D&D General How do you think each alignment would handle this?

[delericho]

How would each of the alignment's react in your opinion?

Are they player characters? And how many XP is the poor person worth?

 

[payn]

I recognize there are many many ways people do alignments, but how i see alignments, in fact lawful characters do have to follow the law.

To me, the vast vast majority of players characters are neutral or “unaligned” in modern alignment notes.

But if you are dedicated to an alignment, to the point where even some magic sees you differently, then that’s not a “preference”…that’s an innate part of who you are.

Lawful people feel compelled to follow the law, good people are compelled to help other people, and evil people have to screw over others…even when it might not be in their best interest to do so.

I think of evil like a serial killer, it’s an itch they just have to scratch, even if it might get them caught.

The issue with "follow the law" is some laws are repugnant and oppressive. I always took law as believing in a system of laws, but not being beholden to all of them simply becasue they are laws.

 

[Oofta]

Given that alignment is only part of the picture, one descriptor of many and that motivation/situation/background and many other factors could change things.

First, I think there would be some commonalities. The good alignments would likely stop the thief and ask them if they needed help, is there something the fighter can help with?


LG: Would stop the thief and talk to them. They're not going to let the thief take whatever it was, but may buy it for them
NG: Let the thief know I saw them, give them a chance to make it right.
CG: depends on if I think the storeowner is ripping people off or is also struggling. The former, help the guy get away, the latter, tell the thief to stop or I'll make them stop.
LN: Stop the thief, they're breaking the law.
TN: does it affect me? No? Then do nothing.
CN: Would it be more interesting to make a scene or to distract the store owner?
LE: The thief needs to be punished and learn his proper place.
NE: How can I turn this to my advantage? Follow the thief and threaten to turn them in, adding in a more valuable item I stole.
CE: Call out the thief loudly so I can loot the store more effectively. Or just burn the place down if I can blame the thief.

 

[overgeeked]

Depends on the laws of the town for the Lawful characters.

LG. Stop them from stealing it and help take them to jail.
NG. Pay for the item.
CG. See a poor person steal something? No, you didn't.
LN. Wait for the person to leave, then report the theft.
TN. Ignore it.
CN. Roll 1d100, ignore it, and do something stupid.
LE. Follow the person out of the store and blackmail them.
NE. Follow the person out and steal it from them, then report them for the theft.
CE. Make a scene about the person stealing something and use that as a distraction to steal a bunch of stuff.

 

[CreamCloud0]

same, i'm with @Ruin Explorer on this, thinking any alignment could or would only react in one particular way to this situation is a wildly reductive view of what alignments represent and how they operate, just because people are of the same alignment it says nothing about how any individual will react, and the same person may not even react the same way twice.

a LG person might
-pay for the item themselves telling the thief
-pay for the item themselves without the thief knowing
-make the thief return the item
-give the thief gold so they can pay for the item
-loan the thief gold that they expect to be paid back later
-ask the shopkeep to open a tab/loan for the thief that they can pay off their expenses later
-perform a citizen's arrest and take them to the guards
-let them take the item but report them to the guards
-start an organisation or movement to provide support to those in need (soup kitchen, benefits)
-offer the thief work to gain income for their needs
-come forward and testify against the thief if they got put on trial
and probably more.

 

[LesserThan]

Basic Human Fighter (or whatever) is in a local store sees an obviously poor man steal something.

How would each of the alignment's react in your opinion?

LG
NG
CG
LN
TN
CN
LE
NE
CE

Addendum: Don’t over think this

Basic only has Law, Chaos and Neutrality.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The issue with "follow the law" is some laws are repugnant and oppressive. I always took law as believing in a system of laws, but not being beholden to all of them simply becasue they are laws.

Yeah if you have to follow every law, it's like if you treat Evil as having to quite literally kick every puppy!

