What does it mean to be neutral?

Being Chaotic is a little bit more selfish, and probably is at the expense of others.

To reject the notion that good must be upheld and order maintained. To reject that evil may reign and freedom for all be sustained.

One of the great problems with the dedication to neutrality as the idea of a moral balance of zero, is that it only works if your character is completely passive. They can't intervene, or else they will tip the moral scales, and then they'll have to counter that deed with the opposite.

With the active, interventionist nature of player characters however, you often end up not neutral but schizophrenic, fluctuating between good and evil in a constant attempt to even things out. The greatest trouble with that is that it typically takes a lot more good to even out the bad, misery is a lot easier to proliferate.

The most coherent form of neutrality is . To pursue and adhere to the truths that transcend good and evil, the things that simply are, the forces of nature.

I think im in the minority when I say that neutral refers to the majority. It's the standard from which you consider what lawful, chaotic, good, and evil are. If most people obey the law, then a lawful person would go above and beyond to obey the law such as following inane laws like jaywalking laws or music piracy while a neutral person wouldn't care.

>Simply TN
default alignment for humans and some rare races, not a devout worshipper of any god, not criminally insane or autistic, not a dwarf/orc/elf/drow/etc (as thoses have racial alignments), not undead
>agent/envoy/champion of balance
As it says on the tin, not undead, not dwarf/orc/elf/drow/etc.

That would be evil and a proper GM would make you as such and probably kick you out

But "lawful" doesn't actually specifically mean you'll follow "the law". Basically, that alignment axis is just whether you think there are things like duty, obligations or honor and whether they should be followed, rather than your whims.

Chaotic Neutral is non of that

I just means your character is probably selfish to the point of not giving a fuck about anything that doesn't concern him or the people he loves.
an example would be Bender from Futurama or Guts from Berserk before he joined the band of the Hawk.

I have no strong thoughts or feelings in regards to this question.

Everyone who is seriously debating D&D alignments needs to kill themselves.

Its an entirely nonsensical and unworkable system.

It means you're not evil enough to murder someone for personal gain, but not good enough to risk your life for a stranger.

Neutral means a normal person. Allot 1% each to the other alignments, and you have 92% of the population remaining for morally/ethically gray areas.

Evil: I care about me
Neutral: I care about those close to me
Good: I care about everyone

No, it means affiliated with the factions reigning over the plane of order or having an affinity to that plane.
No, alignments have nothing to do with personality or ethics

Chaotic would be do what you want.
Chaotic evil is doing it at the expense of others.

>No, alignments have nothing to do with personality or ethics
That's just wrong. Many official settings use an aspect where beings can be made from alignment stuff or are otherwise directly affiliated with it, but that does not apply to characters from the material planes.

I'm pretty sure it's called not giving a shit.

>What does it mean to be neutral?
It means to be useless

It means watching purefags and edgefags go at it while you sit on the sidelines and wait for the fallout to start affecting things in a way that makes them stop attacking each other like retards.

Garak is a great example of True Neutral. Every ideology and perspective is a product someone's trying to push on you, don't trust them. View all matters with a critical eye, even yourself. Instead of spelling things out for people, let them come to their own conclusions.

It means being a delusional coward?

And that conclusion is that good is right? (unless it's a setting where good isn't what is better and most loving to everyone)

No

Sure sounds like it. Little Switzerland has never dominated world politics, nor has it ever wanted to.

I guarantee you're a fatbody that likes to pretend he's either "good" but doesn't actually do anything about the things he pretends to care and feel moral outrage about, or "evil" but doesn't have the balls to actually ruin people's lives for his own benefit.

So that's what neutrality is all about. Thanks for explaining it.

It means you care less about the well being of complete strangers, more about your own but still not enough to fuck over said strangers for minimal gain.

You have to remove biases and that will lead you on to removing ideologies. When you see ideologies as biases then you will have reached a true middle ground which is neutraility.

What alignment is he?

I have strong feelings for everything.

So are you a purefag or an edgefag?

>What does it mean to be neutral?
I can't say for sure.

