Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

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Atlas wrote: Blackguards are supposed to loose their powers if they become good or perform an act that is a major goodly action. Remember the Gods don't care about intentions, only actions and their consequences. Hence the way good and evil are regulated in DnD in an objective manner, and also because this is supposed to be a game based on a pen and paper game session, and not a philosophical debate on the nature of the Universe and objectivity and subjectivity.

DnD has went through many editions and changes since Gary Gygax and the most heavily-discussed topic I ever ran into on this Game were characters discussing philosophy and the nature of the Universe. Perhaps with a blackguard as they are described as the epitome of evillls and as you stated, empowered by deities with Absolute Law but playing Absolute Evil characters like Sauron or Randall Flag off The Stand is no fun to me. Though, there is one guy out there who plays such a monster rather well: Verith Skyrle.

Here is some nice reading from our public section of our external forum put together by our former commander Seraphim Aira-S'efarro when the Order changed from being called the "Servants of the Light" to what it is now "The Order of the Silver Rose".

http://sotl.freeforums.org/good-vs-evil-in-dnd-t14.html

VitalTouch wrote: What I'm trying to say is that there is not ~set~ way of behaving just because you have an alignment, one player's version of LG maybe very different from another's, etc etc

That's not QUITE true. Alignment does not define character, character define alignment.
However, in D&D morality is absolute. Actions you do contribute to your alignment. So alignment is more or less a total sum of all things you have done in the past. Also, evil is a physical force akin to radiation that can change appeearance of the world around you, bring forth undead and outsiders and open portals to abyss.

mireigi wrote: Everyone else can gain and lose points on both axis without any severe penalties.

Incorrect. Many classes are tied to specific alignment, and if you shift too far your character will be unable to bring himself/herself to study that class further. The worst thing that could happen to a warlock is shift to true neutral, for example. Frezerkers, bards and arcane tricksters are supposed to be non-lawful. Druids are supposed to maintain neutrality. Clerics should maintain alignment 1 step from their deity (with exception of true neutral - cleric is not allowed to be true neutral unless he/she serves TN deity). Assassins and Blackguards must be evil.

Atlas wrote: Blackguards are supposed to loose their powers if they become good or perform an act that is a major goodly action.

This is false, mainly because you can be blackguard of neutral (on good-evil axis) god. However, as with paladin, they will lose their power (or worse) if they offend their deity or shift into incompatible alignment.

Assassins don't have to be evil ... see "Avenger" class.

NegInfinity wrote:

mireigi wrote: Everyone else can gain and lose points on both axis without any severe penalties.

Incorrect. Many classes are tied to specific alignment, and if you shift too far your character will be unable to bring himself/herself to study that class further. The worst thing that could happen to a warlock is shift to true neutral, for example. Frezerkers, bards and arcane tricksters are supposed to be non-lawful. Druids are supposed to maintain neutrality. Clerics should maintain alignment 1 step from their deity (with exception of true neutral - cleric is not allowed to be true neutral unless he/she serves TN deity). Assassins and Blackguards must be evil.

Please read what I post instead of making assumptions. I wrote lose points, not change alignment. An Anointed Knight (requires you to be Good), can have 90 points on the Good/Evil axis, lose 10 points and still be perfectly fine, as the alignment is still in the Good segment.

Same with a Druid who must be neutral. They can gain 20 points towards Lawful one day, and then lose 30 points the next day, going towards Chaotic. It doesn't matter since they're still in the Neutral segment.

However, depending on class and what order/religion/faction a character is a part of, the character may have to pay penance for these point shifts. If they don't, then it will usually result in an alignment shift.

A doctor who treats both sides in a fight and somebody who feeds the starving in a war zone are both examples of neutral good characters.

What if the laws of war or standing orders prohibit refusing treatment to enemy soldiers who have been brought in to the hospital as POWs? Is it not, then lawful to treat them?

Likewise, this interpretation says that someone who feeds starving refugees in a war zone engages in a less-than-lawful act. SO, then, if a law existed that said "let the civilians in a combat zone just die", a lawful good character would happily obey it?

Lawful conduct of war is not all about "kill everybody on the other side, military or civilian, and let them all suffer as much as possible". Lawful conduct of war, at least as part of "just war" and medieval law concepts, going up through the present day, would disagree.

Just had to throw this one in there...

DonnieDreams wrote:Just had to throw this one in there...

Reminiscent of some (minority) Catholic doctrines regarding war: Never a positive good, at best only an unavoidable evil. Likewise among the Orthodox, there has been a tradition (not observed in the present day as far as I know) that soldiers who killed in war had to undergo a period of reflection and penitence after the war had ended. After all, even if it was ordered by legitimate authority and necessary, it was still people being killed.

"Is it holy because it pleases the gods or does it please the gods because it's holy?" (Top of my head paraphrase/qoute of Socrates/Plato)


When I Dungeon Master PnP, I insist that alignments are best understood by looking at the deities and their alignments. Like Tyr and Ilmater both being lawful good but quite different still. Examples are countless.

On a side note, ends justifying the means usually just creates a bunch of lawful evil people who actually never truly accomplish their goals.

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bono_bob wrote:"Is it holy because it pleases the gods or does it please the gods because it's holy?" (Top of my head paraphrase/qoute of Socrates/Plato)


When I Dungeon Master PnP, I insist that alignments are best understood by looking at the deities and their alignments. Like Tyr and Ilmater both being lawful good but quite different still. Examples are countless.

Tricky if you're not using a canned campaign.
Even trickier if your campaign runs afoul of players who think they know something but actually have no clue.

For example: Iuppiter, in English called "Jupiter". What kind of alignment would he represent. Many a clueless gamer would look up Zeus in Deities and Demigods and go "HA! EASY! Jupiter is Chaotic Good". They would, of course, be wrong. Even though the Romans formed an identification of the two and appropriated the Greek myths of Zeus for Iuppiter, if you look at how the Romans actually worshiped and invoked him, it is obvious that Iuppiter is LG or LN. Iuppiter is all about law and beneficence. And Mars? Mars isn't Ares. He's not chaotic and not evil. Mars is the god of war for the good of the state, war for the good of Rome, not war and conflict for its own sake.

The alignment system isn't the paramount criterion to ahere to the letter; personality and goals precede. More over, nothing prevents any type of evil saving the realm. Consider for a moment there is bad than there is worse.

Look at Triel, strategies to save the town could of been taken but was impossible due to preservation of "wholesome" principles; playing a game of rock, paper, scissors to vy for the hero seat at the coliseum though the entire process of a town dying slowly to disease!

For example, I might beat someone up in a academy's restroom every thursday night and submerge their head in the toilet despite having no plan to take their lunch money, but that doesn't cancel my intentions of bringing a better standard of living to an impoverished city.

Hitman Hard wrote:For example, I might beat someone up in a academy's restroom every thursday night and submerge their head in the toilet despite having no plan to take their lunch money, but that doesn't cancel my intentions of bringing a better standard of living to an impoverished city.

You also might exterminate all the Jews and Gypsies and turn the Slavs into slave labor from birth (executing any who learn to read), but that doesn't cancel your intentions of bringing a better standard of living to Germany!

Evil: Good ends justify any means.
Good: Evil cannot ever be justified.