Can Good And Evil Characters Get Along?

[Segev]

Stuff between consenting adults (or consenting people able to give consent, as the case may be)? I will 100% not judge you.

Quibble: you ARE judging them. You're just judging them to be "acceptable" rather than "unacceptable" in their behavior.

"Not judging" means you aren't evaluating them at all. It's actually extremely rare, and usually means that even if you disapprove of their behavior, you're not going to hold it against them.

[kyoryu]

Quibble: you ARE judging them. You're just judging them to be "acceptable" rather than "unacceptable" in their behavior.

"Not judging" means you aren't evaluating them at all. It's actually extremely rare, and usually means that even if you disapprove of their behavior, you're not going to hold it against them.

That latter bit is what I mean, though.

The boundary is basically "doing things to others that they don't want". Beyond that, I don't have to approve, agree with, or anything. If you're not hurting others, what you do is your problem, whether I agree with it or not. I have no right to really "judge" you on that.

There's even the "judgement" level of "I'm not into it, and I don't want this in my life, but you do you". Still pretty much okay.

The issue is when people get to the judgement level of "no that's wrong and I will stop you."

[Morty]

I feel like I need to point out that calling someone "harsh and judgmental" is a lot more useful than calling them "lawful neutral". It gives us a decent picture of their behavior in a way that's actually likely to matter.

[OldTrees1]

I feel like I need to point out that calling someone "harsh and judgmental" is a lot more useful than calling them "lawful neutral". It gives us a decent picture of their behavior in a way that's actually likely to matter.

Unless you cared about their moral character. Is this "harsh and judgemental" person a moral exemplar? an oppressive dictator? a misguided good hearted person? a good hearted person with many moral failings? Someone with an amoral outlook?

If someone cares about the moral character of a character and also cared about "harsh and judgmental" then they might use both rather than only one.

To tie it back to the topic, could one "harsh and judgmental" get along with another "harsh and judgmental"? Yes it is possible for that good and evil character to get along but it would be much harder than if they were more tolerant.

[Quertus]

Unless you cared about their moral character. Is this "harsh and judgemental" person a moral exemplar? an oppressive dictator? a misguided good hearted person? a good hearted person with many moral failings? Someone with an amoral outlook?

If someone cares about the moral character of a character and also cared about "harsh and judgmental" then they might use both rather than only one.

To tie it back to the topic, could one "harsh and judgmental" get along with another "harsh and judgmental"? Yes it is possible for that good and evil character to get along but it would be much harder than if they were more tolerant.

IIRC, the context here was "role-playing", and "GM remembering their personality, so that they *could* roleplay them".

For this purpose, I think that "harsh" and "judgemental" is better than "Lawful Neutral". Don't you agree?

It's good that we agree that judgemental people have a harder time getting along than more tolerant individuals. Apparently my experience isn't universal, but my experience says that Evil PCs (and NPCs) tend to be more tolerant than their Good counterparts. *And* that many GMs make tolerant Good characters fall for their tolerance, perpetuating that fact.

[Jason]

IIRC, the context here was "role-playing", and "GM remembering their personality, so that they *could* roleplay them".

For this purpose, I think that "harsh" and "judgemental" is better than "Lawful Neutral". Don't you agree?

For the purpose of Role-playing them, sure. For the purposes of keying game effects off of them it's much easier to have 9 broad categories.
That would be why D&D monster entries all have an alignment in the stat block and then often also have text like "Orcs hold a particular hatred for elves....Orcs gather in tribes that exert their dominance and satisfy their bloodlust by plundering villages, devouring or driving off roaming herds, and slaying any humanoids that stand against them...Strength and power are the greatest of orcish virtues..." so we have a little more insight into their general character than just the alignment entry.

It's good that we agree that judgemental people have a harder time getting along than more tolerant individuals. Apparently my experience isn't universal, but my experience says that Evil PCs (and NPCs) tend to be more tolerant than their Good counterparts. *And* that many GMs make tolerant Good characters fall for their tolerance, perpetuating that fact.

Evil PCs all have players creating them who know they will have to get along with the typical racially diverse player party, so they generally build "tolerant" evil types who won't try to gut the elf like a trout when they first meet just because they hate elves. In other words, it's not an in-game trait that evil tends to be more tolerant than good, but a meta-game trait really applying only to evil PCs.

