Don't rule out evil characters. Dorn is sane and reasonably stable. He quest for vengence is no more unreasonable than Kivan's. Viconia is sane. The new guy is sane, but larger than life as you would expect a showman to be.
Dorn is pretty stable, but he's also living in a personal fantasy world where people hate him because he's a Half-Orc and not because he murders women and children and makes pacts with demons.
Of course, part of the problem here is that insanity is culturally defined, and there's a broad spectrum with lots of wiggle room between "normal" and "certifiable lunatic." I mean, Edwin, Mr. B., and Tiax all have symptoms of megalomania, but only one of them obviously belongs in an asylum. And Charname thinks they're the spawn of a dead god, so who are they to judge?
Fun thread because I often plan my party this way. By personality and NOT classes, stats, or abilities. Depending on the charname class I choose of course (meaning, is he himself sane? etc.)
If I am playing they way I would THINK a kid from Candlekeep would grow up, I usually play him as a rather stable neutral to good aligned character that is completely taken aback by the events at the start the game. We forget, because of the amount of times many of us have played the game, how absurdly traumatic the beginning would be for a sheltered individual from a walled-in library. This is not to say he would be cowardly, simply blown away and shocked to say the very least.
That being the case, I usually build around that aspect. Foster father just murdered during the night as you RUN for your life, you would want to find friends and a safe haven quickly.
This is my long winded way of saying I usually look for sane NPCs for at least the first half of the game. Until my charname at least gets an idea of the world around him, and his own skill set for defending himself.
I always take Khalid and Jaheira if I play this way. Always (Though I change Khalid to an archer. Because seriously, that man in the thick of things? I think not). My father told me I can trust them, so I do.
Imoen, of course, stays with me as well.
Minsc does NOT come with me. Way too unstable. I would take Dynaheir but not if she comes with Minsc.
I like Kivan. Even though he is revenge-driven, he is a skilled woodsman who isn't bats*** crazy. He provides strength and combat skill that would be needed since Khalid is a coward and Minsc is a simpleton.
Garrick often comes with me. He brings a positive outlook my charname would need.
After that, it depends on the route my character takes. If he gains confidence and strength he may take on the manic depressive Xan because of his need for arcane power that Garrick just can't provide.
Later on Yeslick and Coran become possibilities as well.
Lastly, with the new NPCs, Rasaad is a sane choice. He would replace Kivan. Dorn simply would not get along with the party I've stated. And Neera is 50/50. Depending on my charnames ability to handle crazy situations.
Another way to look at the "sheltered kid who just lost the father figure" is... searching for a new mentor to make sense of all that. For that reason, my charname is very prone to go with Xzar. He's the first high wisdom NPC you meet; he is obviously very friendly and wants to help you, and doesn't reveal his insanity at first. When he does, it is too late and charname has already decided that guy is a wise teacher. However, my charname is usually evil, so he doesn't exactly mind Xzar's insanity. They more or less fuel each other's delusions - charname becomes obsessed with death after losing Gorion and wants to know more about it. Who would be a better teacher than a necromancer?
Don't rule out evil characters. Dorn is sane and reasonably stable. He quest for vengence is no more unreasonable than Kivan's. Viconia is sane. The new guy is sane, but larger than life as you would expect a showman to be.
Dorn is pretty stable, but he's also living in a personal fantasy world where people hate him because he's a Half-Orc and not because he murders women and children and makes pacts with demons.
Eh, no. Dorn has expressed no interest in revenge against the people who hate him for murdering inocents. He is only interested in revenge against his fellow murderers who did betray him because he was a half orc.
Don't rule out evil characters. Dorn is sane and reasonably stable. He quest for vengence is no more unreasonable than Kivan's. Viconia is sane. The new guy is sane, but larger than life as you would expect a showman to be.
Dorn is pretty stable, but he's also living in a personal fantasy world where people hate him because he's a Half-Orc and not because he murders women and children and makes pacts with demons.
Eh, no. Dorn has expressed no interest in revenge against the people who hate him for murdering inocents. He is only interested in revenge against his fellow murderers who did betray him because he was a half orc.
That's not what I'm saying, though. Sure he's only out to kill his betrayers, but he has this personal narrative of people hating him/being untrustworthy because he's a Half-Orc, as opposed to because he's a murderer. "You should embrace this path. What a gift, to have the blood of a dark god coursing through your veins! Do you not see the possibilities? We could silence all who oppose us! No one would dare call my lineage into question!"
And while Dorn is sure that he was betrayed for being a Half-Orc, I'm not convinced that that had anything to do with him being made the scapegoat. Sure, Senjack and Dorotea had some choice words about his heritage, but Simmeon's the one who made the call, and he doesn't give any indication of giving a toss about Dorn's heritage.
