Alignment thread - True Neutrality

[pemerton]

I've often seen it suggested that True Neutrality or "balance"-oriented Neutrality, as spelled out in the original AD&D books, is nonsensical. The point of this thread is to explain why I don't agree.

First, what is True Neutrality? From the AD&D PHB (pp 20, 33) and DMG (p 23) (with some resequencing by me):

Absolute, or true, neutral creatures view everything which exists as an integral, necessary part or function of the entire cosmos. Each thing exists as a part of the whole, one as a check or balance to the other, with life necessary for death, happiness for suffering, good for evil, order far chaos, and vice versa.

[Druids] are . . . absolute neutrals . . ., viewing good and evil, law and chaos, as balancing forces of nature which are necessary for the continuation of all things.

The neutral sees all other alignments as parts of a necessary whole [and] looks upon all other alignments as facets of the system of things. . . . Nothing must ever become predominant or out of balance. . . . Thus, each aspect - evil and good, chaos and law - of things must be retained in balance to maintain the status quo; for things as they are cannot be improved upon except temporarily, and even then but superficially.

Nature will prevail and keep things as they were meant to be, provided the "wheel" surrounding the hub of nature does not become unbalanced due to the work of unnatural forces - such as human and other intelligent creatures interfering with what is meant to be. Within this naturalistic ethos, humankind serves a role also, just as all other creatures do. They may be more or less important, but the neutral does not concern himself or herself with these considerations except where it is positively determined that the balance is threatened.​

The reason this is sometime seen as nonsensical is because of what is taken to be an implication that the true neutral must support evil people, when good threatens to predominate, as much as help good people when evil threatens to predominate. And how can it be rational to think that evil is worth supporting, or that too much good is a problem?

But this diagnosis of nonsensicalness results from looking at alignment in a "static" way in which each alignment is understood to be as it claims to be - so that (say) the LG don't just aspire to be good, but are interpreted as actually being good. This "static" (or metaphysical) view of alignment is encouraged by other aspects of AD&D (eg the system of outer planes set out in Appendix IV of the PHB) and is reinforced by later D&D writings. But it leads to all sorts of problems, of which the nonsensicalness of true neutrality is just one.

When alignments are seen in a "dynamic" or aspirational/motivational way, though, then true neutral needn't be nonsensical at all. When alignment is understood in this way, the LG aren't good as such. Rather, the LG are those who (i) are committed to human wellbeing and (ii) believe that social order is the best, perhaps only, way to achieve that. The CG, on the other hand, are equally committed to (i) but disagree vehemently in respect of (ii) - they believe that individual self-realisation is the only path to wellbeing, which will be crushed by excessive order. The LE agree with the CG about (ii) but are indifferent to (i) - they are quite happy to crush individual self-realisation and wellbeing if that lets them impose their yoke upon the world. And the CE agree with the LG that social order tends to produce widespread wellbeing and to constrain the brutal and indifferent exercise of individual will - hence the CG oppose social order, precisely because they want to indulge their individual wills indifferently to the interests of others.

If alignment is understood as a set of aspirations - for widespread wellbeing (if good) or individual self-advancement (if evil) - coupled with a set of beliefs about how to achieve that - via social order (if lawful) or individual self-realisation (if chaotic) - then true neutrality is the view that all such belief and aspiration is misguided, because human action is incapable of improving upon the natural order, which is already maximally harmonious, and will only lead to suffering if not kept in check. So the true neutral doesn't oppose the LG person because they think there is something wrong with human wellbeing, or that the aspirations of the CE person are worth upholding; rather, the true neutral opposes the LG because they think the LG person has a misguided optimism about the feasibility of deliberate action to improve wellbeing, which if given its head will only lead to disharmony and hence to suffering. The true neutral person is no more sympathetic to the CE person than is the LG; but unlike the LG, the true neutral person is confident that nature will restore the balance, undoing any imbalance the CE person gives rise to. And the true neutral person thinks that the active opposition the LG person mounts against the CE is itself going to be a source of disharmony and hence suffering.

When seen in this way, true neutrality is extremely conservative (or, at least, passive and hostile to action) but not nonsensical. And while ENworld board rules preclude actually saying very much about real world analogues of the true neutral outlook, it's pretty easy to recognise some of them.

 

[delericho]

Or they could just be the guy with the gun.

 

[Celebrim]

Well, I agree with your conclusion, even if I don't agree all of your particular reasoning is necessary to reach it.

