I have a tendency to metagame which usually means anyone who gives significant loot or exp ends up backstabbed. Oh, and anyone who looks like a worthy challenge ends up backstabbed. But if that's not a factor then I pick the good choice so I'm not totally evil... right?
Also the cat is cute, and who doesn't love a cat who can backstab?
I tend to agree with you although you can say that True Neutral is more peaceful than Neutral Good. Good seeks to bring out compassion, kindness and serenity - but that can be stigmatized and ultimately can bring about a system which isn't beneficial to people with outstanding character flaws. I see true neutral with a very noticable NG slant as being very similar but without the bias towards people acting in a particular way. Personally I would prefer a NG society to the former, but I can't say that a pure neutral doesn't have some benefits.
Just because I don't seek conflict against an injustice doesn't mean I find it appealing to society - it just means I don't seek to create more conflict as a result. Since every action has an equal and opposite reaction any act of evil will have a good response and vice versa. Since each response tends to be more powerful than the thing which caused it destroying some evil only means the next evil will have to be more evil if that makes any sense.
I've always seen good and evil as being two sides of a scale - each side has to add on more to itself to exceed the other. Neutrality is the act of balancing the scales so that no further evil is added to the equation. IMO, neutrality isn't an apathy of the conflict but merely an alternative resolution to it.
@Battlehamster To look at it another way, Neutral Good (or just Good in general) assumes that people can improve and therefore society as a whole can improve, and seeks to make that happen. True Neutral likes it when people act good, but doesn't think that trying to change people or the world is going to be a fruitful choice of action. Either you won't affect any change, or the change will have unintended consequences that will balance out any positives (or make things worse).
Bunch of Chaotic hippies and lazy, apathetic Trues around here. You lack discipline!
But, seriously, I love characters who have a desire to adhere to a code, promote ordered rule/civilization, or uphold the law, if not all three.
To be fair, though, the most popular Neutral character of mine among my gaming group is Segard the Chaotic Neutral Frostrager/Barbarian. "Suplexing people for not believing the tales of your heroic exploits is illegal?! And they call me a 'savage.'"
One of the problems with discussion of D&D neutral is that there are two conflicting definitions of what "neutral" means. One is "apathy, self-interest without willingness or ambition to do either harm or good to others." That's the kind of "neutral" I have drifted towards over 48 years of real life.
The other is "strong belief in balance between opposites, and willingness and ambition to live actively to ensure such balance." That is very rare, indeed. I'm pretty sure that anyone in real life who actually lives and practices that definition of "neutrality" actually has some strong leanings on both the good-evil and the chaos-law axes.
Bunch of Chaotic hippies and lazy, apathetic Trues around here. You lack discipline!
But, seriously, I love characters who have a desire to adhere to a code, promote ordered rule/civilization, or uphold the law, if not all three.
To be fair, though, the most popular Neutral character of mine among my gaming group is Segard the Chaotic Neutral Frostrager/Barbarian. "Suplexing people for not believing the tales of your heroic exploits is illegal?! And they call me a 'savage.'"
My interpretation is that 'apathy' and 'lazyness' in fact belongs with the Lawful Alignment. That is - you accept the rules laid upon you. You could be a very disciplined and loyal worker/servant/guard while at the same time totally uninterested in the bigger sociopolitical picture.
True Neutral, as belgarathmth describes, might be a life-spanning dedication to uphold and maintain balance of forces and order (not judicial order, but universal and natural order).
-Said charity results in a wealthy land owner losing profits
-To compensate for lost profits from an act of charity the wealthy man overworks some serfs.
-A serf attempt to band some men together for better working conditions.
-The land owner sees the serf as a further threat and has him removed.
-Other serfs see the act as unjust and refuse to work.
-In response, the land owner fires the serf.
-The serfs look at this as an act of oppression and rebel.
-The land owner declares martial law.
-The serfs take up arms to defend their livelihood from a tyrant.
-A minor revolt leads to others in a similar situation realizing their unfair treatment.
-Massive civil war erupts on a national scale.
- War erupts as under a banner for a just (good) cause.
-Chaos ensues until the great evil, war, has ravaged all involved.
Good and evil are both the perfect examples of slipperly slopes in practice. What one person considers good, another will consider evil and at the end of the day the greater conflict isn't good vs. evil, its selfishness vs. selflessness. Good and evil are merely words mankind has invented to make something selfish appear selfless and vice versa.
People didn't fight in the crusades because they wanted the land, they did because the people who told them to said they would be saving the souls of heathens. Good is simply the most pristine mask of evil, not because of God, but because evil parades in the robes of non-conflict while seeking to ignite them. Agents of "good" always misunderstand that their reactions only promote the very evil which they are ideaologically opposed to, ex: Ned Stark. Good can only exist in the presence of evil and vice versa meaning that the only way to eliminate evil is to simultaneously eliminate good, it doesn't mean we have to eliminate kindness, compassion and the value of self-worth and self-sufficiency.
Because I like to do what I believe is right on a global scale. Although it has the best intentions, the law is not always right because even though there was spend alot of time perfecting it, it will never be perfect and will always require common sense to not be misinterpreted.
So sometimes I'd have to do something else than what the law sais, to get the result that the law was meant to have. Therefore I cannot be lawful good.
People didn't fight in the crusades because they wanted the land, they did because the people who told them to said they would be saving the souls of heathens. Good is simply the most pristine mask of evil, not because of God, but because evil parades in the robes of non-conflict while seeking to ignite them. Agents of "good" always misunderstand that their reactions only promote the very evil which they are ideaologically opposed to, ex: Ned Stark. Good can only exist in the presence of evil and vice versa meaning that the only way to eliminate evil is to simultaneously eliminate good, it doesn't mean we have to eliminate kindness, compassion and the value of self-worth and self-sufficiency.
To be fair, people got invovled with the crusades because the Kings wanted to keep good relations with the Pope, which was a power factor to take into account. The world is a complex structure where survival and growth demands careful planning. Survival is something that is hard-coded in most living things.
I don't think you can paint everybody who lived during and participated in the Crusades with one brush like that. Some of those soldiers would have been "lawful good" or "lawful neutral" religious zealots who truly believed they were doing God's will. But a lot of them surely were just "chaotic neutral", "neutral evil", and "chaotic evil" individuals who were in it for the raping and pillaging.
