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Alignment myths?
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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 3301637" data-attributes="member: 22779"><p>Well, let's take our mob boss for a second shall we?</p><p></p><p>Is asking someone to kill someone an evil act? Is there a huge difference between the act (not the actors, the act) of the mob boss ordering hits or the king posting a bounty? (note, there are definite Law/Chaos ramifications here, but, we're talking good/evil at the moment)</p><p></p><p>I would say that the act of asking someone to kill someone isn't necessarily evil. Granted, the alignment of the ACTOR will determine whether or not someone would do it. This is what I keep trying to get at. I am not interested in the actor here. Not in the slightest. </p><p></p><p>If the mob boss has committed an evil act in ordering a hit, has not the king done as well? </p><p></p><p>I freely admit that this is a reductionist view of alignment. I does not cover all things. It ONLY looks at the action and the immediete result of that action. The DMG specifically states that intent does not equate with alignment. Under the section on changing alignment it states that intent is not enough. You must act in order to change your alignment. Right there, it seems pretty clear that alignment is meant to be divorced from intent as much as possible.</p><p></p><p>The mob boss orders hits because he wants to keep his position and eliminate the competition. He doesn't do it because its evil, he's evil because of what he does. The actions he takes are not evil because of his alignment - which should be the yardstick of the character's intent. The actions are judged based solely on themselves.</p><p></p><p>Like I said before - the evil knight who saves the princess has done a good act. That he only saved her so he can serve her up to Orcus on a platter doesn't change that.</p><p></p><p>Heh, I did think of another Alignment Myth: When discussing alignment, we must only look at actions which help our point of view and ignore all counter examples. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 3301637, member: 22779"] Well, let's take our mob boss for a second shall we? Is asking someone to kill someone an evil act? Is there a huge difference between the act (not the actors, the act) of the mob boss ordering hits or the king posting a bounty? (note, there are definite Law/Chaos ramifications here, but, we're talking good/evil at the moment) I would say that the act of asking someone to kill someone isn't necessarily evil. Granted, the alignment of the ACTOR will determine whether or not someone would do it. This is what I keep trying to get at. I am not interested in the actor here. Not in the slightest. If the mob boss has committed an evil act in ordering a hit, has not the king done as well? I freely admit that this is a reductionist view of alignment. I does not cover all things. It ONLY looks at the action and the immediete result of that action. The DMG specifically states that intent does not equate with alignment. Under the section on changing alignment it states that intent is not enough. You must act in order to change your alignment. Right there, it seems pretty clear that alignment is meant to be divorced from intent as much as possible. The mob boss orders hits because he wants to keep his position and eliminate the competition. He doesn't do it because its evil, he's evil because of what he does. The actions he takes are not evil because of his alignment - which should be the yardstick of the character's intent. The actions are judged based solely on themselves. Like I said before - the evil knight who saves the princess has done a good act. That he only saved her so he can serve her up to Orcus on a platter doesn't change that. Heh, I did think of another Alignment Myth: When discussing alignment, we must only look at actions which help our point of view and ignore all counter examples. ;) [/QUOTE]
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