Roleplaying/Alignment Dilemmas

[Cerek]

There have been many discussions about specific encounters and how there are some situations where a player must either go against their chosen roleplaying personality/alignment or forfeit a huge amount of experience. Naturally, these discussions prompt others to either find a way to justify the action or to condemn it as being contrary to the chosen alignment.

This thread is designed exclusively for such discussions. If you have a particular encounter that is causing a dilemma with your chosen class or alignment, list it here and discuss why it presents a conflict. Then we can discuss whether there is a way around the conflict or if the player may just be forced to "suspend" their roleplaying for that particular encounter.

A couple of encounters that have been discussed recently are:

1) A Neutral Good Swashbuckler being told to kill Gethras by Edwin. The player has so far found no real way to justify killing him and when he DID kill Gethras, his alignment was shifted to True Neutral (thanks to the installation of the Virtue Mod).

So is there a way a Neutral Good character can justify breaking into a mage's house and killing him based solely on the behest of another character that the PC knows is evil?

2) The execution of Viconia. Could a Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral PC justify intervening in an execution which - as far as they know - is being conducted in accordance to the Law? Since both alignments put a heavy emphasis on obeying Law (even if the individual disagrees with a particular law), is there anyway to justify them preventing an execution that may be perfectly legal under Athkala's Law?

3) What about the "fee" required by the Cowled Wizards to allow the party members to cast spells? Can a lawful PC justify NOT paying that fee in order to save their gold? Can they justify killing the Cowled Wizards when they attack the party for violating the rule and casting magic in public without a "license"?

4) On the other side of the coin, can an evil PC justify allowing Keldorn, Anomen or Aerie to even join their party in the first place?

I have one game I am playing with a Neutral Evil Assassin. He did allow Anomen to join the party, but only so that he could make sure that Anomen failed his test and became a regular fighter. As soon as he destroyed Anomen's lifelong goal, he kicked him out of the party. (yes, it can be fun to be evil [img]graemlins/firedevil.gif[/img] )

[Riftmaker]

In regards to #2.

I seriously doubt a Lawful Neutral character would interfere. Despite a pre-exsiting knowledge of Viconia, Lawful Neutral characters believe that law creates balance. In their eyes, Viconia's execution would be a form of balance.

A Lawful Good character I'm not so sure about. I'm going to cite Fenthick as an example here (if you haven't played NWN, then you won't know what I'm talking about), but he believed he was good friends with a CE man, and when this CE guy tricked him, Fenthick went after him to try and 'redeem' the CE guy.

That may also apply here.

In addition, Clerics of one deity don't police those of another deity. Unless the priest reading the charges HAPPENS to be a priest of Shar (which I highly doubt), then I can't see how a PC would think it was a real execution. The presence of the guards (whom I may add, don't interfere if you stop the execution) are only there to prevent the mob from going nuts. If this execution was to make any sense, you'd think that the police lady (can't remember her name at the moment) would be there as well.

Also, the method of execution doesn't make any sense either. Why would a civilized city like Amn, start burning people in the streets? Especially so close to a number of flammable buildings, burn the whole city down for a silly execution? Honestly now, if it was a *real* execution, wouldn't Viconia be hanged or beheaded?

Anyways, because the PC knows Viconia from previous adventures (regardless of what you REALLY did in BG1), and if you have Jaheira or Minsc in your party a LG character might be swayed to stop it. Minsc, who knows the basic difference between good and bad, speaks out against it. If Minsc the simpleton things there's something wrong, there probably is.

Jaheira, who is a druid, and has been to Amn before, also speaks out against it. This is probably from her personal experiences with Amn's legal system. If she thinks there's something wrong with how this is being done, there probably is.

In regards to #3.

A LE PC wouldn't pay the fee, and simply kill the wizards if they decided to show up.

A LN PC would pay the fee, regardless of their needs to save gold.

A LG PC may or may not pay the fee. If they can avoid casting mage spells within the city, I doubt they would pay it. If they must cast mage spells within the city (party of mages for example) then they would come up with the necesarry cash.

#4:

I don't see why an evil character wouldn't allow them to join their party. Evil characters don't follow strict 'evil' standards, they just pretty much do what they want, when they want, how they want.

However, I doubt an evil character would like Keldorn very much, and would probably ditch him, or just avoid him completely.

As for Anomen, an evil (female maybe) character would probably let him join, make him fail his test, and maybe keep him around as a bed toy.

As for Aerie, an evil character might be tempted because she's good looking, but if she prooves too much of a burden, or annoyance, they'd probably ditch her.

[Q'alooaith]

So are you saying that because of our alinment we should not do certain thing's?


Can a paladin be a drunkard? it's neither unlawfull or evil, though a big personal flaw.


A NG char might decide to kill edwin for asking them to commit murder, a LG might try and hand him over to the city guard, but knowing they are mostly bribed just take the law into their own hands..


