I think it was fairly obvious that I meant they are not neutral on the L/C scale if they care about the law.
Yes, but you still can't ignore the good and evil scale.
Given the existence of people who actively wish to subvert and break the law, that being the opposite of those who actively attempt to enforce and follow the law, the scale of lawful to chaotic must include each of those. We know lawful is one end, so chaos must be the other. That puts those who do neither in the middle... Or neutral.
You don't have to actively pursue the extremes just because you belong to them. Most lawful people aren't a part of the law enforcement for example. There's no requirment to "ctively attempt to enforce the law" to be lawful.
And of course you miss the whole thing about "lawful" doesn't have to do strictly with laws.
"A neutral person is someone who believes that there should be some laws or structures."
No, that's a slightly lawful person.
I know I say this on every alignment thread, and I’ve probably already said it on this one, but Lawful has nothing to do with the law. It’s unfortunately named. What it really means is that someone has a specific code they follow, which may or may not involve the law. So neither of these claims are fully correct.
Again, this isn't what the PHB says.
Yes, I've focuses too much on law itself in my examples, but:
"Alignment is a combination of two factors: one identifies morality (good, evil, or neutral), and the other describes attitudes toward society and order (lawful, chaotic, or neutral)."
Society and order. Not a specific code they follow.
Exactly. Not a mention of the word "law". Glad to to see you admit to being wrong. Good fo you!
However, this it's another thing which shows how bad the alignment system is. Few seem to understand it as written, and most seem to conflate it with other aspects of the character's morality, ethics or personality. It's a poorly understood, ill defined blunt instrument which rarely works well, and seems more of a throwback to previous editions to appease the traditionalists than a useful tool to define aspects of a character.
Yeah. This is a problem. Especially when people throw in things like "slightly lawful" which has no basis in the system at all.
I think the point you may be missing is that, while simplified down to 3 values on each axis, both are a continuous scale. Two characters can both be Evil, but one can be more Evil than another. The same goes for Good, Lawful and Chaotic. Neutral, on both axes, is the middle portion, where the character is neither Good nor Evil, or neither Lawful nor Chaotic.
Uhm, no. You are pretty much just repeating my premise. *You* were the one who said that certain alignments *has to* act in a certain way. I pointed out that that is completely wrong. Again, "neutral" in not the same as "uncaring".
Given that scale, you can have 3 lawful people, but one is extremely lawful, one is pretty lawful, and the last is slightly lawful. The first would follow, uphold and enforce the law and defend society and order at all costs. The second will do their utmost, but may let minor things slide if they conflict with other values, and may do minor things which work against society where necessary. The last will try to follow the law, but will break them if they get in the way too much, and will support society while occasionally working against what is best for everyone to achieve something they consider more important.
None of the above is neutral, because they all try to follow the law and support society and order, but they consider that with varying levels of importance within their own value system.
Oh, so now we've moved from "actively attempt to enforce" the law to "try to follow" the law. Quite the difference, wouldn't you agree? But you're still stuck on the faulty premise of "lawful means law".
If you wish to sledgehammer it down even further to say that everyone is either complete, pure evil, absolutely holy and good, or has no inclination whatsoever in either direction,
Why would I allow you to put words in my mouth and validate your strawman arguments?
I'll drop the discussion there. If you believe that everything is that absolute and there are no shades of grey in the system, I believe we are too far apart to ever agree.
Well, if all you have is strawman arguments it might be for the best if you drop the discusson. I completely agree.
Finally, I must point out that you have the most irritating habit of twisting peoples words and then shouting "good for you, admitting you are wrong" when they have done no such thing. This is a childish tactic, which will do nothing but irritate the person you are having speaking to. It looks like cheap point-scoring, and devalues your entire argument. I strongly suggest you re-evaluate your use of this tactic, as you do not come out looking good when using it.
Nice ad hominem. If you feel that it's irritating to be proved wrong or that people disgaree with you, that's on you. Just be aware that those things happen on online discussion fora.
And hey, if you want to backtrack from your previous statements, that's on you. Most mature people have no problem with admitting that they're wrong but if that is difficult for you to do I won't hold it against you.
Given that scale, you can have 3 lawful people, but one is extremely lawful, one is pretty lawful, and the last is slightly lawful. The first would follow, uphold and enforce the law and defend society and order at all costs. The second will do their utmost, but may let minor things slide if they conflict with other values, and may do minor things which work against society where necessary. The last will try to follow the law, but will break them if they get in the way too much, and will support society while occasionally working against what is best for everyone to achieve something they consider more important.
None of the above is neutral, because they all try to follow the law and support society and order, but they consider that with varying levels of importance within their own value system.
I think the line between "slightly lawful" and neutral is pretty thin. The middle of the scale is not a single point of reference, one can be extremely neutral or less so, just like one can be extremely chaotic or lawful or less so. The only difference is neutral characters can lean either way.
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I think it was fairly obvious that I meant they are not neutral on the L/C scale if they care about the law.
Yes, but you still can't ignore the good and evil scale.
Given the existence of people who actively wish to subvert and break the law, that being the opposite of those who actively attempt to enforce and follow the law, the scale of lawful to chaotic must include each of those. We know lawful is one end, so chaos must be the other. That puts those who do neither in the middle... Or neutral.
You don't have to actively pursue the extremes just because you belong to them. Most lawful people aren't a part of the law enforcement for example. There's no requirment to "ctively attempt to enforce the law" to be lawful.
And of course you miss the whole thing about "lawful" doesn't have to do strictly with laws.
"A neutral person is someone who believes that there should be some laws or structures."
No, that's a slightly lawful person.
I know I say this on every alignment thread, and I’ve probably already said it on this one, but Lawful has nothing to do with the law. It’s unfortunately named. What it really means is that someone has a specific code they follow, which may or may not involve the law. So neither of these claims are fully correct.
Again, this isn't what the PHB says.
Yes, I've focuses too much on law itself in my examples, but:
"Alignment is a combination of two factors: one identifies morality (good, evil, or neutral), and the other describes attitudes toward society and order (lawful, chaotic, or neutral)."
Society and order. Not a specific code they follow.
Exactly. Not a mention of the word "law". Glad to to see you admit to being wrong. Good fo you!
However, this it's another thing which shows how bad the alignment system is. Few seem to understand it as written, and most seem to conflate it with other aspects of the character's morality, ethics or personality. It's a poorly understood, ill defined blunt instrument which rarely works well, and seems more of a throwback to previous editions to appease the traditionalists than a useful tool to define aspects of a character.
Yeah. This is a problem. Especially when people throw in things like "slightly lawful" which has no basis in the system at all.
I think the point you may be missing is that, while simplified down to 3 values on each axis, both are a continuous scale. Two characters can both be Evil, but one can be more Evil than another. The same goes for Good, Lawful and Chaotic. Neutral, on both axes, is the middle portion, where the character is neither Good nor Evil, or neither Lawful nor Chaotic.
Uhm, no. You are pretty much just repeating my premise. *You* were the one who said that certain alignments *has to* act in a certain way. I pointed out that that is completely wrong. Again, "neutral" in not the same as "uncaring".
Not at all. I said that, along the scale, the neutral is in the middle, around the "don't care" point. If you don't care about the law, society or order, and will follow or ignore it purely based on what is best for you at the time, you are neutral with respect to law and chaos.
I did not, once, say that a person had to be at the extremes to be lawful or chaotic. I said that those extremes exist, that people at those extremes would act in a certain way, and that neutral was around the half way point between them. This is only common sense, but given the attempts to skew it so that neutral was placed firmly on the lawful side of of that scale, I thought that examining extremes would help to clarify my point. I certainly didn't expect anyone to take my words as meaning that all people must be at the extremes. You may wish to re-read my posts.
Given that scale, you can have 3 lawful people, but one is extremely lawful, one is pretty lawful, and the last is slightly lawful. The first would follow, uphold and enforce the law and defend society and order at all costs. The second will do their utmost, but may let minor things slide if they conflict with other values, and may do minor things which work against society where necessary. The last will try to follow the law, but will break them if they get in the way too much, and will support society while occasionally working against what is best for everyone to achieve something they consider more important.
None of the above is neutral, because they all try to follow the law and support society and order, but they consider that with varying levels of importance within their own value system.
Oh, so now we've moved from "actively attempt to enforce" the law to "try to follow" the law. Quite the difference, wouldn't you agree? But you're still stuck on the faulty premise of "lawful means law".
As it says in the post you have just quoted (as well as at several points in other posts of mine you have replied to), that only applies to the most extreme example of lawful. Here are just a few selected quotes which demonstrate that I am considering a continuous scale, which must include the extremes:
Yes, you need to consider the two extremes. L/C is a scale, with neutral being the central part, and lawful and chaotic being the "ends".
Remember, I'm only discussing the extremes in that.
Given the existence of people who actively wish to subvert and break the law, that being the opposite of those who actively attempt to enforce and follow the law, the scale of lawful to chaotic must include each of those.
Also, I am not stuck on law, if you see I have also mentioned society and order. However, laws and/or rules are a big part of "society and order" in the vast majority of cases, which would make it a very valid point to raise in a discussion of views on society and order.
That said, I will come back to this being another example if how bad the system is. D&D is supposed to be written in natural language. I would be willing to bet a fair amount that, if you went up to a random person on the street and asked what "Lawful" meant, they would speak of following the law.
If you wish to sledgehammer it down even further to say that everyone is either complete, pure evil, absolutely holy and good, or has no inclination whatsoever in either direction,
Why would I allow you to put words in my mouth and validate your strawman arguments?
I'll drop the discussion there. If you believe that everything is that absolute and there are no shades of grey in the system, I believe we are too far apart to ever agree.
Well, if all you have is strawman arguments it might be for the best if you drop the discusson. I completely agree.
