2 Questions of Ethics

[SixOfSpades]

Question 1: One of my 3 current games stars a Wild Mage, and he's prince of a Wild Mage at that: Chaotic Neutral alignment, goes through quests without thought to morals or consequences, he might betray you if he feels like it, and quite a lot of his conversation responses are determined by my randomly hitting keys on my numeric keypad. His cohorts are just as spastic: Jan, Haer'Dalis, Korgan, Valygar, and CN Anomen. (Okay, okay, so Valygar isn't of Chaotic alignment--but this was the game in which I fought the Shadow Thief Improvements MOD, and if I'd Minsc instead of Valygar, I would simply be dead.) My question is this: Playing a Chaotic character with all-Chaotic companions seems all well and good, but isn't that a rather rational, logical, and lawful way to choose one's party? Which is weirder: Choose 5 Chaotic NPCs, or toss everybody's names in a hat and pull 5 at random?

Question 2: Since when does living off the land guarantee that you must be of Good alignment? Couldn't poachers, highwaymen, and the Atlanta Olympic bomber (who lived in the woods for about 4 years before he was finally caught) be considered Evil? And aren't Good and Evil merely relative positions, anyway? In short, why do all Rangers have to be Good? While we're at it, why can't Evil gods have Paladins? Sure, you can approximate them by having Evil Fighter/Clerics, but are the Good and Neutral gods violently opposed to bladed weaponry? Mask says, "No." (I agree that Paladins should be Lawful, though.)

[Nerull]

Originally posted by SixOfSpades: Question 1: One of my 3 current games stars a Wild Mage, and he's prince of a Wild Mage at that: Chaotic Neutral alignment, goes through quests without thought to morals or consequences, he might betray you if he feels like it, and quite a lot of his conversation responses are determined by my randomly hitting keys on my numeric keypad. His cohorts are just as spastic: Jan, Haer'Dalis, Korgan, Valygar, and CN Anomen. (Okay, okay, so Valygar isn't of Chaotic alignment--but this was the game in which I fought the Shadow Thief Improvements MOD, and if I'd Minsc instead of Valygar, I would simply be dead.) My question is this: Playing a Chaotic character with all-Chaotic companions seems all well and good, but isn't that a rather rational, logical, and lawful way to choose one's party? Which is weirder: Choose 5 Chaotic NPCs, or toss everybody's names in a hat and pull 5 at random?

Actually, if you are playing truly random/utter chaos, you would probably add people to the party by happenstance, regardless of alignment or conflicts between members. However, you would probably boot out the more lawful ones on your own as soon as they annoyed you. Keldorn, Mazzy, etc. would probably be added, but dropped rather quickly. You would see more eye-to-eye with the chaotic ones, so they would end up lasting in the party longer. But everyone except you can be changed out.

Really challenging alternative: Grab a coin and a standard six-sided die. As soon as you have the opportunity to add an NPC, flip a coin. Heads means add them, tails means turn away. If add, then roll a die, and whoever is in that position in the party gets booted out for them. If you are short of the 6 people, you still boot out someone if you roll their number, but if you roll an empty slot you just add the new NPC. If you roll your number (roll a 1), then you choose who to lose. You will end up with some pretty whacked-out parties, but if you are trying to be the "epitome of chaos" then this might work for you.

Originally posted by SixOfSpades: Question 2: Since when does living off the land guarantee that you must be of Good alignment? Couldn't poachers, highwaymen, and the Atlanta Olympic bomber (who lived in the woods for about 4 years before he was finally caught) be considered Evil? And aren't Good and Evil merely relative positions, anyway? In short, why do all Rangers have to be Good? While we're at it, why can't Evil gods have Paladins? Sure, you can approximate them by having Evil Fighter/Clerics, but are the Good and Neutral gods violently opposed to bladed weaponry? Mask says, "No." (I agree that Paladins should be Lawful, though.)

That's why I like 3rd edition over 2nd edition. Rangers = any alignment. Paladin is still Lawful Good, but a recent series of Dragon magazines introduced "holy warriors" of the other 8 alignments (including true neutral); all were quite interesting. Clerics start knowing simple weapons (dagger, crossbow, mace, club, sling, quarterstaff, spears, etc.), but as they go up in levels, they can spend "feats" (special abilities all characters get) to add other weapons like longswords, battle axes, etc. In other words, it makes more sense (I especially agree about the clerics and blunt weapons; why would gods of death and war have a problem with their priests spilling blood?).

