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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6599564" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Heh...I find it very difficult to wrap my brain around accepting the "Druidic Balance TN" as coherent. Any philosophy which says, "I am morally bound to betray the people I'm helping as soon as it looks like they've gotten stronger than I like" is super incoherent in my book!I, personally, don't think TN is actually "selfish" per se. It's self-interested, but there's an important subtlety between them. "Selfish" is "My wants and needs come categorically before the wants and needs of others." (Which is a position I consider Evil.) Self-interested is, "Look, I understand that there are bad things in the world. Sometimes those bad things come for me, sometimes they come for somebody else. If I'm gonna risk my neck to fight things that aren't even paying attention to me, I want to be compensated for that risk."Perhaps a 'worked' analogy would be best. Let's say we have Evelyn Evil, Natasha Neutral, and Christine Chaotic; their alignments are NE, TN, and CN respectively. They are (individually) approached by someone seeking their help. Let's say it's a mining village in the middle of butt-scratchin' nowhere.Evelyn says, "Why should I help you? Your struggles are not my problem. If you actually want me to deal with this, I'd better get a handsome reward." If she does in fact go, she will leverage for every penny and benefit she can get--and she may even betray the townsfolk if she believes she can get a better deal that way.Natasha says, "Hm. It's a big request. I have no problem helping others, but this will be a job, yeah? Payment made for services rendered." Not being Lawful, Natasha won't be a stickler about rules and may not even use such "contractual" language, but she will expect agreements to be honored on both sides, barring 'unforseen problems' or the like. She'll do the job, and accept the payment; if she feels she has been deceived by the townsfolk (e.g. the threat was downplayed) she might demand more, or might shrug it off. On the flipside, if she feels the reward is a little too generous? She's very unlikely to refuse it or return any of it. She earned it, after all.Christine eschews any talk of contract or obligation. Your word is your bond and nothing else. "You're having a problem? Sure, I can fix it." Depending on her demeanor (since one can be both "nice" and "mean" while still being CN), she might take liberties with how she "fixes" the problem, or might embellish/exaggerate her accomplishments to try to get more money (she isn't being paid to be honest!) but by that same token she won't just dick the townsfolk over and skip town with the loot (that would probably be too Evil). If things get too hot, though? She'll (probably) skedaddle. It's not like she HAS to deal with things if the situation ends up different than she expected.Does that help? True Neutral is always going to be fuzzy because it's defined in the negative; it's not dog-kicking and it's not puppy-petting, it's not letter-by-letter exacting and it's not "oh, you were expecting me to ACTUALLY do what I said I'd do?" And, by definition, it will occasionally include forays in all four directions. It's too damn contextual.</blockquote>

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