Finally, I must point out that you have the most irritating habit of twisting peoples words and then shouting "good for you, admitting you are wrong" when they have done no such thing. This is a childish tactic, which will do nothing but irritate the person you are having speaking to. It looks like cheap point-scoring, and devalues your entire argument. I strongly suggest you re-evaluate your use of this tactic, as you do not come out looking good when using it.
Nice ad hominem. If you feel that it's irritating to be proved wrong or that people disgaree with you, that's on you. Just be aware that those things happen on online discussion fora.
And hey, if you want to backtrack from your previous statements, that's on you. Most mature people have no problem with admitting that they're wrong but if that is difficult for you to do I won't hold it against you.
Now we come back to your infuriating habit of dismissal and twisting.
The comment about absolutes was genuine. If you were arguing that the alignments were absolutes, then I would see no point in continuing the discussion. I was not making an accusation, but that was one possibility I could see in what you were saying and I was pointing out that, if that were the case, I would discontinue the discussion. If it is not, fair enough.
However, given that I have pointed out that I was arguing that the alignment axes were continuous scales which went from one extreme to another, and that neutral was in the middle, can you not see that it was perfectly reasonable to think it possible that someone who was arguing against me was saying that it was not a continuous scale?
I am backtracking from nothing. I am more than happy to admit that I am wrong when this is the case. I will admit that I have concentrated too much on the word Law at certain parts of this discussion, but as Law is very relevant to Society and Order, I don't consider this to be wrong, just less than optimal. The rest of what I have said, I stand behind completely.
Given your comments in this latest post, I do believe you have vastly misunderstood my position. Maybe you missed or misread some of my earlier posts. As communication is a two-way street, I will accept some small share of the blame. Reading my own comments back I struggle to see where the misunderstanding came in, but I apologise if anything I wrote was unclear.
Given that scale, you can have 3 lawful people, but one is extremely lawful, one is pretty lawful, and the last is slightly lawful. The first would follow, uphold and enforce the law and defend society and order at all costs. The second will do their utmost, but may let minor things slide if they conflict with other values, and may do minor things which work against society where necessary. The last will try to follow the law, but will break them if they get in the way too much, and will support society while occasionally working against what is best for everyone to achieve something they consider more important.
None of the above is neutral, because they all try to follow the law and support society and order, but they consider that with varying levels of importance within their own value system.
I think the line between "slightly lawful" and neutral is pretty thin. The middle of the scale is not a single point of reference, one can be extremely neutral or less so, just like one can be extremely chaotic or lawful or less so. The only difference is neutral characters can lean either way.
I would agree. To me, it would come down to intentions. For the slightly lawful, it would always be their preference to do things legally and/or to support society and order. They will go against that, but they would prefer not to. The same for slightly chaotic: They would always prefer to be working against society and the law, will sometimes work with them but would prefer not to. The "true", "extreme" neutral would never give law, society or order any weight in their deliberations. However, you are right that neutral would also include someone who sometimes preferred to uphold the law, and sometimes preferred to subvert society, and in roughly equal measures.
However, this still leaves the guy who genuinely doesn't care whether he breaks or follows the law, helps or subverts society, as a neutral. He will give absolutely no weight to any consideration of society or order in his deliberations, instead judging things on completely separate criteria. He is neutral in regards to society, order and law. This was where my original point began.
Given that scale, you can have 3 lawful people, but one is extremely lawful, one is pretty lawful, and the last is slightly lawful. The first would follow, uphold and enforce the law and defend society and order at all costs. The second will do their utmost, but may let minor things slide if they conflict with other values, and may do minor things which work against society where necessary. The last will try to follow the law, but will break them if they get in the way too much, and will support society while occasionally working against what is best for everyone to achieve something they consider more important.
None of the above is neutral, because they all try to follow the law and support society and order, but they consider that with varying levels of importance within their own value system.
I think the line between "slightly lawful" and neutral is pretty thin. The middle of the scale is not a single point of reference, one can be extremely neutral or less so, just like one can be extremely chaotic or lawful or less so. The only difference is neutral characters can lean either way.
I would agree. To me, it would come down to intentions. For the slightly lawful, it would always be their preference to do things legally and/or to support society and order. They will go against that, but they would prefer not to. The same for slightly chaotic: They would always prefer to be working against society and the law, will sometimes work with them but would prefer not to. The "true", "extreme" neutral would never give law, society or order any weight in their deliberations. However, you are right that neutral would also include someone who sometimes preferred to uphold the law, and sometimes preferred to subvert society, and in roughly equal measures.
However, this still leaves the guy who genuinely doesn't care whether he breaks or follows the law, helps or subverts society, as a neutral. He will give absolutely no weight to any consideration of society or order in his deliberations, instead judging things on completely separate criteria. He is neutral in regards to society, order and law. This was where my original point began.
I disagree here. This sounds like a chaotic individual to me. a Neutral person on the Lawful/Chaotic spectrum would be one who does consider the law, but chooses to bend or break it selectively, rather than never considering it at all, or alternately whose actions hew in both directions on a regular basis. Chaotic does not mean you will break every law by default, it means you don't care or don't consider if what you do breaks the law. a neutral good character would care, but do it anyway in the pursuit of greater good.
For a real life example: If a "good" person working in a grocery store is approached by someone with a voucher for certain foods:
A lawful good person would help them find the foods on the voucher but not allow any substitutions (following the letter of the law)
A neutral good person would help them find the foods on the voucher, but might allow substitutions for better foods of comparable or near-comparable cost (not the letter of the law, but not really outright theft)
A chaotic good person would give them additional or better foods of greater cost without regard to what is on the voucher.
In all cases, the person gets fed, but only the chaotic good individual is acting without regard to the law. The neutral good might be bending the law without truly breaking it, and the lawful good is following the letter of the law to accomplish the same good. the individual receiving the food likely benefits most from the Chaotic good person, but society (or the store) likely benefits most from the Lawful Good person, with the neutral person somewhere in-between.
Given that scale, you can have 3 lawful people, but one is extremely lawful, one is pretty lawful, and the last is slightly lawful. The first would follow, uphold and enforce the law and defend society and order at all costs. The second will do their utmost, but may let minor things slide if they conflict with other values, and may do minor things which work against society where necessary. The last will try to follow the law, but will break them if they get in the way too much, and will support society while occasionally working against what is best for everyone to achieve something they consider more important.
None of the above is neutral, because they all try to follow the law and support society and order, but they consider that with varying levels of importance within their own value system.
I think the line between "slightly lawful" and neutral is pretty thin. The middle of the scale is not a single point of reference, one can be extremely neutral or less so, just like one can be extremely chaotic or lawful or less so. The only difference is neutral characters can lean either way.
I would agree. To me, it would come down to intentions. For the slightly lawful, it would always be their preference to do things legally and/or to support society and order. They will go against that, but they would prefer not to. The same for slightly chaotic: They would always prefer to be working against society and the law, will sometimes work with them but would prefer not to. The "true", "extreme" neutral would never give law, society or order any weight in their deliberations. However, you are right that neutral would also include someone who sometimes preferred to uphold the law, and sometimes preferred to subvert society, and in roughly equal measures.
However, this still leaves the guy who genuinely doesn't care whether he breaks or follows the law, helps or subverts society, as a neutral. He will give absolutely no weight to any consideration of society or order in his deliberations, instead judging things on completely separate criteria. He is neutral in regards to society, order and law. This was where my original point began.
I disagree here. This sounds like a chaotic individual to me. a Neutral person on the Lawful/Chaotic spectrum would be one who does consider the law, but chooses to bend or break it selectively, rather than never considering it at all, or alternately whose actions hew in both directions on a regular basis. Chaotic does not mean you will break every law by default, it means you don't care or don't consider if what you do breaks the law. a neutral good character would care, but do it anyway in the pursuit of greater good.
For a real life example: If a "good" person working in a grocery store is approached by someone with a voucher for certain foods:
A lawful good person would help them find the foods on the voucher but not allow any substitutions (following the letter of the law)
A neutral good person would help them find the foods on the voucher, but might allow substitutions for better foods of comparable or near-comparable cost (not the letter of the law, but not really outright theft)
A chaotic good person would give them additional or better foods of greater cost without regard to what is on the voucher.
In all cases, the person gets fed, but only the chaotic good individual is acting without regard to the law. The neutral good might be bending the law without truly breaking it, and the lawful good is following the letter of the law to accomplish the same good. the individual receiving the food likely benefits most from the Chaotic good person, but society (or the store) likely benefits most from the Lawful Good person, with the neutral person somewhere in-between.
I can understand that point of view, but I feel it is skewed.
The most extreme Lawful will support society, order and law above all else. The absolute extreme of Chaotic will try to subvert society, order and law above all else. This puts someone who doesn't give any thought to society, law or order, or who supports and subverts in equal measure and fervour, right in the middle of those two extremes.
If you accept that middle point is neutral, you end up with a balanced picture, with a block of neutral in the middle, and blocks of lawful and chaos on the left and right.
If, however, you take the guy who doesn't care about society as Chaotic, you end up with more than half of that scale being chaotic, and less than half being divided between lawful and neutral. This doesn't seem right to me, and suggests that more possible behaviours are chaotic.
The other way to deal with it would be to chop off the scale to re-balance it. However, if you do that, the extreme chaotic no longer has any place on the scale, which again seems wrong.
Now, there is a final option: Ignore the ridiculous nature of the alignment system, and focus instead on the motivations and intentions of the characters. Saying a character is Lawful Good has, at best, a vague and ill defined meaning. Saying he considers society and its rules important, but will always value kindness more highly, has a much more relatable and useful meaning in building a character.
A lawful good person would help them find the foods on the voucher but not allow any substitutions (following the letter of the law)
A neutral good person would help them find the foods on the voucher, but might allow substitutions for better foods of comparable or near-comparable cost (not the letter of the law, but not really outright theft)
A chaotic good person would give them additional or better foods of greater cost without regard to what is on the voucher.
A Chaotic Good person would help them find the foods on the voucher, but might suggest substitutions for better foods, pointing out things the Chaotic believes the person could get away with instead of the ones on the voucher.