There are a variety of intellectual paths that might lead one to neutrality on both axis, including I would think a certain degree of apathy - what's later been called 'unaligned'. You have documented one such path, but I don't think it's the essential nature of the thing.

One path is the belief that excessive devotion to good is either itself not good or else isn't functional (which is almost the same thing). Beliefs of this sort can be seen when Paladin's are invariably presented as being so good they are evil. There are tons of stories in all sorts of media where the advocates of good are ultimately so righteous that they are intolerant, and so intolerant that they are cruel, and so cruel that they are invariably no different from evil. In this view of the world, there is no such thing as 'good' or 'evil', per se, there is only moderation and immoderation, and anything in moderation is good, whereas everything in immoderation is evil. A person of this sort doesn't see themselves as siding with evil against good, but in siding with moderates against extremists. It may serve no purpose to side with an extremist against another extremist, and the danger of course in doing so is always that you might become an extremist yourself and adopt immoderate intemperate solutions to problems.

Much here depends on your picture of what 'good' is, what aspiring to be 'good' is, and whether 'good' even really exists or is a delusion. If you think good implies pacifism for example, you can from the neutral position argue that pacifism is ultimately dysfunctional and therefore not good. If you think good implies purity for example, you can from the neutral position argue that pure anything is antithetical to life and therefore not good. If you think good implies self-denial, you can from the neutral position argue that too much self-denial invariably empowers evil. If you think good implies asceticism, you can not that too much of that invariably would be joyless and that life is better with a certain amount of decadent pleasure taken in moderation. In short, from this world view, the people aspiring to perfect goodness are merely deluded and will always as they take those aspirations more and more seriously move into a sort of madness which is unhealthy for themselves and others. This doesn't mean you are siding with the serial killers, which from the neutral perspective is an example of the sort of immoderate and unreasonable thinking that arises from the sort of fanaticism you'd expect of people committed to immoderate good, since it essentially lumps everyone that isn't fully committed to the project with the worst sort of evil.

 

[Manbearcat]

But this diagnosis of nonsensicalness results from looking at alignment in a "static" way in which each alignment is understood to be as it claims to be - so that (say) the LG don't just aspire to be good, but are interpreted as actually being good. This "static" (or metaphysical) view of alignment is encouraged by other aspects of AD&D (eg the system of outer planes set out in Appendix IV of the PHB) and is reinforced by later D&D writings. But it leads to all sorts of problems, of which the nonsensicalness of true neutrality is just one.

When alignments are seen in a "dynamic" or aspirational/motivational way, though, then true neutral needn't be nonsensical at all. When alignment is understood in this way, the LG aren't good as such. Rather, the LG are those who (i) are committed to human wellbeing and (ii) believe that social order is the best, perhaps only, way to achieve that. The CG, on the other hand, are equally committed to (i) but disagree vehemently in respect of (ii) - they believe that individual self-realisation is the only path to wellbeing, which will be crushed by excessive order. The LE agree with the CG about (ii) but are indifferent to (i) - they are quite happy to crush individual self-realisation and wellbeing if that lets them impose their yoke upon the world. And the CE agree with the LG that social order tends to produce widespread wellbeing and to constrain the brutal and indifferent exercise of individual will - hence the CG oppose social order, precisely because they want to indulge their individual wills indifferently to the interests of others.

If alignment is understood as a set of aspirations - for widespread wellbeing (if good) or individual self-advancement (if evil) - coupled with a set of beliefs about how to achieve that - via social order (if lawful) or individual self-realisation (if chaotic) - then true neutrality is the view that all such belief and aspiration is misguided, because human action is incapable of improving upon the natural order, which is already maximally harmonious, and will only lead to suffering if not kept in check. So the true neutral doesn't oppose the LG person because they think there is something wrong with human wellbeing, or that the aspirations of the CE person are worth upholding; rather, the true neutral opposes the LG because they think the LG person has a misguided optimism about the feasibility of deliberate action to improve wellbeing, which if given its head will only lead to disharmony and hence to suffering. The true neutral person is no more sympathetic to the CE person than is the LG; but unlike the LG, the true neutral person is confident that nature will restore the balance, undoing any imbalance the CE person gives rise to. And the true neutral person thinks that the active opposition the LG person mounts against the CE is itself going to be a source of disharmony and hence suffering.

When seen in this way, true neutrality is extremely conservative (or, at least, passive and hostile to action) but not nonsensical. And while ENworld board rules preclude actually saying very much about real world analogues of the true neutral outlook, it's pretty easy to recognise some of them.