Back on topic, though, the only criteria for whether an NPC is "mentally healthy" is whether you think there are valid/understandable reasons for their actions. This doesn't even preclude getting in fights with other NPCs (the Jahiera/Khalid vs. Montaron/Xzar is entirely understandable). Arguably, by our standards, any NPC is of questionable mental health, because they can kill dozens upon hundreds of kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, gnolls, orcs, and ogres, intelligent beings one and all, and feel nary a twinge of conscience. (Contrast to most people, who can't even kill a single person in self-defense and feel perfectly fine afterwards).
@Fardragon Heh, interesting debate. I agree that Montaron, Quayle, Edwin are not insane in the usual sense. Yet they still have their issues and psychiatric conditions, they are far from being normal and mentally healthy guys. Montaron is a bully and sadist, and I don't think any person that enjoys inflicting pain and intimidating others is normal. Quayle and Edwin have megalomania, but also very eccentric personalities, maybe bordering near schizoid-schizotypal personality disorders.
Ofcourse, these are my interpretations, and given that most NPCs do not have a lot of dialogue and content in game, it is mostly left to our imagination to flesh out their characters and quirks. BG2 characters are much more well-defined, thanks to greatly increased number of banters and interjections.
Xan's about the most sane of the bunch, to be perfectly honest. Heavy on the Pessimism, yes, but still very sane and rational. A lot of people avoid him, but he usually does a have some pretty spot on insights for what little interaction vanilla BG1 NPCs have.
I don't know....while he definitely seems unhinged, it's actually very probable that Cyric really did tell Tiax that he would let him rule the world some day (Cyric's a MASSIVE prick, (Prince of Lies and all that) after all). And most Clerics look like insane fools to follower of other Deities that are opposed to their Patron (though to be fair, Cyric only just recovered from the Cyrinshiad a year prior to BG starting, so that could have adversely affected things, since he was actively encouraging his followers backstab each other even more then their enemies, until he got his head back together and restructured things in a more intelligent, less self-defeating manner....He's still a HUGE dick though)
@Fardragon Heh, interesting debate. I agree that Montaron, Quayle, Edwin are not insane in the usual sense. Yet they still have their issues
EVERYONE has issues. The only people who call them "psychiatric conditions" are psychiatrists, who use it as an excuse to make money out of them.
Montaron is a bully and sadist, and I don't think any person that enjoys inflicting pain and intimidating others is normal.
I take it you have never had a job in the real world then. I don't think I have ever met a manager/deputy/head teacher etc who DOESN'T enjoy intimidating others.
I tend to view any druid as at least a little imbalanced, though Jaheira is better than most. The concept of idealizing balance to the point of killing good people to maintain such a balance strikes me as an indefensible moral code.
Of course, I don't actually see Jaheira as True Neutral. She's totally Neutral Good.
In defense of proper True Neutral, one of my favorite alignments, the "maintain the balance" aspect is highly oversimplified in the game's description. It's more cosmic, and less concerned with local matter. Although, a balance-devoted character would indeed probably try to ensure that neither the gnolls or a local baron wipe each other out, simply joining whichever side is weakest was a silly example.
Why would evil characters be not stable and why would lawful characters be stable? It is peculiar how one's judgement is almost always dictated by society even when society is "wrong"(brainwashed or manipulated). Aren't shrinks(who judge the mental health of people) part of this society as well?
There is an "acceptable norm", yes, but there aren't so many "unstable" characters in BG as you describe.
Minsc is stable, Dynaheir is stable, Kivan is stable(vengance <> unstable), Rasad is stable, Dorn is stable, Neera is stable(her magic is not)..., but it is all subjective I guess.
Why would evil characters be not stable and why would lawful characters be stable? It is peculiar how one's judgement is almost always dictated by society even when society is "wrong"(brainwashed or manipulated). Aren't shrinks(who judge the mental health of people) part of this society as well?
There is an "acceptable norm", yes, but there aren't so many "unstable" characters in BG as you describe.
Minsc is stable, Dynaheir is stable, Kivan is stable(vengance <> unstable), Rasad is stable, Dorn is stable, Neera is stable(her magic is not)..., but it is all subjective I guess.
I think the premise of behavioral (psychiatric) instability in this thread is based on what their personalities would actually be like if you were somehow magically ported into the Forgotten Realms "in reality," versus the game engine's scripts. In-game they will all do as you direct, pretty much (with a few notable exceptions depending on conditions that are scripted). Minsc is the only one who has a flip-out, and he also loses control when you select his special berserker ability. Others will leave if you ignore their quest for too long. And some may break into fights. But if I'm understanding the premise correctly, we're extrapolating to what flesh and blood versions of them would actually be like.
@Djimmy: But talking to a hamster (and more importantly thinking it talks back) and going into uncontrollable berserker rages is probably fairly unstable, just saying. It is at least a marker of rather problematic mental issues.
