The moral axis has three positions: good, neutral and evil. Good characters generally care about the welfare of others. Neutral people generally care about their own welfare. Evil people generally seek to harm the others' welfare.
I disagree, unless you believe all evil to stem from sadistic tendencies. I would rather say that a good character actively contributes to the lives of others, a neutral character passively respects others, and an evil character is not concerned with the well-being of others. But the actions that lead him to hurt his peers are primarily motivated by a myriad of different things. He simply doesn't restrain himself.
A hole in this logic could be found by exploring the attitude of true neutral characters : if they act to mantain a certain balance, then they seek an ultimate statu quo, which means that they conform very strongly, in a way, which is a trait supposedly held by lawful people.
The D&D alignment system is quite interesting. You have two components: view on society (lawful, neutral, chaotic) & personal ethics (good, neutral, evil).
But this concept is best handled with a PnP group since the DM has to judge the players actions (e.g. did the player's character lie, did the player's character steal, etc.). CRPGs have a hard time to cope with this. Planescape Torment had an interesting go at it.
A chaotic evil character doesn't run around committing homicides. This alignment (or any other evil alignment) should not be used by players as excuse for killing NPCs and eventually PCs. Chaotic evil just means that the character doesn't honour agreements and the character doesn't feel obliged to obey the law. The evil aspect just means that the character is outright selfish.
Alignment shouldn't be treated as a "static score". It should change to reflect a character's past deeds (see Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2 and Planescape Torment). But then does a player really need to know his/her character's alignment? Maybe it's best left for the DM to keep track of it and make sure that a player is aware of the consequences of certain actions (e.g. deviating too much from the character's ethos which could result in falling out of favour with a cleric's deity, failing to adhere to the tenets of a chivalric order, etc.).
i think any self proclaimed fixed characteristic is false to begin with.
i must admit i am bothered with d&d treatment of alignments even if i somewhat like the presumed neat little shelves it arranges for characters. i like chaos and freedom (chaotic), but i think to some extent limits and rules make freedom tangible, breaking free of the law or even adhering to it may yield greater freedom in the end, no matter if it is freedom from desire or ego (lawful). i generally care for other people and empathize with their pain. i also find self-sacrifice the important theme in interaction with the world (good). at the same time i think people deserve to be understood, but not necessarily deserve compassion (evil).
in any case, it is a childish attempt to show absurdity of alignments in general. i did not even said anything about myself. that's why i dislike evil characters going to hell and good to heaven. i never play paladins (no matter the sexy kits) because the self righteousness of their ethos makes me puke. i really believe that they are more akin to demons than some blackguards, with their pride and obvious blindness to broader specter of less familiar. also, some evil characters cases suffer only from determination or somesuch.
i think that was the reason why newer games try to distance from such moral judgements more and more. no self respecting medium can claim knowledge or understanding that falls in the domain of "the divine" if i might say so. that's why i would like to see more flexible interpretations of those alignments in d&D...
@Zafiro You hold politicians to a very high standard. Some of your posts imply that lawmaking should be the ultimate in ethical behaviour. In an ideal world this is true. But philosophical and political ideals often miss the dissent and apathy of a significant number of people - there is rarely consensus on what is good. When we cannot agree what good is, how can we as a group work toward it?
I agree that man is a social animal, by the way. We've been shaped that way by evolution (See some of Robin Dunbar's work on the evolution of intelligence a.k.a. the social brain hypothesis). However once any system is in place there can be individuals who benefit strongly from cheating. Put simply if everyone were by default honest and lying was unknown, society as a whole would be very strong. If an individual within this system lies it can give a very large evolutionary advantage to that individual at the expense of the society as a whole. Which more or less sums up my attitude to most senior politicians.
Also, with regard to religion you sound like an agnostic atheist - you don't believe in a deity because you don't find it necessary to underpin your worldview, but might change your mind were persuasive evidence in existence. I'm of a similar mindset - dogmatic atheism is as irrational a position as any religion due to the impossibility of proving a negative.
the reason alignment is so strongly identified with polar extremes in D&D is that the storytelling construct we use is a direct descendant of morality tales. all sorts of settings circumvent these conventions, however; forgotten realms just doesn't happen to be one of them, as it was created in days when people didn't really think about this aspect of what gaming attempts to portray.
i feel like my concision is getting missed in all the block posts
Personally I think the idea of 'good' and 'evil in our real world sense confuses our understanding of the idea of 'good' and 'evil' in the Dungeons and Dragons universe, and they are definitely not the right terms to describe the alignments being offered.
