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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
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Originally Posted by
Urpriest
Rilmani have similar goals to these guys, and are True Neutral. Keepers are similarly destructive, and are also Neutral. I'd peg these guys as consistent with the game's concept of Crazy Neutral.
Neither generally resort to all out slaughter though and neither seek to eliminate the other alignments. The Rilmani act to keep all alignments in balance and generally use manipulation and politics to achieve their end. Ironically, the Rilmani would likely be the most ardent opponents of these Druids.
The Keepers are largely sociopathic and I would argue not neutral since they eliminate anyone who knows one of their secrets. All depends on how ruthless you play them though.
If the Druids used non-violent manners achieve their ends, similar to what the Athar do in Sigil, they could be True Neutral. The second they start killing to achieve their ends, they jump off of their slippery slope into Neatral Evil.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
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Originally Posted by
Benjuri
The Keepers are largely sociopathic and I would argue not neutral since they eliminate anyone who knows one of their secrets. All depends on how ruthless you play them though.
What you argue isn't terribly relevant, they are Always Neutral. The alignment guidelines are ambiguous: short of in-depth research like hamishpence's the only thing we have to go on to define the alignments are examples.
Anyway, what about the Formians? World domination is classically pretty Lawful Evil. In general, Neutral can indicate, rather than an unwillingness to harm people unnecessarily, instead that the creature involved has a particularly alien mindset. Animals, for example. I'd argue that if these Druids are stated as True Neutral then that could mean that they're simply so crazy that evil isn't really a good characterization. As I've said, there is precedent.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
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Originally Posted by
Urpriest
In general, Neutral can indicate, rather than an unwillingness to harm people unnecessarily, instead that the creature involved has a particularly alien mindset. Animals, for example. I'd argue that if these Druids are stated as True Neutral then that could mean that they're simply so crazy that evil isn't really a good characterization. As I've said, there is precedent.
Fair enough. I'd buy that for animals and keepers. Not so sure about mortals though, since assumably their minds work the same way ours do and their aim is to eliminate entire alignments. I find it difficult to buy that genocide is anything but evil for a human/elf/dwarf/whatever. Attempting to change people's minds is one thing. Killing entire races because of their alignment is another. Which ironically enough, one of the points that The Giant is trying to make with OotS.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
Everyone seems to be assuming that within D&D, people accept that good and evil are absolutes or that they are synonymous with right and wrong. There is no reason some people can't just say, (about alignments,) 'no, I don't buy it' and keep going. Mechanics don't actually exist in D&D. They are a way to represent abstract or difficult to pin down concepts in a way that allows us to simulate the world with dice. If alignment is universally acknowledged as part of a characters make up, you may as well have people in character asking each other, "Whoever has the most ranks in diplomacy and highest charisma modifier should talk to this guy!"
"But there is a spell that SAYS you are evil!" is not good enough. Who made the spell? A god? A person? Someone at some point declared it was evil and that isn't enough to make it so. People are going to think in universe, (and rationally so,) this is very arbitrary. If there was a single creator entity that bound the entire universe together and wasn't something that had a certain power level but was a fabric of the universe or something and had a specific consciousness maybe I'd accept some sort of universal morality, but until then no, I won't.
You can disagree with me. You can say morality is concrete within the D&D world and that is fine. But it would be silly to suggest my viewpoint/arguments would never be used by people living inside a D&D world.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
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In a world with Detect Alignment spells, you would have to kill yourself if that was the case. Either this druidic sect was forced to self-terminate after their actions turned them Evil, or their actions did not turn them Evil. I am simply going with the latter scenario because the former one precludes any form of relevant discussion.
All Detect Alignment spells are cleric magic and are therefore supplied by the gods. To the wise and logical leaders that you are suggesting of an organization explicity devoted to opposing the gods, such spells must be considered unreliable at the very least and possibly even subversive and therefore cannot be used for internal policing.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
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Originally Posted by
SowZ
There is no reason some people can't just say, (about alignments,) 'no, I don't buy it' and keep going.
...
"But there is a spell that SAYS you are evil!" is not good enough. Who made the spell? A god? A person? Someone at some point declared it was evil and that isn't enough to make it so. People are going to think in universe, (and rationally so,) this is very arbitrary.
Champions of Ruin does say that different D&D cultures will have different definitions of "evil" - some much more "liberal" than others.
