Book of Perfect Balance

[Hypersmurf]

I can just see the Book of Perfect Balance.

Chapter One: Which Prestige Classes to Ban...

-Hyp.

 

[comrade raoul]

I've long dreamed of a neutrality-themed book entitled The Book of Pragmatic Apathy.

 

[sledged]

Book of Who Really Gives a Rat's Ass

 

[Olive]

I would DEFINITELY prefer a book of Law and a book of Chaos.

Me too!

 

[hong]

I can just see the Book of Perfect Balance.

Chapter One: Which Prestige Classes to Ban...

I demand co-author credits.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

True neutrality isn't inaction, it's doing just what most folk do every day. It's maybe donating blood and tipping extra, but not putting up a fuss when you get promoted over someone you know is better qualified then you, just because the manager likes you better. It's paying your speeding tickets but, simultaneously, not letting that stop you from going 75 miles per hour after pulling out of the courthouse parking lot. Those are all tame examples, but they could easily be amplified.

So Neutrality is the idea of Karmic Balance? Your good and lawful actions pay off the karmic debts incurred by evil or chaotic actions? I suppose that could work but it still doesn't feel right.

 

[Gez]

The way I view things, "perfect balance" is Good. The idea of having everything well-balanced means stuff works the way they're supposed to, in harmony, the best that they can; and this is good.

The idea of wanting to be balanced between good and evil is silly. It's like, if you give alm to a beggar, you think you need to kick said beggar's dog to "balance out your act". And then, when you help the old lady to cross the road, you steal her handbag to "stay balanced". It's very, very silly.

You can be in the grey because nobody's perfect and you have, like everyone, failings; but that's not a choice of actions, and that doesn't fit as a moral force in a D&D game.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I demand co-author credits.

You can have Chapter 6: Which Core Books to ban...

-Hyp.

 

[jerichothebard]

For my part, I think The Giant in the Playground has got it right.

http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript?SK=68


turquoise bicycle shoe fins actualize radishes greenly!

=+)

jtb

 

[Trickstergod]

The way I view things, "perfect balance" is Good. The idea of having everything well-balanced means stuff works the way they're supposed to, in harmony, the best that they can; and this is good.

The idea of wanting to be balanced between good and evil is silly. It's like, if you give alm to a beggar, you think you need to kick said beggar's dog to "balance out your act". And then, when you help the old lady to cross the road, you steal her handbag to "stay balanced". It's very, very silly.

You can be in the grey because nobody's perfect and you have, like everyone, failings; but that's not a choice of actions, and that doesn't fit as a moral force in a D&D game.

Not quite how I see perfect balance.

The reason neutrality is perfect balance, as opposed to good, is that sometimes there are necessary evils.

For example, a village is over-run by plague. People are trying to escape, trying to get healing. However (and for a moment, let's just say that remove disease or whatever aren't handily available), there's no cure, and to let anyone escape from the village is to let the plague spread. So the solution? Kill anyone that tries to escape. Women, children, whatever. Shoot them down with crossbows and flaming arrows, and prevent them from spreading the sickness. The person didn't ask to be sick and for that matter may not even be sick, but it doesn't matter. The person has to die.

Some might argue that to be a good act, but personally, I don't see it as such. It's a necessary evil. I'm not looking to argue the point - I rather wager some folk will disagree and say it's good and, hey, that's fine, to each their own. I'm not looking for a debate, merely showing my side of how I look at neutrality and balance and where others may be coming from.

By that same token, my take on good is that it's an ideal and a willingness to risk your own survival. The neutral individual's the one with the flaming arrow's aimed at those who try escaping the plague-town - the good one's the one who actually goes into the town and tries his best to aid the sick and dying in the hopes that the sickness will burn itself out with a minimum of casualties or, even better, that a cure may be found.

Thus why neutrality's balance and good is not; neutrality recognizes that sometimes people have to die, whereas good almost bullheadedly refuses that and is willing to risk itself to prove it. Good doesn't want things to work the way they're supposed to, it wants them to work better.

I suppose one could argue, though, that isn't "perfect," but then, the harmony of the world has always involved necessary deaths and other such evils. Things that do good, that let others survive or keep on living, that are working the way they're supposed to, but that ultimately, when you look at it, are pretty crummy.

And to respond to Calico, that's generally how people work, anyway. We get speeding tickets, pay them, but keep speeding anyway. We're often helpful to family and friends, but often enough could also give a toss about anybody else. We'll help somebody if we're the only one around and someone's in trouble, but when there's a crowd, our thought isn't to help it's that someone else will help and we won't have to trouble ourself with it. Heck, we'll even torture people if the situation is spin-doctored properly. Not to mention that as a resident representative of chaos, I hardly find actions of its like to rack up anymore karmic debt then lawfulness; one isn't any better or more detrimental than the other.

And hopefully offering this up won't spark up a huge alignment debate...ahh well.

Though typing this out does remind me of how almost simplistic the morality both the Book of Vile Darkness and Exalted Deeds is that they portray. Then again, both seem to lean a bit more towards prestige classes, magic items and outsider lords of varying stripes...hmm. Ahh well, yet again.