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Slaads are failures as exemplars of Chaotic NEUTRAL
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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 7871167" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>That you mention Charisma tells me either I'm explaining poorly, or you're missing my point. Probably the former! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>The person who says a lot of utopian amazing stuff, ideas which may genuinely be good, but behaves reprehensibly, taking any advantage he can, and having no moral centre, probably has high CHA, but that's incidental to things. He could also have very low CHA. It's irrelevant. What's relevant is that he expresses one worldview, and values that worldview in others, but behaves in a contrary manner to that.</p><p></p><p>As an aside, in my experience NG-style people who espouse full-CN beliefs most often. There are people willing to put their lives, health, safety, freedom and livelihoods on the line to do what is right, and by D&D standards, in some cases, that's solid G, that's really their only goal and one they are true to. They work well in organisations, follow rules well, and believe in rules in a practical, day to day sense, even if they say otherwise. But the beliefs they are espouse are indeed that naive CN view - just set everyone completely free, no laws, no nothing, and everyone will behave well (and funny thing is, I don't doubt that if the world were solely these people, forever, that might even work out - trouble is isn't).</p><p></p><p>Weirdly you also get people who, in terms of their actions and desires, probably count as LE, espousing this same sort of situation, but that's a whole other discussion maybe.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Agreed. But I think this isn't "not every", it's "virtually no" (a difference of degree I note - there is considerable agreement here). And the few that DO say precisely what you said, they're the ones who are most likely to be terrible RPers and/or derail the game into alignment shenanigans, because people who espouse visions of alignments that clear and extreme for their characters usually are the people who replace personality with alignment.</p><p></p><p>So my position is that vaguer, less reductive, less precise visions of "What CN is" and so on are much more helpful to the game, to understanding alignments, and to good RP than starting with this extreme viewpoint and trying to work backwards to "What an actual person might think".</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Miller unquestionably and repeatedly acts as if he is the best judge of what is right and wrong (that's like, "his whole deal"), and applies both deontological and utilitarian approaches to right and wrong (not that he could even spell either, let alone define them, god bless him!), resulting in him straight-up killing people and so on. I'd lean towards CG though, because no-one he kills didn't at least strongly arguably benefit the world by being dead, and he's not doing it for his own benefit (indeed the consequences are... never good for him, but he keeps doing what his nebulous and vague but powerful idea of what is "right").</p><p></p><p>Amos, left to his own devices, literally has no morality (Dexter style) and sees no real value in rules in general. He is intelligent enough to understand that this is a problem and may lead to his death, and that it doesn't make him happy to be this way, though it gives him insight into other amoral people. He has learned to make his decisions based solely on what one person he loves (largely platonic-ly, it seems, at least where I am) and respects thinks. If she told him to kill, he would do so without mercy, question or regret, and when she is threatened, he takes immediate lethal action without having the slightest qualm (even though the situation could likely have been resolved otherwise and the person killed was clearly basically decent). He also expresses personal beliefs about how the world work that are pretty clearly CE by the description you gave ("the churn" as he puts it).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 7871167, member: 18"] That you mention Charisma tells me either I'm explaining poorly, or you're missing my point. Probably the former! :) The person who says a lot of utopian amazing stuff, ideas which may genuinely be good, but behaves reprehensibly, taking any advantage he can, and having no moral centre, probably has high CHA, but that's incidental to things. He could also have very low CHA. It's irrelevant. What's relevant is that he expresses one worldview, and values that worldview in others, but behaves in a contrary manner to that. As an aside, in my experience NG-style people who espouse full-CN beliefs most often. There are people willing to put their lives, health, safety, freedom and livelihoods on the line to do what is right, and by D&D standards, in some cases, that's solid G, that's really their only goal and one they are true to. They work well in organisations, follow rules well, and believe in rules in a practical, day to day sense, even if they say otherwise. But the beliefs they are espouse are indeed that naive CN view - just set everyone completely free, no laws, no nothing, and everyone will behave well (and funny thing is, I don't doubt that if the world were solely these people, forever, that might even work out - trouble is isn't). Weirdly you also get people who, in terms of their actions and desires, probably count as LE, espousing this same sort of situation, but that's a whole other discussion maybe. Agreed. But I think this isn't "not every", it's "virtually no" (a difference of degree I note - there is considerable agreement here). And the few that DO say precisely what you said, they're the ones who are most likely to be terrible RPers and/or derail the game into alignment shenanigans, because people who espouse visions of alignments that clear and extreme for their characters usually are the people who replace personality with alignment. So my position is that vaguer, less reductive, less precise visions of "What CN is" and so on are much more helpful to the game, to understanding alignments, and to good RP than starting with this extreme viewpoint and trying to work backwards to "What an actual person might think". Miller unquestionably and repeatedly acts as if he is the best judge of what is right and wrong (that's like, "his whole deal"), and applies both deontological and utilitarian approaches to right and wrong (not that he could even spell either, let alone define them, god bless him!), resulting in him straight-up killing people and so on. I'd lean towards CG though, because no-one he kills didn't at least strongly arguably benefit the world by being dead, and he's not doing it for his own benefit (indeed the consequences are... never good for him, but he keeps doing what his nebulous and vague but powerful idea of what is "right"). Amos, left to his own devices, literally has no morality (Dexter style) and sees no real value in rules in general. He is intelligent enough to understand that this is a problem and may lead to his death, and that it doesn't make him happy to be this way, though it gives him insight into other amoral people. He has learned to make his decisions based solely on what one person he loves (largely platonic-ly, it seems, at least where I am) and respects thinks. If she told him to kill, he would do so without mercy, question or regret, and when she is threatened, he takes immediate lethal action without having the slightest qualm (even though the situation could likely have been resolved otherwise and the person killed was clearly basically decent). He also expresses personal beliefs about how the world work that are pretty clearly CE by the description you gave ("the churn" as he puts it). [/QUOTE]
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