[Faceman]

Originally posted by SixOfSpades: Question 2: Since when does living off the land guarantee that you must be of Good alignment? Couldn't poachers, highwaymen, and the Atlanta Olympic bomber (who lived in the woods for about 4 years before he was finally caught) be considered Evil? And aren't Good and Evil merely relative positions, anyway? In short, why do all Rangers have to be Good? While we're at it, why can't Evil gods have Paladins? Sure, you can approximate them by having Evil Fighter/Clerics, but are the Good and Neutral gods violently opposed to bladed weaponry? Mask says, "No." (I agree that Paladins should be Lawful, though.)

Well, Rangers have a purpose. Namely to protect the woods and woodland beings. For this they are imbued with power by a good deity. What would an evil deity expect from a Ranger? To cut down all trees? Would that still be a Ranger? Same (not exactly, but close) for Druids.
However, I agree that evil gods should have their paladin-class too. It would make perfect sense. I can only guess that the lack of this is a consequence of evil being more open to change of human nature/biology. Thus a devote follower of evil would try anything to get closer to more power for his evil purpose and rather transform into a vicious beast by some sort of magic than follow a code of ethics to increase the power of his human form. Not a sufficient answer, I know, but my try of explanation.

[Armen]

Question 2: . . .

i've never even played it! (just read about it on here) but your thoughts about rangers does sound like the 3rd edition thing - plenty of characters could have ranger-like skills without the baggage of defending communities and the like

i've got a solo character at the moment that i'm gradually running through irenicus' dungeon when i haven't got enough time at the PC for a party session - she's based on an archer and her character and background is that of a ruthless anti-social hunter rather than a ranger - she'll have the 'wrong' alignment for her motivation and actions really but in BG terms i wanted the archer skills and bonuses - you could build exactly the same role/character as a fighter/thief i guess with the nice and appropriate addition of set snares but you just do what you can with the game i guess

[JrKASperov]

In answer to Six's second question: Play 3rd edition. 3rd edition DnD solves all of your problems with regard to class and alignment. Rangers can be of any alignment cause ranger simply means someone who knows how to survive in the wilds, be that cavewilderness, forestwilderness, desertwilderness or junglewilderness, 'tis all the same thing. Paladins of Evil gods exist, they are called Blackguards. The problem is, a Paladin is simply definded as an icon of goodness and order. Blackguards have the same, a Blackguard is simply the epitome of everything that is evil. 3rd edition also brilliantly handles the bladed weapon thing, there are no weapon type restrictions, only weapon training restrictions, for instance, a cleric is not trained with that many weapons as a fighter is, so a cleric cant wield a longsword, for instance, without training, which makes sense.

I am a pretty orderly guy myself, so I have problems playing chaotic people

[ryaldin]

Originally posted by SixOfSpades: Question 1: One of my 3 current games stars a Wild Mage, and he's prince of a Wild Mage at that: Chaotic Neutral alignment, goes through quests without thought to morals or consequences, he might betray you if he feels like it, and quite a lot of his conversation responses are determined by my randomly hitting keys on my numeric keypad. His cohorts are just as spastic: Jan, Haer'Dalis, Korgan, Valygar, and CN Anomen. (Okay, okay, so Valygar isn't of Chaotic alignment--but this was the game in which I fought the Shadow Thief Improvements MOD, and if I'd Minsc instead of Valygar, I would simply be dead.) My question is this: Playing a Chaotic character with all-Chaotic companions seems all well and good, but isn't that a rather rational, logical, and lawful way to choose one's party? Which is weirder: Choose 5 Chaotic NPCs, or toss everybody's names in a hat and pull 5 at random? Question 2: ...While we're at it, why can't Evil gods have Paladins? Sure, you can approximate them by having Evil Fighter/Clerics, but are the Good and Neutral gods violently opposed to bladed weaponry? Mask says, "No." (I agree that Paladins should be Lawful, though.)

