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Which type of True Neutral are you?
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9310602" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>The "keeps a rigorous balance sheet of good/evil and law/chaos" type of True Neutral is fundamentally schizophrenic and damaging, so I reject that outright for anyone who isn't <em>crazy</em>.</p><p></p><p>The "refrains from any action that would be too X" direction leads to either logical contradiction (e.g. "it is good to save a person from death, but evil to allow someone to die when you could have easily saved them," meaning both action <em>and</em> inaction are aligned) or to an idiotically passive and generally uninteresting character, so that's out too.</p><p></p><p>Hence, I prefer either the Principled Neutral or the Unaligned Neutral types.</p><p></p><p>A Principled Neutral person is someone who deeply cares about some thing or set of things...but those things are genuinely completely orthogonal to both Law/Chaos and Good/Evil. "Blue and Orange Morality" is the way TVTropes puts it. As an example, I have run fey-like noble genies (genies who manifest prodigious power, not ordinary genasi-like genies who just have a bit of elemental juice and that's it) as being utterly obsessed with <em>social standing</em>. They don't, strictly, care about law--but having an ordered, lawful society means having a society that generally results in more <em>citizens</em>, and that's a status symbol, so most of them favor orderly society rather than anarchic bedlam. They love having and spending money, and will invest in lavish public works projects, etc.</p><p></p><p>I've also run actual fey beings (the "Shi"--faux-Arabized version of "Sidhe") for whom the moral axis was Beauty vs Ugliness. To a Shi, ugliness is (effectively) sinful, deplorable, disturbing, and someone who tries to <em>preserve</em> ugliness would be viewed the same way that (say) most folks today would view a person defending the institution of slavery. They could be profoundly benevolent and also horrifically cruel. They had vivisection theaters, but also the ability to restore missing limbs or sense organs, which to them would be a form of restoring beauty via symmetry or greater access to the senses.</p><p></p><p>I'd consider both these and the aforementioned "Principled Neutral." They <em>have</em> a guiding "moral" principle, it's just not something that registers as "moral" or "ethical" to us humans. Springing the former on my players after they'd gotten a bit buddy-buddy with Sahl, Prince of the South Wind, was a real treat. I could hear in their voices the realization that <em>his</em> "morality" was fundamentally NOT <em>their</em> morality, and that they needed to be really, really careful with him. (To be clear, he's largely benevolent and sees the party as sort of casual friends, so he has no interest in harming them, but they correctly realized that "harm" means something different to him than it does to them. Particularly because one of his favorite pastimes is watching the Skywind Repertory Company performing the <em>totally true and unembellished</em> stories of the party's adventures--meaning that putting them in survivable danger creates more entertainment...and raises the prestige of his court.)</p><p></p><p>Unaligned, by contrast, would cover all beasts (who are not meaningfully capable of "moral" behavior in the first place), and those who are more or less pragmatically avoiding any commitment. That doesn't mean they have to balance books or scrupulously <em>avoid</em> any particular things, but it does mean that they're sort of committed to avoiding commitment, if that makes sense. I would challenge a player's "Unaligned" nature if they did something <em>particularly</em> egregious without a good reason, but it would need to be very much out of character. E.g., risking life and limb to save a hated enemy would definitely be a "are you sure you aren't actually some flavor of Good, just with a big selfish streak?" (Contrast cold-blooded purposeless murder for evil.) Or, for L/C, someone breaking laws just because they resent being told what to do, or someone <em>insisting</em> that things be done by the book even when it's a serious imposition to do that, would get some (between-sessions) questions.</p><p></p><p>More or less, "Principled Neutral" will take not-strictly-necessary risks for something that doesn't normally parse as "moral/ethical" principles. Conversely, Unaligned folks would only rarely take such risks, usually because there's some other reward attached, not because of any compunctions or convictions. Genuine enlightened self-interest would be an Unaligned attitude unless clearly flavored by something else.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9310602, member: 6790260"] The "keeps a rigorous balance sheet of good/evil and law/chaos" type of True Neutral is fundamentally schizophrenic and damaging, so I reject that outright for anyone who isn't [I]crazy[/I]. The "refrains from any action that would be too X" direction leads to either logical contradiction (e.g. "it is good to save a person from death, but evil to allow someone to die when you could have easily saved them," meaning both action [I]and[/I] inaction are aligned) or to an idiotically passive and generally uninteresting character, so that's out too. Hence, I prefer either the Principled Neutral or the Unaligned Neutral types. A Principled Neutral person is someone who deeply cares about some thing or set of things...but those things are genuinely completely orthogonal to both Law/Chaos and Good/Evil. "Blue and Orange Morality" is the way TVTropes puts it. As an example, I have run fey-like noble genies (genies who manifest prodigious power, not ordinary genasi-like genies who just have a bit of elemental juice and that's it) as being utterly obsessed with [I]social standing[/I]. They don't, strictly, care about law--but having an ordered, lawful society means having a society that generally results in more [I]citizens[/I], and that's a status symbol, so most of them favor orderly society rather than anarchic bedlam. They love having and spending money, and will invest in lavish public works projects, etc. I've also run actual fey beings (the "Shi"--faux-Arabized version of "Sidhe") for whom the moral axis was Beauty vs Ugliness. To a Shi, ugliness is (effectively) sinful, deplorable, disturbing, and someone who tries to [I]preserve[/I] ugliness would be viewed the same way that (say) most folks today would view a person defending the institution of slavery. They could be profoundly benevolent and also horrifically cruel. They had vivisection theaters, but also the ability to restore missing limbs or sense organs, which to them would be a form of restoring beauty via symmetry or greater access to the senses. I'd consider both these and the aforementioned "Principled Neutral." They [I]have[/I] a guiding "moral" principle, it's just not something that registers as "moral" or "ethical" to us humans. Springing the former on my players after they'd gotten a bit buddy-buddy with Sahl, Prince of the South Wind, was a real treat. I could hear in their voices the realization that [I]his[/I] "morality" was fundamentally NOT [I]their[/I] morality, and that they needed to be really, really careful with him. (To be clear, he's largely benevolent and sees the party as sort of casual friends, so he has no interest in harming them, but they correctly realized that "harm" means something different to him than it does to them. Particularly because one of his favorite pastimes is watching the Skywind Repertory Company performing the [I]totally true and unembellished[/I] stories of the party's adventures--meaning that putting them in survivable danger creates more entertainment...and raises the prestige of his court.) Unaligned, by contrast, would cover all beasts (who are not meaningfully capable of "moral" behavior in the first place), and those who are more or less pragmatically avoiding any commitment. That doesn't mean they have to balance books or scrupulously [I]avoid[/I] any particular things, but it does mean that they're sort of committed to avoiding commitment, if that makes sense. I would challenge a player's "Unaligned" nature if they did something [I]particularly[/I] egregious without a good reason, but it would need to be very much out of character. E.g., risking life and limb to save a hated enemy would definitely be a "are you sure you aren't actually some flavor of Good, just with a big selfish streak?" (Contrast cold-blooded purposeless murder for evil.) Or, for L/C, someone breaking laws just because they resent being told what to do, or someone [I]insisting[/I] that things be done by the book even when it's a serious imposition to do that, would get some (between-sessions) questions. More or less, "Principled Neutral" will take not-strictly-necessary risks for something that doesn't normally parse as "moral/ethical" principles. Conversely, Unaligned folks would only rarely take such risks, usually because there's some other reward attached, not because of any compunctions or convictions. Genuine enlightened self-interest would be an Unaligned attitude unless clearly flavored by something else. [/QUOTE]
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