Anyone of Good Alignment might do more than just help them find the foods on the voucher.
Unless there is a law against it, the Lawful Good might give them additional foods of greater cost without regard to what is on the voucher. Why not? They might just give them money on top of helping them find their stuff.
A Neutral Good might do the exact same thing. They are less concerned with the legality and a little more interested in letting the person choose for themselves, but it comes out the same.
A Chaotic Good might again do the exact same things. They don't care what the law says, they want the person to choose for themselves.
It is even remotely possible for a True Neutral to do the exact same things. True Neutral is by far the most unpredictable Alignment. A True Neutral does not care about anyone other than themselves. Unless there is something in it for them, they do nothing. The most likely scenario is that when asked to help, they simply refuse. A True Neutral with a tendency towards Good might refuse politely, while one tending towards Evil would be nasty about it. One tending towards Lawful might be polite, or pretend they didn't notice the person at all and so that everyone saves face. One tending towards Chaos might also pretend they didn't notice the person, while staring right at them, hoping that this encourages the person to go take care of it themselves or at least go away.
Very little of this applies to player characters. Alignment is just a roleplaying hook. A player character might just cut the person down where they stand and steal the voucher for their own use. I'd be fascinated to hear the justification a Lawful Good player character had for that, but it is not outside the realm of possibility.
Given that scale, you can have 3 lawful people, but one is extremely lawful, one is pretty lawful, and the last is slightly lawful. The first would follow, uphold and enforce the law and defend society and order at all costs. The second will do their utmost, but may let minor things slide if they conflict with other values, and may do minor things which work against society where necessary. The last will try to follow the law, but will break them if they get in the way too much, and will support society while occasionally working against what is best for everyone to achieve something they consider more important.
None of the above is neutral, because they all try to follow the law and support society and order, but they consider that with varying levels of importance within their own value system.
I think the line between "slightly lawful" and neutral is pretty thin. The middle of the scale is not a single point of reference, one can be extremely neutral or less so, just like one can be extremely chaotic or lawful or less so. The only difference is neutral characters can lean either way.
I would agree. To me, it would come down to intentions. For the slightly lawful, it would always be their preference to do things legally and/or to support society and order. They will go against that, but they would prefer not to. The same for slightly chaotic: They would always prefer to be working against society and the law, will sometimes work with them but would prefer not to. The "true", "extreme" neutral would never give law, society or order any weight in their deliberations. However, you are right that neutral would also include someone who sometimes preferred to uphold the law, and sometimes preferred to subvert society, and in roughly equal measures.
However, this still leaves the guy who genuinely doesn't care whether he breaks or follows the law, helps or subverts society, as a neutral. He will give absolutely no weight to any consideration of society or order in his deliberations, instead judging things on completely separate criteria. He is neutral in regards to society, order and law. This was where my original point began.
I disagree here. This sounds like a chaotic individual to me. a Neutral person on the Lawful/Chaotic spectrum would be one who does consider the law, but chooses to bend or break it selectively, rather than never considering it at all, or alternately whose actions hew in both directions on a regular basis. Chaotic does not mean you will break every law by default, it means you don't care or don't consider if what you do breaks the law. a neutral good character would care, but do it anyway in the pursuit of greater good.
For a real life example: If a "good" person working in a grocery store is approached by someone with a voucher for certain foods:
A lawful good person would help them find the foods on the voucher but not allow any substitutions (following the letter of the law)
A neutral good person would help them find the foods on the voucher, but might allow substitutions for better foods of comparable or near-comparable cost (not the letter of the law, but not really outright theft)
A chaotic good person would give them additional or better foods of greater cost without regard to what is on the voucher.
In all cases, the person gets fed, but only the chaotic good individual is acting without regard to the law. The neutral good might be bending the law without truly breaking it, and the lawful good is following the letter of the law to accomplish the same good. the individual receiving the food likely benefits most from the Chaotic good person, but society (or the store) likely benefits most from the Lawful Good person, with the neutral person somewhere in-between.
I can understand that point of view, but I feel it is skewed.
The most extreme Lawful will support society, order and law above all else. The absolute extreme of Chaotic will try to subvert society, order and law above all else. This puts someone who doesn't give any thought to society, law or order, or who supports and subverts in equal measure and fervour, right in the middle of those two extremes.
If you accept that middle point is neutral, you end up with a balanced picture, with a block of neutral in the middle, and blocks of lawful and chaos on the left and right.
If, however, you take the guy who doesn't care about society as Chaotic, you end up with more than half of that scale being chaotic, and less than half being divided between lawful and neutral. This doesn't seem right to me, and suggests that more possible behaviours are chaotic.
The other way to deal with it would be to chop off the scale to re-balance it. However, if you do that, the extreme chaotic no longer has any place on the scale, which again seems wrong.
Now, there is a final option: Ignore the ridiculous nature of the alignment system, and focus instead on the motivations and intentions of the characters. Saying a character is Lawful Good has, at best, a vague and ill defined meaning. Saying he considers society and its rules important, but will always value kindness more highly, has a much more relatable and useful meaning in building a character.
I can see the philosophical argument that apathy (or "not caring" about societal order) is the middle ground between its acceptance (Lawful) or rejection (Chaotic), but my experience is that actions based on apathy to the societal order tend to be as chaotic in their outcomes as the actions of someone who rejects the societal order. I do think, however, that apathy is the middle ground between Good and Evil (at least as how I see good and evil).
I guess our difference is that you see neutrality as the "easy" route and I see it as the "hard" route. to me, acting solely based on outside rules (Lawful) is easy, you don't have to weigh most decisions as they are already made for you. Acting solely based on inside motivations/whims (Chaotic) is also easy, as you don't have to consider the impact of your actions on others. It is the middle ground that is hard, because you have to balance the two, and consider every action you make, and how far you bend (or break) the societal order to do them. A neutral good person is always in conflict between the good they want to do and the laws of the land (where they conflict)
A lawful good person would help them find the foods on the voucher but not allow any substitutions (following the letter of the law)
A neutral good person would help them find the foods on the voucher, but might allow substitutions for better foods of comparable or near-comparable cost (not the letter of the law, but not really outright theft)
A chaotic good person would give them additional or better foods of greater cost without regard to what is on the voucher.
A Chaotic Good person would help them find the foods on the voucher, but might suggest substitutions for better foods, pointing out things the Chaotic believes the person could get away with instead of the ones on the voucher.
Anyone of Good Alignment might do more than just help them find the foods on the voucher.
Unless there is a law against it, the Lawful Good might give them additional foods of greater cost without regard to what is on the voucher. Why not? They might just give them money on top of helping them find their stuff.
A Neutral Good might do the exact same thing. They are less concerned with the legality and a little more interested in letting the person choose for themselves, but it comes out the same.
A Chaotic Good might again do the exact same things. They don't care what the law says, they want the person to choose for themselves.
It is even remotely possible for a True Neutral to do the exact same things. True Neutral is by far the most unpredictable Alignment. A True Neutral does not care about anyone other than themselves. Unless there is something in it for them, they do nothing. The most likely scenario is that when asked to help, they simply refuse. A True Neutral with a tendency towards Good might refuse politely, while one tending towards Evil would be nasty about it. One tending towards Lawful might be polite, or pretend they didn't notice the person at all and so that everyone saves face. One tending towards Chaos might also pretend they didn't notice the person, while staring right at them, hoping that this encourages the person to go take care of it themselves or at least go away.
Very little of this applies to player characters. Alignment is just a roleplaying hook. A player character might just cut the person down where they stand and steal the voucher for their own use. I'd be fascinated to hear the justification a Lawful Good player character had for that, but it is not outside the realm of possibility.
I'll freely admit that real life examples are skewed because as a whole, most people fall in the LG, NG, LN, N category of being. Fewer exist on the CG/LE, and even fewer in the CN, NE, and CE category, so any actions (for most of us) will be skewed towards the numerous ways someone in the 4 main categories might react in that situation (and I agree, it is a poor translation to the actions of PCs, where we typically eschew the small interactions that make up so much of our lives in real life). And even then, there are a variety of ways a person might respond to the situation, all of which might be considered one alignment.
Ultimately, boiling the totality of possible psychologies, motivations, and outlooks into 9 ill-defined categories is going to leave a lot of room for interpretation. Luckily when playing as PCs (or DM'ing NPCs) we only really have to deal with the big moments (do we save the town from the dragon? Do we ignore their plight? Do we wait for it to finish up and loot what's left for our own use?) where the dichotomies are clearer and the fuzzy edges between alignments not as apparent.
I can understand that point of view, but I feel it is skewed.
The most extreme Lawful will support society, order and law above all else. The absolute extreme of Chaotic will try to subvert society, order and law above all else. This puts someone who doesn't give any thought to society, law or order, or who supports and subverts in equal measure and fervour, right in the middle of those two extremes.
If you accept that middle point is neutral, you end up with a balanced picture, with a block of neutral in the middle, and blocks of lawful and chaos on the left and right.
If, however, you take the guy who doesn't care about society as Chaotic, you end up with more than half of that scale being chaotic, and less than half being divided between lawful and neutral. This doesn't seem right to me, and suggests that more possible behaviours are chaotic.
The thing is, a useful alignment model should actually manage to fit a fairly large number of people in each alignment. People who are indifferent to rules are moderately common. People whose attitude towards rules is "I'll follow the rules as long as they don't interfere with something more important" are fairly common, for varying definitions of 'more important'. People who are actively invested in breaking the law are not common. Thus, I define neutral as the broad range of "will follow the rules as long as they don't interfere with something more important", with different weightings of rules representing different degrees of lawful/chaotic.
I can see the philosophical argument that apathy (or "not caring" about societal order) is the middle ground between its acceptance (Lawful) or rejection (Chaotic), but my experience is that actions based on apathy to the societal order tend to be as chaotic in their outcomes as the actions of someone who rejects the societal order. I do think, however, that apathy is the middle ground between Good and Evil (at least as how I see good and evil).
