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Aberrant: Ba'alt - Re: Alignments


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I thought I would place this here for...well simply because I am a child of the Weaver and like to classify and quantify everything. style_emoticons

Lawful good

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1. Always keeps his word.

2. Never lies

3. Never attack, harm or kill an innocent foe

4. Never harm an innocent

5. Never torture for any reason. Will not allow torture.

6. Always helps others.

7. Always work within the law.

8. Respects honor, self-discipline, authority and law.

9. Works well within a group

10. Never take 'dirty money' or items

11. Never betray a friend. Ever. For ANY reason.

Neutral good

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1. Always keeps his word.

2. Is VERY unlikely to lie, expept perhaps to an evil person.

3. Never attack or kill an unarmed foe

4. Never harm an innocent

5. Never tortures for any reason. Is very unlikely to allow torture for any reason.

6. Never kill for pleasure

7. Always tries to help others.

8. Works well in groups

9. Never take dirty money or items

10. Never betray a friend.

Chaotic good

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1. Keeps his word to any other good person.

2. Lies only to neutral or evil people.

3. Never attack or kill an unarmed foe

4. Never harm an innocent

5. Never torture for pleasure or information. Threats may be permissible.

6. Never kill for pleasure

7. Always tries to help others

8. Distrusts authority.

9. Works well in groups, but dislikes confining rules and 'red tape'

10. Never take dirty money or items

11. Never betray a friend.

Lawful Neutral

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1. Keep his word of honor

2. Lie and cheat only if very necessary

3. Never attack or harm an unarmed foe.

4. Never harm an innocent

5. Does not use torture unless ABSOLUTELY necessary. (Never for pleasure)

6. Never kill for pleasure

7. Usually helps those in need

8. Works in groups well, especially if it suits his needs.

9. Will quite possibly take dirty money

10. Never betrays a friend

11. Has a high reguard for life and personal freedom

Chaotic Neutral

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1. May keep his word

2. Lies and cheats if he feels it necessary

3. Never kill an unarmed foe, but may knock out or beat up one.

4. Never kill an innocent but may harm or kidnap

5. Will use torture to extract information but not for pleasure

6. Seldom kills for pleasure

7. Is not likely to help someone without an alterior motive. (Even if its just

showing off!)

8. Has little respect for authority

9. Does not work well within groups - tends to do as he pleases, despite orders

to the contrary.

10. Will usually take dirty money or items

11. Is very unlikely to betray a friend.

Lawful Evil

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1. Always keeps his word of honor

2. Lies and cheats those not worthy of his respect

3. May or may not kill an unarmed foe

4. Never kill an innocent but will harm, harass or kidnap

5. Never torture for pleasure but will to extract information

6. Never kills for pleasure - always has a reason

7. May or may not help someone in need

8. Respects honor and self-discipline. Has no time for the law

9. Will work with others to attain his goals.

10. May take dirty money

11. Never betray a friend.

Neutral Evil

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1. Will not necessarily keep his word to anyone

2. Lies and cheats indiscriminately

3. Will happily kill an unarmed foe

4. Will harm and use an innocent, killing if necessary

5. Uses torture to extract information. (And enjoys it! May torture for pleasure)

6. May kill for sheer pleasure

7. Feels no compulsion to help others without some sort of tangible reward

8. Works with others if it will help achieve his personal goals

9. Will take dirty money etc without hesitation

10. Will betray a friend if it serves his needs.

11. Has little respect for others lives.

Chaotic Evil

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1. Rarely keeps his word. Has no honor

2. Lie and cheat anyone

3. Most certainly attack and kill an unarmed foe (those are the best kind!)

4. Will hurt and/or kill an innocent without a second thought. (or for pleasure)

5. Uses torture to extract information and pleasure

6. Will kill for sheer pleasure

7. Is likely to help someone only on a whim

8. Despises honor and authority and self-discipline. Views them as weaknesses

9. Does not work well in a group. Constantly vying for power and/or command

10. Will always take dirty money etc

11. Will betray a friend. After all, you can always get another friend.

12. Associates mostly with other evil alignments.

Being True Neutral

Law, Neutrality and Chaos

True Neutral is a hard route to take and thus requires a bit more explanation.

Attitudes towards order and chaos are divided into three opposing beliefs. Picture these beliefs as the three points of a triangle, all pulling away from each other. The three beliefs are Law, Chaos and Neutrality. One of these represents each character's ethos, or ethical beliefs - his understanding of society and relationships.

