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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hunter" data-source="post: 1181907" data-attributes="member: 14845">Here is the old wizard Gygax's original treatise on alignment.Sometimes it is good to go back to the original to then make your own judgements:To quote:'Good & Evil:Basically stated, the tenets of good are human rights, or in the case of AD&D, creature rights. Each creature is entitled to life, relative freedom, and the prospect of happiness. Cruelty and suffering are undesirable. Evil, on the other hand, does not concern itself with rights or happiness: purpose is the determinant.Neutral Evil: Similar to the neutral good alignment, that of neutral evil holds that neither groups nor individuals have great meaning. This ethos holds that seeking to promote weal for all actually brings woe to the truly deserving. Natural forces which are meant to cull out the weak and stupid are artificially supressed by so-called good, and the fittest are wrongfully held back, so whatever means are expedient can be used by the powerful to gain and maintain their dominance, without concern for anything.Lawful Evil:Obviously, all order is not good, nor are all laws beneficial. Lawful evil creatures consider order as the means by which each group is properly placed in the cosmos, from lowest to highest, strongest to first, weakest last. Good is seen as an excuse to promote the mediocrity of the whole and suppress the better and more capable, while lawful evilness allows each group to structure itself and fix its place as compared to others, serving the stronger but being served by the weaker.Chaotic Evil: The chaotic evil creature holds that individual freedom and choice is important, and that other individuals and their freedoms are unimportant if they cannot be held by the individuals through their own strength and merit. Thus, law and order tends to promote not individuals but groups, and groups suppress individual volition and success.'He goes on to say;'Each of these cases for alignment is, of course, stated rather simplisticaly and ideally, for philosophical and moral reasonings are completely subjective according to the acculturation of the individual. You, as DM, must establish the meanings and boundaries of law and order as opposed to chaos and anarchy, as well as the divisions between right and good as opposed to hurtful and evil.'- end quote.According to this, I think Shivamuffin and Takyris are right on with there words on Neutral Evil and Chaotic Evil.~Hunter</blockquote>

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