And there's quite a few examples of characters who insist that they and their actions are not evil. In Tome of Magic, there's a blackguard, once a paladin, who still does not understand why he's lost his paladin powers, and thinks it's a test of faith by his deity- Michael Ambrose, Witch Slayer.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
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Originally Posted by
Talakeal
As opposed to what? I can't think of what alternative to biological evolution you could possibly be referring to, unless you are saying most psychologists don't believe in evolution at all, which is both factually incorrect and leads down a road we probably shouldn't get into on this forum.
I never said psychologists didn't believe in evolution, I'm merely saying that evolutionary psychology is only one school of thought. Other schools of thought are the tabula rasa, the Jungian theory of social subconscious, the socialisation theory, the imprinting theory, and others I am currently forgetting. And mind you, these are the "respectable" theories. I assure you that there is a frankly astonishing number of psychologists that subscribe to far more... shall we say, New-Age-y theories.
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Originally Posted by
Ravens_cry
If Good is actually good ,then they are seeking to destroy beings who actively work to make the universe a better place, to help others without selfishness, to be light the way so others may follow.
To destroy that would be a crime of, dare I say it, epic proportions.
I fail to see how that cannot be immediately and automatically counterbalanced by destroying beings who actively work to make the universe a worse place, to harm others selfishly, tempt others into corruption and perform all kinds of hideous and depraved acts.
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Originally Posted by
Knight13
All Detect Alignment spells are cleric magic and are therefore supplied by the gods. To the wise and logical leaders that you are suggesting of an organization explicity devoted to opposing the gods, such spells must be considered unreliable at the very least and possibly even subversive and therefore cannot be used for internal policing.
Clerics need not be devoted to a god to have spells. Divine spells do not exclusively originate from the gods in settings other than Faerun. Furthermore, outside core, Detect Alignment spells can be found in classes that are not associated with gods in the slightest and some of which are not even divine at all.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
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Originally Posted by
Shadowknight12
I fail to see how that cannot be immediately and automatically counterbalanced by destroying beings who actively work to make the universe a worse place, to harm others selfishly, tempt others into corruption and perform all kinds of hideous and depraved acts.
Because killing something because you cast detect evil on them and it came out positive is not a good act. At best, it's solidly neutral. Ask Miko, Belkar almost made her fall by killing him if V hadn't intervened. Rich made a similar point in On the Origins of PCs when the "heroes" Roy was with wanted to kill orcs because orcs were listed as evil when all the orcs wanted was to go to a heavy metal concert. Could they counter balance it and stay true neutral by countering killing celestials with helping people? By helping aid heroes who were fighting said being to protect the innocent? Perhaps. But killing evil beings just because they are evil is not a good act.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
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Originally Posted by
Benjuri
But killing evil beings just because they are evil is not a good act.
Indeed, it might qualify as murder in a lot of settings. Eberron in particular emphasises that evil does not mean "deserves to be attacked".
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
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Originally Posted by
Benjuri
Because killing something because you cast detect evil on them and it came out positive is not a good act. At best, it's solidly neutral. Ask Miko, Belkar almost made her fall by killing him if V hadn't intervened. Rich made a similar point in On the Origins of PCs when the "heroes" Roy was with wanted to kill orcs because orcs were listed as evil when all the orcs wanted was to go to a heavy metal concert. Could they counter balance it and stay true neutral by countering killing celestials with helping people? By helping aid heroes who were fighting said being to protect the innocent? Perhaps. But killing evil beings just because they are evil is not a good act.
They don't intend to kill living beings. They intend to kill embodiments of evil, which is widely held to be an automatically good act (save a few sources who disagree).
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
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Originally Posted by
Shadowknight12
They don't intend to kill living beings. They intend to kill embodiments of evil, which is widely held to be an automatically good act (save a few sources who disagree).
Then what about the demons who kill other demons? By killing enough demons, a demon becomes neutral. Eventually, the neutral demon will encounter another neutral demon and whoever wins that battle will become evil again! It just doesn't work.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
Don't know about "widely held"- there's one source that says it's an automatically good act (BoVD) but even that says that slaying creatures of "consummate, irredeemable evil" purely for personal benefit is not a good act (but not evil, either).
Problem is- several sources suggest fiends aren't in fact irredeemable. In Savage Species, the Ritual of Alignment can change a fiend's alignment subtype without killing the fiend- though it does have a chance of dying.
There's the Lawful Neutral fiend Fall From Grace (Planescape Torment). There's the famous succubus paladin from the WotC site. There's the cambion demons from Expedition to the Demonweb pits (despite being fiends, they have some human blood, and 10% of Cambions are neutral or good).
