AlignmentAlignment where the character stands with respect to the struggle between good and evil in the universe. Good and evil is a complex proposition. Both are part of fabric of the universe and a complete victory for one side or the other is impossible. If one is wiped out in a particular area, either good or evil will spontaneously reemerge. The struggle therefore is to limit as much as possible the extent of control held by one side or the other. Good is in its most basic form a respect for life and beauty in the universe. It is built on concepts of trust, friendship, and love. Self sacrifice in order to help others is often an attribute of goodness. A good person need not be perfect or saintly, just generally good in his outlook on life. Evil is the antithesis of good. Evil beings hold life itself to be worthless and meaningless. The only goal of an evil being is enhance his own position at whatever cost to anyone else. They delight in the pain and misery of others. Personal wealth and power is all important. To achieve these ends good must be fought. A neutral alignment with respect to good and evil is not possible. A character must choose to either be on the side of good, or to be on the side of evil. A character may be flawed and may have done bad things in his life, but when it comes down to a choice, he must stand for one side or the other. Many game systems allow a Neutral alignment with respect to good and evil. What is the logic of a Neutral alignment? I can see good. Of course you try to help yourself, but you in general are trying not to harm others in the process. You help out where you can, you try to do the right thing for the most part. You feel bad when things go wrong, you have a conscious If you are evil you try to help yourself without regard to the harm it does others, you might even take please in the pain and suffering of others and in destruction in general. So long as it helps you the consequence don't matter. An evil character might do the right thing if he thought it would help him at the moment, but at other times he will do whatever is best for himself. It has been suggested that neutral is indifferent to good and evil. But if you are a forest guardian and evil creatures are destroying the forest- why would you be indifferent to that? If good farmers were destroying the forest- would you be indifferent to that? I don't think so- so the neutral character cannot be indifferent. In the case of the forest guardian (a.k.a. Druid) he could not be neutral- he oppose the activities of the good farmers- but on the balance the wanton destruction of evil would be worse for him. The other concept of neutral is that they believe there must be a balance between good and evil. Why??? Why must there be a balance, and how could you come up with that concept. If there must be a balance, then there is no logic in not choosing sides. If the character alternately helps good and then helps evil, then he is doing so for his own reasons, and is no different than evil... he is evil. Sure there are shades of gray and some evils are worse than others, but even grays should be on one side or the other, or be shifting from one side to the other. A true Neutral does not seen to me to be a valid, logical, rational, or stable alignment. It is an invention for gamers to let them do bad things once in awhile with essentially good characters. |