starting to suspect that if we continue to see screen time from them, something more might be made of him as a rookie.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-12, 11:55 AM

and fought for compensation for his work even when he failed utterly, but playing Lawyer Mercenary is below him.

He didn't fail. There was a reward poster put out, and he captured the person's identical twin brother. He had a legitimate complaint that he was acting in good faith to bring the person in, and was effectively tricked by a bizzar and unforseeable set of circumstances from his end.

snikrept

2010-06-13, 01:38 AM

Gannji seems to complain about bureaucracy and red tape a bit much for a Lawful guy. He follows the law and has his papers in order but he doesn't like it.

From what little we've seen of this pair so far they seem to hold no allegiance other than to profit or self-preservation, though Gannji shows a shadow of a moral code with his speech about upholding the honorable profession of bounty hunting.

In the GURPS system I would def. classify them both in Selfish categories, which I guess translates loosely into D&D as NN (or maybe CG or CN).

Ancalagon

2010-06-13, 03:28 AM

Not everyone who is lawful is on the extreme end of the lawful alignment.

Also, being lawful and thinking that laws and "the order that is" is good does not have to mean you like beaurocracy.

Kish

2010-06-13, 06:41 AM

In the GURPS system I would def. classify them both in Selfish categories, which I guess translates loosely into D&D as NN (or maybe CG or CN).
Urgh. Selfishness has nothing to do with being Chaotic.

Luzahn

2010-06-13, 07:35 AM

Exactly. Take robin hood, V, batman.

Dark Matter

2010-06-13, 10:05 AM

Jack Bauer in D&D terms would probably be "a flexible neutral" at best, as per Heroes of Horror- a character who uses evil means toward good ends.There's nothing wrong conceptually with Jack (and other 'heroes') translating to Evil. Or translating to Evil depending on the writer.

Snake-Aes

2010-06-13, 06:28 PM

Exactly. Take robin hood, V, batman.
Batman. Of course.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_rL1Jjp1dMY8/Sw3vRWrzweI/AAAAAAAAAxs/fMIxw0lZLo8/s1600/batman-alignment.jpg

Shale

2010-06-13, 06:46 PM

Spoiler-tag that, please. It is page-breakingly ginormous.

hamishspence

2010-06-14, 01:00 PM

There's nothing wrong conceptually with Jack (and other 'heroes') translating to Evil. Or translating to Evil depending on the writer.

hence the ""at best"- if you were playing in a horror style campaign, where the heroes resort to evil acts when they feel it necessary, you could get away with playing Jack as a Neutral character, but in a more idealistic campaign he'd be an Evil character.

Urgh. Selfishness has nothing to do with being Chaotic.

In 2nd ed, CG was described as "selfish but good-hearted". So there is a little precedent for selfishness not automatically being associated with "nongood alignments".

Kish

2010-06-14, 01:23 PM

In 2nd ed, CG was described as "selfish but good-hearted". So there is a little precedent for selfishness not automatically being associated with "nongood alignments".
There's precedent for the Chaotic alignment being a stand-in for Evil too, what's your point where 3.xed is concerned? :smalltongue:

hamishspence

2010-06-14, 01:27 PM

The point to be made is, in 2nd ed, you could have Good guys who are selfish.

In 3rd ed, its less clear, but Haley may be a candidate. Way back in the earliest discussion threads, The Giant stated that theft was "selfish but not Evil":

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7333&page=11

and Haley calls herself Chaotic Good-ish.

Though "killing evil creatures isn't evil" may come with a few caveats now, as to the circumstances when this general rule isn't always correct.

Selfishness, in its mildest forms- concern with the self but not to the exclusion of the rights of others- might be called Individualism.

Which is somewhat associated with Chaos.

Acero

2010-06-14, 01:43 PM

I forgot where, but didnt she call herself LN?

hamishspence

2010-06-14, 01:48 PM

Her calling herself CG-ish was in one of the cryptogram strips (translated in the book)

I don't think there was any scene where Haley said she was LN.

Her alignment in the board game was Chaotic Greedy, I think.

Chaotic was only a stand-in for evil in non-advanced D&D- and even then, only in later editions of it.

In 1st ed AD&D, 2nd ed AD&D, and Holmes-era Basic D&D, you could be Chaotic Good, and you could be Lawful Evil.

Alignment didn't change that much between editions- the biggest change between 2nd ed and 3rd ed was that Neutral became a little less narrow, not as obsessed with "the balance" and Chaotic Neutral became a little less crazy.

Southern Cross

2010-06-14, 02:31 PM

Personally, I'd class V as Chaotic Neutral- he was a killer and tortured Eve, but he was fighting a Lawful Evil government, and his whole plan required him to die.
As Hugh Jackman's Wolverine pointed out in the first X-Men, Evil characters don't sacrifice themselves for others -so I'd say that Wolverine himself counts as Chaotic Neutral.

Querzis

2010-06-14, 05:52 PM

Selfishness, in its mildest forms- concern with the self but not to the exclusion of the rights of others- might be called Individualism.

Of course, Chaotic characters would argue that Collectivism, which is associated with Lawful characters, is inherently selfish because you are ready to accept oppression of some people for the good of the collectivity and that you limit people freedoms for a vague security. What you think is a selfish attitude can totally depends on what you values the most: freedom and creativity or security and tradition.

In other words, Chaos and Individualism only seems selfish if you're Lawful. Which is why I always thought that most of the people who write the D&D handbooks must be Lawful cause the majority of them seems to have a very condescending attitude about Chaos.

deuxhero

2010-06-14, 07:03 PM

What? I'm confused. (Its midnight over here in Australia, I'm really tired)

They practice Hakuna Matata, a life philosophy that I don't really understand.

hamishspence

2010-06-15, 02:45 AM

As Hugh Jackman's Wolverine pointed out in the first X-Men, Evil characters don't sacrifice themselves for others -so I'd say that Wolverine himself counts as Chaotic Neutral.

Wolverine is far from a moral authority- just because he thinks Evil characters don't sacrifice themselves for others, doesn't mean he's right.

In OoTS, one hobgoblin soldier sacrifices himself to save Redcloak:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0451.html

but that doesn't necessarily prove that this soldier was nonevil.

Of course, Chaotic characters would argue that Collectivism, which is associated with Lawful characters, is inherently selfish because you are ready to accept oppression of some people for the good of the collectivity and that you limit people freedoms for a vague security. What you think is a selfish attitude can totally depends on what you values the most: freedom and creativity or security and tradition.

A strong collectivist attitude requires you to place the needs of the group, above your own needs. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"

Which is the antithesis of selfishness.

A person might join a collective for selfish reasons, but the philosophy itself, requires the character to basically behave in an unselfish fashion. A person might claim collectivist philosophy but be hypocritical though.

Querzis

2010-06-15, 04:19 AM

A strong collectivist attitude requires you to place the needs of the group, above your own needs. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"

Nah a strong collectivist attitude requires everyone to put the needs of the group above their own needs no matter if they want to or not and a strong collectivist attitude dictates that the rights of the groups are more important then the individual rights. What happens when the majority want or need the oppression of a minority? Just go search on google to see what is considered to be the most collectivist society of all time, I wont post it here cause I'm pretty sure it would violate a few rules but yeah, lets just say that collectivism taken to his logical extreme isnt pretty.

For more information, please read this (there are dozens of link in this article so I dont really need to post anything else): http://freedomkeys.com/collectivism.htm I'll quote my favorite part for people who dont wanna read all this: "Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to "society," to the tribe, the state, the nation) and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests. The only way to implement a doctrine of that kind is by means of brute force -- and statism has always been the poltical corollary of collectivism." -- Ayn Rand

Anyway, so I'm obviously chaotic and you're very lawful so lets just stop derailing this thread with our opposing point of views, if you want to discuss this any further, please just send me a private message.

hamishspence

2010-06-15, 04:47 AM

Querzis

2010-06-15, 04:56 AM

Which is the point I was trying to make- that it is possible to be

"unselfish and evil"- but these are more likely to be LE,

and "selfish but good-hearted"- but these are more likely to be CG.

This doesn't mean that Law is always unselfish, and Chaos always selfish- but it does mean that these are the general tendencies.

Not by any definition of selfish that I know of, I really have no idea of which dictionary you're using: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/selfish

1 : concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others
2 : arising from concern with one's own welfare or advantage in disregard of others <a selfish act>

Being individualistic and chaotic means that you value freedoms and individual rights above anything else, it certainly doesnt mean that you are «concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others» and in fact, once again as someone whos obviously chaotic, I would argue that collectivism and Lawfulness is inherently selfish because in a true lawful and collectivist society, your own welfare is automatically in disregard of the welfare of the people on the bottom of the hierarchy or of the welfare of other societies.

So yeah, sorry but being selfish is evil. Not evil enough by itself to really change your alignement except in extreme case but it certainly doesnt have anything to do with valuing freedoms and individual right, its all about being concerned only with yourself and having a total disregard for other people.

An Evil character might be very low on egoism- but also a strong believer in obeying orders, no matter how evil.

Except that you can totally obey orders out of nothing else then selfishness.

Conversely, a Good character might be very egoistic- but a strong believer in helping anyone who "deserves" help, and a person who never violates the rights of others. This would be the "selfish but good-hearted" person I spoke of.

No this would be not selfish but good-hearted, there is absolutely nothing selfish about what you just said.

hamishspence

2010-06-15, 05:07 AM

Actually, some of the philosophers on the site you linked to, define "selfishness" as:

"being primarily concerned with your own self interest"

But not to the exclusion of the rights of others.

As previously mentioned, 2nd ed D&D called Chaotic Good characters "selfish but good-hearted".

So, in at least some editions of D&D, and by at least some philosophers definitions, "selfish" does not automatically mean evil.

Helping others, because you believe this will make the world better for you, can fit this definition of selfishness. "Reciprocal altruism"- doing favors so that, when you yourself are in trouble, the people you helped in the past, will help you.

"Rational selfishness" is the usual term used by people who argue that "selfish" does not automatically mean "evil"

A person who dislikes the sight of suffering, may take reasonable steps to minimise it, for selfish reasons- helping people in trouble, supporting initiatives to get people out of poverty, and so on.

Querzis

2010-06-15, 05:22 AM

Actually, some of the philosophers on the site you linked to, define "selfishness" as:

"being primarily concerned with your own self interest"

But not to the exclusion of the rights of others.

Because its not necessary to point that out? If you are primarily concerned with your own self interest then you automatically exclude or dont care all that much about the interest of others otherwise you woudnt be primarily concerned with your own self interest! I mean honestly, why did I even had to point that out? Being primarily concerned with something means that everything else isnt as important!

As previously mentioned, 2nd ed D&D called Chaotic Good characters "selfish but good-hearted".

Look if we start listing all the really stupid stuff which made no sense that they said in 2nd edition we're gonna be here for a while.

So, in at least some editions of D&D, and by at least some philosophers definitions, "selfish" does not automatically mean evil.

And in the edition of D&D that we are using, as they say in the link (http://easydamus.com/alignment.html) in your previous post, guess which alignement is described as : «does whatever she can get away with. She is out for herself, pure and simple.» and «they can advance themselves without regard for others.» Thats right, the neutral evil villain. Not the chaotic evil villains and certainly not the chaotic good guy.

The Lawful evil villain is described as: «it combines honor with a dedicated self-interest.», the chaotic evil guy is «combines self-interest and pure freedom» and, as I already quoted, the neutral evil guy is just pure self-interest. Its not just that «selfishness is usually evil» its more like «selfishness is the root of evil» if we go by those alignement description. In other words the guy who wrote this hate selfishness even more then I do since I think it can be neutral sometimes, you really didnt help yourself by posting that link.

Helping others, because you believe this will make the world better for you, can fit this definition of selfishness. "Reciprocal altruism"- doing favors so that, when you yourself are in trouble, the people you helped in the past, will help you.

You do realize that if you expect people to pay you back for the favors you gave them then its not altruism right? http://www.thefreedictionary.com/altruism By the way, altruism is kinda always described as being «unselfish» so if you are somehow trying to say that altruism and selfishness are not mutually exclusive, well, they totally are.

And yes, I know that Robert Trivers, the biologist who came up with the idea of reciprocal altruism really called it reciprocal altruism which just goes to show you that biologist are really bad at choosing names.

A person who dislikes the sight of suffering, may take reasonable steps to minimise it, for selfish reasons- helping people in trouble, supporting initiatives to get people out of poverty, and so on.

Yes disliking the sight of suffering sounds like such a selfish reason...

And by the way, at first you were arguing that selfishness is usually chaotic but now you're pretty much just arguing that selfishness can be good, pick a freaking argument and stick to it!

hamishspence

2010-06-15, 06:40 AM

Any reason based on "the self" is by definition, a selfish reason.

Thus, if most of a person's "good" acts are done out of concern for self interest, it logically follows, that they are selfish.

And the Chaotic Neutral alignment, in that link, was much more affiliated with selfishness, than the Lawful Neutral one was:

Here are some possible adjectives describing chaotic neutral characters: unreliable, independent, greedy, inconsistent, unpredictable, selfish, disorderly, anarchic, self-centered, confusing, unfettered, free, and individualistic.

Here are some possible adjectives describing lawful neutral characters: reliable, responsible, truthful, orderly, loyal, respectful of authority, regular, structured, rigid, neat, methodical, and precise.

Selfish behaviour is not necessarily Evil behaviour (though it often is) and it is more likely to be Chaotic than Lawful.

Is there such a thing as "selfish but good-hearted"? If there is, it's more likely to be Chaotic Good than Lawful Good.

These are the points I was trying to make.

Querzis

2010-06-15, 07:11 AM

Any reason based on "the self" is by definition, a selfish reason.

Nope its not. Once again, I just dont know which dictionary you're using cause it only become selfish if you put yourself above the others and I'm getting tired of having to repeat this. Thats just what the word «selfish» means, get over it, you cant change the english language just because your definition of a word doesnt match the dictionary definition of a word. You are breathing for yourself, that doesnt make it selfish.

Thus, if most of a person's "good" acts are done out of concern for self interest, it logically follows, that they are selfish.

And you have constantly failed to point out a single good act that is done purely out of concern for self-interest. Isnt that great?

And the Chaotic Neutral alignment, in that link, was much more affiliated with selfishness, than the Lawful Neutral one was:

Yeah you're definitly Lawful, lots of the lawful ones sounds quite selfish to me. And here I'm not denying that most Chaotic Neutral characters are usually kinda selfish, it even straight out says in the article that they can be selfish and I totally agree, just saying Lawful Neutral characters can be just as selfish. Only good characters arent selfish.

Selfish behaviour is not necessarily Evil behaviour (though it often is) and it is more likely to be Chaotic than Lawful.

...Could you please try to formulate this as an argument instead of saying it as if it was a fact? You have yet to show me a single good act done only for selfish reason or a valid reason why indivualism is more selfish then collectivism except quoting the 2nd edition handbook!

Is there such a thing as "selfish but good-hearted"?

...well I'm pretty damn sure thats what you've been trying to argue for a while now so why are you asking me? I made it quite clear that I really dont think there is.

If there is, it's more likely to be Chaotic Good than Lawful Good.

These are the points I was trying to make.

Yeah, once again, use arguments. Dont just say opinions as if they were facts.

hamishspence

2010-06-15, 08:59 AM

Querzis

2010-06-15, 09:20 AM

Selfish as per the Penguin Concise English Dictionary:

Caring only for one's own profit or pleasure, regardless of the feelings of others.

It doesn't say anything about "placing oneself above others" or "not caring about the rights of others"

Helping others, purely for the pleasure gained, regardless of the feelings of those who believe that its a good (or a bad) thing, would be an example of such selfish "good" behaviour.

If a person who gains pleasure from helping others, does so simply because its pleasurable, and has no interest in how other people feel about their pursuit of pleasure, that would be selfish, but it might also fit with Good.

...Did you just went through every dictionary you had access to just to find one definition that said being selfish does not include not caring about others and, when you obviously coudnt find one, just went with the one that said «regardless of the feelings of other» and then started grasping at straws about how «regardless of the feelings of other» somehow totally doesnt mean you are doing something they dont like? Cause it certainly feel like you did.

Is your basic tactic when you argue with someone just to keep grasping at straws that make less and less sense until the other guy give up and go play Warcraft 3 or you're just doing that with me? Well either way you did it, I'm off to play Warcraft 3 before I become insane just from arguing with you.

hamishspence

2010-06-15, 09:25 AM

It's the definition Rand uses.

Doesn't mean it's right- but the use of selfish in those books is always to do with: pursuing your own goals (pleasure, success) regardless of other people's feelings about it.

To the selfish person, the fact that other people dislike something they do, is irrelevant.

But this does not automatically mean that the selfish person has no concern for the rights of others.

On the very same site you linked to- it points out that there are two meanings to the word selfish (and one is not incompatible with good behaviour):

http://freedomkeys.com/paradox.htm

Only good characters arent selfish.

Depends on if you think the theory of psychological egoism (the principle that normal acts are selfish) has any validity:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_egoism

Phoenix Xul

2010-06-15, 09:31 AM

Gannji does at least seem lawful. From his latest speech he if anything seems... libertarian? I don't know if we'd see him attending Tea Party rallies or anything, but he seems to have a certain ethical-political mindset.

