D&D General Muscular Neutrality (thought experiment)

[Epic Meepo]

I like this a lot.

But it does leave open the role of the True Neutral with regard to NG and NE. Where Law and Chaos are removed as driving forces, what is the motivating ideology which sees a balance between Good and Evil as desirable?

Are NG and NE equally expedient perspectives in preserving the Law-Chaos balance? Is one state inherently preferable to the the other? Or is a muscular Neutral in fact N with NG tendencies?

If Muscular Neutral is Muscular because it's trying to balance Law and Chaos, it has no reason to prefer NG or NE. If CE is dominant and its strongest non-Chaotic rival is NG, Muscular Neutral would ally with NG. If LG is dominant and its strongest non-Lawful rival is NE, Muscular Neutrals would back NE in its fight against LG.

In fact, Muscular Neutrals wouldn't even care if they were pitting Good against Good or Evil against Evil. If, for example, the best way to undermine a dominant LG faction is to back missionaries who are converting LG people to the worship of a NG god, Muscular Neutrals would back the missionaries. That would be the most expedient way to get rid of the excess Law.

Essentially, the Muscular Neutrals see every other alignment as a tool they can use to adjust the Balance between Law and Chaos. They'll use whatever tool they need for the current job, whether it's Chaotic, Evil, Good, or Lawful. Over time, this will result in Muscular Neutrals using each tool in a pair of opposing tools (such as Neutral Evil and Neutral Good) with equal frequency.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Essentially, the Muscular Neutrals see every other alignment as a tool they can use to adjust the Balance between Law and Chaos. They'll use whatever tool they need for the current job, whether it's Chaotic, Evil, Good, or Lawful. Over time, this will result in Muscular Neutrals using each tool in a pair of opposing tools (such as Neutral Evil and Neutral Good) with equal frequency.

That's a possibility, and it can be extended outside of the classical alignment system by having "Muscular Neutral" that believe in a morality that doesn't align perfectly with Good and Evil as defined by the OP. For example, let's imagine I have a group that is Neutral, by virtue of believing in the virtue of both utmost respect for life (Good-side) and total support for oppressio (Evil side). Their moral motto would be "As long as you don't kill people, everything is fair game". So they could be a king who think he owns every one of his subjects by divine right, but said divinity said "Thou shalt not commit the mortal sin of Murder") so despite treating peasants like furniture, he will never kill anyone. He might even feed them better than the Good's kingdom's peasants are fed, for all we know. This lord would be Neutral, and would side with Evil and Good according to his whim, not caring about the E-G axis of alignment. On average, he'd support both sides. And since he abbhors people dying, he would let it know that he'll side with the losing side to prevent too many death (both Evil and Good would see that attacking the other side is a bad proposition because the neutral lord would side with the losing one, tip the balance and press for negociations).

You can have any metaphysical concept, outside of Good and Evil, used to justify a behaviour of siding with either side at the same time, or switching side. You mention Chaos, which is the "D&D classical one" and I agree with you it's probably the most common for this reason, but really, any concept work. Depending of one's campaign mood, you can have:

• Serious ones:
  • A MN group believing in Diversity wouldn't want one side to triumph because they actively want different ideas to express themselves and noone with an actual agenda being in too much power, because both Good and Evil can create great ideas -- "We don't separate the author from the artwork, and we actually think that only evil persons can write some masterpieces and only good persons can write other masterpieces, so we need both because we value diverse artworks"),
  • A MN country with a population that has families/religious ties to both the Good neighbour and the Evil neighbour would feel in internal pressure to prevent the loser from losing "too much" -- "Franckly, as a person, I am not a fan of Oppressing John, the neighbouring tyrant, but he's on the verge of losing the war, and as the Doge of Neutralia I must respect the 73% of voters in our border province of South Johnland rooting for him. I will intervene on John's behalf so I can keep the Senate at the next election!",
  • A MN group believing in Peace and Territorial Integrity that would defend the side that is attacked, disregarding if the one actually being attacked is Good or Evil, or whether they warrant an agression, because they just don't like offensive wars, period (and unless the attacker is stupid, they'd generally side with the underdogs on the basis that the one initiating the war has assessed that he can win it),
  • A MN group believing in Fate as ordained by a higher power would see that Evil and Good are part of the Creator's world, and wouldn't want any of them to disappear, because it would be an insult to the Creator's work -- "He wouldn't have created evil and evil gods if He didn't think that Evil was something we need, for He is perfect, almighty, and even if we can't understand why, we must respect His will",
  • A MN group believing of nothing but purely materialist would side with the losing side because the losing side is certainly the one most ready to pay more for itshelp -- those MN groups are often called adventurers,
• Less serious to silly ones:
  • A MN group believing in Progress would side with the country where the industry is the most creative, and since necessity often prompts creativity, they'd side with the losing side more often than not, changing from time to time,
  • A MN group worshipping Goal, the godess of Soccer, would side with whichever side is leading in the Champions' League,
• Sinister ones:
  • A MN group of elves could be siding both with the Evil Drow Queen and the Good Elf Council President, when they fight respectively the Paladin President and the Evil Human Lich-King. He would always intervene when elves are losing, without consideration of what value the elves hold -- "after all, even if misguided morally, an elf is still a brother elf, we're member of the same species, and there is no reason not to help them when threatened by other species, that's only natural" [actually, I realize writing this that this is much less sinister with the switch from race to species],
  • A MN group worshipping the God of Endings might actually see the eternal strife as a very good thing for strengthening its patron god, and prevent one side for utterly losing so they can regrow and breed generational hatred between the two groups to ensure a steady arrival of souls to their god's domain. They would consider that the absolute victory of Good would prevent further massacre, and the absolute victory of evil would lead to a police state so intense that there would be no hope for armed rebellion, so a victory of a side would mean a long period of peace, not something they actually want, even if they would never kill people themselves.

