| Meh...
What I love is how you can loot people's homes and not only do they not care, but it doesn't make you the slightest bit more chaotic, or evil, or whatever. In the words of Fallout 2's Chosen One, ""What do I WANT? I don't really know. Most of the time I ignore my quest and walk into the homes of others, riffling through people's shelves..."
The most natural alignment for my characters to fall into is neutral good. I'm trying a Chaotic Good path now, and I'll see how being some sort of evil works out later. I had hoped that being a Xaositect would give me some sorta neat thingy where I would received hints from the chaos of the universe itself, like Barking-Wilder when he knows where your journals are, but nothing so far. Being a Xaositect doesn't even give me any cred with Jumble Murdersense! I suppose it's as Barking-Wilder says about not seeking advantages. Though I did get to say the line "Well I, for one, plan on discovering the secrets of the multiverse by rubbing cottage cheese on my belly and eating vast quantities of fresh-water fish. Mmm... cheese," which is a pretty good benefit.
Overall, I think the D&D law/chaos good/evil system is better than many believe it to be, but at the same time, it's a bit vague. I think the factions should provide more specific moral demands on their members (much like the "humanity/path" system in Vampire: the Masquerade or the various hodge-podge of vows and committments that can be taken as disadvantages in GURPS). Unfortunately, many of the factions don't seem to have a very unique or distinct moral outlook. The Athar for instance: so the Gods are frauds: great, so does that mean I'm never allowed to lie? If I'm a female Athar, is it morally acceptable for me to abort pregnancies? Is eating meat morally acceptable? Can I fight people for reasons other than self-defense, if they are evil? (can I kill a lord, rightful heir to his position, who taxes his peasants to the point of starvation while building fantastic palaces for himself, even if he's done me no harm and isn't particularly violent or aggressive in his rule?) How much of an effort do I have to make to help others? Is promiscuous consensual sex morally acceptable so long as I am cautious (what do people in Planescape use as pregnancy and STD protection anyway?), or should I abstain until I get into a monogamous relationship? The Athar have a particularly one-dimensional philosophy that can be summed up in "Gods are frauds" (and I say this as an atheist myself), but if you look at most of the factions, few of them DO answer these questions. Maybe that's because TSR wanted to avoid wading into contreversies ("generally, members of the Dustmen are pro-choice, and support women's right to get abortions" "The Harmonium advocates strict abstinence until marriage.").
Note: I edited this post because I got confused, and thought the thread was about which alignment most fits us as people, rather than which fits our characters when we roleplay.
Last edited by Jules; 11-08-2005 at 03:03 AM.
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