Back home, most of the priests likely truly believed they were leading the "lawful good" fight for Christendom. But many of the kings and rulers who supported the idea very likely had "lawful evil" imperial ambitions, and were glad to use the religion as a convenient means of manipulating the armies and the populace.
Some rulers and generals likely saw the rise of Islam and the Ottoman Empire in the east as a terrible military threat to Europe. If they could use religion to motivate their soldiers to fight, they weren't above it.
I think we have to be careful when using historical epochs to make points. It's really easy to oversimplify things. The world is a very, very complicated place, in any epoch of recorded history. Since D&D alignments are part of a game, they really don't apply well to real world history. The alignment system, as well developed as it is, is still not complex enough to describe real life.
Yes, it is obvious that by distilling the entire human spectrum down to 6 categories you are going to lose a lot of data in the process.
And sure, the alignments might vary a lot at a micro level, even while still pulling together in the direction of larger constellations. In the world of evolution 'evil' behaviour might be the only way of survival.
Forming an a giant iron-fisted Empire might be the only workaround to being annexed by other Empires/cultures yourself.
The food industry, very useful for survival but also a death-machine of nightmare proportions.
Characters from our more recent history, like Hitler, certainly saw himself as doing the world a great favor.
Nothing wrong with exploring and debating the mechanisms of existance
In the world of evolution 'evil' behaviour might be the only way of survival.
Fortunately, it's very easy to prove that cooperation is way better for survival than competition. (At least when the resources are enough to sustain every party, which - fortunately again - is usually found out to be the case when greed is overcome by altruism.)
The food industry, very useful for survival but also a death-machine of nightmare proportions.
Completely agree on the nightmare death-machine part, although one could argue with the "very useful for survival" bit... but that's stuff for another thread
People didn't fight in the crusades because they wanted the land, they did because the people who told them to said they would be saving the souls of heathens.
I don't want to get into a historical debate on this thread, but that is really, really not true. Nor, I would argue, is any other description of "why people fought in the Crusades" that is the length of one short sentence.
I don't think you can paint everybody who lived during and participated in the Crusades with one brush like that. Some of those soldiers would have been "lawful good" or "lawful neutral" religious zealots who truly believed they were doing God's will. But a lot of them surely were just "chaotic neutral", "neutral evil", and "chaotic evil" individuals who were in it for the raping and pillaging.
True, but I'm pretty sure going around and killing heathens despite the fact you are doing it for the will of God is evil no matter how you paint it. Even a benevolent conqueror is still a conqueror. In fact, is the very extreme belief that they were doing something good which led "good" men across the ocean to a foreign land to kill people. Even the pilgrims who didn't even participate of the fighting did terrible things believing themselves to be "good" the entire time. The simple act of encouraging the deed with spreading God's divine word in the hopes of of "freeing" the holy land encouraged good men to continue each other because one was good-er than "not God". In many ways good was a much more pervasive evil because people continued to murder each other and were 100% convinced they were doing the right thing. At least with the pillaging and raping crazies you don't really need to think to hard on it to come to the conclusion they're horrible people- Its pretty obvious. I'm not trying to dive into the whole universal moral law thing (which I think is total BS) but I have yet to see one war which can claim it was "virtuous". And if you're concerned about the whole "God thing" just replace Christians and Islam with "Colonists" and "Native Americans". Many people at the time thought they were fulfilling manifest destiny, bringing civilization to the "savages", bringing them God or "Just following orders". At the end of the day though, they were simply taking away the home of an entire people. It still has the scent of doing evil under the guise of "good".
Events within a war can be virtuous (such as charity to refugees, healing the injured, etc.) but many wars start because one side views themselves as "The good guys" when really they're "Evil Incarnate" to the people they were fighting. You look at WW II Germany, I doubt they saw themselves as evil oppressors, they probably saw themselves as freedom fighters seeking to end the oppression of the unlivable conditions the League of Nations forced upon them. Had they won the war (which they almost did) the Holocaust as obviously terrible as it is to us would have been interpreted by that hypothetical history as a lesser evil leading to a greater good. As someone who believes that causality is a hoax and every means is an end in of itself, I'm mortified when someone condones doing something which causes pain and suffering to reach some "higher" goal. All that really achieves is taking something undesirable "evil" and painting it as something desirable "good".
Since all things in the universe, both physical and metaphysical are inclined to generate more of itself in general (Healthy people become more healthy, obese become more obese, rich get richer, poor get poorer, strong trees become taller, weak ones die, having information leads to more information, lacking it increases relative knowledge deprivation, etc.) when you say something is a necessary evil, you are merely allowing for conditions to exist which create a continuity of something undesirable to exist in your society, even though from your own subjective viewpoint it really isn't. But since good>evil you have to go along with it just to make sure you aren't being evil.
All war really is, is a simple clashing of extremes which is what neutrality seeks to end. Good is an extreme response to evil. Whenever there is something people see as desirable in a society, there are often as many people who see the opposite being true. Granted, some people see random killing as being desirable - but enough sane and rational people are opposed to it that we understand its an undesirable desire. If you wanted to kill people for the fun of it, eventually someone would kill you for the fun of it. We don't innately want something if we can understand there would be significant harm for either ourselves or others. It isn't that murder is "evil" its simply a standard which we cannot allow a society to accept if it wishes to grow and flourish. The same can be said of rape, theft, absolute selfLESSness, and other things of the like. Neutrality is less involved with good and evil, and more concerned with discovering mutually beneficial standards which allow a society to grow as a whole - standards neither good, evil, absolute order nor total chaos can ever hope to account for as all of it is needed to some extent. Neutrality is inherently desirable/good as it seeks to be very utilitarian about spreading something desirable while at the same time inhibiting it to the point that it doesn't degrade into a debased hedonism where everyone is allowed to follow their own individual desires, whatever they may be.
Too much good = A perfectly good society where the self has no value. Too much evil = A perfectly evil society where all but the individual has no value. Too much Law = An inflexible society unable to adapt to a constantly changing universe. Too much chaos = A society without any standards which changes too much to have any goal or focus. Too much neutrality = Er...how is it even logically possible to have an excess of non-excess?
