most of the greatest mass murderers of our time have been lawful good. ,
Lawful something, perhaps, but certainly not good. Good and evil are degrees of an objective morality that we have already determined. Slaughtering innocents is an evil act. Doing so because you think that Jewish people are bad and aryans are pure(your Hitler example) is an evil motivation, even if Hitler thought he was cleaning up the place.
I might have the purest motives in the world, but if I don't act on them, or act incorrectly on them, am I any better than someone evil? Or, to put it another way "The only thing necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." Your actions HAVE to have an an impact.
I must disagree. One's alignment says nothing of apathy. Again I believe it to be a description of one's motivations and outlook on life.
@Zutti, any DM has only the player's actions to base an alignment change on. Even if they ask the player why they did every single action, it is still almost exclusively based on the events rather than the motivations.
It is based on their action because that is the point of no return. A LG Paladin might desire to kill an innocent for whatever reason, but if he can control himself and act rationally before taking that life, he could still be described as "Good."
@the_spyder: The reason real life examples are incompatible with a discussion of D&D-based stories is because the game, by its very nature, purports to project a fictional world that does not follow the exact same rules as ours. We don't have alignment systems. We don't have physical deities who can (and do) intervene when their representatives act against their wishes. We don't have evidence of actual planes of existence that correspond to your personality or to "different kinds of evil" (ie: the Abyss vs. the Nine Hells). That's why invoking Hitler and similar examples is pointless and derails the discussion - the alignment system is designed to function within the framework of D&D, not beyond it.
like i said- aligment is not an appropriate way to define or judge a RL human. ok? it is simplified mechanic from a game that is relying on presumptions that there are inherent good and evil. this means clearly defined opposites mostly. for evil character that means means justify ends, thus they can do good to do greater evil. good is opposite- means do not justify ends.
this mechanic BORROWS from RL in order to create fantasy and escape from reality where you can hardly claim good or evil exist (unless you involve god or higher force). so when you apply RL examples to alignments you are introducing too much complexity in a system to be relevant.
this is why this is becoming increasingly complex moral/action discussion- because d&d setting is not plausibly enough comparable to RL. d&D has it's own rules and laws that dictate it' reality.
Lawful something, perhaps, but certainly not good. Good and evil are degrees of an objective morality that we have already determined. Slaughtering innocents is an evil act. Doing so because you think that Jewish people are bad and aryans are pure(your Hitler example) is an evil motivation, even if Hitler thought he was cleaning up the place.
Your example was that motivations were pure. Openheimer believed in his heart of hearts that he was creating something that would stop the war and prevent the pain and suffering, not to mention the deaths of MILLIONS. Pure and noble goals, to be sure. How many deaths are on his hands?
Hitler, took action to bring his impoverished country (after all that they lost during WW1 and after) back from the brink. He wanted to feed his people. ALL of them. He wanted to put his people back to work and to make them strong such that they wouldn't be victims of other world powers. Seems to me to be noble goals. How he went about it was thoroughly EVIL in my mind, but his goals and motivations were not "Kill all of the yucky jews, they aren't real people anyway."
Jack Kavorkian killed a bunch of people. He saw himself as relieving needless suffering, not only on the part of the victims, but the families and loved ones of the victims. yet he still KILLED innocents and people who could not say (at least some of them) if they wanted to die or not.
And I bet if you read any of the stuff about Jeffrey Dhamer or Ted Kazinski they both thought they were doing good deeds. You said motivations, not actions. They thought they were saving souls or some such crazy crap. But their motivations were pure.
I must disagree. One's alignment says nothing of apathy. Again I believe it to be a description of one's motivations and outlook on life.
Who said anything about apathy? How about fear? How about lack of foresight? How about trusting nature? How about having a momentary lapse in judgement? How about disbelief? Any or all of these could lead to inaction. Even blind acceptance or ignorance.