Of course the hamster talks back! It is a miniture giant space hamster after all! I happen to think Boo's dialogue is some of the funniest in the game. Does anyone know who his voice actor was?
@Lemernis I get that of course. What you say is not antithesis of my thesis. Anger is not instability.
Anger isn't, berserking rage where you can't see the difference between friend and foe and just try to destroy *everyone* around you, is. Commander Brage of Nashkel murdered his entire family because of his Cursed Berserking sword and the sword has the exact same effect on people as Minsc's rage does in himself, the difference being that he can also do it voluntarily (if Aerie or Dynaheir dies, he also flies into this rage, as well as when you decline to rescue Dynaheir when you first meet him, and when you don't try to save him from his cage in BG2). The number one rule for something to be called a psychiatric condition is 'It it harmful to the person or person's life or to the people or their lives around him or her?" Minsc's Berserker Rage is incredibly dangerous, so he goes on the list. Personally, I'd vote Montaron's willingness to commit murder over the smallest slights, Xzar's violent delusions and desire to take elven eyes for their infravision and Tiax's insane devotion to a god that openly promotes murder, lies and torture count for those. Conversely, while Xan is obviously deeply depressed, he doesn't seem to be particularly prone to self-harm and if you think about it, his outlook is more than vindicated considering his surroundings and forced-upon profession. If he were to be retired to a library with peace and quiet instead of the constant battlefield of adventuring, I've no doubt he'd be a hundred percent more positive. In this case, I'd say he doesn't have a mental condition as much as a reasonably normal reaction to adventuring life.
In my world those are the people typically considered outstanding management material.
Well considering the average manager this still is pretty accurate.
My manager linked me to the new Starcraft II trailer a few days ago, remarking that he's expecting me to be sick those days. He's feeling a stomach flu coming up himself. Not all managers are bad :-p
Why would evil characters be not stable and why would lawful characters be stable? It is peculiar how one's judgement is almost always dictated by society even when society is "wrong"(brainwashed or manipulated). Aren't shrinks(who judge the mental health of people) part of this society as well?
Really, in my opinion, alignment has nothing to do with mental health and stability (no matter what the description of Chaotic Neutral says). The disconnect here is that modern society has taken to understanding "evil" as mental illness, and so a lot of the behaviors and attitudes that mark Evil characters are seen as symptoms of psychopathology, which is then conflated with instability.
@Kaigen: It is true, though. A lot of the things alignment chart says about Evil count under a number of mental disorders, like lack of empathy and such. So I do think it is far more likely an Evil character is mentally unstable, than a Good one.
@Chow Perhaps, but I'm trying to draw a distinction between a character who has a mental disorder and a character who is mentally unstable. Of course, this is complicated by the fact that, as far as I can tell, "mentally unstable" is a colloquial term (not a clinical one) and so lacks an easy, specific definition to fall back upon.
Basically what I'm saying is that while being Evil may be linked to certain mental disorders, that doesn't necessarily imply that Evil people are more prone to, say, random bouts of unpredictable behavior, relative to other alignments.
Even most Chaotic people aren't entirely random. Chaotic just means that social norms, laws, and personal codes don't mean much to you. Just another disconnect between mental health and alignment, to help cloud this issue even further.
It depends on whether you're using alignment as a shorthand for certain personality traits, or using it to represent a character's moral/ethical philosophy and their role in the extraplanar conflict between Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos. The latter usually assumes a degree of free will or rational judgment that might be incompatible with certain compulsions or personality disorders.
Edit: Also, "random" usually means "operating on a rationale that I do not understand." Generally speaking, people with mental disorders are still working off an internal logic, it's just one that is not commonly accepted or understood by psychologically "normal" society.
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Of course, part of the problem here is that insanity is culturally defined, and there's a broad spectrum with lots of wiggle room between "normal" and "certifiable lunatic." I mean, Edwin, Mr. B., and Tiax all have symptoms of megalomania, but only one of them obviously belongs in an asylum. And Charname thinks they're the spawn of a dead god, so who are they to judge?
If I am playing they way I would THINK a kid from Candlekeep would grow up, I usually play him as a rather stable neutral to good aligned character that is completely taken aback by the events at the start the game. We forget, because of the amount of times many of us have played the game, how absurdly traumatic the beginning would be for a sheltered individual from a walled-in library. This is not to say he would be cowardly, simply blown away and shocked to say the very least.
That being the case, I usually build around that aspect. Foster father just murdered during the night as you RUN for your life, you would want to find friends and a safe haven quickly.
This is my long winded way of saying I usually look for sane NPCs for at least the first half of the game. Until my charname at least gets an idea of the world around him, and his own skill set for defending himself.