[Morty]

Unless you cared about their moral character. Is this "harsh and judgemental" person a moral exemplar? an oppressive dictator? a misguided good hearted person? a good hearted person with many moral failings? Someone with an amoral outlook?

If someone cares about the moral character of a character and also cared about "harsh and judgmental" then they might use both rather than only one.

To tie it back to the topic, could one "harsh and judgmental" get along with another "harsh and judgmental"? Yes it is possible for that good and evil character to get along but it would be much harder than if they were more tolerant.

The moral character of the person in question is up for the people who interact with them to decide. The rules have no business trying to determine it - that's rather my whole point. A two-word label cannot and will not describe a person accurately, but "harsh and judgmental" gives the players and GMs something to work with.

[OldTrees1]

IIRC, the context here was "role-playing", and "GM remembering their personality, so that they *could* roleplay them".

For this purpose, I think that "harsh" and "judgemental" is better than "Lawful Neutral". Don't you agree?

It's good that we agree that judgemental people have a harder time getting along than more tolerant individuals. Apparently my experience isn't universal, but my experience says that Evil PCs (and NPCs) tend to be more tolerant than their Good counterparts. *And* that many GMs make tolerant Good characters fall for their tolerance, perpetuating that fact.

The moral character of the person in question is up for the people who interact with them to decide. The rules have no business trying to determine it - that's rather my whole point. A two-word label cannot and will not describe a person accurately, but "harsh and judgmental" gives the players and GMs something to work with.

Quick aside: "The rules have no business trying to determine it" applies to all characterization. Even "harsh and judgmental". That does not remove the utility of recording descriptive notes like "harsh and judgmental". So if that was your point, consider it made, agreed with, applied universally, and unrelated to the utility of descriptive notes.

1) Does not address the moral character
"harsh and judgmental" is orthogonal* to moral character so I don't see it as answer that aspect of characterization. I gave a list of several different characters with dramatically different moral character that all were "harsh and judgmental". So if I only wrote "harsh and judgmental" in my notes, then I would not have notes answering questions about moral character. If I wanted to have notes differentiating between the harsh and judgmental moral exemplar vs the harsh and judgmental oppressive dictator, I would need a 3rd word or phrase.

* I would argue it is strictly orthogonal, but some of the infinite possible moral truths refute that stronger claim.

2) Not everyone cares about the moral character
Just because "harsh and judgmental" does not note the difference between the judgmental moral exemplar vs the harsh and judgmental oppressive dictator does not mean a specific player or DM cares about that difference in characterization. They might be fine with just noting "harsh and judgmental"

3) Why not both?
If I have a harsh and judgmental good intentioned person with limited moral failings, I might note all 3 character traits. This is not a case of an exclusive OR.

So when I roleplay a character, since I care about the moral character, I might have notes that differentiate the good intentioned with a fatal moral flaw vs the villain with standards. Those notes would help me in the context of roleplay that difference between the moral characterizations I am trying to show. I will probably also have more detailed notes that then have a summary and a summary of the summary.

That is why I don't think "harsh and judgmental" is strictly better than "Lawful Neutral" in this context (and the 3rd option of "harsh, judgmental, and moral with a fatal flaw" is an option). They are answering different questions. Unless you think Lawful and "harsh/judgmental" are related in which case you have a more detailed description (that ignores moral character) vs a broader description (that does not describe the nuance of harsh/judgmental).

[Quertus]

They are answering different questions.

Which is why I said that you should start with the question that you are trying to answer.

[OldTrees1]

Which is why I said that you should start with the question that you are trying to answer.

That is good advice, that I was already following. Here, I will quote myself.

Unless you cared about their moral character. Is this "harsh and judgemental" person a moral exemplar? an oppressive dictator? a misguided good hearted person? a good hearted person with many moral failings? Someone with an amoral outlook?

You will notice I did not say Morty was wrong. I said, "Unless ..." and then mentioned a category of questions that stop being answered by the change Morty was mentioning. This is especially telling in this thread, because positions like Jason's can't be explained without referencing the moral character. For some people, the moral character is part of the question in this thread.