Is it possible to figure out one's alignment from this monologue?

[Dr TPK]

In a large kingdom there's a powerful guild. One day the alderman, the supreme leader of the guild, calls a powerful and unscrupulous member of the guild to a private meeting with her. She tells him the following:

"As you know, there's a certain group, who does our work here, in our kingdom. They refuse to join us, therefore our duties have been done unregulated and without proper supervision. It's not illegal, but their soloing makes us look weak, and I can't have that. I trust you to handle this in the way you see best. You will receive the full authorization of the guild and a handsome amount of gold for this mission. But you have to remember: You are not to attack them and you may not break the King's law. I don't want to hear any negative news about this. You may not ask any questions either, because I absolutely don't want to have anything to do with your mission. In these parchments we have all the information we have about them. Go now, and when the situation is resolved, I will reward you deservingly."

Off-game background: I'm asking this because this might have long-lasting concequences in the game, and I need some advice on this.

[ericgrau]

At first I thought it was lawful ? then I ended up with ? ? because it seems more like he fears the law than is trying to follow it. So nope, I can't. I can guess lawful neutral but there is not nearly enough information to be sure; could be anything.

[Extra Anchovies]

You can't ever determine someone's alignment without either A) using an alignment-reading spell or alignment-dependent magical effect or B) know for 100% certain that they were telling the truth. Unless one of those conditions was fulfilled, you don't and can't know his alignment.

[Red Fel]

It's generally hard to tell a character's alignment from a single speech, particularly because lying is a thing, but here are a few things I observe. I'll take it piece by piece. "As you know, there's a certain group, who does our work here, in our kingdom." This is a statement of facts; it shows no particular alignment bent. "They refuse to join us[.]" Generally speaking, this veers away from Chaotic, because Chaos respects individual choice and freedom. "[T]herefore our duties have been done unregulated and without proper supervision." This veers towards Lawful, with its focus on regulation and supervision. "It's not illegal, but their soloing makes us look weak, and I can't have that." This is mostly without alignment bent, but a focus on power tends towards Evil, and a focus on remaining the legitimate authority tends towards Lawful. "I trust you to handle this in the way you see best." Neutral. "You will receive the full authorization of the guild and a handsome amount of gold for this mission." Neutral again. "But you have to remember: You are not to attack them and you may not break the King's law." Micromanaging, tending strongly towards Lawful. "I don't want to hear any negative news about this." Neutral. "You may not ask any questions either[.]" Neutral. "[B]ecause I absolutely don't want to have anything to do with your mission." Neutral, but contradictory - how can this person offer the full support of the guild, but still want plausible deniability? "In these parchments we have all the information we have about them. Go now, and when the situation is resolved, I will reward you deservingly." Again, neutral.
As you can see, the speech is mostly devoid of alignment charge, aside from a few Lawful-tending comments, generally relating to preserving order and micromanaging. It could come from an Evil person, given the overall sinister tone, but it could just as easily come from a more benevolent leader, hiring mercenaries to take care of some unpleasantness.

Short version: Too tough to tell.

[Dr TPK]

You can't ever determine someone's alignment without either A) using an alignment-reading spell or alignment-dependent magical effect or B) know for 100% certain that they were telling the truth. Unless one of those conditions was fulfilled, you don't and can't know his alignment.

Oh yes, a detail that I forgot to mention. She is being perfectly honest and she means every word she says. So we, in this thread, have B covered, for what's it worth.

[Kantaki]

If I look only at the monologue it sounds like something a lawful neutral person would say, possibly even some one at the neutralish end of lawful good. She wants that person to convince another group to work in her guilds business without being part of the guild. That in itself sounds neutral, maybe lawful neutral depending on the motivation. Then she tells her guild member that he isn't supposed to attack those rivals or to break the lokal law. Should be a lawful or maybe a lawful good attitude.