Neutral people follow those rules they find convenient or obviously necessary. They tend to take a more balanced view of things. They hold that for every force in the universe, there is an opposite force somewhere. Where there is lawfulness, there is also chaos; where there is neutrality, there is also partisanship. The same is true of good and evil, life and death. What is important is that all these forces remain in balance with each other. If one factor becomes ascendant over its opposite, the universe becomes unbalanced. If enough of these polarities go out of balance, the fabric of reality could pull itself apart. For example, if death became ascendant over life, the universe would become a barren wasteland.

Philosophers of neutrality not only presuppose the existence of opposites, but they also theorize that the universe would vanish should one opposite completely destroy the other (since nothing can exist without its opposite). Fortunately for these philosophers (and all sentient life), the universe seems to be efficient at regulating itself. Only when a powerful, unbalancing force appears (which almost never happens) need the defenders of neutrality become seriously concerned.

Good, Neutrality, and Evil

Like law and order, the second set of attitudes is divided into three parts. These parts describe, more or less, a character's moral outlook; they are his internal guideposts to what is right or wrong.

Those with a neutral moral stance often refrain from passing judgement on anything. They do not classify people, things, or events as good or evil; what is, is. In some cases, this is because the creature lacks the capacity to make a moral judgment (animals fall into this category). Few normal creatures do anything for good or evil reasons. They kill because they are threatened. They sleep where they find shelter. They do not worry about the moral consequences of their actions - their actions are instinctive.

True Neutral

True neutral characters believe in the ultimate balance of forces, and they refuse to see actions as either good or evil. Since the majority of people in the world make judgments, true neutral characters are extremely rare. True neutrals do their best to avoid siding wih forces of either good or evil, law or chaos. It is their duty to see that all of these forces remain in balanced contention.

True neutral characters sometimes find themselves forced into rather peculiar alliances. To a great extent, they are compelled to side with the underdog in any given situation, sometimes changing sides as the previous loser becomes the winner. A true neutral druid might join the local barony to put down a tribe of evil gnolls, only to drop out or switch sides when the gnolls are brought to the brink of destruction. He would seek to prevent either side from becoming too powerful. Clearly, there are very few true neutral characters in the world.

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Evahl! I know those quotes! They're from PALLADIUM!

The Curse of Simbieda upon thee! Mayest thou be sentenced to purchasing EVERY SINGLE RIFTS BOOK EVER RELEASED!

Yes! INCLUDING the Tolkeen Wars series!

AAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!

...

Anyway.

Allison's neutral good.

Whisper is likely chaotic neutral by your standards there, though a pretty mellow version...and is pretty well socialized.

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The problem I have with these listings is they seem to increase "evilness" as you go down. Compare Lawful Evil to Chaotic Good.

Good is Good. Lawful is Lawful. They are not related. Lawful is how much organization you have and authority you give/follow.

LE: May or may not kill an unarmed foe.

Bullshit. He's Evil. He will if he thinks it's worthwhile or if he has orders to do so.

LE: Respects honor and self-discipline. Has no time for the law

Bullshit again. He's Lawful. You can't have organization without the law, and Lawful Evil is all about having an org chart and taking/giving orders.

Lawful Neutral: Has a high reguard for life and personal freedom

High regard for life is a good thing, he's neutral.

High regard for personal freedom isn't lawful.

For LN, You have laws. They cover all situations. You follow them. That's what is important. Whether they save people or kill them doesn't really matter, those desissions are mostly made above your pay grade. Mostly the laws *do* help people, that's why they were created, but if they do crush the occassional innocent person, that's too bad. The greater good must be served and it's worse to toss the law than to crush the individual.

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Quote:
The problem I have with these listings is they seem to increase "evilness" as you go down. Compare Lawful Evil to Chaotic Good.

Good is Good. Lawful is Lawful. They are not related. Lawful is how much organization you have and authority you give/follow.

LE: May or may not kill an unarmed foe.
Bullshit. He's Evil. He will if he thinks it's worthwhile or if he has orders to do so.

LE: Respects honor and self-discipline. Has no time for the law
Bullshit again. He's Lawful. You can't have organization without the law, and Lawful Evil is all about having an org chart and taking/giving orders.


Yup... even when I played D&D i saw holes in the alignments charts like this. Feel free to cut and paste and edit to your hearts content....

Bottom line is this is simply a guide....I know there are flaws and frankly I jsut wanted to start talking about something....anything....Looks like it worked..
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  • 2 weeks later...

found this article....some examples.... might be fun to look at...