It was suspected that dozens of people were potential witnesses to Jack the Ripper's crimes. Possibly more. But they "chose" not to get involved. Are they evil? And there is the bystander effect, you should look up. Otherwise good people turning their backs on terrible events because they were worried about protecting their children or their families and friends. Or because they didn't think they could make a difference.
It is based on their action because that is the point of no return. A LG Paladin might desire to kill an innocent for whatever reason, but if he can control himself and act rationally before taking that life, he could still be described as "Good."
It is based on actions because those are the only things that a DM has to go on. Period. They can't read the player's mind. They HAVE to go on action.
this mechanic BORROWS from RL in order to create fantasy and escape from reality where you can hardly claim good or evil exist (unless you involve god or higher force). so when you apply RL examples to alignments you are introducing too much complexity in a system to be relevant.
I must disagree. One's alignment says nothing of apathy. Again I believe it to be a description of one's motivations and outlook on life.
Who said anything about apathy? How about fear? How about lack of foresight? How about trusting nature? How about having a momentary lapse in judgement? How about disbelief? Any or all of these could lead to inaction. Even blind acceptance or ignorance.
This is precisely my point The 9-category alignment system is far too coarse to take into account all of these factors for every scenario.
I stand by my assertion that alignment is a descriptor, not a rule by which a character must adhere.
I stand by my assertion that alignment is a descriptor, not a rule by which a character must adhere.
We don't disagree on this particular point.
However, PnP does have a vehicle for alignment shift. It would appear that there are some of the mechanics in BG designed toward that specific goal. And since it is part of PnP and apparently intended to be part of BG, AND the fact that the discussion was about a Virtue MOD for the game, I stand by my comments as well.
The problem is that our minds rebel from a world in which objective, absolute, knowable morality exists. Consider: Any wizard of a certain degree of power can use magic to confirm, with his own senses, what happens to evil people when they die. With another spell, he can confirm, beyond the shadow of a doubt, where he would go if he were to die at this instant. And there are still evil wizards.
In a system of absolute morality, a Paladin not only can smite-on-sight anyone who trips his evil-dar, it is practically his duty, because anyone who detects as evil not only has committed evil acts, but is almost certain to continue committing evil acts.
And yet not even a being born of the very essence of Goodness, an Angel, is so good that it cannot fall to evil. And even a being born of the very essence of Evil, a Demon, can rise.
(Here's a fun conundrum: There is at least one non-evil demon (Thank you, Falls-From-Grace), which means there is a non-zero chance of a demon becoming non-evil. Demonkind is infinite. Therefore, there are an infinite number of non-evil demons. I leave the full implications of this as an exercise to the reader.)
I think it's worth noting, however, that beyond the opinions of your party members regarding your actions, alignment has little to no function in BG1 or BG2.
ACTIONS are what determine reputation, and alignment as general description of a character's motivations should loosely follow those actions.
@Zutti, only if you aren't Role playing my friend.
Correct. But I believe this was done intentionally to maintain enough ambiguity for the player to interpret their character's actions in whatever rational manner they like. The reputation system is in place to reflect society's view on those actions, regardless of the motivation of the character. Faerun is a "good" society; killing someone in self-defense is OK(perhaps moreso because of the lack of convenient means to knockout/disable an opponent rather than killing them outright) while murdering an innocent for their scimitars is viewed unfavorably.
The Reputation system was included simply because they wanted a simple way to give a nod to alignment, and control the Good/Evil NPCs, plus the dreams. It isn't as logical or as thorough as it could have been because they wanted to pander to players that didn't give a wet slap about alignment and just wanted to play the game. And quite frankly, the percent of players who care about alignment as much as you and I is probably on the small side.
I just know that my old DM was a real stickler for "Playing your alignment". If you started acting out of alignment, he made you work on it. And work and work. Many is the time we (as a group) got into deep philosophical discussions on the topic of actions versus motivations. I lost every time, but only because the DM is GOD. and I have matured since then (hopefully).