Viconia state's plainly that she has done nothing to deserve death, and on investigation you learn that she's being put to death simply because she is drow, "is that not reason enough", so any lawfull alinment can justfy saving her, same as any chaotic or neutral, good and evil can free her for diffrent reasons. Yes you can find out before you free her that there is no real crime commited.. So purely upto the player.


You can justfy not buying a license for your spellcaster's as they are not planing to cast spell's in the city(LN), or you feel the law is unjust (LG), or just plain ignore it as it only apply's to thouse weaker than yourself (LE)


Evil char's can take anyone into their party, hey extra meat shield's alway's come in handy, and it's one less goody two shoes in front of you rather than behind..


Good = Selfless desires
Neutral = Either way it don't matter
Evil = Selfish desires


The world is not black and white.

[slicer15]

Originally posted by Q'alooaith: So are you saying that because of our alinment we should not do certain thing's?

Not necessarily. We're simply findings ways of justifying decisions based on alignments. Bearing in mind that an Alignment should be the basis of how a character reacts and acts in whatever situation, from a roleplaying view (and a lot of people play BG as a roleplayer rather than power/normal PC gamer) there can be problems when deciding what his character should choose. After all, you want to stick to the alignment.

Originally posted by Q'alooaith: Can a paladin be a drunkard? it's neither unlawfull or evil, though a big personal flaw.

Generally a Paladin is not a drunkard. He/she probably wouldn't even be accepted into an Order if he/she had a drinking problem. While it's not "evil" as such, most "good" aligned orders, being religious, probably see it as a sin, and one that corrupts. Alcohol can completely change the person you are when intoxicated. I point to an example in Temple of Elemental Evil where if you have a Paladin in your party and do a drinking contest in the local Tavern, you become a Fallen Paladin.

I haven't got anything new to add on the other points, but for me personally I take the roleplaying to another level...I often imagine I'm the character, and roleplay from that point of view. I pick the alignment that matches me closest (imo) and just make decisions based on how I myself would do in that situation. For Edwin for example, I personally wouldn't kill the wizard. That solves a lot of issues, and the alignment you pick then is only a loose alignment, as in reality we are far more flexible than choosing an alignment and sticking to it. That's how I base my Baldur's Gate roleplaying anyway...

[Seraph]

1) A Neutral Good Swashbuckler being told to kill Gethras by Edwin. The player has so far found no real way to justify killing him and when he DID kill Gethras, his alignment was shifted to True Neutral (thanks to the installation of the Virtue Mod). So is there a way a Neutral Good character can justify breaking into a mage's house and killing him based solely on the behest of another character that the PC knows is evil?

No, but a Neutral Good character could justify it based on the fact that Gethras is a Coweled Wizard, and the coweled wizards have a definite evil bent. They kidnaped Imoen, they are corrupt, and seem to allow any group seeking your death to cast magic, but they seem pretty determined to screw you out of your money, or kill you.

3) What about the "fee" required by the Cowled Wizards to allow the party members to cast spells? Can a lawful PC justify NOT paying that fee in order to save their gold? Can they justify killing the Cowled Wizards when they attack the party for violating the rule and casting magic in public without a "license"?

I'm not sure how a lawful PC could justify paying it. I'm also not sure that "Fee" is the best word, it has always seemed pretty obvious to me that it is a bribe desinged to allow the party to circumvent the law, so the 'lawful' action to me would seem to be not to cast magic in the city, or to find some other method of getting a magic liscence. Will brining Valygar to the wizards do this?

[ZFR]

The point is that human (and elf, dwarf, gnome...) character is sooooooooooo diverse that didviding it into 9 categories is BIG simplifying. In fact a million categories wouldn't suffice. One LG character can be completely different than another LG and in some aspects very similar to another CE character.

So saying: would a NG fighter character do this?, would a CN thief do that? is not what roleplaying is about...

Look at it as if it is real life. Do you ever make actions based on some fixed "alignement"? No. Just make choices as they come.

-ZFR

[SixOfSpades]

Originally posted by Cerek: 1) .... is there a way a Neutral Good character can justify breaking into a mage's house and killing him based solely on the behest of another character that the PC knows is evil?

Breaking into a Cowled Wizard's house--yes, a NG PC might see this as an idea opportunity to say, "I've slain your pathetic Mephits, I've deactivated your hapless constructs, and just what do you think I might do to you if you don't tell me how I can find out where Imoen is?!? Start talking and I'll pay for the damage I've done. Refuse to speak and suffer the consequences."
Actually killing the Cowled Wizard, at least without any additional reason to do so--I don't think so, no.

2) The execution of Viconia. Could a Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral PC justify intervening in an execution which - as far as they know - is being conducted in accordance to the Law? Since both alignments put a heavy emphasis on obeying Law (even if the individual disagrees with a particular law), is there anyway to justify them preventing an execution that may be perfectly legal under Athkala's Law?