However, if we look at the subtext she could be either lawful neutral, neutral or (lawful) evil. She explicitly choose a unscrupulous member of her guild and told him that she doesn't want to hear about him attacking the rivals or breaking the law. That implies that she doesn't care how he solves the problem as long as it doesn't fall back on the guild. The fact that she doesn't want to know about his plans implies that she wants to maintain plausible deniability.

Taking that into account she effectively tell the guy: „Make these guys join our guild or stop them from working in our business. Use any means you deem necessary but don't get caught doing anything illegal. Should you get caught I know nothing about your mission.

I would say she is either lawful evil or neutral evil. Maybe she could be (lawful) neutral but I lean towards evil there.

[OldTrees1]

There is no way to tell from this monologue as a result of the numerous qualifiers and vague details.

What is the speaker's opinion about rules? Well they are part of a guild and are putting restrictions on the task, but are also asking for plausible deniability which implies that the task is not following the rules. So this could be someone with lots, some, or no respect for rules.

What is the task requested? To handle the situation in an unspecified manner. So there is no way to tell if the requested task is moral/immoral/exalted/vile/neutral.

You can assign any alignment you want to the speaker(which will have impacts on other things of course), unless some of those other things are already specified and you just didn't mention them.

[IZ42]

Looking at the speech, I would agree that the speaker is most likely a Lawful Neutral person.

[daremetoidareyo]

I got a strong neutral vibe on this one. She sees utility in umbral regions of law and is willing to use it. Which can be a chaotic approach. The fact that the end goal is community building is more lawful. Then she's not prescriptive of the person she is addressing. All neutralish. I can't discern good or bad by the context.

[nedz]

NE.

She is acting entirely for her self interest and doesn't care about the means.

Yes her actions are also in the Guild's interest, but those are her interests also — and strongly.

[Ssalarn]

In a large kingdom there's a powerful guild. One day the alderman, the supreme leader of the guild, calls a powerful and unscrupulous member of the guild to a private meeting with her. She tells him the following:

"As you know, there's a certain group, who does our work here, in our kingdom. They refuse to join us, therefore our duties have been done unregulated and without proper supervision. It's not illegal, but their soloing makes us look weak, and I can't have that. I trust you to handle this in the way you see best. You will receive the full authorization of the guild and a handsome amount of gold for this mission. But you have to remember: You are not to attack them and you may not break the King's law. I don't want to hear any negative news about this. You may not ask any questions either, because I absolutely don't want to have anything to do with your mission. In these parchments we have all the information we have about them. Go now, and when the situation is resolved, I will reward you deservingly."

Off-game background: I'm asking this because this might have long-lasting concequences in the game, and I need some advice on this.

"They refuse to join us, therefore our duties have been done unregulated and without proper supervision." - Lawful

"It's not illegal, but their soloing makes us look weak, and I can't have that." - Evil

"You are not to attack them and you may not break the King's law." - Lawful Good

Overall assessment:

Lawful Neutral

[frost890]

I would go with LE or LN. However you might want to remember that the best crook will know more about the laws of an area then the local law enforcement. If they can't prove you broke the law then they can't charge you with it. Criminal syndicates use "loopholes" to their fullest. He might be chaotic as the gods of chaos themselves. He is just using the group to see what happens.

[nedz]

"You are not to attack them and you may not break the King's law." - Lawful Good

I saw this as risk mitigation, of which there are several examples in the quote. CYA not LG.

[Duke of Urrel]

I interpreted the monologue as belonging to a self-interested guild leader, probably purely Neutral. This guy is willing to play rough with what appears to be his unwanted competition, but not too rough. The former suggests not Good, but the latter suggests not Evil. He respects the Law, but he's also willing to work around it if he can't get caught. That might make him Chaotic by temperament, Lawful by necessity, but I believe he wants a certain order in society, only one that serves him better than the socio-economic order presently does. Basically, he'll be perfectly happy with the Law once it grants his guild a local monopoly.