A quick thought. I think there are two areas where you can easily see this approach at work, one macro and one micro:

Macro - Not to get into into politics, but a foreign policy approach by an administration can be demonstrated to be true neutral I think. Addresses, indecision, and decisions lacking in coherent theme or tinged with duplicity that (a) render allies and enemies alike on unstable ground (whereas prior they were clearly aware of where they stood) and (b) make formerly clear lines of demarcation murky. This approach might be born of a mind to move the overall foreign policy needle away from an interventionist model (the imposition of your ii).

Micro - There are a lot of people who have a (sometimes unconscious) tendency to root for parity. Both a confident person (even if that person is benign or better) and a mousy wallflower make them squeamish. They chafe at dominance or paradigm-dictating excellence in craft/trade/sport. In America, they passively oppose (or possible actively defame) the dynasties of the Yankees, the Bulls, the Patriots. They want the little guy brought up and the big guy knocked down a peg or two such that any sort of "soft caste" moves toward being equilibrated. When this happens, they celebrate. If things swing in the opposite direction (rather than equilibrate), they'll find themselves rearranging their alliances.

I think, if they could give voice to their issues, it would be that they often feel that human-derived institutions (that impose social order which they feel inherently advantage one group or person over another) are external to natural order and therefore subvert/corrupt it rather than them being a part of it.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

True Neutral is a tricky alignment. I’ve seen it used in a sort of isolationist policy/non-attachment style. I’ve also seen it used as just another CN “I do both good and evil in the world,” aka I do whatever the player feels like doing.

For my part, I think it worked best with just Lawful, Chaotic, and Neutral. It makes sense in that concept. But with the full Law, Neutral, Chaos, Good, and Evil axes, it stands as the odd alignment out, being the only one without a secondary qualifier.

 

[Celebrim]

I’ve also seen it used as just another CN “I do both good and evil in the world,” aka I do whatever the player feels like doing.

It is precisely because Neutral actually does work fairly well as the "whatever the player feels like doing at the moment" alignment, that I consider it the least tricky alignment. A player that is mostly going with the flow and making practical choices on the basis of the immediate consequences rather than ideology, generally avoiding extremes of anything, and working to loosely good ends for largely selfish reasons, is going to approximate neutrality in its unphilosophical form rather well in my opinion.

Chaotic Neutral is in my opinion the most tricky, and often most abused alignment, since - unlike Neutral - Chaotic Neutral does in fact indicate certain strong moral commitments on the part of the character. Chaotic Neutral is most frequently played as 'Chaotic Petty Evil', in that the character is played exactly as if they were chaotic evil but (sometimes) without being quite the full epitome of depravity that the player imagines that alignment being. Else, it is played exactly as fully depraved Chaotic Evil, but the player just doesn't want to write Evil on the character sheet or justifies that he's neutral because he's fighting evil - as if evil wasn't perfectly capable of fighting itself.

But with the full Law, Neutral, Chaos, Good, and Evil axes, it stands as the odd alignment out, being the only one without a secondary qualifier.

What's normally called Neutral or sometimes True Neutral, could just as easily be called Neutral Neutral. It indicates neutrality on both alignment axis. There was a thread a while back where a poster indicated (correctly I think) that additional clarity would be had if Neutral Good was thought of and labeled True Good, and Neutral Evil was more commonly labeled True Evil. There is an unfortunate tendency for people to think of Lawful Good as being True Good, and Chaotic Evil as being True Evil or (Most Evil).

In the case of something like Lawful Good, there is no secondary qualifier. Both words are equally important. Neither modifies the other, but together they represent a synthesis of two ideas. A secondary qualifier is actually rarely used in the alignment system, and can be seen most often in the original outline of the 'Great Wheel' cosmology in the 1e AD&D Player's Handbook. An example of an alignment with a secondary qualifier might be Lawful Good Neutral or "Lawful Neutral with Good tendencies", or Lawful Neutral Good written as something like "Neutral Good with Lawful Tendencies". In this case, the secondary qualifier is used to indicate that of the two ideas that the philosophy synthesizes, one is taken as being greater and more important than the other, or if the philosophy believes in balance - that it finds that balance by erring to one side or the other (as in, a little chaos outweighs a great deal of orderliness).

 

[Aenghus]

I've always had a problem with True Neutrality in D&D as it hasn't been treated consistently in the writing. My opinions on this matter stem from 1e and 2e primarily. In the early editions some of the writing implied that LG was the "goodest" alignment, and CE was the "evelist" alignment.

