Lawful Good Character and the Neverwinter Zoo
BelgarathMTH
Member Posts: 5,653
Hello, so, I just rescued all the animals at the Neverwinter Zoo, as a lawful good wizard.
This quest is a real conundrum for a lawful good character. I try to be lawful good in real life, as well as in the game. But I cannot stand animal cruelty. I certainly don't like poachers, either. I sometimes justify doing the quest by telling myself that I'm breaking up an unlawful poaching operation. Yet Nyatar tells you that the Blacklake nobles are turning a blind eye and allowing the zoo to exist. Does that make the zoo legal?
I wish you could get a ruling from Lord Nasher about it.
It seems like a lawful good character would want to work to change whatever law is allowing zoos with cruel conditions, or organize protests, or whatever, rather than attacking the zoo and murdering dozens of (innocent?) men. They do attack to kill on sight, though, once you're in the restricted area. But you are trespassing, which gives them the right, even in real life.
I have a similar problem with that woman in the town square trying to incite a riot, who asks you to murder Meldanen. I won't kill him, even though he's guilty of kidnapping a dryad and stealing a cure reagent. He attacks you on sight, and also has demonic imps around his estate, which makes him look pretty darn evil, but you're trespassing unlawfully on his property, so he has a right to attack you, and, you can't kill somebody just for being evil in the FR setting. Well, you can, but it's not a lawful good thing to do.
As soon as he sees you're stronger, he stops attacking and begs for his life. Killing a man begging for his life is an evil act in my book.
Lawful good alignment is really hard to play if you do it right, because game scenarios and also real life often put the "lawful" in conflict with the "good".
Opinions?
This quest is a real conundrum for a lawful good character. I try to be lawful good in real life, as well as in the game. But I cannot stand animal cruelty. I certainly don't like poachers, either. I sometimes justify doing the quest by telling myself that I'm breaking up an unlawful poaching operation. Yet Nyatar tells you that the Blacklake nobles are turning a blind eye and allowing the zoo to exist. Does that make the zoo legal?
I wish you could get a ruling from Lord Nasher about it.
It seems like a lawful good character would want to work to change whatever law is allowing zoos with cruel conditions, or organize protests, or whatever, rather than attacking the zoo and murdering dozens of (innocent?) men. They do attack to kill on sight, though, once you're in the restricted area. But you are trespassing, which gives them the right, even in real life.
I have a similar problem with that woman in the town square trying to incite a riot, who asks you to murder Meldanen. I won't kill him, even though he's guilty of kidnapping a dryad and stealing a cure reagent. He attacks you on sight, and also has demonic imps around his estate, which makes him look pretty darn evil, but you're trespassing unlawfully on his property, so he has a right to attack you, and, you can't kill somebody just for being evil in the FR setting. Well, you can, but it's not a lawful good thing to do.
As soon as he sees you're stronger, he stops attacking and begs for his life. Killing a man begging for his life is an evil act in my book.
Lawful good alignment is really hard to play if you do it right, because game scenarios and also real life often put the "lawful" in conflict with the "good".
Opinions?
4
Comments
In a real D&D game, I think I should have gotten both lawful and good points for that resolution, but the NWN OC doesn't support those kinds of subtleties.
I got a really good feeling that I had been true to my alignment, though. That's how D&D should be, I think.
Oh, and he even says to go ahead and tell Formosa to take the dang food he stockpiled in his warehouse to give to the people.
Also, if somebody is 'turning a blind eye' to something, that doesn't make it 'legal'. It actually implies that it is ILLEGAL and, for whatever reason, people are ignoring it.
Similar situations arise frequently in real life. I support animal rights, but I don't go as far with it as PETA or Greenpeace, and I do eat meat and use animal products. I would wish that we treated our food animals and zoo animals better, but I don't feel like there's a lot I can personally do about it.
In the Neverwinter Zoo situation, you actually have to attack the zoo and kill about two dozen people. If that were done by a group like PETA in real life, the perpetrators would be arrested, shot if they resisted, and charged with mass first degree murder. I'd say 95 to 98 percent of society would be on the side of law enforcement in such a case.
I know it's just a game and I'm overthinking it way beyond developer intentions, but I enjoy discussing these topics and using my fantasy games to self-express my ethics and personality into whatever fantasy world I'm playing with.
That is a very important detail that I had never noticed before, and is a game changer for a lawful character. The authorities in charge of animal welfare in the city have died to the plague, and the poachers in the zoo are taking advantage of the power vacuum from the plague. I think that justifies a lawful character attacking the zoo and its guards to free the animals to Nyatar's care. He wouldn't harm the guards if they were willing to talk, but they attack him on sight as soon as he merely enters their restricted area to challenge what they are doing to these animals. There is no peaceful resolution possible, other than to allow the animals to continue suffering, and the poachers to continue poaching, and profiting off of animal suffering.
A lawful neutral character might be okay with that, but I don't think a lawful good or neutral good character who cared about animals would.
It's too bad that non-druid characters have to pass a persuade check, or else cheat by rerolling a persuade check repeatedly, to get this quest. I guess Nyatar has good reasons to not trust non-druids. But, because of his desperation, I would think he'd try to get anyone who would listen to take this quest.
