D&D General "True Neutral": Bunk or Hogwash

Koloth said:

I got the feeling that the whole topic is a jest.
That said, I disagree on the CE idea. Otherwise, most parties convert to CE the moment they enter the dungeon and start killing everything and keeping the loot. If you kill everything, good, evil, neutral, other and also chaotic and lawful, you are being rather neutral about the world balance.

IMO, the whole alignment thing is rather bogus. Do the old school Drow consider themselves Evil because they embrace slavery and living sacrifice? From the Drow perspective, it is those pesky interfering surface Humans that are the true Evil. The Drow are a force for Good and spreading the word of Lolth is spreading the greater good.

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The alignment system doesn't care what the individual considers themselves or really too much about their motives, just their actions. Ravenloft did a good job of illustrating this. Several Darklords view themselves as justified or even virtuous. All are Evil in the statline.

All that said, some good points here and some people who just wanted to argue about the alignment system and not the actual point put forward with the OP. Thanks for your time tonight.

Professor Murder said:

Again, drifting into trying to apply a game system to real life which is a fools errand.

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I mean...kind of, but thats where the line between Good, and Tyranny begins to blur.

If we are not going to those degrees, and Good is simply 'good' then yes, I agree with your premise.

I think Futurama says it best...

Professor Murder said:

Take Mordenkianen. He is often described as upholding True Neutrality as his motivating ethos, and while its usually Evil that he must keep in check, in practical terms, were Good to be too ascendant, well he would logically have to act to either weaken it or strengthen Evil. So for example, a prosperous, Good aligned nation based in principles of Justice and Equality? Time for Mordy to help the black market slave trade thrive. In 1e, Elves and Dwarves are listed with Good Alignments. If a given Elf or Dwarf kingdom was proving too successful, wouldn't he have to try and assassinate its leaders or undermine it in some way?

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When I’ve considered Mordenkainen’s neutrality stance, I’ve never really thought it got down to the level of kingdoms and politics. It seems too mundane for him. IMO, it works best when he’s dealing with the balance of the Outer Planes: overreaching deities, cosmic threats, and the like. I always think of it in terms of Marvel’s Infinity Gauntlet sequels - there was one where the villain was going to eradicate evil but as a result also remove everyone’s free will (broad strokes on the plot - it’s been a long time) but couldn’t recognize the harm in doing so. That’s the kind of thing I think Mordy is always watching out for.

As a concept TN nonsense for a player controlled pc because a big part of the game's entire point involves actively getting involved and taking action to shape the world. TN is only really possible for an npc who exists largely outside the ven diagram circle where the PC's & the game itself exists. The npc might be super concerned about how those mountain dwelling kobolds impact the price of tea and shipping costs for their cotton farm to get cotton to port, but they don't really care About how much cotton sells for beyond their own returns per acre of cotton field.

Lawful neutral is fine for PC's. Chaotic neutral doesn't matter at my table because I allow little e evil PC's∆ but not chaotic anything. IME the chaotic alignments 100% tend to be chosen and become relevant when:

*A:"my fun is more important than the fun of everyone else. You need to suck it and STFU because MyChArEcTeR is TN [and thusvunquestionable by you]" while the social contract acts as a shield from "and Bob just doesn't wake up one day"
or
*B: " let's find a new $class to join the group, Bob's pc isn't a good fit for our party"

∆ link1 link2

Militant Neutrality generally boils down to the Omelas problem, or a question of utilitarian ethics. In pursuit of a greater good, where we preserve the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people, can we justify a certain allowance of suffering and atrocity?

And mostly in our stories about heroism, we say "No". We walk away from Omelas, and we pursue the virtuous path even if it might cause some kind of harm in the future, because the struggle for virtuous meaning is more central to our identities than a state of perpetual but immoral happiness.

I think true Neutral only works when you take alignment as the cosmic forces of Moorcock and Anderson, not as personality guides. When it gets down to that level, I would point to 4e's Unaligned as a decent model in theory, used for beings that alignment is not applicable (like beasts and oozes) or for beings not motivated by forces of good or evil (like the archetypal Druid, who weighs things by whether nature is preserved or destroyed). But in practice, I also think that 4e's Unaligned got used a whole lot by murderhobos to avoid picking an evil alignment or being constrained by a good one.

I think a good example of a nod to balance or at least avoiding imbalance and conflict in fantasy literature comes from the short story "The Face of Chaos" by Lynn Abbey in the first Thieves World volume.
The Rankans are about to consecrate a new temple by sacrificing a virgin under the temple's cornerstone but the priests of Ils are trying to interfere by substituting a homunculus they created. Since this will provoke a response by Rankan gods, at least two wizards (Lythande and an unnamed, hooded man interpreted in the graphic novel version as Enas Yorl) interfere by helping Illyra the seer swap the homunculus for a random corpse. Why? Because, "Our work is more important than the appeasement of deities, so this time, as in the past, we have intervened." And he reveals that the "royal prince" sacrificed under the cornerstone of the temple of Ils is just a magically disguised old slave. When Illyra asks if the gods of Ilsig and Ranke are equal, the hooded man laughs, "We have seen to it that all gods within Sanctuary are equally handicapped, my child."

Professor Murder said:

Take Mordenkianen. He is often described as upholding True Neutrality as his motivating ethos, and while its usually Evil that he must keep in check, in practical terms, were Good to be too ascendant, well he would logically have to act to either weaken it or strengthen Evil. So for example, a prosperous, Good aligned nation based in principles of Justice and Equality? Time for Mordy to help the black market slave trade thrive. In 1e, Elves and Dwarves are listed with Good Alignments. If a given Elf or Dwarf kingdom was proving too successful, wouldn't he have to try and assassinate it's leaders or undermine it in some way?

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I take Mordenkainen's meddling neutrality ethos as he primarily does not put [Evil] versus [Good] as his motivator, he is a big active meddler but not for those cosmic forces. In Greyhawk he lives in the city state of Greyhawk and sees lots of things in the world that should be checked to protect the interests he cares about. That can include acting against kingdoms that are overall on the side of good. The triumph of the Theocracy of the Pale, an overall LN country dedicated to the overall LG intolerant god of the unerring one path to the Light, is not something Mordenkainen wants to see happen.

In the world there are plenty of forces and kingdoms of good, but none are pure good and there are really none that Mordenkainen wants to become top dogs. There are plenty of straight out powerful forces of evil that he fights to check as well, Iuz's empire, the Great Kingdom, etc. he just does not make those evil forces his only consideration and he does not automatically support anyone who is on the side opposing those evil forces.

I see him as an active Neutral, but not 1e druidic True Neutral. His actions and outlook overall just land in that space between overall Good and overall Evil, and between overall Law and overall Chaos. I do not see him attacking or working against good stuff just because they are good, I see him sometimes acting against overall good people and forces and kingdoms for unrelated reasons.

I see the 1e True Neutral of actively seeking a balance of Good and Evil as described in the 1e PH and DMG as a weird specific religious ethos and not a descriptor of people who just fall between the descriptors of Good and Evil and Law and Chaos.