At the same time, fitting in sword and sorcery and the ambiguous protagonists it features led to different treatments where there was contempt for apparently rigid law and order and blackest villainy alike and the neutral alignments were privileged as more "realistic", appropriate to adventuring, able to collaborate with different viewpoints, and not object to the behavior of others.

IMO True Neutral can't be *both* the actively seeking literal and mystical balance in the world alignment *and* the pragmatic realist alignment . And the writing indicating True Neutrals should constantly swap alliances and betray former allies at the drop of a hat I found freaky in the extreme and instinctively rejected.

I tend to play good PCs and my small exposure to the version of Greyhawk run locally had insufferably smug True Neutral NPCs, druids and wizards and others, inscrutable, uncooperative, secretive and oh so much better and more knowledgeable than the PCs, especially the good ones.

But then I disagree with the OP in that I require good to be good and evil to be evil to bother with alignment at all. When I play a good PC I don't want them to be some dupe that's manipulated by more clued in NPCs with contempt.

A particular alignment can make a problem easier or more difficult for a PC. The benefits of good alignments come from building up a good reputation and good will in the community, less relevant to campaigns with nomadic adventurers and grittier worlds. Neutral alignments allow more self-centred PCs, pragmatic decision making and dubious allies. Evil alignments allow fun with bad guy PCs and exploring dark territory. And True neutrals get to be smug and superior.

My own alignment interpretation has a metarule that no alignment is privileged over the others in a majority of cases, all have advantages and disadvantages. No alignment should be the alignment of "What I was going to do anyway", something often said of CN, CE, all the evil alignments in general, and True Neutral.

Or alternatively, acknowledge that the alignment system should be customised to suit the needs of the campaign intended, so neutrality is privileged in Sword and Sorcery worlds over intolerant "good" and destructive "evil", while LG can be privileged in Paladins and Princesses worlds with black hats and white hats and both Providence and Cosmic Evil active in the world. These are different worlds, with different requirements and call for different PC concepts.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Additional Thought

I don't think anyone thought TN was nonsensical until the possibly (actually likely) apocryphal story about people playing a check list version of it surfaced: I did one lawful act, now I have to do 1 chaotic act (usually immediately). Add that to the questionable calculus of how many little good acts are equal to 1 really evil act. It is bad enough when the CN PC's players are doing it, but now the N ones are too.....

I haven't actually seen anyone actually play a checklist TN, though. The stories about how it worked got very extravagant very quickly, so I am inclined to think that someone thought that someone else could do it and had a good time brainstorming the most annoying way to do it and passed it off as something that really happened.

 

[Celebrim]

I've always had a problem with True Neutrality in D&D as it hasn't been treated consistently in the writing.

The same could be said of any alignment. While you will find individual players with highly congruent ideas about how the alignment system works, you'll find others with various subtle contradictory variations and to be fully frank, a lot of that has been the fault of the writers over the years.

My opinions on this matter stem from 1e and 2e primarily. In the early editions some of the writing implied that LG was the "goodest" alignment, and CE was the "evelist" alignment.

I agree that this was one of the subtle biases infecting Gygax's writing on the topic in 1e especially. Much of the rest of where he's coming from and what he means can be inferred I think by a closes reading of Michael Moorcock, which was initially the source material for his Law/Neutrality/Chaos cosmology before it got infected by other sources to become the complex two axis system we have now.

IMO True Neutral can't be *both* the actively seeking literal and mystical balance in the world alignment *and* the pragmatic realist alignment.

I think it can, and that it is also a lot of other things. I find it helpful to understanding an alignment to note that alignments tend to deny the existence of or treat as a negative quality the opposite alignment. The most well known example of this is that good views evil as being merely the absence of good, as dark is merely the absence of light. But each alignment has a similar viewpoint.

The viewpoint of the True Neutral is that all the philosophical distinctions are actually unreal when applied to the real world. Is death evil? Maybe. We can't really say one way or the other. Is life good? Maybe. The classic example of this would be whether the death of the goat is good depends on the perspective of the goat or the tiger. The Neutral views everything through a similar lens (of course, in the case of good and evil, Chaotic Neutrals and Lawful Neutrals would also share the opinion).

With that in mind, I think it ought to be possible to see the clear overlap - at least within this particular framework - between a pragmatist (especially what we'd call a materialist) and someone who hold a more philosophical view of balance. Obviously these viewpoints differ, but they differ on a different axis perhaps than what either the law/chaos or good/evil axis is measuring.

And the writing indicating True Neutrals should constantly swap alliances and betray former allies at the drop of a hat I found freaky in the extreme and instinctively rejected.