I only kill in self-defense. All any person or creature has to do to not die by my hand is to stop attacking me, especially when it becomes obvious I am stronger. D&D rarely supports that kind of morality very well, though, even in pen and paper.
My solution to to Meldanen scenario is always to enter through Milly's portal, find and release Samuel, and then head straight for Meldanen. I have to kill at least one of his apprentices, and several guards and guard dogs, because they fight to the death and refuse to surrender. I steal nothing.
Meldanen gets to live if he yields quickly enough, and I can call off my companion and any summons in time. I do not ask him to extract his own tooth so I can lie to Formosa and say I killed him (gross, that's horrible). As it turns out he gives you his warehouse key anyway before he teleports out. I choose to see that as a change of heart. He finds my mercy "unexpected". I free the dryad and take her lock of hair (her plague cure component) as she requests.
It's about as satisfying a lawful good or neutral good solution to the scenario as the game engine allows.
I personally think a lawful good character would always take this approach:
1. Is the written law involved actually legal itself...i.e. was it created fairly and systemically, or was it imposed using corruption, dictatatorship. A lawful good character wouldn't venture into foreign lands and say, "ok, slavery is legal here, so it's ok"...they would use the law in the general stance of justice, organisation, protection, control.
2. Once 1 is established, the lawful good (LG) character would then look at the situation, applying their moral compass of good, as much as possible, without breaking the code of what is lawful.
A few examples... I think LG would uphold a petty law like littering, because they strongly believe in the system working as a whole. The LG wouldn't help an innocent person escape jail... so long as the trial was fair and the arrest was made on all available evidence and probability, then arresting a few innocent people is a necessary part of the legal process, which involves probability.
Therefore, if the animal cruelty was written laws passed through corruption, then like slavery, the LG would ignore the "law", using the universal principal of LAW. i.e. what really separates lawful good and chaotic good is control vs freedom.
Can do it under invis though.
When I rescued the animals I saw the guards as possibly mistreating them and if they tried to stop me well you had your chance to do the right thing.
When it comes to rescuing a Dryad well they're creatures of the forest and if kept from it and their tree they wither away so it's cruel to keep them and if the Dryad charms the kidnapper I imagine she intended for him to release her not get so infatuated that he never lets here go.
When invading Meldanen's estate he's been clamping down on the district and hording food and grain during a city wide crisis so as far as I'm concerned he gets what's coming to him...and if I get to "confiscate" his stuff to fund my mission to end the crisis well he shouldn't have been a total prick to the district.
I guess that makes my approach neutral good with chaotic elements.
In your case I think your reasoning is solid and that your character indeed did act according to their alignment LG.
@Skatan , I don't think good characters are allowed to rob and murder people just for pinging evil through a spell. There was a paladin character in "Order of the Stick" (Miyo Miyazaki) who did that and wound up falling, so if you take Rich Burlew as an expert on D&D alignment interpretation, there's a good precedent and example of what happens when a good character, especially a lawful good character, uses detection spells to "take the law into their own hands" and starts committing murder in the name of some kind of vigilante justice.
http://oots.wikia.com/wiki/Miko_Miyazaki
Personally I think that Paladins should be LN as standard rather than LG since they would follow their creed no matter. A cleric walking about, doing no harm and helping/healing ppl in need I think could better represent a LG character rather than the militant order of paladins. But that's my human, real world standards affecting me and that's not how D&D works. So I stopped seeing it like that and base my views of how they are portraid in-game. I guess you can still lose rep if you kill Evil characters (the thief outside Thalantyr, I don't know if he is Evil alignment, but you get minus rep if you kill him no matter) but that's rare, I think.
But this doesn't really help you in anyways, rather I am derailing, so I will stop here and let others pitch in. I hope I didn't mess with your views.
In real life: "killing evil = good" is the mindset of a terrorist.
I'm imaging a scenario where the party has been investigating a series of incidents all leading back to a corrupt city official and while confronting him he laughs at you and throws your evidence in your face and says you don't have enough and by Law you can't touch me.
The LG person would likely walk away and have to wait for more evidence.
The NG would likely consider their options before deciding.
The CG would likely try to arrest.
I imagine myself still considering options and possible blow back before taking him in or stopping him but yeah i'd feel compelled to act to try and prevent further incidents.
Thinking back to my previous characters on NWN & NWN2 i remember being Neutral for a time but sometimes by the end i became chaotic after certain bigger actions.
You enter the zoo building by promising to behave, a promise which if untrue would be a dishonorable act. Then you break into an area you're explicitly told would be considered trespassing in order to free animals you don't own, because of one druid's unverified claim that the animals were poached. Most players go on to optionally attack and then kill all the guards as well as "Sureshot," for a crime that surely doesn't include the death penalty as a legal punishment.
I understand wanting to complete as many quests as possible but can't see how a lawful good character in particular could reasonably do this one.
This could work for many side quests having more opportunities for different outcomes.
