True Neutral

[LTwerewolf]

How would you describe true neutral and its facets, if you could not use the other alignments to describe it? As in "true neutral is this, this, and this" instead of "it's not the other 8 alignments."

[zergling.exe]

They do not have a strong adherence to any set of codes or laws, but they also do not actively going against and seek to destroy established souces of these. They do not like structure for its own sake but rather what it can grant to those that make it up; yet if it is worse than no structure they will aim to remove it.

They do not selflessly act to help others, but they will also not go out of thier way to harm them either. Their focus is on themself and those around them, yet they will not actively try to harm those outside of those they call friends or family.

[PallentisLunam]

Alternatively, and archetypically druid, a true neutral character can be dedicated to the idea of balance in all things, never acting in a way that is extremely lawful, chaotic, good or evil.

They could also seek to balance good acts with evil ones or lawful acts with chaotic ones. However most people on these forums would tell you that that evens out to a chaotic evil character.

[BowStreetRunner]

True Neutral as a philosophy is all about balance. Good balances Evil and Law balances Chaos. Unique among the alignments, followers of the True Neutral doctrine do not believe that everyone should adhere to the same beliefs, but rather that followers of each of the other alignment philosophies are necessary to balance one another. Good loses its way without evil to battle, law has no purpose if there is no chaos to overcome. Concepts such as Yin and Yang, which form an important cornerstone of the Taoist belief system, fit well in the True Neutral doctrine. The True Neutral doesn't attempt to defeat Evil nor to supplant Good. The True Neutral doesn't attempt to bring order to Chaos nor to free themselves from Law. Rather, the True Neutral seeks to find harmony with all things.

[Segev]

True Neutral comes in three primary flavors: All About Balance, Selfish With A Conscience, and Not A Moral Agent. The last is the easiest to define: the creature is incapable of making moral or ethical judgments; it is the kind of "innocent" that is most dangerous because it doesn't know any better. Animals and the like fall into this category, as do a lot of small children and mindless minions.

All About Balance is the hardest to define without touching the other alignments. It's the one which druids in prior editions were meant to epitomize. Because nature is cruel and kind, druids had to respect the law of cycles, both the time for brutality and the time for mercy, the time for obedience and the time for primal instinct. True Neutrality that is all about balance seeks to accept that all things have their time and place. To acknowledge that obedience must be tempered by one's own judgment, that mercy has its place, but horrible acts of selfish brutality also serve to move things forward. Without aggression, peace cannot stand. Without peace, aggression is self-destructive. Without pain, none could recognize pleasure. Without pleasure, existence would be unbearable. Without structure, there is no differentiation in which chaos could exist; without chaos, there is nothing to structure. It is the will to be hard and cold, strict and obedient, but also warm and merciful and whimsical, all in their place and time, which epitomizes this version of the alignment. It can be the most annoying, because it is the one which says that you saved a puppy last week, so now you have to kick that orphan.

Selfish With A Conscience is what most intelligent beings who are not defined by an alignment fall into. They just want what's best for themselves and their loved ones, and they recognize that the same is true of others. They respect that in others. But consistency is not their strong suit; they do what is expected, especially while being watched, but will take shortcuts where convenient. They're mostly concerned with consequences to themselves. They have enough empathy to feel badly for others' suffering, and so avoid deliberately causing it if it's too harsh or hard, but will make exceptions when the benefit to them is sufficiently great and the harm to others sufficiently small. In essence, they're selfish, but value-judge others' happiness or misery into their actions. This can lead to refusal to take personally beneficial actions if they'd hurt somebody else too much, or to even showing generosity if it costs them little and brings great pleasure or joy to another. It can also cause them to willfully cause another harm if they think the harm little enough (or can convince themselves "they won't even notice") and their own reward great enough. Or to refusing aid on the grounds that it's not their responsibility, if the aid costs them too much.

[SangoProduction]

Alternatively, and archetypically druid, a true neutral character can be dedicated to the idea of balance in all things, never acting in a way that is extremely lawful, chaotic, good or evil.

They could also seek to balance good acts with evil ones or lawful acts with chaotic ones. However most people on these forums would tell you that that evens out to a chaotic evil character.

oddly enough, strict adherence to balance actually results in a Lawful Neutral Character. Sure they aren't holding establishments, but they must dedicate themselves to being in the middle...thus pushing them away from the middle in the process. Rather paradoxical.

[Seto]

First off, if it is a question that interests you, I dedicated a handbook to TN (it's in my sig)


Nice analysis

This is a good post. I'll go with it and add some stuff that comes to mind.

Basically, Not a Moral Agent aside, the two types of TN (that Segev calls Selfish with a Conscience and All about Balance, and that I simply call TN by default and TN by choice) are very distinct.

TN by default are difficult to define in regards to their alignment. What is this type of TN? The shortest answer I can think of is: it's conformist. Left to its own devices, it doesn't break out of social or moral norms dramatically, and doesn't have the dedication to devote itself to a cause. Other than that, anything is fair game. Absolutely anything. Which is why I defended the idea that with this type of TN, alignment takes a back seat to personality. I know it should ideally be the case for every alignment, but, if you don't want to be completely bland, TN by default forces you to make an interesting character with a lot of options to choose from. In this case, TN is best thought of as a shell, or a blank sheet, to which you bring your own creativity (whereas other alignments have a shellfish inside or at least some content to start with). In other words, it's impossible to define this one by describing the alignment in itself like you ask.

TN by choice are either all about balance or all about truth (I go into this in some detail in section 3 of my handbook). Balance has been rather well described above. TN all about truth is basically this: the world is filled with more things than we can describe, all of them unique, most of them contradictory --> to hold one category of things as superior or more real is to blind oneself to the truth of the world --> to avoid taking a partial (and thus incorrect) view of reality, one must either stop thinking or embrace the contradiction. There is an element of balance in it (it's about not taking sides), but balance is not the primary drive in this case.
All in all, TN by choice is about losing sight neither of the whole nor of its components. Whether that be in a soul or in the multiverse. (See section 6 of my handbook on TN and spirituality).

To put it in only one sentence, albeit a philosophically-phrased one : a True Neutral worldview is a worldview wherein the primary focus is the dialectical tension between the one and the multiple. Not right, not wrong, not the individual, not society. But the fact of them existing together and in conflict. In other words, TN is not a statement about morality or politics: it's a statement about metaphysics.