The handbooks of D&D3.5 especially describe this situation quite well. Good does not necessarily mean nice, just as evil does not necessarily mean nasty. As was mentioned by that tweet earlier the idea is essentially more down to the balance of 'self vs selfless' rather than 'right vs wrong'. It is certainly interesting to see the more religious people here instantly branding themselves as lawful good because they are religious, however in the D&D universe there are just as many legitimate religions belonging to the evil and chaotic deities, as well as the neutrals. It is good to think that following a religion may make us become a better person, but in the D&D universe following a religion doesn't mean you are good by any means. Again this seems to be a confusion between the definition of good in the real world and the fictional D&D world. Blame the terms, not the people playing.
Lawful and chaotic is a lot more clearly defined. Lawful neutral characters tend to be guards and policemen, whereas chaotic neutral people tend to be stark raving lunatics. Some might think of it as chaos being anarchy, but by and large the vast majority of chaotic neutrals are purely insane. Since most of us are not insane I find myself finding it generally impossible to gravitate near the chaotic side.
Ultimately most of us enjoy being in a society where we know we can go out of our house and feel safe, because if someone were to attack us we would be (hopefully) protected by the law and the police. We want to respect the laws when they are just and try and fit in and uphold them when we believe in them. If we think the rules and laws are unfair we will challenge them and seek better ones, but this is just as lawful and not chaotic at all. The people that actively fight against the law purely because it's the law are usually seen as unruly (and often violent) mobs that we look down on, and very rarely support.
Evil... well lets face it, no matter how nice we are to other people we are ultimately going to be looking out for ourselves. There are very, very few people that would throw away their own lives to save another, but those people obviously do exist. By and large we do what we do because it makes us feel better, or it gets us more stuff, or it works us towards our next promotion our work. Hell we even help other people because it makes us feel good, and that's still actually pretty selfish. We do these things because they primarily benefit ourselves and make us feel good, and that is pretty much the textbook definition of evil in the D&D universe. Working directly towards your own goals. Selfish, not nasty.
So... lawful evil then.
Also the player's handbook suggests that lawful evil criminal masterminds are truly dangerous things to behold, much more so than the chaotic evil and that's kinda cool.
I remember reading some interesting things about alignments trent oster posted about it a few weeks back. There was like a calculator which asked like 100 questions, it defined me as true neutral, I would define myself a true neutral in real life too, I tend to be quite balanced with my descions I make in my life, I like to see both sides of the story, I also like being on the fence and direct my life on my own values.
Not everything I do is good sometimes people need to be put into place when they are selfish and annoying and aggresive and then sometimes you have to be the better person. also keeping to myself keeps me out of trouble and the spotlight. Its how I feel comfortable
Following the descriptions, I'd be Chaotic Good, people always say I'm either a madman or a genius. Totaly unpredictable also fits, although I think I lean more towards good. If it was like NWN with the point system, I'd say Chaotic Neutral, with only a few points missing for Chaotic Good
All of the evil alignments put themselves first over others. Good alignments put the good of the whole of society/others over their own well-being. Neutrals are willing to do anything or go along with anything as long as they see some kind of benefit. However, CN is crazy- does anything they want at any time just because they can, and LNs are all about law and order being paramount, even if the law hurts people. I've taken several "alignment tests" and gotten results from Lawful Good, Chaotic Good and Neutral Good. I want the greatest good to the greatest number of people, and I think it's bad if a law ends up hurting people more than it helps. But I tend to see myself as NG rather than LG, even if I answered the poll LG.
I picked chaotic good because I'm an anarchist. I believe that hierachy, authority an law are inherenty corrupting and that however well-meaning and righteous a hierachical organisation might be to begin with, by its very nature it will oppress and extort those that are lower to the benefit of those that are higher.
@Corvino, I don't belive is that hard for humans to agree on good and bad, let's say temperance is a virtue; I've seen members of the Parliment drinking poison from a can, they don't even care about their own health, how am I to trust he cares about my health. And thats just an image, I live in a corrupt country so I've seen worse. Therefor I dont exactly hold politicians to a very high standard but the art of politics. Most people don't study philosophy anymore, exactly the people that should study it every day, after all Politics was written by a philosopher.
You're right, we've been shaped that way by evolution, you have the household followed by the village and finally the city State. Can't say I can imagine a world where everybody is honest by default, seems you cannot be honest without somebody else lying.
