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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeremy Ackerman-Yost" data-source="post: 351872" data-attributes="member: 4720">And people call me an absolutist.  Yes, those characters can be those things, but they're not the ideal.  An ideal good character would be Forgiving, Generous, Merciful, Honest, Trusting, Valorous, Compassionate, and Selfless, among other things.  An "ideal" (or at least archetypal) evil character is Vengeful, Selfish, Cruel, Deceitful, Suspicious, and ultimately Cowardly because they almost always back down, flee, bargain, etc. as soon as they're life is actually threatened (the exception to this being the honorable villain, who tends to prefer death to living with defeat, but that's actually cowardly also, when you look at it).  Characters (or people) will never actually fulfill ALL of these at all times, but they're good guidelines.  A character who was Merciful, Honest, Trusting, and Valorous, but had a weakness for hoarding (honestly earned) gold, would still be a largely good character.  That one flaw wouldn't turn him into an evil character.  But the minute he started lying to people or threatening them for their gold, he should take a dip towards evil on the scale."Evil: burns down the homes of innocent people"Why?  A Chaotic Evil person might.  Other forms of Evil characters would need a reason.  A neutral thief might set a small fire to distract the watch and the neighbors while he broke into an otherwise well-guarded establishment.  An uber-good paladin leading an army against an evil wizard-king's city will lob burning pitch over the walls, setting fire to the homes of many innocents.  He would feel pretty bad about it, but ultimately, eliminating the wizard-king is worth it because fewer innocents will suffer in the long run."Neutral: steals from the wealthy, but not from the poor"A Good character might do this as well, if the wealthy were abusing their power and position.  An Evil character might do it too, in order to become the focal point of a peasant uprising that would put him in power."Neutral: keeps the people content and guards his power"A Good ruler wouldn't guard his power?  He would, for example, open the granaries to his peasants rather than his army, even under siege?  Not in a million years.  ALL rulers guard their power.  Even good ones will rule with an iron fist in times of war, because they know that ultimately the people benefit more from their rule than from being overrun by other, less benevolent rulers.From Ferret: "Evil is selfishness with no cause, its destructive/selfish."Lawful Evil characters can be very constructive in their selfishness.  Lawful Evil rulers can even be great builders and advance their civilization tremendously (think of some of the emperors of Rome, for example).  But, ultimately, they are still driven by the increase in their own power and influence.  The point I'm getting at here is that Good and Evil come from one's motivations as much as one's actions.  That doesn't mean the ends justify the means.  It just means that finding the course of action which is truly GOOD in every context is hard, if not impossible.  That's why being good is hard.  Evil is easy.  Just follow your instincts and the path of least resistance.  First instinct: survival - look out for Number 1.  If you can balance that instinct with some basic consideration for others, you're moving into Neutral territory.  If you can transcend it, putting others ahead of yourself, you're in Good territory.From apsuman: "Now circumstances can change this some. But my point was that keeping your stuff yours (selfish) be it food, money, etc. is not evil. At least not without context."Is this intro physics?  "In the absence of friction, heat, gravity, air resistance, and every other circumstance that would make this applicable in the real world..."  "Keeping your stuff yours" in the absence of context is meaningless.  Context is what MAKES it a moral decision.  Keeping your stuff yours in the presence of nothing but people whose needs are being met is not evil.  Eating a sandwich while walking by a beggar who's drunk out of his mind is probably neutral.  Eating that sandwich while walking by a starving child (or other innocent) is evil.  Watching or ignoring a guy getting beat-up on the street is evil.  Trying to help in some capacity is always good, whether it be running for help/calling the police or direct intervention.  If you're a navy seal/martial artist/off-duty cop/10th level fighter/paladin/or somesuch, who is fully capable of intervening, you SHOULD intervene (a paladin, of course, would be required to).</blockquote>

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