1) Libertarianism is not a good way to support a lawful alignment.
2) As a libertarianishtypeperson, I take incredible offense to being compared to the Tea Party. ;)
(The Teabaggers are generally more of constitutionalists.)

But in general on the topic, neither of them have done anything alignment defining. Bounty hunters tend to frequently fall in the Lawful Neutral area, although a few can seem a bit more chaotic.

It seems like a lot of people just want to put anyone who attacks our heroes immediately into the 'evil' category, which just doesn't work.

hamishspence

2010-06-15, 09:36 AM

So far, Gannji has made it clear that he dislikes the idea of fraud.

This doesn't really prove much one way or another though.

It could be seen as a lawful or good personality trait.

The reason given doesn't sound quite so lawful: "I don't want to be a parasite" so to speak.

The closest thing to an "evil personality trait" from Gannji was when he appeared to sympathise with the slavedrivers here:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0717.html

which could just be him being careful with what he says.

MacGiolla

2010-06-17, 06:53 AM

So, once again we get a piece of evidence pointing toward our favorite bounty hunters being evil.

Resorting to violence when someone is just asking for information is definately on the evil side of the scales.

And to fend of the arguments that Roy will easily survive it. Gannji has no way of knowing who Roy is. For all he knows Roy could be some low level fighter who would be instantly killed by Enor's breath weapon.

Ancalagon

2010-06-17, 06:58 AM

MacGiolla

2010-06-17, 07:06 AM

Abducting other people for money while not caring about the cause... how can they not be evil?

When answering, please note there are only very few countries worldwide where bounty hunting (kidnapping in some way!) is not illegal! So basically everyone outside of fiction considers "taking people for money" to be a bad, i.e. a principally evil thing.

There are all sorts of people in this thread who have argued just that. I can see that there might be some instances where a bounty hunter might be considered neutral, but I agree that generally bounty hunters are evil.

So far we have seen a lot of evidence that points toward evil (moreso with Enor). The prevailing counterarguement seems to be, "That's not enough evidence to convince me, therefore they are ________." (being whatever alignment they might be argueing for.)"

Ancalagon

2010-06-17, 07:20 AM

So far we have seen a lot of evidence that points toward evil (moreso with Enor). The prevailing counterarguement seems to be, "That's not enough evidence to convince me, therefore they are ________." (being whatever alignment they might be argueing for.)"

Yes... I remeber there was also not "enough evidence that Belkar was evil". So for me it's pretty clear what I think of those counter arguements.

So far, we have lots of STRONG indicators they are evil and very few indicators they are not (but neutral with strong evil tendencies). Unless more of the second type in the "strong" variety show up, I just employ Occam's Razor and are happy with my conclusion.
If others want to go for "I ignore the strong indicators and overestimate the slight ones"... they are free to do just that. I would just not suggest to pick a scientific career with that kind of reasoning. ;)

hamishspence

2010-06-17, 07:33 AM

Abducting other people for money while not caring about the cause... how can they not be evil?

When answering, please note there are only very few countries worldwide where bounty hunting (kidnapping in some way!) is not illegal! So basically everyone outside of fiction considers "taking people for money" to be a bad, i.e. a principally evil thing.

The question is- do they not care about the cause? Is there reason to believe they would abduct people who aren't on Wanted posters?

D&D settings tend to be a little more lawless than the present day- adventurers often go out and deal with outlaws (either killing them, or bringing them back to face the law)- and there is plenty of splatbook precedent for nonevil bounty hunters- PRCs like the Bloodhound (Complete Adventurer) and the Justicar (Complete Warrior) which have no "Alignment- nongood" restriction.

That said, Gannji's response to Roy's questioning leads me to think its more likely that he is evil, than nonevil.

Ancalagon

2010-06-17, 07:54 AM

The question is- do they not care about the cause? Is there reason to believe they would abduct people who aren't on Wanted posters?

Empire of Blood looks for Guy.
"Hey, let's bring Guy to Empire of Blood. No matter they have slavery and whatnot".
"He, can I talk to you" "No, we do not care." *BLAST*

Sounds not much like caring.

D&D settings tend to be a little more lawless than the present day- adventurers often go out and deal with outlaws (either killing them, or bringing them back to face the law).

Yes, but like 2/3 of the main plot of oots is about softening that. Including lots of Rich's commentaries in the books and stuff. Alignment and morals in OotS work much more like RL - or differently and less strong, have more parallels to RL - than in standard D&D. I hope that became quite obvious until now - if 700+ online strips, extra ones in SoD, commentary etc have not brought that message over, then I think nothing I can say will be able to state it any clearer.

hamishspence

2010-06-17, 07:58 AM

True- until this strip, there wasn't much evidence of them not caring what the victim had done- although accepting a bounty from the Empire might imply not caring what will be done to the outlaw when handed over.

D&D, and OoTS, may tend to skew toward American culture- and the Bounty Hunter is a common American antihero trope.

Ancalagon

2010-06-17, 08:08 AM

I find it was pretty clear indicated they are true mercenary souls - the "principles" we had seen so far does not contradict that (especially if you read Rich's non-oots material on this site about creating villains).

D&D, and OoTS, may tend to skew toward American culture- and the Bounty Hunter is a common American antihero trope.

Yes, agreed. But only for protagonists. But even that leaves out the entire rest of the moral- and alignment topic that oots is very strong about. So even if OotS is strongly american-centered (which it truely is!) and even if the bounty-hunter thing is a common trope, OotS has shown that it's not following standard-moral tropes and at least does not take them over without Rich pondering about it - and very probably making it more interesting instead of "just" using the trope/cliche in its "plain" form.

See Xykon, who really is the cliche-villain but still has enough individuality to count for something own.

I simply do not see Rich adding "The Fall Guy".

jidasfire

2010-06-19, 01:57 AM

By the book definitions, as I recall them, Evil is typified by hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Most evil characters have no compassion for others and kill if convenient. Neutral characters, on the other hand, are commited to others by personal relationships rather than ideals, and act in a good or evil manner as befits the situation.

So where in the spectrum between those two alignments do the bounty hunters lie? They don't seem to have much in the way of compassion or sympathy for others, but neither do they go out of their way to do unnecessary harm or harm those who aren't wanted criminals. They are largely concerned with personal profit, but Gannji sticks to the ideals of his profession, such as they are. They deal with evil monarchies, but they'd probably deal with good ones as well, so long as they were paid. They aren't particularly willing to reason with or listen to either Elan or Roy, but in their line of work, most people probably are lying to them or trying to scam them, so it makes sense to shoot first and ask questions later.

Given all that, I don't think Gannji and Enor are Evil. The demonstrably Evil characters in the series (e.g. Xykon, Redcloak, Nale, Kubota) have all done terrible things in ways that Gannji and Enor have simply not. I would argue that they are probably closer to Evil than Good, and they are most assuredly jerks, but I don't think that quite puts them over the line.

hamishspence

2010-06-19, 02:05 AM

They're more like Samantha's dad the ex-bandit king, than Samantha, his daughter.

According to Paladin Blues, Samantha was "clearly evil" but her dad was "at best, Neutral with some Evil tendencies"

casper

2010-06-20, 03:22 PM

Before Strip 729 I would say Gannj is LN and Enor is N, both with some Evil tendency. Now Gannji is much closer to LE and Enor... Still N. Gannji completely understands, that striking a posibly innocent person with electricity is bad, but still ask Enor to do this. Enor doesn't really try to justify what he is doing. He just thinks, that what his friend consider right is right. That kind of personality always sounded like "Neutral" to me.

Edit: Oops. Fixed. Sorry.

super dark33

2010-06-20, 03:24 PM

Before Strip 729 I would say Enor is LN and Gannji is N, both with some Evil tendency. Now Enor is much closer to LE and Gannji... Still N. Enor completely understands, that striking a posibly innocent person with electricity is bad, but still ask Gannji to do this. Gannji doesn't really try to justify what he is doing. He just thinks, that what his friend consider right is right. That kind of personality always sounded like "Neutral" to me.

enor is the half dragon vganji is the lizardfolk

iroZn

2010-06-21, 05:54 AM

Hmm not sure if this was mentioned before but I perceived Ganji's order to attack more of a preemptive strike rather than a random act of violence. I'm pretty sure he noticed the bow on Roy's back which is why he mentioned Roy was a "family member or comrade-in-arms". So he might have thought, especially by the way Roy was talking that they were about to be attacked.

This would mean that the action wouldn't make Ganji evil, but move him into the neutral territory.

As for Enor I just see him as being slightly too innocent to be evil I'd more go with true neutral.

Ancalagon

2010-06-21, 06:51 AM

"Might" is no excuse for violence. If it is used as that, it's an evil trait.

hamishspence

2010-06-21, 06:53 AM

A preemptive strike in response to even threatening language is iffy at best- and Roy's language was not exactly threatening.

In order to make it clear Haley's strike on Crystal had a justification, a deleted scene showing Crystal's repeated attempts to kill Haley, was added in Don't Split The Party.

Since, when it was deleted in order to improve pacing of the online strip, it made Haley's preemptive strike look like cold-blooded murder.

Launching a preemptive strike on someone who is not yet an adversary, does not seem like a Neutral act to me.

As to Enor- he might seem a little "innocent"- but so did Thog, and Thog is described as Roy's "evil counterpart".

That said, Thog has murdered numerous people on Nale's orders, and we haven't seen Enor actually murder anyone yet.

Ancalagon

2010-06-21, 06:57 AM

Since, when it was deleted in order to improve pacing of the online strip, it made Haley's preemptive strike look like cold-blooded murder.

You are correct about the rest... but Haley's strike was still cold-blooded murder. ;)
We just have like two reasons more than we had before but it does not, imo, change the basic premise. Even if the strike would be justified, like she has good reasons for starting something like that, the way in which it was enacted made it cold blooded murder.

Now, if that murder is understandable, reasonable, or justified is a different discussion but imo you cannot claim it was not murder in the first place.

hamishspence

2010-06-21, 07:01 AM

DStP seems to argue that it wasn't (because of the bonus strips)- instead it was a "preemptive strike against a dangerous foe".

In this sense, Crystal could be said to be morally equivalent to the ogre kidnappers (whom Roy was willing to rush while most were sleeping) or the goblins in strip 11- whom Roy killed in their sleep- with Greysky being equivalent to a dungeon or the wilderness in its lack of available law enforcement.

Ancalagon

2010-06-21, 07:28 AM

I think we should not turn this thread into a debate about Haley's attack on Crystal and if it was morally justified - which it might have been but my point is still that even if it was, it was still murder.
But as long as this thread is not supposed to totally derail, we should stop right here. ;)

hamishspence

2010-06-21, 07:33 AM

Good point- the question was about Gannji's act toward Roy- does it say anything about his alignment?

My Haley example was to demonstrate how (from the Giant's perspective) Haley's act needed justification (specifically, repeated murder attempts from Crystal).

Thus Gannji's act toward Roy, which doesn't even have that justification, looks very dubious.

So the "it was a preemptive strike" argument doesn't hold water, since (at least for Haley) her preemptive strike ended up needing those prior attacks, to justify it in some way.

Ancalagon

2010-06-21, 10:06 AM

Good point- the question was about Gannji's act toward Roy- does it say anything about his alignment?

I think it does, at least it is a hint. I think that attack was evil (note this does not mean the alignment has to be evil!)

My Haley example was to demonstrate how (from the Giant's perspective) Haley's act needed justification (specifically, repeated murder attempts from Crystal).

Yes, I understood that. I know what the giant tried to do here but I think he is actually wrong: We understand now why Haley did it but it's still an evil act and is still not really justified (especially as Haley did not plan to stay in Greysky city - and if Bozzok wants vengeance, the death of Crystal is not really going to change it or make it "any better").

Thus Gannji's act toward Roy, which doesn't even have that justification, looks very dubious.

So the "it was a preemptive strike" argument doesn't hold water, since (at least for Haley) her preemptive strike ended up needing those prior attacks, to justify it in some way.

The Gannji-attack was totally unjustified and evil. And even WITH the prior attacks the attempt to murder an unsuspecting, current nothing-doing victim is still an evil act. We could argue what is more evil or what act is more understandable/less dubious given the situation (Haley has a much better case than Enor/Gannj here)...

hamishspence

2010-06-21, 10:15 AM

True- Haley's act can still be argued as "still not justified enough to be nonevil" (better suited for another thread, and not phrased in that fashion)

It really depended on what you see as a justification for a preemptive strike by an individual.

If the hero thinks their life is in real danger, and there's no adequate local law enforcement, and they've resisted repeated attacks, they might be justified in catching them unawares.

But even then, there's likely to be disagreement.

Gannji has none of those possible mitigating factors.

Nilan8888

2010-06-21, 11:13 AM

I think I'd describe Gannji's act as more 'paranoid' than evil at this point.

But I agree that it moves in that direction. I think that the Jury is still out here, although it's getting closer and closer to final judgment all the time. There's still a fair amount of exposition that could provide some context to the situation.

hamishspence

2010-06-21, 11:44 AM

It would need to be a lot of context.

Something like- the last few people to begin a conversation along those sort of lines, stabbed him in the middle of the conversation.

Ancalagon

2010-06-21, 12:18 PM

It would need to be a lot of context.

Something like- the last few people to begin a conversation along those sort of lines, stabbed him in the middle of the conversation.

Would still be no excuse to treat every new guy as he treated Roy...

hamishspence

2010-06-21, 12:22 PM

Perhaps not. Being paranoid doesn't necessarily give the character a free pass- even if their past experiences, have been so bad, and so consistant, that the paranoia becomes understandable.

As it is, we haven't yet seen any indication of this kind of past experience.

JonestheSpy

2010-06-21, 03:34 PM

Just remember - Han shot first.

hamishspence

2010-06-21, 03:39 PM

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-21, 05:18 PM

And Han, according to Complete Scoundrel, is a reasonable example of a Neutral, scoundrelly character. He was also being menaced by a guy with a gun, who'd stated a clear intention to kill him:

"Over my dead body"
"That's the idea. I've been looking forward to this for a long time"

Gannji doesn't have this mitigating factor.

Actually, i think he does. "Perhaps i can find another way to convince you" is either the opening for beat down, or a bribery attempt followed by the beat down after the refusal.

hamishspence

2010-06-21, 05:28 PM

Until there's an indication of a threat though, Gannji doesn't have just cause for an attack.

It could be a bribe, or a threat, or Roy explaining exactly who he's looking for, and Gannji then having the opportunity to realize that revealing their fate won't be a problem.

But Gannji attacked before being even offered a bribe, much less a threat.

Nilan8888

2010-06-21, 06:04 PM

It would need to be a lot of context.

Well, it might not be THAT bad yet, but generally yeah, I agree.

I guess on some level I'm a tad annoyed that ALL the new character might turn out to be evil. To me that seems a bit plain jane. I was hoping for maybe soem mix n' match with the new people. It seems we're already dealing with a bad boy in Tarquin -- that's totally fine since he's shaping up to be a great character study -- to have these two evil on top of that (as well as Malak and the Empress)... I'm getting a bit 'eviled out' so to speak.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-21, 06:55 PM

Until there's an indication of a threat though, Gannji doesn't have just cause for an attack.

If he's a paladin, sure. But there's a LOT of room between paladin and evil. Gannji has apparently been in this situation often enough to have a code word for it. He's going to tell roy no, and then roy is going to try to lay the smackdown on him. Its questionable to resort to violence before that, but its by no means evil.

It could be a bribe, or a threat, or Roy explaining exactly who he's looking for, and Gannji then having the opportunity to realize that revealing their fate won't be a problem.

Right, but consider how many people Gannji HAS brought in. I'd say that the only ones ever treated like honored guests were the ones he just dropped off. Every single other one was probably beheaded, tortured, imprisoned, sent to another plane, fed to a dragon, or turned into ornamental sculpture.
Every single other one of them probably left someone behind to look for them. Thats who Ganjii thinks he's dealing with

But Gannji attacked before being even offered a bribe, much less a threat.

He may not have just cause, but he has reasonable cause. Roys words could very well be a threat. Its not paranoid for a bounty hunter, its justifiably concerned. He;s not attacking helpless innocent puppies, he's attacking someone he beleives means him harm before they attack him, its quite neutral.

hamishspence

2010-06-22, 02:45 AM

An evil act doesn't necessarily mean an evil character- and even though Gannji's attack order on Roy can be deemed evil, that doesn't necessarily mean its extremely evil.

However- "attacking someone you believe means you harm before they attack you" is not a Neutral act, if the belief is an unreasonable belief- for example, if there's no indication of imminent attack. If Roy had been reaching for his weapon, it would be different

BoED- for violence to be acceptable, it must have just cause, and good intentions. (Generally, it must be discriminatory as well- meaning not against noncombatants.)

Since Gannji does not have just cause, his act is very iffy.