I don't believe choosing Napoleon as Neutral Evil is a wise decision. First of all, the man had great respect for the law, creating a codex so modern it is still used in todays' democracies. Secondly, he was not nearly cruel enough to be compared to Hitler or Stalin, going as far as NOT persecuting and killing off those who, while he was still a general, attempted to assassinate him. Finally, he fought all the absolutist despoties of Europe (Russia, Prussia, Austria) and the bloodiest colonizer of all time (Commonwealth). I could go on and on. Just a few, sample examples.
Napoleon would probably be Lawful Neutral. He was a great supporter of the law but his personal ethics were somewhat sewered to gaining more power and prestige for himself. Thought that didn't mean he'd sellout his own people either. Rather complicated man.
As far as our conversations have gone (all that have answered to my posts) it seems that what lawful is, or any other word for that matter, is something of a mystery. We all have a different idea for each one, and many of us put in a side note that the system is flawed.
As one person said (I read through, but don't feel like finding their quote), we are too complex to fit into the shelves of DnD alignment (though it is a fun exersize). Even with the quizzes most of us find the questions unsatisfying and vague. It just seems like no conclusions will ever really be come to. DnD (rightfully, I believe) have written the alignments vaguely. They are written more as a tool to help on run their character as they should. It helps the player to delve into their character and understand them more, so that when decisions come, they can be true to their character. It's just that real humans aren't so cut and dried.
Now, I'm not saying we should talk about this anymore. I think the conversation is fascinating, both what people think is best for society and how they define alignment.
Appears it was said in jest, but I see capitalism as indeed being Neutral Evil: it's being about self-enrichment, look at the banking crisis, the bail-outs, the exploitation of workers if rules and rights are relaxed or not even there, look at America, go watch the movies by Michael Moore.
I see myself as ideologically opposed to capitalism, though I'm tainted by the world I live in: tempted into both buying a desktop, laptop and tablet. But life really is about sharing, about enjoying nature, about restraining yourself so that other persons and species may live, fulfillment in life is found in doing things that make others happy. And as many laws are evil, and some are good, you should take the middle road and judge laws by what is right and just, what betters people and what helps the most needy and vulnerable of people, peoples and species. Good being more important than either law or anarchy, I vote for Neutral Good.
It's in being there for others, be they human, animal, plant or ecosystem, that we find fulfillment.
There is a difference betwen Capitalism, and Cronies capitalism, that's what your talking about... and Michael Moore is a major hypocrites who does movies denoncing a situation, but the guy refuse to applicate thouse lessons for himselfs, the guy refuse that is crew syndicalise themselves, and for the fun google to see what his house look like
Calling it Cronies capitalism if you will, but that's the kind of capitalism where stuck with at this time. And I don't know if what you're saying about Michael Moore is true or just an unfounded accusation, but that doesn't make capitalism any less evil, the damage to the environment any less, it doesn't make the number of people forced out of their houses any less, it doesn't make the lies and deciet and misuse of bailout money any less, it doesn't give people proper healthcare or a guaranteed meaningfull wage. Blaming the messenger doesn't make the thruth of the messenger any less, nor does the 'True Scotsman' argument make the evil of today's capitalism any less.
I want to chime in and point out that the whole reason alignment works in D&D is there is no moral or ethical relativism. There are real and tangible forces of good and of evil, whole realms dedicated to them as well as to law and chaos, as well as realms and forces comprised of elements of them. It is a mythical setting of heroism and villainy after all. From the lowliest serf to the mightiest angel or demon these forces exists. They can be either intrinsic (such as with beings with the descriptor always chaotic evil) or chosen (as is the case for most PC races).
In a sense it works well precisely because it is an oversimplification. Although there is no reason two characters have to act the same way just because they share alignment, there is no reason why every Paladin has to be self righteous and proud either. Rather than thinking of alignments as absolutes think of them in terms of tendencies and extremes. Many people who are Lawful can be folk who tend towards being lawful, but someone who has extreme views and behaves accordingly is still lawful. It is a case of either or not that one is the only true way.
Alignment is a conceit of the setting, much like The Force in Star Wars (which is another construct for the sake of the story and setting). People keep coming back to alignment, but you just have to accept tats how it works. I do not see people complaining that the elemental planes don't contain the plane of boron after all!!
