Whoops. Thought I had removed the first Willow clip - ignore that one, it has no contextual connection with what what's being said. Wish I could remember what clip I was going to put in...
The one bit of advice I give to players about alignment is to not view it as a straight jacket view it more as a guideline because nobody is going to get there alignment 100% right when roleplaying and to make sure whatever alignment you pick for your character does not course problems at the table
Per your example of getting past a guard: A Chaotic Good character, if the guard is just doing their job and would otherwise be a good person, they'd go out of their way to get them out of the way harmlessly. Sneak in, distract, mislead, maybe smooth-talk, get past, move on. A Chaotic Neutral character would do whatever they think will get them past with the least amount of trouble. If that means sneaking past, they sneak past and let the guard go on their merry way. If it means KO'ing the guard and putting them in a cupboard somewhere, that's what they'll do. A Chaotic Evil character will indeed just kill the guard.
I'm looking to do a CN Homebrew Fey"ri sorcerer who is motivated to protect the ones he cares about but does not care what happens to anyone else. Not going out of his way to help... unless its suites his larger goal... making friends and enemies along the way. The goal is to save a friend/lover who was kidnapped by a demon lord. He at one point joined The Zhentarim used them to gather information/resources and make connections left and is using a group of hapless adventurers to help him when he needs it. I'm going to play it that the group grows on him, and he begins to see them as family, so he is willing to do pretty much anything for them. I see the "reward" as him getting what he wants because he cares about those close to him... but he is not going to shed any tears if a village is sacked by a band of Orc's he would ask the group "why are we risking our lives for a bunch of people we don't know?" someone would say it's the right thing to do... he would call them foolish but doesn't want his friends to get killed so he tags along. I feel like that is a good CN character rationale. If I like you, I help if not, then good luck. I won't go out of my way to help people unless it gets me what I want/need. There are a few characters in media like this, Mat Cauthon from the Wheel of Time (only watched the amazon series) who cares a lot about his friends and his village and most definitely his sisters but does some stupid self-serving stuff along the way. I don't know if they eventually turn him into a good guy but the first season, I feel he is a CN character. Anyway maybe I'm wrong but i feel like most people ive played with dont care too much about alignment they see it as fluff and you should just play the way you want.
All seems reasonable to me. Yeah, most players don’t care and as they only have to roleplay the one character, it’s easier to just play. As a DM I have to play a lot of characters and starting with how they see their place in a world and treat others helps me make the NPCs feel different and determine how they’ll react to the Players. It also helps when a PC dies and I have to consign their character to either limbo or the abyss. And the adventure to retrieve their soul is much different.
i think ainment - good neutral evil -s not inside but outside view - its not what they think they are but what the world thinks of them - is he doing good,halping others? is he doing evil and his actions mostly harm people(expecialy undeserving people) is his actions not afecting the world much either way?/ are gray line that some can argue his acts was good some may say his actions were bad? i think there are many characters that are evil but they dont know it - they dont understand good or evil either - they for example understand wak and strong (now that i think about it second part is less clear) i would say the chaotic/neutral/lawfull is more about your view and stance to authority, external rules lawfull- rullers can be good or bad but authority and rules are inharently good/important and upholding (AND sometimes CORRECTING) is very important thing neutral - rules and authority can be good or bad/may be important in some sytuations i may uphold them but if nobody sees me and i dont rylly care about that rule i will not obay chaotic- 1 i have my own rules that i will uphold no mater what even if they clash with established rules, /2 i dont respect authrity,think everybody should have his own rules /3 i think established rules are wrong and i will try to destroy/change them/i think of rules more like guidelines that were to halp people, if they are not halping people/me i will ignore them/change them something like this - i may not have clear idea about (lawful/n/chao) but still wanted to share
@piotrlatuszek171 I'd expect many RPG characters don't know they even have an alignment. From that perspective yeah, I agree absolutely. It's for the player looking into the character's "soul" to help them play the character. Until that character dies and ends up in the Abyss (or in Chaotic Neutral's case Pandemonium) because the Hades has judged them, and then they're probably VERY aware they have an alignment.
@@DMwaDJ you can even think in character creation - my character considers himself as bad as a way for him to accept himself in brutal society,to not have to face questions about his actions if he was good - he proudly declares he is bad and wants world to validate that but rylly he does not like to harm people who are weak and used and would kick bullies if he sees one character who saved people becose parents tought him to do so but he himself does not care about the people but is proud of his own job - that he is profesional in saving people not that he cares about them so how would you clasify this characters would 1st one be good,neutral or bad? if all he did was to kill people that he thinks rylly deserve it and created persona that he just rylly likes to kill people, and everybody fears him? second one would be good becouse he saves all people, neutral becouse he does not care about them or bad becouse he only thinks of himself and his skills? please could you ansver my 3 questions : 1 how would you clasify this 2characters? 2 would adding "lawfull/chaotic"halp to clasify that characters into dnd? 3 what system would you rather advise to follow when making chart - internal or external?