I'm not saying he is evil (though it does seem rather probable now)- I'm saying that by attacking Roy, he has done evil.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-22, 08:03 AM

However- "attacking someone you believe means you harm before they attack you" is not a Neutral act, if the belief is an unreasonable belief- for example, if there's no indication of imminent attack. If Roy had been reaching for his weapon, it would be different

That's just it though. Its VERY reasonable for Ganjii to conclude that Roy is going to attack him within the next minute. He's gone through this situation before (loved ones and comrades in arms looking up for the people he's hauled off) and thats been the result, since Ganjii strikes me as the type to stay bought once he's been bought.

BoED- for violence to be acceptable, it must have just cause, and good intentions. (Generally, it must be discriminatory as well- meaning not against noncombatants.)

That's fine.. but I'm not arguing that Ganjii or this act is good. If its not acceptable, its not good. That DOESN"T mean that its evil, because every action isn't good or evil. There's a large range of neutral in there.

Since Gannji does not have just cause, his act is very iffy.

The idea that Roy, a heavily armed and armored adventurer (not a non combatant), is going to attack him is VERY VERY reasonable, so there's 2 out of 3 criteria. The only one thats questionable is the immediacy. The way the conversation was going, it looked to be about 30 seconds out from that. 5 rounds is a long time if you're sitting at a D&D table but its pretty breif in real life.

I'm not saying he is evil (though it does seem rather probable now)- I'm saying that by attacking Roy, he has done evil.

His reaction to the slave driver union would point me that way, but this doesn't.

hamishspence

2010-06-22, 10:41 AM

If its not acceptable, its not good. That DOESN"T mean that its evil, because every action isn't good or evil. There's a large range of neutral in there.

"Acceptable" can apply to Neutral as well as Good acts.

I'm not sure how it works in OoTS, but Roy is described as having committed "very few truly evil acts" and "nothing here merits a blip on the Malev-O-Meter"

So it's possible that this act could be as bad, as one of Roy's "very few truly evil acts"

Possible candidates include abandoning Elan, and dangling the Oracle out of a window.

If this act is as bad as these, it's not a stretch to call it "evil"- since it may appear that in OOTS, for an act to qualify as evil doesn't take much.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-22, 11:20 AM

[QUOTE=hamishspence;8758999]"Acceptable" can apply to Neutral as well as Good acts.

But now you're applying it as if it does, which would be your words, not the BOED's. You interpreted "not acceptable" as evil, which i think is a bit of a stretch. Its certainly below the standards expected for GOOD adventurers, but it doesn't claim that its evil.

I'm not sure how it works in OoTS, but Roy is described as having committed "very few truly evil acts" and "nothing here merits a blip on the Malev-O-Meter"

So it's possible that this act could be as bad, as one of Roy's "very few truly evil acts"

I'm sure this could be a topic of conversation if he were on the hot seat to go to celestia. I don't see how it could keep him out of a neutral plane. He had reasonable belief that he was going to be attacked by a large fighter wearing tons of weapons, giving the first shot is better than taking the first shot, so he gave it.

Good characters are expected to put themselves at greater risk on the chance that their assessment of the situation is wrong. There's still a point at which violence is justified, but its always a sliding scale.

Neutral characters are expected to act in their own best interest, which in the case of an adventurer often means whacking them before they whack you. You can't whack people for no reason (that would tend towards evil) but the sliding scale has a much, MUCH lower threshold.

Evil characters can be expected to whack anyone they feel like (but they may not feel like whacking everyone)

Possible candidates include abandoning Elan, and dangling the Oracle out of a window.If this act is as bad as these, it's not a stretch to call it "evil"- since it may appear that in OOTS, for an act to qualify as evil doesn't take much

Which would have earned Roy being "chucked into the true neutral bin", not set up for an eternal soul BBQ. This is the false dichotomy again... if its below the behavior expected for a good character it must be evil. Below the behavior expected of a good character is the behavior expected of a neutral character. Good isn't just "didn't do anything too seriously wrong" good has to be an active force trying, and trying hard, to make the world a better place.

If anything abandoning elan was worse. Roy is, to Ganjii, VERY likely an opponent. He's a competent, heavily armed adult making threats about something that in Ganjii's experience leads to a violent confrontation. Ganjii has no moral obligation to him.

Elan on the other hand was Roy's fellow adventuring party member... under Roy's command no less. Adventurers literally put their lives into their comrades hands when they journey into the wilderness or a dungeon looking for loot. They depend on each other, trust each other, and Roy violated that trust. It was far, FAR worse than what Ganjii did, and didn't get Roy chucked into TN, much less evil.

hamishspence

2010-06-22, 11:40 AM

An evil act is not necessarily going to set you up for an eternal soul BBQ. Especially not if its a minor evil act.

Multiple evil acts, on the other hand, might.

"Good" behaviour isn't just "acceptable"- it involves going above and beyond the call of duty.

Think of it this way:

Commendable- Good
Acceptable- Neutral
Unacceptable/Condemnable- Evil

As previously mentioned, Roy's comment wasn't necessarily a threat- it could be a prelude to further explanation.

"whack them before they whack you" might be justifiable to some neutral characters- but the act itself, given the lack of provocation, would still be an evil one.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-22, 12:15 PM

"Good" behaviour isn't just "acceptable"- it involves going above and beyond the call of duty.

And the book of exalted deeds talks about behavior thats acceptable for good characters, not neutral ones.

Commendable- Good
Acceptable- Neutral
Unacceptable/Condemnable- Evil

I realize that's the point that you're trying to make, i simply see nothing to suggest that it is the case. The BOED didn't say this, you did.

As previously mentioned, Roy's comment wasn't necessarily a threat- it could be a prelude to further explanation.

But it wasn't necessarily not a threat either. Coming from Haley it might have seemed like a different kind of offer.

"whack them before they whack you" might be justifiable to some neutral characters- but the act itself, given the lack of provocation, would still be an evil one.

So han was evil for shooting first?

hamishspence

2010-06-22, 12:21 PM

Han's only justification, was that he was actually being menaced- the guy was pointing a gun to his face. Combined with "That's the idea. I've been looking forward to this for a long time" Han's killing Greebo begins to enter self-defense territory.

If someone is holding a gun on you- and you believe the only way to escape alive (from his words) is to shoot first- that's excusable. You don't actually have to wait until he's fired.

Roy, however, had not pulled a gun, or a sword. Nor were there any indications that he was about to.

The BoED states that "Even the most generous altruism, when it comes without sacrifice, or even furthers your own interests, is Neutral at best"

By implication therefore, Good acts require more than "just" altruistic behaviour- you have to go beyond that and make sacrifices as well.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-22, 12:39 PM

Roy, however, had not pulled a gun, or a sword. Nor were there any indications that he was about to.

This is a point of contention. From Ganji's point of view, Roy is about to ask about a mark he's brought in. Ganjii, being an honorable transporter of wanted persons, is going to refuse to tell him. From there, Roy will either make another offer, or begin violence. Eventually Roy's response will be violence. From Ganjii's perspective, i can't see the rational for requiring going through the whole dance when the outcome is inevitable.. particularly when each pass brings the opportunity to either loose the surprise round or worse, have the surprise round visited on you. Its definitely NOT good, but i wouldn't weigh it too heavily against a good character given D&D's hit point system. For a neutral character i wouldn't even register it.

We have a benchmark. In OOTSverse abandoning a friend gets you chucked into the TN bin. This isn't as bad as abandoning elan, therefore it gets you chucked into the neutral bin at worst.

The BoED states that "Even the most generous altruism, when it comes without sacrifice, or even furthers your own interests, is Neutral at best"

By implication therefore, Good acts require more than "just" altruistic behaviour- you have to go beyond that and make sacrifices as well.

They require that you ACT in a good manner and also require that you refrain from acting in an evil manner.

hamishspence

2010-06-22, 12:43 PM

We have a benchmark. In OOTSverse abandoning a friend gets you chucked into the TN bin. This isn't as bad as abandoning elan, therefore it gets you chucked into the neutral bin at worst.

It gets a character who is Lawful Good in nearly every other way, chucked in the Neutral bin- it's a serious act downgrading someone from Good afterlife to Neutral afterlife.

If a Roy were to do what Gannji did- he'd probably be chucked in the Neutral bin. Implying it would be a fairly serious evil act.

So why would it be an Evil act for Roy, but a Neutral act for Gannji?

Acts that are Evil (mildly) when committed by Good characters, don't suddenly become Neutral when committed by Neutral characters.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-22, 02:22 PM

It gets a character who is Lawful Good in nearly every other way

Roy hasn't exactly been the exemplar of the lawful good alignment. Its not quite an informed ability, but its pretty close. Roy works with the law when its convenient for him. He hasn't really made any sacrifices to work within it. Roy's abandonment of elan would have pushed him over the edge because he'd been standing kind of close to it for a while.

If a Roy were to do what Gannji did- he'd probably be chucked in the Neutral bin. Implying it would be a fairly serious evil act.

That's entirely circular. You're implying that the act is evil, therefore it would have chucked roy in TN, therefore the act is evil. There's no knowledge or even basis for this being the case.

I haven't seen anything to show that what Ganjii did was WORSE, or even as bad as, abandoning Elan. Until you have that this part of your argument falls apart.

So why would it be an Evil act for Roy, but a Neutral act for Gannji?

It would NOT be an evil act. It would be a very neutral one, which is below what we expect of truly GOOD characters.

hamishspence

2010-06-22, 02:26 PM

We've been told by the deva, that it would have chucked Roy in the TN bin.
The Deva also states to Roy: "There's no doubt you're a Good man"-

thus, it seems logical that it's evil enough to make a difference to a normally Good person.

How exactly would a "very Neutral act" be something a Good character shouldn't do? Good characters are expected to not do Evil acts, not "very Neutral ones"

Whether a character changes alignment or not, can come down to one single act after a long train of dubious ones.

A LG character who abandons a friend and doesn't go back and rescue him- might drop to TN.

A TN character on the brink of an Evil alignment, who does the same, might drop to Evil.

The same principle could apply to a Neutral character who shoots a stranger asking for information, when they allude to the possibility of eventually convincing them.

Is Gannji's act the sort of thing a Neutral character would do? Certainly- but it (if interpreted as unreasonable, excessive violence for the situation) might involve a tiny shift- from Neutral with strong Good tendencies, to Neutral with mild Good tendencies. Or from Neutral, to Neutral with mild Evil tendencies, and so on.

Alignment is not static- its an ongoing process. The more Evil a Neutral character acts, the more they move toward Evil alignment.

Interesting note: In the Dragon Magazine Strips, Belkar is accosted by a debt collector- and even he doesn't resort to immediate violence when the collector explains why he's come. Then the collector pulls weapons, and "repossesses his health- with interest."

So, we see the CE Belkar showing more restraint than Gannji did.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-22, 03:03 PM

We've been told by the deva, that it would have chucked Roy in the TN bin.
The Deva also states to Roy: "There's no doubt you're a Good man"- thus, it seems logical that it's evil enough to make a difference to a normally Good person.

You are Equating, without basis, Roys act of abandoning Elan and Ganjii's preemptive strike. Please provide some rational for thinking they're equivilant.

The two things that stopped the diva from tossing him into true neutral are

1) He did learn the lesson on his own, a) went back for elan and b) next week made the ultimate sacrifice in order to save him.

2) Roy's TRYING to be lawful good. Its a standard he sets, even if he falls short of it often.

How exactly would a "very Neutral act" be something a Good character shouldn't do? Good characters are expected to not do Evil acts, not "very Neutral ones"

Alignment isn't a static point system. Just because something would drop a character from Lawful Good to Neutral doesn't mean that the act would drop a neutral character down to evil. You don't earn -1 point out of 10 for stealing, so 10 thefts make you evil. Once you're a thief with standards, you're pretty much stuck in the neutral department because stealing is no longer a violation of your alignment.

Whether a character changes alignment or not, can come down to one single act after a long train of dubious ones.

This isn't that serious.

A LG character who abandons a friend and doesn't go back and rescue him- might drop to TN.

A TN character on the brink of an Evil alignment, who does the same, might drop to Evil.

But its not as likely. Its DEFINITE for the LG type who doesn't even TRY. The neutral person might not, and i would say probably would not. The behavior is not below what we would expect of a neutral individual looking out for themselves. They're under no moral obligation to get killed for someone else, a good person is.

Again, you seem to be putting actions into either the good or evil camp. Neutral moral decisions will cause a good character to become neutral, they will not cause an already neutral character to become evil.

The same principle could apply to a Neutral character who shoots a stranger asking for information, when they allude to the possibility of eventually convincing them.

Is Gannji's act the sort of thing a Neutral character would do? Certainly- but it (if interpreted as unreasonable, excessive violence for the situation) might involve a tiny shift- from Neutral with strong Good tendencies, to Neutral with mild Good tendencies. Or from Neutral, to Neutral with mild Evil tendencies, and so on.

There are no real tendencies in the rules, at least not as a mechanical effect. I can't see any charge other than "mildly premature" , at worst, for Ganjii's actions.

Alignment is not static- its an ongoing process. The more Evil a Neutral character acts, the more they move toward Evil alignment.

But you're assuming that this IS an evil act. So far all you've shown is that its short of whats expected of a good character. That doesn't make it evil, it makes it non good, which can be neutral or evil.

hamishspence

2010-06-22, 03:07 PM

You are Equating, without basis, Roys act of abandoning Elan and Ganjii's preemptive strike. Please provide some rational for thinking they're equivilant.

Abandoning Elan was one of several morally dubious acts the Deva dealt with- one of which was also a case of violence being initiated without much provocation- Roy hanging the Oracle out of a window.

The only reason the Deva didn't dwell longer on it- was that Roy didn't remember it.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-22, 03:27 PM

Abandoning Elan was one of several morally dubious acts the Deva dealt with- one of which was also a case of violence being initiated without much provocation- Roy hanging the Oracle out of a window.

The only reason the Deva didn't dwell longer on it- was that Roy didn't remember it.

The oracle was dangled out of the window for being a wizenheimer, not because his threat of physical violence was 30 seconds off as opposed to 6 seconds off.

hamishspence

2010-06-22, 03:39 PM

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-22, 05:35 PM

"He was going to attack me in 30-odd seconds anyway" is not much of a defense. As mentioned, its a presumption. Yes, if Gannji continued to stall, Roy might have escalated to threats- and then Gannji would have been in the right. But you can't presume that because violence might happen, you're justified in attacking before an actual threat appears.

"Evil involves hurting, oppressing, and killing others" should probably have "without sufficient justification"

If you're "about to be attacked" a desire for self preservation might be sufficient justification for hurting others.

But when you're not about to be attacked, it becomes "hurting others" without sufficient justification.

Predicting anything into the future is ALWAYS iffy. Its not divided up into "guaranteed" and "absolutely will not happen", its a long continuum between the two with various shades of gray given the circumstances of likelihood and immediacy.

Deadlands- Likely and immanent

For example, a bounty hunter in the wild west is taking an accused murderer to another state for trial. He wakes up in the middle of the night to find the accused standing over him with a big rock held up over his head. Its entirely POSSIBLE that the man wants his day in court, and is about to smash that venomous scorpion you don't see 3 inches next to your head, but it is both likely and immediate that he's about to try to turn you skull into paste, so you can shoot him no matter how LG you are. Good isn't required to be be dumb. Sometimes you NEED to take a reasonable judgment call about future events and act on them. If you don't, you're dead.

Gansters- Likely but non immanent

Big Louie the Midget gangster has threatened to have a hitman put you on ice before his trial, which starts in 6 months. He brags about being able to order this from his jail cell. Silencing witnesses with a Dirt Nap is his MO. He is VERY likely to have this threat carried out.. if he's left alive.

I don't see offing him first as a matter of Good or evil. Its a matter of law or chaos. Do you trust that the police are able and willing of finding and dealing with the hitman and then giving Big Louie the punishment he deserves? if so then you let the police handle it. If you think the police are incapable, or more likely corrupt, then i can't see the moral problem with taking the law into your own hands. Outside of "Law is good chaos is evil" I can't see a rational for the states hands being more competent than the individuals.

Immanent but not likely: Someone walking towards you down the street reaches their hand into their jacket. Blowing them away because they could possible might be reaching for a gun is either paranoid, insane, or acting with depraved indifference to life. Evil. A good guy that does this probably noticed the throat mike, the secret society tatoo on the web between his pinkie and ring fingers, or the hidden gun, making it a case of 1 above.

Neither immanent Nor likely: A helpless gnome on the road has chocolate. It might be evil chocolate. Kill him and take it, just to be sure. You've gone passed just evil and entered belkar territory.

"Inflicting gratuitous injury on a creature" is a 3 point Corrupt act.

Since Roy had not (yet) done anything to deserve being attacked, the injury inflicted by the lightning bolt, could be called gratuitous

gratuitous [grəˈtjuːɪtəs]
adj
1. given or received without payment or obligation
2. without cause; unjustified
3. (Law) Law given or made without receiving any value in return a gratuitous agreement

But you see gratuitous as either or, yes or no, binary, all in or all out. Life doesn't work that way, and either do D&D games, since there's no computer involved. He certainly has some justification for his actions. He may not have enough, but he's far, FAR from doing it for the lols. Roy is a very stong and heavily armed fighter type who appears to be threatening Ganjii.