More like the conclusion is that good isn't as clear cut as 'Good' people tend to think. In the context of Garak and DS9, take the Starfleet officers on the station. O'Brian is racist and petty, Bashir is arrogant, Sisko is vicious and underhanded, and yet they're all 'Good' in D&D terms. The Cardassians and the Dominion are both 'Evil' in D&D terms and yet they're occasionally virtuous and often sympathetic. The 'Good' characters commit war crimes over the course of the show, heck Sisko (and Garak) conspire to get the Romulans into the Dominion War under completely false pretences.

I think True Neutral is the standpoint that says "Hey, stop acting under the assumption that you're awesome and everyone you disagree with is terrible. True heroes and pure villains are rare and demonizing people only makes things worse."

Most people are Neutral. You're probably Neutral. Someone who has a sense of morality, but has a price on it.

It means you abide by rules. Or you don't.

Most people don't put a price on morality. That behavior is actually ridiculed. See: "Nice Guys".

>racist and petty
Evil characteristics

>arrogant
Evil characteristic

>vicious and underhanded
Evil characteristics

So true neutrals are idiots? Because someone mostly good with a few evil traits is always better than someone evil with a few virtues.

And that doesn't really change that a true neutral, if they are really about arriving at their own conclusion, that this conclusion has to be as good as possible ie being good or it's wrong.

It means you grow up and realize that being Lawful Good is for overly idealistic children.

t. miserable janny no one knows or cares about. Enjoy cleaning up after humanity forever while your Lawful Good waifu earned great acclaim and paradise.

>Little Switzerland has never dominated world politics

Switzerland used to be so bloodthirsty and good at waging war through the mercenaries it lent out that the pope made a holy degree that the Swiss had to become a neutral nation.

I balance out every evil action with a good one, thus my alignment never shifts out of neutral point-wise. Sure I bombed an orphanage but I was also the biggest financial backer for its reconstruction.

>Because someone mostly good with a few evil traits is always better than someone evil with a few virtues.

Why is it better? I mean as long as the "final boss" is beaten then does it matter if they're the reverse?

Don't go too far out your way to be good, be fine with screwing some people over if it isn't so bad.

What alignment falls under the Indiana Jones mindset of, "I don't know, I'm making this up as I go"? Where you aren't planning out anything and running the life by the seat of your pants.

After all, the creator of game theory said that a random strategy you come up with on the spot is the only strategy that cannot be guaranteed to be beaten by some other strategy.

LG, NG, CG, LN, TN, CN, LE, NE, or CE

The trick to Neutral is that it is not the absolute center and only the center, it is everything that isn't major enough to get capital letter Good or Evil or Lawful or Chaotic.

Why should I give a shit?

Betrayal isn't evil. Hell a Lawful Good PC should be outright expected to betray his companions if the situation demands it.

Alongside of all this "keeping balance" bullshit neutral also mean normal.

You just don't care about all that good, evil, law and chaos and wants to be left alone and do your shit.

>Betrayal isn't evil. Hell a Lawful Good PC should be outright expected to betray his companions if the situation demands it.
Post a pic of your nose

Someone isn't familiar with Shin Megami Tensei!

this.

I mean, what you're describing is basically resourcefulness in the ability to improvise. The only situations it wouldn't apply would be for some Lawful characters who follow their code by the book to a flaw, and that's an edge case.

Passive individual who may or may not react when provoked.

>The only situations it wouldn't apply would be for some Lawful characters who follow their code by the book to a flaw
or Neutral and Chaotic characters who do the same

If they're not CN they're certainly Chaotic Stupid

...

Selfishness. It doesn't cross into evil because a truly selfish person won't do things that would make others try to kill them with reasonable chance they will.

>Lawful good religious paladin in a chaotic neutral party.
>Party decides to burn a church housing enemy soldiers for the sake of efficiency.
>Paladin refuses and stands in their way so they do not commit sacrilege.
This isn't really far fetched

Truly selfish person would have zero regard for others. Neutrals sound like egoists who only act in their best interest and never against it.

