thief and good alignment question
ChildofBhaal599
Member Posts: 1,781
Ok so I am having a hard time deciding what exactly my MP character's alignment would be: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/27270/the-bhaalspawn-journals-roleplaying-multiplayer-game/p1
he is a thief, but also makes good decisions in general. he is neutral good atm, but I can't say he is perfect. he is indeed a thief, and I made him do the thieves guild quest and even the telescope quest. so that does not exactly make him the most lawful guy for sure. he doesn't go around robbing everybody in the world either. my robbing has been done on nobles and just quests. for example he is holding onto the golden pantaloons. then in decisions he does indeed make the good response, even sometimes when the law coming into play is the best outcome for the situation. if somebody needs help then he is certainly willing, and in some situations doesn't even want the reward depending on the urgency and the loots he may have acquired as a reward anyway. i have also been making him a bit more chaotic as we go because of Bhaal's influence, but even then he does the good thing, just that he may want to kill to do good because his blood tells him so. in the temple of umberlee when he went to retrieve the child's body he was angry at the way she asked for money for a child's life that she killed, and killed everybody in there.
given this information, what might he be come BG2. i am not sure if the thieving outweighs decisions to make him neutral, but I have a feeling I would at least turn him chaotic good. or maybe he will gain a bit of restraint and retain neutral good in the end. i don't know a lot about how you would consider good thieves, but his thieving seems to be around Imoen, or maybe a bit more than her, and she is also neutral good.
he is a thief, but also makes good decisions in general. he is neutral good atm, but I can't say he is perfect. he is indeed a thief, and I made him do the thieves guild quest and even the telescope quest. so that does not exactly make him the most lawful guy for sure. he doesn't go around robbing everybody in the world either. my robbing has been done on nobles and just quests. for example he is holding onto the golden pantaloons. then in decisions he does indeed make the good response, even sometimes when the law coming into play is the best outcome for the situation. if somebody needs help then he is certainly willing, and in some situations doesn't even want the reward depending on the urgency and the loots he may have acquired as a reward anyway. i have also been making him a bit more chaotic as we go because of Bhaal's influence, but even then he does the good thing, just that he may want to kill to do good because his blood tells him so. in the temple of umberlee when he went to retrieve the child's body he was angry at the way she asked for money for a child's life that she killed, and killed everybody in there.
given this information, what might he be come BG2. i am not sure if the thieving outweighs decisions to make him neutral, but I have a feeling I would at least turn him chaotic good. or maybe he will gain a bit of restraint and retain neutral good in the end. i don't know a lot about how you would consider good thieves, but his thieving seems to be around Imoen, or maybe a bit more than her, and she is also neutral good.
Post edited by ChildofBhaal599 on
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Secondly, don't make the mistake that "Lawful" has anything to do with the law. You can do the thieve's quest and the telescope one, or break as many laws as you want and still be lawful (aligned). The one is not correlated to the other.
Thirdly, the game tries to parallel being evil with being a jerk. Just because you don't demand a fee for everything, doesn't make you good or evil. It simply means that you don't want to be a jerk towards people.
Fourth, alignment is only a part of your character's personality, not the whole ball of wax.
Some thieves steal, not for profit, but because they can (or to see if they can). It sounds like your thief isn't greedy at all, he just likes stealing things. This could mean he is lazy, or because he can do it, or because it is habit, or to keep himself sharp, or to show others that they need to be sharper, or any of hundreds of other reasons. Jan, for instance, isn't "Evil" yet he steals and even attempts to jip customers in the turnip market. this is because he was brought up to believe that "buyer beware". If he can spot a cheat, others can/should be able to do so as well. It's part of the racket.
Also, consider Robin Hood who stole only from those who could afford to lose stuff, and gave to those who needed it. That would seem to be good.
In the end, (a) alignment is only a part of your character. Don't let it rule who he/she is. (b) doing good deeds would seem to lend towards 'Good'. If that is the way you want to go, just be careful about doing more good than evil. (c) stealing isn't necessarily or inherently 'Evil'. Steal food out of the mouth of someone who is starving? Evil. Lightning someone's load because they are too stupid to take precautions? while not "Good" may not be considered "Evil" per say.
Hope that helps.
although I would say he does sound more like a chaotic good then a neutral good character to my mind
He wasn't an "Evil" character, quite the opposite in fact. He was always offering to help out others. Just sometimes other people's property "found its' way into his possession." it was quite natural.
Still others will say "If you can't keep stuff safe, you don't deserve to have it." others still will say "I'm showing them the flaws in their security, and the stuff I get is merely the incentive for them to take better care of it." There are any number of justifications about thieving. Some are just that, justifications. Others, well... it's all in how you play the game.
Perhaps there's a bit of schadenfreude at work here.
@the_spyder I really liked your first post. i would put him in the area that it is a habit for him honestly. his backstory was as an orphan trying to survive through stealing until he tried to steal from Gorion and failed. This brought him and what used to be our bhaalspawn, Kang, together. With connection issues Maeglin actually turned into the bhaalspawn and the bio will need some explaining as the story provides obvious contradiction to his backstory, but I am sticking with it anyway. It was kind of made into his nature at that time and although Gorion tried to focus my talents elsewhere by making him train with the watchers he still retained his thieving skill and knowledge with his new partner in crime Imoen. basically it is a habit he never broke so he does it out of fun and curiousity for others' belongings. his decisions have been good all the way through anyway, just growing a bit more reckless in relation to the dreams getting more intense and the bhaal blood showing more as he kills to survive.
i just thought I would check after a long talk about the situation. i was a little unsure myself if I would be more reasonable under some sort of neutral. i guess at least the money is buying us items to destroy evil, right?
