D&D General "True Neutral": Bunk or Hogwash

[EzekielRaiden]

I will regret this, but meh.

So are there actual lore examples of "True Neutral" NPCs and their actions that have any justification for their positions beyond something supernatural, ie "good" and "evil" are fundamental forces that must exist in some degree of balance to maintain the spiritual health of the universe?

Take Mordenkianen. He is often described as upholding True Neutrality as his motivating ethos, and while its usually Evil that he must keep in check, in practical terms, were Good to be too ascendant, well he would logically have to act to either weaken it or strengthen Evil. So for example, a prosperous, Good aligned nation based in principles of Justice and Equality? Time for Mordy to help the black market slave trade thrive. In 1e, Elves and Dwarves are listed with Good Alignments. If a given Elf or Dwarf kingdom was proving too successful, wouldn't he have to try and assassinate it's leaders or undermine it in some way?

Hyperbolic, of course, but my point stands. Unless there is some supernatural fabric of reality reasoning, he is willing not to merely condone the existence of Evil but he would have to foster and aid its propagation just as he has good.

Before someone chimes in "Well, what is Good? Left unchecked, could it not become tyranny?" Sure. And then it's Evil.

So Yeah. True Neutral? It's nonsense.

There are three pathways by which "True Neutral" can be made to work--but you've already excluded one of them.

The first is, as you say, more or less the assertion that what we call "Good" is not actually Good; it is merely the force that, ordinarily, is most similar to Good. And, likewise, the force we call "Evil" is not actually Evil; it is merely the force that, ordinarily, is most similar to Evil.

The second, as various others have said in this thread (probably numerous others, but I haven't read it closely), is something in the direction of pacifism, non-intervention, disengagement, etc. What 4e called "Unaligned", basically--specifically choosing to just...not get involved. You make no commitments and claim no moral stance, more or less. This is usually dismissed because what people want is a form of "Muscular" Neutrality--a Neutrality which actually does stand for something, even if that something is weird or dumb or whatever.

The third, which I suspect will be most relevant here, is the idea that Good and Evil both need to be limited for a universe that achieves some "optimal" form. That is, a sort of detached stance where one says: "Good people are not sufficiently motivated unless they know there is Evil to oppose. Evil people act as catalysts for change, even if that change is sometimes harmful. Evil actions keep the system lean and focused, trimming the fat. Without just the right amount of Evil, Good becomes complacent. Too much Evil is of course horrible and nobody wants THAT, but things would be ever-so-slightly less effective if there were genuinely no Evil at all." More or less, this views both Good and Evil in purely instrumental terms.

To a Good person, this looks like a soft form of Evil. To an Evil person, this looks like a manipulable or persuadable form of Good. A Neutral person might see that as a good thing ("a compromise should please nobody" and similar ideas are, collectively, an incredibly irritating assertion treated as though it were some kind of profound wisdom when it's outright bollocks.)

More or less? You're a Good person arguing that True Neutral fence-sitting (or outright "but Evil is useful!") facilitates more Evil, and is thus Evil itself. The True Neutral person would look you dead in the eye and say, "You're already proving right the folks who say that Good turns into Evil when it has no actual Evil to fight."

And to be clear, I agree with you. I think "muscular" True Neutral is an oxymoron, a logical contradiction. But that's what you'd be hearing from someone who actually adheres to this philosophy. If you want to argue with them, you have to argue on their terms to show that their position is untenable.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Maintaining the status quo seems like a pretty solid motivation, especially when the consequence of one side or another winning is the end of the multiverse, at least as we know it. True neutrals are just trying to keep this going.

But all that's doing is saying that the faction labelled "Good" is really just stupid.

That's the problem here. When you make Neutral (on the G/N/E axis) into "we're actually protecting all of us by preventing the end of the universe", you're making them into the Actually Good faction--the faction trying to make as much good as actually achievable--while the "Good" faction is really the Stupid Good faction that wants to maximize the goodness-state right this very instant even though doing so will actually result in enormous and irreparable harm to everyone everywhere.

You haven't defined a form of so-called "muscular" Neutrality. You've defined two Good factions where one is smart and thinks ahead, and the other is stupid and barrelling toward universal annihilation. Smart people join the faction called "Neutral" that actually wants to do the best by everyone. Stupid people join the faction called "Good" that simply wants to make everyone feel great even though doing so will destroy the universe.

 

[Hriston]

But all that's doing is saying that the faction labelled "Good" is really just stupid.

That's the problem here. When you make Neutral (on the G/N/E axis) into "we're actually protecting all of us by preventing the end of the universe", you're making them into the Actually Good faction--the faction trying to make as much good as actually achievable--while the "Good" faction is really the Stupid Good faction that wants to maximize the goodness-state right this very instant even though doing so will actually result in enormous and irreparable harm to everyone everywhere.

You haven't defined a form of so-called "muscular" Neutrality. You've defined two Good factions where one is smart and thinks ahead, and the other is stupid and barrelling toward universal annihilation. Smart people join the faction called "Neutral" that actually wants to do the best by everyone. Stupid people join the faction called "Good" that simply wants to make everyone feel great even though doing so will destroy the universe.

I don't think so, because the premise of my statement is that Good is actually good. They believe rightly that victory over evil in the final battle will bring about the greatest good for all. True Neutral doesn't believe this, so they are wrongly trying to stop this from happening. True Neutral is also, understandably, committed to preventing the victory of Evil. Their stake is to keep the "game" going forever.

 

[Artamo]

I don't think so, because the premise of my statement is that Good is actually good. They believe rightly that victory over evil in the final battle will bring about the greatest good for all. Neutral doesn't believe this, so they are wrongly trying to stop this from happening. Neutral is also, understandably, committed to preventing the victory of Evil. Their stake is to keep the "game" going forever.