@Zafiro On an political/state level there are vast disagreements about whether or not actions are good. Taking an example from the Baldur's Gate series (ToB admittedly) - you are confronted in the pocket plane and accused of making people helpless and dependent, relying on your proficiency and strength to fight their battles for them. Do your benevolent actions weaken those you help as an unintended consequence?
This is very similar to arguements for and against any welfare state. It can be argued that supporting the neediest and most vulnerable in society is a good in itself, a noble cause. Opponents point to dependence on the state, disincentive to work and erosion of work ethic.
Even on a more individual level there can be instances where a bad or apparently callous action has good outcomes. Financially and emotionally supporting a friend or family member with drug or alcohol addiction can make you an enabler, allowing them to continue. Withdrawing support may seem unfeeling or uncaring but may cause them to "hit rock bottom" - often seen as a critical point in recognising a problem and starting on a recovery program. So in some instances the caring thing (supporting someone) can have a bad outcome, but equally withdrawing care does not guarantee recovery.
TL;DR version: Often directly opposed actions can both be seen as "good", and caring/nurturing actions can be percieved as causing harm. The Law-Chaos/Good-Evil axis doesn't take this into account particularly well.
@Corvino, you reminded me of something Bertrand Russell said about Stoic philosophy: "we can't be happy, but we can be good; let us therefore pretend that, so long as we are good, it doesn't matter being unhappy". What I'm trying to say is what many others have said before our times, we aspire goodness for it's own sake, not for a reward. We have to support humanity, needy, vulnerable or not. I belive we can feed everybody and educate everybody if we want; UK spent 10 billion pounds on Olympics; this also reminds me of stealing from banks one cent at a time or the food we trow away in the garbage; most don't have enough and a few has to much.
I'm not american(not that it matters), but I was just checking this out.
Don't get me started on the Olympics. I'm from the UK and the organisation of it is a fiasco of incompetence, overrun budgets, corporate greed & branding and International Olympic Committee cronyism & borderline corruption. Also this is on the back of the worst economic recession the UK has experienced since WWII.
All the best for the athletes involved but the rest of it is as soulless and corporate as a shopping mall.
@Zafiro On an political/state level there are vast disagreements about whether or not actions are good. Taking an example from the Baldur's Gate series (ToB admittedly) - you are confronted in the pocket plane and accused of making people helpless and dependent, relying on your proficiency and strength to fight their battles for them. Do your benevolent actions weaken those you help as an unintended consequence?
This is very similar to arguements for and against any welfare state. It can be argued that supporting the neediest and most vulnerable in society is a good in itself, a noble cause. Opponents point to dependence on the state, disincentive to work and erosion of work ethic.
Even on a more individual level there can be instances where a bad or apparently callous action has good outcomes. Financially and emotionally supporting a friend or family member with drug or alcohol addiction can make you an enabler, allowing them to continue. Withdrawing support may seem unfeeling or uncaring but may cause them to "hit rock bottom" - often seen as a critical point in recognising a problem and starting on a recovery program. So in some instances the caring thing (supporting someone) can have a bad outcome, but equally withdrawing care does not guarantee recovery.
TL;DR version: Often directly opposed actions can both be seen as "good", and caring/nurturing actions can be percieved as causing harm. The Law-Chaos/Good-Evil axis doesn't take this into account particularly well.
For the example given, I'd say that I am only helping those people who are so very much more powerful than they are, they would have no chance, and that would increase their suffering. If I help them to get stronger as I am helping them against foes which they have no chance against, would it still be making them weak and/or helpless?
@LadyRhian The question is this: By stepping in and helping them do you stop them needing to band together and form an effective local government/militia? Does the short-term advantage your help provides stop them needing to implement long-term strategies for dealing with future problems?
I'm playing devil's advocate here. This is the argument put forward by one of the ToB pocket plane's manifestations. I think it's an interesting one though. As the manifestation argues you do definitely grow stronger by helping others - It gets all meta and judges you for chasing XP which is a fun twist.
@Corvino, this reminds me of that proverb: give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. The Heroes fight and the Saints suffer, all togheter for the same ideal, like I said before, there can't be "too much" good; about those we help, "they" don't band togheter, we all get togheter, for we all are the same, we all want the same things, if you go to the bottom of every action a man makes.
I used to take those alignment tests? That was a while ago though. They would always put me as Chaotic Good. But I decided to play through Planescape: Torment acting as how I think I would really act in those situations, and it ended up putting me as Neutral Good, which makes more sense, since I can't really embrace being either lawful or chaotic just on principle, it depends on the situation.