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
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Originally Posted by
Shadowknight12
I never said psychologists didn't believe in evolution, I'm merely saying that evolutionary psychology is only one school of thought. Other schools of thought are the tabula rasa, the Jungian theory of social subconscious, the socialisation theory, the imprinting theory, and others I am currently forgetting. And mind you, these are the "respectable" theories. I assure you that there is a frankly astonishing number of psychologists that subscribe to far more... shall we say, New-Age-y theories.
Ok, that explains it. I didn't think you were saying psychologists didn't believe in evolution, which is why I asked. I am no expert on new age psychology, but I was under the impression that most of those other theories still used evolution as a base point, for example Jung believing in some sort of inherited racial memory, but I get what you are saying.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
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Originally Posted by
Shadowknight12
They don't intend to kill living beings. They intend to kill embodiments of evil
actually, going by this:
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As a rough rule, any race which is listed in THE MONSTER MANUAL has having an inherent alignment is seen by the druids as literally alien or, at best, a native who has been perverted by the efforts of the gods who wish to rule them and use them as their tools on the Prime Material Plane.
some non-outsiders will qualify as well- chromatic dragons, for example, may qualify as "natives who have been perverted by the efforts of the gods" - Tiamat, in this case.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
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Originally Posted by
hamishspence
There's the Lawful Neutral fiend Fall From Grace (Planescape Torment). There's the famous succubus paladin from the WotC site. There's the cambion demons from Expedition to the Demonweb pits (despite being fiends, they have some human blood, and 10% of Cambions are neutral or good).
And sticking with Planescape, there's A'kin, who may or may not be a risen fiend, but regardless is a perfectly nice pleasant person. There are NG proxies of NE gods. There are rogue Modrons who were once perfect beings of perfect law, but are now something far more ambiguous. There is even a NG Ultroloth in canon, who secretly leads an entire gatetown. Is it easy for a fiend to rise? No. Is it possible? You bet.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
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Originally Posted by
Talakeal
Ok, that explains it. I didn't think you were saying psychologists didn't believe in evolution, which is why I asked. I am no expert on new age psychology, but I was under the impression that most of those other theories still used evolution as a base point, for example Jung believing in some sort of inherited racial memory, but I get what you are saying.
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No, not really. There's a big difference, conceptually, between "we acquired this or that psychological mechanism due to evolution" and "we have a series of psychological mechanisms pre-engraved in our minds" (the main difference between those theories is that the evolutionary one claims those mechanisms are capable of changing with time, whereas the latter theory claims those mechanisms are unchanging). Furthermore, the tabula rasa theory sustains that we learn our psychological mechanisms from our surroundings and/or develop them spontaneously to cope with situations, which would mean that evolution plays no role in regards to the mechanisms we end up developing (unless you want to speculate that society as a whole encourages certain mechanisms in individuals, but that in and of itself does not necessarily involve evolution. In fact, there would be a split between those that say that said mechanisms arose evolutionary and those that say those mechanisms arise spontaneously according to sociocultural specifications and change not out of an evolutionary impulse but according to the prevalent situations that society encounters).
But that's frankly quite off topic.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
It'd definitely depend on their methods. If they see Orcs as being "corrupted" by the Evil Gods and intend to just wipe out the Orcs entirely, that's one thing. If they intend to open a big portal to the Paraelemental Plane of Violence and mass exodus the Evil people in...
I definitely wouldn't paint them as Good, but "Get out get out get off my PLANET" could definitely be a Neutral alignment.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
I dunno, I tend to look at the Good/Evil axis as being the method of action, and the Chaos/Law as the means to the action, in terms of alignment for organizations.
This is just a general guide, not a hard fast rule.
If a organization is powered by malice, is out to gather power for power's sake or just plain encumbering on everyone not involved, I would rule them as Evil. If they are out to provide for others, help and heal, or are just simply a boon for others not involved, I would rule them as generally good. These druids don't seem to be driven by spite or encumbering anyone they can, so I would rule them as Neutral.
If the organization is strictly established, with a running hierarchy, a code or written law of some sort and generally well organized, I would rule them as lawful. If they are more of a off-the-cuff, do as they wish without anyone to answer too directly, as long as it moves towards the goal; I rule them Chaotic.
again, they have a structure, but aren't especially well organized, I may rule them lawful, but probably leaning to true Neutral on this one.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
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Originally Posted by
Agrippa
Out of general curiosity I'd like to ask the good people of Giant in the Playground forums, just as I asked at Minmax, what sort of alignment they would assign to the druids depicted in this
article. Not based on the writer's claims but upon your judgement of course.
