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5 years ago ::
Jul 04, 2008 - 7:00PM
#201
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Date Joined:
Oct 28, 2007
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From page 104 of the 3.5 PHB. "Good characters make sacrifices to help others."
Further down that page "People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent, but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others."
"A neutral person may sacrifice himself to protect his family or even his homeland, but he would not do so for strangers who are not related to him."
These quotes do absolutely nothing if not prove my point.
From page 19 of the 4e PHB under The Good Alignment. "...you might be asked to place others' needs above your own...in some cases even if that means putting yourself in harm's way. In many ways, that's the essence of being a heroic adventurer: The people of the town can't defend themselves from the marauding goblins, so you descend into the dungeon-at significant risk-to put an end to the goblins raid."
Neither does this one.
So it seems the rules disagree with you. Action and inaction are both important under the alignment system. I could go back further into previous editions, but at this point, that's just a waste of time. You'll either accept it or not, and nothing else will change that.
I've already accepted the quotes, just not what you seem to think they logically imply. Saving someone being Good-aligned does not imply that not saving them is Evil-aligned.
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5 years ago ::
Jul 04, 2008 - 7:17PM
#202
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Date Joined:
Aug 30, 2007
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Saving someone being Good-aligned does not imply that not saving them is Evil-aligned.
You're right, not saving them is not necessarily evil. In fact, going by what is in the 3.5 rules, it is probably neutral (unless you are somehow capitalizing on the person's plight for your own gain, in which case it might be evil). However, we originally got onto this discussion over a LG character ignoring someone's need for help. According to the PHB, good characters do not stand by and watch when someone is in need, they help out. Also, this does show that inaction plays into alignment (which you insisted was otherwise), as such inaction as was in the example is characteristic of a neutral alignment.
Owner and Proprietor of the House of Trolls.
God of ownership and possession.
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5 years ago ::
Jul 04, 2008 - 7:40PM
#203
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Date Joined:
Oct 28, 2007
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However, we originally got onto this discussion over a LG character ignoring someone's need for help. According to the PHB, good characters do not stand by and watch when someone is in need, they help out. Also, this does show that inaction plays into alignment (which you insisted was otherwise), as such inaction as was in the example is characteristic of a neutral alignment.
That issue is moot because of this:
According to the PHB, good characters do not stand by and watch when someone is in need, they help out.
You're right. It's quite simply not going to happen.
If the person drowning is someone who is a horrible person, they might pull a Batman ("I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you."), but that is, and should be, reserved for the worst of the worst (and even I would be tempted to drag their evil asses ashore).
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5 years ago ::
Jul 04, 2008 - 8:35PM
#204
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Date Joined:
Jan 31, 2008
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Well, officially D&D has cut it's alignments down to five: Good, Evil, Lawful Good, Chaotic Evil and Unaligned.
Now then, who's planning on ignoring the official alignment rules and just continue to have the Nine Alignments anyway?
I will house rule an extra two: Lawful & Chaotic.
Lawful Evil would still just be Evil.
Chaotic Good would still just be Good.
"True Neutral" would either fall under Lawful or Unaligned, depending on the particulars of the ethos. Those whom champion the "balance" are advocates of a form of order, and closer to Lawful than any of the remaining 6 choices, whereas those determined Not to choose are decidedly Unaligned.
Erathis is a deity that would be Lawful. In the current rules, Erathis can have Chaotic Evil Clerics, which makes no sense to me.
The Slaad would be Chaotic, as would most Primordials not corrupted by the Abyss. In Eberron, the Traveller would be Chaotic by my interpretation.
While i don't see a need to bring back the great wheel, Lawful & Chaotic are holes in the current system IMO.
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5 years ago ::
Jul 04, 2008 - 10:53PM
#205
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The nine alignments are tools to help newer players sculpt their character, and to help them form a background for what kind of person their going to be roleplaying. Reducing the amount of options that the player has, helps to reduce the amount of roleplaying being put into the newest generation of gaming. Yes, while it is a good idea to finally call true neutral, undecided, for those who want to play characters with the personality of a cracker, I think its rather sad to see one of the basic roleplaying tools provided set ablaze by a money hungry company in an attempt to make Dungeons and Dragons less of a roleplaying game, and more of numbers game.
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5 years ago ::
Jul 04, 2008 - 11:06PM
#206
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Date Joined:
Aug 30, 2007
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The nine alignments are tools to help newer players sculpt their character, and to help them form a background for what kind of person their going to be roleplaying. Reducing the amount of options that the player has, helps to reduce the amount of roleplaying being put into the newest generation of gaming. Yes, while it is a good idea to finally call true neutral, undecided, for those who want to play characters with the personality of a cracker, I think its rather sad to see one of the basic roleplaying tools provided set ablaze by a money hungry company in an attempt to make Dungeons and Dragons less of a roleplaying game, and more of numbers game.
No, the nine alignments were supposed to be tools, but they usually ended up being straitjackets instead.
If anything, the new alignment makes it easier for characters to roleplay, because alignment is just fluff and guidelines (like it was always supposed to be) with no mechanical effect on the game (which was especially bad in 2e when violating alignment could actually cost you XP). Now the PCs can't base their opinion of someone off of a know alignment or detect evil spell.
Now if you want to use 9 alignments instead of 5, ok, but I think they should still be removed from the mechanics of the game.
Owner and Proprietor of the House of Trolls.
God of ownership and possession.
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5 years ago ::
Jul 04, 2008 - 11:08PM
#207
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Date Joined:
Aug 30, 2007
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You're right. It's quite simply not going to happen.
If the person drowning is someone who is a horrible person, they might pull a Batman ("I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you."), but that is, and should be, reserved for the worst of the worst (and even I would be tempted to drag their evil asses ashore).
Ok...
So we agree then...
LOUD NOISES!
...
Owner and Proprietor of the House of Trolls.
God of ownership and possession.
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5 years ago ::
Jul 04, 2008 - 11:34PM
#208
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I believe that in most cases the alignment system worked perfectly, and only held characters in a "straightjacket" which made sense to me. It helped to avoid outright silly and impossible ideas. Such as the paladin who did things that were obscene, or one day decided to take a level in barbarian for the rage ability.
Its in the very begining of description that alignments are tools for roleplaying, if your felt like you couldnt create a character who even loosely fit any of the alignments, then you select nuetral.
As for basing their opinion of someone on a know alignment spell, thats rather fair, as a person who has commited evil acts, or supports the laws of a land, will no doubt represent themselves as such. By removing alignments its another step towards allowing players to make characters that they can do whatever they wish with, how they feel at the moment, without reguard for the roleplaying aspect of how the character would react to a moment. If you dont have fun playing something with a strong personality or character, either play nuetral or WoW.
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5 years ago ::
Jul 05, 2008 - 12:02AM
#209
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Date Joined:
Jun 22, 2008
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Again, we're not discussing your campaign, my campaign, Nom's campaign or anyone else's. We're discussing the rules.
No you're not. You're discussing the philosophy of morality outside the context of any roleplaying game. You are not discussing D&D. It's fine to debate ethics, just don't pretend you're doing it within the context of D&D rules when there are absolutely zero D&D rules that arbitrate or even loosely cover anything you've been discussing with regard to morality.
This is the entire reason I stepped out of this debate earlier. I discuss philosophy on philosophy forums. This is a D&D forum. I stepped out because you're not discussing D&D. One bit.
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5 years ago ::
Jul 05, 2008 - 5:45AM
#210
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I use the old nine alignments, because otherwise the great wheel cosmology wouldn't make any sense. I think the problem with the old alignments were classes like the paladin, monk, bard an barbarian which had alignment restrictions.
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