I think it was the last Christopher Reeve Superman movie, Lex Luthor says:

“Nobody wants war, Superman. I just want to keep the threat alive.”

And I think that’s the issue with those kind of proclamations - they are ultimately self-serving, which is really just another form of evil. The descriptions of Mordekainen also kind of nod toward this selfishness.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't think so, because the premise of my statement is that Good is actually good. They believe rightly that victory over evil in the final battle will bring about the greatest good for all. True Neutral doesn't believe this, so they are wrongly trying to stop this from happening. True Neutral is also, understandably, committed to preventing the victory of Evil. Their stake is to keep the "game" going forever.

So...it...won't result in the end of reality?

Because if that's so, then the Neutral is either Evil With Good Publicity, or Evil In Denial With Extra Steps.

 

[FrozenNorth]

The good gods also dropped a meteorite on a city, killing everyone, after a god king tried to purge the lands of evil.

« Hey, sometimes to only way to stop a genocide is to commit a different genocide. »

Ghandi, probably.

 

[FrozenNorth]

So...it...won't result in the end of reality?

Because if that's so, then the Neutral is either Evil With Good Publicity, or Evil In Denial With Extra Steps.

I think the point is that both factions believe they are correct, which would make them both « Good, but disagree on the means ».

 

[Hriston]

I think it was the last Christopher Reeve Superman movie, Lex Luthor says:

“Nobody wants war, Superman. I just want to keep the threat alive.”

And I think that’s the issue with those kind of proclamations - they are ultimately self-serving, which is really just another form of evil. The descriptions of Mordekainen also kind of nod toward this selfishness.

Luthor isn't talking about a war of good versus evil there. He's talking about war in general with probably an implication of the Cold War heating up. He's being portrayed as a clearly evil, self-interested war profiteer who stands to benefit from the endangerment of innocent lives. That being said, nobody is arguing that TN is Good.

 

[Artamo]

That being said, nobody is arguing that TN is Good

No, but it could be as Ezekiel Raiden pointed out, just evil in denial.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The good gods also dropped a meteorite on a city, killing everyone, after a god king tried to purge the lands of evil.

Depending on the source, though, that's either for essentially "Lawful" reasons in that he was getting above his station and challenging the authority of the gods, or because of the "Doctrine of Balance", which is a very vague and wishy-washy Krynnian concept from the 1980s, one which is rarely mentioned and like all other TN ideas in D&D, never really explained, let alone fully explicated with reasons and conditions.

As near as one can get, it seems like the Good/Neutral/Evil gods in Krynn did a sort of detente where they have this "Doctrine of Balance" to prevent them warring etc. (no sign this in any way works, so it's very odd that it's supposedly a thing, they fight constantly through proxies), but that's just tyrannical gods acting in their own best interests, really, isn't it? There's no depth to it and no justification on the basis of "this is needed by the people of Krynn". Further, the very conceit of the Doctrine of Balance seems to be inherently Lawful, which means it isn't really arguable as TN concept.

Even people who are insane experts on Krynnian lore can't square the circle on the Doctrine of Balance without inventing tons of stuff that simple hasn't been suggested to be the case (hell even with inventions and additions not in canon, it's pretty shakey): Meditations on the Balance - Dragonlance Nexus.

Old Testament.

I would argue that the Old Testament vibes here are merely superficial, underlying a weirder and more D&D-specific concept. Sure, it's a flashy-ass meteor and bazillions of totally innocent people are killed for "reasons" which vibes with a lot of 1700s and later conceptions of, for example, the Biblical Great Flood, but the core reasoning from the gods isn't the same - i.e. everyone is basically bad except for the few chosen people is the Biblical reasoning - indeed it's almost inverted! The Krynnic gods nuke the site from orbit to get rid of one guy who they feel is totally out-of-line, and it's not "the Good gods" alone who do it, either, it's the whole lot of them as far as we can tell - Good, Neutral, Evil together.

The gods (or some subset of them, unclear) did also make a single more targeted assassination attempt on the Kingpriest via Lord Soth (who apparently would have been unstoppable if he actually tried to kill the Kingpriest), but that was so fragile and rubbish a plan that three annoying elf ladies taunting Soth (I'm not even exaggerating!) were enough to derail it by causing Soth to go home and murder his wife instead of the Kingpriest - talk about male fragility/toxic masculinity destroying the world!

But the gods let this stuff get out of hand for FORTY YEARS without any serious attempt to stop the Kingpriest, and the gods were the CAUSE of the cataclysm, directly, it wasn't an inherent even caused by the balance being out of whack! Indeed, it seems like they launched the meteor basically as soon as the Kingpriest became a problem (because a guy had a vision of it happening less than a month after the Kingpriest said "I'm going to kill all the Evil dudes") and then just sat of their hands for forty years, perfectly happy to see most of the population of Krynn die in horror, perfectly happy to let the few "signs" they sent get misinterpreted. Just real zero effort don't care attitudes from the gods of Krynn.

Are these deities or DMV workers?! Maybe they're more like tech support, because their only attempted solution to a very specific problem was turning it off and on again!

There was also the hilarious retcon later-on that after the Cataclysm, it wasn't the gods weren't listening/were sulking, it was just that people didn't pray to them, which like, is quite clearly textually untrue in earlier Krynn works, given that people explicitly did, and that some of the gods basically apologise for sulking. But I imagine Hickman/Weis wanted to retcon that because it made the gods look real bad.

TLDR: Like the FR, Krynn's "Balance" thing is never properly explained or reasoned or details, it's just sort of mindlessly assumed. Again I trace the fault back to Gygax/Arneson for extending TN to include Good/Evil without providing any actual reasoning for doing so.