Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Morrow" data-source="post: 2182440" data-attributes="member: 27012">Yes, I think it does.  Basically, I handle it by treating the word "Neutral" as "Pragmatic" (in either direction) and Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos as active rather than passive alignment categories and it works reasonably well within the RAW definitions.  I'm going to focus on Good and Evil here because that seems to be your focus.The way I've been handling it is that Good is actively altruistic.  As per the RAW, "Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others."  A Good character will put the welfare of others, even innocent strangers, above their own welfare.  It's not simply a matter of tossing some money to a beggar but being willing to run into a burning building to save that beggar or spend weeks working to get them back on their feet again.  Yes, tossing money to a beggar might be a kind and good act, but it's not simply a matter of being on the Good side of the Neutral line between Good and Evil.  To be Good, one has to reach a higher standard.Similarly, I've defined Evil as actively cruel or indifferent to the suffering of others.  As per the RAW, "'Evil' implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others."  An Evil character is either indifferent to the suffering of others or actively seeks to cause suffering because the enjoy it.  The RAW simply requires that, "People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent."  So Neutral people can kill the innocent.  What seperates them from an Evil person is that an evil person will kill out of convenience or pleasure.  Yes, killing someone to take their stuff might be a ruthless and evil act, but it's not simply a matter of being on the Evil side of the Neutral line between Good and Evil.  To be Evil, one has to reach a higher standard.Ultimately, Neutral is moderate, pragmatic, and self-interested.  As per the RAW, "Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships."  They are not cruel, so they won't kill out of convenience or for pleasure, and they are not altruistic so they "lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others."Think of it like IQ.  One might be smart with a 115 IQ but you won't get into Mensa with that score.  Similarly, one might be somewhat deficient with a 90 IQ but they won't qualify as mentally challenged.  If we draw a sharp line at 100 and say that only exactly 100 is "normal" and everyone over 100 is smart and everyone under 100 is mentally deficient, then we've narrowed "normal" to the point where it is a useless category.  And that's exactly why they don't do that for IQ.  Instead, "normal" is considered at least a 20 point range (from roughly 90 to 110).  And if you want three categories like Deficient, Normal, and Genius (to correspond to Good, Neutral, and Evil), the line for Deficient might be 70 and the line for Genius might be 140.  A person with a 130 IQ might be plenty smart and a person with a 75 IQ might be plenty slow, but they aren't Deficient or a Genius unless they cross that standard.So going back to alignment, the way I've been playing it is that a Neutral person might be a very good person who everyone likes but unless they are willing to run into that burning building to save a stranger, they aren't Good.  Similarly, a Neutral person might be a very bad person who cheats, steals, and even kills others from time to time but unless they are doing it casually or out of cruelty, they aren't Evil.  That's how I carve out a place for Neutral.  On a pure binary scale, the first character may be Good and the second character may be Evil.  But once a broad space is carved out for Neutral, they are Neutral, instead.I think the idea there (and this is how I play it) is that Druids are supposed to be indifferent to strong ideologies and focus on nature and survival while clerics are supposed to be idological rather than pragmatically selfish.Once something can be detected, it becomes a knowable quality that can be discussed.  So, yes, I think characters can refer to alignment.  In my setting, Evil often actively hides what it is within normal human society because being known to be Evil is often a liability.  There are plenty of spells and magic items that make this possible.  Of course there is also a reason why my players (in jest) asked me if all bards were Evil in my setting, because they are particularly well-suited for hiding what they really are.[EDIT: Spelling]</blockquote>

Verification