Neutrality = Anti ^This, which is why the whole idea of true Neutral is oxymoronic you could be Lawful OR Chaotic but not Lawful AND Neutral or Chaotic AND Neutral or Evil AND Neutral or Good AND neutral. The reason we see people as having the "and" between them is because most people have a tendency towards chaos or law as well as good or evil. Being a truly neutral person doesn't make you a bad person, it merely means you seek standards which make for the best possible society without disregarding anything as being 100% incompatible with reaching that goal, on the contrary it means you seek to find little pieces of everything which make it compatible of all the other little pieces of everything else. Its like trying to make the perfect food - you would need to combine ingredients people would normally never put together since the perfect food would be perfectly sweet, savory, salty, sour, spicy, etc..its not that you've made the perfect food - its that you are willing to look at all the possible ingredients to do so, even the ones that have been placed in the cabinet which you have been forbidden from using. But since using any one ingredient detracts from one flavor profile you can't ever make the "perfect food" but you can always improve your recipe, which is why a "True Neutral" individual can't actually exist - its pragmatically rather than ideologically impossible as you lack the "Uber Spice" which contains the best of all flavor profiles without detracting from any of them. One is not, nor do they ever become "True Neutral" but rather they seek to "become" true neutral which frankly requires far more passion, dedicated, hard work and open mindedness than any of the other philosophic alignments combined. Its why I like saying I'm neutral good. I seek to find a desirable universe in which all beings can coexist absent of all bias - it is only with the complete abolishment of all possible biases that all things in the universe may coexist, even the removal of the bias that True Neutrality is the "best" philosophical standard as it is merely the path and not a destination though we seek to reach it all the same.
Back home, most of the priests likely truly believed they were leading the "lawful good" fight for Christendom. But many of the kings and rulers who supported the idea very likely had "lawful evil" imperial ambitions, and were glad to use the religion as a convenient means of manipulating the armies and the populace.
Which they did by making "good" something objectively/universally desirable. If people innately seek to be good, all that needs to be done to manipulate them is make any action a qualifier for "good" which will cause them to want to do said action.
Serving God is Good Being/Doing _____ is a service to God. Being/Doing _____ is good.
^ Example of how a valid logical structure can be completely ridiculous - and yet it worked for hundreds of years, probably because the soundness of the argument is purely subjective given that no two people ever seem to have the same exact definition of God.
Some rulers and generals likely saw the rise of Islam and the Ottoman Empire in the east as a terrible military threat to Europe. If they could use religion to motivate their soldiers to fight, they weren't above it.
Well sure...unless you happened to be in religiously diverse Egypt - they were screwed no matter who showed up there. Contrary to popular belief, Egypt was secular at the time of the crusades, not wholly Islamic or wholly Christian as political officials were composed of a hodgepodge of both religions. So when the Islamic nations were in charge Christians became suspect and vice-versa...but I digress.
I think we have to be careful when using historical epochs to make points. It's really easy to oversimplify things. The world is a very, very complicated place, in any epoch of recorded history. Since D&D alignments are part of a game, they really don't apply well to real world history. The alignment system, as well developed as it is, is still not complex enough to describe real life.
^This
P.S. Sry bout the TLDR posts on these. I was really big into the ethics during my college career and I find these discussions fascinating.
Oooooh, look at this, an intelligent, respectful, discussion on the internet. How novel. Here's my two cents: There IS right and wrong. There IS good and evil. There no balance of the universe, it is tipped (barely) to the good side, and I think humanity reflects that. There are good people and there are evil people, but it think most people are just confused, but trying to do the right thing. This is special to humans because we are sentient. Good is not some innate ability, or feeling down inside us. It is a conscious choice to do the right thing. If is not often an easy choice. If you want to get a little abstract, (or nutty, depending on how you look at it) when a matter particle and an antimatter particle come in contact with each other they obliterated each other. At the beginning of the universe there was just a little tiny bit more matter than antimatter, and we are the leftovers. There was not an equal amount, and one had to triumph. This doesn't really prove anything, but it makes me feel good, and it could be taken as some sort of sign of good prevailing over evil. But Don't take it too far. I would not go too far with hypotheticals situations where a "good" act causes humanity to blow itself up or something. While interesting to think about, they are not very practice as we can never know what will become of something in the future, and it is best to do the right thing in the moment with what we know. We should not make plans based of of what we don't know, because of exactly that. We don't know. We should plan around what we know, and if we don't know enough, go exploring. These examples often do not account for other factor than prove there point, so they are only useful for proving there point, which is not necessarily bad, but it's best to remember that they don't always reflect life accurately. I wonder if most people believe that the ends justify the means. People say that the don't all the time, but then if the really believed that we wouldn't have war or terrorism (or the NSA:-), so, I wonder....... One more thing, then I'll stop, I promise. I don't think that "right" and "just" are the same thing. "Just" is everybody gets what they deserve, "right" is showing compassion and grace, forgiveness. Forgiveness is not just or fair, it is entirely unfair, and it's our(humanity's) job to display this grace, not to be fair. In a fair, or equal society everyone is the same, and nobody wants that. Can you imagine how miserable the world would be if everyone got what they deserved?
I think you pretty much hit everything I wanted to before I reached the "Oh my god nobody will ever read this" word limit. I completely agree that the universe is barely tipped towards good and that there is a distinction between right/wrong and good/evil. My argument is primarily against the language in which its portrayed. Often time people say that are doing something beneficent while they are in fact committing some malevolence while smiling at you. Its that evil people convince good people that something evil is, in fact, good. The problem is it has been manipulated so much you often cannot say something is good without putting an unjustly bias spin on it.
I often see "True Neutrality" as at least the consideration of all philosophies and intellectual possibilities which is why to me I've often found it difficult for the idea of a Perfectly Neutral being to be anything BUT good. I wasn't saying that killing someone would be just as evil as trying to change someones beliefs because they are different, merely that if someone is killed there is often a reason for it and painting a loss life as a universal loss of a "good" innocent is flawed. Nobody dies as the result of another intelligent being because they were perfectly good - outside of accidents and flukes of nature.
I think the best term for "True Neutral" is really just another name for "A perfectly open mind".
I believe in a positive spirit in the universe - I just think we need to stop using good as the lens to find evil because if you look hard enough you will always find what you are looking for.
You guys should read some Steven Erikson and his novellas on Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, especially "The healthy dead", excellent depiction of maliciously evil characters doing good stuff
I think the best term for "True Neutral" is really just another name for "A perfectly open mind".