"Is Roys violence certain" is an unfair question. NOTHING about the future is certain. EVER. So trying to use that as a standard is either impossible or says that you always need to let the other guy hit you at least once (good motto in a fist fight, bad motto in a knife fight) . Is violence LIKELY to ensue, and i would have to say yes, and would like this point actually answered. Do you think that, from Ganjii's point of view, violence is likely?
From Ganjii's point of veiw, how far away was it, and how far away is acceptable?

hamishspence

2010-06-22, 05:46 PM

"If the character had a belief that they were certain to be attacked, would it be a reasonable belief" is the usual standard.

You don't need to prove that the attack was certain, for a self-defence claim to be accepted, but you do need to show that your belief was reasonable.

If a statement can be interpreted as a threat, how threatening would it need to be for the character to be able to say to the judge "I was provoked"?

Roy's statement doesn't really come across as that threatening.

Its not like Roy held a rock over him, or a gun to his head. All these examples given, involve a much higher level of imminence.

As to "threatening to have a hitman kill you" again, Roy's words aren't nearly so aggressive.

Is "justified" one of those things that works best as an on-off thing?

"It was justified"
"It was unjustified"

In law, it normally is. "Unjustified but with mitigating factors" is the best you can hope for.

So either Gannji's act was justified, or it wasn't. It might have some mitigating factors, but it can't be "neither justified not unjustified".

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-22, 06:03 PM

You don't need to prove that the attack was certain, for a self-defence claim to be accepted, but you do need to show that your belief was reasonable.

Is Ganji's belief reasonable? This is not only a yes this is a hell yes. He's transported MANY people to probably unpleasant ends and had their friends come looking for them and met with a violent response so many times he's drilled a code word into his companions head for just such an occasion.

If a statement can be interpreted as a threat, how threatening would it need to be for the character to be able to say to the judge "I was provoked"?

This is a LEGAL standard. NOT a moral one. They are not the same. Legal systems tend to take a very dim view of individuals exercising force in any circumstances.

Roy's statement doesn't really come across as that threatening.

Its not like Roy held a rock over him, or a gun to his head. All these examples given, involve a much higher level of imminence.As to "threatening to have a hitman kill you" again, Roy's words aren't nearly so aggressive.

Roy's words need to be taken in context. The context is that Ganjii is a bounty hunter with the information about where a LOT Of missing people have gone. He's also not the type to give up that information. What other means do you think roy has at his disposal? Bribery? Ganjii doesn't seem the type to take it. When that doesn't work? Someone standing there with a big honkin greatsword, a longbow, and a wickedly curved dagger does NOT look the type to settle the dissagrement over tiddlywinks, nor does "another way to persuade you" sound like an invitation to a pie eating contest.

hamishspence

2010-06-23, 02:37 AM

He said "Perhaps I can find a way to convince you" not "Perhaps I can find a way to make you"

I think a big part of this debate, is disagreement about the definition of a Neutral act.

As far as I can tell, according to you, a Neutral act can be "unacceptable for a Good character, but not bad enough to be evil"

Thing is- no truly Neutral act is unacceptable for a Good character. A Paladin of Freedom, or an Exalted character- is forbidden from committing Evil acts. Not neutral ones.

Violence in self-defense is a Neutral act, not a Good one. Characters like Paladins of Slaughter are forbidden from committing Good acts- if they couldn't defend themselves without Falling, they'd die rather quickly.

A Neutral act is one which would neither cause a Paladin of Freedom to Fall, nor a Paladin of Slaughter (since both are Chaotic and Law doesn't matter much to them.)

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-23, 03:20 AM

Thing is- no truly Neutral act is unacceptable for a Good character. A Paladin of Freedom, or an Exalted character- is forbidden from committing Evil acts. Not neutral ones.

A neutral act is not forbidden to Good characters. Multiple, persistent, unrepentant acts of neutrality are not.

Violence in self-defense is a Neutral act, not a Good one.

But waiting until the last second to weigh your other options, or even letting the other person get the first shot, JUST to make sure, is.

Characters like Paladins of Slaughter are forbidden from committing Good acts- if they couldn't defend themselves without Falling, they'd die rather quickly.

A paladin's problem in this case would be striking too quickly. A Tyrants problem would be not killing them fast enough. Again, you don't either do something or you do it, there's different gradations in between.

hamishspence

2010-06-23, 03:51 AM

A neutral act is not forbidden to Good characters. Multiple, persistent, unrepentant acts of neutrality are not.

Where does it say that?

But waiting until the last second to weigh your other options, or even letting the other person get the first shot, JUST to make sure, is.

Neutral people need to show respect for the rights of others as well. "Taking all reasonable precautions to ensure that your violence is not unnecessary" is the sign of a nonevil person, but not automatically a Good person.

BoED- a person who strictly refrains from committing evil acts is "solidly Neutral" but not necessarily Good- Good involves helping others- in fact, making sacrifices to help others.

A person commits "multiple unrepentant acts of neutrality" every day- they feed themselves, dress themselves, go to work, for money. These acts are not aligned toward Good or Evil- hence they are Neutral.

Bongos

2010-06-24, 11:13 AM

I'm not convinced that these guys are anything but some sort of neutral. Probably Lawful for Gannji and one of the other two for Enor, most likely Chaotic as he's always thinking about his yummies.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-24, 11:48 AM

Where does it say that? A person commits "multiple unrepentant acts of neutrality" every day- they feed themselves, dress themselves, go to work, for money. These acts are not aligned toward Good or Evil- hence they are Neutral

"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

If you are consistently acting as a neutral person in those regards, you are no longer good.

Neutral people need to show respect for the rights of others as well.

But NOT at the expense of increased risks to their own life and well being. A neutral person does not have to put their life at risk through inaction any more than they have to put their life at risk through action.

I would like you to address (and not delete) this point. How can you expect people in a dangerous world to wait for a impossible 100% philosophical certainty on a potentially deadly matter? At what % of likely hood is a good person allowed to respond with force and still keep their alignment? Do you think its the same % for a neutral person?

"Taking all reasonable precautions to ensure that your violence is not unnecessary" is the sign of a nonevil person, but not automatically a Good person.

Ideas are not reasonable or unreasonable. The world is not binary. There are degrees of reasonableness. Please do not delete, this is important and oft repeated on my end but never satisfactorily answered on yours. Your entire argument rests on the idea of everything being binary.. good or evil, reasonable or not, justifiable or not.

BoED- a person who strictly refrains from committing evil acts is "solidly Neutral" but not necessarily Good- Good involves helping others- in fact, making sacrifices to help others.

Sacrifices like putting yourself at a greater risk in order to avoid unnecessary harm to others. Again, its not "risk or no risk" its "incredibly unlikely, unlikely, uncertain, 50 50, likely, almost certain, certain and "impossibly certain"

They're unaligned rather than neutral. A neutral person might have no problem working for someone

hamishspence

2010-06-24, 12:32 PM

A binary approach is the normal approach to moral and legal issues that involve violence.

A person is put on trial for shooting someone- they do not dispute the shooting but claim they believed their life was in immediate danger.

The jury have agreed that the person did, in fact, believe this.

Was it a reasonable belief- yes or no?

If yes- they go free.

If no- they are punished- with the degree of punishment depending on how unreasonable their belief was. (or, if they're lucky, they might get psychiatric treatment instead).

If the person is making a confession of their actions to their spiritual advisor, and asking if they should do penance or not- again, its a yes/no question. Is penance needed, morally, yes or no?

And it's not just a case of Law or Chaos- a jury in a True Neutral D&D country would be asking the same question- Was the violence reasonable for the situation? If not- the person should be dealt with in some way- imprisonment, fines, community service, etc.

Even an Evil kingdom is going to prosecute people if they "kill in self-defence" when the grounds for believing that self-defense was necessary, are unreasonable grounds.

hamishspence

2010-06-24, 01:15 PM

Quite frankly, I don't think either of us is going to convince the other.

It also seems a lot like a repeat of the "was Roy morally justified" argument. Only with the threat being a lot less imminent, and with a distinct lack of threatening action by the person who was attacked.

My view is, that if an act would be an Evil act for any Chaotic Good, Lawful Good, or Neutral Good character to commit (that is, one which would cause an Exalted character of any of those 3 alignments to lose the benefits of Exalted feats) then it's evil for a Neutral character to commit as well- since the alignment of an act does not depend on the alignment of the guy committing it.

Violence without sufficient justification, is one of these Fall-worthy acts.

You yourself stated that it is "unacceptable behaviour for a Good character"

How, therefore, can it be Evil for a Good character to do it, but Neutral for a Neutral character to do it, unless alignment is relative? (some acts are Evil for some people, but not evil for others)

And BoVD explicitly states that alignment is not relative.

Unless you're saying that there are acts which are "unacceptable for Good characters, but not Evil"- which seems like a contradiction in terms.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-24, 03:18 PM

[QUOTE=hamishspence;8775038]A binary approach is the normal approach to moral and legal issues that involve violence.

A person is put on trial for shooting someone- they do not dispute the shooting but claim they believed their life was in immediate danger.

The jury have agreed that the person did, in fact, believe this.

Was it a reasonable belief- yes or no?

If yes- they go free.

It does not work like that. Depending on the circumstances there are degrees of murder, manslaughter, assault, or forgetting the assault charges entirely and charging someone with weapons possession. After that there's the possibility of reduced sentencing ranging from life to a few years or even suspending the sentence. None of this is binary. You even admited some of it wasn't binary, but you want it to be binary always. Why?

If the person is making a confession of their actions to their spiritual advisor, and asking if they should do penance or not- again, its a yes/no question. Is penance needed, morally, yes or no?

And again, penance could range from nothing to a weekend at the soup kitchen to a pilgrimage to spending the rest of your life atoning.. indicating a RANGE of wrongs and a range of punishments, not yes/no. You can't just arbitrarily group things together and then say that there's only two responses

Even an Evil kingdom is going to prosecute people if they "kill in self-defence" when the grounds for believing that self-defense was necessary, are unreasonable grounds.

Unless they kill someone he wanted dead anyway, in which case he'll accept that the deceased was using his fork in a threatening matter and the lettuce was indeed a dear friend of the accused.

Unless you're saying that there are acts which are "unacceptable for Good characters, but not Evil"- which seems like a contradiction in terms.

There are many, MANY actions that will make a good person neutral but will not make a neutral person evil. Refusing to help others being the most obvious one spelled out in the books. Theft seems to be another one, as Haley was never evil despite stealing a LOT of stuff.

So far your argument consists of "this action is not good and must therefor be evil" which is a false dichotomy even in a simplified D&D world with three positions. Ganjji's actions are perfectly neutral. There was a legitimate if uncertain threat to his health and well being, and he wasn't willing to risk that uncertainty for the benefit of the person threatening him, so he went for a pre emptive strike.

hamishspence

2010-06-25, 02:47 AM

We've seen several cases of preemptive strikes in the strip- all have been extremly contentious- and all have had the forum divided over them despite much better mitigating factors than in this case.

Roy's preemptive strike on Miko
Vaarsuvius's preemptive strike on Kubota
Vaasuvius's preemptive strike on Mama Dragon's entire family
Haley's preemptive strike on Crystal

My argument isn't "this is not good therefore it must be evil"- it's "this is not in any way justified (no mitigating factors) therefore its evil.

I'm not saying there's no such thing as Neutral acts- I'm saying that the choice here is between Evil and Not Evil. If it's Not Evil- an Exalted character, Paladin of Freedom, etc, can commit it without penalty.

You claim that Gannji must have been attacked by friends of the bounty so much, that he has a codeword for Enor to attack such people the moment they reveal themselves to be intent on getting information from him. There is little in the strip to support this.

Maybe he's only been attacked once- and ever since, has been shooting innocent people the moment they start bothering him about his bounties?

"Some evil people have no compassion and will kill if doing so is convenient"

Gannji appears to have no compassion for family and comrades of the people he bounty-hunts- and his ordering Enor to try killing Roy seems like a matter of Roy inconveniencing him, rather than Roy actively threatening him.

Before you say "Roy was high level therefore in no danger"- remember, Gannji doesn't know that. Most people in the world are 1st level. And unless he has Detect Magic- there's nothing to suggest Roy is higher level.

"Sacrificing other peoples lives to save your own" is considered an Evil act in BoVD. If he thinks "giving others the benefit of the doubt" is an unacceptable risk when he can just preemptively kill them, maximizing his own safety- that fits the Evil mindset, not the Neutral one.

BoVD also has an example of a killing that is "Not an evil act, but not a good act"- killing a creature of consummate, irredeemable evil, for money.

This would be Justified, but not Good.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-27, 05:43 PM

We've seen several cases of preemptive strikes in the strip- all have been extremly contentious- and all have had the forum divided over them despite much better mitigating factors than in this case.

Argumentum ad populum... or not even reaching that level. Argumentum ad a few other people said so.

Roy's preemptive strike on Miko
Vaarsuvius's preemptive strike on Kubota
Haley's preemptive strike on Crystal

These had better mitigating factors. Haley's however, lacked the Immediacy of Ganji's decision.

Vaasuvius's preemptive strike on Mama Dragon's entire family

Absolutely not. No way in any level of the abyss you'd care to name did this have more justification that Ganjii's actions. V killed people he didn't even KNOW existed. He didn't just say that there was a threat to his family, he said EVERYONE in that dragons extended family could might have mayby been a threat... including innocent eggs and possibly non evil half dragons. There was no, nadda, zip, zilch indication that any one of those particular dragons was a threat, much less that they were ALL a threat.

My argument isn't "this is not good therefore it must be evil"- it's "this is not in any way justified (no mitigating factors) therefore its evil.

Which you assert, repeatedly, by deleting the mitigating factors i bring up.

I'm not saying there's no such thing as Neutral acts- I'm saying that the choice here is between Evil and Not Evil. If it's Not Evil- an Exalted character, Paladin of Freedom, etc, can commit it without penalty.

And this is simply false. There are two ways for a paladin to fall. 1 is by committing an evil act. The other is by repeatedly failing to live up to the high standards expected of a lg character and this loosing his alignment. For example, a neutral character can hear "help! help!" see a tough fight.. and keep on walking down the road and remain neutral. A paladin can not unless the fight is absolute suicide. It not only runs the risk of making the character neutral, its far below

You claim that Gannji must have been attacked by friends of the bounty so much, that he has a codeword for Enor to attack such people the moment they reveal themselves to be intent on getting information from him. There is little in the strip to support this.

Ganji "You, you and every other family member or comrade in arms"

i don't know how else he could indicate that this is not exactly the first time he's gone through this.

Gannji appears to have no compassion for family and comrades of the people he bounty-hunts-

But he doesn't kill them himself apparently. He's a transporter of persons, not a transporter of bodies.

and his ordering Enor to try killing Roy seems like a matter of Roy inconveniencing him, rather than Roy actively threatening him.

You could have answered my response to that multiple times by now if you'd wanted to.

Before you say "Roy was high level therefore in no danger"- remember, Gannji doesn't know that. Most people in the world are 1st level. And unless he has Detect Magic- there's nothing to suggest Roy is higher level.

Its an inn in a D&D world. Of course everyone in there is an adventurer and an appropriate encounter level.

His bow says +5 icy burst" right on it. The entire RESTERAUNT is high level. He's making semi threatening (at minimum) innuendos at a heavily armed lizard man sitting with to a big honking half dragon. He's either high level or paging charles darwin.

"Sacrificing other peoples lives to save your own" is considered an Evil act in BoVD. If he thinks "giving others the benefit of the doubt" is an unacceptable risk when he can just preemptively kill them, maximizing his own safety- that fits the Evil mindset, not the Neutral one.

He's not sacrificing some virgin lamb here. He's drawing first against the guy threatening him.

BoVD also has an example of a killing that is "Not an evil act, but not a good act"- killing a creature of consummate, irredeemable evil, for money.

This would be Justified, but not Good.

By your definition of justified, not the books. Your interpretation and word substitution is not the books. The book of exalted deeds is for characters going above and beyond meeting the technicalities of their alignment. Its about being exalted, ABOVE being just merely good and being GOOD.

Bongos

2010-06-27, 11:23 PM

Roy's preemptive strike on Miko
Vaarsuvius's preemptive strike on Kubota
Vaasuvius's preemptive strike on Mama Dragon's entire family
Haley's preemptive strike on Crystal

Vaarsuvius's preemptive strike on Kubota=not a prememtive strike at all, this was murder plain and simple and wrong, very, very wrong.

Vaasuvius's preemptive strike on Mama Dragon's entire family=not a premptive strike, this was familicide and was very wrong and very evil.

Haley's preemptive strike on Crystal=this was revenge.

hamishspence

2010-06-28, 02:36 AM

Which you assert, repeatedly, by deleting the mitigating factors i bring up.

What mitigating factors? "You and every other family member comrade in arms" does not suggest that all those other people Gannji may have encountered before, attacked first.

Nor are Roy's words anywhere near as threatening as Crystal's to Haley.

Even from a medieval "any offensive words are grounds for a duel" perpective- there's nothing in Roy's words that comes across as aggressively threatening or insulting. So "I was provoked" won't work.