Following every law mindlessly is just Lawful Stupid. It also creates hilarious situations like, whenever you get to a new place, you'd have to run straight to their courts and start trying to understand their legal system - and many legal systems don't even have clearly codified laws - especially in this era. They just have really elaborate sets of precedents stemming from a much smaller number of laws, so you'd basically need to get the equivalent of a law degree and maybe pass the bar in every place you visited that had different laws, to even try and follow every law! For bonus fun - guards and the citizenry also probably don't understand the laws in much detail, and you can get your bottom dollar guards will straight-up make up completely fictional laws to arrest people they don't like (a time-honoured practice that continues to this day in every country on the planet!). What do you do with the fictional laws? How do you even recognise them. Unless you're like, a Cleric of the Omniscient Grand Lawyer and he's beaming up-to-the-second legal advice directly into your ear 24/7, you're just doomed trying to follow every law.

It's just straight-up insanity.

CN. Roll 1d100, ignore it, and do something stupid.

This is how 99% of CN characters are RP'd in my experience.

 

[Lanefan]

Basic Human Fighter (or whatever) is in a local store sees an obviously poor man steal something.

How would each of the alignment's react in your opinion?

The following assumes I'm a typical stinkin'-rich adventurer type. Answers would be different if I'm another poor person or commoner.

LG - pay for the item, then talk to the thief; if there's any potential there, maybe offer employment as a hireling; failing that, report him to the authorities
NG - pay for the item, then follow the thief and try to determine his circumstances; maybe leave some money-food-etc. on his doorstep
CG - quickly assess whether the shopkeeper can handle the loss; if she can, do nothing; if she can't, catch the thief and return the goods then release the thief before the cops arrive
LN - catch the thief and turn him in to the authorities as my civic duty
TN - watch and observe while events play out; is the thief acting alone or as part of a group or gang, is he stealing for hunger or for profit, etc.; then mention the theft to the shopkeeper after the thief is gone and leave it for her to sort out
CN - join in the fun: start furtively rearranging the shop's contents (maybe or maybe not taking anything for myself, or maybe even adding a thing or two of my own) and then laugh internally as the shopkeeper gets more and more flustered
LE - catch the thief, find out who if anyone he's working for (using force if necessary), then smack him one and let him go; then look into the possibilities of starting a protection racket to fleece the shopkeepers
NE - do nothing other than remember the thief's face for later reference
CE - make a loud scene "Thief! Thief!", then while people are busy/distracted with him, rob the store blind.

Edit to add: on reading others' responses, it's interesting how closely we all seem to line up on what the CE person would do.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

CN - join in the fun: start furtively rearranging the shop's contents (maybe or maybe not taking anything for myself, or maybe even adding a thing or two of my own) and then laugh internally as the shopkeeper gets more and more flustered

I once basically got accused of doing this lol.

I was at the small-store version of a big supermarket in the UK (I think a Sainsbury's), and I was doing the usual post-work shopping on the way home, picked up some milk which had an attractive new bottle, went to the counter, and they rang everything up except the milk, which they couldn't get to ring up, got the manager to come and help (as one does), then the manager (who must have been like, all of 23, and clearly with serious social issues, god knows how he got the position), looks at the milk like its the devil, and starts going on a rant about how they don't stock that kind of milk, they never have, and starts trying to quiz me about what kind of trickery or scam I'm trying to pull here, and then even threatened to call the police, before I think realizing what he'd just said and that he'd lost his mind and just going and getting a different 4-pint of semi-skimmed. I'm still mystified to this day as to how I'd have scammed them by buying milk. If I was returning it for sure.

Damn whatever CN trickster created that situation!

 

[Baron Opal II]

Basic Human Fighter (or whatever) is in a local store sees an obviously poor man steal something.

How would each of the alignment's react in your opinion?

LG - Stop them, return the goods, help the man so they don't need to steal.
NG - Compensate the store owner, help the man so they don't need to steal.
CG - Compensate or ignore the store owner, depending on if I like them. Help the man so they don't need to steal.
LN - Seize the man for damaging the social contract by stealing. Turn him over to the proper authorities.
TN - If I know either, help the one I know. If not, I've got bigger fish to fry elsewhere.
CN - If I know either, help the one I know. If not, help the man if anyone else notices or passively interfere with the guard, shop owner.
LE - Seize the man for damaging the social contract by stealing. Turn him over to the proper authorities, unless he might be useful to my purposes.
NE - Trip the man on the way out, I like the shopkeeper. Or, recruit the man as a minion if remotely competent.
CE - Take the stolen goods if useful to me, use the man as a fall guy. Otherwise ignore.