A perfectly open mind is a good starting point, but refusing to make even provisional conclusions about right and wrong is a form of intellectual and moral cowardice. A true neutral with a perfectly open mind refuses to act even in the face of overwhelming evidence because of the possibility that some unknown variable will show them to have taken the wrong action; thus paralyzed by indecision, they stand by while evil happens.
A perfectly open mind is a good starting point, but refusing to make even provisional conclusions about right and wrong is a form of intellectual and moral cowardice. A true neutral with a perfectly open mind refuses to act even in the face of overwhelming evidence because of the possibility that some unknown variable will show them to have taken the wrong action; thus paralyzed by indecision, they stand by while evil happens.
...Which is why I said True Neutrality is impossible to actually achieve based on the exact reasons you stated. No living creature is inherently true neutral but is somewhere on the Good/Evil Law/Chaos axis. Striving for it is good. If by some fluke you manage to actually reach it, its evil. The path to enlightenment leads to absolute perfection. But if you are absolutely perfect, there is no longer any reason to exist because there is nothing left to strive for - thus no more actions left to take and no decisions left to be made. The ideal True Neutral philosophy isn't about creating a balance - its the process of attempting to achieve an unobtainable goal.
I think the best term for "True Neutral" is really just another name for "A perfectly open mind".
A perfectly open mind is a good starting point, but refusing to make even provisional conclusions about right and wrong is a form of intellectual and moral cowardice. A true neutral with a perfectly open mind refuses to act even in the face of overwhelming evidence because of the possibility that some unknown variable will show them to have taken the wrong action; thus paralyzed by indecision, they stand by while evil happens.
It is my understanding that true neutral characters try to maintain a balance of good and evil, so they will always support the losing side. This does not seem feasible in real life because you would make so many enemies and just come off as indecisive. don't think jaheria reflected a TN personality, and I can't see a TN person ever becoming an adventurer, as it seems they would be inclined to try not to effect the world.
It is my understanding that true neutral characters try to maintain a balance of good and evil, so they will always support the losing side. This does not seem feasible in real life because you would make so many enemies and just come off as indecisive. don't think jaheria reflected a TN personality, and I can't see a TN person ever becoming an adventurer, as it seems they would be inclined to try not to effect the world.
I consider that to be a common misconception and the description in BG is pretty inaccurate tbh. A true neutral personality doesn't try to maintain a balance of good and evil that is a load of garbage Wizards threw in an attempt to grasp a seldom considered topic. Its the attempt to view the world with an unbiased lens. The Gnoll stronghold is a perfect example of how True Neutral characters would deal with a situation better.
Minsc wants to rescue Dynaheir who was captured by evil Gnolls. So naturally the party waltz in and destroys an entire community of Gnolls without so much as trying to understand why. What gives a person the right to waltz in and kill 10-20 living beings without any explanation. Maybe one Gnoll captured her. Maybe the Chieftain revered her as a God (Mulahey did it with Kobolds!). I do not see any excuse where killing dozen of living thinking creatures can REMOTELY be considered good. The argument is going to be "well then a true neutral character wouldn't do anything". Again, total garbage. A true neutral character would value all life as there is no bias making a "good" life more worthy of merely existing than an "evil" one. It doesn't mean he supports evil, just that he refuses to do something evil because its evil to the right group. (Murder is evil - PERIOD.) But he couldn't ignore the plight of the abducted maiden. The only logical conclusions would be to negotiate - stupid - or to break out Dynaheir without the Gnolls being aware - or to simply scare them off. Scaring them is certainly an evil, but its an evil which tilts the scale less in the direction of evil and balances good and evil just a little bit. Obviously few people are going to play that because it would be a terribly boring game if you were a pacifist.
Balthazar is actually a FANTASTIC example of a true neutral character but the fact he allowed others to suffer to achieve is mission rather than doing what CHARNAME did and managing the situation pretty much alone and/or with a small group of willing companions actually makes Balthazar a True Neutral with a slight EVIL twist not a good one like the game suggests as he forces those around him to act in accordance with his own bias rather than explaining the situation and asking for volunteers.
Balthazar is NOT Lawful Good, and I don't care that he's a Monk.
And this is a fundamental disconnect between your philosophy and the world of D&D. The entire basis of D&D is that violence is an acceptable means of resolving conflicts. It is not the only means of resolving conflict, but it is a major one. If killing in the name of good is an oxymoron, then Paladins and Rangers are in a bit of a bind.
But he couldn't ignore the plight of the abducted maiden. The only logical conclusions would be to negotiate - stupid - or to break out Dynaheir without the Gnolls being aware - or to simply scare them off. Scaring them is certainly an evil, but its an evil which tilts the scale less in the direction of evil and balances good and evil just a little bit. Obviously few people are going to play that because it would be a terribly boring game if you were a pacifist.
At which point the True Neutral character leaves, and the Gnolls continue killing, capturing, and eating dozens of living thinking creatures, demonstrating how neutrality abets evil through a refusal to act decisively.
And this is a fundamental disconnect between your philosophy and the world of D&D. The entire basis of D&D is that violence is an acceptable means of resolving conflicts. It is not the only means of resolving conflict, but it is a major one. If killing in the name of good is an oxymoron, then Paladins and Rangers are in a bit of a bind.
Defending yourself or standing up for those weaker than yourself is not murder. Murder is the unjustified slaughter of innocents. That is VERY wrong. Killing the bad guy before he drops a bomb on New York is not murder, and it is what rangers and paladins do. (Hopefully)
Defending yourself or standing up for those weaker than yourself is not murder. Murder is the unjustified slaughter of innocents. That is VERY wrong. Killing the bad guy before he drops a bomb on New York is not murder, and it is what rangers and paladins do. (Hopefully)
Oh, absolutely, and I think Battlehamster is overstating the case to call attacking the gnolls holding Dynaheir murder. My point is that within the context of D&D, violence is not an inherently evil act. We think of violence as, at best, a necessary evil, whereas from the standpoint of D&D, violence's moral weight depends on your intentions and target.
Bunch of Chaotic hippies and lazy, apathetic Trues around here. You lack discipline!
But, seriously, I love characters who have a desire to adhere to a code, promote ordered rule/civilization, or uphold the law, if not all three.
I think those of us that prefer to play Lawful characters are definitely in the minority. From these polls, people tend to lean more toward Chaos with their good and neutral characters and slightly toward Law for their evil ones. The CG/LE conflict seems to be more popular amongst us BG players than the LG/CE (classic good vs. evil) one.
