November 2001

Mostly Good, Usually Lawful
Posted Monday, November 26, 2001 by
PanzerMagi

Alignment has always had its problems. For one thing, most players never did understand what alignment was supposed to mean. Very few of us played our chosen alignments the way we should have, if we went by the "real" definitions.

Generally speaking, in NWN, evil meant you dressed dark and made fun of newbies. Good meant light colors, and you *were* a newbie. Just kidding. Not all goodies were newbies. In fact, the worst newbies were generally rather evil -- no matter what their alignment said.

Truth be told, alignment was supposed to mean something. Lawful meant you had an obsession for rules. Chaotic meant you hated rules in every form. Good meant you liked to help cats out of trees, old ladies across roads, and for every one to give each other plenty of warm fuzzies at every opportunity. Evil meant you were in it for yourself. Neutral, well, that just meant you couldn't make up your mind.

I was never particularly satisfied with the "real" definitions, however. For one thing, the two-part nature never worked properly. Standard definitions meant that a lawful good character was something specific -- and it was someone that valued the rule of law over everything else.

Me, I like rules. I'm also a goodie. I sure as heck don't value rules over goodness, however. But that doesn't mean I'm neutral good. I don't think chaos and law have equal value -- I just think that laws, while important, are not of *absolute* importance.

Of course, the fact that I'm a goodie comes with some qualifications as well. I'm a goodie, so I stand against evil and all that the dark-icon crowd aims to accomplish. Then again, I'm not exactly one of those "cleanse evil from the face of the realms" types, either. Fact is, evils serve a purpose, and if they were wiped out, we goodies wouldn't have much point in our lives. And heck, some evils just aren't that bad.

So. Guess I'm not a pure goodie, either. But that doesn't mean I'm a neut. It just means I'm "mostly good". Mostly good should serve to distinguish between someone like me and one of those rabid, "Die, evils, die!" types. Similarly, there are various degrees of evil. There are the evils that just don't want to put up with the rest of the world, and then there are the evils that go out of their way to inflict pain and suffering. There are the evils that will feeb a stupid newb if it's convenient, and the evils that will lurk around the square trying to lure newbs into following them so they can drag 'em out to the shack and blind/sil/disease/feeb 'em.

What we need are some qualifiers. Shades of grey, rather than black and white. I'd like to be mostly good, usually lawful. That about fits. Perhaps with an "occasionally silly" qualifier tacked on. Instead, I'm lawful good, and I usually feel a little bad for the fact that I don't play up to the definition of what "lawful good" is supposed to entail. But I'm not going to play a stick in the mud just because that's the closest alignment to what I want to be.

This isn't exactly a pressing concern. The world won't end just because I have to be a lawful goodie. But wouldn't it be nice if we could all pick alignments that fit what we were? I know I'd like to. Not to mention how handy it'd be if alignment told you more about the folks you met than their color scheme. Too bad most people would refuse to voluntarily choose "rude and bitchy" as an alignment type.