With that said, I'd just like to add that "lawful" can, but does not necessarily mean "strictly following the law dictated by the ruling class". It can also mean "adhering to a set of rules" - like actinh only within the limits of a code of honor that the character set for themselves. Or one dictated to them by an organization that they belong to (an order, cult, etc...).
Given that laws will inevitably vary between groups, organizations or political systems, a Lawful Good character simply cannot always abide by ALL the laws dictated to them by someone else (i.e. the laws of a kingdom). The aforementioned kingdom where slavery is perfectly legal would be such a case.
As such, I can see a Lawful Good character that has sworn a strict oath to always fight for the freedom of others to not get into any moral struggle by freeing the animals at the zoo and thus sticking to their principles.
Of course, if your characters sees being Lawful Good as always upholding the laws set by the good government...that would put them into a quandary for sure.
Personal "code of honor" is just that - personal principles, not the law.
A monk is not a good law abiding ciitizen necessarily. They can be evil, they can be whatever, so long as they follow the pursuit of excellence in mind and body. Hours spent repeating slow katas. Hours spent meditating. This is what lawful means here. A strict adherence to a program. Never wavering from it.
IRL, a Buddhist or vegan is mostly lawful. A strict code of causing no harm to those able to feel pain. Likewise, if there were someone who only ate meat as a philosophy, they would be being lawful too. Someone who believes fervently in a religion, and practises what it preaches (important point there), is also being lawful, irrelevant of whether that religion or that person does good or harm. A person who sticks by their diet, their new years resolution, their marriage vows, etc... they are being lawful, irrelevant of the good or evil of things and irrelevant of the context or society they live in!
Lawful is adhering to the major philosophical choices you have made in your life. Chaotic is changing them on a whim.
Have fun
Chaotic is not random.
"Chaotic" people are strongly individualistic and independent. They make up their own minds and don't like to be ordered, bossed, or told what to do. They tend to be rebellious, sometimes breaking rules just for the sake of proving that they can, or to "stick it" to authority. They are okay going back on their word, changing their minds at will, breaking contracts, spinning the truth, or outright lying at will. They value freedom of choice more than anything else. But as long as no one or nothing is trying to restrict their freedom, they can form solid relationships with family and friends. At their worst, they can be unreliable, undependable, and unwilling to commit.
The topic was originally meant to specifically discuss the Neverwinter Zoo scenario. I don't think a lawful person would attack the zoo and kill all those zookeepers (poachers?), despite possibly being very upset with the animal cruelty there. A lawful person would find a solution other than murder to help the animals.
A chaotic person would likely have no problem attacking the zoo with violence, depending on whether they thought they could get away with it, how much they cared about the animals, or how much treasure they thought they could loot.
What do you think?
Where people often go wrong is to say, let's give people the freedom to accept or reject sources of authority as they see fit and then call them lawful if they can find a belief system whose tenets they're willing to follow, like asceticism or veganism. By that definition even someone who adopted the chaos writeup in the Player's Handbook as their code of conduct would be lawful, which makes about as much sense as calling Lolth's followers (who after all have a very rigid code) lawful.
Getting back to the zoo example, you are clearly right that a lawful person wouldn't take it upon himself to ambush and kill zookeepers on the word of one source who claimed without evidence the animals had been poached. Even if the poaching charge were true, which is never proven, it's highly unlikely death is the legally prescribed penalty for that crime. And even if death somehow were the legal penalty, by what right would the player character bypass any notion of a trial and carry out that punishment? A chaotic character who loved animals and had evidence of the zookeepers' culpability might potentially do something like that, but a lawful character? No way.
I agree. "Whim" was entirely the wrong word to use. What I should have said is that chaotic people can change their mind about which option to follow (of the available choices they have), even after having commited to one. A lawful person is much more likely to keep to their word having commited.
@BelgarathMTH I liked your descriptions.
Have fun
I felt comfortable going to the zoo and invoking my own lawful authority as Aribeth's investigator, telling them that these animals were to be released to Nyatar's care under my own authority delegated by Aribeth. When they (foolishly) attacked me to kill without so much as a word of discussion, I was within my rights to defend myself. Then I confiscated their illegal, stolen belongings to be used in service of the plague reagents investigation.
Meldanen is a different case. I still judged him to be not guilty by reason of dryad spell induced insanity. I woudn't rob him, and I certainly wouldn't kill him when he was standing there begging for his life. I was there only to liberate the dryad and obtain her cure reagent. I accomplished that, freed the imprisoned guard, and left Meldanen's estate without taking a single gold piece or potion, much less any of his magic items. I had killed his guards, apprentices, and dogs with great regret, and only because they attacked on sight and refused to yield. In return for my mercy, Meldanen willingly gave over his warehoused food to the people of Blacklake.
I also don't break into estates and I don't rob nobles for the pleasure of the madame of the Moonstone Mask. I've seen Let's Plays of people playing paladins who rob the noble estates and kill everyone in them without batting an eye, and it always makes me cringe.
I don't lower myself to arena combat for the pleasure of the lowlifes at the inn in Blacklake, or later at the Green Gryphon on the road to Luskan. Those quests will always be left undone by me.
Okay, I'll get down off my white horse now.