If you understand this writing as short hand for Moorcock ethics, then it becomes clear what is meant. If on the other hand you don't understand that, and don't have that background grounding, then what you are likely to extrapolate from or understand that to mean is - even if you find Moorcock's ethics coherent on their own - likely to be freaky and counter-intuitive.

Or alternatively, acknowledge that the alignment system should be customised to suit the needs of the campaign intended, so neutrality is privileged in Sword and Sorcery worlds over intolerant "good" and destructive "evil", while LG can be privileged in Paladins and Princesses worlds with black hats and white hats and both Providence and Cosmic Evil active in the world. These are different worlds, with different requirements and call for different PC concepts.

Unless you live in a world where the Lords of one philosophy are clearly triumphant, I think it's quite obvious that people living in such worlds can disagree over how you properly ought to describe the world. (And for that matter, it's possible to feel that the wrong Lord won, and judge the universe to be wrong.) That is, someone might believe that they live in a world where true neutrality is the correct interpretation of how one ought to live, and another might believe that no on the contrary this is a world where true goodness or true law or some other philosophy is in fact the correct way to live. Each will believe that their own philosophy is the right one to have, even if the label isn't 'good'.

 

[Aenghus]

I think it can, and that it is also a lot of other things. I find it helpful to understanding an alignment to note that alignments tend to deny the existence of or treat as a negative quality the opposite alignment. The most well known example of this is that good views evil as being merely the absence of good, as dark is merely the absence of light. But each alignment has a similar viewpoint.

The viewpoint of the True Neutral is that all the philosophical distinctions are actually unreal when applied to the real world. Is death evil? Maybe. We can't really say one way or the other. Is life good? Maybe. The classic example of this would be whether the death of the goat is good depends on the perspective of the goat or the tiger. The Neutral views everything through a similar lens (of course, in the case of good and evil, Chaotic Neutrals and Lawful Neutrals would also share the opinion).

With that in mind, I think it ought to be possible to see the clear overlap - at least within this particular framework - between a pragmatist (especially what we'd call a materialist) and someone who hold a more philosophical view of balance. Obviously these viewpoints differ, but they differ on a different axis perhaps than what either the law/chaos or good/evil axis is measuring.

This is where the disadvantages I mentioned in my earlier post come in. The disadvantages of True Neutrality are a tendency to apathy, slowness to act, being distrusted by everyone as unreliable, and perhaps pretending to a level of knowledge and mystical enlightenment they don't and can't have, because of imperfect information. No mortal actually knows everything, in most gameworlds no god or entity knows everything either. Which means everyone can make mistakes, hold positions that prove in hindsight to have been flawed or entirely mistaken.

If you understand this writing as short hand for Moorcock ethics, then it becomes clear what is meant. If on the other hand you don't understand that, and don't have that background grounding, then what you are likely to extrapolate from or understand that to mean is - even if you find Moorcock's ethics coherent on their own - likely to be freaky and counter-intuitive.

The extremes of Moorcock's concept of Law and Order are both incompatible with mortal life, something that isn't necessarily the case in D&D. I admit to not liking the privileging of Neutrality in the Moorcock work with Law and Chaos as alien intrusions both representing a threat to mortal life.

Unless you live in a world where the Lords of one philosophy are clearly triumphant, I think it's quite obvious that people living in such worlds can disagree over how you properly ought to describe the world. (And for that matter, it's possible to feel that the wrong Lord won, and judge the universe to be wrong.) That is, someone might believe that they live in a world where true neutrality is the correct interpretation of how one ought to live, and another might believe that no on the contrary this is a world where true goodness or true law or some other philosophy is in fact the correct way to live. Each will believe that their own philosophy is the 'right' one to have, even if the label isn't 'good'.

It's not the acknowledged supremacy I find most problematic, if advertised beforehand the players can choose appropriate PCs not doomed to existential failure (unless they want to). But DM bias, and particularly unconscious DM bias is a thing, which creates effective winners and losers in PC concepts which can really blindside players, especially when referees refuse to discuss such issues.

If the DM genuinely thinks neutrals are cool, and good guys finish last, playing a good PC in that game isn't likely to be fun for non-masochists. Far too often I have heard referees say "play anything you want" and promise impartiality, and then when it comes to play favour the TN, pragmatic or evil PCs and sideline or make fun of the "good" PCs.

IMO DMs should make a point of being very aware of their own biases in the interests of averting them, and not exhaustively denying they have biases to their players.