I guess our difference is that you see neutrality as the "easy" route and I see it as the "hard" route. to me, acting solely based on outside rules (Lawful) is easy, you don't have to weigh most decisions as they are already made for you. Acting solely based on inside motivations/whims (Chaotic) is also easy, as you don't have to consider the impact of your actions on others. It is the middle ground that is hard, because you have to balance the two, and consider every action you make, and how far you bend (or break) the societal order to do them. A neutral good person is always in conflict between the good they want to do and the laws of the land (where they conflict)
I can see your point of view there, and I can see that a consciously-chosen neutral stance (whereby the character is trying their hardest to be neutral, whether on the L/C scale or G/E) is going to be one of the most difficult paths to follow. That said, I think that most characters would have a natural space they fell into, and following that would be relatively straightforward most of the time. This applies to neutrals as well as the other points on the matrix.
I'm not really sure why I've argued this so hard anyway. I try to avoid the alignment grid wherever possible, because I don't find it very useful. This was my brain going into logical "that doesn't sound right" mode.
However, although the things a person does in most cases describe who they are, it's unclear how many truly different situations a person would have to be in order to be well-defined by their morality, let alone their entire existence.
Again, a character's morality doesn't define them. They define their morality., which is nuanced and can evolve.
It's what the character does that determines his/her/its alignment--not what it describes itself to be.
Good point, a thief can make all kinds of different arguments for stealing, but when it comes down to it it's about: who that person is, their circumstances and the consequences of their actions. The most important factor of those three things is who the person is: Say if what the thief stole was food when they were at the brink starvation, would you blame them then for stealing? What if thief wasn't hungry, rich and could have just bought it? Situations can change who we are, but if the thief stole when he didn't need to, then that's part of who he is; regardless of circumstance thief defines himself, by his own actions, as a thief.
However, although the things a person does in most cases describe who they are, it's unclear how many truly different situations a person would have to be in order to be well-defined by their morality, let alone their entire existence.
I can see the philosophical argument that apathy (or "not caring" about societal order) is the middle ground between its acceptance (Lawful) or rejection (Chaotic), but my experience is that actions based on apathy to the societal order tend to be as chaotic in their outcomes as the actions of someone who rejects the societal order. I do think, however, that apathy is the middle ground between Good and Evil (at least as how I see good and evil).
I guess our difference is that you see neutrality as the "easy" route and I see it as the "hard" route. to me, acting solely based on outside rules (Lawful) is easy, you don't have to weigh most decisions as they are already made for you. Acting solely based on inside motivations/whims (Chaotic) is also easy, as you don't have to consider the impact of your actions on others. It is the middle ground that is hard, because you have to balance the two, and consider every action you make, and how far you bend (or break) the societal order to do them. A neutral good person is always in conflict between the good they want to do and the laws of the land (where they conflict)
I can see your point of view there, and I can see that a consciously-chosen neutral stance (whereby the character is trying their hardest to be neutral, whether on the L/C scale or G/E) is going to be one of the most difficult paths to follow. That said, I think that most characters would have a natural space they fell into, and following that would be relatively straightforward most of the time. This applies to neutrals as well as the other points on the matrix.
I'm not really sure why I've argued this so hard anyway. I try to avoid the alignment grid wherever possible, because I don't find it very useful. This was my brain going into logical "that doesn't sound right" mode.
(R1)-Morality can be subjective depending on how you view morality: if you believe in moral relativism, then you believe that morality is subjective; if you believe in moral absolutism, then you believe morality is objective; if you believe in moral pluralism, then you believe something in between.
*Note: Believing in moral absolutism, sounds pretty lawful, so moral relativism might be the opposite i.e. chaotic; or maybe not believing in anything is truly the most chaotic belief of all. No belief in truth, right or wrong or even reality.
(R2, R3, R4)-Regardless, beliefs do not define a person. According to the Freud's iceberg model of the human mind we can have unconscious desires and beliefs, so it can be tricky to know what someone truly wants or believes in, so the question of morality might have less to do with beliefs and desires and more about mental health and it's lack thereof: Mental Illness can be caused by your inherited traits, prenatal environmental exposures or your brain chemistry. Whatever the cause is, it's an unfulfilled need e.g. hunger, security, esteem, etc.. So becoming a good person, whether that means a healthy personality, moral compass, good intuition or a functional and confident attitude, all comes down to having your needs fulfilled. For some needs, the older you are or the more trauma you've experienced, the harder it is to fulfill them; and when they aren't fulfilled, they become much larger and more difficult problems later on.
Anyhoo, I agree that morals do not define a person. However, the behaviour of a person with a strong moral code (especially an inflexible one) will be heavily influenced by that code.
I certainly do not believe in any absolute reference for morals, either. All morals are subjective, yet another reason I dislike the alignment system used in D&D (particularly in official settings with a strictly defined morality descending from supernatural beings and planned of existence). This muddies the water still further. Even if all players in a group are from the same background, raised with the same belief system etc, it is likely that two players will come across behaviour eventually which one would see as evil and the other not.
Morality is a far more complex concept than can ever come close to being expressed on a 3x3 grid, even taking graduations within that grid into account, and the grid is horrifically ill defined in D&D anyway, IMHO. So, again, I'll stick to defining basic beliefs etc and leave the grid to others.
I think it was fairly obvious that I meant they are not neutral on the L/C scale if they care about the law.
Yes, but you still can't ignore the good and evil scale.
Given the existence of people who actively wish to subvert and break the law, that being the opposite of those who actively attempt to enforce and follow the law, the scale of lawful to chaotic must include each of those. We know lawful is one end, so chaos must be the other. That puts those who do neither in the middle... Or neutral.
You don't have to actively pursue the extremes just because you belong to them. Most lawful people aren't a part of the law enforcement for example. There's no requirment to "ctively attempt to enforce the law" to be lawful.
And of course you miss the whole thing about "lawful" doesn't have to do strictly with laws.
"A neutral person is someone who believes that there should be some laws or structures."
No, that's a slightly lawful person.
I know I say this on every alignment thread, and I’ve probably already said it on this one, but Lawful has nothing to do with the law. It’s unfortunately named. What it really means is that someone has a specific code they follow, which may or may not involve the law. So neither of these claims are fully correct.
Again, this isn't what the PHB says.
Yes, I've focuses too much on law itself in my examples, but:
"Alignment is a combination of two factors: one identifies morality (good, evil, or neutral), and the other describes attitudes toward society and order (lawful, chaotic, or neutral)."
Society and order. Not a specific code they follow.
Exactly. Not a mention of the word "law". Glad to to see you admit to being wrong. Good fo you!
However, this it's another thing which shows how bad the alignment system is. Few seem to understand it as written, and most seem to conflate it with other aspects of the character's morality, ethics or personality. It's a poorly understood, ill defined blunt instrument which rarely works well, and seems more of a throwback to previous editions to appease the traditionalists than a useful tool to define aspects of a character.
Yeah. This is a problem. Especially when people throw in things like "slightly lawful" which has no basis in the system at all.
I think the point you may be missing is that, while simplified down to 3 values on each axis, both are a continuous scale. Two characters can both be Evil, but one can be more Evil than another. The same goes for Good, Lawful and Chaotic. Neutral, on both axes, is the middle portion, where the character is neither Good nor Evil, or neither Lawful nor Chaotic.
Uhm, no. You are pretty much just repeating my premise. *You* were the one who said that certain alignments *has to* act in a certain way. I pointed out that that is completely wrong. Again, "neutral" in not the same as "uncaring".
Not at all. I said that, along the scale, the neutral is in the middle, around the "don't care" point.
No you didn't. You wrote "Again, a person who doesn't care whether they work within the law or not sounds neutral to me. "Don't care" is about as neutral as you can get. That would then put chaotic as someone who actively works against the law." Neutral people can still care.
If you don't care about the law, society or order, and will follow or ignore it purely based on what is best for you at the time, you are neutral with respect to law and chaos.
No, that's more chaotic. Again, you don't have to actively pursue rule of law or actively break every law to be lawful or chaotic.
I did not, once, say that a person had to be at the extremes to be lawful or chaotic. I said that those extremes exist, that people at those extremes would act in a certain way, and that neutral was around the half way point between them. This is only common sense, but given the attempts to skew it so that neutral was placed firmly on the lawful side of of that scale, I thought that examining extremes would help to clarify my point. I certainly didn't expect anyone to take my words as meaning that all people must be at the extremes. You may wish to re-read my posts.
I did, and I quoted you above, as to remind you since you seem to have forgotten. My previous points stand.
Given that scale, you can have 3 lawful people, but one is extremely lawful, one is pretty lawful, and the last is slightly lawful. The first would follow, uphold and enforce the law and defend society and order at all costs. The second will do their utmost, but may let minor things slide if they conflict with other values, and may do minor things which work against society where necessary. The last will try to follow the law, but will break them if they get in the way too much, and will support society while occasionally working against what is best for everyone to achieve something they consider more important.
None of the above is neutral, because they all try to follow the law and support society and order, but they consider that with varying levels of importance within their own value system.
Oh, so now we've moved from "actively attempt to enforce" the law to "try to follow" the law. Quite the difference, wouldn't you agree? But you're still stuck on the faulty premise of "lawful means law".
As it says in the post you have just quoted (as well as at several points in other posts of mine you have replied to), that only applies to the most extreme example of lawful. Here are just a few selected quotes which demonstrate that I am considering a continuous scale, which must include the extremes:
Yes, you need to consider the two extremes. L/C is a scale, with neutral being the central part, and lawful and chaotic being the "ends".
Remember, I'm only discussing the extremes in that.
Given the existence of people who actively wish to subvert and break the law, that being the opposite of those who actively attempt to enforce and follow the law, the scale of lawful to chaotic must include each of those.
Also, I am not stuck on law, if you see I have also mentioned society and order. However, laws and/or rules are a big part of "society and order" in the vast majority of cases, which would make it a very valid point to raise in a discussion of views on society and order.
