Who am I? Who is she?

[TYPO5478]

...there are a lot of small things that don't easily lean one way or the other.

Luckily, I included a caveat for such acts: neutral. Most mundane acts are probably neutral anyhow. If it helps, you could imagine a spectrum with finer gradation than simply good/neutral/evil. The point is that the structure of the game is, as you put it, cut and dried. Good and Evil are two distinct opposing forces that operate on the multiverse, much the same way that gravity operates on the Material Plane. They even have entire outer planes dedicated to them where creatures that are immutably good (or evil or lawful or chaotic or any combination thereof) reside.

Say you accidently break the law, but the local courts are run by bad guys, you are imprisoned and forced to pay a fine. You don't pay the fine and skip town, because that town is wack, yo! Now, is that character acting 'good' or 'evil'?

I have to agree with DM_Matt, with an addendum: the act is non-lawful, but neutral as far as good and evil are concerned.

Here's another scenario: My character is Lawful Evil, but he happens to believe his actions are good. Sub Rosa's character comes up and casts detect evil at him. What does the spell tell her?

The devil is in the details.

Actually, he's probably on one of the evil-aligned planes, but it's the same difference.

 

[Deset Gled]

Yes, I can use the sword, and yes it has proven very helpful with arcane matters. Otherwise it functions as a +1 weapon and I use it as such.

What exactly do you mean my "helpful with arcane matters"? I am interested in this sword.

Do you think the abilities the sword grants you are worth revising the character for? Is the sword useful enough for you to hold onto it unitl level 20? If not, you might want to get rid of it now.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I'm playing a wizard and everybody says a wizard wants power

That's stereotyping. Sure, wizards often want power. But others are into magic for knowledge and understanding. Or simply because they found they're good at it. Even for those who are in it to become good at it, it doesn't have to dominate their soul.

If you're a NG wizard, you will have power, but not at all cost. (And you'll use it to help others)

 

[moritheil]

This problem seems to be a direct result of not clearly defining all aspects of the character's personality from the start, and instead relying on the player's personality.

 

[KarinsDad]

I'm having trouble deciding whether to merge my morality with this character (like I started out) or completely divorce the two (cuz that'd probably be fun).

The point is that you started the character out with your own set of morality.

That's fine. There is nothing wrong with that, so do not worry that your PC views right and wrong like you do.


As for the future, you have at least two choices here:

1) Continue to do so. This choice is perfectly reasonable and probably matches the alignment that you gave the PC (I assume it is a good alignment). It does not matter if the DM and/or other players want you to change this, it is not their choice. It is your choice. If you want to continue to play your PC as very moral, do so. If the sword is bothering your concept of the PCs morality, then get rid of it, or use it infrequently, or use it whenever you want, but make sure that you continue to roleplay your PC's morality as you see fit. Remember though, this is your PC, not anybody else's. You make all the decisions for that PC (shy of magical intervention). The DM and other players can only make suggestions, but yours is the final word.

2) Change the morality of your PC to match your percieved new "wizards are power hungry" ideas. This could be a lot of fun. And, it can be perfectly reasonable roleplaying as well. Many characters in literature are "seduced by the dark side". So, it might eventually force an alignment change, but that may or may not be bad. But, only do this is this is what you want for your PC, don't do it if you do not want to do it.


Both of these choices, or even some other choice, is reasonable.

But, regardless of what you decide, it is your decision. Take all of the recommendations here with a grain of salt and then decide what you want for your PC. After all, it is your PC, nobody else's.

 

[Whimsical]

Sometimes there comes a situation where I don't know how my character would react, despite detailing their personality and drives. When that occurs I pull out a d10 and roll it to answer the question "on a scale from one to ten, what does my character think about [noun or adjective]?" A one being "strongly repuled," a ten being "strongly attracted", and a five or six being "don't care".

Doing this has created some wonderful roleplaying opportunities for me.

 

[KarinsDad]

Sometimes there comes a situation where I don't know how my character would react, despite detailing their personality and drives. When that occurs I pull out a d10 and roll it to answer the question "on a scale from one to ten, what does my character think about [noun or adjective]?" A one being "strongly repuled," a ten being "strongly attracted", and a five or six being "don't care".

Doing this has created some wonderful roleplaying opportunities for me.

As DM, I hate when a player does this. I had a player who would do this on average about once or so a gaming session and it drove me up the wall.

 

[Whimsical]

Can you give examples why? I don't want to drive my DM up a wall. Sometimes I just don't know what to do.

 

[KarinsDad]

Can you give examples why? I don't want to drive my DM up a wall. Sometimes I just don't know what to do.

Dice are for determing the success of the results of a decision. Dice rolling is random.

If you can decide which actions you assign to which number on a die, you can also decide which of those actions you want your PC to do.

PC decision making should not be random. A player might not make the best decision, but at least it is the player's decision and not the luck of the dice.

I equate this to DM fudging of dice. If I wanted to play a game where the DM decided whether a result occurs or not, I would not be playing DND. Granted, DMs already have the power to decide the difficulty of a given action, but if they are fair there, then there is no reason to ever fudge a die roll.

So, I segregate dice from decisions. DMs can make many decisions in the game, but combat dice success or dice totals (e.g. like damage totals) should not be one of them. Just like the dice can determine results, but they should not determine decisions. JMO.

 

[Zimri]

I knew someone would argue that statement, but I left it in anyways. As I said GROSS examples are easy to call. Kill a baby, probably evil; feed the poor, probably good; but there are a lot of small things that don't easily lean one way or the other. Say you accidently break the law, but the local courts are run by bad guys, you are imprisoned and forced to pay a fine. You don't pay the fine and skip town, because that town is wack, yo! Now, is that character acting 'good' or 'evil'?

It's not really worth carrying on in this thread, but suffice to say, I disagree with your cut-and-dried belief.

The devil is in the details.

An orc baby or a human baby ? What about baby mind-flayers that you have just turned into orphans that will die without someone/thing caring for them ?

What if the poor you feed end up doing terrible things because now they have the strength (or didn't die of starvation) ?

I am firmly in the "it's all grey" boat, Admittedly there are varying shades, but there is no villian that can't be redeemed and no hero that can not fall.