"Immediate threat" usually implies that the other person has either drawn a weapon, or is just about to draw one.

If Gannji was to say in court "I attacked Roy because I feared for my life" and the court had a visual record of what happened, I don't think they'd be convinced of his claim.

And this is simply false. There are two ways for a paladin to fall. 1 is by committing an evil act. The other is by repeatedly failing to live up to the high standards expected of a lg character and this loosing his alignment. For example, a neutral character can hear "help! help!" see a tough fight.. and keep on walking down the road and remain neutral. A paladin can not unless the fight is absolute suicide. It not only runs the risk of making the character neutral, its far below

That would qualify as an "evil act of omission" not a neutral act- if doing it once will cause a paladin to fall.

Same with Neutral characters- it would be a very minor evil act, but still an evil one. A neutral character could do it quite a few times and still remain Neutral- but if they keep on doing it, the DM can cite "Evil characters have no compassion for others" as a justification for dropping their alignment all the way to Evil.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-28, 09:06 AM

What mitigating factors?

for the love of...

That's just it though. Its VERY reasonable for Ganjii to conclude that Roy is going to attack him within the next minute.

He had reasonable belief that he was going to be attacked by a large fighter wearing tons of weapons, giving the first shot is better than taking the first shot, so he gave it.

But it wasn't necessarily not a threat either. Coming from Haley it might have seemed like a different kind of offer.

Is Ganji's belief reasonable? This is not only a yes this is a hell yes. He's transported MANY people to probably unpleasant ends and had their friends come looking for them and met with a violent response so many times he's drilled a code word into his companions head for just such an occasion.

[QUOTE]
"You and every other family member comrade in arms" does not suggest that all those other people Gannji may have encountered before, attacked first.

But it does appear as if they did attack eventually.

Nor are Roy's words anywhere near as threatening as Crystal's to Haley.

But they WERE threatening. Is it reasonable, from Ganjii's point of view, that the heavily armed and armored fighters "other way to convince you" is "beating you over the head with as word until i change your mind"

And be honest, Roy would try diplomacy. Roy would probably try bribery. But for all he knows, his three friends are being lined up for execution as they speak and in the end he is going to use violence if he has to.

. Do you want to try to tell me that he ISN"T going to resort to violence in the next few minutes? (do not delete) or that there would be anything wrong with doing so? Roy is far, FAR more good than lawful, and his friends are in trouble. Strength is his strength, and the best use he can get out of it is pounding Ganjii.

Yes, Roy knows they have the wrong twin, but he doesn't know that his abductors know that, and knows that its an unbeleivable story.

Even from a medieval "any offensive words are grounds for a duel" perpective- there's nothing in Roy's words that comes across as aggressively threatening or insulting. So "I was provoked" won't work.

The words ARE threatening. They're not as threatening as "i will kill you" but they are more than enough to create in a reasonable person the impression that violence is imminent. (do not delete)

"Immediate threat" usually implies that the other person has either drawn a weapon, or is just about to draw one.

You can threaten to punch people as well, sans weapon.

If Gannji was to say in court "I attacked Roy because I feared for my life" and the court had a visual record of what happened, I don't think they'd be convinced of his claim.

AGAIN, this is a legal standard. NOT a moral one.

That would qualify as an "evil act of omission" not a neutral act- if doing it once will cause a paladin to fall.

No.

A neutral person is under NO obligation to risk their lives for a stranger.

People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships.

Same with Neutral characters- it would be a very minor evil act, but still an evil one. A neutral character could do it quite a few times and still remain Neutral- but if they keep on doing it, the DM can cite "Evil characters have no compassion for others" as a justification for dropping their alignment all the way to Evil.

Entering a deadly combat IS a sacrifice for others. A neutral person is in no way, shape, or form , required to jump in to save someone else at the risk to their own hide. It says right in the description that they don't have to.

I think the problem is that you set the bar for good so high that you drag up the bar for neutral as well. Neutral can be very, very, NASTY in its own way. Neutral is largely self serving. Its not carried to the extremes of evil, but it is first and foremost a "me first" attitude that the VAST majority of people have. Me first is probably responsible for more problems than active evil, but it is still a solid

hamishspence

2010-06-28, 09:10 AM

"Me first" is more associated with evil alignment than Neutral.

Yes- a Neutral person can use "me first" as a rationale for their actions.

But if said actions involve theft from others, and violence against others, it will eventually lead to Evil alignment.

BoVD- theft is normally considered evil- murder is normally considered evil.

Snake-Aes

2010-06-28, 09:17 AM

Detrinex

2010-06-28, 09:19 AM

I bet Roy and Belkar (+ the Scruffinator) will come to the palace to see Durkon bashing the guards with Thor's Might, or Belkar will break his chains and attack Kilkil.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-28, 10:03 AM

"Me first" is more associated with evil alignment than Neutral.

And yet there it is in the neutral alignment description.

lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others

Yes- a Neutral person can use "me first" as a rationale for their actions.

But if said actions involve theft from others, and violence against others, it will eventually lead to Evil alignment.

Are you admitting that walking away from a tough fight that would put you at risk is a neutral act or not?

Phoenix Xul

2010-06-28, 10:36 AM

Honestly, as a GM, I tend to call theft in general an act of Chaos, not of Evil. Granted, it harms someone else, but it still seems a bit harsh to call stealing 'evil.' (Generally. I once changed a player's alignment immediately to CE when he stole a shipment of vital medicine that resulted in the deaths of half a village.)

Also, I can't find the post to quote it, but someone pointed out that almost every country has illegalized bounty hunting. True, but one of the ones that hasn't just happens to be the United States, where non-lethal bounty hunting is still perfectly allowed.

Bounty Hunting in my games is non-alignment influencing, actually. A lawful good person might bounty hunt to bring criminals to justice, while a chaotic evil might do it purely for the money and pleasure. It's hardly an "evil" profession.

"Me first" is incredibly neutral to me. "Me first, you NEVER" is what I consider evil. Heck, even Haley, CG, has a "me first" attitude.

hamishspence

2010-06-28, 12:40 PM

On "is standing by (or walking away) and doing nothing when you witness evil in progress, evil?" BoVD gives an example

BoVD- A person (through being mislead) is about to poison the only water supply for a whole village, and the only way to stop him in time is to kill him. This is described as "not evil- because the intent isn't evil- and the consequences of doing nothing are far worse" and goes on to state "Standing by and doing nothing is far more evil than preventing the poisoning"

Now one could claim that preventing it is a Good act, doing nothing a Neutral act, and that "A neutral act is far more evil than a good act"

However, I don't think that's the way it's supposed to be read.

I agree with Cheesegear's signature "Standing by while evil happens is not Neutral- it's Evil".

Now this does not mean you're required to rush in every time- you can yell in alarm, try and distract the evildoers then run, or just run to the nearest authority. But doing nothing, in this case, may qualify as a very very tiny evil act- depending on how small the act that the evildoers are doing, is.

Ancalagon

2010-06-28, 12:50 PM

Now one could claim that preventing it is a Good act, doing nothing a Neutral act, and that "A neutral act is far more evil than a good act"

Well, that depends on how much you enjoy the killing.

For example, the above discribed act could be Good, Neutral, and Evil. At the very same time.

Roy, Vaarsuvius, and Belkar walk around and find someone who is right at poisoning the well of a small town. They kill the offender. So far so simple.

It is a good act for Roy. He wants to prevent evil and has tried to talk the poisoner out of it before. He regrets he has to take a life but sees no other way to prevent the poisoning.

It's a neutral act for Vaarsuvius. While the wizards sees the poisoning is an evil thing and while he sees the logical need to prevent it, he feels very indifferent about the killing. He would start the fight on his own if he was alone (it then would be a possibly good act for the neutral wizard!), he currently, in this specific situation, merely assists a groupmember in a fight that groupmember started and moves on, with some annoyance about the delay on his way to the Old Magic Shoppe, to the Old Magic Shoppe.

It's an evil act for Belkar. He does not care at all about the poison-story but is glad he gets to sink his daggers into living flesh that will be dead flesh afterwards. He's lucky he went with Roy for this shopping trip, othervise he would not have found someone they could attack and kill.
While the consequence of Belkar's act is surely a good one, the mindset behind it and the motivation combined with the lack of caring if the evil act had succeeded or not and the lust and enjoyment felt during the killing makes it evil.

hamishspence

2010-06-28, 12:53 PM

And what about the "doing nothing while evil takes place"?

And how about the original topic- what is the minimum standard needed, for preemptive violence in "self-defence" to be nonevil?

I personally think Gannji's actions fall slightly below that minimum standard- obviously you don't need to wait until the other guy has attacked-

but IMO he did need to have reason to believe they are about to attack, not "Will attack in a few minutes, if he keeps stonewalling"

Ancalagon

2010-06-28, 12:56 PM

And what about the "doing nothing while evil takes place"?

Evil or neutral.

Neutral if there really is nothing you can do, but you would if you could (you are no fighter, no one around to warn, ...).

Evil if you could do something (you are a trained fighter, you can call help, you can let him poison the well but warn the mayor, ...) but do nothing.

A sufficient degree of neglect and indifference becomes indistinguishable from evil. In fact, it might not even be a "lesser evil" than the poisoning itself!

hamishspence

2010-06-28, 12:59 PM

That's pretty much what I think-

but I keep getting told "Doing nothing when you could do something is always a neutral act- no matter how easy it would be to do something, and how catastrophic the consequences of doing nothing"

On the original subject- I agree that Neutral people can be focussed primarily on their own interests- but it does not follow from this, that shooting somebody with lightning who might start to menace you in the near future- is a Neutral act.

Ancalagon

2010-06-28, 01:05 PM

Well, that's simply wrong, I think.

You do not always have to fight yourself, but calling the police can be very easy (for example with a wand of Mobile Phone, you don't even have to run to the local police-post).

I think many people mistake "doing something" for "getting into the fight yourself and risk injury and death" and thus refrain from voting for action. But it's a complex topic and philosophically not easy.

But as a rule of thumb: If someone gets beaten up and you walk by and do nothing and the someone knows who you are, he'd probably hate you for it. Indicates the walking by is probably not really neutral but somehow "wrong".
Wrong translates to evil in this case. Imo.

hamishspence

2010-06-28, 01:11 PM

Same (up to a point) may apply to BoVD's categorizing theft with evil in general- it is "wronging" the person stolen from.

And that's one of the reasons I think the attack on Roy was (very mildly) evil- because by attacking Roy, Roy has been wronged- he's done nothing to Gannji to deserve being attacked by him.

It's possible to feel wronged without being wronged- a robber might feel wronged by the cop that's arresting him and hauling him off to jail- however, I don't think this applies in the case of the muggers victim, or Roy as the victim of Gannji.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-28, 01:40 PM

[QUOTE]That's pretty much what I think-

but I keep getting told "Doing nothing when you could do something is always a neutral act- no matter how easy it would be to do something, and how catastrophic the consequences of doing nothing"

Who's telling you that? If its supposed to be me, its a gross strawman.

If all you need to do is toss down a rope, yell, tell someone "hey , stop, thats poison" then you are not making a sacrifice to help others.

If you are, as i actually said, required to get into a fight risking life and limb for someone else, a neutral character can and will walk right on by.
You call that evil. I point to the book to make my point that thats neutral. You ignore that.

How many people see someone broke down on the side of the road and keep driving? The vast, VAST majority of people. There are good reasons for not stopping. They don't want to risk being hit by a car, they don't know if its a trap, they have somewhere to be, the person might be a psyco etc. Are people evil, in the D&D sense for not stopping? No.

On the original subject- I agree that Neutral people can be focussed primarily on their own interests- but it does not follow from this, that shooting somebody with lightning who might start to menace you in the near future- is a Neutral act.

What it demonstrates is that your logic (which you are using to make the above point) is flawed. Specifically its a false dichotomy. You're unwilling to look at a scale of wrong doing and judge the act from there. It has to be binary for you, completely justified or completely unjustified, good or evil, the work of a saint or the work of a depraved monster.

Roy IS threatening. It isn't the same level of threatening as what crystal did to haley, but he is threatening. The situation is likely, but not certain, to End with the big weapon bristling fighter visiting some form of physical violence on Ganjii. I can't (and have not) seen any argument against these facts. Viewed as something more complex than a simple yes or no, good or evil, its quite clear that Good and neutral characters will assign different levels of risks to their own personal level of safety both with regards to how far they will go to help others, AND how far they will let others risk their own personal safety.

hamishspence

2010-06-28, 01:48 PM

Who's telling you that? If its supposed to be me, its a gross strawman.

Not you, actually- Szar-lokal- and a few other posters over on the roleplaying games section, who insist that choosing to "do nothing" can never have moral weight- can never be an "evil act"

I'm not saying that an evil act is an "act of a depraved monster"- I'm saying that evil acts can be very small, very tempting, and that the road to evil alignment begins with small steps.

There is a difference between doing evil- once in a while and on a very small scale- and being evil.

I'm perfectly happy to consider the alignment of acts to fall on a scale from Good to Neutral to Evil- the difference is, I place Gannji's act just over the Evil side of the Neutral/Evil borderline.

I considered Roy's initiation of violence against Miko after Shojo's death nonevil (but quite possibly not Good either) - because the mitigating factors were better. Miko had just murdered, and Miko had just armed herself again.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-28, 02:05 PM

I'm perfectly happy to consider the alignment of acts to fall on a scale from Good to Neutral to Evil- the difference is, I place Gannji's act just over the Evil side of the Neutral/Evil borderline.

Can you give an example of a situation escalating to potential violence where a Neutral person would be able to initiate a violent response but a good person could not?

But as a rule of thumb: If someone gets beaten up and you walk by and do nothing and the someone knows who you are, he'd probably hate you for it. Indicates the walking by is probably not really neutral but somehow "wrong".
Wrong translates to evil in this case. Imo.

I don't think its quite that simple. Lets say a rich person has a lot of money, and the people around him are very poor.. even starving poor. Is he obligated to pay for them? Its very tricky. Technically no, that would be a sacrifice on his part, so unless he profited from their misery, caused it, or contributed to it he's off the hook. (his chances of entering celestia are zilch though)

How about a LG character doing something thats wrong. Case in point? Hinjo's refusal to take forcible action against Kubota. Yes, he felt constrained by law, but his inaction when he knew kubota was guilty of mass murder directly lead to the deaths of boatloads of innocent azurites. Does that seem wrong somehow, even though its lawful?

hamishspence

2010-06-28, 03:01 PM

Can you give an example of a situation escalating to potential violence where a Neutral person would be able to initiate a violent response but a good person could not?

Not sure. "Initiating a violent response" is something anyone- Neutral or Good- can do- the question is whether such an initiation would be an Evil act (thus putting the Good character's Good alignment in danger) or not.

Does alignment even work that way- with there being "Neutral acts that Neutral character can do, but Good characters can't do if they wish to remain Good"?

I don't think it does.

If it's not an evil act, the Good character has no problem committing it.
If it is an evil act, the Good character will likely only commit it if they are desperate.

And the Neutral character will commit an evil act if they think it's necessary.

If the character is a Paladin (standard or of freedom), or a Holy Liberator, or some other class that has a "loses powers if they commit evil acts" rule- then they need to be more careful. If they don't have a prohibition against committing evil acts, then it's entirely up to the DM how many evil acts cause a Good character to change alignment.

Champions of Ruin discusses Evil acts- and points out that even Neutral and Good characters can end up "driven to them" from time to time- but doing these acts a lot- to the point that an evil act is their standard response to a serious problem- is the mark of an Evil character.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-28, 03:59 PM

[QUOTE=hamishspence;8803148]Not sure. "Initiating a violent response" is something anyone- Neutral or Good- can do- the question is whether such an initiation would be an Evil act (thus putting the Good character's Good alignment in danger) or not.

The second is what i'm asking, and i think your answer is incompatible with a D&D world if not our own.

Lets say the party has been fighting undead that are attacking a small town for weeks. peasants are being killed, their bodies are being hauled off and reanimated by a cabal of necromancers.

The party comes to a room where there's someone standing in front of a black granite alter inscribed with glowing red runes glorifying undeath. He's wearing black and red robes with a skull motif, detects as big league evil, is carrying serrated scythe with a halfling child's skull on it, and has the backstreet boys playing in the background. He booms in a deep voice "You fools, you've delivered me the greatest raw materials yet!"

Would you seriously dock the paladins powers if he won initiative, charged ahead on his horse and impaled said black robed figure on a lance, initiating physical violence? How on earth would this not be a good act?

Does alignment even work that way- with there being "Neutral acts that Neutral character can do, but Good characters can't do if they wish to remain Good"?

I don't think it does.

1) If you consistently act like a neutral person you will eventually be a neutral person. One event is probably not going to change your alignment (as it will not for most people.. even a paladin who commits one evil act is probably still a LG fighter without bonus feats) But there will eventually be one act that's the straw that breaks the camels back and you will be neutral.

2) I think I've pretty much demonstrated that walking away from a dangerous fight involving innocent people is something a neutral person can do. Something that severe might be enough to knock someone into neutral in one shot.