Well, not really. And you keep on coming back to the law instead of adressing the other points raised. But sure, we agree that there is more to "lawfullness" than just wanting to enforce the laws.
That said, I will come back to this being another example if how bad the system is. D&D is supposed to be written in natural language. I would be willing to bet a fair amount that, if you went up to a random person on the street and asked what "Lawful" meant, they would speak of following the law.
The system isn't neccesarily bad, just badly written. But yes, the 3x3 grid is, as with most things D&D an oversimplification.
If you wish to sledgehammer it down even further to say that everyone is either complete, pure evil, absolutely holy and good, or has no inclination whatsoever in either direction,
Why would I allow you to put words in my mouth and validate your strawman arguments?
I'll drop the discussion there. If you believe that everything is that absolute and there are no shades of grey in the system, I believe we are too far apart to ever agree.
Well, if all you have is strawman arguments it might be for the best if you drop the discusson. I completely agree.
Finally, I must point out that you have the most irritating habit of twisting peoples words and then shouting "good for you, admitting you are wrong" when they have done no such thing. This is a childish tactic, which will do nothing but irritate the person you are having speaking to. It looks like cheap point-scoring, and devalues your entire argument. I strongly suggest you re-evaluate your use of this tactic, as you do not come out looking good when using it.
Nice ad hominem. If you feel that it's irritating to be proved wrong or that people disgaree with you, that's on you. Just be aware that those things happen on online discussion fora.
And hey, if you want to backtrack from your previous statements, that's on you. Most mature people have no problem with admitting that they're wrong but if that is difficult for you to do I won't hold it against you.
Now we come back to your infuriating habit of dismissal and twisting.
If you think not validating strawmen is "dismissal and twisting" that's on you.
The comment about absolutes was genuine. If you were arguing that the alignments were absolutes, then I would see no point in continuing the discussion. I was not making an accusation, but that was one possibility I could see in what you were saying and I was pointing out that, if that were the case, I would discontinue the discussion. If it is not, fair enough.
Well, that is just plain wrong. There were no indications whatsoever that I in any way wanted to "sledgehammer" anything which means that your comment was completely uncalled for and, in fact, a strawman.
However, given that I have pointed out that I was arguing that the alignment axes were continuous scales which went from one extreme to another, and that neutral was in the middle, can you not see that it was perfectly reasonable to think it possible that someone who was arguing against me was saying that it was not a continuous scale?
Of course not. Since i hadn't even implied anything of the case. You are assuming that your opponent has a certain opinion and instead of reading and taking in what that person is actually saying you are making an argument against your won made up belief of what you think that person's opinion is. Or, in short, a strawman argument.
I am backtracking from nothing. I am more than happy to admit that I am wrong when this is the case. I will admit that I have concentrated too much on the word Law at certain parts of this discussion, but as Law is very relevant to Society and Order, I don't consider this to be wrong, just less than optimal. The rest of what I have said, I stand behind completely.
Including your strawmen and ad hominems? Good to know.
Given your comments in this latest post, I do believe you have vastly misunderstood my position. Maybe you missed or misread some of my earlier posts. As communication is a two-way street, I will accept some small share of the blame. Reading my own comments back I struggle to see where the misunderstanding came in, but I apologise if anything I wrote was unclear.
It's not as much as you being unclear as you changing positions constantly. But hey, I appreciate the effort, miniscule as it might be.
I think it was fairly obvious that I meant they are not neutral on the L/C scale if they care about the law.
Yes, but you still can't ignore the good and evil scale.
Given the existence of people who actively wish to subvert and break the law, that being the opposite of those who actively attempt to enforce and follow the law, the scale of lawful to chaotic must include each of those. We know lawful is one end, so chaos must be the other. That puts those who do neither in the middle... Or neutral.
You don't have to actively pursue the extremes just because you belong to them. Most lawful people aren't a part of the law enforcement for example. There's no requirment to "ctively attempt to enforce the law" to be lawful.
And of course you miss the whole thing about "lawful" doesn't have to do strictly with laws.
"A neutral person is someone who believes that there should be some laws or structures."
No, that's a slightly lawful person.
I know I say this on every alignment thread, and I’ve probably already said it on this one, but Lawful has nothing to do with the law. It’s unfortunately named. What it really means is that someone has a specific code they follow, which may or may not involve the law. So neither of these claims are fully correct.
Again, this isn't what the PHB says.
Yes, I've focuses too much on law itself in my examples, but:
"Alignment is a combination of two factors: one identifies morality (good, evil, or neutral), and the other describes attitudes toward society and order (lawful, chaotic, or neutral)."
Society and order. Not a specific code they follow.
Exactly. Not a mention of the word "law". Glad to to see you admit to being wrong. Good fo you!
However, this it's another thing which shows how bad the alignment system is. Few seem to understand it as written, and most seem to conflate it with other aspects of the character's morality, ethics or personality. It's a poorly understood, ill defined blunt instrument which rarely works well, and seems more of a throwback to previous editions to appease the traditionalists than a useful tool to define aspects of a character.
Yeah. This is a problem. Especially when people throw in things like "slightly lawful" which has no basis in the system at all.
I think the point you may be missing is that, while simplified down to 3 values on each axis, both are a continuous scale. Two characters can both be Evil, but one can be more Evil than another. The same goes for Good, Lawful and Chaotic. Neutral, on both axes, is the middle portion, where the character is neither Good nor Evil, or neither Lawful nor Chaotic.
Uhm, no. You are pretty much just repeating my premise. *You* were the one who said that certain alignments *has to* act in a certain way. I pointed out that that is completely wrong. Again, "neutral" in not the same as "uncaring".
Not at all. I said that, along the scale, the neutral is in the middle, around the "don't care" point.
No you didn't. You wrote "Again, a person who doesn't care whether they work within the law or not sounds neutral to me. "Don't care" is about as neutral as you can get. That would then put chaotic as someone who actively works against the law." Neutral people can still care.
If you don't care about the law, society or order, and will follow or ignore it purely based on what is best for you at the time, you are neutral with respect to law and chaos.
No, that's more chaotic. Again, you don't have to actively pursue rule of law or actively break every law to be lawful or chaotic.
I did not, once, say that a person had to be at the extremes to be lawful or chaotic. I said that those extremes exist, that people at those extremes would act in a certain way, and that neutral was around the half way point between them. This is only common sense, but given the attempts to skew it so that neutral was placed firmly on the lawful side of of that scale, I thought that examining extremes would help to clarify my point. I certainly didn't expect anyone to take my words as meaning that all people must be at the extremes. You may wish to re-read my posts.
I did, and I quoted you above, as to remind you since you seem to have forgotten. My previous points stand.
Given that scale, you can have 3 lawful people, but one is extremely lawful, one is pretty lawful, and the last is slightly lawful. The first would follow, uphold and enforce the law and defend society and order at all costs. The second will do their utmost, but may let minor things slide if they conflict with other values, and may do minor things which work against society where necessary. The last will try to follow the law, but will break them if they get in the way too much, and will support society while occasionally working against what is best for everyone to achieve something they consider more important.
None of the above is neutral, because they all try to follow the law and support society and order, but they consider that with varying levels of importance within their own value system.
Oh, so now we've moved from "actively attempt to enforce" the law to "try to follow" the law. Quite the difference, wouldn't you agree? But you're still stuck on the faulty premise of "lawful means law".
As it says in the post you have just quoted (as well as at several points in other posts of mine you have replied to), that only applies to the most extreme example of lawful. Here are just a few selected quotes which demonstrate that I am considering a continuous scale, which must include the extremes:
Yes, you need to consider the two extremes. L/C is a scale, with neutral being the central part, and lawful and chaotic being the "ends".
Remember, I'm only discussing the extremes in that.
Given the existence of people who actively wish to subvert and break the law, that being the opposite of those who actively attempt to enforce and follow the law, the scale of lawful to chaotic must include each of those.
Also, I am not stuck on law, if you see I have also mentioned society and order. However, laws and/or rules are a big part of "society and order" in the vast majority of cases, which would make it a very valid point to raise in a discussion of views on society and order.
Well, not really. And you keep on coming back to the law instead of adressing the other points raised. But sure, we agree that there is more to "lawfullness" than just wanting to enforce the laws.
That said, I will come back to this being another example if how bad the system is. D&D is supposed to be written in natural language. I would be willing to bet a fair amount that, if you went up to a random person on the street and asked what "Lawful" meant, they would speak of following the law.
The system isn't neccesarily bad, just badly written. But yes, the 3x3 grid is, as with most things D&D an oversimplification.
If you wish to sledgehammer it down even further to say that everyone is either complete, pure evil, absolutely holy and good, or has no inclination whatsoever in either direction,
Why would I allow you to put words in my mouth and validate your strawman arguments?
I'll drop the discussion there. If you believe that everything is that absolute and there are no shades of grey in the system, I believe we are too far apart to ever agree.
Well, if all you have is strawman arguments it might be for the best if you drop the discusson. I completely agree.
Finally, I must point out that you have the most irritating habit of twisting peoples words and then shouting "good for you, admitting you are wrong" when they have done no such thing. This is a childish tactic, which will do nothing but irritate the person you are having speaking to. It looks like cheap point-scoring, and devalues your entire argument. I strongly suggest you re-evaluate your use of this tactic, as you do not come out looking good when using it.
Nice ad hominem. If you feel that it's irritating to be proved wrong or that people disgaree with you, that's on you. Just be aware that those things happen on online discussion fora.
And hey, if you want to backtrack from your previous statements, that's on you. Most mature people have no problem with admitting that they're wrong but if that is difficult for you to do I won't hold it against you.
Now we come back to your infuriating habit of dismissal and twisting.
If you think not validating strawmen is "dismissal and twisting" that's on you.
The comment about absolutes was genuine. If you were arguing that the alignments were absolutes, then I would see no point in continuing the discussion. I was not making an accusation, but that was one possibility I could see in what you were saying and I was pointing out that, if that were the case, I would discontinue the discussion. If it is not, fair enough.
