Aligment issues. Please help
Tigersag
Member Posts: 52
I've been tested online as having a Neutral Good alignment (Zorro by example says the Baldur gate wiki). Still I prefer to play a paladin who are supposed to be Lawful Good (Indiana Jones says the same wiki). Can anybody clarify in more detail what the difference is between those two alignments and how I prevent straying from it?
Lets say an (evil) corrupt police officer has arrested your best friend... in what way would the Lawful Neutral person act differently then the Lawful Good person?
Lets say an (evil) corrupt police officer has arrested your best friend... in what way would the Lawful Neutral person act differently then the Lawful Good person?
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There's been some pretty lengthy debates on this forum on the subject.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/23723/lawful-good-why-all-the-flack/p1
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/21413/which-good-alignment-do-you-prefer-to-play/p1
What I've written on the topic before:
"I think of Good as 'willing to sacrifice personal interest for the sake of others', or true altruism, and Evil as 'Takes enjoyment from inflicting pain and suffering on others'. So somebody behaving rationally is Neutral."
Others tend to consider selfishness as 'evil' as well, whereas I regard selfish rational choices as simply neutral. The way I think about morality, most individuals fall within the great spectrum of Neutrality. For example, my Charname has chosen the Good options in almost every quest he has done, and undoubtedly vanquished many evils. But I still regard him as Neutral, because he does not blindly crusade for 'Goodness', and he would bend his principles in order to achieve some greater goal more important to himself, such as the pursuit of power so that he could better protect himself and those he care about.
Remember that Lawful ==> Chaotic is just a spectrum of a character's attitude to law, order and rules in general, and not necessarily strict adherence to a particular legal code.
For example, I am somebody who strongly prefers the world to be ordered, organised, and governed by law. I am instinctively opposed to actions/ideologies that might cause or encourage chaos and anarchy, even if the action is motivated by noble pursuits such as 'to overthrow a corrupt regime', because I think of order, or the absence of chaos, as a Good in itself, and thus my calculation also factors in the consequences of strife and what may replace the 'corrupt regime' in question.
However, I do not blindly follow only the laws of China, where I was born, or the laws of the UK, where I live. I abide by laws as long as they do not conflict with my core moral values and rational personal interest. If I could develop a software that allowed Youtube to be widely watched in China (where it is banned by the 'Great Firewall'), and make millions of $$$£££... I would break that particular Chinese law on censorship, for both moral principle and rational interest reasons.
Alignment is kind of a crap-shoot. I wouldn't put too much faith into an online test for determining your own alignment. Self-evaluation is generally going to be accurate enough I think.
Another thing to consider is that there's a huge variety of different types of people in each alignment. Batman and Mother Theresa are both what I would consider lawful good, and they would have completely different reactions to virtually any scenario.
In your hypothetical I would say that it would depend more on the individual characters' motivations, upbringing, and philosophy more than their alignment. But, in general, a lawful good character is going to be more likely to work "within the system" if they can, to try and prove the friends' innocence and expose the officer's corruption in legal ways. If that's impossible, a lawful good character might see it as their duty to correct the institutions, using whatever means make the most sense for his character. A LG Paladin of Torm might purge the evil through battle and violence, while a LG Cleric of Lathander might go to the legal authorities of a more powerful body to try and appeal the case. A LG follower of Ilmater might sacrifice himself to ensure the freedom of his friend.
A neutral good character does not see an inherent value in legal systems, so would probably be more likely to take matters into their own hands, possibly breaking their friend out of prison or delivering vigilante justice to the police officer. A NG character would be more likely to resort to underhanded methods to solve the problem- perhaps they would plant false evidence against the corrupt officer in order to discredit him. A LG character would frown at this (and a Paladin would never do it), but a NG character might see it as preventing greater injustice.
Your question is not simple, and can't be answered easily. The D&D alignment system makes people start thinking about real-life philosophical ethics.
(Although, if you read things written by the man who created it, Gary Gygax, he did not intend for his game to provoke discussion of philosophy, and he was known to grow weary of people trying to get him to weigh in about real-life philosophical ethics.)
Also, there are as many opinions as posters. Bringing up anything to do with D&D alignment tends to generate threads with 20-plus pages, and some of the discussions become very heated in disagreement.
After doing some more reading on the subject, you will begin to form your own opinions and ideas about the alignments, and you may even decide that the way the Baldur's Gate games write the characters and assign the alignment labels are incorrect in some cases, in your opinion.
I appreciate your curiosity and sincerity about it. You sound like a very thoughtful person. Welcome to our community!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alignment_(Dungeons_&_Dragons)
I realised that I haven't actually answered your specific question. Like @Mitchfork said, it depends on the personality of the characters as much as their alignment. I am also not sure if u want a comparison between Lawful Good and Neutral Good, or Lawful Neutral. So I'll provide examples for all three.
You will notice that all three alignments can justifiably resolve the problem through a similar range of means, only the motivation and emphasis differ.
Lawful Good
The first instinct of this character is to attempt to free his friend through legal channels. Perhaps attempt to seek the assistance of somebody higher up in the chain of command, who is not so corrupt.
If the entire organisation is obviously evil, and lawful channels are impossible, he will readily storm the police station to rescue his friend, even if doing so could be extremely perilous. In fact he feels an obligation to destroy the evil organisation and rescue his friend. In his righteous fury, he may even go as far as destroying the police station, and attempt to establish a new law enforcement order in its place. However, if he thinks innocents are likely to be killed in any attack on the police station, he may reluctantly decide that he cannot go through with it, because he cannot selfishly sacrifice the lives of strangers in order to rescue a friend.
Lawful Neutral
The loss of his best friend is clearly unacceptable. He will also attempt to go through lawful channels first, and he is going to be less picky about who he deals with, for example possibly bribing the corrupt officers to release his friend, or otherwise manipulating the system somehow to get what he wants.
If he cannot achieve his goals through Lawful channels, and assuming his friend matters enough to him, he would also consider storming the police station, if he is reasonably confident of success. In the course of the rescue effort, he would not intentionally cause collateral damage, but the possibility of harming innocents may not deter him from carrying out the raid, because for him, the ends justify the means.
Neutral Good
His first instinct is to rescue his friend asap, through lawful or unlawful means. For example he might also attempt to seek the assistance of a less corrupt superior officer, or maybe the assistance of a band of local Robinhood-style 'Good rebels'.
He would readily attack the police station to rescue his friend, whether he is confident of success or not, because he feels an obligation to try his best. However, like the Lawful Good character, he is also unwilling to place innocents at risk.
Then, what matters is Law and Chaos, and Balance.