3)A paladin can fall for more things than acts of evil

a) paladin can fall for even good acts. For example, if they don't maintain a lawful alignment.

b) He can call for failure to maintain the paladin code. For example arresting and detaining Kubota without a warrant in contradiction of Hinjo's orders.

c) A paladin can take a long, slow slide into LN. Miko was well on her way there even before being subjected to the order of the stick.

b) If it's not an evil act, the Good character has no problem committing it.
If it is an evil act, the Good character will likely only commit it if they are desperate.

And again, what about the areas in between?

If the character is a Paladin (standard or of freedom), or a Holy Liberator, or some other class that has a "loses powers if they commit evil acts" rule- then they need to be more careful. If they don't have a prohibition against committing evil acts, then it's entirely up to the DM how many evil acts cause a Good character to change alignment.

How many times can someone act more like a neutral character than a good one before becoming neutral?

Champions of Ruin discusses Evil acts- and points out that even Neutral and Good characters can end up "driven to them" from time to time- but doing these acts a lot- to the point that an evil act is their standard response to a serious problem- is the mark of an Evil character.

But again, you're having problems with nuances, with dealing with anything thats not entirely good and not entirely evil. to you actions go right from one to the other with no stop in between. Your solution to this seems to be build an argument on 3 layers, and then only respond to the third layer as if the other two layers had been proven true.

hamishspence

2010-06-28, 04:10 PM

And again, what about the areas in between?

There is no area between "Is not an evil act" and "Is an evil act"

The closest to that (but not the same thing) is an act that is evil or not evil depending on motive.

Like Like trying to kill Vader- if he did it out of a desire to see justice done because he's the only guy available- not evil. If he did it partly out of anger and a desire for revenge- evil.

One of the Star Wars novels actually raises this issue- with a main character saying "Fighting Darth Vader wasn't the wrong thing to do. Fighting him out of anger was"

I actually raised the question "Do acts of neutrality, that might change a Good or Evil character to Neutral, exist?" on the main D20 forum:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=157367

Most people seemed to think the concept didn't make much sense- there are Good, Evil, Lawful, Chaotic, acts (and ones that combine them) and there are unaligned acts (which don't have moral weight) but Neutral, alignment-changing acts? The idea has nothing to support it in either the PHB, or splatbooks, like Fiendish Codex 2.

Initiating violence can be Good, unaligned, or Evil. Your paladin example might be "Good initiation of violence"- fitting BoED's "should be against evil- should have good intentions- should not be against non-combatants."

Roy's initiation of violence against Miko might qualify as unaligned- since his intentions might be more to punish her than to protect others from her.

And Gannji's proxy initiation of violence against Roy (with Enor as his proxy)? Borderline evil (I'd say just over the evil side of the border, but I'm aware that people will disagree)

Frankly, the alignment system is flexible enough that different DMs could reasonably make a case either way.

Its not going to be possible to "prove" the act evil or nonevil in the context of OoTS- we can only guess, and hope that the commentary in the next book will answer it- which is unlikely.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-28, 04:39 PM

[QUOTE=hamishspence;8803638]There is no area between "Is not an evil act" and "Is an evil act"

There is PLENTY of room between "is a good act" and "is an evil act" .. and that area is "its a neutral act"

Like Like trying to kill Vader- if he did it out of a desire to see justice done because he's the only guy available- not evil. If he did it psrtly out of anger and a desire for revenge- evil.

what about For justice= Good, for justice and revenge= neutral, and for revenge = evil?

One of the Star Wars novels actually raises this issue- with a main character saying "Fighting Darth Vader wasn't the wrong thing to do. Fighting him out of anger was"

I don't like the morality presented in the star wars universe. It often assumes that anger an emotion are de facto bad things, that control is automatically good.

I actually raised the question "Do acts of neutrality, that might change a Good or Evil character to Neutral, exist?" on the main D20 forum:

Most people seemed to think the concept didn't make much sense- there are Good, Evil, Lawful, Chaotic, acts (and ones that combine them) and there are unaligned acts (which don't have moral weight) but Neutral, alignment-changing acts? The idea has nothing to support it in either the PHB, or splatbooks, like Fiendish Codex 2.

DMG page 134 (my paraphrase)

Garret steals minor things from non friends and doesn't care about helping others or stopping evil, character is changed from Neutral good ( as written on the sheet by his player) to neutral. This is more a case of the character being played the wrong way to start, but i don't see why the same thing wouldn't occur if the character had become more cynical

Initiating violence can be Good, unaligned, or Evil. Your paladin example might be "Good initiation of violence"- fitting BoED's "should be against evil- should have good intentions- should not be against non-combatants.

Good, we're away from all initiation of violence is bad at least.

Roy's initiation of violence against Miko might qualify as unaligned- since his intentions might be more to punish her than to protect others from her.

There's nothing wrong with punishing the guilty. Its right in the LG description, phb p 104.

And Gannji's proxy initiation of violence against Roy (with Enor as his proxy)?

Right, Enor's strictly in neutral terratory as far as i know here. He's trusting Ganjii to make all the decisions for him.

Borderline evil (I'd say just over the evil side of the border, but I'm aware that people will disagree)

Frankly, the alignment system is flexible enough that different DMs could reasonably make a case either way.

Its not a horrible conclussion its just that how you get there has a few.. oddities.

Its not going to be possible to "prove" the act evil or nonevil in the context of OoTS- we can only guess, and hope that the commentary in the next book will answer it- which is unlikely.

what would be the fun in that?

Carduus

2010-06-28, 05:46 PM

How is the last act even a question?

Gannji was accosted by the armed friend of a bounty who ignored warnings to leave him alone. Said bounties were strong enough to make it through a Blade Barrier (9d6+, if memory serves) and keep running, something he obviously cannot. It isn't a huge jump to figure that the obvious adventurer with the sword in front of him is of a similar level (significantly higher than Enor and Gannji), and probably a fighter, more known for the hitty-hitty than the talky-talky. How is having your buddy do 6d4 damage and knock this guy over so you can escape an evil act? They can be relatively confident the breath weapon isn't going to kill Roy, and their next intended action was to flee.

That's the reaction of prey smart enough to plan an escape route beforehand, not that of malicious killers. When you know you're horribly outmatched without a chance for profit or honor in the conflict, creating a distraction and fleeing is the logical thing to do for any alignment.

Nilan8888

2010-06-28, 06:51 PM

The latest comic would seem to suggest Gannji did honestly think Roy was threatening him and going to accost him. Otherwise he's being pretty underhanded with the police in this matter and lying to them... and making an effort to tell Roy in private that he's guilty in the last panel, which would make little sense if that wasn't what Gannji actually believed.

hamishspence

2010-06-29, 02:45 AM

There is PLENTY of room between "is a good act" and "is an evil act" .. and that area is "its a neutral act"

And that's not what I'm disputing- what I said was "there is no intermediate zone between evil and nonevil acts"

Which is just basic logic.

My view is that "Neutral" acts, are unaligned acts- acts with no moral weight. Acts which any Good or Evil character prohibited from committing Evil or Good acts respectively, can commit without being penalized.

So- when examining an act, I first analyse whether it's evil or nonevil- and then, if I find it to be nonevil, I then analyse it to see if it is Neutral or Good.

Since Neutral acts, and Good acts, are the subcategories, of the wider category: "Nonevil acts"

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-29, 09:01 AM

[QUOTE=hamishspence;8808096]And that's not what I'm disputing- what I said was "there is no intermediate zone between evil and nonevil acts"

Which is just basic logic.

Still incomplete. There is "might be evil"

I don't think the line between Selfishly neutral, which can be pretty nasty, and evil can be a big blurry area rather than something drawn with a T square and a 000 pen. For paladins its easy.. you shouldn't be in such murky waters, you failed to live up to the paladin code, you fall. Paladins can't take advantage of the vagueness of the alignment system because with them there isn't supposed to be such a gray area.

Walking away from a fight where innocent people are in trouble is not acceptable for a good aligned adventurer, especially a paladins. That does not however translate the act to be evil. Selfishly neutral acts are far below whats expected of good characters, but its exactly the behavior outlined for neutral characters. I know you think not giving a damn is evil, but when action requires risk or sacrifice failure to help is blatantly neutral, as per the description in the PHB. This means that "unacceptable" is NOT a synonym for evil.

o- when examining an act, I first analyse whether it's evil or nonevil- and then, if I find it to be nonevil, I then analyse it to see if it is Neutral or Good.

Since Neutral acts, and Good acts, are the subcategories, of the wider category: "Nonevil acts"

Thats pretty arbitrary. Why not lump neutral acts and evil acts together in "non good acts" ?

A lot of the disagreement here seems to come from the belief that violence is inherently bad, especially if you throw the first punch. Thats a legal standard because the courts don't like making moral judgments, but its not am moral one. The paladin attacking the Black robed figure above can initiate violence. The question here is how certain do you have to be that an attack is about to take place before taking violent action.

Some on these boards hold good people to an impossible standard. They require absolute 100% proof positive that the attack is happening, but somehow expect the good guy to win initiative and then the fight anyway. I would argue that, taken to the level their philosophy would logically dictate, that you could NEVER perform a violent act because just because someone hit you once does not proof positive mean that they are about to hit you again. This is unrealistic in our world, much less a D&D one.

Since characters have to act in a more sensible manner to stay alive, it seems obvious that they will have to make judgment calls. Staying your hand when doing so might cost you your life might seem passive rather than active, but it is just as much of a sacrifice as wading into deadly combat for someone you don't know. It seems obvious to me that neutral and good characters would have vastly different ideas on what an acceptable risk might be, but you want to categorize anything unacceptable to a good character as evil.

The book of exalted deeds is NOT "how not to have the dm change your alignment" Its how to live a good alignment fully. That means more, much much more, than simply not committing any evil acts. It means doing good acts at EVERY opportunity. Anything else is not acceptable to a GOOD character.

Ganjii believes he was being threatened and was going to be attacked, he said as much in 731. "Another way to convince you" is either a bribe, a sex offer, or a knuckle sandwich. The belief is reasonable in no small part because he's right. I know you like Roy, he's a good man, but if saving his teammates from an execution means beating someone over the head, he's going to beat them over the head.

hamishspence

2010-06-29, 09:18 AM

Thats pretty arbitrary. Why not lump neutral acts and evil acts together in "non good acts" ?

Primarily because there's nothing that makes an act "automatically good"- not even selflessness or self-sacrifice.

Whereas (according to BoED and FC2) several acts are "automatically evil" Including torture, and "murder".

BoED may be about being a good character- but it also outlines a few evil acts- for players who can't commit evil acts to reference.

When you're playing a class or PRC which has only one "rule"- Do not commit evil acts- like the Holy Liberator in Complete Divine (CG) the DM has to decide whether an act is evil or not. Causing a PC to fall for an act that is not evil, is unfair to the player.

Similarly, BoVD isn't just about the standards to hold Good characters to- it's about the point where Neutral behaviour crosses the line into "clearly evil" behaviour.

Initiating violence against someone who has not yet (as far as you know) done anything harmful- out of fear for your own safety, is an example of this sort of tricky borderline.

Examples- a fugitive from justice (who actually committed the crimes he's been sentenced to death for- which are really serious crimes like murder or kidnapping) runs across a police officer. The police officer recognizes him- but the fugitive has initiative. Is it Neutral for the fugitive to strike first, in order to "protect his life" by killing the officer?

Or two people are washed up on a desert island. It's the luck of the draw that one is tired and falls asleep and the other does not. The awake one, knows that the chance of being rescued is remote, and that eventually, to survive, they will end up attacking each other for food. To shortcut the slow escalation to violence- he kills the other guy in his sleep. Is that Neutral?

he's a good man, but if saving his teammates from an execution means beating someone over the head, he's going to beat them over the head.

On Roy- the Deva states he has committed "very few truly Evil acts"- so unless they all took place outside either the strip, Origin, or the flashback to the Oracle, he has actually committed Evil acts.

Which might include "holding the Oracle out of a window"- since the Deva actually mentions that one.

Beating people up for information, is an Evil act (according to Complete Scoundrel, which cites this as precisely the sort of "evil act in the line of duty" that the Grey Guard can get easy atonement for).

So if Roy had that planned, doing so would have been an evil act.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-29, 10:19 AM

[QUOTE=hamishspence;8809134]Primarily because there's nothing that makes an act "automatically good"- not even selflessness or self-sacrifice.

You can deal with that directly by placing actions on a spectrum. The double binary process is kind of arbitrary and looses a lot in translation.

Whereas (according to BoED and FC2) several acts are "automatically evil" Including torture, and "murder".

Unless they have a definition of murder that's something other than unlawful killing, every single adventurer is going to be evil, paladins included. I'm pretty sure that orc villages have outlawed the killing of orcs by humans within the town limits.

BoED may be about being a good character- but it also outlines a few evil acts- for players who can't commit evil acts to reference.

And was any of them initiating violence? If so, every adventurer who's ever won initiative is evil

When you're playing a class or PRC which has only one "rule"- Do not commit evil acts- like the Holy Liberator in Complete Divine (CG) the DM has to decide whether an act is evil or not. Causing a PC to fall for an act that is not evil, is unfair to the player.

But causing him to fall for persistently and habitually acting like a neutral player would is not.

Initiating violence against someone who has not yet (as far as you know) done anything harmful- out of fear for your own safety, is an example of this sort of tricky borderline.

This isn't really that hard. Do you think they are going to hurt you? Is your thinking reasonable? Where your actions in line with the potential threat?

Examples- a fugitive from justice (who actually committed the crimes he's been sentenced to death for- which are really serious crimes like murder or kidnapping) runs across a police officer. The police officer recognizes him- but the fugitive has initiative. Is it Neutral for the fugitive to strike first, in order to "protect his life" by killing the officer?

Of course not, because he's blatantly in the wrong by killing people. Unless of course the people he's killed and the cop worked, legally, for the evil empire, in which case the cop is part of the problem, not the solution, and fair game.

Or two people are washed up on a desert island. It's the luck of the draw that one is tired and falls asleep and the other does not. The awake one, knows that the chance of being rescued is remote, and that eventually, to survive, they will end up attacking each other for food. To shortcut the slow escalation to violence- he kills the other guy in his sleep. Is that Neutral?

It would depend on how he knew that. If the other person said "when you fall asleep i'm going to eat you" then very much so.

Which might include "holding the Oracle out of a window"- since the Deva actually mentions that one.

Oracles probably have a little more divine protection than most people. Also, the kobold was not a threat, Roy was.

Beating people up for information, is an Evil act (according to Complete Scoundrel, which cites this as precisely the sort of "evil act in the line of duty" that the Grey Guard can get easy atonement for).

Thats once you've subdued them and questioned them. While they're up, moving and fighting they're fair game, or again, every single adventurer ever is evil.

So if Roy had that planned, doing so would have been an evil act.

How? Put the book down for a second and think. Is this

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0356.html

Evil? Was Elan punching Kubota in the face evil?

Roy is going to attack. Ganjii is going to resist.

As far as Roy is concerned, Ganjii is a kidnaper who's abducted 3 of his friends, kidnapping is a serious offense and Ganjii is the criminal. As far as Ganjii is concerned, he acted as instructed and allowed by the law, Roy is threatening him, and he has a professional obligation not to reveal the whereabouts of the people he's taken in for bounty (even in this case, likely because Elan's dad has some evil plot to get the other party members on his side that the other adventurers will interfere with)

The problem for you is that they're both right. That's the sort of thing binary thinking has trouble with.

hamishspence

2010-06-29, 10:52 AM

It would depend on how he knew that. If the other person said "when you fall asleep i'm going to eat you" then very much so.

In this case, it would be by logical deduction- the other person is known to be somewhat pragmatic and self-centred, from long association.

Evil? Was Elan punching Kubota in the face evil?

At the time, at least some people said yes. Mostly David Argall, but not just him.

Evil isn't just "big acts" it can be very, very minor ones.

FC2- 1 point corrupt act- "Humiliating an underling"

If you take the view that an evil character can be someone who commits lots of really minor evil acts, rather than major ones (as the Eberron Campaign Setting appears to) you can end up with somebody evil, whom it would still be an evil act to kill.

BoVD suggests murder is "killing with nefarious motives" but doesn't go on to define that.

The simplest way to define murder is probably using the real world definition as a baseline- in the average 21st century western country, given all the facts- would a jury convict?

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-29, 10:59 AM

At the time, at least some people said yes. Mostly David Argall

I win. :smallbiggrin:

The simplest way to define murder is probably using the real world definition as a baseline- in the average 21st century western country, given all the facts- would a jury convict?

Every adventuring party ever is evil then. They would all get convicted by a court for being civilians and committing mass murder.

hamishspence

2010-06-29, 11:01 AM

You know what they say- just because somebody's wrong about a lot of things- does not automatically follow that they are wrong about everything.

The "David Argall thinks so- therefore it must be wrong" fallacy :smallbiggrin:

Every adventuring party ever is evil then. They would all get convicted by a court for being civilians and committing mass murder.

Not necessarily. In some settings, such as Faerun, adventurers have charters- granting them legal right to enter disused areas with monster squatters, in search of treasure.