I just know that my old DM was a real stickler for "Playing your alignment". If you started acting out of alignment, he made you work on it. And work and work. Many is the time we (as a group) got into deep philosophical discussions on the topic of actions versus motivations. I lost every time, but only because the DM is GOD. and I have matured since then (hopefully).
And this is what it often comes down to when a group tries to pay attention to whether or not people are "playing their alignment." Everyone at the table has a different idea of how Alignment really works, but only the DM has the power to enforce his conception on the other players. Hence why my groups just jettison the whole thing more often than not.
Consider: Any wizard of a certain degree of power can use magic to confirm, with his own senses, what happens to evil people when they die. With another spell, he can confirm, beyond the shadow of a doubt, where he would go if he were to die at this instant. And there are still evil wizards.
However, in the worlds we are talking about, you can actually 'Become' a demon and thus ascend in power in the afterlife.
In a system of absolute morality, a Paladin not only can smite-on-sight anyone who trips his evil-dar, it is practically his duty, because anyone who detects as evil not only has committed evil acts, but is almost certain to continue committing evil acts.
My DM always played that the Paladin "Detect Evil" was not a magic lie detector. And generally didn't work on NPCs. You had to be "Of Evil" in a manner like a Demon or Devil to trip it off. Not simply a real dirtbag.
And yet not even a being born of the very essence of Goodness, an Angel, is so good that it cannot fall to evil. And even a being born of the very essence of Evil, a Demon, can rise.
Always the hope of redemption/damnation I guess. Otherwise what's the point?
(Here's a fun conundrum: There is at least one non-evil demon (Thank you, Falls-From-Grace), which means there is a non-zero chance of a demon becoming non-evil. Demonkind is infinite. Therefore, there are an infinite number of non-evil demons. I leave the full implications of this as an exercise to the reader.)
Who says demonkind is infinite? I'd say they are only as infinite as humanity. Infinite POTENTIAL, I will grant you. But then I believe that Demons/devils are predisposed towards a given direction, thus skewing the odds a bit. Much in the same way as Angels/Planetars.
Who says demonkind is infinite? I'd say they are only as infinite as humanity. Infinite POTENTIAL, I will grant you. But then I believe that Demons/devils are predisposed towards a given direction, thus skewing the odds a bit. Much in the same way as Angels/Planetars.
It depends on which version of the D&D cosmology you use. In some of them, the Abyss is composed of an infinite number of planes populated by an infinite number of demons.
The game doesn't do a very good job at incorporating evil choices, and though Bioware gave them to the player, they simultaneously try to punish you for it half the time. I liked the dialogue choices in DA:O much more than those in Baldur's Gate.
I have an interesting (well atleast I think so!) question:
How does an evil character view romance? Is it just the base animal instict? Is it even possible for an evil character to "fall in love"? I'm asking because my PC has thing for Jaheira (And will later get a thing for Viconia...she will be my romance interest in BG2 though I beg you to not spoil any romances as I've only done Anomen's so far!), and I'm unsure how his mind should work in this matter. As of right now, I have him treat her like just a "thing" who's pants he wants to get into. :P I am not certain if one can be evil and at the same time harbor love. I welcome any advice.
Well, Viconia and Dorn *are* evil romance options. Looks like one of them will answer your question soon enough. Viconia - not spoilering anything. Dorn - seems to value loyalty and trust, which doesn't sound like the worst thing to look for in a potential mate.
I always hated the whole 'evil cannot feel love, or camaraderie, etc.' trope. I just find it rather cheap and uninteresting as compared to the alternative. Even evil characters have traits that they value in others, and it seems more interesting to explore what those might be and what form an 'evil' 'love' might take, even if it ends up somewhat twisted.
Well, Viconia and Dorn *are* evil romance options. Looks like one of them will answer your question soon enough. Viconia - not spoilering anything. Dorn - seems to value loyalty and trust, which doesn't sound like the worst thing to look for in a potential mate.
