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Commentary on alignment changes: LG


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uhogre01 - A good ogre. Ignoring the Drizzt-ishness for the moment, what does he do that's so compassionate? Not kill random people? Agree to protect the village in return for not having waves of adventurers trying to kill him just for being an ogre? Yeah, I can't imagine why a neutral would do those things either... :)

In one of Ranger-Protector quests, he risks his life to save a boy from the village from monsters. He's wounded but asks no reward in return.

 

Still, I think Neutral-Good would suit Madulf better. He's a deserter, after all. And an, um, ogre. :)

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I doubt Madulf volunteered for the army, he was probably conscripted; unfortunately there is no evidence of that. I think it is important to stress, again, that the lawful part of lawful good doesn't refer to the law as such (although sometimes they coincide), rather to a set of morals or a code. So, in the law says one thing, and the code another, the code wins. In this case I'd argue Madulf's pacifism points to a LG alignment. In is the more general point I want to make, however, so a NG Madulf is fine.

 

I can't argue for the Windspear children to be LG but how many children do you know who are TN?

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In one of Ranger-Protector quests, he risks his life to save a boy from the village from monsters. He's wounded but asks no reward in return.

 

Hmm. I've not yet taken the ranger stronghold, so I never saw that. Thanks for the info; objection withdrawn. :)

 

I doubt Madulf volunteered for the army, he was probably conscripted; unfortunately there is no evidence of that. I think it is important to stress, again, that the lawful part of lawful good doesn't refer to the law as such (although sometimes they coincide), rather to a set of morals or a code. So, in the law says one thing, and the code another, the code wins. In this case I'd argue Madulf's pacifism points to a LG alignment. In is the more general point I want to make, however, so a NG Madulf is fine.

 

I can't argue for the Windspear children to be LG but how many children do you know who are TN?

 

I agree on you with Madulf's pacifism and the direction it points. He does seem quite Lawful in the 'personal code' way.

 

As for the children, I've met FAR too many who were TN. It seemed like my entire high school was made up of people who just geniuinely didn't give a sh*t about much. (I also hold the personal belief that babies are born TN, lacking any developed personality for the moment. Life experiences are then what develop the personality and either turn them into something else or solidify the TN.)

 

Regarding Garren's kid in particular, what do we have to base them off of? There's a little speech about Garren, which can be attributed to familial ties (even CE characters can love their parents), and then a bit when they're rescued (which only proves that they're not haughty, and even haughtiness can be Good, if Nalia is any example).

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bdact05, bdact07, & bdhigg01 - Haven't played the bard stronghold yet either, so I don't know their personalities, but as described it sounds like ...

bdprst01 - Unused and also no info on what kind of person? What's the point of even bothering? :)

oh for god's sake: you haven't played thru the game and yr attempting to counter very specific changes with generalisations? why is this even a debate?

 

for example, on the question concerning garkid: garren's child is polite to CHARNAME for freeing him/her unless CHARNAME is a paladin - at which point garkid speaks as if s/he (depending upon CHARNAME's gender, garkid will be male or female) has found a soulmate. so arguments about what children 'usually' are a waste of space: in the specific cases being debated, garkid can only LG: only, because the only evidence we have is from garkid's behaviour, and garkid clearly and demonstrably has an affinity with LG paladins, and only LG paladins.

 

dubious at best and idiotic at worst

is correct, but we're not talking about the closely debated changes to specific creatures based upon their actions in-game...

 

(and, yes: apologies CamDawg. i'll be quiet now. i'm confident that time-wasting won't delay the final release of the fixpack)

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oh for god's sake: you haven't played thru the game and yr attempting to counter very specific changes with generalisations? why is this even a debate?

 

Quite an assumption. You think because I haven't played as two specific classes that I haven't played the game? Minsc & Valygar tend to be all I need from rangers, and Haer'Dalis is a more than serviceable bard. Or do you expect everyone to use the multiple strongholds component of EoU?

 

for example, on the question concerning garkid: garren's child is polite to CHARNAME for freeing him/her unless CHARNAME is a paladin - at which point garkid speaks as if s/he (depending upon CHARNAME's gender, garkid will be male or female) has found a soulmate. so arguments about what children 'usually' are a waste of space: ...

 

That was in response to Idobek's specific question, after which I got back to the matter at hand. Do try to keep up.

 

... in the specific cases being debated, garkid can only LG: only, because the only evidence we have is from garkid's behaviour, and garkid clearly and demonstrably has an affinity with LG paladins, and only LG paladins.

 

Brought up by the previous poster. (Without the attitude, I might add.) A point I gave in silence before that I shall make clear here: it's a good point.

 

dubious at best and idiotic at worst

is correct, but we're not talking about the closely debated changes to specific creatures based upon their actions in-game...

 

What thread are you reading? That's precisely what we're debating.

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As for the children, I've met FAR too many who were TN. It seemed like my entire high school was made up of people who just geniuinely didn't give a sh*t about much. (I also hold the personal belief that babies are born TN, lacking any developed personality for the moment. Life experiences are then what develop the personality and either turn them into something else or solidify the TN.)

Okay, we have entirely different thoughts on what constitutes TN. Personally, I think apathy is more of a CN trait. TN, for me, necessitates belief and should be one of the, if not the, rarist of alignments; not the default one.

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Okay, we have entirely different thoughts on what constitutes TN. Personally, I think apathy is more of a CN trait. TN, for me, necessitates belief and should be one of the, if not the, rarist of alignments; not the default one.

