Question about perspective vs. alignment / mission statement

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Darkness_Dawns
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Question about perspective vs. alignment / mission statement

Post by Darkness_Dawns » Mon Aug 14, 2017 7:33 pm

Hello everyone!

So I have an interesting question posed by a few friends of mine and myself dealing with a discussion on alignment / mission statement of a particular class that I was looking at possibly selecting as a PrC. Now Harper Scout says "The Harpers were a semi-secret organization dedicated to promoting good, preserving history (including art and music of old) and maintaining a balance between civilization and nature by keeping kingdoms small and the destruction of animal and plant life to a minimum. They considered the elven empire of Myth Drannor shortly before its fall to be the pinnacle of civilized history and strove to recreate the world in that image.[8]"

I was thinking about making a CN character who will become a leader of a mercenary faction devoted to contracts dealing with possibly murdering (Literally everyone does that IC already lol. Ever been to wharftown boys?), with the perspective that the contracts they take as a faction are perhaps for the greater good. They have the option of not being good per the class description so I do not believe that EVERY harper on Toril operates the same way on paper. I do believe it's possible to say that promoting good / preserving history / (Highlight this) -- Keeping kingdoms small and maintaining balance of nature can be done through this way because I think there are ways to take "being good" or perhaps this viewset / mission statement as an AT ANY COST means to preserve it. I know Generals this current day who take this mindset (General Mad Dog Matis anyone?).

The way I look at it, the fundamental different between good and evil has to do with what you're willing to allow happen in the first place. I'll pose the same question I posed my friends. What about Killing Hitler? A good person should think "Killing is bad" and therefore may not possibly do it. A Neutral person would think "Well if killing Hitler would save X amount of lives, stop a world war and the earth would be better for the assassination" I would unquestionably. I do believe that there are people in these types of organizations that would operate with this purview, and I do believe that it's an entirely valid view to have based on your perspective of the world. Unlike Law and Chaos, the Good / Evil axis isn't subject to as rigid criteria when it comes to those things. I do legitimately think that the world DOES need people like this to exist, even in inherently good organizations, OTHERWISE there would be nobody to pull the trigger when it's needed most.

I come from a military background, and I personally hold this belief. I hold this perspective in my own life; especially because I've been on two deployments already. Is the USAF an inherently good organization? I like to think so-- but our commanders are given the tough decisions to make. Kill this man, save many. Don't kill him, many will suffer because of it. Any military commander will be faced with this decision because militant / mercenary outfits do a societies dirty work. Things that people will hopefully never know or see.

This is just my opinion, and I'm looking for yours as well! I think that open discussion is perfect for fostering a great RP environment, and I would really appreciate some insight from other players regarding this sentiment. lol, Also as a sidenote to my friends, this DOES NOT mean I'm continuing my build idea, but it's something I would like some insight on from other people. Nothing changes.

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Re: Question about perspective vs. alignment / mission state

Post by cptcuddlepants » Mon Aug 14, 2017 8:08 pm

Something I've noticed a lot is that there's a prevalent belief that good alignment must be pacifistic, passive, and submissive. Turn the other cheek, violence is bad, killing is forbidden, taking the fight to the bad guys means that you're no better than they are, appease evil in the hopes that they'll be merciful rather than stop evil from doing evil.

I strongly disagree with the idea that "good" and "doormat" are synonymous. I recall reading somewhere that good-aligned people are supposed to be a lot less common than neutral- and evil-aligned people, but I believe that's more because it's easier to turn a blind eye, or be self-centered, than it is to go out of your way to help other people.

If we go with the belief that good alignment means sacrificing yourself whenever possible and letting evil stomp you into the ground, then good alignment is uncommon because of a very low life expectancy... :P
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Mr_Rieper
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Re: Question about perspective vs. alignment / mission state

Post by Mr_Rieper » Mon Aug 14, 2017 8:39 pm

On Alignment - By Gary Gygax

Short little blog post, it seems, but relevant to this question.

In short, many of our real world ethics and philosophies don't necessarily apply here. Both universes are drastically different.

It's worth noting that while Good is primarily benevolent, Neutral is primarily pragmatic and Evil is primarily malicious, this does not mean that good characters cannot be pragmatic or that evil characters cannot be benevolent.

It comes down to what their priorities are, and what their "default" response to a situation is. This is why it's so important to stick to your character's core beliefs, even when the situation does not suit you. You're doing it for the sake of other people's roleplay, not your own. When people cannot get a clear sense of motivation and alignment, things get messy and player tempers will flare.

Basically, there's a real temptation to follow your own morality, as a player. Resist this temptation, because if your character's response to every situation is the more neutral one and they impede other good characters, should they really have the Good alignment on their character sheet? It's perfectly fine to take a different approach every once in a while, but pick the alignment that best suits what their usual approach would be, and nobody else will take issue with it.

Good characters aren't gazing into the abyss when they hunt down and kill evil characters. They are championing a cause and upholding a set of ideals. And these are not speculations by mere mortals and fools, these are commandments given to them by their gods. While you can try to blur the line in roleplay with a few more modern arguments, characters will always be objectively good, evil or neutral on their sheets.
Last edited by Mr_Rieper on Mon Aug 14, 2017 9:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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gilescorey
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Re: Question about perspective vs. alignment / mission state

Post by gilescorey » Mon Aug 14, 2017 9:12 pm

In short, many of our real world ethics and philosophies don't necessarily apply here. Both universes are drastically different.
This is really important, imo. "Good" and "Evil" don't necessarily mean "right" and "wrong" respectively, and I think a big part of understanding alignment is divorcing somewhat between the modern man's sense of morality from the Faerunian's.

Darkness_Dawns
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Re: Question about perspective vs. alignment / mission state

Post by Darkness_Dawns » Mon Aug 14, 2017 9:53 pm

Of course, but what I'm saying doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the CHARACTER per se, more so their methods based off their alignment and HOW they accomplish the mission they are given based off their alignment. This is more a question for the personal aspect of the character vs the mission statement of the harper scouts. Not my personal ideals. I threw that in there because I think that there is a strong possibility that people would think that way on Toril as well.

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Re: Question about perspective vs. alignment / mission state

Post by Black Wendigo » Mon Aug 14, 2017 11:10 pm

This is something I think that will resolve itself IC in RP. Chars will react to what you are doing and from that you can get ALl kinds of perspective as to whether or not you are actually doing good or evil :).

Likely you'll get it from all sides of the issue.

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Re: Question about perspective vs. alignment / mission state

Post by Diilicious » Tue Aug 15, 2017 11:15 am

There are so so so many people that play this game that can not distinguish between right/wrong and good/evil in the context of the universe we are playing in.
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Re: Question about perspective vs. alignment / mission state

Post by WinkinBlinkin » Tue Aug 15, 2017 1:58 pm

Your concept of the Harpers reminds me of the role of Special Circumstance operatives in Ian Banks' series of Culture novels. The overall aim of the Culture is to spread this amazing utopian existence they have, with incredibly high ethical standards and fabulous living conditions. However, doing this often means interacting with and subverting less benevolent regimes and the people who do this are by necessity far more "ends justify the means" types. The Culture is unarguably a good thing. Spreading it is unarguably a good thing. It just occasionally involves betrayal, theft and assassination.

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