Well, that is just plain wrong. There were no indications whatsoever that I in any way wanted to "sledgehammer" anything which means that your comment was completely uncalled for and, in fact, a strawman.
However, given that I have pointed out that I was arguing that the alignment axes were continuous scales which went from one extreme to another, and that neutral was in the middle, can you not see that it was perfectly reasonable to think it possible that someone who was arguing against me was saying that it was not a continuous scale?
Of course not. Since i hadn't even implied anything of the case. You are assuming that your opponent has a certain opinion and instead of reading and taking in what that person is actually saying you are making an argument against your won made up belief of what you think that person's opinion is. Or, in short, a strawman argument.
I am backtracking from nothing. I am more than happy to admit that I am wrong when this is the case. I will admit that I have concentrated too much on the word Law at certain parts of this discussion, but as Law is very relevant to Society and Order, I don't consider this to be wrong, just less than optimal. The rest of what I have said, I stand behind completely.
Including your strawmen and ad hominems? Good to know.
Given your comments in this latest post, I do believe you have vastly misunderstood my position. Maybe you missed or misread some of my earlier posts. As communication is a two-way street, I will accept some small share of the blame. Reading my own comments back I struggle to see where the misunderstanding came in, but I apologise if anything I wrote was unclear.
It's not as much as you being unclear as you changing positions constantly. But hey, I appreciate the effort, miniscule as it might be.
Have a nice one!
OK, you have not reread my posts and you are obviously not going to discuss in good faith. I pretty much expected this to be the case from other discussions with you, but had hoped that I was wrong in this. I can see now that I'll get nowhere with you and you'll continue to ignore or twist my words, and refuse to even consider anything outside your own small-minded views, so I'm done discussing this with you.
For those who actually wish to know my opinion on neutral, not just ignore or twist what I have said to score cheap points, I'm going to leave a final explanation here, then leave the conversation. Remember this is my opinion of where neutral should be, given the basic meaning of the words involved and what I perceive to be logical conclusions. D&D rules may skew this by redefining the words involved (as it often does). However, in doing so, it would just muddy the water further in an already ill-defined system.
The L/C scale is about a person's attitudes to society and order, and a person who does not care one bit about society and order is, by definition, neutral on the subject. This does not mean that if somebody has an opinion they are not neutral, but in that case, the opinion would have to be very close to balanced, with roughly equal weight for and against.
To explain further, let us take a trivial example:
A group of 6 people are discussing which of two restaurants to go to, and Italian or an Indian restaurant.
The first person says "I will eat at the Italian restaurant, no matter what the rest of you decide". This is the extreme end of the scale, with no room for manoeuvre, at the Italian end.
The second person says "I will eat at the Indian restaurant, no matter what the rest of you decide". This is the extreme end of the scale, with no room for manoeuvre, at the Indian end.
The third person says, "I much prefer Italian. If I really must, I'll eat at the Indian, but I really don't want to". This is still in favour of Italian, but not as extreme.
The fourth person says, "I much prefer Indian. If I really must, I'll eat at the Italian, but I really don't want to". This is still in favour of Indian, but not as extreme.
The fifth person says, "I really don't care where we go to eat, I just want to enjoy a meal with my friends". This is clearly Neutral on the subject of which restaurant.
The sixth person says, "Ooooh, I love the Spaghetti Carbonara they do at the Italian. That said, the Rogan Josh at the Indian is amazing, too. The Italian does great wine, but the beer at the Indian is top notch. It's quieter at the Italian, but cheaper at the Indian... They are both great, we can go to either and I'll be happy". This would also be neutral on the subject of which restaurant.
Given all of these, both the person who says "I don't care about society or order, I'll just do what I want regardless of my effect on them" and the one who says "I can see the benefits and downsides of society and order, so I am perfectly happy whether my actions aid or hinder society" are Neutral.
Now, I can see the reasoning behind skewing neutrality in one direction, in the case where you want roughly equal sized groupings and there are more on one end than another. Personally, I find this a complete fudge. That said, I find the entire system a complete fudge and not useful at all except in the absolute simplest of cases, so I don't use it.
The L/C scale is about a person's attitudes to society and order, and a person who does not care one bit about society and order is, by definition, neutral on the subject.
Yeah, that's not the I read it -- I have it as what your relative priorities are for rules vs outcomes. In traditional moral theories, a deontological system defines an action as good if it is in accordance with a specific set of rules, a consequentialist system defines an action as good if it produces a good outcome, and most people are actually some hybrid between those points. I find it convenient to map the first to law, the second to chaos (neutral and evil use a similar distinction but aren't directly concerned with good). This means chaos isn't actually opposed to rules, it just doesn't find them useful.
I think it was fairly obvious that I meant they are not neutral on the L/C scale if they care about the law.
Yes, but you still can't ignore the good and evil scale.
Given the existence of people who actively wish to subvert and break the law, that being the opposite of those who actively attempt to enforce and follow the law, the scale of lawful to chaotic must include each of those. We know lawful is one end, so chaos must be the other. That puts those who do neither in the middle... Or neutral.
You don't have to actively pursue the extremes just because you belong to them. Most lawful people aren't a part of the law enforcement for example. There's no requirment to "ctively attempt to enforce the law" to be lawful.
And of course you miss the whole thing about "lawful" doesn't have to do strictly with laws.
"A neutral person is someone who believes that there should be some laws or structures."
No, that's a slightly lawful person.
I know I say this on every alignment thread, and I’ve probably already said it on this one, but Lawful has nothing to do with the law. It’s unfortunately named. What it really means is that someone has a specific code they follow, which may or may not involve the law. So neither of these claims are fully correct.
Again, this isn't what the PHB says.
Yes, I've focuses too much on law itself in my examples, but:
"Alignment is a combination of two factors: one identifies morality (good, evil, or neutral), and the other describes attitudes toward society and order (lawful, chaotic, or neutral)."
Society and order. Not a specific code they follow.
Exactly. Not a mention of the word "law". Glad to to see you admit to being wrong. Good fo you!
However, this it's another thing which shows how bad the alignment system is. Few seem to understand it as written, and most seem to conflate it with other aspects of the character's morality, ethics or personality. It's a poorly understood, ill defined blunt instrument which rarely works well, and seems more of a throwback to previous editions to appease the traditionalists than a useful tool to define aspects of a character.
Yeah. This is a problem. Especially when people throw in things like "slightly lawful" which has no basis in the system at all.
I think the point you may be missing is that, while simplified down to 3 values on each axis, both are a continuous scale. Two characters can both be Evil, but one can be more Evil than another. The same goes for Good, Lawful and Chaotic. Neutral, on both axes, is the middle portion, where the character is neither Good nor Evil, or neither Lawful nor Chaotic.
Uhm, no. You are pretty much just repeating my premise. *You* were the one who said that certain alignments *has to* act in a certain way. I pointed out that that is completely wrong. Again, "neutral" in not the same as "uncaring".
Not at all. I said that, along the scale, the neutral is in the middle, around the "don't care" point.
No you didn't. You wrote "Again, a person who doesn't care whether they work within the law or not sounds neutral to me. "Don't care" is about as neutral as you can get. That would then put chaotic as someone who actively works against the law." Neutral people can still care.
If you don't care about the law, society or order, and will follow or ignore it purely based on what is best for you at the time, you are neutral with respect to law and chaos.
No, that's more chaotic. Again, you don't have to actively pursue rule of law or actively break every law to be lawful or chaotic.
I did not, once, say that a person had to be at the extremes to be lawful or chaotic. I said that those extremes exist, that people at those extremes would act in a certain way, and that neutral was around the half way point between them. This is only common sense, but given the attempts to skew it so that neutral was placed firmly on the lawful side of of that scale, I thought that examining extremes would help to clarify my point. I certainly didn't expect anyone to take my words as meaning that all people must be at the extremes. You may wish to re-read my posts.
I did, and I quoted you above, as to remind you since you seem to have forgotten. My previous points stand.
Given that scale, you can have 3 lawful people, but one is extremely lawful, one is pretty lawful, and the last is slightly lawful. The first would follow, uphold and enforce the law and defend society and order at all costs. The second will do their utmost, but may let minor things slide if they conflict with other values, and may do minor things which work against society where necessary. The last will try to follow the law, but will break them if they get in the way too much, and will support society while occasionally working against what is best for everyone to achieve something they consider more important.
None of the above is neutral, because they all try to follow the law and support society and order, but they consider that with varying levels of importance within their own value system.
Oh, so now we've moved from "actively attempt to enforce" the law to "try to follow" the law. Quite the difference, wouldn't you agree? But you're still stuck on the faulty premise of "lawful means law".
As it says in the post you have just quoted (as well as at several points in other posts of mine you have replied to), that only applies to the most extreme example of lawful. Here are just a few selected quotes which demonstrate that I am considering a continuous scale, which must include the extremes:
Yes, you need to consider the two extremes. L/C is a scale, with neutral being the central part, and lawful and chaotic being the "ends".
Remember, I'm only discussing the extremes in that.
Given the existence of people who actively wish to subvert and break the law, that being the opposite of those who actively attempt to enforce and follow the law, the scale of lawful to chaotic must include each of those.
Also, I am not stuck on law, if you see I have also mentioned society and order. However, laws and/or rules are a big part of "society and order" in the vast majority of cases, which would make it a very valid point to raise in a discussion of views on society and order.
Well, not really. And you keep on coming back to the law instead of adressing the other points raised. But sure, we agree that there is more to "lawfullness" than just wanting to enforce the laws.
That said, I will come back to this being another example if how bad the system is. D&D is supposed to be written in natural language. I would be willing to bet a fair amount that, if you went up to a random person on the street and asked what "Lawful" meant, they would speak of following the law.
The system isn't neccesarily bad, just badly written. But yes, the 3x3 grid is, as with most things D&D an oversimplification.
