Do you think there's a concept of Academic Malfeasance in The Realms, or in Candlekeep?
Chronicler
Member Posts: 1,391
Playing a mage/thief. The concept I'm running with is that she's a student who's not above a bit of the cheating, plagiarism, forgeries and such. Trying to decide if that's just a nonsensical idea for the setting though.
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I have no problem with it from an RP standpoint. Im curious what you'll choose for alignment though. NE, CG, CN, N even LE would theoretically fit (she could be the haughty, "I'm smarter than you and I need it, so it's not really stealing." type of thief).
Chaotic Good is a good fit, if maybe a little contrived. Would a good person really steal, or plagiarize? Neutral Evil is likely a better fit...
Eh, Imoen steals, and she's good.
In a gamey setting like The Forgotten Realms, where it's taken for granted that good and evil alike will kill, it really limits the mileage you can get out of Kantian Ethics. Very few actions can be said to be inherently good or evil regardless of context.
Though honestly even in real life I'd say cheating on a test is hardly the Ultimate Judge of Character. Like, if you're a good husband, father, and firefighter, I don't exactly think you've brought your karma into the negative by being a bad student at times.
Similarly, in the Forgotten Realms, it's not unheard of for even "good" characters to have some minor vices, or "evil" characters to have some minor virtues. Alignment is a descriptor, not a straight jacket, and all that jazz. Just because I've created this backstory around my academic behavior doesn't mean I'm gonna be choosing all the "I can only save your life if you offer the appropriate price" dialogue options or killing a bunch of innocent civilians or anything, which are the primary ways "evil" manifests once you set out into the world.
All that being said I mostly just don't enjoy keeping my reputation in check when I play evil.
Chaotic Good is misunderstood many times. I'm not trying to turn this into an alignment battle, Tyr knows we've seen more than enough of those.
I just think "not above a bit of cheating or plagiarism" can only be CG if connected to a greater good to be achieved by that. If it's for personal gain, out of greed or laziness, I'd situate it with NE or CE, if it's a balance thing it's possible for TN, and of course there's also the unpredictable madness of CN
So, I think the alignment doesn't depend so much on the deeds, more on the motives behind it.
That said, with all those renowned scholars, arcane and divine casters, and really wise and smart people, you'd have to be a freaking genius to successfully cheat in Candlekeep.
That's supported by the text as a reasonable school of thought, but personally that line of reasoning always just seems kind of strained to me.
"Ransacking this peasant's house was good, actually, because I use the stuff I took on my quest to save the world".
Like pretty much anything can be justified at that point, on the basis that anything that benefits you ultimately benefits the people you save. It seems like a way of dancing around the fact that your hero might have flaws, or that the player might just enjoy certain rewards.
That's not to say there's a problem with you going that route but I'm not really interested in creating some set-up where cheating was the only way to prevent some great cataclysm or something.
I personally think that Chaotic Good is often chosen to call oneself good while committing all sorts of evil acts. I was just trying to say why I think your choice of CG might be justified by the book.
My personal opinion is that, from the little information about your character, she'd probably be NE. I just didn't want to turn it into a sermon
All this being said I haven't played an evil character in years. I basically run with the same party every time. Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Either Rasaad or Neera in the fifth slot and then a wildcard in the sixth. Could be fun to mix things up with an evil team this time.
Like let's take a pretty normal encounter like Silke. She's gonna kill three innocents. You whip out your spellbook to stop her. But in doing so you risk opening a gate to hell that could decimate the entire city.
Can a good aligned individual in good conscience practice wild magic, when even your acts of "good" recklessly risk far greater evils?
But then one of my wild surges killed a bunch of people and I realized my character wasn't really just risking her own safety with this nonsense, and that kind of got me second guessing the concept.
I was really enjoying playing that wild mage as a scholar, so I guess I just wanted to continue playing the mage/thief as a scholarly type. Somebody who uses their thief skills in a scholarly context, rather than somebody who's a scholar 9-5 and then they clock out and start picking locks and stuff.
The lore is kind of messy. The class description in Baldur's Gate says that they learn wild magic through study, but then Neera just kind of seems to have Whoopsy Powers.
From what I understand in pen and paper they have at various points been a mage subclass or a sorcerer subclass or both, with all the traditional implications that has about whether the power is inborn or studied.
Well, players make Imoen steal. I've never been convinced that Imoen would be a career pickpocket based what we get of her character throughout the series.
She's all about the skills it takes to navigate a dungeon effectively, not street crime.
Now, there is a "good" thief focused on pickpocketing in BG1: Alora. She definitely likes to steal things, as her introduction shows.
Though as @jmerry points out, the point is moot. Good characters in general have hardly been shown to be above pickpocketing in Baldur's Gate, even if Imoen's profile makes no particular mention of what sort of thievery she was doing before she took up dungeoneering.
@Chronicler "Good characters in general have hardly been shown to be above pickpocketing in Baldur's Gate, even if Imoen's profile makes no particular mention of what sort of thievery she was doing before she took up dungeoneering."
I can't think of an example. Who are you thinking of?
I think interpreting "wealth was never her chief concern" to mean that she doesn't take anything, is a pretty charitable reading.
Her profession is thievery, which the players sometimes use to mean anything that makes use of the thief class skills, but the game pretty strictly talks about professional thieves in the "taking things that aren't yours" context. The thieves guild isn't a guild of lookyloos breaking into establishments to window shop, and it's questionable how you could make a profession out of that anyway. Plus, if her intent was just to look at the Hall of Wonder's display pieces, then she could take a tour during the day like a normal person.
Saying that this confirms actual theft is a very generous interpretation. "Wealth was never her chief concern; it's just that too many interesting things are behind locked doors.
Her unassuming temperament makes it easy for her to hoodwink the authorities, and her sweet nature has saved her from a jail cell numerous times."
"I'm sorry officer, I didn't know I wasn't supposed to be here, I'm lost. Can you help me?"
Like I said before, nothing in here outright confirms either way. A person could interpret it either way. There's no actual confirmation.
"In Siege of Dragonspeare there's also Glint, a Neutral Good cleric/thief, who's introduced to you as a known pickpocket on the wrong side of the law."
What? No he's not. He's introduced as a random Gnome talking to himself. All you know about him after the first conversation is that he's incredibly hyper (very possibly moderate to severe ADHD), and hunting down family to check on them.
An information broker would most likely be Neutral, but I suppose they could be Good if, again, they use the knowledge and secrets they gain to advance causes that help people and relieve suffering. Someone who sells information to the highest bidder, no questions asked, would at most be Neutral.
Like Minsc is a homicidal maniac. What makes him a good guy is that he's laser targeted on the bad guys.
I wouldn't say that anybody who acts for the highest bidder, indiscriminate of who they hurt in the process, is on the good end of the alignment spectrum, regardless of their chosen profession.
Oh yeah, that's why he murders sooo many people without warning. The dude only fights with Edwin, and that's after being threatened and needled for days.
Great, so now you're gonna argue that Minsc runs around carrying a sword the size of his entire body shouting "butt kicking for goodness" and "jump on my sword while you can, evil, I won't be as gentle" because he plans on giving the baddies a spanking and sending them on their way?
Much like how thieves only steal when the player makes them, Minsc is actually a pretty mellow nonviolent dude when the player's not at the steering wheel.
I don't see how fighting for good causes or smiting evil equals "homicidal maniac". By this logic, every single character in the series is a homicidal maniac. "Did you hear about that Keldorn guy? He killed like 30 orcs yesterday, what a freak!"