Different faces of neutrality

[Thrax]

I have ran into a little problem in a recent campaign where two lawful neutral characters appeared. Despite both being LN, they're completely different. One character, a zealous worshipper of Shiva, is dedicated to Law, and is neutral because he will adjust to any law, no matter if it is creative (good) or destructive (evil), just like Shiva himself in DnD terms would be neutral, as a creator and destroyer. Another character is neutral as in "selfish". He is lawful, because he's a king of small city-state, and respects law and wants to adhere to that, but he's more dedicated to follow himself in terms of good and evil - not to be exactly neutral.

This thing made me realize there are in fact three different faces of "neutral" part of character's alignment, be it between good-evil or order-chaos. In first "face of neutrality", character may be dedicated to the non-neutral part of their alignment, as in LN who is all about law, good or bad. Second face is a character who is dedicated to the neutral part of their alignment, as in to the concept of neutrality, and keeping balance. Like, LN who wants to keep balance between good and evil through law. Third face is the character who just doesn't care for either part, and happens to commit nearly equal amounts of deeds from both ends of axis. Like LN who obeys the law, but sometimes helps people and sometimes hurts them.

Those three faces are three entirely different faces of the "neutral" part of alignment chart, and probably the only part that made it redundant, as I see no flaw in concepts of "chaotic good" or "lawful evil". But what to do with this problem? Maybe spread the "neutral" part into three different parts? Like making LN into "lawful" (just law), "lawful balanced" (balance through law) and "lawful neutral" (don't care). Or, on another axis, "good" (pure good), "balanced good" (balance between order and chaos through goodness" and "neutral good" (don't care about order and chaos). True neutrality would get into some more strange mojo, but that's the problem for another time, since barely anyone takes NN anyway.

What is your thought about it?

[Morty]

I see nothing wrong with Neutral or any other alignment meaning different things. Alignment should be a general desctiption of a creature's personal philosophy and attitude, not a strict label. You shouldn't be able to know a person's character just by glancing at the "alignment" field on the write-up.

[quick_comment]

There is netural from apathy and neutral from desire for balance.

[jmbrown]

4E removed the more redundant parts of alignment for this very reason and I think it works really well. In 4E you have

Lawful Good: Respects the laws of society while respecting sentient life. If one aspect overpowers the other (his king suddenly turning evil) then he switches briefly until finding a balance (defeats/helps defeat his king to restore order and peace in the kingdom).

Good: Respects life but isn't devoted the laws and tenants of any society.

Unaligned: Isn't completely dedicated to the law or the selfless devotion to others. On the other hand he won't bend the rules to benefit himself while harming others or slaughtering innocents for the fun of it.

Evil: Devoted to evil. Selfish, cruel, but not totally psychotic or disrespective of customs (assuming said customs benefit himself).

Chaotic Evil: Pain of others pleasures him thus he must see it constantly fulfilled. Totally psychotic and very few monsters (demons mainly) if any in 4E are actually chaotic evil.

The neutral side of things are redundant because neutrality encapsulates pretty much anything. A lot of older DM's will say that neutral characters have "tendencies" and I agree with that. A lawful neutral person that's an honorable but well meaning knight may have justified "lawful good" tendencies but if his king tells him to fight instead of rescuing the damsel in distress, he may very well choose fight hence the neutrality part of his alignment.

IMO alignment is stupid and unrealistic. I much prefer World of Darkness' morality system where doing deplorable acts makes you lose your humanity.

[Strawman]

Personally I've always wondered whether someone selfish is supposed to be in neutral or evil, especially if they do not happen to take pleasure in the pain of others.

I think vague stuff like this is inevitable when trying to convert all morality into nine labels.

[Thrax]

Well, I don't like 4E alignment system even more than 3E. I mean, it have even fewer alignments than the original. If there are no lawful evil, how do you handle people like Asmodeus, evil but ordered? And how does he differ from neutral evil? We didn't need to have less alignments, we needed more of them, to make differences between people who seem to be the same alignment, but are completely different.

[AstralFire]

IMO alignment is stupid and unrealistic. I much prefer World of Darkness' morality system where doing deplorable acts makes you lose your humanity.

