Question about Alignment

[Tsimenc]

I recently made a comment to my group that for the material component of Crushing Dispair, a vial of sad children's tears (instead of average everyday tears) would provide a bonus to the DC of the Will save. This sparked a discussion of alignment, with one player saying a chaotic good character would have no qualms about antagonizing a sad child to ensure a full vial was collected in one go. I thought such an act would be more chaotic neutral than anything, since there are other options one could take, including choosing another spell; but they brought up the adage "The needs of the many outwiegh the needs of the few," and that 5 minutes of a child's distress would be worth helping to save a town (the world, defeat evil, etc). So now I am curious about how to resolve such potentially borderline questions about alignment. Would this act be out of alignment? And while I would think that one act doesn't usually shift one's alignment, how much would it take?

[Shadowknight12]

Why must you antagonise a child? Just hold a sliced onion under their noses and collect the tears.

Oh, you mean that if the child is sad then the tears would be more potent? Again, you don't have to antagonise the child. Children cry about all sorts of things. Just go around an orphanage, playground or school, wait until one of them starts crying and sweep in to collect the tears.

None of that is evil.

EDIT: Hang around a cemetery, wait until a child has to bury a loved one, that way you guarantee the tears are from sadness.

[Aegis013]

There are other, (probably better) methods, but I don't think that picking fun of a child to make him cry sad tears (which is a lot like kicking a puppy) to save a town would be outside the realm of reasonable for a chaotic good character who believes the item requiring the child's tears is necessary to save a town (the world, defeat evil, etc). As long as he can justify it in the circumstance.

[Callista]

Why must you antagonise a child? Just hold a sliced onion under their noses and collect the tears.

Oh, you mean that if the child is sad then the tears would be more potent? Again, you don't have to antagonise the child. Children cry about all sorts of things. Just go around an orphanage, playground or school, wait until one of them starts crying and sweep in to collect the tears.

None of that is evil.

EDIT: Hang around a cemetery, wait until a child has to bury a loved one, that way you guarantee the tears are from sadness.Yup. Might be a bit intrusive, but there's no reason you have to make the child sad yourself, is there? There are enough sad children in the world without having to make more.

[Vladislav]

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" is a lawful argument, if anything. That's the whole point of Law vs. Chaos - society vs. individual. Your player has no clue what CG is about.

[Callista]

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" is a lawful argument, if anything. That's the whole point of Law vs. Chaos - society vs. individual. You player has no clue what CG is about.Heh, yeah. Spock is one of the most Lawful characters out there, and he's probably the one who made that phrase popular. (But he's also Good. Some Good characters will count the number of people; others will just go by their intuition. Lawful characters are more likely to use logic and to be pragmatic if they can't reason their way to saving everyone.)

CG is the sort of person who would argue, "How could I ever live with myself if I made a child sad for any reason? I have to find another way. I don't care about the logistics, I don't care about cold-blooded planning; I just care about the people I'm trying to help, and I'm just going to have to work harder, try something else, take a third option."

CGs are very emotional in the way they care for others--they often feel other people's pain intuitively, are very empathic. They see individuals rather than groups. Lawful people will want to build an orderly society in which everyone can be safe, will want to work with the whole nation--but Chaotics just see individual people, and empathize with each one.

Whether the CG character expresses that sympathy in the typical way, by showing distress himself, or whether he's a stoic who responds to another person's distress by becoming even more determined to fix the problem, the Chaotic style of Good is definitely characterized by a focus on individual people. Groups are irrelevant, and large-scale organizations only get in the way of helping others.

Thankfully, the Chaotic personality type is also usually flexible and creative enough to find the third option when their natural empathy just won't let them hurt one person to help another. Lawful people will take third options too, but for them it's usually a matter of sheer willpower and refusal to give up, rather than the Chaotic's flexibility and out-of-the-box thinking.

[Tsimenc]

Thanks for all the replies, I hadn't interpreted the law v. chaos argument in quite that way before. It almost seems like a paladin would be more able to justify potentially questionable acts than a chaotic character, which makes some sense now that I think
about it. Again, my thanks.