Wat would a True Neutral character do?

[King of Nowhere]

"What would [alignment] do" is rarely a good question.
Alignments are not straightjackets, and characters of the same alignment often are very different. So the question is not "what would true neutral do" but "what would this person do".
Do you know something more of this guy who is put in this situation?

[Psyren]

"What would [alignment] do" is rarely a good question.
Alignments are not straightjackets, and characters of the same alignment often are very different. So the question is not "what would true neutral do" but "what would this person do".
Do you know something more of this guy who is put in this situation?

Agreed - with that said though, "what are the actions this character might take if they wanted to act in consistency with their alignment" can be useful.

Depends on your TN. IME: there are two approaches "Neutrality" and "Balance".

Captain Neutrality refuses to get involved. The woman could not save herself, the bandits cannot take the item from him. It's not his concern.

Mr Balance sees the loss of one woman as acceptable to prevent "the sure destruction of a city"(and presumably its people). Said destruction would do far more to upset the balance (local, regional, cosmic) than the death of one (presumably average) woman.

I agree that both of these approaches would broadly fit with this alignment. As far as what the character might ultimately choose to do, a few other factors are also relevant, such as whether the TN guy has friends (or enemies!) in the city, or whether they have a personal connection to the woman or even the bandits.

[LibraryOgre]

Edit: So we aren't talking past each other. Morality is subjective, and we have multiple philosophies that we use to define it. Objective morality is simply the selection of one of those and saying the others are wrong, which was my point about Good being Evil if we disagree on the moral system. A Neutral character "balancing" those is saying that morality is subjective after all, but in game people who reject the god's moral standards are treated as Evil in most settings. Forgotten Realms especially.

Morality is not subjective in D&D. It is a real thing, associated with real places. If you know a 9th level Wizard or Cleric, you can go to these places and speak to being comprised primarily of these things. While the DM may have to pick one of multiple definitions in order to say what objective morality is in their version of the game, that morality is still objective. Gods in D&D don't necessarily have moral standards... they have tenets, which are good or evil, lawful or chaotic, because those are objective measures that can be compared to.

A Neutral character balancing them is not saying morality is subjective, any more than a person placing 2.2 pounds on a scale opposite 1 kilogram is negating mass by doing so.

Basically, your understanding of alignment is so at variance with my own I don't think we can have a meaningful conversation about it.

[Tvtyrant]

Morality is not subjective in D&D. It is a real thing, associated with real places. If you know a 9th level Wizard or Cleric, you can go to these places and speak to being comprised primarily of these things. While the DM may have to pick one of multiple definitions in order to say what objective morality is in their version of the game, that morality is still objective. Gods in D&D don't necessarily have moral standards... they have tenets, which are good or evil, lawful or chaotic, because those are objective measures that can be compared to.

A Neutral character balancing them is not saying morality is subjective, any more than a person placing 2.2 pounds on a scale opposite 1 kilogram is negating mass by doing so.

Basically, your understanding of alignment is so at variance with my own I don't think we can have a meaningful conversation about it.

I don't think I'm doing a decent job of explaining myself.

Good and Evil in D&D are based on whether you are on Team Celestia/etc or Team Abyss/etc. Lawful is aligned with Order, and chaotic is aligned with chaotic.

Someone can be Neutral on Lawful vs. Chaotic by balancing them, because there are philosophical arguments to be made between freedom and functionality. Most shady actions are not evil in game, they are neutral. Neutral is selfish, evil is monstrous and delights in hurting unwilling others.

One cannot be neutral in any real world scenario by balancing soul torturing monsters with benevolent angels. D&D evil is so snidely whiplashy that it offers no compelling arguments for its existence, a neutral person defending D&D evil is actually a monster.

[hamishspence]

Depends which books you use. Plenty of acts can be evil without "delighting in harming innocents".

For that matter, there's characters who, "officially" (their listed alignment in splatbooks) are Evil-aligned, yet, as described in the novels featuring them, are closer to "shady" than "Complete Monster".

Remember that as much as 30% of the human population may be Evil, by some metrics.

[Psyren]

Most shady actions are not evil in game, they are neutral. Neutral is selfish, evil is monstrous and delights in hurting unwilling others.

There's a lot of degrees of evil before you get to baby-eating; the extreme examples just tend to be more prominent in heroic fantasy because the party is usually up against those kinds of scenery-chewing villains. The likes of crooked slumlords or corrupt officials may not be your typical D&D antagonist, but that doesn't make those individuals not evil.

[Knaight]

There's a lot of degrees of evil before you get to baby-eating; the extreme examples just tend to be more prominent in heroic fantasy because the party is usually up against those kinds of scenery-chewing villains. The likes of crooked slumlords or corrupt officials may not be your typical D&D antagonist, but that doesn't make those individuals not evil.

There's also the matter of how the core skills of the party tends to be killing people and breaking things. This is a fine approach when dealing with a serial killer who goes around murdering babies and consuming their flesh, it's a bit excessive for the typical crooked slumlord or corrupt official.

[hamishspence]

One cannot be neutral in any real world scenario by balancing soul torturing monsters with benevolent angels. D&D evil is so snidely whiplashy that it offers no compelling arguments for its existence, a neutral person defending D&D evil is actually a monster.

Angels might be benevolent, but they can also be pretty aggressive, judgemental, and so on. Some angels can be downright terrible when their anger is roused.

