What does Neutral Good mean? [3.X]

[Luccan]

After spending some time looking up reading this forum and looking up various questions I had on alignment, I feel like I have a fairly good grasp on most of the alignments. Even some of the more ambiguous alignments (like chaotic neutral), I feel have at least a few different common examples of how they might operate. Neutral good has become a little confusing, though. How do Neutral Good people act? I feel like if you take the given example in the player's handbook, you get a Chaotic Good character who doesn't get in trouble from alignment-happy DM's. Are Neutral Goods just people who follow the rules until it's inconvenient to doing good? Or are they something else?

[Troacctid]

They're Good without any particular commitment to Law or Chaos. It's as simple as that.

[Knitifine]

A neutral good person is selfless. They're empathetic. If people are in need of freedom, they act to help. If people would benefit from a stable government, they act to reinforce it. They have some allegiances, but they're not defined by them.

Whereas a chaotic good person might think that freedom is always the answer, the neutral good person would see the benefits of order and stability.
Whereas a lawful good person might think that authority, hierarchy and structure are tools that will help everyone achieve their best, the neutral good person will easily recognize the cases where this could be stifling even when well implemented.

[Temotei]

I dunno if you have read this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?449294-Selfless-Service-with-Blessings-to-All-A-Neutral-Good-Handbook-lt-3), but it's pretty good for spelling out what neutral good is all about.

[Erit]

Are Neutral Goods just people who follow the rules until it's inconvenient to doing good?

At the simplest possible level? Pre'y much, yeah. If you can work within the bounds of the law to bring evildoers to justice, you will. If you need to Batman things, then you do. You respect the law without defining yourself by it.

[AnachroNinja]

I don't think you even necessarily respect the law. Neutral good is designed to be more forgiving. It gives you the room to be good without being defined by freedom or lawful behavior. You're just a basically good person who will act to help when you can.

[Erit]

I don't think you even necessarily respect the law. Neutral good is designed to be more forgiving. It gives you the room to be good without being defined by freedom or lawful behavior. You're just a basically good person who will act to help when you can.

What I mean by "respect" is that you'll operate within the law when doing so wouldn't be a hindrance. After all, breaking the law can in a lot of ways prove a troublesome course of action, and having authorities interfering can easily result in you failing to accomplish whatever Good you set out to do.

Where a Lawful Good character might refuse to step outside the bounds of the law, and a Chaotic Good character would ignore the existence of the law, Neutral Good looks at the law, decides if it would make it easier or harder to accomplish the Good deed in question, and acts dependent upon the outcome of that inquiry.

Simple example: You know but cannot handily prove that a cabal of necromancers are using a private residence as their base of operations, and are performing profane rituals there on a regular basis.

Lawful Good would look to directing the local guards to investigate, likely giving the cabal ample notice to cover their tracks.

Chaotic Good kicks in the door and starts subduing people regardless of involvement.

Neutral Good would sneak in through the attic, wait until all the necromancers are assembled and any innocents are clear of the place, then signal for Chaotic Good to kick in the door and do its thing while Lawful Good is rallying the guards. It clearly broke the law (trespassing, breaking and entering, accessory to burglary), but it did so to ensure that maximal Good was done (no one uninvolved with the cabal was mistakenly arrested, and they weren't given the chance to escape).

[Anlashok]

It clearly broke the law
You know that obeying/disobeying the law isn't a fundamental or necessary component of a lawful or chaotic character?

I notice whenever someone brings up neutral good a bunch of people pop up trying to frame it as if it's the perfect alignment, rather than trying to discuss the positives and negatives of it and flesh out what it really is.

[Nostrodamus]

The neutral good character sees good in everyone. He is the guy who will put up his sword in the middle of combat if his enemy ask for mercy. He will do the good thing in every situation that he is able to. They believe that everyone has good in them. I would say that Superman and Professor Xavier are great example of neutral good characters.

[Templarkommando]

Neutral Good is a character who tries to do good things without necessarily having respect for or against the law. Just as an example, a neutral good character might give money to beggars even if there are city ordinances against it. He doesn't do this because he gets a kick out of skirting the law or because he's been ordered to do it by some superior, but because it is simply the right thing to do. In my mind, a neutral good character is the sort of character to leave the trench against orders so that he can rescue the wounded and dying on a battlefield. He doesn't go out of his way to oppose social mores in the way a chaotic character might, but if those social mores conflict with the ability of a neutral good character to do what is right, a neutral good character will walk right past that line in the sand.

To my mind, Atticus Finch is a good example of a NG character. Others include Axel Foley from Beverly Hills Cop, Robin Hood (though there are a few that would argue for him being CG), Katniss Everdeen from Hunger Games, Aang from Avatar the Last Airbender, Stan Marsh of Southpark... people like that

[Einselar]

Neutral Good follows the societal norms of right and wrong. They look to no higher power for what is good, but nor will they set off on their own and define their own morals. They have what may best be called, "lemming morality" So long as society sees it as bad, it will remain so, and they will do what is in their power to prevent it. But if for some reason society changes it's morals, they will change along with them.

Compare to Lawful Good, which looks to a higher code for their morality or to Chaotic Good, who set their own code.

The main con to this is, of course, that your morals frequently change at the whim of the people. This can be bad at times, but can also be great. Look at the world for the last 200 years. Racism was still fine by anyone's book 200 years ago, whereas now being racist is not a healthy outlook in civilized company.

[Kelb_Panthera]

In a nutshell, a NG character cares more about doing the right thing than he does about making sure the rules are obeyed -or- the freedom of individuals to do what they will. Sometimes the rules lead to people doing good and sometimes they lead to doing evil. A NG character is of the general notion that the former should be obeyed (whether anyone likes it or not) and the latter should be discarded (whether anyone likes it or not).

Contrast with LG which is of the opinion that doing what's right is of roughly equal importance to obeying the rules. If the rules don't lead to evil, a LG character thinks they should be followed even if they don't lead to good either. A NG character doesn't care about such rules but will probably follow them out of convenience.

Contrast CG which is of the opinion that being good is important and rules suck. A CG character follows only his own conscience in doing what is right and damn the rules if they get in the way at all, even if they do ultimately lead to good being done. If obeying the rules doesn't lead to good being done then those rules are useless and not worth giving any weight at all, though even a CG character will -proobably- obey the rules out of convenience most of the time, he'll quickly get annoyed if they become at all onerous and ignore the ones that he finds aren't worth the effort.

[gkathellar]

NG characters believe that there's usually a proper way to do things, but understand that it's not universally applicable. Rules and freedoms both have a function in the service of good, and either can be harmful to its pursuit. The NG model of Right Action follows a code of conduct and believes in its usefulness, but acknowledges that it must occasionally be set aside in the interests of righteousness.

Cosmically, CG believes that good and freedom are indistinguishable. LG believes that good creates law and law creates good. NG is a bit different, because it believes that good arises from a sensible approach to these two Platonic ideals, one that takes stock of reality over principle and accepts that balance and compromise are essential parts of good (its paragons, the Guardinals, embody the compromise between nature and civilization, demonstrating the best of both in their physical forms).