@@piotrlatuszek171 Because there are players, in particular a Dungeon Master, TTRPGs have objective morality. Players judge the characters actions, regardless of what the NPCs in the world would think. Based off only the information given, as a DM, I would consider the first character Good aligned. The character isn't defending the weak because he gains anything out of it, they're doing it because they have empathy for these people. Chaotic good, maybe Neutral good if you care about the other axis. The second character I'd consider Evil. They are killing for a selfish reason, not out of a drive to protect others or the order of the society - they derive a kind of satisfaction or pleasure from it. Even if that's something the character admit it to themselves, it's something the player is aware of in the motivations. I like the Lawful and Chaos axis because it's less clear cut for people than Good vs. Evil and I can tell more complex stories. If you're creating characters, I'd use internal. I build the character from the outside in. The alignment is something I as a DM or player know about, it's not something the character knows. Knowing who they are deeper down than the character knows themselves helps me figure out what the character would instinctively do. Some people they prefer to just play the character and maybe later we'll figure out what their alignment is if we absolutely must. If that works for them, sure, go for it.
@@DMwaDJ thank you 100 times that you took time to ansver :) i heared about stories when character X was doing something that does not allighn with his alligment so after some times -game master decides he has to change aligment - i understood it as character does not change the view on himself but the world does wiew character difrently but at the same time i think it would be intresting to see how character changes alligment internaly - like chaotic person starts to value authority after put in gaverning position or something like that - people change Some people they prefer to just play the character and maybe later we'll figure out - do you leave blank space than and it does not impare gameplay?
@@piotrlatuszek171 You're welcome! If they just want to start with the Alignment blank, I'm OK with it until one of two things happens. A. The character is in a situation where another character does have a magical way to affect them based on how the "Universe" (The table's viewpoint) would see the players. D&D has mostly gotten rid of these, but some systems still have spells like "Chaos Hammer", and I could see giving a paladin or Death Knight a sword that specifically does more damage against an evil or good aligned creatures - the character may not understand alignment, Magic does. B. The Character dies. I want to do a whole video on this, but when a character dies in the worlds of RPGS like D&D and pathfinder Death isn't necessarily the end. There are gods and planes, and their soul goes somewhere. And since I play that out at the table, and it has repercussions for resurrection, at that point the player and I need to come to an agreement on what their alignment is. If a character dies, their soul is sent to the Abyss and then they are resurrected, it makes for a pretty powerful motivator for a character to re-evaluate their life choices.
Whoops. Thought I had removed the first Willow clip - ignore that one, it has no contextual connection with what what's being said. Wish I could remember what clip I was going to put in...
The one bit of advice I give to players about alignment is to not view it as a straight jacket view it more as a guideline because nobody is going to get there alignment 100% right when roleplaying and to make sure whatever alignment you pick for your character does not course problems at the table
Per your example of getting past a guard:
A Chaotic Good character, if the guard is just doing their job and would otherwise be a good person, they'd go out of their way to get them out of the way harmlessly. Sneak in, distract, mislead, maybe smooth-talk, get past, move on.
A Chaotic Neutral character would do whatever they think will get them past with the least amount of trouble. If that means sneaking past, they sneak past and let the guard go on their merry way. If it means KO'ing the guard and putting them in a cupboard somewhere, that's what they'll do.
A Chaotic Evil character will indeed just kill the guard.
I'm looking to do a CN Homebrew Fey"ri sorcerer who is motivated to protect the ones he cares about but does not care what happens to anyone else. Not going out of his way to help... unless its suites his larger goal... making friends and enemies along the way. The goal is to save a friend/lover who was kidnapped by a demon lord. He at one point joined The Zhentarim used them to gather information/resources and make connections left and is using a group of hapless adventurers to help him when he needs it. I'm going to play it that the group grows on him, and he begins to see them as family, so he is willing to do pretty much anything for them. I see the "reward" as him getting what he wants because he cares about those close to him... but he is not going to shed any tears if a village is sacked by a band of Orc's he would ask the group "why are we risking our lives for a bunch of people we don't know?" someone would say it's the right thing to do... he would call them foolish but doesn't want his friends to get killed so he tags along.
I feel like that is a good CN character rationale. If I like you, I help if not, then good luck. I won't go out of my way to help people unless it gets me what I want/need. There are a few characters in media like this, Mat Cauthon from the Wheel of Time (only watched the amazon series) who cares a lot about his friends and his village and most definitely his sisters but does some stupid self-serving stuff along the way. I don't know if they eventually turn him into a good guy but the first season, I feel he is a CN character.
Anyway maybe I'm wrong but i feel like most people ive played with dont care too much about alignment they see it as fluff and you should just play the way you want.
All seems reasonable to me. Yeah, most players don’t care and as they only have to roleplay the one character, it’s easier to just play.