I love discussing ethics and morals but I think it's difficult to apply it too much to the BG morality, where it's got a bunch of fantastic creatures that are "pure" in their alignment, e.g. demons who are either straight up LE or CE, etc. So I suppose, for humans, which alignment you are would correspond to which archetype you most relate to, i.e. if your temperament is similar to a CE demon, then you're CE, regardless of how you might view your own actions, etc. In other words, it superimposes a nice, neat objective scale on top of things: "X is evil, Y is good, A is lawful, B is chaotic, and that's just the way it is" which doesn't really fit in with the real world.
I remember seeing a picture some time back that corroborated each alignment to a well-known figure from history/pop-culture. The only two I remember are Hitler for LE and Heath Ledger's Joker for CE.
@Corvino Aren't I "banding with them" when I help them? If I am a good character, refusing to help someone and letting them die because "They aren't strong enough" is an evil attitude. How far can that attitude be taken? Refusing to help children and newborn babies because they aren't strong enough to live on their own? Killing old people because they are a drain on the resources of the group, so they should do us a favor and die anyway?
You know, this is starting to strongly resemble a political discussion. I'll leave it here, then. Helping someone is always a good thing. At its most basic, most pragmatic form, the person I will have helped owes me. I can ask him to pay me back, but I would rather the "debt" such as it is, be paid forward. Help someone else. It will increase the good actions in society and promote the welfare of all.
I just want to point out that true capitalism has no bailouts.
I'm not sure i know what 'true capitalism' is, i only know what i see. Capitalism was quite right while it was a moderate capitalism, reigned in by social democracy, but in Holland everything started going wrong when prime minister Kok in the nineties 'let go of his ideological feathers' and started jumping on the hyped deregulation and privatization craze started by Reagan and Thatcher, culminating in the crises (plural) the world is in today.
But I guess 'true capitalism' is something like 'true communism': an ideal? I myself would have liked to live in a true communist state, where the people rule. In true communism, there's no state hierarchy dictating what to do and how to behave. A true communist (i prefer the word socialist) society involves freedom, democracy and worker's rule of the companies.
But i'm digressing from what this forum is about: the game BG. And the reason I like playing the game is to forgot about the real world once in a while, with all it's poverty, the growing gap between the rich and the poor, all the homeless people and destruction of land and ecosystems. And the more I start talking about politics, the more emotional I will get, for not being able to put all world's misery out of my mind. Other subject.
*edit: i was talking about true instead of about the real communism
Comments
I would rather say that a good character actively contributes to the lives of others, a neutral character passively respects others, and an evil character is not concerned with the well-being of others. But the actions that lead him to hurt his peers are primarily motivated by a myriad of different things. He simply doesn't restrain himself.
A hole in this logic could be found by exploring the attitude of true neutral characters : if they act to mantain a certain balance, then they seek an ultimate statu quo, which means that they conform very strongly, in a way, which is a trait supposedly held by lawful people.
But this concept is best handled with a PnP group since the DM has to judge the players actions (e.g. did the player's character lie, did the player's character steal, etc.). CRPGs have a hard time to cope with this. Planescape Torment had an interesting go at it.
A chaotic evil character doesn't run around committing homicides. This alignment (or any other evil alignment) should not be used by players as excuse for killing NPCs and eventually PCs. Chaotic evil just means that the character doesn't honour agreements and the character doesn't feel obliged to obey the law. The evil aspect just means that the character is outright selfish.
Alignment shouldn't be treated as a "static score". It should change to reflect a character's past deeds (see Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2 and Planescape Torment). But then does a player really need to know his/her character's alignment? Maybe it's best left for the DM to keep track of it and make sure that a player is aware of the consequences of certain actions (e.g. deviating too much from the character's ethos which could result in falling out of favour with a cleric's deity, failing to adhere to the tenets of a chivalric order, etc.).
i must admit i am bothered with d&d treatment of alignments even if i somewhat like the presumed neat little shelves it arranges for characters.
i like chaos and freedom (chaotic), but i think to some extent limits and rules make freedom tangible, breaking free of the law or even adhering to it may yield greater freedom in the end, no matter if it is freedom from desire or ego (lawful). i generally care for other people and empathize with their pain. i also find self-sacrifice the important theme in interaction with the world (good). at the same time i think people deserve to be understood, but not necessarily deserve compassion (evil).
in any case, it is a childish attempt to show absurdity of alignments in general. i did not even said anything about myself.
that's why i dislike evil characters going to hell and good to heaven. i never play paladins (no matter the sexy kits) because the self righteousness of their ethos makes me puke. i really believe that they are more akin to demons than some blackguards, with their pride and obvious blindness to broader specter of less familiar.
also, some evil characters cases suffer only from determination or somesuch.
i think that was the reason why newer games try to distance from such moral judgements more and more. no self respecting medium can claim knowledge or understanding that falls in the domain of "the divine" if i might say so. that's why i would like to see more flexible interpretations of those alignments in d&D...