I find the conflict between Order and Chaos to be more interesting than Good and Evil. A good example of this would be the Suel pantheon and culture in Greyhawk.
And this is a fundamental disconnect between your philosophy and the world of D&D. The entire basis of D&D is that violence is an acceptable means of resolving conflicts. It is not the only means of resolving conflict, but it is a major one. If killing in the name of good is an oxymoron, then Paladins and Rangers are in a bit of a bind.
In D&D land, nah it makes sense. And if good didn't do battle with evil, you're right it would be very boring and nobody would play it. I'm pretty sure in the real world though someone who had a Paladin mentality would likely create just as much insanity as they attempt to prevent. As a pragmatic philosophy Paladins are rather oxymoronic - It doesn't mean I'm NOT going to play one and use my battle cry "For Justice" every time I kill a family of Goblins.
I think you missed the point where I said that even in D&D land its impossible for a perfectly true neutral character to exist. Regardless, I really don't see how you jump to connect a True Neutral character to leaving and automatically becoming apathetic to the whole situation. Neutrality is actually a more long-term good than good is - it seeks a better society where good and either are not in conflict by turning the question from "what is good and what is evil" to "What action can I take to benefit the most living creatures I can". Its isn't that good and evil are irrelevant to a neutral character, its that their constant conflict makes a world worse off for every living thing, even those not involved and a neutral character seeks the end of this conflict and wants some sort of neutral ground between those on "the team of evil" and those "on the team of good". If the last two forces in the universe was a perfect good and a perfect evil, than it would be perfectly selfless meaning good would have no choice but to live for the benefit of evil otherwise good is being selfish which disqualifies the force from being a perfect good. Neutrality is the viewpoint that the two forces would have to merge to become one taking some things from both sides because, lets face it, whether we like it or not every person has some thought, however minor, in their head widely considered wrong or evil to the rest of the world. "Evil" would not exist if it didn't have some appeal and things which appeal to us are good. Evil is little more than the misapplication of a perceived good which is why, in my total not 100% correct opinion, a true neutral character would see evil as an unfortunate accident rather than a pre-meditated force specifically seeking to cause pain and suffering. Really they would think evil tries to be good, they just don't know how and in their bumbling search they end up unintentionally harming others thinking they were doing something good. Neutrality ends the argument of good and evil and looks instead at the merit of actions. A neutral person cannot have an evil intent as there is only good - its simply the understanding that "true evil" is the failure to fully comprehend ones actions and the disregard of consequence whereas "True good" is acting with the intent to ascend the world around them while keeping in mind to not inadvertently create undesirable consequences - which is evil. "True good" is perfect enlightenment and "True evil" is complete ignorance both of which are unattainable by any thinking being to which we would assign a moral responsibility.
As nobody can predict the full reach of the consequences of any action you don't attribute moral blame to someone past what they are able to understand the consequences for, but that doesn't mean you aren't going to still hold them accountable for actions. Someone who steals food seeing no other way out is responsible for stealing, but I wouldn't go so far as to call them an "evil" person because the consequences of hunger placed a veil over the consequences of stealing.
Even the most balanced druid is going to have a slight pull towards good/evil/law/chaos making true neutrality a complete misnomer and technically an impossibility. True Neutral doesn't mean inaction, it means action to make the world better for all things without considering a being good or evil. It isn't the denial of evil - its the acceptance that all biases are innately bad. If you're willing to kill an entire stronghold of Gnolls, your just speciest to the gnolls and are attributing all moral blame to an entire people. Your just putting blind faith in the unfounded belief that all the gnolls were involved and are evil. At the same time the kidnapping couldn't be ignored. You may say that neutrality is a refusal to act decisively, I say good is a lazy way out of acting thoughtfully and permits you to act however you want since you seem to associate decisiveness with virtue.
Furthermore I don't see how rescuing someone while somehow managing to not actually kill anything abets evil. Someone True Neutral wouldn't leave - they would merely seek to defeat the evil without acting in a way more evil than the kidnapping. It would be like responding to being punched with a shotgun blast to the assailants face. Having a right to defend yourself doesn't equate to having the right to kill another unless your life or the life of another is clearly at risk. Dynaheir was kept captive in a pit - storming in through the blood and guts of Gnolls without even considering a non-violent plan is pretty wrong imo...but its way more freaking fun so I'm not against my Paladin fighting for great justice. By all means CHARNAME, go all holy on the unrighteous heathens, detect evil says its okay!
@Battlehamster To me you seem to be conflating Thoughtfulness with Neutrality, when I consider Thoughtfulness to be a trait independent from alignment. In my view, a Thoughtful Good character acts much in the way you describe a True Neutral character--considering the impact of their actions and trying to achieve the greatest good for as many as possible (and that includes considering the consequences of allowing unrepentant evil to continue unchecked). Whereas a Thoughtful Evil character acts in their own interests while considering ways in which their actions might backfire on them in the future.
Furthermore, you talk in Good and Evil as if they are subjective terms and merely "teams," which ignores the fact that they are objective concepts in D&D and that a creature gains an alignment out of behavior. If you do more harm than good with your actions, then your alignment will inexorably shift to Evil. Alignment is not a jersey you are assigned, it is a reflection of your actions and intentions. And a Demon is not misapplying a perceived good or failing to fully comprehend its own actions, it is a being dedicated to bringing pain and destruction to everything.
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Also the cat is cute, and who doesn't love a cat who can backstab?
I tend to agree with you although you can say that True Neutral is more peaceful than Neutral Good. Good seeks to bring out compassion, kindness and serenity - but that can be stigmatized and ultimately can bring about a system which isn't beneficial to people with outstanding character flaws. I see true neutral with a very noticable NG slant as being very similar but without the bias towards people acting in a particular way. Personally I would prefer a NG society to the former, but I can't say that a pure neutral doesn't have some benefits.
Just because I don't seek conflict against an injustice doesn't mean I find it appealing to society - it just means I don't seek to create more conflict as a result. Since every action has an equal and opposite reaction any act of evil will have a good response and vice versa. Since each response tends to be more powerful than the thing which caused it destroying some evil only means the next evil will have to be more evil if that makes any sense.
I've always seen good and evil as being two sides of a scale - each side has to add on more to itself to exceed the other. Neutrality is the act of balancing the scales so that no further evil is added to the equation. IMO, neutrality isn't an apathy of the conflict but merely an alternative resolution to it.