 

There are essentially two versions of TN, as there are two versions of LN (law/code). A TN can either strive constantly for balance, or on the opposite, never do much any which way. Being a CN myself, even apathy is applied rather randomly in that alignment. For example, while I couldn't care less what changes modders make to 3e games like IWD II, I do care a great deal about what is changed in BG II (hence my presence here).

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The in-game description of true Neutral (the one Idobek is using, where it's very rare) is the one we're stuck with here.

 

In game descriptions have informative things to say about what alignment to expect from thieves and smugglers and other such folks too....

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The in-game description of true Neutral (the one Idobek is using, where it's very rare) is the one we're stuck with here.

 

In game descriptions have informative things to say about what alignment to expect from thieves and smugglers and other such folks too....

 

Okay, but if we do that, it quickly becomes one-dimensional and most characters won't fit any alignment. For example, the 'live by a code' LN characters are right out the door since a character is only LN if they believe in government.

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The in game definitions should be a starting point, not the be all and end all. As you say, if we followed them to the letter, many characters would fit several and no alignments.

 

If feel I should expand a little on TN and apathy. I agree with you that if someone if truely cares about nothing then perhaps he is TN, but I still think that is a very rare condition. IMO, CN is more suited because an "I don't give a crap" demeaner tends to go hand in hand with an "I can do what I damn well please" attitude. When you say "apathy is applied rather randomly in that alignment" I agree, but then apathy usually is. The same people who don't care who runs the government do moan about the policing policy in their neighbourhood.

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A couple of points:

  • Disagreements are fine; as Ding0 has said before 'conflict helps refine the solution.' However, make your points in a respectful manner.
  • Kish is absolutely correct in that the original alignment assignments are, at best, spotty. In some cases you can even track Bioware's copy-and-pasting (CG Irenicus is from a copy of Elminster, for example). While they serve as a good starting point for discussion I trust most of them as far as I can throw them.
  • Make alignment arguments based on how a creature behaves in game. This is the standard that Bio used for BG and it should be kept for BG2. The Keep majordomo may be running a demonic cult in his spare time, justifying his LE alignment, but he could also be running an adoption agency for orphaned, fluffy kittens. Limit the arguments to what occurs and is known within the game.
  • Should there be enough demand, it's conceivable that some of the alignment fixes may be farmed out to a new OBC component.
  • Absence of clarity for a new alignment assignment does not equal no change. If an original alignment selection is wrong, it should be changed even if we're bitterly divided between over which alignment it should be.

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Also don't forget to have the alignment definitions from the rulebooks handy, instead of using your particular interpretation of them. While I dislike the alignment system as a whole, the rule descriptions are clear enough that you can 99% of the time figure out which belongs to who.

 

It's also helpful to take the NPC's dialog, scripted actions, and story context into consideration. All else is conjecture and should be cast aside. I don't care who does what in their spare time; if it's never revealed in the game (including possibly unused data files), it shouldn't be a factor in alignment determination.

 

That said, it can be more difficult assigning alignments to generic characters (townsfolk) versus plot characters (Irenicus), but while today it's common to have people of evil and neutral alignments as your next door neighbors, it wasn't so common in medieval times.

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The in game definitions should be a starting point, not the be all and end all. As you say, if we followed them to the letter, many characters would fit several and no alignments.

 

If feel I should expand a little on TN and apathy. I agree with you that if someone if truely cares about nothing then perhaps he is TN, but I still think that is a very rare condition. IMO, CN is more suited because an "I don't give a crap" demeaner tends to go hand in hand with an "I can do what I damn well please" attitude. When you say "apathy is applied rather randomly in that alignment" I agree, but then apathy usually is. The same people who don't care who runs the government do moan about the policing policy in their neighbourhood.

Incidentally, I was going to use an example like that but realized it was a debatable one. Because even as they care about the policing policy, they don't care about it because it's government. They care about it because it affects them. Then there's the difference between self-apathy and regular apathy...well, psychology is complicated. But suffice it to say that while I do agree that apathy is something of a CN trait, they by no means hold a monopoly.

 

Also affecting the TN argument is animals and some low-intelligence monsters. Do you think every rat, cat, dog, and horsefly has strong beliefs about maintaining the balance? Do you think they even have the capacity to care about such things? :) Yet almost all animals ('almost' excluding things like familiars and such) are TN.

 

It's also helpful to take the NPC's dialog, scripted actions, and story context into consideration. All else is conjecture and should be cast aside. I don't care who does what in their spare time; if it's never revealed in the game (including possibly unused data files), it shouldn't be a factor in alignment determination.

 

That said, it can be more difficult assigning alignments to generic characters (townsfolk) versus plot characters (Irenicus), but while today it's common to have people of evil and neutral alignments as your next door neighbors, it wasn't so common in medieval times.

Agreed on all but the last clause. Evil was no more cut-and-dried in medieval times than it is today. And while in the world of D&D it's entirely possible to segregate them, doing so would not only be counter-productive (not all evil people are bad for society), but far too much effort. There's also the argument that while it's supposed to be in medieval times, D&D actually represents current mores, like equality of races, sexes, orientations, etc. that did not exist in medieval times and thus cannot truly be compared to it.

 

 

Also, I've been made aware that David Gaider himself has said the Balthazar was LG, so I withdraw my objection to that change. :)

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