Ah yes, ofcourse! I was tired when I wrote this...
I always hated the whole 'evil cannot feel love, or camaraderie, etc.' trope. I just find it rather cheap and uninteresting as compared to the alternative. Even evil characters have traits that they value in others, and it seems more interesting to explore what those might be and what form an 'evil' 'love' might take, even if it ends up somewhat twisted.
Hmm, ok. Don't get me wrong, I've only been RPing my PC that way because I genuinely didn't know what to do - now though, I think you've gone and hit the nail on the proverbial head:
If you're going to go strictly by the AD&D alignement system (which is what I'm doing, as I lack real experience with a proper roleplaying company!), a Lawful Evil character DOES value loyalty and trust. I think I'll use that as a basis. Best thing to do is to probably just play out the aforementioned romance with Viccy and see what gives. Thank you guys!
The game contradicts itself. "There is no evil love/friendship" and "Viconia and Dorn are romancable" simply can't both be true. If you only look at the facts, you can even count Eldoth and Skie as lovers. Skie is neutral and she's probably the half that actually has real affection for Eldoth, but he still leaves the party if you kick her out. On some sociopathic level, he does care for her. Maybe it's more a "if I can't have her, no-one else can" thing for him, but it's not a one way street either. I like to explore in roleplay how the evil and sometimes twisted relationships develop. My chaotic evil cleric is buddies with Xzar; they explore mortality together. It's a perfect match; a necromancer with high wisdom and the priest of an evil god. Both are insane, but think the other is a genius and can teach them a lot. My thief is - grudingly - Edwin's bodyguard (as a roleplay justification for the co-dependancy; I rarely put any points in stealth and have Edwin cast Invisbility), while both sorta hate each other, but see the skills as too useful to simply kill or ditch the other. I also see a friendly rivavly between my neutral evil jester and Baeloth begin; caught in an eternal struggle over a small joke both forgot by now, trying to be "more entertaining" than the other.
I don't see why an evil character would not have friends or loved ones. Unless you try to be intentionally one-dimensional, but then, who does that? No roleplayer I know.
The problem with the concept of good and evil is that it tends to be subjective internally and objective externally. People generally think of themselves as good regardless of their circumstances, or they follow a morality other than good/evil.
The thing with CRPGs with morality compasses is that the only objectively good or evil decisions are the ones with actual consequences. This leads to some rather unique situations. Stealing isn't evil unless you get caught. Murder isn't evil unless its the wrong person. etc.
The idea tha good character does X while Evil character does Y really misses the point of roleplaying, which behaving how you think this person would behave. Morallity usually doesn't factor in, and is more a consequence than a action.
On the subject of thieves... How can thieves have a lawful alignment? Stealing is against the law, otherwise it would be called "taking something". I can see how stealing can be "good" (Robin Hood) or "neutral" (neccessary to survive) and lack the law-breaking, selfish evil, but lawful? That's a bit weird.
@KidCarnival - I think the problem is in the class name - Thief. Though not every Thief is played as a well... thief. Kits help getting around the name some, like you can easily see a LN or LE bounty hunter, etc. Even the pure class though could be played as a trap master or scout focusing on detecting traps/hiding, or could be a bodyguard like your thief, etc. Even an assassin could be lawful alignment, if working for the law.
Also, my understanding of lawful is it could also be a dedication to structure/law within a specific order, so thieves who devote themselves to a guild and work strictly within the conduct of that guild could be lawful, i.e. we thinking stealing is ok, but never murder an innocent, or something like that.
D&D is even shakier on the Law and Chaos axis than it is on the Good and Evil axis, so it really comes down to what you decide being lawful or chaotic actually means. Consider that as described in the 2nd edition rulebook (which I believe was taken more or less verbatim for BG), Chaotic Good characters are good people who spend little to no time worrying if something is legal, whereas Chaotic Neutral and Chaotic Evil are different flavors of insanity.