Alignment is just a descriptor, and you can encompass every type of personality within it. My issues with alignment are largely that: it's part of an objective system in a world with varying definitions of all four elements due to D&D's favor of 'potlucking' real world fiction, and and that I see it cause more arguments and (rarely, thankfully) straightjacketing than it does character inspiration when used as a straight character mechanic.

Once considered subjective, these issues go away and it becomes useful shorthand, IMO.

Well, I don't like 4E alignment system even more than 3E. I mean, it have even fewer alignments than the original. If there are no lawful evil, how do you handle people like Asmodeus, evil but ordered? And how does he differ from neutral evil? We didn't need to have less alignments, we needed more of them, to make differences between people who seem to be the same alignment, but are completely different.

4E alignment largely adheres to 'descriptive rather than prescriptive.' It depends on how useful you view having a shorthand term to differentiate Asmodeus' brand of evil from Erythnul's.

[Morty]

Personally I've always wondered whether someone selfish is supposed to be in neutral or evil, especially if they do not happen to take pleasure in the pain of others.

It's all about "What won't he or she do?" A selfish person who's Neutral will simply not to certain things, whereas a selfish person who's evil will have little to no moral qualms about getting what he or she wants.

[jmbrown]

Well, I don't like 4E alignment system even more than 3E. I mean, it have even fewer alignments than the original. If there are no lawful evil, how do you handle people like Asmodeus, evil but ordered? And how does he differ from neutral evil? We didn't need to have less alignments, we needed more of them, to make differences between people who seem to be the same alignment, but are completely different.

It doesn't matter anymore. For one alignment has absolutely no numerical effect on combat. A paladin can be of any alignment because paladins fight for a higher philosophical goal but lawful goodness.

Second, the reason the alignment system is so flawed is because there's a difference. Real people cannot be defined by descriptors because real people often break descriptors in their daily actions. A good person isn't immune to lying but just because he lies doesn't instantly make him an evil person.

Asmodeus is evil. He benefits off evil but structures it into a strict domain. Demons are chaotic evil because they have no structure and only strength is power.

Unaligned pretty much encompasses everything that players who hate being confined to a single alignment wants. An unaligned character won't go out of their way to help people like a good aligned character but they're above cheating and rampant killing.

Once considered subjective, these issues go away and it becomes useful shorthand, IMO.

But the difficulties in 3E is that powers use alignment to determine certain things. If you want to play a certain character then you're shoehorned into their alignment if there is a restriction.

[Captain Alien]

Well, everybody acts within an alignment, either in D&D or in real life. In D&D, characters have less personality than real people have because the players are not usually novelists. But anyone has a D&D alignment, because they cover every ethic. Even when you are not certain about someone's alignment, he or she has one.

When it is said that ethics in real world are more "grey" than "black or white", they are right. D&D is more idealistic, so you can easily find Lawful characters or Chaotic characters, while in real life poeple tend to neutrality.

[Devils_Advocate]

There's no problem at all with characters of the same alignment being different from each other. To prevent that, you'd need to have a different alignment for every individual!

The three types of Neutrality mentioned don't lack something in common. All of them are neither excessively Good nor excessively Evil. That's what "Neutral" means.

It sounds like you might prefer allegiances to alignments, though. (Allegiances describe what a character is dedicated to: Law, Balance, Greyhawk, Mom, Me!, A Free Market, whatever.)

[Thrax]

I know what I've got wrong. Alignment is not just a short way of describing character's personality - it describes the "karmic" result of their actions. Thus, the Shiva worshipper of my campaign and his king buddy will commit approximately the same number of lawful acts, and equal number of good and evil acts.

[AstralFire]

I know what I've got wrong. Alignment is not just a short way of describing character's personality - it describes the "karmic" result of their actions. Thus, the Shiva worshipper of my campaign and his king buddy will commit approximately the same number of lawful acts, and equal number of good and evil acts.

Actually, it is a short way of describing (one aspect of) your personality. One LN can commit lots of good and evil acts both but is consistently lawful, while another strictly avoids good versus evil.