Alignment?

To me, the overall design and intent of the game is to defeat the evil that the temple represents. There a lot of ways to play the game and the party alignment is an important factor. If you want to be chaotic neutral and just hack and slash, you can do that too. You can play an evil alignment if you want. People kill Fruella to get her clever. They either kill or allow to be killed Prince Thommel so they can get Fragrach. Normally, if you attack another pary member, it brings the wrath of the whole party on you. If you kill a citizen of Hommlet, or Nulb, especially Grud, the whole town turns on you. I don't see the logic in some of this stuff, but everyone can play however they wish. I play good alignment and hold true to it. I sell Daggers of Venom, I'm careful not to harm innocent people or natural animals, unless they attack. If your're going to play an alignment, then be true to it and act accordingly.

 

George, I think that what you wrote is a side of videogame+RPGs that is especially true on D&D, where a player may really choose how to play. It is not the same in Ultima, Wizardry or other famous games.
From that side , ToEE offers a deal to the players, since it allows to set the party allignment from the beginning but it is not a variable that is really used in the game.
Accoring to this, a party should get more XPs accordingly about how it ends a quest.
I mean, a true neutral party should act to bring equilibrium, ignoring most of the sub-quests, but it makes the player to miss XPs and important magic items. Other parties instead should get more or less XPs accordingly about how they end up a quest. A Lawful neutral party is still good-oriented but should take different ways to end quests than a chaotic-good one. I know it is too complicated, but theorically, a chaotic-evil party should noy go and talk quietly with everybody in Homelet, helping people and being good, but it still may act like that.
Nonsense or just time limits for programmers?

 

Lawful Neutral is not good oriented

I do not think that lawful neutral characters are also good oriented. If they were then they would be lawful good. Lawful Neutral hold that the law is important but because of their neutrality do not favour laws that are deemed Good over laws that are deemed Evil. Instead they favour a balance, a Lawful balance. If they did favour Good laws then they would have compromised their neutrality, and drifted across to being Good, Lawful Good. Occasionally drifting over to Lawful Goodness is acceptible (accompanied by occasional drifting over to Lawful Evilness) but drifting to Lawful Goodness too many times (without similar driftings to LE) causes the LG drift to become the new alignment. This was so in the first AD&D game, and I think it still holds true even now.

 

The "balance" aspect of neutral is only a variation in the new rules, rather than the default. Very few neutral characters actively try to preserve balance. Most neutral characters are generally apathetic and generally prefer good over evil because good is less likely to cause them harm, but don't actually promote "goodness".

As an example, three people see a person being mugged. The good person would try to help the person being mugged, the neutral person would say "Not my problem" and keep walking and the evil person would do whatever was most advantageous to himself at the time.

A lawful neutral character believes in order over chaos and cares little about good vs. evil. He prefer things to be ordered and organized and adheres to the law because laws are what keep societies from devolving into chaos.

There's actually a couple articles about alignment up on the WotC website:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sg/20050325a

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sg/20050318a

 

That's the point. Law is generally (but not always) something seen positive, that's why I think that a Lawful neutral character will act positively, making more good than evil acts. More, Lawful PC/NPCs may be seen like persons that strongly belive in their ideals and/or in honor and, even if they are less good than any good PC/PNC, they are still acting positively, looking at order, justice and a logic balancement. And I think that a smart and powerful L.N. in some situations would be able to be even more good than a neutral good character because the L.N. isn't costricted by any morality toward good and bad and would be able to take hard decisions, like sacrificing the lives of few to save the lives of many, when a good character would never accept such compromises.

 

I think a corrupt police department would be more lawful evil, or even straying from lawful completely (since corruption implies illegal activities.) And complete lack of concern for others is evil. A lawful neutral character would adhere to the letter of the law, regardless of circumstance (For anyone familiar with the novel/play "Les Miserables" the Constable Javert is a perfect example of a lawful neutral character.) but would not be actively maliscious.

 

Thanks.

Maintaining order, sure. Once their own agenda starts entering into it, though, you start straying into the territory of one of the other alignments, depending on their agenda and how they go about it.

I'd actually consider terrorists to be chaotic, as the whole point of their activities (beyond whatever their final goal is) is to create chaos. A lawful person would either work from within the system and/or with a clear, organized methodology to achieve their goals.

Lawful evil is more totalitarian rule and behaving amorally in the pursuit of order and maintaing the status quo.

Of course, people have been debating what alignments mean since the game was first published. Everyone has a different view.

 

allignments are like colors that tends to mix each other, they have no foxed edges, o everything is true and fake. more, we must consider a pc's int & wis too.
anyway, i love to consider lawful evil pcs like the ones tha are ready for every evil action in the name of a supetrior order and global wealth
arles from saint seya is juast a name that fits the LE allignment 4 me.
cya

 

The good thing about the alignment system is it lets a player be whatever they want. You want to play a CN dwarf barbarian, that's cool. I just get the feeling that alignment isn't an issue for a lot of players. I wont play a paladin or LG because of all the restrictions. I like CG and NG. They seem to work okay and if you "stray" somewhat, oh well, don't get caught. I'm sure the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Defense would like much stricter laws and violate peoples basic civil rights in the name of security. What alignment are they?l

 

well my 2 cents is i look at lawful as a person that thinks of the group or society when they plan anything, weather it be good, evil or inbetween. chaos as a person that thinks of the indiviual over the group.

i like neutral and chaotic good cause they are closer to myself lol. my charcters will do anything to help others, especially if we get something out of it, including breaking the rules . sounds like most people out there dont it lol.

the idea of getting bonus XP's from completing a sub-quest while staying within your alignment sounds cool, if it can be done.

 

You can do things in the game that a pnp DM wouldn't allow, or there would be some kind of penalty/punishment, etc. Part of my problem is I expect the game to follow like a DM game and it does not. It can"t by design and never will. I have to get out of my 1st edition mindset and get with the computer program. I was going to buy the latest DMG, 3.5? but i've changed my mind.

 

I'm not even going to touch the political question on the grounds that nothing starts a flame war faster than discussing politics or religion.

The problem is it's very hard to monitor player activity in a video game to make sure their staying true to their alignment. You can put in specific triggers for specific actions (such as the events that cause a paladin to fall) but it's a time consuming process and doesn't take into account player intent and of course there's always going to be things the programmers miss.