I have an interesting (well atleast I think so!) question:
How does an evil character view romance? Is it just the base animal instict? Is it even possible for an evil character to "fall in love"? I'm asking because my PC has thing for Jaheira (And will later get a thing for Viconia...she will be my romance interest in BG2 though I beg you to not spoil any romances as I've only done Anomen's so far!), and I'm unsure how his mind should work in this matter. As of right now, I have him treat her like just a "thing" who's pants he wants to get into. :P I am not certain if one can be evil and at the same time harbor love. I welcome any advice.
In my view there is no reason why an "Evil" character can't love just as much as a "Good" character. They are sentient beings, all of them. And have the same desires and feelings as others. An Evil character is just as likely to meet someone that strikes their fancy as any other. And they may be just as enamored with that person as anyone else. They may even be self sacrificing in pursuit of that individual.
"Evil" doesn't necessarily mean mean spirited and hateful any more than being "Good" means the total absence of those emotions. Therefore it is perfectly reasonable for your Evil character to fall in love. There is no conflict here. how they go about that love, may be different, but even then not necessarily. All IMHO.
@SirK8: I prefer "rogue" myself. It gets the actual class better, as it just implies someone who doesn't use "in your face" methods and relies on other, usually less obvious methods. The alignment as "lawful" is also mostly just a bad word, but one that couldn't be changed easily as it would affect other classes and all. The forensic terms of "organized" and "disorganized" reflect lawful and chaotic better. A mafia boss, for example, would easily count as lawful because the mafia is known for a strict code of honor. But alas, that's all lingustic nitpicking.
I also agree that "evil" doesn't equal "cold hearted monster". There are enough examples in real life and fiction where "evil" people or characters have loved ones or valued peers.
Comments
this mechanic BORROWS from RL in order to create fantasy and escape from reality where you can hardly claim good or evil exist (unless you involve god or higher force). so when you apply RL examples to alignments you are introducing too much complexity in a system to be relevant.
this is why this is becoming increasingly complex moral/action discussion- because d&d setting is not plausibly enough comparable to RL. d&D has it's own rules and laws that dictate it' reality.
Hitler, took action to bring his impoverished country (after all that they lost during WW1 and after) back from the brink. He wanted to feed his people. ALL of them. He wanted to put his people back to work and to make them strong such that they wouldn't be victims of other world powers. Seems to me to be noble goals. How he went about it was thoroughly EVIL in my mind, but his goals and motivations were not "Kill all of the yucky jews, they aren't real people anyway."
Jack Kavorkian killed a bunch of people. He saw himself as relieving needless suffering, not only on the part of the victims, but the families and loved ones of the victims. yet he still KILLED innocents and people who could not say (at least some of them) if they wanted to die or not.
And I bet if you read any of the stuff about Jeffrey Dhamer or Ted Kazinski they both thought they were doing good deeds. You said motivations, not actions. They thought they were saving souls or some such crazy crap. But their motivations were pure. Who said anything about apathy? How about fear? How about lack of foresight? How about trusting nature? How about having a momentary lapse in judgement? How about disbelief? Any or all of these could lead to inaction. Even blind acceptance or ignorance.
It was suspected that dozens of people were potential witnesses to Jack the Ripper's crimes. Possibly more. But they "chose" not to get involved. Are they evil? And there is the bystander effect, you should look up. Otherwise good people turning their backs on terrible events because they were worried about protecting their children or their families and friends. Or because they didn't think they could make a difference. It is based on actions because those are the only things that a DM has to go on. Period. They can't read the player's mind. They HAVE to go on action.
I stand by my assertion that alignment is a descriptor, not a rule by which a character must adhere.
However, PnP does have a vehicle for alignment shift. It would appear that there are some of the mechanics in BG designed toward that specific goal. And since it is part of PnP and apparently intended to be part of BG, AND the fact that the discussion was about a Virtue MOD for the game, I stand by my comments as well.
We can agree to disagree I guess.