I always take Khalid and Jaheira if I play this way. Always (Though I change Khalid to an archer. Because seriously, that man in the thick of things? I think not). My father told me I can trust them, so I do.
Imoen, of course, stays with me as well.
Minsc does NOT come with me. Way too unstable. I would take Dynaheir but not if she comes with Minsc.
I like Kivan. Even though he is revenge-driven, he is a skilled woodsman who isn't bats*** crazy. He provides strength and combat skill that would be needed since Khalid is a coward and Minsc is a simpleton.
Garrick often comes with me. He brings a positive outlook my charname would need.
After that, it depends on the route my character takes. If he gains confidence and strength he may take on the manic depressive Xan because of his need for arcane power that Garrick just can't provide.
Later on Yeslick and Coran become possibilities as well.
Lastly, with the new NPCs, Rasaad is a sane choice. He would replace Kivan. Dorn simply would not get along with the party I've stated. And Neera is 50/50. Depending on my charnames ability to handle crazy situations.
*The End*
In my world those are the people typically considered outstanding management material.
And while Dorn is sure that he was betrayed for being a Half-Orc, I'm not convinced that that had anything to do with him being made the scapegoat. Sure, Senjack and Dorotea had some choice words about his heritage, but Simmeon's the one who made the call, and he doesn't give any indication of giving a toss about Dorn's heritage.
Back on topic, though, the only criteria for whether an NPC is "mentally healthy" is whether you think there are valid/understandable reasons for their actions. This doesn't even preclude getting in fights with other NPCs (the Jahiera/Khalid vs. Montaron/Xzar is entirely understandable). Arguably, by our standards, any NPC is of questionable mental health, because they can kill dozens upon hundreds of kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, gnolls, orcs, and ogres, intelligent beings one and all, and feel nary a twinge of conscience. (Contrast to most people, who can't even kill a single person in self-defense and feel perfectly fine afterwards).
Ofcourse, these are my interpretations, and given that most NPCs do not have a lot of dialogue and content in game, it is mostly left to our imagination to flesh out their characters and quirks. BG2 characters are much more well-defined, thanks to greatly increased number of banters and interjections.
I don't know....while he definitely seems unhinged, it's actually very probable that Cyric really did tell Tiax that he would let him rule the world some day (Cyric's a MASSIVE prick, (Prince of Lies and all that) after all). And most Clerics look like insane fools to follower of other Deities that are opposed to their Patron (though to be fair, Cyric only just recovered from the Cyrinshiad a year prior to BG starting, so that could have adversely affected things, since he was actively encouraging his followers backstab each other even more then their enemies, until he got his head back together and restructured things in a more intelligent, less self-defeating manner....He's still a HUGE dick though)
There is an "acceptable norm", yes, but there aren't so many "unstable" characters in BG as you describe.
Minsc is stable, Dynaheir is stable, Kivan is stable(vengance <> unstable), Rasad is stable, Dorn is stable, Neera is stable(her magic is not)..., but it is all subjective I guess.
I think one of the prerequisites of being a berserker is complete instability.
Commander Brage of Nashkel murdered his entire family because of his Cursed Berserking sword and the sword has the exact same effect on people as Minsc's rage does in himself, the difference being that he can also do it voluntarily (if Aerie or Dynaheir dies, he also flies into this rage, as well as when you decline to rescue Dynaheir when you first meet him, and when you don't try to save him from his cage in BG2).
The number one rule for something to be called a psychiatric condition is 'It it harmful to the person or person's life or to the people or their lives around him or her?"
Minsc's Berserker Rage is incredibly dangerous, so he goes on the list. Personally, I'd vote Montaron's willingness to commit murder over the smallest slights, Xzar's violent delusions and desire to take elven eyes for their infravision and Tiax's insane devotion to a god that openly promotes murder, lies and torture count for those.
Conversely, while Xan is obviously deeply depressed, he doesn't seem to be particularly prone to self-harm and if you think about it, his outlook is more than vindicated considering his surroundings and forced-upon profession. If he were to be retired to a library with peace and quiet instead of the constant battlefield of adventuring, I've no doubt he'd be a hundred percent more positive. In this case, I'd say he doesn't have a mental condition as much as a reasonably normal reaction to adventuring life. My manager linked me to the new Starcraft II trailer a few days ago, remarking that he's expecting me to be sick those days. He's feeling a stomach flu coming up himself.
Not all managers are bad :-p
Basically what I'm saying is that while being Evil may be linked to certain mental disorders, that doesn't necessarily imply that Evil people are more prone to, say, random bouts of unpredictable behavior, relative to other alignments.
Edit: Also, "random" usually means "operating on a rationale that I do not understand." Generally speaking, people with mental disorders are still working off an internal logic, it's just one that is not commonly accepted or understood by psychologically "normal" society.