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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 6619779" data-attributes="member: 6677017">The way I see it, the AD&D slant on it actually tends towards alignment debates. When the line between good and evil is so fine, it's a lot easier to try to argue for evil characters being good. It also makes way too many creatures good in my opinion. Good should be special. It shouldn't apply to 90% of the human race.3e, on they other hand took normal humanity as a baseline and allowed the characters and creatures of D&D to go above (or below) and beyond the expectations of behavior."A neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. She doesn’t feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil—after all, she would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, she’s not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way.""People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships. A neutral person may sacrifice himself to protect his family or even his homeland, but he would not do so for strangers who are not related to him.""Someone who is neutral with respect to law and chaos has a normal respect for authority and feels neither a compulsion to obey nor a compulsion to rebel. She is honest but can be tempted into lying or deceiving others."Perfect baseline of humanity. Being a neutral person (on both axes) means you are a decent, law-abiding citizen. You might be a jerk on occasion, and you probably don't stress over speeding or parking violations, but there's a good chance you might give a bit to charity or help an elderly person cross the street.What such a person isn't likely to do is go out of their way to help others at significant sacrifice. I think that's a key point we are seeing differently. Sacrifices need to be significant to justify a good alignment. Not killing someone when it might be advantageous isn't sufficient. Taking a bullet to stop another evil person from killing someone is.I'm not trying to say it has to be a life-threatening situation either. Foregoing desire in order to avoid harming others isn't good--it's just neutral. Foregoing desire in order to actively help others can be good, but only if it requires giving up something significant. Helping the neighbor kid get their cat out of a tree after you've finished mowing your lawn isn't really a good act. It will take you another 5 minutes to get inside and sit down with a cool beverage. Whoop-de-doo. You want a medal? That's just being a decent neighbor. Doing (or not doing) that is not morally significant enough (in D&D terms) to justify shifting out of the neutral zone. Giving up opportunities for professional advancement in order to spend time volunteering full time with a charity is a sacrifice that is significant. It can also be a general manner of behavior. Maybe you don't have an opportunity to do significant specific sacrifices, but you consistently and reliably help kids get cats out of trees (and similar little acts of kindness) throughout your life. That's a big enough thing, given how much time ends up going into it, to count as good. Such a person is going to make a big sacrifice if given the opportunity (unless they are just doing things for show).This is something that isn't difficult to get. Most people can understand the difference between normal decent people, "bad" people, and real heroes and wonderful people.*The only thing that needs to be said to D&D players in order to get the idea across to them during character creation is to simply think in real world terms about the difference between those three types of people, and think of how they want their adventurer to behave. It's actually easier for adventurers than regular real people, because they have the chance to put their life on the line regularly! Is your character helping out the strangers they run across because they want to and believe it's the right thing to do? Or are they doing it mostly for the money? Would you still protect the villagers from the zombie invasion even if they didn't have the means to reward you? Those are good attitudes, most of the time. If, on the other hand, you would do that simply because you hate orcs and undead with a passion and take every opportunity to slay them, you aren't getting good points for it. If you are simply fighting in defense of your homeland, you aren't making a lot of good points either. Maybe some law points, but even neutral people can be patriotic. Quick and dirty method: how much empathy does your character have?Law and chaos are a bit trickier, but again, 3e takes a baseline of the average human being as neutral. A normal law-abiding citizen. Sure, you probably tell little white lies, and you didn't ask before eating your roommates tempting pastries left so seductively on the counter, but you aren't likely to break into people's houses and steal their stuff, unless you have no honest way of surviving. Lawful people don't just maintain natural levels of order, they go out of their way to be orderly. These are the people you know that won't break the rules even when the rules are wrong, or are actually getting in the way of accomplishing the purpose of the rules. You see tensions between lawful characters and neutral characters in TV and movies all the time. Usually the heroes are NG and they are dealing with LN or LG superiors. (Sometimes the show presents the superiors as more LN, until you later find out that they really do have a heroic level of empathy for others and "can be counted on to do the right thing," not just the lawful decent thing.) Chaotic are the people that really don't care about the laws, honesty, etc. They come in different types. Some are real jerks, others are just your harmless but unreliable friends. As with G/E, neutrals are more common than either L/C amongst the real world human populations.I agree with the AD&D definitions of evil you described though. I think 3e agrees also."“Evil” implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master."Just change "some" to "most" when you are talking humans rather than monsters. They generally don't go out of their way to harm others. If they are living a normal, non-adventuring life, they may never murder anyone--but they would if they thought it would benefit them. A good shorthand way of saying it is that an evil person is a sociopath. Most sociopaths never murder anyone, but they lack empathy and a sense of guilt. They would kill someone if they thought it would benefit them. DM: "Are you are normal decent person, a bad person, or a really good person?"That's all you need to ask to sort them into neutral, evil, or good in 3e terms. Do this first. Then you can worry about chaos, neutrality, law.*I think it's a pretty good commentary on the beneficial social elements of D&D that I find myself re-evaluating whether I'm actually living up to my real world ideals when I start looking at the definition of good in 3e D&D.</blockquote>

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