If you wish to sledgehammer it down even further to say that everyone is either complete, pure evil, absolutely holy and good, or has no inclination whatsoever in either direction,
Why would I allow you to put words in my mouth and validate your strawman arguments?
I'll drop the discussion there. If you believe that everything is that absolute and there are no shades of grey in the system, I believe we are too far apart to ever agree.
Well, if all you have is strawman arguments it might be for the best if you drop the discusson. I completely agree.
Finally, I must point out that you have the most irritating habit of twisting peoples words and then shouting "good for you, admitting you are wrong" when they have done no such thing. This is a childish tactic, which will do nothing but irritate the person you are having speaking to. It looks like cheap point-scoring, and devalues your entire argument. I strongly suggest you re-evaluate your use of this tactic, as you do not come out looking good when using it.
Nice ad hominem. If you feel that it's irritating to be proved wrong or that people disgaree with you, that's on you. Just be aware that those things happen on online discussion fora.
And hey, if you want to backtrack from your previous statements, that's on you. Most mature people have no problem with admitting that they're wrong but if that is difficult for you to do I won't hold it against you.
Now we come back to your infuriating habit of dismissal and twisting.
If you think not validating strawmen is "dismissal and twisting" that's on you.
The comment about absolutes was genuine. If you were arguing that the alignments were absolutes, then I would see no point in continuing the discussion. I was not making an accusation, but that was one possibility I could see in what you were saying and I was pointing out that, if that were the case, I would discontinue the discussion. If it is not, fair enough.
Well, that is just plain wrong. There were no indications whatsoever that I in any way wanted to "sledgehammer" anything which means that your comment was completely uncalled for and, in fact, a strawman.
However, given that I have pointed out that I was arguing that the alignment axes were continuous scales which went from one extreme to another, and that neutral was in the middle, can you not see that it was perfectly reasonable to think it possible that someone who was arguing against me was saying that it was not a continuous scale?
Of course not. Since i hadn't even implied anything of the case. You are assuming that your opponent has a certain opinion and instead of reading and taking in what that person is actually saying you are making an argument against your won made up belief of what you think that person's opinion is. Or, in short, a strawman argument.
I am backtracking from nothing. I am more than happy to admit that I am wrong when this is the case. I will admit that I have concentrated too much on the word Law at certain parts of this discussion, but as Law is very relevant to Society and Order, I don't consider this to be wrong, just less than optimal. The rest of what I have said, I stand behind completely.
Including your strawmen and ad hominems? Good to know.
Given your comments in this latest post, I do believe you have vastly misunderstood my position. Maybe you missed or misread some of my earlier posts. As communication is a two-way street, I will accept some small share of the blame. Reading my own comments back I struggle to see where the misunderstanding came in, but I apologise if anything I wrote was unclear.
It's not as much as you being unclear as you changing positions constantly. But hey, I appreciate the effort, miniscule as it might be.
Have a nice one!
OK, you have not reread my posts and you are obviously not going to discuss in good faith. I pretty much expected this to be the case from other discussions with you, but had hoped that I was wrong in this. I can see now that I'll get nowhere with you and you'll continue to ignore or twist my words, and refuse to even consider anything outside your own small-minded views, so I'm done discussing this with you.
Well, that is just rude of you. But sure, if you feel that you can't hold a civil conversation without resorting to low blows then perhaps it is best that you leave. I welcome you back any time you feel like you would like to discuss without strawmen or putting words into other people's mouths. Until then, have a good time. Cheers!
Lawful Good: return the child to the mother because that's what the law decided, it will be better for the child to be in a lawful stable situation anyway.
Neutral Good: discuss with the child to ask him what he prefers and take your decision based on this.
Chaotic Good: Let the father keep the child and help them get out of reach of the law, that is the path to happiness, not to be constrained by rules put in place by someone else.
This example is useless if we don't know why the child was kidnapped, why the mother was give custody in the first place, et cetera. Is the mother abusive but bribed the judge to gain custody? Did the father kidnap the child sell it into slavery to be able to pay of his debts that was the cause of him losing custody in the first place?
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Uhm, no. You are pretty much just repeating my premise. *You* were the one who said that certain alignments *has to* act in a certain way. I pointed out that that is completely wrong. Again, "neutral" in not the same as "uncaring".
Oh, so now we've moved from "actively attempt to enforce" the law to "try to follow" the law. Quite the difference, wouldn't you agree? But you're still stuck on the faulty premise of "lawful means law".
Why would I allow you to put words in my mouth and validate your strawman arguments?
Well, if all you have is strawman arguments it might be for the best if you drop the discusson. I completely agree.
Nice ad hominem. If you feel that it's irritating to be proved wrong or that people disgaree with you, that's on you. Just be aware that those things happen on online discussion fora.
And hey, if you want to backtrack from your previous statements, that's on you. Most mature people have no problem with admitting that they're wrong but if that is difficult for you to do I won't hold it against you.
I think the line between "slightly lawful" and neutral is pretty thin. The middle of the scale is not a single point of reference, one can be extremely neutral or less so, just like one can be extremely chaotic or lawful or less so. The only difference is neutral characters can lean either way.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Not at all. I said that, along the scale, the neutral is in the middle, around the "don't care" point. If you don't care about the law, society or order, and will follow or ignore it purely based on what is best for you at the time, you are neutral with respect to law and chaos.
I did not, once, say that a person had to be at the extremes to be lawful or chaotic. I said that those extremes exist, that people at those extremes would act in a certain way, and that neutral was around the half way point between them. This is only common sense, but given the attempts to skew it so that neutral was placed firmly on the lawful side of of that scale, I thought that examining extremes would help to clarify my point. I certainly didn't expect anyone to take my words as meaning that all people must be at the extremes. You may wish to re-read my posts.
As it says in the post you have just quoted (as well as at several points in other posts of mine you have replied to), that only applies to the most extreme example of lawful. Here are just a few selected quotes which demonstrate that I am considering a continuous scale, which must include the extremes:
Also, I am not stuck on law, if you see I have also mentioned society and order. However, laws and/or rules are a big part of "society and order" in the vast majority of cases, which would make it a very valid point to raise in a discussion of views on society and order.
That said, I will come back to this being another example if how bad the system is. D&D is supposed to be written in natural language. I would be willing to bet a fair amount that, if you went up to a random person on the street and asked what "Lawful" meant, they would speak of following the law.
Now we come back to your infuriating habit of dismissal and twisting.
The comment about absolutes was genuine. If you were arguing that the alignments were absolutes, then I would see no point in continuing the discussion. I was not making an accusation, but that was one possibility I could see in what you were saying and I was pointing out that, if that were the case, I would discontinue the discussion. If it is not, fair enough.
However, given that I have pointed out that I was arguing that the alignment axes were continuous scales which went from one extreme to another, and that neutral was in the middle, can you not see that it was perfectly reasonable to think it possible that someone who was arguing against me was saying that it was not a continuous scale?
I am backtracking from nothing. I am more than happy to admit that I am wrong when this is the case. I will admit that I have concentrated too much on the word Law at certain parts of this discussion, but as Law is very relevant to Society and Order, I don't consider this to be wrong, just less than optimal. The rest of what I have said, I stand behind completely.
Given your comments in this latest post, I do believe you have vastly misunderstood my position. Maybe you missed or misread some of my earlier posts. As communication is a two-way street, I will accept some small share of the blame. Reading my own comments back I struggle to see where the misunderstanding came in, but I apologise if anything I wrote was unclear.
I would agree. To me, it would come down to intentions. For the slightly lawful, it would always be their preference to do things legally and/or to support society and order. They will go against that, but they would prefer not to. The same for slightly chaotic: They would always prefer to be working against society and the law, will sometimes work with them but would prefer not to. The "true", "extreme" neutral would never give law, society or order any weight in their deliberations. However, you are right that neutral would also include someone who sometimes preferred to uphold the law, and sometimes preferred to subvert society, and in roughly equal measures.
However, this still leaves the guy who genuinely doesn't care whether he breaks or follows the law, helps or subverts society, as a neutral. He will give absolutely no weight to any consideration of society or order in his deliberations, instead judging things on completely separate criteria. He is neutral in regards to society, order and law. This was where my original point began.
I disagree here. This sounds like a chaotic individual to me. a Neutral person on the Lawful/Chaotic spectrum would be one who does consider the law, but chooses to bend or break it selectively, rather than never considering it at all, or alternately whose actions hew in both directions on a regular basis. Chaotic does not mean you will break every law by default, it means you don't care or don't consider if what you do breaks the law. a neutral good character would care, but do it anyway in the pursuit of greater good.
For a real life example: If a "good" person working in a grocery store is approached by someone with a voucher for certain foods:
In all cases, the person gets fed, but only the chaotic good individual is acting without regard to the law. The neutral good might be bending the law without truly breaking it, and the lawful good is following the letter of the law to accomplish the same good. the individual receiving the food likely benefits most from the Chaotic good person, but society (or the store) likely benefits most from the Lawful Good person, with the neutral person somewhere in-between.
I can understand that point of view, but I feel it is skewed.
The most extreme Lawful will support society, order and law above all else. The absolute extreme of Chaotic will try to subvert society, order and law above all else. This puts someone who doesn't give any thought to society, law or order, or who supports and subverts in equal measure and fervour, right in the middle of those two extremes.
If you accept that middle point is neutral, you end up with a balanced picture, with a block of neutral in the middle, and blocks of lawful and chaos on the left and right.
If, however, you take the guy who doesn't care about society as Chaotic, you end up with more than half of that scale being chaotic, and less than half being divided between lawful and neutral. This doesn't seem right to me, and suggests that more possible behaviours are chaotic.
The other way to deal with it would be to chop off the scale to re-balance it. However, if you do that, the extreme chaotic no longer has any place on the scale, which again seems wrong.
Now, there is a final option: Ignore the ridiculous nature of the alignment system, and focus instead on the motivations and intentions of the characters. Saying a character is Lawful Good has, at best, a vague and ill defined meaning. Saying he considers society and its rules important, but will always value kindness more highly, has a much more relatable and useful meaning in building a character.