 

[lall]

Having said that... @lall might have to describe their definition of altruism for example.

I was just going off Wikipedia’s “the principle and practice of concern for the well-being and/or happiness of other humans…”

 

[Clint_L]

Is it automatically evil to kill another sentient being, even if necessary? Are mind flayers automatically evil because they need to eat humanoid brains to survive?

Is being a carnivore evil? What about being an omnivore but choosing to eat meat when you don't have to?

What if you're born into a culture that worships, say, Asmodeus and it's all you know? Do you deserve an eternity of torment after your life of being something like a shopkeeper?

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Is it automatically evil to kill another sentient being, even if necessary? Are mind flayers automatically evil because they need to eat humanoid brains to survive?

According to the OP, it is part of the definition of Evil (killing and harming others), while also being the opposite of the definition of Good (respect for life), so in the context of our search for motivation to be Muscular Neutral, I'd say "yes".

By virtue of their biology, any species that needs to kill another (arguably, a carnivore could be a carrion-eater, only eating meat from naturally deceased sources, but many species eat fresh meat, and in the case of mind flayers, they need to eat fresh brains. Tough to be them in the OP's setting, they are Evil. Note that being Evil-aligned doesn't mean that you're necessarily a bad guy. You just need to harm, oppress and kill others. While this combination of activites is often not nice, you'd be hard-pressed to make the argument that humanity isn't Evil if you look at Earth history, despite some people being quite nice. We're right now driving many species to extinction, and we drove species to extinction because they tasted nice. I am pretty sure the Dodo God classifies us as pretty Evil. Alignment-Evil isn't necessarily related to how one would view himself or others in real life. Like nationality, it says very little of you, you mostly get it from the happenstance of birth, but it's an important categorization anway, in this case metaphysical instead of administrative.

Is being a carnivore evil? What about being an omnivore but choosing to eat meat when you don't have to?

What if you're born into a culture that worships, say, Asmodeus and it's all you know? Do you deserve an eternity of torment after your life of being something like a shopkeeper?

The idea that Evil God would create an afterlife that is not appealing to their flock has always struck me as strange. They would make their potential worshipper flee away (most people would at least grit their teeth and wait out their lifetime being good if they didn't want to, because the opportunity of not suffering eternally would be too great to pass up). So they need to propose something that is actually appealing. It can be a rash place where people are fighting for power, and the pros could be different to account for different taste, but the "average state" should be as appealing as the Good god's offering to make sense.

 

[Maxperson]

While I'm one of those who disagree with your premise, specifically your description of good and evil, I'll play along.

In a nutshell, good needs evil. First of all, good has no definition without evil to compare it to. Secondly, life would stagnate without the threat of evil (those who've read the end of the Wheel of Time series know what I'm talking about). Finally, one could consider that the death created by evil is necessary to maintain balance between the forces of life and death. An agent of Balance would know this and strive to keep either side from overwhelming the other.

My main issue with muscular neutrality is that in order for it to be effective, it needs to know exactly how much good or evil any given act generates. Without that level of knowledge, the neutral character is much more likely to fail to compensate enough or to overcompensate. Just

How many little old ladies have to be helped across a road to balance out a mugging?

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

My main issue with muscular neutrality is that in order for it to be effective, it needs to know exactly how much good or evil any given act generates. Without that level of knowledge, the neutral character is much more likely to fail to compensate enough or to overcompensate. Just

How many little old ladies have to be helped across a road to balance out a mugging?

They would also need to know what is the Balanced state of things. If they actively try to maintain the statu quo, how can they know the cururent situation is 50/50 and not 83/17 ?

 

[Maxperson]

They would also need to know what is the Balanced state of things. If they actively try to maintain the statu quo, how can they know the cururent situation is 50/50 and not 83/17 ?

Yeah. Like the OP, I find the concept to be silly. It worked for Moorcock since the Eternal Champion was summoned by the universe to correct an imbalance and we can assume the universe knows. Short of being the universe, though...

 

[Maxperson]

To clarify the initial premise a bit:

A world where Good has won and the multiverse is under its rule doesn't mean that there can no longer exist people and creatures who are non-altruistic or even selfish and inclined to cruelty. Presumably, the Good rulers would permit those beings to exist and pursue their own ends too, provided they do no harm.

This all starts to feel uncomfortably utopian and implausible to me pretty quickly, but that's the premise of the thought experiment about what Good is.

Why do people do good acts, though? Why be altruistic? They do it because it makes them feel good to do it. Ultimately, everything, including good, comes down to selfishness. We do it because it makes us feel good to do it. We do it because we don't want X to happen. It's all about us and what we want.

It's the same with evil acts.

Since good boils down at the core to selfishness and being about what we want, unfettered good often tries to force others to be good as well, though punishments, enticements, rules and more. A world where good has won will have too many who want to force others to be good for the sake of society, their immortal souls, or whatever other reason.

 

[Maxperson]

Again, all this means that Good is not actually good, but rather a well-intentioned and less mean-Evil.

Yes. Umbran was describing the Gygaxian view. Under the Gygaxian view, a paladin could convert an evil creature to good at sword point and then execute that creature for no other reason than to keep it from backsliding, sending it's soul to heaven. This would be a LG act.