Different Alignments being friendos

Veeky Forums

As we know, parties with wildly varying alignments can sometimes lead to some issues.

I was contemplating ways around having wickedly violent disputes between PCs, and ways to solve them in-game without necessarily forcing them to cooperate via mutual enemy or Bigger Bad or what have you.

And then I thought "huh. What if they were friends? Like, bros and such?"

Like, LG Paladin and CE Barbarian being friends.

I seem to recall in one of the Baldur's Gate games that this happens- a crazy CE dwarf warrior is very friendly and attracted to a LG female character, and they get on well enough, the LG character even gaining sympathy for the CE character.

What are ways that you could attempt to foster friendships with people of such varying alignments, Veeky Forums ?

pic slightly related, as everyone gets annoyed with their friends.

This was posted last alignment thread, might help.

>a crazy CE dwarf warrior is very friendly and attracted to a LG female character
Well, as you just pointed out, one way to sell a believable opposite companionship is to make one a woman. In the context of most RPG settings people won't actually imagine woman characters having the same motives or concerns a similar man character would have, they're just THERE and no-one will ever call bullshit on them showing sympathy or tolerance to even a monster midget with dark swirling clouds over them because inhuman compassion is what woman are for, and even if you're afraid you can't sell it just DON'T MENTION THE WOMAN HAVING ANY VIEWS TOWARDS THE OPPOSING CHARACTER. UNLESS YOU POINT THEM OUT THE PLAYERS WILL JUST FORGET THE WOMAN IS THERE.

cont.

However, if you're playing with a more progressive crowd (that actually WALKS THE WALK, that is, not one of those "hurr hurr i'm feminist so i can't be racist, i'm one of you see please accept me" plebs) and your heart is set on E/G companionships that don't rely on deceit on either character's part or strong mutual goals to warrant tolerance consider loosening your stereotypes on what the alignments mean. For instance: two graduates of the Paladin academy have been best pals since adolescence. One of them wants to be a Paladin for the social esteem, to so their children will be in a social class higher than the one they grew up in, and for the power--they fear being powerless, have no true concern for the safety of others, and actually aren't then that "Lawful", they think of themselves as a self-motivating individual affecting the world with their will and not as someone using the system to meet their ends. They want to gain power at literally any means necessary but have never had to do anything "bad" to get it. They're NE or CE. Their friend is much more charitable than them, they judge the success of a society by the quality of life of all it's citizens, feel more hurt empathetically then they do at their own losses, and hate any act that diminishes the productivity of society. They few policies and societies as incredibly important tools for governing and protecting society and will defend and enforce order and policy at any cost. They're LG. The only thing stopping these two gals from being pals is one of them is has less empathy, and lots of RL friendships are like that.

And that was made by someone with no understanding of alignments.

Like, not even in the ballpark.

>What are ways that you could attempt to foster friendships with people of such varying alignments, Veeky Forums ?

>Step 1
Forget about paladin and blackguards. They're not just of a certain alignment, but honorbound to kill others of a different alignment

>Step 2
Make sure there's no open conflict or feud.

>Step 3
Make the evil restrained evil

In my setting, not!Charlemagne has a CE borderline psychopath among his not!Peers despite being himself LN with good tendencies. Why? Because the guy in question is a horribl, horrible person but too talented to waste. So the two came to an agreement: the CE faggot is allowed to be as cruel, bloody and merciless as he wants... within certain borders. Mostly not!Charlemagne points him in whatever direction he wants things to die.

It's a mutually benificial relationship: not!Charlemagne gets a strong warrior under his command that doesn't harm his own people, and the CE faggot can slaughter to his hearts content AND get rewarded for it rather than punished.

>Paladin
>NE or CE

Maximum over triggered.

Literally the only time this is an issue is when the LG is a paladin. Not all LG characters are paladins.

Also CE doesn't mean lol randum shitmeister. It means you 1. Do not follow societies laws or preconceptions and 2. are Selfish rather than Altruistic.

Selfish people can have friends. Selfish people LOVE friends. Heck they'll even do a lot for their friends - said friends make them feel good about themselves.

CE people do what feels good for them, with no regard for others. This doesn't mean that what feels good for them is ALWAYS harmful to others. Just that they have no qualms about crossing that line.

Alignments are so stupid. It's just opinion unless in setting things like negative and positive energy exists, which case good and evil should be very clear.

Here's a fairly good example of different alignments being pretty good friends, strangely enough. And despite the circumstances in the end.

Both Walter and Jonathan are thrown into their position, and despite their wildly different status and disagreements with each other, they get along fairly well. This is in part because they're members of the same order (Both Samurais) cast into a situation foreign to them in which they must rely on each other, and partially because only others like themselves can relate to what they're going through. A lot of their friendship comes about as a result of their similar situations bringing them together.

Even at the end, Jonathan is at least lamenting the fact that all of his friends have been torn apart by ideals and competing factions, suggesting he wishes that things could've remained as they were and never forced the group's hand to take sides.

Post the devil in the Semen Demon form she takes in that game

Wow, that's a pretty impressive run-on sentence. And I can definitely get behind your point of females being shown as too caring at times.

But it ignores a major point: you're assuming the female (or one of the females) to be the one who's "good", or who has the moral high ground.

If we have a crazy CE female sorcerer, and an LG male paladin, then, according to your rules, there's at least one woman, so you can sell it just on that. I'm not saying it's impossible; but it's a little improbably, and would require more motivation than just "the sorcerer is sympathetic to him".