I agree that man is a social animal, by the way. We've been shaped that way by evolution (See some of Robin Dunbar's work on the evolution of intelligence a.k.a. the social brain hypothesis). However once any system is in place there can be individuals who benefit strongly from cheating. Put simply if everyone were by default honest and lying was unknown, society as a whole would be very strong. If an individual within this system lies it can give a very large evolutionary advantage to that individual at the expense of the society as a whole. Which more or less sums up my attitude to most senior politicians.
Also, with regard to religion you sound like an agnostic atheist - you don't believe in a deity because you don't find it necessary to underpin your worldview, but might change your mind were persuasive evidence in existence. I'm of a similar mindset - dogmatic atheism is as irrational a position as any religion due to the impossibility of proving a negative.
The handbooks of D&D3.5 especially describe this situation quite well. Good does not necessarily mean nice, just as evil does not necessarily mean nasty. As was mentioned by that tweet earlier the idea is essentially more down to the balance of 'self vs selfless' rather than 'right vs wrong'. It is certainly interesting to see the more religious people here instantly branding themselves as lawful good because they are religious, however in the D&D universe there are just as many legitimate religions belonging to the evil and chaotic deities, as well as the neutrals. It is good to think that following a religion may make us become a better person, but in the D&D universe following a religion doesn't mean you are good by any means. Again this seems to be a confusion between the definition of good in the real world and the fictional D&D world. Blame the terms, not the people playing.
Lawful and chaotic is a lot more clearly defined. Lawful neutral characters tend to be guards and policemen, whereas chaotic neutral people tend to be stark raving lunatics. Some might think of it as chaos being anarchy, but by and large the vast majority of chaotic neutrals are purely insane. Since most of us are not insane I find myself finding it generally impossible to gravitate near the chaotic side.
Ultimately most of us enjoy being in a society where we know we can go out of our house and feel safe, because if someone were to attack us we would be (hopefully) protected by the law and the police. We want to respect the laws when they are just and try and fit in and uphold them when we believe in them. If we think the rules and laws are unfair we will challenge them and seek better ones, but this is just as lawful and not chaotic at all. The people that actively fight against the law purely because it's the law are usually seen as unruly (and often violent) mobs that we look down on, and very rarely support.
Evil... well lets face it, no matter how nice we are to other people we are ultimately going to be looking out for ourselves. There are very, very few people that would throw away their own lives to save another, but those people obviously do exist. By and large we do what we do because it makes us feel better, or it gets us more stuff, or it works us towards our next promotion our work. Hell we even help other people because it makes us feel good, and that's still actually pretty selfish. We do these things because they primarily benefit ourselves and make us feel good, and that is pretty much the textbook definition of evil in the D&D universe. Working directly towards your own goals. Selfish, not nasty.
So... lawful evil then.
Also the player's handbook suggests that lawful evil criminal masterminds are truly dangerous things to behold, much more so than the chaotic evil and that's kinda cool.
Not everything I do is good sometimes people need to be put into place when they are selfish and annoying and aggresive and then sometimes you have to be the better person. also keeping to myself keeps me out of trouble and the spotlight. Its how I feel comfortable
Totaly unpredictable also fits, although I think I lean more towards good.
If it was like NWN with the point system, I'd say Chaotic Neutral, with only a few points missing for Chaotic Good
You're right, we've been shaped that way by evolution, you have the household followed by the village and finally the city State. Can't say I can imagine a world where everybody is honest by default, seems you cannot be honest without somebody else lying.
As one person said (I read through, but don't feel like finding their quote), we are too complex to fit into the shelves of DnD alignment (though it is a fun exersize). Even with the quizzes most of us find the questions unsatisfying and vague. It just seems like no conclusions will ever really be come to. DnD (rightfully, I believe) have written the alignments vaguely. They are written more as a tool to help on run their character as they should. It helps the player to delve into their character and understand them more, so that when decisions come, they can be true to their character. It's just that real humans aren't so cut and dried.