A person who believes that both celestials and fiends, and their moral codes, are threats to society, that should be opposed - such a character can be neutral - they're not interested in aiding both sides, in order to maintain balance (so they're not actively doing Good and Evil deeds) - instead, they're interested in opposing both sides - thwarting every celestial attempt to gain power and influence in shaping societies, and every fiendish attempt to gain power and influence in shaping societies.

"Keep both sides away from the Material" is this person's credo.

Which exactly matches that of the TN paladin variant from Dragon Magazine.

An overly lawful society that oppresses its population is just as wrong in the incarnate's eyes as a society that collapses into anarchy and barbarism. Likewise, a creature that indiscriminately treats everything with kindness and understanding is just as offensive as one that kills and slaughters without remorse.

The code of conduct:

An incarnate must be of neutral alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an act that endangers the natural balance of the world. The incarnate is most at home in the wilderness, but she does not take any special vows to avoid city life. She avoids travel to other planes (with the exception of the Elemental Planes to which she has an affinity) except in the most dire need. The incarnate prefers to arrive at peaceful solutions but is fully capable of using force against unwanted intrusions into this realm from beyond.

Incarnates can adventure with those of any alignment, but is suspicious and wary of those who draw power from the Outer Planes (clerics, other holy warriors). They tolerate the presence of native outsiders like aasimar and tieflings, but prefer not to share their company of possible. And they never knowingly associate with creatures of an alignment subtype.

[Luccan]

Well, alignment is descriptive, not prescriptive, and not defined by singular actions, so it depends on the character. There's also not a morally neutral choice here, if those are the only choices (a high enough level character might be able to defeat the bandits before they actually have a chance to kill the woman and a clever/charismatic one might be able to intimidate/persuade them not to). But both presented options are possible for a TN character. I think the question is flawed, though, like most binary morality questions. The bandits have the power to kill this woman, but not the character holding the item? So if they refuse the bandits just give up after killing the woman? Or they try to fight and fail, in which case they didn't know they couldn't win, so why bother with the hostage? They're apparently able and willing murderers: why do they think this character cares anymore about a random person than they do?

If measured on a "what causes the most human suffering" scale, I'd say a character trying not to stain their conscience as much, even if otherwise unconcerned with Good/Evil, would probably let the woman die. But again, only if there's no way to somehow get the best outcome. Saving the woman and city is good, but still probably not enough to shift you much on the moral spectrum of D&D (especially if we change it slightly to the city in which the TN character lives or that they want to go to and the woman is someone they consider a "countryman". Protecting such has been considered a neutral action since at least 3e). Have to remember that in D&D it is much easier to become evil than good.

However, most characters aren't concerned with being True Neutral (and many probably aren't concerned with their status on the Law-Chaos scale, though I suppose that's moot in this case). They're TN because they've never been faced with big questions like this, never sought them out, and/or when faced with them chose survival of them and theirs without malice.

Edit: Also, I agree with those saying Good and Evil creatures aren't morally equivalent in D&D. Your choices are, at worst, "don't do the things you know are bad for you and/or others, even if you enjoy them and they aren't too bad" vs "torture and step on people for all of eternity for laughs/power".

[Jay R]

The question is based on the false assumption that there are only nine things that people will ever do.

It's not true. It's just not true. Every True Neutral character would handle it differently.

I don't care what "a True Neutral character" would do. What would this one individual do, different from what the other hundred million True Neutral characters would do?

A true hero, of any alignment, would not accept the conditions being offered, and would find a way to save the lady, and the item, and the city. A True Neutral character would walk away from it with all the bandits' treasure, and the thanks and admiration of the town, who would never know how much he had gotten from the bandits.

[FabulousFizban]

we need to know a lot more about your character: background, aspirations, ideals, flaws, etc.

[False God]

I agree that both of these approaches would broadly fit with this alignment. As far as what the character might ultimately choose to do, a few other factors are also relevant, such as whether the TN guy has friends (or enemies!) in the city, or whether they have a personal connection to the woman or even the bandits.

Sure, for the sake of argument and due to lack of detail, I assumed his relationship with those things was also neutral.

"If a neutral character fell in the woods, would they make a sound?"

[GuzWaatensen]

Here is the situation: True Neutral character is in possession of an Item, that, if given to Bandits, will surely destroy a city. Item is irreplaceable, can not be re-crafted, etc. One day, he is faced with Bandits, who demand for him to hand them over an Item, or they will kill this woman, they are holding hostage. They are unable to just take this item from him. TN sees the woman, it's all very dramatic, taking place on a sunny meadow :D

What is a proper choice for TN?

Thought experiment to look at it from the other side:

A character is in position of an item that nobody can forcefully take from and in the wrong hands would surely be used for great evil. A group of bandits tries to extort said character by threatening to kill an innocent bystander that the character could reasonably be thought to be attracted to but has otherwise no connection. The character tells the bandits that the item is worth much more than the life of one person, but that he is willing to barter and handing over the attractive bystander would be a good starting offer. In the end he agrees to trade the item for for the bystander and a large amount of gold, but ultimately doesn't keep his end of the bargain and keeps the item to himself. What he does with the bystander and the gold is intentionally left open.

What alignment is he?

I would argue that the actions I described could be fitting for any alignment...