<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Lawful Good

King Arthur - knights, chivalry, loyalty, and round tables

Wyatt Earp - the badge versus the bad guys

Batman - the caped crusader himself

Ghandi - peaceful, lawful protest for change

Sherlock Holmes - except for the opium part, that is, it's elementary

In my games, the lawful good character won't break into the shop, even if the stolen goods are in there.

Neutral Good

Captain Kirk - What Prime Directive?

George Washington - nothing lawful about revolution, until you win it

Conan - whatever it takes

Lone Ranger - same, but he wears white

Zorro - undisciplined but structured in a way

You're a nice, likeable guy who will make his own rules if necessary to obtain an outcome for the overall good.

Chaotic Good

Zeus - a bolt here, a bolt there, but had the Romans' best at heart

Sir Lancelot - love before loyalty

Robin Hood - to heck with the upper class

Spiderman - pretty improbable feats and tangled webs

Harry Callaghan - You feel lucky, punk?

As a chaotic good character, you'll definitely make waves and drive the others batty with your pet peeves and methods. However, remember, you may not plan well or consider consequences.

Lawful Neutral

Mr. Spock - perfectly logical, Captain

Merlin - science has its own law

Nostradamus - it's gonna happen anyway

Soviet Russia - a law unto its own, whether it worked or not

The IRS - It's not personal, but you have to pay us

In a Scorpio game you'll split the treasure evenly every time, no matter who you are.

Neutral

The animal kingdom - purely reactionary, or we like to think so

Napoleon Bonaparte - he was a bit of everything combined, so a lot of it cancelled out

Alexander the Great - where Napoleon learned it all

This is one of the hardest alignments to play accurately. You either combine everything or leave it all out. It's tough to even imagine being this unbiased.

Chaotic Neutral

Henry VIII-didn't believe much, and made up his own lines as he went

Al Capone - wasn't really evil, just really greedy

Andrew Carnegie - the buck was everything, forget who did the work

You'll be the first character to leave the game since you won't have a whole lot of interest in your fellow players.

Lawful Evil

Lucifer - allowed to torment man through whole history of the Church tradition

Darth Vader - the dark side is just that

Ebeneezer Scrooge - took just as much advantage as he could

Klingons - all about honor, but a really twisted kind

The Sheriff of Nottingham - loyal to the wrongful king

Your character has already planned how to end up on top. Law and order aren't always about good, and the appearance of order can camouflage evil intent.

Chaotic Evil

Charles Manson - complete criminal depravity, without rhyme or reason

Caligula - one of the reasons Rome fell

Blackbeard - -supposedly loved to torture for the sake of it

Vlad the Impaler (the real Dracula) - impaled for the sake of it (for the stake of it?)

Bonnie and Clyde - came to the point where they just didn't care and it wasn't about the money any more.

A chaotic evil alignment probably will be killed by his fellow players. There is little sense and virtually no entertainment value to this disordered a character, since a true chaotic evil creature will not join a group to begin with.

Neutral Evil

Adolf Hitler - implemented his own "law" and justified chaos for it

Numerous current dictators - predictably unpredictable<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

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Hmm. My View:

Batman: Neutral Good (often ends up fighting outside the law, but still has lots of respect for it).

Gandhi: Neutral Good (civil disobedience is breaking unjust laws).

Captain Kirk ?Lawful Good. He?s a military commander who takes orders, who definitely follows a chain of command. However, he?s often put into tight situations and often the so called ?Prime Directive? ends up being the ?lesser good?.

Conan ? Chaotic Good. I?ve never gotten the feeling that Conan has any respect for the law at all. Good is what Conon says it is, and he knows it when he sees it.

Lone Ranger ? Mostly Lawful good as he mostly arrests people. Wearing a mask doesn?t make you Neutral.

Zeus: Chaotic Neutral. He?s not into torture, but I see no real evidence that he has anyone?s best interests at heart other than his own.

Al Capone ? A willingness to kill anyone in your way and disregard for the law spells Neutral Evil.

Klingons ? Neutral Evil. Somehow Klingon ?honor? seems to more ?guidelines? than "rules". Much talk, little action unless it's in their interests.

Harry Callaghan ? Lawful Evil. He likes killing people and has no hesitation in doing so, he?s predictable, and even subject to orders (giving and taking them). Put a different way, if the law says he can arrest someone or he can kill them, which do you expect him to do? Granted, he?s also constantly fighting with his superiors over how much authority they have over him, but that?s more a sign of wanting to give orders rather than receive them.