Now, I'm not saying we should talk about this anymore. I think the conversation is fascinating, both what people think is best for society and how they define alignment.
In a sense it works well precisely because it is an oversimplification. Although there is no reason two characters have to act the same way just because they share alignment, there is no reason why every Paladin has to be self righteous and proud either. Rather than thinking of alignments as absolutes think of them in terms of tendencies and extremes. Many people who are Lawful can be folk who tend towards being lawful, but someone who has extreme views and behaves accordingly is still lawful. It is a case of either or not that one is the only true way.
Alignment is a conceit of the setting, much like The Force in Star Wars (which is another construct for the sake of the story and setting). People keep coming back to alignment, but you just have to accept tats how it works. I do not see people complaining that the elemental planes don't contain the plane of boron after all!!
This is very similar to arguements for and against any welfare state. It can be argued that supporting the neediest and most vulnerable in society is a good in itself, a noble cause. Opponents point to dependence on the state, disincentive to work and erosion of work ethic.
Even on a more individual level there can be instances where a bad or apparently callous action has good outcomes. Financially and emotionally supporting a friend or family member with drug or alcohol addiction can make you an enabler, allowing them to continue. Withdrawing support may seem unfeeling or uncaring but may cause them to "hit rock bottom" - often seen as a critical point in recognising a problem and starting on a recovery program. So in some instances the caring thing (supporting someone) can have a bad outcome, but equally withdrawing care does not guarantee recovery.
TL;DR version: Often directly opposed actions can both be seen as "good", and caring/nurturing actions can be percieved as causing harm. The Law-Chaos/Good-Evil axis doesn't take this into account particularly well.
I'm not american(not that it matters), but I was just checking this out.
All the best for the athletes involved but the rest of it is as soulless and corporate as a shopping mall.
Edit - Rant over.
I just want to point out that true capitalism has no bailouts.
I'm playing devil's advocate here. This is the argument put forward by one of the ToB pocket plane's manifestations. I think it's an interesting one though. As the manifestation argues you do definitely grow stronger by helping others - It gets all meta and judges you for chasing XP which is a fun twist.
I used to take those alignment tests? That was a while ago though. They would always put me as Chaotic Good. But I decided to play through Planescape: Torment acting as how I think I would really act in those situations, and it ended up putting me as Neutral Good, which makes more sense, since I can't really embrace being either lawful or chaotic just on principle, it depends on the situation.
I love discussing ethics and morals but I think it's difficult to apply it too much to the BG morality, where it's got a bunch of fantastic creatures that are "pure" in their alignment, e.g. demons who are either straight up LE or CE, etc. So I suppose, for humans, which alignment you are would correspond to which archetype you most relate to, i.e. if your temperament is similar to a CE demon, then you're CE, regardless of how you might view your own actions, etc. In other words, it superimposes a nice, neat objective scale on top of things: "X is evil, Y is good, A is lawful, B is chaotic, and that's just the way it is" which doesn't really fit in with the real world.
I remember seeing a picture some time back that corroborated each alignment to a well-known figure from history/pop-culture. The only two I remember are Hitler for LE and Heath Ledger's Joker for CE.
You know, this is starting to strongly resemble a political discussion. I'll leave it here, then. Helping someone is always a good thing. At its most basic, most pragmatic form, the person I will have helped owes me. I can ask him to pay me back, but I would rather the "debt" such as it is, be paid forward. Help someone else. It will increase the good actions in society and promote the welfare of all.
Based on your answers to the quiz, your character’s most likely alignment is Chaotic Neutral.
So I guess I better go with that. Hahaha.
But I guess 'true capitalism' is something like 'true communism': an ideal? I myself would have liked to live in a true communist state, where the people rule. In true communism, there's no state hierarchy dictating what to do and how to behave. A true communist (i prefer the word socialist) society involves freedom, democracy and worker's rule of the companies.
But i'm digressing from what this forum is about: the game BG. And the reason I like playing the game is to forgot about the real world once in a while, with all it's poverty, the growing gap between the rich and the poor, all the homeless people and destruction of land and ecosystems. And the more I start talking about politics, the more emotional I will get, for not being able to put all world's misery out of my mind. Other subject.
*edit: i was talking about true instead of about the real communism