What is the bare minimum level of decency to be Neutral ( not evil )?

[mindstalk]

There's a character who knows with reasonable accuracy what Evil afterlife is and doesn't like it in the slightest.

That character is greedy, selfish and amoral ( although not a sadist or psychopath ) and, weren't for the afterlife issue, he would probably be a non-monstrous Neutral Evil.
But since he fears the Big Fire Below, he tries to stick to True Neutral alignment, doing the bare minimum required to not trespass the Evil line.

So the question is: in your opinion, what is this bare minimum?

In your setting, who/what decides where souls go in the afterlife, and what do they want to accomplish/encourage?

If there's some Overgod that wants to police behavior, then avoiding evil actions out of fear is the system working as intended.

If your soul is drawn to the more resonant plane based on your desires, regardless of actions, then the character is ****ed, unless "fear of pain" is in itself a desire that would pull him to Neutral plane.

If the gods bid/argue over souls, then... it's complicated. Are there Good/Neutral gods who'll argue aggressively for every soul they can save, or would they look at him and go "meh, not worth our effort"?

[Quertus]

Let's say that character ( I was thinking about a commoner or an expert, rather an adventurer ) actually likes the pain and suffering of others...
but he fears punishment so much that he force himself to avert his gaze and tries his best to not indulge ( too much ) in vengeful meditations. And refrain from doing cruel acts himself, obviously.
All that motivated only by fear.

Your actions actually do matter in 3.5 land. So the two answers are 'did he commit enough of the acts that add points that make you go to hell outlined in Fiendish Codex II', which is above but I think most people agree are a little goofy. And the second slightly more sane method is, does he actively harm other people for his own advancement? True Neutral can look out for themselves all day and not be particularly generous, Evil only comes into play when you start hurting others.

Huh. Maybe I'm remembering 3.0, or maybe the SRD doesn't match the books, or maybe I'm just blind, but I'm not seeing the text I remember. So… it is arguable that 3e alignment is based *only* on *actions*.

In which case… just don't rack up 7 evil points, and you're fine. of course, most kids commit orders of magnitude more evil acts long before they reach adventuring age, IRL, IME. So, if your character has an evil nature, and any of the actions that explicitly garner points are ones that a kid could take, it's probably best to assume they've already lost before the game starts.

[Bartmanhomer]

Don't get involved in the conflict and mind your own business.

[hamishspence]

Alignment is partly acts, and partly attitude.


The "LE but with minimal evil acts to their debit" character might be expected to go to Acheron instead of the Nine Hells or lower. Similarly, the" CE but with minimal evil acts to their debit character", might be expected to go to Pandemonium instead of the Abyss or lower.

"NE but with minimal evil acts" is a bit trickier. They don't really belong in Hades, but they don't fit neatly into the Outlands either. Though they could end up gravitating to the Gate Town to Hades in the Outlands - the Gate Towns seem ideal for characters who are very borderline.