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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6886305" data-attributes="member: 4937">A good post, but my lack of complete clarity is centered around something else at the moment.&nbsp; We are starting to move from a character that seems more motivated by seeing that lawbreakers punished (&quot;Chaos must be opposed!&quot;) to someone more motivated by caring for individuals (&quot;Wrongs must be righted!&quot;), though as you point out even that is not yet completely clear.&nbsp; But for me the biggest lack of clarity is what I see as an internal contradiction in the character.&nbsp; The main reason I didn't post about it in my first response, is I'm ok with mortals having the sort of internal contradiction he's setting up in this description, because working out internal contradictions and deciding what a character believes most makes for good role-play.&nbsp; And that internal contradiction is summed up in this sentence: &quot;He tends to categorize people as either villains, victims, or neither, based on their behavior.&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp; The problem with that sentence is categorizing people is Lawful behavior.&nbsp; Chaotics tends to see things as being messier than that and categorization as inherently wrong, and someone that presented a CG vigilante type would almost certainly provoke me as a DM to write a note behind my DM's screen - &quot;Test the character's moral outlook by confronting them with things that don't neatly fit into their three categories - villains that also do good for the community, heroes with tragic flaws, likeable innocents engaged in patterns of behavior that are causing massive indirect harm.&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp; We could get a real sense of whether the character was Chaotic or Lawful (or maybe more to the point, which direction or belief their character was evolving toward) by how they responded to this fuzzy hard to categorize situations.&nbsp;&nbsp; If they decided to implement a custom solution on the basis of the particular situation and their own judgment, then that suggests strong (or stronger) Chaotic impulses.&nbsp; If they decided that painful as it may be, they have to follows the standards they've set for how you treat members of the category, then that suggests stronger Lawful impulses.&nbsp;&nbsp; So I wouldn't be surprised in play to see a CG character that began with the belief, &quot;I can categorize people.&quot;, to either drop that belief as incompatible with their more fundamental beliefs, or evolve toward neutrality or even law.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6886305, member: 4937"] A good post, but my lack of complete clarity is centered around something else at the moment. We are starting to move from a character that seems more motivated by seeing that lawbreakers punished ("Chaos must be opposed!") to someone more motivated by caring for individuals ("Wrongs must be righted!"), though as you point out even that is not yet completely clear. But for me the biggest lack of clarity is what I see as an internal contradiction in the character. The main reason I didn't post about it in my first response, is I'm ok with mortals having the sort of internal contradiction he's setting up in this description, because working out internal contradictions and deciding what a character believes most makes for good role-play. And that internal contradiction is summed up in this sentence: "He tends to categorize people as either villains, victims, or neither, based on their behavior." The problem with that sentence is categorizing people is Lawful behavior. Chaotics tends to see things as being messier than that and categorization as inherently wrong, and someone that presented a CG vigilante type would almost certainly provoke me as a DM to write a note behind my DM's screen - "Test the character's moral outlook by confronting them with things that don't neatly fit into their three categories - villains that also do good for the community, heroes with tragic flaws, likeable innocents engaged in patterns of behavior that are causing massive indirect harm." We could get a real sense of whether the character was Chaotic or Lawful (or maybe more to the point, which direction or belief their character was evolving toward) by how they responded to this fuzzy hard to categorize situations. If they decided to implement a custom solution on the basis of the particular situation and their own judgment, then that suggests strong (or stronger) Chaotic impulses. If they decided that painful as it may be, they have to follows the standards they've set for how you treat members of the category, then that suggests stronger Lawful impulses. So I wouldn't be surprised in play to see a CG character that began with the belief, "I can categorize people.", to either drop that belief as incompatible with their more fundamental beliefs, or evolve toward neutrality or even law. [/QUOTE]

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