Alignment -- How 'good' is LG anyway?

[Aus_Snow]

Or, to expand on that a bit: is LG 'less good' than NG? NE 'more evil' than CE? LE 'less lawful' than LN? And so on.

Please refrain from 'alignments vs. no alignments'-type posts, or if you must post them, I'd be grateful if you post them elsewhere. I'm really just curious to see what the consensus is regarding the 'goodness' of LG compared to that of NG, and such things.

 

[Shemeska]

Or, to expand on that a bit: is LG 'less good' than NG? NE 'more evil' than CE? LE 'less lawful' than LN? And so on.

Please refrain from 'alignments vs. no alignments'-type posts, or if you must post them, I'd be grateful if you post them elsewhere. I'm really just curious to see what the consensus is regarding the 'goodness' of LG compared to that of NG, and such things.

Not necessarily. With mortals it doesn't make any difference in virtually any circumstance.

In fiends, celestials, and other alignment exemplars it can make a difference.

LG - an Archon exemplifies the perfect fusion of Law and Good, but their inner loyalties may ultimately be divided at times between upholding Law or Good, and compromises may have to be made in some instances.

NG - 'pure' good, at least in the sense that Guardinals as the exemplars of NG don't have any inner ideological conflict between upholding Law or Chaos, they're only concerned with Good in its most raw form.

CG - Eladrins are in the same boat as Archons, in that they are divided between their loyalty to Good and their loyalty to Chaos. In some instances, they may have to decide if they will uphold one of those in favor of the other. They're not big G and little C, they're both C and G equally, which may lead to conflicts of interests in how they act and uphold their alignment.

And it's similar with the LE, NE, and CE fiends.

I wouldn't use the term 'more' good or more evil in any instance, but rather that NE and NG are more 'pure' than LE/CE and LG/CG for the most part, because their exemplars don't have to ever make choices about which fraction of their being to uphold, they lack any potential divided loyalties to alignments.

 

[Heathen72]

I tend to agree with Shemeska, except to query if 'neutrality' in D&D is considered a alignment in of itself one which seeks a balance between Chaos and Law, and that it is not necessarily an indication of the purity of Good and Evil that accompanies it.

 

[Shemeska]

I tend to agree with Shemeska, except to query if 'neutrality' in D&D is considered a alignment in of itself one which seeks a balance between Chaos and Law, and that it is not necessarily an indication of the purity of Good and Evil that accompanies it.

It can be. There are multiple manifestations of TN and the 'N' alignments.

For instance, the Rilmani personify TN as an active balance among the alignments, whereas their precursors on the Outlands, the Kamarel, represented a xenophobic and isolationist TN which was a rejection or exclusion of the other alignments.

Among the NE yugoloths, they exist as a semi-rejection of Law and Chaos in some ways, being perfectly willing to use the tenets of Law and Chaos, but not holding any ingrained loyalty to either of them. Among a subset of the Baernaloths, the original NE fiends who created the 'loths, there is a fraction who call themselves The Demented. This group of fiends exemplifies NE as a simultaneous, possibly self-contradictory, embrace of both extremes of universal Evil into a unified form.

 

[orsal]

The alignment scales are continuous; although discrete categories are imposed on them, good and evil, law and chaos exist in degrees. An LG character can be anything from moderately good, borderline neutral to paragon-of-virtue good. The same is true for NG and CG characters.

 

[Aus_Snow]

NG - 'pure' good, at least in the sense that Guardinals as the exemplars of NG don't have any inner ideological conflict between upholding Law or Chaos, they're only concerned with Good in its most raw form.

Interesting. That's recently been my view as well, but I wonder how popular it is overall, among D&Ders.

I tend to agree with Shemeska, except to query if 'neutrality' in D&D is considered a alignment in of itself one which seeks a balance between Chaos and Law, and that it is not necessarily an indication of the purity of Good and Evil that accompanies it.

Yeah. This is part of what initially sparked the impulse to start this thread. And likewise, is 'Neutral' (on the Good/Evil axis) a valid thing in and of itself? It seems that neutrality in alignment has lost (some of) its inherent value since say, 1st ed AD&D.

I find it strange though, that the paragons of 'NGness' (goodness in its purest form, right?) are well, celestial furries. It seems neutrality has some of its own influence after all.

Is nature (in the material plane sense) the ultimate symbol/manifestation of neutrality then? Even when it comes to celestial beings? (I think I'll grab some coffee now, as I apparently need some).

the Rilmani personify TN as an active balance among the alignments, whereas their precursors on the Outlands, the Kamarel, represented a xenophobic and isolationist TN which was a rejection or exclusion of the other alignments.

Uh, is there anything remotely like them in 3e?

 

[the Jester]

Uh, is there anything remotely like them in 3e?

Rilmani are in the 3e Fiend Folio, but I've never heard of those other guys before afair.

 

[irdeggman]

Good is Good and Evil is Evil.

Lawful is Lawful and Chaotic is Chaotic.

A Lawful Good character is every bit as Good as a Chaotic Good one.

See the recent WotC article on Lawful versus Chaotic to see what I'm talking about.

Now if you really want to know the measure of the amount of pain-in-the-arse the character has that is a different question but ahs nothing to do with "How good is the character?"

 

[Aus_Snow]

Good is Good and Evil is Evil.

Lawful is Lawful and Chaotic is Chaotic.

A Lawful Good character is every bit as Good as a Chaotic Good one.

Well, that is more or less at odds with at least three posters in this thread so far (me=one, with reservations). 'Course, that don't make it wrong. And yeah, I'll go read that article to see how illuminating it might be.

Now if you really want to know the measure of the amount of pain-in-the-arse the character has that is a different question but ahs nothing to do with "How good is the character?"

Sure.

 

[Odhanan]

Or, to expand on that a bit: is LG 'less good' than NG? NE 'more evil' than CE? LE 'less lawful' than LN? And so on.

Depends on personal opinions really. But in this day and age, with so much focus on individual rights as opposed to duties, this comes to me as no wonder many gamers would consider LG to be "less good" than NG, or even CG.