>Selfishness. It doesn't cross into evil because a truly selfish person won't do things that would make others try to kill them with reasonable chance they will.
There's plenty of ways to be an asshole without it coming back to you, and more if you put the effort in to covering it up

GOOD: Upon finding the city you're traveling too is under the control of a tyrannical dictator who oppresses the common folk, joining/creating a resistance movement to oust him.

NEUTRAL: Doing what you came to the city to do, then leaving. You have other problems, no need to get involved in this one.

EVIL: Helping the evil dictator/ousting him just to take his place.

>>Paladin refuses and stands in their way so they do not commit sacrilege.
>Betrayal
Read the fucking posts, of course it makes sense there. To betray the party is not lawful good. Even if you find out you're adventuring with chaotic evil shitbags, you don't stab them in the night.

As your town's hunting party come back from their expedition, you find everyone dead cold like had a heart attack at the same time.
The hunter's party later finds out, it was a warlock that set a device that stole everyone's souls to use as payment for a demon's power, and the ritual will be performed on the next blood moon.
True neutral is, the hunter party does whatever it can to get their town's souls back with them, either performing jobs for the local church so they're paid with their horses, and/or decimating and torturing the cultists for clues on the warlock's den location.

Chaotic neutral is pointing at the young lads with a shotgun telling them to get the fuck out of your lawn
True neutral turns on the sprinklers
Lawful neutral calls the police/tries to talk them out

But you might turn them in to the authorities when they cross a line.

Lots of history's greatest heroes are traitors, like Robespierre or Edward Snowden.

>Chaotic good
For the greater good
>Chaotic neutral
For me and my homies
>Chaotic evil
For myself

Being a decent person who may do the right thing but won't stick his neck out too far for it.

Evil acts outweigh good ones. You don't get the right to murder someone just because you saved three people from a burning building and say 'Hey, I still caused a net gain of 2 people!'

"get off mah lawn" is LN, not CN
the young lads are CN
the cops who arrive and defuse the situation are TN

True Neutrals that proactively alter the world do so to maintain balance. True Neutral is what the majority of humans will be running as, but the majority of humans will be NPCs. They care about themselves and theirs, they probably have a lesser affection for their country or king, but still some degree of bond if only because he is their protector from the dark forces of the world.

Not opportunists, but more than willing to jump at opportunity should it present itself. They might even do "bad" things if its enough benefit to them and theirs, such as taking a bribe, hiding some of the crops when the tax collector shows up, just borrowing a few coins from their drunken neighbor to pay for his tab, his neighbor will just think he spent it in his drunken stupor anyways.
As an adventurer a True Neutral is about seeing the world for what it is, not whatever ideals men might have for it. The idea of pure evil or pure good is unappealing to them. Although I doubt many true neutrals would be sympathetic to a Balor, they would not actively hunt one without good reason to do so. And not just because hunting a Balor is as dangerous as it is dumb, but because the Nine Hells exist for a reason, separate from the Material Plane. The Material Plane should stay the Material Plane, while the Nine Hells should stay the Nine Hells. A Paladin would be wrong for trying to purge the Hells, while a demon would be wrong for trying to purge the Material Plane. An adviser that plans to assassinate the king and instill his brutal regime would be wrong as he is upsetting the balance of power, committing murder, and bringing ruination upon the country and its people. They can still have morals and be against evil things, they just don't see evil as some tangible thing that exists in a vacuum. There are objective truths in the world, and objectivity transcends something as whimsical as good and evil.

To be evil under a different name.

Does not the righteous man strive to diminish evils and enact goods? Why then should we be satisfied that some simply avoid the conflict and in doing so tacitly support the heinous cruelties some bring into the world?

You're largely self serving, but you go out of the way to do good things for that which is important to you- even if that occasionally means doing bad things to get there.

