I hate harpers and druids.

[Yorick]

Hey angry lil' f---, you're way out of line bro. For starters who cares if a wrong idiom is used.

Secondly this is a game. The alignments exist to make an attempt at clarifying the varied personas and belief systems around, into a workable context for roleplaying. There are 'neutral' religeons such as Buddhism which maintain as close to a neutral stance as could be defined in gaming terms.

To attack the alignments is to attack D&D without offering a better solution yourself. It's easy to slag off the designers work and others responses to your (lack of) argument, and far more difficult to propose an alternative. The universes creator has made an impossibly complex reality that we can only failingly replicate in any game. So back off man.

Thirdly, cities are NOT part of the balance of nature, they are recently constructed desecrators of the environment - a fact which should be obvious to anyone who walks through a smog filled city trying to get clear air. To propose a city/nature balance is ludicrous in the extreme. City destroys nature but nature doesn't destroy city.

Finally the alignments represent a belief system, a life code. As humans are faliable beings, inclined at various stages to ignore or contradict that code, of course there will be instances of failure, and an impossibilty to completely adhere to it. There is an attempted acknowledgement of that in the game by having FALLEN Paladins and Rangers.

Remember that (as I wrote in a previous thread) if Ultimate Good = putting others needs ahead of your own (eg. a Mother Theresa type person) and Ultimate Evil = completing own agenda at the expense of others (eg. A genocidal Dictator) then it would be impossible for a truly good character to complete Baldurs Gate at all, due to the 'necessity' of destroying human life.

Enjoy the GAME lil'man. I do.

[Yorick]

Sorry for calling you a f--- angry lil'man.
Your pseudo is just asking for substitutions though. Maybe you should get a name - 'cause I for one couldn't help myself (sob).
Sorry if I offend mate.
Yorick

[Memnoch]

Can't believe i missed this.

Firstly harpers. Not all harpers are neutral. Elminster is chaotic good. in fact quite a few harpers are of good alignment (Storm Silverhand, Arilyn Moonblade, Danilo Thann). As Armisael said Harpers are meddlers, they seek to proactively affect the balance, usually to slide it back towards good. If you read your manual it will describe the Harpers as a secret organization for good, NOT for neutrality. In that sense even though their mission is to maintain the balance, they're really a force for good in the realms making sure the balance is tilting towards good.

True neutrality. To me true neutrals would not stay out of a conflict, but rather proactively help the underdog so to speak, be that good, evil, law or chaos. This should not be confused with the goals of the harpers as i stated above which is why they keep pestering the hell out of you. Also remember that this game has a storyline and a romance with Jaheira which the harpers play a role in. In terms of the BG2 story you could explain that Jahiera's siding with you against the Harpers could be her coming to your aid - the underdog against this group that is hounding you. Or maybe she just loves you, who knows?

yeah, when i was typing up there, the thought that, "you shouldnt be saying this - everyone's gonna come down on you cause u arent attacking a simple little ideology, u're attacking the entire system and u shouldnt be doing that" kept going thru my head
but of course, i rarely listen to my conscience, and i dropped myself into a big pile of shit
i think i would have to be a barbarian - berserker rages without thought, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse

[Yorick]

No worries da chilla. The 'shit' didn't stick to you.

[Bahamut]

Neutrals will help people who are in need, and if it benefits them and the common people. There is no good or bad, just people benfiting from one another. Thats the balance. Everything toward neutralit and balance always refer to goo danyway, so what right? As long as neutrals think it is for the betterment of themselves and the common people.

[Yorick]

Hey angry lil'man or Worm or whatever your name is,
One other note - I'd ignored the star wars responses but just read them. You're wrong about the Force.

Lucas' Force IS meant to be all things. Everything. It's a philosophy based on neo-Hindu pantheism.

How you could have missed that is beyond me. What else would the Force be? Magic? (LOL) Go watch the film again, and read up on religious philosophy before ripping into peoples arguments without substanciation.

Note: I'm doing my best to maintain the precedent of friendly banter for so long enjoyed by this board (smiles).

Sorry, I missed that read some of the times during my posts some of em are REAL late and qui gon said balance to the force not to the universe regardless of what he meant(Slap me if i'm wrong). Another thing It was suppose to be Angry Little Halfling but it wouldn't fit. And I didn't think I was out of line I didn't insult anyone did I? And if I did I'm sorry I just wanted to hear more about the harpers.

[Zoratorak]

no offense taken ... (for me)
=)

[Zoratorak]

errr... sorry i think its
"none taken" ...(but that doesnt sound right... oh heck you get my drift dont ya??)

ps: its nice to have one good argument once in a while