BoED standards (only use force in defence of yourself or others- or in order to apprehend violent criminals) + giving adventurers the authority of a cop or soldier, are necessary to avoid adventurers being murderers by modern standards.

Quite a lot of people have pointed this out- that by modern standards what adventurers often do, is basically break into people's homes, murder them, and rob them.

I think BoED and BoVD are designed partly to counter this point- to create standards for adventurers to adhere to, that avoid them being this kind of thing.

That said- BoED does have its flaws.

This essay:

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Tome_of_Fiends_%283.5e_Sourcebook%29/Morality_and_Fiends

discusses the various ways of handling alignment in some depth.

Among the bits that caught my attention:

Equally important to the place of ultimate Evil in your game is the activities of Good in your game. Like Evil, the designers have tried to run the spectrum of possible interpretations of righteousness… and the results are that the overlap of actions depicted as Good with those described as Evil is almost total. Ultimately, your campaign is going to have to come to a consensus over what you are going to accept as Good. Most importantly, the inverse of Evil is not Good. It really takes a lot less harm to be Evil than it takes aid to be Good. If you fix twenty people's roofs, you're Jimmy the Helpful Thatcher. But if you eat your neighbor's daughter, you're Jimmy the Cannibal – and no additional carpentry assistance will change that.

I also liked "The Banality of Evil"- which is very consistant with both Eberron and Planescape.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-29, 04:06 PM

The "David Argall thinks so- therefore it must be wrong" fallacy :smallbiggrin:

Technically, what you did is an appeal to authority error type I, person is not an authority. What i did was the broken clock fallacy.

The problem is such reasoning, which you've been more than flirting with here, is not applicable to adventure scenarios.

That you have to be absolutely sure. The level of philosophical certainty simply does not exist, ever. In the above example, the black robbed figure could be a dominated towns person with misdirection cast on them. However, if your party waits the 5 rounds to eliminate the possibilities they can think of before fighting, they're still left with the possibility of possibilities they hadn't considered something... assuming there's any of them left alive after all that navel gazing.

To our question here, how likely is it that Roy was a threat to Ganjii's well being? I would have to say very. How immediate was the problem? I would put it at roughly 18 seconds, which should qualify as immediate.

Taken to its logical extreme, thanks to poppers problem of induction, you technically can't assert that just because someone hit you once that they're going to hit you again. At any hit, there's a small chance that they've changed their mind, thrown off the dominate you don't know about, or have seen the error of their ways.

This would leave you standing there, taking blow after blow, trying to convince the bad guy of the error of his ways. In an after-school special this works. With a bully you get a bloody nose. With a D&D villain you get dead and your reanimated corpse will either be serving tea or attacking the townspeople as the necromancer sees fit.

The second problem is confusing good and law. In D&D they are specifically, canonically, different and objectively different. For some reason, a lawful good king ordering an execution has a different moral bearing than a chaotic good person doing the same thing themselves. The aforementioned black robed cultist could just as easily be executed on the spot by a chaotic good ranger who's seen his crimes first hand as a Judge who's been told about them without ANY change on the good/evil access.

Third is that assuming that the more progressive social mores of 21st century society are the right ones to apply in a D&D world. The above examples are a lot harsher than what most people like to hear, but prison really isn't an option if people can dimension door out. Eventually you run into the joker problem where hundreds, if not thousands, of lives would be saved if you killed him. Now i have read kingdom come, and i think the world that resulted was just as much, if not more, the fault of the old guard heroes giving up and not compromising with the public who had the temerity to say "We're tired of that lunatic breaking out of arkam every 3 weeks and killing our relatives"

Not necessarily. In some settings, such as Faerun, adventurers have charters- granting them legal right to enter disused areas with monster squatters, in search of treasure.

So if said Goblinoid villiages issue a permit to hunt peasants its alright? What this comes down to is a quit claim deed wherein the legal authority tries to claim dominion over areas it doesn't control. Its like me selling your house.

BoED standards (only use force in defence of yourself or others- or in order to apprehend violent criminals) + giving adventurers the authority of a cop or soldier, are necessary to avoid adventurers being murderers by modern standards.

Cops have to try non lethal methods first. Adventurers do not. A fireball into a group of armed people is considered an acceptable opening salvo for adventurers. Cops that started with a tank barrage would be fired.

I think BoED and BoVD are designed partly to counter this point- to create standards for adventurers to adhere to, that avoid them being this kind of thing.

Standards for GOOD adventurers to adhere to. Which should be signifigantly higher than the ones set for neutral adventurers. By definition they should have different ideas of what constitutes an equitable solution to the inevitable trade off between someone elses well being and their own.

hamishspence

2010-06-30, 02:39 AM

So if said Goblinoid villiages issue a permit to hunt peasants its alright? What this comes down to is a quit claim deed wherein the legal authority tries to claim dominion over areas it doesn't control. Its like me selling your house.

This is primarily for cases when the dungeon is in controlled territory and the monsters are invaders.

Monsters invade civilized lands and set up dungeon bases- townsfolk authorize adventurers to go out and retake their lands.

On Gannji's alignment- your argument appears to be that because of past experience with "the family and comrades of bounties" who've attacked him, Gannji is justified in assuming that all family and comrades of bounties will attack him, and therefore attacking first.

However- treating people of a category as all the same, is the mark of a LE alignment in the PHB- judging people not by their actions, but who they are.

Standards for GOOD adventurers to adhere to. Which should be signifigantly higher than the ones set for neutral adventurers.

BoVD isn't just a "standard for good people to adhere to" it's a list of acts that count as evil.

A neutral character who does these acts (and there will be many Neutral characters who do them) has to do them sparingly, and possibly along with Good acts, if they wish to avoid changing alignment.

Heroes of Horror- a "flexible neutral" character is one who does both Good and Evil acts- only the evil acts are generally "for a good cause"

hamishspence

2010-06-30, 06:08 AM

Even if you take "The Old West" as a better basis for justified violence than modern times, there's still the issue that responding to threats (even threats from men with guns on their hips) with lethal force, is going to result in the local sheriff coming after you.

Take Back to the Future 3- Buford Tannen puts away his gun and threatens the Doc "One of these days you're gonna get a bullet in your back."

If the Doc had immediately opened fire in response to that threat, he'd have been the one sentenced to hang.

In a world where nearly everyone goes around armed, you have to be more careful about preemptive violence, not less.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-30, 08:43 AM

This is primarily for cases when the dungeon is in controlled territory and the monsters are invaders.

[QUOTE]On Gannji's alignment- your argument appears to be that because of past experience with "the family and comrades of bounties" who've attacked him, Gannji is justified in assuming that all family and comrades of bounties will attack him, and therefore attacking first.

That is not my argument

That does not appear to be my argument.

I have cleared up this misconception multiple times.

Roy is THREATENING Ganjii. That COMBINED with past experience is the justification for Ganjii's actions. Get out of binary, its not one thing or another, its a combination of factors.

Lets try to apply your logic to a trial.

Does the accused's blood being found at the scene mean he's guilty? No, it could have gotten there any number of ways.

Does the accused owning a weapon of the same type as the murder weapon mean he's guilty? No, lots of people own that type of weapon. (1d8, 18-20 crit range, +3 weapon)

Does the accused showing up at the hospital with a bullet wound matching that of the victim mean he's guilty? No, of course not, since lots of people have been shot with that weapon before.

Does the accused standing to inherit half of a billion dollar business mean that he's guilty? Of course not, lots of rich people have been killed by people other than their heirs.

Does the fact that the accused was seen entering the building shortly before the murder indicate that he did it? No, lots of people walk into buildings.

By your binary logic, since NONE of these provide sufficient evidence for a conviction ALL of them do not provide sufficient evidence for a conviction. Its specifically a fallacy of composition. (a feather is light, therefore 100,000 feathers is light)

However- treating people of a category as all the same, is the mark of a LE alignment in the PHB- judging people not by their actions, but who they are.

...seriously?

This is strawgrasping, pure and simple. Ganjii is NOT Judging roy based on his social class, species, or race. That's what the sentence means. Unless of course you want to call the paladin Lawful Evil based on his judgement of people who give BBGED rants, wear red and black, stand in front of black and red altars, and use scythes with the skulls of halfling children.

Roy IS being judged by his actions, specifically threatening Ganjii. He spelled this out to the guard, and you're now left with the burden of proof to demonstrate that he's lying. People ALWAYS make judgements based on their past experiences. Doing so is not prejudice. People have a bad pizza, they go elsewhere. they have a good pizza, they come back.

BoVD isn't just a "standard for good people to adhere to" it's a list of acts that count as evil.

None of which was initiating violence. What you quoted was for a random act of violence, which this is not.

A neutral character who does these acts (and there will be many Neutral characters who do them) has to do them sparingly, and possibly along with Good acts, if they wish to avoid changing alignment.

A neutral character is not obligated to actively fight for other people. If they are a 2nd level fighter, and an orc is attacking a peasant on the road, they can keep right on walking. A character being threatened with violence and not reacting first is risking his safety for the safety of someone else... something they're NOT obligated to do. Even a good character can strike first if the threats are specific and immediate enough.

Take Back to the Future 3- Buford Tannen puts away his gun and threatens the Doc "One of these days you're gonna get a bullet in your back."

If the Doc had immediately opened fire in response to that threat, he'd have been the one sentenced to hang.

Thats a legal standard, not a moral one. Some people, Tannen included, would be improved by cranial high velocity lead injection therapy and i wouldn't have had a problem with doc blowing his head off from 300 yards.

hamishspence

2010-06-30, 08:48 AM

Roy is THREATENING Ganjii. That COMBINED with past experience is the justification for Ganjii's actions. Get out of binary, its not one thing or another, its a combination of factors.

I don't think it qualifies as an outright threat. It could have been the prelude to an explanation, or a bribe offer, or something similar.

Gannji's reaction is more than a little paranoid.

An Evil character might be expected to treat anything even mildly threatening-sounding as an excuse for immediate attack. A Neutral character might require more than that.

I don't think we're ever going to convince each other.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-30, 09:47 AM

I don't think it qualifies as an outright threat. It could have been the prelude to an explanation, or a bribe offer, or something similar.

Gannji's reaction is more than a little paranoid.

You're not paranoid when they ARE out to get you. You're justifiably concerned.

It doesn't matter if you, the person not being threatened, think it MIGHT have been something else. Even you have to admit it MIGHT have been a threat, and that seeing it as a threat was reasonable.

You're justifiably concerned. Ganjii doesn't take bribes, and then roy is going to go with his strength...strength. I know Roy is good and i'm comming to this conclussion anyway. Ganjii doesn't know Roy from adam. He probably knows he's a protagonist, but doesn't know if he's a soft hearted sap or one of those cool dark and edgy types that's willing to do a little batman style interrogation.

An Evil character might be expected to treat anything even mildly threatening-sounding as an excuse for immediate attack. A Neutral character might require more than that.

and a good character should require more still. Your binary approach assumes that since Ganjii has less than proof positive he has nothing.

I don't think we're ever going to convince each other.

Ignoring points that address the underlying assumptions of a conclusion doesn't lead to greater understanding.

Ancalagon

2010-06-30, 09:56 AM

AxeD

2010-06-30, 10:50 AM

So, you come to ask me something about something I did yesteday and I had a bad day today with bad people doing bad things. So I'm a bit itchy.

You'd find it ok if I punched you in face then? How about me stabbing you right away because I had a REALLY bad day with really evil people coming after me?

Ok or not?

Well, if I had just forcefully captured 3 people who belong to a mid-to-high level adventuring group, was concious that the remainder of group was still in town and you (a large fighter in heavy armour with a freakin' greatsword) came up to me and told me that you were going to have to "convince me" into coughing up information about the people I just captured (or about people whom I may have previously forcefully captured) I find it justifiable to hit you with a bolt of lightning.

Keep in mind that Roy is a big, scary fighter. A class that primarily resorts to violence in order to solve their problems. It's not easy to talk your way out of a fight/convince someone when all of your bluff, diplomacy and intimidate skills are cross-class skills.

Ancalagon

2010-06-30, 10:52 AM

That's not what I asked: I asked "ok or not ok?"

Am I wrong if I assume you make a lot of words to somehow wiggle around the answer that it is "not ok"?

hamishspence

2010-06-30, 11:01 AM

His argument seems to be that there is a big gap between "OK" and "evil"

And that "Not ok" can cover a wide range of actions, ranging from Neutral to Evil.

Ancalagon

2010-06-30, 11:06 AM

Yes, I am aware of all that. But no matter what, Gannji's and Enor's reaction towards Roy was "not ok". Whatever that means in regard to neutral or evil. Mitigating circumstances do not make it ok in this situation.

I find it strange some people seem to think it's "ok" to punch someone in the face who comes "Hi, can you tell me about...?"
Roy was not aggressive, not threatening, not nothing. IF anything, you could have assume he MIGHT get threatening or he MIGHT offer money next. No matter what, there wasn't anything that moved the attack from the "not ok" section to the "ok" section.

I want to know of the people who think it was ok are also ok with me punching them in the face as well, just because I have "circumstances around that conversation" that make me a bit more edgy at the moment. I find that unlikely - and in the same way I find it strange the attack is somehow labeled as "appropiate & acceptable".

hamishspence

2010-06-30, 11:44 AM

I think the argument was that it moved from "not ok" to "ok" the moment Roy spoke the words "It's urgent- maybe I can find a way to convince you"

Since apparently "maybe I can find a way to convince you" is so threatening a phrase (when spoken by a guy in armour- whose first request to the bounty hunters was about the whereabouts of his friends) as to make attacking him in response "not evil"

Personally I think it's much more like the prelude to an attempt at diplomacy, than violence.

Also= I don't know where the idea that Gannji "owes it to his employers" not to divulge information about their bounties- comes from.

Tarquin didn't say "By the way, don't tell anyone where these people are now" and there's nothing in the basic concept of bounty hunter that says "Bounty hunters are honor-bound never to reveal the location of people they have successfully hunted toi anyone else"

the_tick_rules

2010-06-30, 11:52 AM

They seem like a neutral evil pair to me.

Ancalagon

2010-06-30, 11:53 AM

"Verbal stuff that was no threat" does not move "punching in the face" into "ok". Simply does not.
"Say or..." or "Say or I punch" does allow for violence.

"He, can we talk? I want this info, maybe I can convince you"... where that is a reason/justification for violence is a place where I surely do not want to live.

I think the "owes to employers" is a personal, professional principle.

hamishspence

2010-06-30, 12:05 PM

I think the "owes to employers" is a personal, professional principle.

I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't even that- since he only calls it a "personal policy" and never mentions his employers.

Maybe the personal policy is a case of "I refuse to answer any questions about anyone's whereabouts on the grounds that it might implicate me in kidnapping charges"

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-30, 01:49 PM

I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't even that- since he only calls it a "personal policy" and never mentions his employers.

Maybe the personal policy is a case of "I refuse to answer any questions about anyone's whereabouts on the grounds that it might implicate me in kidnapping charges"

Its probably a good survival policy. If the people he hires know he doesn't blab, they'll feel less incentive to turn him into a suitcase in order to keep the whereabouts of his packages secret. If you capture a high level character with friends, armies, magic defenses, and walls are useless for keeping them out. Your only hope is that they're too dumb to figure out where it is. The person who brought them to you not telling you WHO he brought them to is a big part of that.

He's clearly not worried about being charged with kidnapping. He has a permit.

hamishspence

2010-06-30, 01:54 PM

That permit might only apply in territories controlled by the Empire of Blood.

We don't know much about how bounty-hunting in OoTS works- are permits recognized everywhere, or only in the kingdom that issues them?

And do hunters only hunt people for whom notices of outlawry have been posted, on the government's behalf, or will they kidnap people on behalf of criminal organizations- a bit like Boba Fett in Star Wars?

Maxios

2010-06-30, 04:56 PM

I think the bounty hunting duo's alignment is Neutral. Not True Neutral though, we've seen True Neutral guys before, such as Julia, and thus the Bounty Hunters can't be True Neutral. Chaotic Good? No. Lawful Good, no. Chaotic Neutral. Maybe. Lawful Neutral. Maybe.
It's not Evil it seems, so most like it has to be Chaotic Neutral or Lawful Neutral, but most likely Chaotic Neutral.

derfenrirwolv

2010-06-30, 05:02 PM

Ganjii's apparently love of the filing cabinet, level of organization, and compliance with local laws seem to indicate a lawful alignment to me. LE or LN certainly, i'm leaning towards LN at this point

Enor doesn't seem to care one way or the other, NE or TN based on a limited amount of interaction.

hamishspence

2010-06-30, 05:02 PM

Evil certainly hasn't been ruled out- it's just that some of their "possibly evil acts" are under dispute.

There's nothing stopping them being "honorable" Lawful Evil, or some other Evil alignment.

Kish

2010-06-30, 05:47 PM

I think the bounty hunting duo's alignment is Neutral. Not True Neutral though, we've seen True Neutral guys before, such as Julia, and thus the Bounty Hunters can't be True Neutral.
They seem pretty evil to me...but I don't get your rationale for ruling out True Neutral here. Unless you're implying every True Neutral character is a personality-clone of Julia Greenhilt, which I hope you aren't.

imp_fireball

2010-06-30, 07:42 PM

whereas RedCloak has something of Communist Revolutionary imagery to him

Redcloak is so obsessed with order that I'd pit him as LE. Xykon, more NE, obviously.