In a system of absolute morality, a Paladin not only can smite-on-sight anyone who trips his evil-dar, it is practically his duty, because anyone who detects as evil not only has committed evil acts, but is almost certain to continue committing evil acts.
And yet not even a being born of the very essence of Goodness, an Angel, is so good that it cannot fall to evil. And even a being born of the very essence of Evil, a Demon, can rise.
(Here's a fun conundrum: There is at least one non-evil demon (Thank you, Falls-From-Grace), which means there is a non-zero chance of a demon becoming non-evil. Demonkind is infinite. Therefore, there are an infinite number of non-evil demons. I leave the full implications of this as an exercise to the reader.)
I think it's worth noting, however, that beyond the opinions of your party members regarding your actions, alignment has little to no function in BG1 or BG2.
ACTIONS are what determine reputation, and alignment as general description of a character's motivations should loosely follow those actions.
I do like rules, and I have a healthy appreciation for the above in theory without giving a damn about either in practice
I just know that my old DM was a real stickler for "Playing your alignment". If you started acting out of alignment, he made you work on it. And work and work. Many is the time we (as a group) got into deep philosophical discussions on the topic of actions versus motivations. I lost every time, but only because the DM is GOD. and I have matured since then (hopefully).
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/96407/#Comment_96407
How does an evil character view romance? Is it just the base animal instict? Is it even possible for an evil character to "fall in love"? I'm asking because my PC has thing for Jaheira (And will later get a thing for Viconia...she will be my romance interest in BG2 though I beg you to not spoil any romances as I've only done Anomen's so far!), and I'm unsure how his mind should work in this matter. As of right now, I have him treat her like just a "thing" who's pants he wants to get into. :P I am not certain if one can be evil and at the same time harbor love. I welcome any advice.
If you're going to go strictly by the AD&D alignement system (which is what I'm doing, as I lack real experience with a proper roleplaying company!), a Lawful Evil character DOES value loyalty and trust. I think I'll use that as a basis. Best thing to do is to probably just play out the aforementioned romance with Viccy and see what gives. Thank you guys!
I like to explore in roleplay how the evil and sometimes twisted relationships develop. My chaotic evil cleric is buddies with Xzar; they explore mortality together. It's a perfect match; a necromancer with high wisdom and the priest of an evil god. Both are insane, but think the other is a genius and can teach them a lot. My thief is - grudingly - Edwin's bodyguard (as a roleplay justification for the co-dependancy; I rarely put any points in stealth and have Edwin cast Invisbility), while both sorta hate each other, but see the skills as too useful to simply kill or ditch the other. I also see a friendly rivavly between my neutral evil jester and Baeloth begin; caught in an eternal struggle over a small joke both forgot by now, trying to be "more entertaining" than the other.
I don't see why an evil character would not have friends or loved ones. Unless you try to be intentionally one-dimensional, but then, who does that? No roleplayer I know.
The thing with CRPGs with morality compasses is that the only objectively good or evil decisions are the ones with actual consequences. This leads to some rather unique situations. Stealing isn't evil unless you get caught. Murder isn't evil unless its the wrong person. etc.
The idea tha good character does X while Evil character does Y really misses the point of roleplaying, which behaving how you think this person would behave. Morallity usually doesn't factor in, and is more a consequence than a action.
Also, my understanding of lawful is it could also be a dedication to structure/law within a specific order, so thieves who devote themselves to a guild and work strictly within the conduct of that guild could be lawful, i.e. we thinking stealing is ok, but never murder an innocent, or something like that.
"Evil" doesn't necessarily mean mean spirited and hateful any more than being "Good" means the total absence of those emotions. Therefore it is perfectly reasonable for your Evil character to fall in love. There is no conflict here. how they go about that love, may be different, but even then not necessarily. All IMHO.
I also agree that "evil" doesn't equal "cold hearted monster". There are enough examples in real life and fiction where "evil" people or characters have loved ones or valued peers.