And yes, the group routinely had those types of stipulations where he was concerned, yet still he ended up "Borrowing" all manner of things from various party members. "Oh, look what I found in my pockets. You must have dropped it along the way and I found it for you. I was just keeping it until I had the opportunity to return it. Here."
Raistlin in particular had all manner of problems along that line, and he is NOT a trusting character.
So, back on topic, I wonder if the OP got what they were looking for on the subject. there are actually a lot of different ways that character described could go. I'd vote for more Neutral/good or chaotic/neutral myself. He can still do 'good' things. But with the whole "I killed all of the priestesses in the temple, merely because they pissed me off" thing going on, that would be a hard sell for "Good" in my book; not impossible, but not easy either.
I think the term "thief" is not as accurate as the word "rogue" that they later used. Eldoth seems more of a "thief" than someone like Coran. Note that not being a "thief" class does not prevent you from raiding homes and opening chests in Temples and stuff.
Your guy seems more like a "rogue" than a "thief". I see no problem with a neutral good alignment.
But personally, I am a bit stricter when it comes to roleplaying alignment. I don't always live up to my standards, sometimes I get sloppy and forget, especially when playing a character that deviates from my own personality, so my actions do not come naturally. But ideally speaking, I want my characters to be consistent and coherent in their morality, outlook and personality, which should only change for good reasons.
Thus in my opinion a Good character can only think that it is okay to steal in very restricted circumstances. In order for a theft to be morally acceptable, it must satisfy at least one (ideally both) criterion.
1) The target needs to 'deserve it'. (Just being rich does not qualify.) If you have no idea how an individual came by his wealth, then a Good person cannot justify stealing from him and being proud of it. If the individual came by his wealth through corruption, violence, slavery etc... then a Good character can 'liberate' this wealth with a clear conscience.
2) The motive has to be noble, i.e. selfless. Your goal could be grand, such as using the wealth stolen from a corrupt tyrant to feed the poor. Or it could be personal, such as using the wealth to provide desperately needed medicene for a sick relative.
If those criterion cannot be met, then that act of theft is morally wrong. 'Excuses' like kleptomania, split-personality, doing it for fun, doing it to demonstrate a security issue, etc... are simply excuses. It does not matter to the victim of a crime why you did it. Evil mighty be a strong word for some circumstances, but it certainly isn't Good.
Now where the_spyder and I probably do agree is that a character can be Good and carry out questionable acts. Good to Evil is not three distinct categories, it is a spectrum. How strictly you judge a character and where you place the boundaries is quite a personal and arbitary issue. In the past I have been very strict, for example making my LP character LN as opposed to LG, even though most of his actions were Good. I did that partly to give me a bit more freedom with roleplay since I was playing blind, and didn't know if I'd have to face morally ambiguous choices.
In the future I will probably be a bit more forgiving of 'transgressions from moral perfection' in terms of categorising characters. But what does not change is that if Charname does something morally questionable, be that steal from a random merchant, or attack a Drow on sight, then those are still morally questionable acts, and having kleptomania or having lost parents to a Drow raid, does not excuse the objective morality of the act.
I can tell you though that he has his limits as well. The shadow thieves are a bit extreme and evil and he won't just fall in line with them. When he realizes it is that or vampires he won't exactly consider them friends, but he needs to get the job done. Maybe he will take it better than the rest of the group being with thieves, but he isn't evil. he does have some morals. I do intend to actually pay people when I can, even though it is not often that I can but I will. maybe I will give that kid in saradush 1000 gold when he asks
I guess the big thing I should rememer is that it is just a little display on the character sheet anyway. You could say that you are chaotic evil yet play a lawful good, so maybe I shouldn't even be worried about how he should be interpreted lol
For me, I see it like this. If I am basically a good person, but find myself in a position where I think I "Need" to do something bad, I feel bad about it. That's alignment kicking in. Not that it alters me (unless I keep doing these acts repeatedly), but that feeling that I need to atone for my 'sins' if you will. Same if I am a bad person, doing "Nice" and charitable things might make me feel dirty and weak. I might do them anyway, but something in the acts just don't feel 'Right' based on my individual view (good or evil). And in not feeling 'Right' about the individual act, I am guided back towards my core beliefs (good or evil). Hence, continuum.
I do however think that there are as many 'Ills' associated with rationalizations towards a given act such as thievery as there are grains of sand on a beach. However, the deed is sometimes done. I also agree that the motivation is key to almost any act being good or evil.
But I equally believe that a Nietzschen philosophy of 'That which doesn't kill me, makes me stronger' might very well fit into a 'Good' alignment argument for thievery. If I steal from X merchant, he might learn better how to defend himself against someone who might wish him real harm. After all, possessions are merely things and not worth a life. Or, "if he didn't defend the item well enough, it must not have been important to him." Or, redistribution of wealth supports and bolsters the economy, thus feeding and helping the greater population at large. Or finally, "Because of me, people can get jobs as guards, and thus feed their families."
I'm not "Necessarily" saying any of those are Paladin material, but then that's a whole different discussion.