An assassin's motives.

[Crothian]

Assassins kill for money...

Paladins kill for ideals...

Most PCs also kill for money (treasure).

 

[Imp]

I'd probably pin him as LE, but not extremely so. He doesn't much care about human life; he does what he does according to societal and self-imposed strictures; except for his job, he's not going to go out of his way to hurt or dominate people. There are much eviller LE's out there, I guess, is what I'm saying.

 

[Nyeshet]

Most PCs also kill for money (treasure).

Too True. Or for that shiny new toy (+2 holy sword, +1 keen dancing rapier, +# <insert random magic arms or armor here>, etc).

 

[Cthulhudrew]

I once had a concept for a sort of "karmic" assassin- someone who punished the wicked by ushering them onto the next life, so they could more quickly get back to trying to "get it right" the second time.

Perhaps an organization could have a similar philosophy? "We're not killing them, we're just trying to set the cosmic balance back to right."

 

[Felix]

"I'm not a psychopath, a psychopath kills for no reason, I kill for money. No, no that didn't come out right. Put it this way: if I show up at your door, chances are you did something to bring me there."

"At first you do it because you're trained to do it, and you're good at doing it, and then... after a while... you get to like it."

Not quite verbatim, but great stuff from the 90's best assassin, Martin Q Blank.

 

[DerHauptman]

I'm reminded of Splinter Cell. For those not in the know, the main character, on several occasions, assassinates the bad guy. His reasoning is that, while it is a dirty, distastful job, the fact is that in killing one man to prevent a war, he saves the lives of thousands.

It has nothing to do with money, but with duty to his country and the lives of its citizens.

That's almost Lawful Good. Lawful in that he obeys orders that are very difficult to carry out, and Good in that he suffers the guilt of killing for the good of others.

He does do it for money though in the strictest sense because he is a soldier and he gets paid. He also gets paid extra to accept duties of that type. i.e special pays, jump pay hazard duty pay, HALO, SCUBA ect. Soldiers who go into those kind of units do it for lots of reasons just like any other job. I have met people who come for the money, for the adventure, prove something to themselves, be the best , and the # 1 reason....for the chick factor (get girls with cool badges - it works!) j/k, some and I say the minority do it for patriotism and prevent war.

How would one classify someone who wanted to be in a unit of people who get those personal missions to kill a specific person just to be cool? There are not many like that but some. Most people in a unit of that type thirst for the rush of combat. Lots of different alignments in the same type unit doing same job.

Some can do it without any feeling at all (N), some agonize, some vomit (G), some laugh (make humor about the tragedy to mitigate feelings) (what'd that be?) only one I've met liked it and he was short lived (E). Must have been really smart to beat the MMPI and psych interviews.

However, I know what you are saying and its a valid point just being a little DA (devils advocate) forgive? If there was a person who made a conscious choice to take the mission for the sole purpose of preventing further bloodshed - then I agree with your assessment whole heartedly.

DerHauptman-Out!

 

[Blackrat]

I might be a bit weird but I've always considered assassins as neutral: I've never seen killing as an evil act, it's the motivation which makes it evil or good. If you do it for idealism (paladin purging the world from evil) you're probably one of the good guys. If you kill because you enjoy destroying others you're evil. But killing JUST for money is Neutrality at it's most pure form.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Military snipers kill for country. I've met a few...nice guys, to a man. Perhaps that has colored my viewpoint some.

While killing is always evil according to the Bible, I'm enough of a pragmatist to at least seriously consider that killing one human can be the lesser of 2 evils (such as assassinating a human who is a madman trying to start an "unjust" war*), especially if there are exigent circumstances and my head (or that of someone I love) is on the metaphorical "chopping block." Of course, one can never know ahead of time whether events subsequent to the killing will actually be better- consider the episode of Red Dwarf in which the protagonists accidentally save JFK from being killed, thus setting in motion events that led to the ruination of America. They had to get Kennedy to kill himself (by taking him back in time to be the gunman on the grassy knoll) to set history aright.

Thus, IMHO, in the game sense, assassins can have a wide variety of alignments, depending upon motivation...though LG would be a stretch.

*as opposed to a "just" war, as defined by people like Von Clausewitz, Howard Zinn, Rabbi Block and others- roughly analogous to killing in self defense, but on a mass scale.

 

[Ranger REG]

I'm going to vote for NE or LE.

"Above all, I assassinate people to make money" - sorry, but that's casual disregard for the value of life to earn a personal profit - that's evil.

Not even for someone of the X neutral alignment?

 

[Deadguy]

I once had a concept for a sort of "karmic" assassin- someone who punished the wicked by ushering them onto the next life, so they could more quickly get back to trying to "get it right" the second time.

Perhaps an organization could have a similar philosophy? "We're not killing them, we're just trying to set the cosmic balance back to right."

You should take a look at the original Mage: the Ascension game by White Wolf. Before they were sanitized, the group known as the Euthanatos fulfilled that exact purpose. Their name translates as the 'Good Death' and that's what they did, killed those for whom this life was more harmful than beneficial, whose karma was being twisted by continuing in this life. Believers in reincarnation, they saw their role as improving the overall karmic balance of humanity, hoping to Awaken more individuals to the truth that is magic.

Sadly, not many westerners ever get their heads around this idea, so they became presented as 'bad good guys', or even the out and out bad guys. I got to see it myself up close, as I played one in a group that decided I was wrong, and so killed my character - twice. :\