Literature is full of "bad boys" that we like. That doesn't make them good. There are four poles here, not two. If Harry keeps breaking the law, that makes him less Lawful, not more good. What Harry does is kill everyone that the law even slightly says he can, even when there are less bloody ways of doing what he wants.

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Batman - the caped crusader himself

NO way is he lawful good. Vigilantism is against the law....even though Commisioner turns a blind eye.

He isnt neutral either...he holds strong moral positions.

Neither is he chaotic but discerning, methodical and precise....just as the worlds greatest detective should be.

He is also tremendously disciplined to train and live his life at the intense level he does.

There ya have it folks...Batman once again shows how he can defeat any opponent...even Morality Stereotypes!

<a href="http://comics.ign.com/index/features.html?constraint.topic_id.article=722&constraint.return_all=is_true" target="_blank">For more examples of how Batman can beat *anyone*...</a>

style_emoticons

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I'd also like to give a little clarification in what, IMO, is a bit of a mischaracterization of two much-maligned alignment nodes. Neutral, and Chaotic Neutral. These misperceptions arise from the popularity of "second edition" Dungeons and Dragons, where Chaotic Neutral basically meant "You're Insane," and where Neutral meant, "You Uphold the Balance between Polar Opposites with Fanatic Devotion."

Poppycock.

Chaotic Neutral is basically just pure self-interest, along with a tendency to blatantly and habitually violate the laws that apply to you. It can also mean a lack of personal organization or a philosophy embracing "chaos" or "entropy" or "change" as central elements. If Robin Hood is Chaotic Good because he steals from the rich, and then out of compassion gives to the poor...then Chaotic Neutral is similar, only you give to yourself. How many petty crooks fit this description? I'd say most. They're not really out to HURT anyone...if they felt they could get money without causing mayhem, they'd be happy to. This is in contrast to Chaotic Evil, who rampages as he pleases, constantly slaking his desire to demonstrate his power over others in violent ways.

In short, Chaotic Neutral strikes me as the difference between a guy who robs a corner store with a fake painted gun, and a serial killer. smile.gif

Insanity afflicts everyone differently, and their alignment would factor heavily into it. I suppose you COULD if you liked, label someone who was so delusional as to not really interact with reality anymore as chaotic neutral as well...but that's a functional definition based on their behavior...it doesn't really touch the alignment of their beliefs.

Similarly, Neutral, or as it was known in the Auld Days "True" Neutral isn't nearly as uncommon as you might think. In fact, I think a LOT of people fit in this category. True neutrality recognizes the laws, and even follows them...but does so largely because of consequences of breaking them rather than any real dedication to the CONCEPT of laws. They'll break laws when it's convenient to, and when they feel they can get away with it, but don't feel any compulsion to assert their independence over laws with rampant displays of unlawful behavior. Similarly, they won't go out of their way to help a stranger...at least not without expecting some kind of recompense. They value their friends and families, and aren't out to cause any hurt or malice...but neither will they stretch out a hand to save someone not in their circle FROM hurt or malice. They're not good, they're not bad. They're just regular folks, living their lives, not really paying much attention to moral quandries or weighing their actions on scales based on anything other than self-involved pragmatism. That, my buddies, is True Neutral to me. And it's all OVER the place.

That said, a devoted "defender of the balance" IS a viable concept for an entirely different kind of Neutrality. It still works just fine. It's just not the only interpretation of the alignment.

Excelsior!

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Quote:
Batman - the caped crusader himself

NO way is he lawful good. Vigilantism is against the law....even though Commisioner turns a blind eye.

He isnt neutral either...he holds strong moral positions.

Neither is he chaotic but discerning, methodical and precise....just as the worlds greatest detective should be.

He is also tremendously disciplined to train and live his life at the intense level he does.

There ya have it folks...Batman once again shows how he can defeat any opponent...even Morality Stereotypes!

<a href="http://comics.ign.com/index/features.html?constraint.topic_id.article=722&constraint.return_all=is_true" target="_blank">For more examples of how Batman can beat *anyone*...</a>
Holding strong moral positions makes him Good, not Lawful or non-Neutral. If you are worried about Morality then you are good. If you are worried about what the law allows then you are lawful. Agreed with everything else.

When the good demands it he breaks the law. When the law demands it he still doesn't break the good.
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