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<blockquote data-quote="am181d" data-source="post: 6141954" data-attributes="member: 3576">In general, I think any description of alignments of the sort &quot;a person who is X always does Y&quot; is misguided. There are more than 9 ways to respond to any given situation.For example, a character who is obsessed with personal honor and a character who is obsessed with following the minutiae of the written law might both be Lawful Neutral, but they would live very different lives and make very different choices.It's better to start with a character's personality and then decide which alignment best matches up. For instance, a thief whose prime motivations are greed and self-preservation, but isn't eager to see other people hurt along the way is probably Chaotic Neutral. An assassin who will kill anyone for the right price but who is loathe to reneg on a contract is probably Lawful Evil. Now a good story for the thief is to give him something to care about more than his own skin. And a good storyline for the assassin is to give him a contract he doesn't want to honor. And generally the good, dramatic choice is for the character to make the choice that's counter to their alignment. That doesn't mean they suddenly have the opposite values. It just means they made a dramatic exception. Of course, enough dramatic exceptions in a row and the character MIGHT start to re-evaluate everything. And that is what we like to call &quot;a character arc.&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="am181d, post: 6141954, member: 3576"] In general, I think any description of alignments of the sort "a person who is X always does Y" is misguided. There are more than 9 ways to respond to any given situation. For example, a character who is obsessed with personal honor and a character who is obsessed with following the minutiae of the written law might both be Lawful Neutral, but they would live very different lives and make very different choices. It's better to start with a character's personality and then decide which alignment best matches up. For instance, a thief whose prime motivations are greed and self-preservation, but isn't eager to see other people hurt along the way is probably Chaotic Neutral. An assassin who will kill anyone for the right price but who is loathe to reneg on a contract is probably Lawful Evil. Now a good story for the thief is to give him something to care about more than his own skin. And a good storyline for the assassin is to give him a contract he doesn't want to honor. And generally the good, dramatic choice is for the character to make the choice that's counter to their alignment. That doesn't mean they suddenly have the opposite values. It just means they made a dramatic exception. Of course, enough dramatic exceptions in a row and the character MIGHT start to re-evaluate everything. And that is what we like to call "a character arc." [/QUOTE]

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