Zaruthustran
The tingling means it’s working!
It all depends on the campaign, and how the players and DM rationalize Motivation.
In my personal experience, most foes in combat have been humans. My DM during my teen and college years was inspired by Conan and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser; adventurers were opportunists and mercenaries, striving against like-minded individuals. The goals of the campaign were imperialistic: recover loot and plunder in order to build up a powerbase, then start taking over kingdoms.
The overwhelming majority of characters were therefore Neutral Evil or Chaotic Neutral. If your character is laying seige to some guy's castle for no other reason than you want to own it (and its treasury), then that's all there is to it: you're Evil.
We quickly realized it didn't really matter if the sentient stuck on the end of your blade has green skin. It's still a skewered person. You're still taking away everything that green guy's got, and all he's ever gonna have. For no other reason than that you want his stuff, and he's in your way.
Now, if you want to go all LotR or Narnia, you can get away with Good adventurers. In that case the motivation for the game is virtuous: preventing Evil from destroying innocents. The characters are on a mission of protection. You're not killing the green residents of Moria because you want to get rich or you want revenge. You're killing them because they're trying to stop you from saving the world. I've played in plenty of games like this--most Living Greyhawk adventures come to mind--and never had a problem keeping "Good" in the Alignment box on my character sheet. Defending lawful caravans, recovering kidnapped innocents, putting a stop to marauders, stopping Infernal incursions--these are Good acts.
In the end it comes down to intent and motivation.
If your character is defending innocents or stiving against an active force of Evil, then there's a chance he's Good. He's motivated by a sense of responsibility to others.
If your character is just rampaging around, killing things for personal glory and profit--for "fun"--then there's a good chance he's Evil or Neutral. But he's certainly not Good. He's motivated by selfishness.
-z
In my personal experience, most foes in combat have been humans. My DM during my teen and college years was inspired by Conan and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser; adventurers were opportunists and mercenaries, striving against like-minded individuals. The goals of the campaign were imperialistic: recover loot and plunder in order to build up a powerbase, then start taking over kingdoms.
The overwhelming majority of characters were therefore Neutral Evil or Chaotic Neutral. If your character is laying seige to some guy's castle for no other reason than you want to own it (and its treasury), then that's all there is to it: you're Evil.
We quickly realized it didn't really matter if the sentient stuck on the end of your blade has green skin. It's still a skewered person. You're still taking away everything that green guy's got, and all he's ever gonna have. For no other reason than that you want his stuff, and he's in your way.
Now, if you want to go all LotR or Narnia, you can get away with Good adventurers. In that case the motivation for the game is virtuous: preventing Evil from destroying innocents. The characters are on a mission of protection. You're not killing the green residents of Moria because you want to get rich or you want revenge. You're killing them because they're trying to stop you from saving the world. I've played in plenty of games like this--most Living Greyhawk adventures come to mind--and never had a problem keeping "Good" in the Alignment box on my character sheet. Defending lawful caravans, recovering kidnapped innocents, putting a stop to marauders, stopping Infernal incursions--these are Good acts.
In the end it comes down to intent and motivation.
If your character is defending innocents or stiving against an active force of Evil, then there's a chance he's Good. He's motivated by a sense of responsibility to others.
If your character is just rampaging around, killing things for personal glory and profit--for "fun"--then there's a good chance he's Evil or Neutral. But he's certainly not Good. He's motivated by selfishness.
-z