Lawful Evil. The druids have a very rigid worldveiw and goals, and ending any distiction between good and evil is a strongly evil act.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
"ending distinction between good and evil" isn't listed anywhere in the splatbooks- and doesn't entirely fit their attitude anyway.
"Being opposed to the influences of Good and Evil forces" seems closer.
With some opposition to Law and Chaos, as well.
These are the guys who rally to the defensive when the slaadi are invading, the formians are invading, the fiends are invading .... and the celestials are invading.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
In second edition wasn't part of the druids code that they HAD to oppose both good and evil, and they had some weird sort of "high neutral" alignment that forced them to actively oppose whichever alignment, Good, Evil, Law, or Chaos, which grew to eclipse the others?
I would say these guys are neutral, just a more archaic form of neutral than most modern gamers use, although I believe the option to play "high neutral" is still in more recent PHBs, just not the default assumption for the druid class.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
These druids are like that but a bit more extreme- they oppose all four "aligned forces" always- not just when one grows to eclipse the others.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
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Originally Posted by
Shadowknight12
I never said psychologists didn't believe in evolution, I'm merely saying that evolutionary psychology is only one school of thought. Other schools of thought are the tabula rasa, the Jungian theory of social subconscious, the socialisation theory, the imprinting theory, and others I am currently forgetting. And mind you, these are the "respectable" theories. I assure you that there is a frankly astonishing number of psychologists that subscribe to far more... shall we say, New-Age-y theories.
Evolutionary psychology, the questionable field, is not synonymous with "the way the brain works is due to how it evolved". The latter point is basically a given, whereas the former routinely makes large scale claims well beyond that, and is frequently criticized for those large claims that regard specific beliefs, as said claims have a tendency to trivialize the affects of culture. That our brains evolved, and evolved differently than, say, insect brains, and are as such a product of biological evolution is the dominant theory in the biology underlying psychology.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
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Originally Posted by
Knaight
Evolutionary psychology, the questionable field, is not synonymous with "the way the brain works is due to how it evolved". The latter point is basically a given, whereas the former routinely makes large scale claims well beyond that, and is frequently criticized for those large claims that regard specific beliefs, as said claims have a tendency to trivialize the affects of culture. That our brains evolved, and evolved differently than, say, insect brains, and are as such a product of biological evolution is the dominant theory in the biology underlying psychology.
You confuse psychology and neurology. Everything you're saying refers to neurology, which is a branch of biology, where evolution holds undisputed sway. While all but a scant few psychologists believe that biology influences psychology somehow, not every school of thought prescribes the entirety of our psychological processes as purely biological. The distinction is subtle, but it's frankly quite important.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
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Originally Posted by
Shadowknight12
Logic, obviously. If you're fighting Evil and you're Evil, you must fight yourself. I was merely citing one of example of such fighting. You can, of course, merely kill yourself after you've made sure you've destroyed all of the evil in the universe. But that's boring.
Yes but when you kill yourself it limits your potential tally of dead evil to 1, YOU.
Its very easy using basic D&D alignments to have an evil character justify sticking around and fighting evil knowing that he is damned. He knows he will one day fall in the struggle and until then all he can do is send as many of the bastards to the hells as possible.
That being said i find these druids to be lawful neutral. They have a sense of the order of things and how they should be and enforce that order irrespective of perceived good or evil because its the order itself that matters.
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Re: What alignment would you give these sort of druids?
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Originally Posted by
Shadowknight12
You confuse psychology and neurology. Everything you're saying refers to neurology, which is a branch of biology, where evolution holds undisputed sway. While all but a scant few psychologists believe that biology influences psychology somehow, not every school of thought prescribes the entirety of our psychological processes as purely biological. The distinction is subtle, but it's frankly quite important.
Are we still on this?
When I cited evolution I was just referring to Darwinism. A species that reproduces like humans do and has mental processes that reliably result in self termination isn't likely to survive very well; especially compared to one with processes that actively prioritize survival. Additionally the list I gave was inclusive, not exclusive. The mentality you're suggesting doesn't make sense from an evolutionary standpoint, an instinctual standpoint, a societal standpoint or any other standpoint (save maybe a child's logic). The phrase "and almost any other standpoint" indicates that there are other possible explanations for a persons behavior, and I can't think of any that would support your claims, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to list all of them.