And even if we disregard that, there's another flaw. Let's go back to your original concept: CE man and LG female are friends. And let's say that LG lady is sympathetic to CE dude, and we can't call bullshit on that. That's fine and dandy. But why would CE man like LG lady? There's no reason.

personally im playing in a game right now, im LG cleric, and we've got a NE warlock in the party. we get along very well, but in character of course my cleric doesnt know she is evil. she makes sure to do evil stuff out of sight of my cleric, or at least has a good enough reason to fool his low int. he looks up to her as a practical person with a cool head on her shoulders, and she always seems to have a solution to the current problem. we're working on him starting to take warlock levels, with his justification being power can be used for good, even if it comes from an evil source.

This one?

It depends on how you are defining alignments. The shining knight champion of the people will probably never get along with psychopath-baby-eater-McGee, and that's how a lot of people LG and CE respectively.

But if you see the Good-Evil spectrum as selfless-selfish there's no reason you can't have characters on either end that get along. Someone who is selfless doesn't have to think everyone else needs to be like that too, and someone whose selfish doesn't have to look down on people who are more selfless. Those two might even recognize the world takes all types and respect each other.

Lawful-Chaotic doesn't really mean you love laws vs you hate laws. It's all about having a belief system (which might involve following the law) or being primarily influenced by your emotions. Again, no reason these two types have to hate each other, nor any reason they can't respect each other.

OP here

I just remembered, it was Korgan and Mazzy from Baldur's Gate 2

Korgan is attracted to Mazzy and was looking to get halfling booty. She is disgusted by him, but grows to have sympathy for him after he reveals the story about his shit life.

They never bump uglies, but they do have some nice dialog.

Jayne was not Chaotic Evil, he was not evil. He was Chaotic Neutral. He was out for himself.

I am pretty liberal and my best friend is a hardcore conservative.

So yes, Chaotic good and Lawful evil can be buddies

You mean Lawful Neutral and Chaotic Evil.

Bump

>restrained evil
Might as well not pick and alignment if you´re gonna create contrivances that make you not play as that alignment.

yes because if youre going to have an evil character, no matter what the circumstances, you must go around and slaughter as many babies as possible. make sure you leave their corpses on the steps of a paladin order, with a signed confession

I can't help but think you two have a very shallow interpretation of evil

I have a friend who is a ex-Klansman. I don't agree with all of his views (some of which are old hangups), but guy is pretty boss. We've bonded over games and me picking his brain for religious knowledge (he as a masters in Biblical Law)

hi, i'm and i just feel the need to point out my sarcasm for ya, i honestly tried my best to have it drip off of every word, but i must have failed.

Nah you did a good job. I just derped.

I wasnt even talking about baby slaughter. I´m just saying that I dont see the point of picking CE if you´re gonna restrain yourself into not acting Chaotic or Evil. It´s like you play Chaotic Evil just to say you´re playing Chaotic Evil at that point.

Just stop using alignment, very simple.

Either that, or get rid of paladins.

Why do these fags always show up?

Or, if you want to keep alignment restrictions for character classes but keep a social class-conscious perspective on society and morality...

Anna and Maria are both LG paladins.

Anna grew up a desperately poor peasant. Her parents sent her to be raised by the Sun-Praising fathers in order to provide a path to a better life for her and her siblings. She knows she must not fail, as to obtain social status and a better life for her family's future descendants. Everything she does she does for family duty and to obey her elders.

Maria came from a family of free farmers who were killed by orcs. During the event she had a trauma induced hallucination and has had delusions of grandeur ever since. Raised by the church but having inherited a profitable plot of land, she had the benefits of wealthy uncles and aunts and the ability to afford a horse and armor. She's convinced that she must give her life for the greater glory of the Sun god and feels ecstasy at the idea of dying a glorious death for the cause.

Both are Lawful Good.

>It's just opinion unless in setting things like negative and positive energy exists

Why would radiant and necrotic damage types shoehorn people into behavioral tropes?

Alignments are teh suck. If your campaign world doesn't have consequences for immoral or savage behavior, or your players are a bunch of randumb edgelords, that's not a problem that enforcing Alignment is going to solve in the first place.

And in the end, that's all Alignment is in Dungeons and Dragons, a rule to enforce behavior on the players by the DM, a "you'll get the Stick to your head by Gawd (me) if you don't shape up"

And it's almost meaningless except for Paladins and Clerics stupid enough to be LG or LN worshiping a strictly Lawful diety; the rest of the party is allowed to give zero shits about it.
"The Gnome Illusionist is teetering on the edge of Chaotic Neutral, Oh Noes!!!1!"

That game was terrible

OP here

Getting things back on track, how could people of differing alignments be friends?

Like, LG guy thinks LE friend is kind of an asshole, and wonders about his mental stability, but knows he can trust him in a pinch. They've saved each others asses enough times that they see each other as friends, even if LE penchant for cruelty is unnerving.

Like, all gripes about alignments aside. (yes, I have my own.)

Well, I tried

Thanks everyone, I'll just have to ponder this on my own.

It started off good but then fell apart on the neutral and evil section.

>OP here
>Getting things back on track, how could people of differing alignments be friends?
>Like, LG guy thinks LE friend is kind of an asshole, and wonders about his mental stability, but knows he can trust him in a pinch. They've saved each others asses enough times that they see each other as friends, even if LE penchant for cruelty is unnerving.
>Like, all gripes about alignments aside. (yes, I have my own.)

currently playing a LE character in a group of mixed alignments, we aren't friends and there is some hostility between characters (but not players) but ultimately we know we need each other to survive.