So I say: purely Neutral. Of course, context matters. What is this "guild" that I am imagining, and what portion of the population does the "king's law" actually protect? If this is a criminal guild, and if the king considers some people not worth protecting and some criminal guilds worth tolerating, then this guy could be Evil.

[Telonius]

Okay, a couple of assumptions here... the person is in a Guild, probably high-up at that, and wants the guild to be on top of the hierarchy and maintain its position in town. That alone says, generally Lawful outlook. They're taking great care not to break any laws, and also to maintain the guild's image. Could be CYA, could be a genuine desire to stay on the side of the law. Either way, that's certainly not Chaotic. So: taking great care to stay on the side of the law, going out of their way to maintain a hierarchy - I'd peg that as Lawful, with a hint of movement towards Neutral, on the Law/Chaos axis.

Good or Evil. It doesn't sound like they're going particularly out of their way to either inflict or prevent pain; or to respect or degrade dignity. Good would explicitly order them not to harm anybody. Evil might do the same if they were afraid of being caught; but since they already want plausible deniability their orders would probably be more along the lines of, do it by whatever means necessary. I'd say Neutral.

Alignment indications after just one interaction: Lawful Neutral. I wouldn't say the alignment is certain just from that (maybe she likes kicking puppies in her spare time), but I'd proceed with that theory until other information comes to light.

[mashlagoo1982]

The most telling piece of information for me wasn't within the speech itself, but the description of the meeting.


In a large kingdom there's a powerful guild. One day the alderman, the supreme leader of the guild, calls a powerful and unscrupulous member of the guild to a private meeting with her. She tells him the following:


Why is this supreme leader specifically meet with a unscrupulous member of the guild?

With that in mind, the speech has a darker meaning for me.



"As you know, there's a certain group, who does our work here, in our kingdom. They refuse to join us, therefore our duties have been done unregulated and without proper supervision. It's not illegal, but their soloing makes us look weak, and I can't have that. I trust you to handle this in the way you see best. You will receive the full authorization of the guild and a handsome amount of gold for this mission. But you have to remember: You are not to attack them and you may not break the King's law. I don't want to hear any negative news about this. You may not ask any questions either, because I absolutely don't want to have anything to do with your mission. In these parchments we have all the information we have about them. Go now, and when the situation is resolved, I will reward you deservingly."


One would think that if the meeting was of decent moral or legal reasons, an unscrupulous member would not be necessary.

The individual is being asked to potentially perform immoral and illegal acts.
Take out that one word and the alignment is much less obvious.

EDIT: The speaker in question specifically chose a person that had no problems with resorting to undesireable methods to accomplish the mission. The speaker also set herself up to be absolved of any real wrong doing. She specifically told the individual to not attack the group or break the King's law (probably to simply claim she did so if questioned). If she really wanted these instructions followed she would have hired someone of different moral alignment.

She chose a tool for the job, which is to either subjugate or eliminate the competition, as the unscrupulous tool sees fit.

Alignment Verdict... If not Evil, probably leaning in that direction. She is resorting to working outside established methods (previous attempts have been made to have the group join their guild). She also doesn't care about the legality of the groups actions. So, Lawful vs Chaotic is in question... probably Neutral.

Final: Neutral Evil... this guild is HER'S and she will protect it through any means necessary.

[J-H]

Lawful Neutral, possibly LG with neutral tendencies, given the commands to not do anything bad to the non-union group.

[atemu1234]

Lawful Neutral's my call.

[Flame of Anor]

It looked like it was going to get evil at the beginning, but then it stopped doing that with all the "no attacking, no breaking the law" stuff. Lawful Neutral is my call.

[Dr TPK]

I'm delighted to have received so many great answers and very little whining about the OP which presented a vague, almost unanswerable, question.

The NPC in question is, in fact, neutral, but I can live with the fact that most of you took her as lawful neutral. I guess she just have to do something chaotic in her freetime to balance it all out :)