Ganjii's apparently love of the filing cabinet, level of organization, and compliance with local laws seem to indicate a lawful alignment to me. LE or LN certainly, i'm leaning towards LN at this point

But he isn't particularly devoted to the idea of service or government of any sort. If he were, I'd put him as lawful. Otherwise, he's most likely TN.

He only likes organization because that's the best way to get bounties without arguments. It's a personality thing. He doesn't like arguing with people. Maybe his mother nagged him too much.

And do hunters only hunt people for whom notices of outlawry have been posted, on the government's behalf, or will they kidnap people on behalf of criminal organizations- a bit like Boba Fett in Star Wars?

The smart ones rely on both when they can be depended on (say, a big criminal organization that controls things as opposed to government; who will you rely on? Maybe a government doesn't want to associate with another country containing lots of bounty targets, but the criminal organization does?). It isn't really a matter of alignment for that. Boba Fett certainly isn't chaotic I don't believe (sure, when he was a child, he might have been, but that's up for debate).

So, you come to ask me something about something I did yesteday and I had a bad day today with bad people doing bad things. So I'm a bit itchy.

You'd find it ok if I punched you in face then? How about me stabbing you right away because I had a REALLY bad day with really evil people coming after me?

Ok or not?

Never okay.

But it wasn't a matter of mood or temper. It was a matter of business.

Someone you have to avoid because you are working against them for your employer, who declares that he is going to press information out of you (whether verbally or physically) is a bad thing when it could hurt your future career. Doesn't matter whether the guy is innately mean or nice.
------

As for the alignment axis, a Lawful Evil person influences others to be evil. A Chaotic Evil person does things to suit his own stubborn desires - belkar's desire is to commit murder, thus he does what he can to fulfill this desire. Dr. Doom's desire is to rule, hence he does what he can to fulfill this desire.

Hitler is lawful evil because he fooled germany into following his, effectively evil, regime.

Neutral evils have the tendency to do both whenever 'necessary for evil' or even possible.

All three alignments can think ahead. Chaotic Evil is not stupid nor is Lawful Evil particularly smart. Lawful Evils tend to think of organization. They might prefer to have an organization of evil. Chaotic Evil's are usually stubborn (lending to high individualism and chaotic alignment) or obsessed one way or another, which might lead to evil or be the result of evil, or evil in itself.

If a chaotic evil person leads an organization, they might do what they can to exploit everyone who serves them or murder them at the first slight commited against them. Their organization could be equally as effective and efficient as a lawful evil's organization.

All three evil alignments can be equally as insane and evil. Chaotic Evil is usually less honorable however unless its some twisted personal code of conduct that doesn't really consider the codes of others or maybe an obsession (ie. "I will collect the ears of elves that I have slain, to indicate how worthy I am of obtaining a more beautiful wife in the near future." No one else is regulating the CE guy's worthiness, it's him alone.).

Batman. Of course.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_rL1Jjp1dMY8/Sw3vRWrzweI/AAAAAAAAAxs/fMIxw0lZLo8/s1600/batman-alignment.jpg

The neutral evil description fits chaotic evil, I'd say.

Batman was never neutral evil I don't think.

As Hugh Jackman's Wolverine pointed out in the first X-Men, Evil characters don't sacrifice themselves for others -so I'd say that Wolverine himself counts as Chaotic Neutral.

Wolverine also cares deeply about other X-men like Charles Xavier and Rogue (at least in the movies for the latter). Sure, he tends to fight savage and has grudges, but who doesn't? :P

I'm aware that it's possible for evil aligned to care about long time friends, lovers and family and such.

derfenrirwolv

2010-07-01, 07:54 AM

But he isn't particularly devoted to the idea of service or government of any sort. If he were, I'd put him as lawful. Otherwise, he's most likely TN.

That's not all that lawful means. Lawful is strict adherence to some sort of code. It can be, and usually is, government, but it could just as easily be professional ethics or the rules of an organized mob.

He only likes organization because that's the best way to get bounties without arguments. It's a personality thing. He doesn't like arguing with people. Maybe his mother nagged him too much.

He's refusing to tell Roy where his friends are even though it would make his life much easier. He's turning down Enor's idea of "Accidentally" turning in the wrong people, and derides sucking at the governments teat. It appears to be more than a personality trait: he's willing to make sacrifices for it.

hamishspence

2010-07-01, 07:55 AM

Someone you have to avoid because you are working against them for your employer, who declares that he is going to press information out of you (whether verbally or physically) is a bad thing when it could hurt your future career. Doesn't matter whether the guy is innately mean or nice.

That's the thing though- Gannji isn't "working against Roy for his employer"- because the bounty turned out to not be valid, and the victims freed.

You'd think that would be the first thing on his mind when people come up asking about the whereabouts of a bounty:

"Is it those people who were not the bounty after all? If it is, I can reveal their whereabouts with a clean conscience"

And Roy's comment wasn't exactly "declares he is going to press information out of you" - either.

For a parallel- imagine if Miko had stumbled upon someone exactly like Gannji in her search for the Order:

Miko: "Can you tell me the whereabouts of these people"
Gannji: "Sorry, I have a strict policy on not telling anyone's whereabouts"
Miko: "It's really urgent- maybe I can convince you?"
Gannji (opens fire)

Suddenly looks rather more dubious.

derfenrirwolv

2010-07-01, 10:15 AM

Suddenly looks rather more dubious.

Not really, since Miko's response to people not submitting to her authority is usually "slash slash slash"

hamishspence

2010-07-01, 10:18 AM

She shows considerable restraint here:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0189.html

not attacking until attacked with magic herself.

And Miko was famous for being "only just Lawful good".

Kumo

2010-07-01, 10:20 AM

Revealing the whereabouts of someone wanted that you turned in (thus leading to retributive acts later) is bad rep for a bounty hunter even when the bounty was false.

hamishspence

2010-07-01, 10:36 AM

Kumo

2010-07-01, 10:43 AM

What gives that idea? If anything, a bounty hunter (having inadvertently wronged people by turning them in when they aren't guilty) should (once they're shown to be not guilty, and freed) feel a little moral obligation to tell the ex-bounty's friends (if they turn up) that the ex-bounty is fine, safe, not imprisoned, etc.

At least, I think a LN bounty hunter would, out of a sense of justice- "I've wronged this person- now I will do them a small favour to balance the scales- by pointing their worried friends in their direction"

You're seriously telling me that bounty hunters must have morals :smallannoyed: Do you not see the problem there?

Gannji and Enor have no way of knowing who Roy is or why he's looking for Elan. For all he knows he could be an assassin and that is DEFINITELY bad rep.

Moreover, it doesn't matter if the person asking AND the person brought in is innocent - giving out directions to someone related to a bounty (or indeed, anyone at all) is bad reputation for a bounty hunter because a lot of their jobs require confidentiality.

If Gannji is lawful, it's to his personal code and the law, not to what is 'right' or 'good' in the eyes of, say, you.

hamishspence

2010-07-01, 10:49 AM

They don't need to- but if nonevil, it makes more sense for a bounty hunter to have a certain sense of justice.

Why would the jobs of a bounty hunter working for the government, require confidentiality? Does the government expect the bounty hunter to keep silent about any bounty brought in, when they put up big Wanted posters?

And they have no way of knowing why Roy wants Elan- thats why the response to such a question should be "why do you want to know" not "sorry, I never tell anyone's whereabouts"

Kumo

2010-07-01, 10:53 AM

They don't need to- but if nonevil, it makes more sense for a bounty hunter to have a certain sense of justice.'Justice' is not the same thing as 'good'. Moreover, nonevil does not automatically mean good. And as i said before it doesn't matter as gannji has no way of knowing who roy is or why he wants to find Elan.

Why would the jobs of a bounty hunter working for the government, require confidentiality? Does the government expect the bounty hunter to keep silent about any bounty brought in, when they put up big Wanted posters?

one: i said SOME jobs. Not ALL jobs.

two: it is perfectly plausible that what's put on a wanted poster is not the reason they are actually wanted and just as plausible that the bounty hunter may hear something about someone else in, say, the palace of blood?

hamishspence

2010-07-01, 10:55 AM

And as i said before it doesn't matter as gannji has no way of knowing who roy is or why he wants to find Elan.

Hence- he could ask.

Maybe it's just me- but I see confidentiality as something that generally wouldn't be asked for (except by a government who refuses to admit to the existence of certain prisoners).

A big criminal like Jabba, who put out a bounty on Han- will want people to know he's so formidable, he's got the famous outlaw Han Solo up on his wall. And he's not going to expect Boba to refuse to admit to catching Han- he's going to expect him (or any other bounty hunter) to boast of catching him- to use "I captured Han Solo and delivered him to Jabba" for bragging rights.

A government, whose captured a famous outlaw, will want everyone to know about it- so they can boast of their wonderful law enforcement, have people pay to see the condemned in their cell, before their eventual execution.

This took place a lot with highwaymen.

This is why I think confidentiality agreements for bounties might be the exception, rather than the rule.

Kumo

2010-07-01, 11:49 AM

{Scrubbed}

derfenrirwolv

2010-07-01, 12:42 PM

A government, whose captured a famous outlaw, will want everyone to know about it- so they can boast of their wonderful law enforcement, have people pay to see the condemned in their cell, before their eventual execution.

But they probably don't want it known that the awsomeness of capturing the scarlet Pumpernickel didn't belong to the government.. it belongs to some bounty hunter. That makes it look as though the government is so incompetent that work had to be subcontracted out to get anything done.

Kumo

2010-07-01, 12:50 PM

Hence- he could ask.

Maybe it's just me- but I see confidentiality as something that generally wouldn't be asked for (except by a government who refuses to admit to the existence of certain prisoners).

A big criminal like Jabba, who put out a bounty on Han- will want people to know he's so formidable, he's got the famous outlaw Han Solo up on his wall. And he's not going to expect Boba to refuse to admit to catching Han- he's going to expect him (or any other bounty hunter) to boast of catching him- to use "I captured Han Solo and delivered him to Jabba" for bragging rights.

A government, whose captured a famous outlaw, will want everyone to know about it- so they can boast of their wonderful law enforcement, have people pay to see the condemned in their cell, before their eventual execution.

This took place a lot with highwaymen.

This is why I think confidentiality agreements for bounties might be the exception, rather than the rule.

... ok, let me try this again, without the flame... i checked the forum rules and removed what was violating it, and i didn't see anything about being unable to repost... if there is let me know and i'll delete this...

Gannji has NO WAY of knowing himself, and Roy can just lie.

I tried to make a point that 'Confidentiality' referred to the crime, not the person in question, or the location of a different person that the bounty hunter might hear about. If you're going to bring in wanted criminals straight into a country you're expected to keep your mouth shut about it when you leave.

Take Gannji and Enor's visit: they know how to gain entrance to the empire of blood's capital city, they know the palace is not yet complete (and therefore not as strong as it will be when it is), they know about the slave labor dispute, they know who the son of the highest ranking general in their army is... most of which can be used by enemies in planning, say, assassinations, invasions, etc etc...

In a bounty hunter's case it could ruin a hunt because you revealed the location of someone you didn't realize knew something until later who was then forced to talk or even the location of your current mark.

Your analogy with Jabba the hutt is hard to follow (for me, anyway) because at that point Han had already been captured. A better example would be someone coming up to Boba Fett and asking where they can find Lando. If Boba gave this out (assuming he knew in the first place) the other person could go find Han and do anything from capture him himself to warn him of Vader's trap.

@Bolded part: That happens more often than you'd think. In that case they would place something similar but less damaging to the government on the poster ( an attempted assassination on the president, for example, might be listed as 'conspiracy to commit murder' or 'treason' - both of which are true but neither of which shows the president as the target )

In any case this is all a bit off topic: this is about their alignments, not bounty hunter ethics.

imp_fireball

2010-07-01, 05:21 PM

That's not all that lawful means. Lawful is strict adherence to some sort of code. It can be, and usually is, government, but it could just as easily be professional ethics or the rules of an organized mob.

Your definition is even more strict since it says that anyone with a code is automatically lawful.

Anyone of any alignment can have a code and anyone can call it 'honor', imo.

What if the code involves shooting someone in the back of the head as a signature means of assassination or invoking a civil dispute once a week? Would that be lawful?

Lawful alignment has to do more with a belief in order.

Kumo

2010-07-01, 05:23 PM

What if the code involves shooting someone in the back of the head as a signature means of assassination or invoking a civil dispute once a week? Would that be lawful?

Yes. Lawful is defined in the dnd book as a strict adherence to code and/or tradition.

imp_fireball

2010-07-01, 05:24 PM

Yes. Lawful is defined in the dnd book as a strict adherence to code and/or tradition.

D&D's definition fails.

On another note, they must have gotten it tangled with paladin - on that logic, only paladins can be lawful good.

Also, the conservative party is inherently lawful (they adhere to tradition), and libertarians are chaotic or neutral, thus politics automatically falls into the discussion: something that shouldn't happen.

Kumo

2010-07-01, 05:28 PM

D&D's definition fails.

It's a dnd parody.

On another note, they must have gotten it tangled with paladin - on that logic, only paladins can be lawful good.

Wha- how on earth-

....

I'm sorry, that makes NO SENSE. On any level. Either the conclusion drawn from that logic (which was your point) or the apparent logic path you seem to have drawn.

Also, the conservative party is inherently lawful (they adhere to tradition), and libertarians are chaotic or neutral, thus politics automatically falls into the discussion: something that shouldn't happen.

That rule refers to real world politics.

imp_fireball

2010-07-01, 05:30 PM

I'm sorry, that makes NO SENSE. On any level. Either the conclusion drawn from that logic (which was your point) or the apparent logic path you seem to have drawn.

Paladins have a code. Lawful indicates a code.

Having a code limits roleplaying, ergo nobody wants to be lawful, ergo only paladins are lawful good.

makes NO SENSE

Exactly.

That rule refers to real world politics.

Yah but alignments shouldn't point to any leaning party, or else in a modern game, all ideal hippies are chaotic good, all welfare loiterers are chaotic neutral and all radical anarchists are chaotic evil.

Kumo

2010-07-01, 05:36 PM

Paladins have a code. Lawful indicates a code.

Having a code limits roleplaying, ergo nobody wants to be lawful, ergo only paladins are lawful good.By that logic there'd be no evil characters because nobody wants to be evil :smallannoyed:

People roleplay to assume a role. If that role is a psychotic murderer does that mean they want to kill people? No. It could but it doesn't automatically mean 'hey let's give a random stranger an involuntary labotomy'. Some think a lawful code is either a good character trait or an interesting part of the story.

Exactly.

There was more to that sentence, you know. More that implies something different than that word by itself.

Yah but alignments shouldn't point to any leaning party, or else in a modern game, all ideal hippies are chaotic good, all welfare loiterers are chaotic neutral and all radical anarchists are chaotic evil.

Nobody link alignments real-world politics until you mentioned the conservatist party. Please stop.

derfenrirwolv

2010-07-01, 05:40 PM

Your definition is even more strict since it says that anyone with a code is automatically lawful.

1) Its not mine, its D&D's and

2) No, it doesn't say that. It doesn't imply that. It doesn't hint at that. It doesn't come remotely anywhere near the state where the ballpark that my statement was made in.

Anyone of any alignment can have a code and anyone can call it 'honor', imo.

With lawful types its comprehensive and black and white. With chaotic types its very general guidelines.

What if the code involves shooting someone in the back of the head as a signature means of assassination or invoking a civil dispute once a week? Would that be lawful?

Re to the back of the head Yes... as long as there's some reason you're doing it that way. If thats your guilds thing and its a guild rule that EVERY hit has to be done that way then yes. I can't see a code that would cause someone to have to invoke a civil dispute once a week.

Lawful alignment has to do more with a belief in order.

And a code is a form of order. Its not about whether you believe the order is there or not, its about whether you believe the order is a good thing. A chemist believes that the rules of chemistry exist, it doesn't mean he beleives they're a good thing.

imp_fireball

2010-07-01, 05:58 PM

I can't see a code that would cause someone to have to invoke a civil dispute once a week.

Actually, the unions in Greece wanted that done (workers should strike once a week, or something) prior to Greece's recent civil collapse.

If it can happen in real life, it can happen in fantasy. :smalltongue:

And a code is a form of order.

Mmm... not always. A code can be anything after all.

Order exists to make things orderly. It's a form of control. Lawful types adhere to control because they believe that control makes life better.

A chemist believes that the rules of chemistry exist, it doesn't mean he beleives they're a good thing.

Exactly. A chemist adheres to the laws of science because they get things done. A chemist doesn't have to be lawful.

Your definition of order is more flexible then mine. The laws of science, aren't actual laws, but they are agreed upon methods. They are 'laws', because they have to be followed in order to make use of them. They don't control the way we live but they can result in modifying the way we live via someone's use of them.