If they were a decent person they would eventually nudge into good from sheer inertia of small good actions building up over time. A neutral to me is the type of person who ultimately indifferent to the plight of most individuals and only cares about their friends because their friends are the only people willing to tolerate their non-good ways. They're that weirdo that sits in the corner of a bar or never socializes, the man that leaves a person to die because they feel it's not their problem, the jerk that doesn't leave a tip. They're the anti-social counterpart to good, in that while they won't cause maliciousness they likewise rarely act altruistically, or else their alignment wouldn't be neutral in the first place. If anything, it's a greater burden on the good to have to put up with them because their alignment says they do.

Uh uh uh Mr. Knight, your rules say you have to protect them and support them because attacking them would be an evil action. :)

I'd argue the opposite, that the average human NPC is either lawful neutral and/or neutral good, and that true neutral characters are a relatively less common because most societies tend to shun people who act in the way TN is usually described: a bunch of self-centered pricks who only cared about their immediate family wouldn't be able to form a kingdom or civilization or create enough trust to construct something as intricate as a government greater than tribalism or a currency system. A certain degree of trust is required to keep these types of venues running, be it maintained through law or through mutual understanding and altruism, but without either you can't advance as a society. Of course, that doesn't mean that they can't make up a large chunk of any given nation, but they couldn't run it on their own.

Dynamic alignment. Most people forget alignment isn't static and characters can with some difficulty shift from good to neutral and back.

I'm glad you asked.

True Neutrality does not mean (as some might suggest) a lack of conviction, but a strong conviction that an excess of anything is unhealthy in the long term - but what's important to bear in mind is that excesses of certain things are not entirely equitable to one another.

As an example, let's take the axis of Good versus Evil. Good is said to represent altruism and personal sacrifice for others. While certainly Charity and Sacrifice are positive in moderation, a society that builds itself entirely upon sympathy for the downtrodden will expend its resources trying to make sure that everyone is provided for, and collapse - causing destructive chaos to rear its ugly head in the turmoil that follows any societal breakdown.

If this charity is moderated, however, tempered by more rational voices - then it is much less detrimental to the optimal state of being than Evil, which even in moderation produces large amounts of suffering for a large amount of people.

Likewise, Law and Chaos have their respective merits. A society that is excessively Lawful will lend itself to authoritarianism and the abuse of the letter of the law by bad-faith actors. Contrarily, a society that is excessively chaotic will provide no security for its people.

In my personal opinion, Neutrality itself tends towards Law and Good simply because those axes are less damaging to the equilibrium of the whole - but it recognises that even those cannot be allowed to run rampant over all their foes lest they become stifling dictators.

> a bunch of self-centered pricks who only cared about their immediate family wouldn't be able to form a kingdom or civilization or create enough trust to construct something as intricate as a government greater than tribalism or a currency system.

Considering throughout history about half of the rulership has been married into one family? If anything neutrals make nations even easier. You can trust them to in general prepare a bribe if they need to or to not betray your secrets.

Good alignment on the other hand will and can do self destructive things for the nation at large if they feel it isn't right to them. So you can easily get situations of them pissing diplomats and other people off and making things more unstable. While a neutral will just do whatever it takes.

Basically this.

If everyone were pure good, nothing would get done. Society would survive by subsistence, but in a perfect communal world there would be no competition, or need to improve, or go against the status quo. You only have to maintain it. Society never evolves past subsistence farming because everyone's just happy to sit around and be nice to each other.

A pure Law society has no empathy or flex. You follow the law to the letter or pay the punishment, you do not question the law or try to change the status quo, lest you be jailed or silenced for disturbing the peace. Society bogs down because free thinking is not just discouraged, but criminal.

A pure evil society simply falls apart because everyone is busy stabbing each other in the back. You kinda have the Drow society, but they're kept in place by a pretty active deity specifically because left to their own devices they'd all murderhobo each other in a couple years tops without active guidance and fear of retribution if they get TOO pure evil. They're very lawful, under threat of death, unless they know they won't get caught.

And of course a pure chaos society won't work for largely the same reason. Even if the people are largely good a society that ignores any pretense of laws or things like "personal property" doesn't work because nobody trusts each other.
You need a bit of greed and envy to desire improvement. You need a bit of chaos to want to change the laws for the better. You need to covet your possessions to respect the property of others. You have to put yourself first at some level, or you will self destruct under your own good nature.