As a DM I have to play a lot of characters and starting with how they see their place in a world and treat others helps me make the NPCs feel different and determine how they’ll react to the Players. It also helps when a PC dies and I have to consign their character to either limbo or the abyss. And the adventure to retrieve their soul is much different.
i think ainment - good neutral evil -s not inside but outside view - its not what they think they are but what the world thinks of them
- is he doing good,halping others?
is he doing evil and his actions mostly harm people(expecialy undeserving people)
is his actions not afecting the world much either way?/ are gray line that some can argue his acts was good some may say his actions were bad?
i think there are many characters that are evil but they dont know it - they dont understand good or evil either - they for example understand wak and strong
(now that i think about it second part is less clear) i would say the chaotic/neutral/lawfull is more about your view and stance to authority, external rules
lawfull- rullers can be good or bad but authority and rules are inharently good/important and upholding (AND sometimes CORRECTING) is very important thing
neutral - rules and authority can be good or bad/may be important in some sytuations i may uphold them but if nobody sees me and i dont rylly care about that rule i will not obay
chaotic- 1 i have my own rules that i will uphold no mater what even if they clash with established rules, /2 i dont respect authrity,think everybody should have his own rules /3 i think established rules are wrong and i will try to destroy/change them/i think of rules more like guidelines that were to halp people, if they are not halping people/me i will ignore them/change them
something like this - i may not have clear idea about (lawful/n/chao) but still wanted to share
@piotrlatuszek171 I'd expect many RPG characters don't know they even have an alignment. From that perspective yeah, I agree absolutely. It's for the player looking into the character's "soul" to help them play the character.
Until that character dies and ends up in the Abyss (or in Chaotic Neutral's case Pandemonium) because the Hades has judged them, and then they're probably VERY aware they have an alignment.
@@DMwaDJ you can even think in character creation - my character considers himself as bad as a way for him to accept himself in brutal society,to not have to face questions about his actions if he was good - he proudly declares he is bad and wants world to validate that but rylly he does not like to harm people who are weak and used
and would kick bullies if he sees one
character who saved people becose parents tought him to do so but he himself does not care about the people but is proud of his own job - that he is profesional in saving people not that he cares about them
so how would you clasify this characters would 1st one be good,neutral or bad? if all he did was to kill people that he thinks rylly deserve it and created persona that he just rylly likes to kill people, and everybody fears him?
second one would be good becouse he saves all people, neutral becouse he does not care about them or bad becouse he only thinks of himself and his skills?
please could you ansver my 3 questions :
1 how would you clasify this 2characters?
2 would adding "lawfull/chaotic"halp to clasify that characters into dnd?
3 what system would you rather advise to follow when making chart - internal or external?
@@piotrlatuszek171 Because there are players, in particular a Dungeon Master, TTRPGs have objective morality. Players judge the characters actions, regardless of what the NPCs in the world would think.
Based off only the information given, as a DM, I would consider the first character Good aligned. The character isn't defending the weak because he gains anything out of it, they're doing it because they have empathy for these people. Chaotic good, maybe Neutral good if you care about the other axis.
The second character I'd consider Evil. They are killing for a selfish reason, not out of a drive to protect others or the order of the society - they derive a kind of satisfaction or pleasure from it. Even if that's something the character admit it to themselves, it's something the player is aware of in the motivations.
I like the Lawful and Chaos axis because it's less clear cut for people than Good vs. Evil and I can tell more complex stories.
If you're creating characters, I'd use internal. I build the character from the outside in. The alignment is something I as a DM or player know about, it's not something the character knows. Knowing who they are deeper down than the character knows themselves helps me figure out what the character would instinctively do. Some people they prefer to just play the character and maybe later we'll figure out what their alignment is if we absolutely must. If that works for them, sure, go for it.
@@DMwaDJ thank you 100 times that you took time to ansver :)
i heared about stories when character X was doing something that does not allighn with his alligment so after some times -game master decides he has to change aligment -
i understood it as character does not change the view on himself but the world does wiew character difrently
but at the same time i think it would be intresting to see how character changes alligment internaly - like chaotic person starts to value authority after put in gaverning position or something like that - people change
Some people they prefer to just play the character and maybe later we'll figure out - do you leave blank space than and it does not impare gameplay?
@@piotrlatuszek171 You're welcome!
If they just want to start with the Alignment blank, I'm OK with it until one of two things happens.
A. The character is in a situation where another character does have a magical way to affect them based on how the "Universe" (The table's viewpoint) would see the players. D&D has mostly gotten rid of these, but some systems still have spells like "Chaos Hammer", and I could see giving a paladin or Death Knight a sword that specifically does more damage against an evil or good aligned creatures - the character may not understand alignment, Magic does.
B. The Character dies. I want to do a whole video on this, but when a character dies in the worlds of RPGS like D&D and pathfinder Death isn't necessarily the end. There are gods and planes, and their soul goes somewhere. And since I play that out at the table, and it has repercussions for resurrection, at that point the player and I need to come to an agreement on what their alignment is.
If a character dies, their soul is sent to the Abyss and then they are resurrected, it makes for a pretty powerful motivator for a character to re-evaluate their life choices.