But, seriously, I love characters who have a desire to adhere to a code, promote ordered rule/civilization, or uphold the law, if not all three.
To be fair, though, the most popular Neutral character of mine among my gaming group is Segard the Chaotic Neutral Frostrager/Barbarian.
"Suplexing people for not believing the tales of your heroic exploits is illegal?! And they call me a 'savage.'"
The other is "strong belief in balance between opposites, and willingness and ambition to live actively to ensure such balance." That is very rare, indeed. I'm pretty sure that anyone in real life who actually lives and practices that definition of "neutrality" actually has some strong leanings on both the good-evil and the chaos-law axes.
True Neutral, as belgarathmth describes, might be a life-spanning dedication to uphold and maintain balance of forces and order (not judicial order, but universal and natural order).
To put good into perspective.
-A man commits an act of charity for some farmers
-Said charity results in a wealthy land owner losing profits
-To compensate for lost profits from an act of charity the wealthy man overworks some serfs.
-A serf attempt to band some men together for better working conditions.
-The land owner sees the serf as a further threat and has him removed.
-Other serfs see the act as unjust and refuse to work.
-In response, the land owner fires the serf.
-The serfs look at this as an act of oppression and rebel.
-The land owner declares martial law.
-The serfs take up arms to defend their livelihood from a tyrant.
-A minor revolt leads to others in a similar situation realizing their unfair treatment.
-Massive civil war erupts on a national scale.
- War erupts as under a banner for a just (good) cause.
-Chaos ensues until the great evil, war, has ravaged all involved.
Good and evil are both the perfect examples of slipperly slopes in practice. What one person considers good, another will consider evil and at the end of the day the greater conflict isn't good vs. evil, its selfishness vs. selflessness. Good and evil are merely words mankind has invented to make something selfish appear selfless and vice versa.
People didn't fight in the crusades because they wanted the land, they did because the people who told them to said they would be saving the souls of heathens. Good is simply the most pristine mask of evil, not because of God, but because evil parades in the robes of non-conflict while seeking to ignite them. Agents of "good" always misunderstand that their reactions only promote the very evil which they are ideaologically opposed to, ex: Ned Stark. Good can only exist in the presence of evil and vice versa meaning that the only way to eliminate evil is to simultaneously eliminate good, it doesn't mean we have to eliminate kindness, compassion and the value of self-worth and self-sufficiency.
So sometimes I'd have to do something else than what the law sais, to get the result that the law was meant to have. Therefore I cannot be lawful good.
Back home, most of the priests likely truly believed they were leading the "lawful good" fight for Christendom. But many of the kings and rulers who supported the idea very likely had "lawful evil" imperial ambitions, and were glad to use the religion as a convenient means of manipulating the armies and the populace.
Some rulers and generals likely saw the rise of Islam and the Ottoman Empire in the east as a terrible military threat to Europe. If they could use religion to motivate their soldiers to fight, they weren't above it.
I think we have to be careful when using historical epochs to make points. It's really easy to oversimplify things. The world is a very, very complicated place, in any epoch of recorded history. Since D&D alignments are part of a game, they really don't apply well to real world history. The alignment system, as well developed as it is, is still not complex enough to describe real life.
And sure, the alignments might vary a lot at a micro level, even while still pulling together in the direction of larger constellations.
In the world of evolution 'evil' behaviour might be the only way of survival.
Forming an a giant iron-fisted Empire might be the only workaround to being annexed by other Empires/cultures yourself.
The food industry, very useful for survival but also a death-machine of nightmare proportions.
Characters from our more recent history, like Hitler, certainly saw himself as doing the world a great favor.
Nothing wrong with exploring and debating the mechanisms of existance
True, but I'm pretty sure going around and killing heathens despite the fact you are doing it for the will of God is evil no matter how you paint it. Even a benevolent conqueror is still a conqueror. In fact, is the very extreme belief that they were doing something good which led "good" men across the ocean to a foreign land to kill people. Even the pilgrims who didn't even participate of the fighting did terrible things believing themselves to be "good" the entire time. The simple act of encouraging the deed with spreading God's divine word in the hopes of of "freeing" the holy land encouraged good men to continue each other because one was good-er than "not God". In many ways good was a much more pervasive evil because people continued to murder each other and were 100% convinced they were doing the right thing. At least with the pillaging and raping crazies you don't really need to think to hard on it to come to the conclusion they're horrible people- Its pretty obvious. I'm not trying to dive into the whole universal moral law thing (which I think is total BS) but I have yet to see one war which can claim it was "virtuous". And if you're concerned about the whole "God thing" just replace Christians and Islam with "Colonists" and "Native Americans". Many people at the time thought they were fulfilling manifest destiny, bringing civilization to the "savages", bringing them God or "Just following orders". At the end of the day though, they were simply taking away the home of an entire people. It still has the scent of doing evil under the guise of "good".
Events within a war can be virtuous (such as charity to refugees, healing the injured, etc.) but many wars start because one side views themselves as "The good guys" when really they're "Evil Incarnate" to the people they were fighting. You look at WW II Germany, I doubt they saw themselves as evil oppressors, they probably saw themselves as freedom fighters seeking to end the oppression of the unlivable conditions the League of Nations forced upon them. Had they won the war (which they almost did) the Holocaust as obviously terrible as it is to us would have been interpreted by that hypothetical history as a lesser evil leading to a greater good. As someone who believes that causality is a hoax and every means is an end in of itself, I'm mortified when someone condones doing something which causes pain and suffering to reach some "higher" goal. All that really achieves is taking something undesirable "evil" and painting it as something desirable "good".
Since all things in the universe, both physical and metaphysical are inclined to generate more of itself in general (Healthy people become more healthy, obese become more obese, rich get richer, poor get poorer, strong trees become taller, weak ones die, having information leads to more information, lacking it increases relative knowledge deprivation, etc.) when you say something is a necessary evil, you are merely allowing for conditions to exist which create a continuity of something undesirable to exist in your society, even though from your own subjective viewpoint it really isn't. But since good>evil you have to go along with it just to make sure you aren't being evil.
