Absolutely true. All the guide illustrates is that you can always find a half-baked excuse for any in-game action and should never feel compelled to leave the good loot lie based on what your alignment might happen to be.
If you want to play a game without entering (locked) homes, opening containers or using party invitations that weren't meant for you, then by all means feel free to invent a reason why. "I'm lawful/good" is about the poorest one there is, and "I'm a murderer looking to cause trouble wherever I go but my insight is so low I don't see how there can even be empty space inside closed homes, chests and the like, let alone that I can get at it" is nothing short of brilliant.

I very much agree and this is precisely my point.
People tend to always ask "How can {insert alignement here} do {insert action here}?"
This is completely wrong. People of all alignements can do almost all actions, if you roleplay it right. Your reason for doing an action should be "because my NPC is/did/feels/thinks..." rather than "because my NPC's alignement is..."

I sense an ages old debate coming to life, once again... ;)

Me again. I've been reading some replies, and I have some thoughts.

I came to the BG saga after nearly a lifetime of PnP D&D. In that medium; you'd be hard pressed to convince an average DM that "I break into every house in the town/city and loot all their belongings" would be an action a good aligned character would take - without reprocussions.

So, in the context of the game, the "would XX - aligned character take XX action" would be a serious issue. Well, as serious as pretending to be a sword and sorcery protagonist can be taken.

Now, in the BG saga; there are some things that characters with "good" printed on their stats page should feel free to take. I'd never do it in PnP (to say nothing of real life) but the designers actually meant you to; so I just go with it and pretend there's an excuse.

Or make one up.

Or find one.

Now, a Paladin might consider all these reckless adventuring parties to be a serious threat to the people of the sword coast, and the chance meeting a Helm-sent opportunity to make the local population all the safer.

Or the CE Fighter might return the dead kitty to the girl because, hey, reputation makes stuff cheaper. :D

Not accepting party invitations? Dost I detect a critique? :D Should I respond with "well, saving the two surviving dukes - who are in obvious mortal danger by the way - is an easily justified action by a good aligned party;" or are we just having fun? :D

When I pretend to be a good guy in a fantasy game, I kind of like to pretend to be a GOOD good guy. That's just me.

And it IS true that quite a few of the quests in the city of Baldur's gate require breaking and entery, theft, and the like. Unlike the sequal; it can be rather difficult to get anywhere near the EXP cap unless you do at least some of them.

So.

My NG Fighter had a divine madate (from the designers) to loot certain helms, rings, cloaks, and books.

It's just that it struck me this time around as a bit goofy in terms of game design. BG2 is a bit more forgiving in this regard; your Paladin CAN skip the seedier quests AND still come out with a decent set of cash, EXP, and items.

PS In response to an earlier post, I did have a specific character in mind. It was a fighter I later kitted to a Kensai; and I had a kind of "wondering, do-gooder ronin" concept for said character. Hardly the "kick down the door; kill them and take their stuff" type; but by chapter 5 I wanted to have my 161k! Babysitting low level characters is such a chore; and I wanted the payoff in full.

Besides I figured if my "kensai" can wear full plate until level 8, he can forgive himself a bit of divine knowledge; suddenly and mystically knowing that smashing in this particular door was the right thing to do.

I just finished ToB with this character, and kicking in those doors was the oddest 40k experience he ever earned... . :D Maybe it was a by-product of counsole RPGs where you could loot with impunity? I don't know. Those in the cowls don't even know. Why don't I know?

Sorry; wrong game. :D

[ 12-30-2006, 06:31 AM: Message edited by: Mahokenshi ]