The whole "appearance" of how official the execution is is rather iffy: True, there are guards there, but the fact that the execution is being emceed by a Priest of Beshaba indicates that something isn't quite right. Now, the city of Athkatla may have authorized the church of Beshaba to conduct executions without a civil official present (the city does have a large, fancy Temple of Talos, after all), or it might be a simple mob. The fact that the leaders are called "Fanatic" might mean something, the fact that Viconia claims to not deserve death does not. What I find most interesting is that Viconia does not claim to have been denied a fair trial--such a thing would be alien to her native culture, but she's been aboveground long enough to know how most Human nations do it....and she makes no mention of being tried at all. Does this mean that she DID get a trial, and if so, was it a real trial (such as the one that Saerk Fahrrad allegedly gets), or simply a sham 'mob' trial, which was enough to fool a Drow who wouldn't know the difference?

In short, I don't think the PC could know enough about the circumstances of the event to make a cut-&-dried decision, not at least before the Flamestrike hits. If there is any clear indication of the scenario, it is, as Q'alooaith said, the fact that the Fanatic questions whether Viconia's Drow ancestry is not reason enough for the killing. How a Lawful character would interpret this, I don't know--Athkatla may very well have a perfectly legal set of edicts against Drow, especially vagrant Drow, within the city.

3) What about the "fee" required by the Cowled Wizards to allow the party members to cast spells? Can a lawful PC justify NOT paying that fee in order to save their gold? Can they justify killing the Cowled Wizards when they attack the party for violating the rule and casting magic in public without a "license"?

Here it is different: In the case of Viconia's execution, the PC suffers from a lack of information. With the Cowled Wizards, however, we see that although they claim to grant licences only to "fair and careful practitioners of magic," they do in fact give a free hand to anyone who pays the fee. So what if a Githyanki war party fries a few Commoners with Lightning Bolts? So what if a Mad Priest of Cyric calls down Horrid Wiltings at random? So what if there's a Lich chasing you around the City Gates District? As long as the Cowls have their money, they could give a damn.
Ordinarily, a Lawful character would either pay the licence fee, or simply not cast Wizard spells outdoors. If he knew what I know about the Cowled Wizards, however, he would see that it's they who are not behaving in a Lawful manner. The Cowled agenda isn't safety and stability--it's lies and extortion. Death to 'em, and set up someone responsible in their place.

[SixOfSpades]

Originally posted by slicer15: Generally a Paladin is not a drunkard. He/she probably wouldn't even be accepted into an Order if he/she had a drinking problem. While it's not "evil" as such, most "good" aligned orders, being religious, probably see it as a sin, and one that corrupts. Alcohol can completely change the person you are when intoxicated. I point to an example in Temple of Elemental Evil where if you have a Paladin in your party and do a drinking contest in the local Tavern, you become a Fallen Paladin.

I think automatically Falling just for downing a few ales is rough. When a man's off duty, his time is his own, right? Besides, there are different kinds of drunks--sleepy drunks, funny drunks, vomiting drunks....it's only the violent drunks that I would consider being justly Fallen. If I were coding that part of ToEE, I would simply run a check on the Paladin's INT and WIS to determine what sort of Drunk he is....and then he can only Fall if he's a violent drunk and gets Intoxicated, or a vomiting drunk and gets VERY Intoxicated.

If you're going to argue that "A defender of justice must remain vigilant at all times," when the hell are you supposed to sleep?

[Feral]

Originally posted by SixOfSpades: If you're going to argue that "A defender of justice must remain vigilant at all times," when the hell are you supposed to sleep?

I don't know about every defender of justice, but a paladin seems like the kind of work you don't get time off from. That being said, unless the actions which the paladin takes while drunk are evil, I don't see a problem.

[ 11-18-2004, 05:09 PM: Message edited by: Feral ]

[slicer15]

Well, it may be a bit harsh...you also fall if your party member does it, and not you.

However, being a Paladin is a way of life. They aren't vigilant at all times as extreme as you said, but they do adhere to certain codes I believe. What codes depends on their order and religion. I don't think, for them, drinking in itself is bad but getting intoxicated is. I mean, you make a conscious decision to drink more than usual, and since alcohol slows the mind anyway I doubt a Paladin would take some.

I never said or meant to imply that Paladins don't drink, just that they don't get drunk. When I said drinking problem, I meant frequently drinking to get drunk. Like I said, a Paladin isn't likely to be accepted into an Order if they have a drinking problem.

They aren't zealous fanatics (for the most part anyway) but being a paladin is a strict profession.

EDIT:

For Feral's first point I agree - being a Paladin isn't a job. Being a Paladin is a way of life and following a religion, much like being a Christian or Buddhist. You don't "get time off" for that, right?

[ 11-18-2004, 05:11 PM: Message edited by: slicer15 ]