Question 1: Do you suppose a person (spastic, crazy, organized, whatever) would surround himself with people of like thinking? I would think so. Even the most chaotic person, would likely attract others of a slightly off-kilter nature, maybe not by a normal deciding process, but due to the fact that those type of people would generally coexist reasonably well, barring the occasional fistfight etc. Take Keldorn for instance. While logic would say that there would be some chance of him joining your party and following your leadership, at some point, your spastic actions and unpredictably changing veiwpoints would likely lead him to question your sanity [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] . I'm of the opinion that he wouldn't really fit in with a character like yours. Jan on the other hand, would probably love the drastic changes in pace and scenery provided by the chance happenings in the party. To me, it seems to be an issue of roleplaying, to a degree.

Question 2:I never understood that. I always saw it as a way to limit the power of mages, clerics and such by not allowing them to use spells and swords/bladedweaponry etc. in BG1. But in BG2, some of the best weapons in the game aren't of the bladed/non-clerical ethos. It doesn't make sense that a priest of Helm, couldn't pick up a dagger and poke somebody with it. It's not like it's complicated, and for many of the dieties that I've seen in the game, they're rather affluent in fighting for this cause or that. Would they really care if you hit somebody with somthing blunt, and killed them, or cut them with something sharp, and killed them? I doubt it.

[ 11-11-2003, 08:43 AM: Message edited by: ryaldin ]

[Nerull]

Originally posted by ryaldin: Question 2:I never understood that. I always saw it as a way to limit the power of mages, clerics and such by not allowing them to use spells and swords/bladedweaponry etc. in BG1. But in BG2, some of the best weapons in the game aren't of the bladed/non-clerical ethos. It doesn't make sense that a priest of Helm, couldn't pick up a dagger and poke somebody with it. It's not like it's complicated, and for many of the dieties that I've seen in the game, they're rather affluent in fighting for this cause or that. Would they really care if you hit somebody with somthing blunt, and killed them, or cut them with something sharp, and killed them? I doubt it.

Actually, there was an order of fighting priests in the Catholic religion back during the Crusades. They wore armor and fought, but by their code they could not use edged weapons (rationale: needed to fight, but could not spill excessive blood). I forget the name of the order (it's been many years since that history course), but that is the order that the cleric class was originally based off of. In so doing, they ignored all of the other religious possibilities (heck, even the druid is based off of the Celtic model, so eliminates other religions close to nature, like Native American and African cultures).

In PnP, I eventually pulled the trigger in my 2nd edition campaign and made specialty priests mandatory. The generic cleric simply did not exist. Each of the specialty priests had differing armor, weapon, spell, and special ability restrictions based upon the god they worshipped. Makes MUCH more sense. I even banned the druid; one of the gods in the Greyhawk setting (Beory, effective "Mother Earth") had specialty priests that were exactly like druids, so if a player wanted to play a druid they could just play a specialty priest of Beory.

Oh, and in third edition, they changed the druid's alignment restrictions (can be LN, CN, NG, NE, or N). Thus, Jaheira would (finally) be Neutral Good (which is her alignment, despite all the talking about balance), and Faldorn would be Neutral Evil (sapping the grove's power for her own benefit).

[Ironbar]

How did you come to be a chaotic character?

If you chose that alignment then there is really nothing chaotic about it.

I was once playing a Chaotic nuetral thief/fighter ubt stopped because i was enjoying it!

[HolyWarrior]

Originally posted by Faceman: [Well, Rangers have a purpose. Namely to protect the woods and woodland beings. For this they are imbued with power by a good deity. What would an evil deity expect from a Ranger? To cut down all trees? Would that still be a Ranger? Same (not exactly, but close) for Druids.

Nah, an evil ranger would be akin to those eco-freak terrorists running around burning down logging camps, research facilities and vandalizing SUV dealerships.:disgusted:

[Nerull]

Originally posted by HolyWarrior: Nah, an evil ranger would be akin to those eco-freak terrorists running around burning down logging camps, research facilities and vandalizing SUV dealerships.:disgusted:

Evil rangers and evil druids, both. That's why I made the comment about Faldorn being neutral evil by 3rd edition terms, because she is effectively an eco-terrorist. That, or the evil ranger would be more akin to the "selfish sport hunter", who is a well-skilled hunter but could care less what his hunting does to the environment.