Why would a Neutral person be completely limited to the realm of doing nothing good or bad?
There are neutral characters than can lean to good, or lean to bad, but it doesn't automatically make them into heroes or villains.

They are neutral because you can't be sure to trust them, until they make it clear what motivates them.

Not be on any clear side.
Usually keep it to yourself, with your few beliefs and preferences, and not go extremely out of your way to enforce them, neither keep breaking them all the time.
Just have limits and know them, but sometimes break those limits if situations that such a thing is needed presents itself.

I've played a few neutrals, often my favorite way of dealing with it is not to balance between good or evil acts, but to never do something too evil, like coldblooded murder, but perhaps a theft, or getting paid off, and nothing too good like jumping in front of a peasant, but perhaps you offer to help for money, or you shift things for the good of people indirectly.

I've played Lawful Neutral, swordsmen who have rules for themselves (like Clint Eastwood in the Dollars Trilogy), I've played Neutral, those like Garck and chaotic neutral, like Conan, who does what he pleases without helping or harming others too much. Like Geralt of Rivia, who i think does Lawful Neutral quite well for the most part. He has a personal code of ethics, always demands payment and doesn't often do a job for free or for goodwill. He'll sometimes help a bad guy because he doesn't mind him being that bad. And remember, its always okay to sometimes do something that is out of alignment, its not a box you lock yourself in, it's a general rule of thumb, the compass your character uses to navigate life. Somethings could change it permanently, but sometimes you might just have to smite some evil because you feel the need to, or maybe you don't let that guy go, even if you're good. Maybe you just kill him, and live with the guilt.

To be despicable in all matters.
To have no actual feelings or opinions, and just going with the flow.

In other words, you will be a boring character who just follow someone else.

>To have no actual feelings or opinions, and just going with the flow.
No wonder it's cited as the default alignment for humans.

Seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge, what others do with it is not your concern, for you wish only to know the unknown.

To seek to maintain your calm everyday life, others be damned if they wish to disturb it, maybe hire some people to deal with upstarts be they good or evil, can't have them causing a fuss.

You either:
-strive for some sort of bigger balance in the world and everything that there is

-just follow the flow of events without actually giving a fuck

>will expend its resources trying to make sure that everyone is provided for, and collapse
Unless that society is in a place where there is a real scarcity of resources, there is just no reason that would happen.

>but in a perfect communal world there would be no competition, or need to improve
Nice meme. Okay, there is no competition. What does this have to do with need to improve? A good person tries to improve himself because he wants to provide even better service to others, because they want their society to be every day better. You don't need competition to do so, when you could be competing with yourself. The difference is that neutral humans compete to survive and profit, good humans would improve themselves only by sheer love of others.

To not play DnD and try other systems.

I feel like "Neutral" made a lot more sense back in 1E, when the alignment system was both a single axis (Either "Lawful" or "Chaotic") and also referred directly to a cosmic-level conflict.

When Gygax was taking a page from Moorcock's book and suggesting that the universe was the battlefield for an eternal battle between the cosmic forces of capital L "Lawful" and capital C "Chaotic," it seemed natural that everyone not directly aligned with one of those tangible universal forces was defined as neutral. Now that the alignment system is a 9-point grid and has been muddied so much in terms of how objective it is and how much room there is for interpretation at the table, it's a lot harder to peg down what neutrality looks like.

I've always found it weird that the go-to example of "True Neutral" for a lot of people is the balance obsessed Druid. Wouldn't the very act of having strong moral convictions and a code about maintaining order in nature make them Lawful Neutral, instead of TN?

It means to ignore a thread you don't care about

It means to like autumn and not for its colors

It means to treat people as objects and objects as people

It means to be the elastic field that passively bores through reality

it means to like browns

Robespierre was an homicidal madman who wanted to wash away problems with blood instead of actually fixing him. If he had been allowed to establish the new state to his liking he would have created an authoritarian hellscape that would make the Saudis blush.

Thank God for Napoleon.