All war really is, is a simple clashing of extremes which is what neutrality seeks to end. Good is an extreme response to evil. Whenever there is something people see as desirable in a society, there are often as many people who see the opposite being true. Granted, some people see random killing as being desirable - but enough sane and rational people are opposed to it that we understand its an undesirable desire. If you wanted to kill people for the fun of it, eventually someone would kill you for the fun of it. We don't innately want something if we can understand there would be significant harm for either ourselves or others. It isn't that murder is "evil" its simply a standard which we cannot allow a society to accept if it wishes to grow and flourish. The same can be said of rape, theft, absolute selfLESSness, and other things of the like. Neutrality is less involved with good and evil, and more concerned with discovering mutually beneficial standards which allow a society to grow as a whole - standards neither good, evil, absolute order nor total chaos can ever hope to account for as all of it is needed to some extent. Neutrality is inherently desirable/good as it seeks to be very utilitarian about spreading something desirable while at the same time inhibiting it to the point that it doesn't degrade into a debased hedonism where everyone is allowed to follow their own individual desires, whatever they may be.
Too much good = A perfectly good society where the self has no value.
Too much evil = A perfectly evil society where all but the individual has no value.
Too much Law = An inflexible society unable to adapt to a constantly changing universe.
Too much chaos = A society without any standards which changes too much to have any goal or focus.
Too much neutrality = Er...how is it even logically possible to have an excess of non-excess?
Neutrality = Anti ^This, which is why the whole idea of true Neutral is oxymoronic you could be Lawful OR Chaotic but not Lawful AND Neutral or Chaotic AND Neutral or Evil AND Neutral or Good AND neutral. The reason we see people as having the "and" between them is because most people have a tendency towards chaos or law as well as good or evil. Being a truly neutral person doesn't make you a bad person, it merely means you seek standards which make for the best possible society without disregarding anything as being 100% incompatible with reaching that goal, on the contrary it means you seek to find little pieces of everything which make it compatible of all the other little pieces of everything else. Its like trying to make the perfect food - you would need to combine ingredients people would normally never put together since the perfect food would be perfectly sweet, savory, salty, sour, spicy, etc..its not that you've made the perfect food - its that you are willing to look at all the possible ingredients to do so, even the ones that have been placed in the cabinet which you have been forbidden from using. But since using any one ingredient detracts from one flavor profile you can't ever make the "perfect food" but you can always improve your recipe, which is why a "True Neutral" individual can't actually exist - its pragmatically rather than ideologically impossible as you lack the "Uber Spice" which contains the best of all flavor profiles without detracting from any of them. One is not, nor do they ever become "True Neutral" but rather they seek to "become" true neutral which frankly requires far more passion, dedicated, hard work and open mindedness than any of the other philosophic alignments combined. Its why I like saying I'm neutral good. I seek to find a desirable universe in which all beings can coexist absent of all bias - it is only with the complete abolishment of all possible biases that all things in the universe may coexist, even the removal of the bias that True Neutrality is the "best" philosophical standard as it is merely the path and not a destination though we seek to reach it all the same. Which they did by making "good" something objectively/universally desirable. If people innately seek to be good, all that needs to be done to manipulate them is make any action a qualifier for "good" which will cause them to want to do said action.
Serving God is Good
Being/Doing _____ is a service to God.
Being/Doing _____ is good.
^ Example of how a valid logical structure can be completely ridiculous - and yet it worked for hundreds of years, probably because the soundness of the argument is purely subjective given that no two people ever seem to have the same exact definition of God. Well sure...unless you happened to be in religiously diverse Egypt - they were screwed no matter who showed up there. Contrary to popular belief, Egypt was secular at the time of the crusades, not wholly Islamic or wholly Christian as political officials were composed of a hodgepodge of both religions. So when the Islamic nations were in charge Christians became suspect and vice-versa...but I digress. ^This
P.S. Sry bout the TLDR posts on these. I was really big into the ethics during my college career and I find these discussions fascinating.
Here's my two cents:
There IS right and wrong. There IS good and evil. There no balance of the universe, it is tipped (barely) to the good side, and I think humanity reflects that. There are good people and there are evil people, but it think most people are just confused, but trying to do the right thing. This is special to humans because we are sentient. Good is not some innate ability, or feeling down inside us. It is a conscious choice to do the right thing. If is not often an easy choice.
If you want to get a little abstract, (or nutty, depending on how you look at it) when a matter particle and an antimatter particle come in contact with each other they obliterated each other. At the beginning of the universe there was just a little tiny bit more matter than antimatter, and we are the leftovers. There was not an equal amount, and one had to triumph. This doesn't really prove anything, but it makes me feel good, and it could be taken as some sort of sign of good prevailing over evil. But Don't take it too far.
I would not go too far with hypotheticals situations where a "good" act causes humanity to blow itself up or something. While interesting to think about, they are not very practice as we can never know what will become of something in the future, and it is best to do the right thing in the moment with what we know. We should not make plans based of of what we don't know, because of exactly that. We don't know. We should plan around what we know, and if we don't know enough, go exploring. These examples often do not account for other factor than prove there point, so they are only useful for proving there point, which is not necessarily bad, but it's best to remember that they don't always reflect life accurately.
I wonder if most people believe that the ends justify the means. People say that the don't all the time, but then if the really believed that we wouldn't have war or terrorism (or the NSA:-), so, I wonder.......
One more thing, then I'll stop, I promise. I don't think that "right" and "just" are the same thing. "Just" is everybody gets what they deserve, "right" is showing compassion and grace, forgiveness. Forgiveness is not just or fair, it is entirely unfair, and it's our(humanity's) job to display this grace, not to be fair. In a fair, or equal society everyone is the same, and nobody wants that. Can you imagine how miserable the world would be if everyone got what they deserved?
I often see "True Neutrality" as at least the consideration of all philosophies and intellectual possibilities which is why to me I've often found it difficult for the idea of a Perfectly Neutral being to be anything BUT good. I wasn't saying that killing someone would be just as evil as trying to change someones beliefs because they are different, merely that if someone is killed there is often a reason for it and painting a loss life as a universal loss of a "good" innocent is flawed. Nobody dies as the result of another intelligent being because they were perfectly good - outside of accidents and flukes of nature.
I think the best term for "True Neutral" is really just another name for "A perfectly open mind".
I believe in a positive spirit in the universe - I just think we need to stop using good as the lens to find evil because if you look hard enough you will always find what you are looking for.
It is my understanding that true neutral characters try to maintain a balance of good and evil, so they will always support the losing side. This does not seem feasible in real life because you would make so many enemies and just come off as indecisive. don't think jaheria reflected a TN personality, and I can't see a TN person ever becoming an adventurer, as it seems they would be inclined to try not to effect the world.