A Chaotic Good person would help them find the foods on the voucher, but might suggest substitutions for better foods, pointing out things the Chaotic believes the person could get away with instead of the ones on the voucher.
Anyone of Good Alignment might do more than just help them find the foods on the voucher.
Unless there is a law against it, the Lawful Good might give them additional foods of greater cost without regard to what is on the voucher. Why not? They might just give them money on top of helping them find their stuff.
A Neutral Good might do the exact same thing. They are less concerned with the legality and a little more interested in letting the person choose for themselves, but it comes out the same.
A Chaotic Good might again do the exact same things. They don't care what the law says, they want the person to choose for themselves.
It is even remotely possible for a True Neutral to do the exact same things. True Neutral is by far the most unpredictable Alignment. A True Neutral does not care about anyone other than themselves. Unless there is something in it for them, they do nothing. The most likely scenario is that when asked to help, they simply refuse. A True Neutral with a tendency towards Good might refuse politely, while one tending towards Evil would be nasty about it. One tending towards Lawful might be polite, or pretend they didn't notice the person at all and so that everyone saves face. One tending towards Chaos might also pretend they didn't notice the person, while staring right at them, hoping that this encourages the person to go take care of it themselves or at least go away.
Very little of this applies to player characters. Alignment is just a roleplaying hook. A player character might just cut the person down where they stand and steal the voucher for their own use. I'd be fascinated to hear the justification a Lawful Good player character had for that, but it is not outside the realm of possibility.
<Insert clever signature here>
I can see the philosophical argument that apathy (or "not caring" about societal order) is the middle ground between its acceptance (Lawful) or rejection (Chaotic), but my experience is that actions based on apathy to the societal order tend to be as chaotic in their outcomes as the actions of someone who rejects the societal order. I do think, however, that apathy is the middle ground between Good and Evil (at least as how I see good and evil).
I guess our difference is that you see neutrality as the "easy" route and I see it as the "hard" route. to me, acting solely based on outside rules (Lawful) is easy, you don't have to weigh most decisions as they are already made for you. Acting solely based on inside motivations/whims (Chaotic) is also easy, as you don't have to consider the impact of your actions on others. It is the middle ground that is hard, because you have to balance the two, and consider every action you make, and how far you bend (or break) the societal order to do them. A neutral good person is always in conflict between the good they want to do and the laws of the land (where they conflict)
I'll freely admit that real life examples are skewed because as a whole, most people fall in the LG, NG, LN, N category of being. Fewer exist on the CG/LE, and even fewer in the CN, NE, and CE category, so any actions (for most of us) will be skewed towards the numerous ways someone in the 4 main categories might react in that situation (and I agree, it is a poor translation to the actions of PCs, where we typically eschew the small interactions that make up so much of our lives in real life). And even then, there are a variety of ways a person might respond to the situation, all of which might be considered one alignment.
Ultimately, boiling the totality of possible psychologies, motivations, and outlooks into 9 ill-defined categories is going to leave a lot of room for interpretation. Luckily when playing as PCs (or DM'ing NPCs) we only really have to deal with the big moments (do we save the town from the dragon? Do we ignore their plight? Do we wait for it to finish up and loot what's left for our own use?) where the dichotomies are clearer and the fuzzy edges between alignments not as apparent.
The thing is, a useful alignment model should actually manage to fit a fairly large number of people in each alignment. People who are indifferent to rules are moderately common. People whose attitude towards rules is "I'll follow the rules as long as they don't interfere with something more important" are fairly common, for varying definitions of 'more important'. People who are actively invested in breaking the law are not common. Thus, I define neutral as the broad range of "will follow the rules as long as they don't interfere with something more important", with different weightings of rules representing different degrees of lawful/chaotic.
I can see your point of view there, and I can see that a consciously-chosen neutral stance (whereby the character is trying their hardest to be neutral, whether on the L/C scale or G/E) is going to be one of the most difficult paths to follow. That said, I think that most characters would have a natural space they fell into, and following that would be relatively straightforward most of the time. This applies to neutrals as well as the other points on the matrix.
I'm not really sure why I've argued this so hard anyway. I try to avoid the alignment grid wherever possible, because I don't find it very useful. This was my brain going into logical "that doesn't sound right" mode.
good point, I'm editing this message
(R1)-Morality can be subjective depending on how you view morality: if you believe in moral relativism, then you believe that morality is subjective; if you believe in moral absolutism, then you believe morality is objective; if you believe in moral pluralism, then you believe something in between.
*Note: Believing in moral absolutism, sounds pretty lawful, so moral relativism might be the opposite i.e. chaotic; or maybe not believing in anything is truly the most chaotic belief of all. No belief in truth, right or wrong or even reality.
(R2, R3, R4)-Regardless, beliefs do not define a person. According to the Freud's iceberg model of the human mind we can have unconscious desires and beliefs, so it can be tricky to know what someone truly wants or believes in, so the question of morality might have less to do with beliefs and desires and more about mental health and it's lack thereof: Mental Illness can be caused by your inherited traits, prenatal environmental exposures or your brain chemistry. Whatever the cause is, it's an unfulfilled need e.g. hunger, security, esteem, etc.. So becoming a good person, whether that means a healthy personality, moral compass, good intuition or a functional and confident attitude, all comes down to having your needs fulfilled. For some needs, the older you are or the more trauma you've experienced, the harder it is to fulfill them; and when they aren't fulfilled, they become much larger and more difficult problems later on.
R1: Morality References:
R2: Iceberg Model References:
R3: Mental Illness Reference:
R4: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Ah, Fraud... I mean Freud.
Anyhoo, I agree that morals do not define a person. However, the behaviour of a person with a strong moral code (especially an inflexible one) will be heavily influenced by that code.
I certainly do not believe in any absolute reference for morals, either. All morals are subjective, yet another reason I dislike the alignment system used in D&D (particularly in official settings with a strictly defined morality descending from supernatural beings and planned of existence). This muddies the water still further. Even if all players in a group are from the same background, raised with the same belief system etc, it is likely that two players will come across behaviour eventually which one would see as evil and the other not.
Morality is a far more complex concept than can ever come close to being expressed on a 3x3 grid, even taking graduations within that grid into account, and the grid is horrifically ill defined in D&D anyway, IMHO. So, again, I'll stick to defining basic beliefs etc and leave the grid to others.
No you didn't. You wrote "Again, a person who doesn't care whether they work within the law or not sounds neutral to me. "Don't care" is about as neutral as you can get. That would then put chaotic as someone who actively works against the law." Neutral people can still care.
No, that's more chaotic. Again, you don't have to actively pursue rule of law or actively break every law to be lawful or chaotic.
I did, and I quoted you above, as to remind you since you seem to have forgotten. My previous points stand.
Well, not really. And you keep on coming back to the law instead of adressing the other points raised. But sure, we agree that there is more to "lawfullness" than just wanting to enforce the laws.
The system isn't neccesarily bad, just badly written. But yes, the 3x3 grid is, as with most things D&D an oversimplification.
If you think not validating strawmen is "dismissal and twisting" that's on you.
Well, that is just plain wrong. There were no indications whatsoever that I in any way wanted to "sledgehammer" anything which means that your comment was completely uncalled for and, in fact, a strawman.
Including your strawmen and ad hominems? Good to know.
It's not as much as you being unclear as you changing positions constantly. But hey, I appreciate the effort, miniscule as it might be.
Have a nice one!
OK, you have not reread my posts and you are obviously not going to discuss in good faith. I pretty much expected this to be the case from other discussions with you, but had hoped that I was wrong in this. I can see now that I'll get nowhere with you and you'll continue to ignore or twist my words, and refuse to even consider anything outside your own small-minded views, so I'm done discussing this with you.
For those who actually wish to know my opinion on neutral, not just ignore or twist what I have said to score cheap points, I'm going to leave a final explanation here, then leave the conversation. Remember this is my opinion of where neutral should be, given the basic meaning of the words involved and what I perceive to be logical conclusions. D&D rules may skew this by redefining the words involved (as it often does). However, in doing so, it would just muddy the water further in an already ill-defined system.
The L/C scale is about a person's attitudes to society and order, and a person who does not care one bit about society and order is, by definition, neutral on the subject. This does not mean that if somebody has an opinion they are not neutral, but in that case, the opinion would have to be very close to balanced, with roughly equal weight for and against.
To explain further, let us take a trivial example:
Given all of these, both the person who says "I don't care about society or order, I'll just do what I want regardless of my effect on them" and the one who says "I can see the benefits and downsides of society and order, so I am perfectly happy whether my actions aid or hinder society" are Neutral.
Now, I can see the reasoning behind skewing neutrality in one direction, in the case where you want roughly equal sized groupings and there are more on one end than another. Personally, I find this a complete fudge. That said, I find the entire system a complete fudge and not useful at all except in the absolute simplest of cases, so I don't use it.
Yeah, that's not the I read it -- I have it as what your relative priorities are for rules vs outcomes. In traditional moral theories, a deontological system defines an action as good if it is in accordance with a specific set of rules, a consequentialist system defines an action as good if it produces a good outcome, and most people are actually some hybrid between those points. I find it convenient to map the first to law, the second to chaos (neutral and evil use a similar distinction but aren't directly concerned with good). This means chaos isn't actually opposed to rules, it just doesn't find them useful.
Well, that is just rude of you. But sure, if you feel that you can't hold a civil conversation without resorting to low blows then perhaps it is best that you leave. I welcome you back any time you feel like you would like to discuss without strawmen or putting words into other people's mouths. Until then, have a good time. Cheers!
This example is useless if we don't know why the child was kidnapped, why the mother was give custody in the first place, et cetera. Is the mother abusive but bribed the judge to gain custody? Did the father kidnap the child sell it into slavery to be able to pay of his debts that was the cause of him losing custody in the first place?