I consider that to be a common misconception and the description in BG is pretty inaccurate tbh. A true neutral personality doesn't try to maintain a balance of good and evil that is a load of garbage Wizards threw in an attempt to grasp a seldom considered topic. Its the attempt to view the world with an unbiased lens. The Gnoll stronghold is a perfect example of how True Neutral characters would deal with a situation better.
Minsc wants to rescue Dynaheir who was captured by evil Gnolls. So naturally the party waltz in and destroys an entire community of Gnolls without so much as trying to understand why. What gives a person the right to waltz in and kill 10-20 living beings without any explanation. Maybe one Gnoll captured her. Maybe the Chieftain revered her as a God (Mulahey did it with Kobolds!). I do not see any excuse where killing dozen of living thinking creatures can REMOTELY be considered good. The argument is going to be "well then a true neutral character wouldn't do anything". Again, total garbage. A true neutral character would value all life as there is no bias making a "good" life more worthy of merely existing than an "evil" one. It doesn't mean he supports evil, just that he refuses to do something evil because its evil to the right group. (Murder is evil - PERIOD.) But he couldn't ignore the plight of the abducted maiden. The only logical conclusions would be to negotiate - stupid - or to break out Dynaheir without the Gnolls being aware - or to simply scare them off. Scaring them is certainly an evil, but its an evil which tilts the scale less in the direction of evil and balances good and evil just a little bit. Obviously few people are going to play that because it would be a terribly boring game if you were a pacifist.
Balthazar is actually a FANTASTIC example of a true neutral character but the fact he allowed others to suffer to achieve is mission rather than doing what CHARNAME did and managing the situation pretty much alone and/or with a small group of willing companions actually makes Balthazar a True Neutral with a slight EVIL twist not a good one like the game suggests as he forces those around him to act in accordance with his own bias rather than explaining the situation and asking for volunteers.
Balthazar is NOT Lawful Good, and I don't care that he's a Monk.
At which point the True Neutral character leaves, and the Gnolls continue killing, capturing, and eating dozens of living thinking creatures, demonstrating how neutrality abets evil through a refusal to act decisively.
I find the conflict between Order and Chaos to be more interesting than Good and Evil. A good example of this would be the Suel pantheon and culture in Greyhawk.
I think you missed the point where I said that even in D&D land its impossible for a perfectly true neutral character to exist. Regardless, I really don't see how you jump to connect a True Neutral character to leaving and automatically becoming apathetic to the whole situation. Neutrality is actually a more long-term good than good is - it seeks a better society where good and either are not in conflict by turning the question from "what is good and what is evil" to "What action can I take to benefit the most living creatures I can". Its isn't that good and evil are irrelevant to a neutral character, its that their constant conflict makes a world worse off for every living thing, even those not involved and a neutral character seeks the end of this conflict and wants some sort of neutral ground between those on "the team of evil" and those "on the team of good". If the last two forces in the universe was a perfect good and a perfect evil, than it would be perfectly selfless meaning good would have no choice but to live for the benefit of evil otherwise good is being selfish which disqualifies the force from being a perfect good. Neutrality is the viewpoint that the two forces would have to merge to become one taking some things from both sides because, lets face it, whether we like it or not every person has some thought, however minor, in their head widely considered wrong or evil to the rest of the world. "Evil" would not exist if it didn't have some appeal and things which appeal to us are good. Evil is little more than the misapplication of a perceived good which is why, in my total not 100% correct opinion, a true neutral character would see evil as an unfortunate accident rather than a pre-meditated force specifically seeking to cause pain and suffering. Really they would think evil tries to be good, they just don't know how and in their bumbling search they end up unintentionally harming others thinking they were doing something good. Neutrality ends the argument of good and evil and looks instead at the merit of actions. A neutral person cannot have an evil intent as there is only good - its simply the understanding that "true evil" is the failure to fully comprehend ones actions and the disregard of consequence whereas "True good" is acting with the intent to ascend the world around them while keeping in mind to not inadvertently create undesirable consequences - which is evil. "True good" is perfect enlightenment and "True evil" is complete ignorance both of which are unattainable by any thinking being to which we would assign a moral responsibility.
As nobody can predict the full reach of the consequences of any action you don't attribute moral blame to someone past what they are able to understand the consequences for, but that doesn't mean you aren't going to still hold them accountable for actions. Someone who steals food seeing no other way out is responsible for stealing, but I wouldn't go so far as to call them an "evil" person because the consequences of hunger placed a veil over the consequences of stealing.
Even the most balanced druid is going to have a slight pull towards good/evil/law/chaos making true neutrality a complete misnomer and technically an impossibility. True Neutral doesn't mean inaction, it means action to make the world better for all things without considering a being good or evil. It isn't the denial of evil - its the acceptance that all biases are innately bad. If you're willing to kill an entire stronghold of Gnolls, your just speciest to the gnolls and are attributing all moral blame to an entire people. Your just putting blind faith in the unfounded belief that all the gnolls were involved and are evil. At the same time the kidnapping couldn't be ignored. You may say that neutrality is a refusal to act decisively, I say good is a lazy way out of acting thoughtfully and permits you to act however you want since you seem to associate decisiveness with virtue.
Furthermore I don't see how rescuing someone while somehow managing to not actually kill anything abets evil. Someone True Neutral wouldn't leave - they would merely seek to defeat the evil without acting in a way more evil than the kidnapping. It would be like responding to being punched with a shotgun blast to the assailants face. Having a right to defend yourself doesn't equate to having the right to kill another unless your life or the life of another is clearly at risk. Dynaheir was kept captive in a pit - storming in through the blood and guts of Gnolls without even considering a non-violent plan is pretty wrong imo...but its way more freaking fun so I'm not against my Paladin fighting for great justice. By all means CHARNAME, go all holy on the unrighteous heathens, detect evil says its okay!
Furthermore, you talk in Good and Evil as if they are subjective terms and merely "teams," which ignores the fact that they are objective concepts in D&D and that a creature gains an alignment out of behavior. If you do more harm than good with your actions, then your alignment will inexorably shift to Evil. Alignment is not a jersey you are assigned, it is a reflection of your actions and intentions. And a Demon is not misapplying a perceived good or failing to fully comprehend its own actions, it is a being dedicated to bringing pain and destruction to everything.