101 réponses à ce sujet

[Nivenus]

wizardryforever wrote...

Nivenus wrote...

The code requires you to kill innocents if they get in the way of pursuing a killer. That, to me, strikes me as lawful neutral and is also entirely against real-life law enforcement protocol. I don't think very many people would say Samara is lawful evil but I think lawful neutral fits her (and the justicars) pretty well, with a slight leaning towards lawful good.

When does she say that? (I really want to know)  If you are referring to the village that worshipped Morinth, they attacked her.  Once they attack you, it's pretty much a given that they aren't innocent anymore.  I can't think of anything else that she says that might be taken in that context.

I'm not. I'm referring to the fact that the code is very black and white, as she herself says, and that it requires her to use whatever means necessary to achieve her objectives. She can bend the code, as she does for the officer on Ilium, but the implications are clear that she'd kill the officer if she felt the risk of the perpetrators getting away without her intervention was too great. In fact, your arrival seems to be the only reason she doesn't outright resist arrest.

I'm not necessarily saying the officer was right to arrest Samara. But two wrongs don't make a right, at least not the way D&D alignments work.

[enormousmoonboots]

Nivenus wrote...

The code requires you to kill innocents if they get in the way of pursuing a killer. That, to me, strikes me as lawful neutral and is also entirely against real-life law enforcement protocol. I don't think very many people would say Samara is lawful evil but I think lawful neutral fits her (and the justicars) pretty well, with a slight leaning towards lawful good.

The Code seems to be very, very specific, though; like someone else said, a justicar shouldn't be in jail unless the cops are crooked (or the justicar has broken her Code and is no longer a justicar anyway). Doesn't Anaya herself imply that her bosses are shady (pondering if the higher-ups going quiet has anything to do with Eclipse going quiet) and ponder why she's being ordered to arrest a justicar? Especially one who's only killed Ecplise gangsters so far (the Eclipse Sisters branch we see on Samara's recruitment don't seem to be standard mercs, since you need to commit a murder to become one)?

Paladins don't usually believe in the 'well my boss ordered me to so it's not my fault' excuse, especially not ones with a justice-oriented god. Justice isn't a day job to them, it's a way of life. If you choose to stand in the way of justice, you have made your choice, prepare to meet your god. Good does not mean nice.

I mean, I certainly can't say that I'd have approved of Samara killing Anaya to get out of custody, but it seems like Lawful Good and a dedication to justice taken to its extreme. Samara's a paladin deconstruction.

And Anaya's not innocent--she chose to follow her orders (insert Bioshock reference here). She could have left work early, or refused, or quit, or made an excuse. She didn't. Samara does save innocents over pursuing a killer, though--recall the story with Nihlus, when he put an innocent in danger to escape she saved the hostage rather than pursue him. That is what puts her over the edge to good in my mind.

e: WHY MUST ALL ASARI HAVE SUCH SIMILAR NAMES

Modifié par enormousmoonboots, 12 mai 2010 - 05:34 .

[wizardryforever]

enormousmoonboots wrote...

Nivenus wrote...

The code requires you to kill innocents if they get in the way of pursuing a killer. That, to me, strikes me as lawful neutral and is also entirely against real-life law enforcement protocol. I don't think very many people would say Samara is lawful evil but I think lawful neutral fits her (and the justicars) pretty well, with a slight leaning towards lawful good.

The Code seems to be very, very specific, though; like someone else said, a justicar shouldn't be in jail unless the cops are crooked (or the justicar has broken her Code and is no longer a justicar anyway). Doesn't Enyala herself imply that her bosses are shady (pondering if the higher-ups going quiet has anything to do with Eclipse going quiet) and ponder why she's being ordered to arrest a justicar? Especially one who's only killed Ecplise gangsters so far (the Eclipse Sisters branch we see on Samara's recruitment don't seem to be standard mercs, since you need to commit a murder to become one)?

Paladins don't usually believe in the 'well my boss ordered me to so it's not my fault' excuse, especially not ones with a justice-oriented god. Justice isn't a day job to them, it's a way of life. If you choose to stand in the way of justice, you have made your choice, prepare to meet your god. Good does not mean nice.

I mean, I certainly can't say that I'd have approved of Samara killing Enyala to get out of custody, but it seems like Lawful Good and a dedication to justice taken to its extreme. Samara's a paladin deconstruction.

And Enyala's not innocent--she chose to follow her orders (insert Bioshock reference here). She could have left work early, or refused, or quit, or made an excuse. She didn't. Samara does save innocents over pursuing a killer, though--recall the story with Nihlus, when he put an innocent in danger to escape she saved the hostage rather than pursue him. That is what puts her over the edge to good in my mind.

Exactly.  This is exactly my frame of mind as well.  Kudos.

Also, I think you got the detective's name wrong.  It's Anaya, Enyala is the Eclipse captain on Miranda's loyalty quest.  Just nitpicking.

[Siansonea]

Samara is definitely Lawful Neutral, I've been playing D&D for years now, and I know Lawful Neutral when I see it.



This is an interesting discussion. So far it looks like the hardest one to pin down is Thane. For some reason that makes his character more interesting to me.

[Onyx Jaguar]

In regards to Thane all we really know about his backstory is that he was an assassin for the Hanar, he killed those who murdered his wife and his assassination job that you get him at. We do not know exactly the specifics of most of his actions only those that we can infer to from his personality. He seems quite well adjusted in that regard

[enormousmoonboots]

Mmm, I've been playing D&D for awhile too, and I still argue that while it's very close, she's more Good than Neutral.



Thane is an odd duck. He certainly has a desire to do good when you meet him (like I said earlier, NG), but I have trouble with the idea of a career assassin who didn't pick his targets and somehow only ever killed bad people. Probably LE or NE earlier in his life.

[Collider]

Thane to me is chaotic good. At current, at least. He does want to do good and IIRC almost all of the targets we learn that he killed (Dantius, slavers) were corrupt people who likely deserved it anyway.

[Collider]

LuckyIronAxe wrote...

Jacob should be Chaotic Good, the man want's to do good, but doesn't like playing by the book. Sort of like Garrus in ME 1 but Jacob has a lot more Paragon points.

I can see either Neutral Good or Chaotic Good. Jacob still has reservations about working with Cerberus and recognizes the things they've done are terrorist acts. Garrus doesn't really mind not using red tape.

[Nivenus]

enormousmoonboots wrote...

Nivenus wrote...

The code requires you to kill innocents if they get in the way of pursuing a killer. That, to me, strikes me as lawful neutral and is also entirely against real-life law enforcement protocol. I don't think very many people would say Samara is lawful evil but I think lawful neutral fits her (and the justicars) pretty well, with a slight leaning towards lawful good.

The Code seems to be very, very specific, though; like someone else said, a justicar shouldn't be in jail unless the cops are crooked (or the justicar has broken her Code and is no longer a justicar anyway). Doesn't Anaya herself imply that her bosses are shady (pondering if the higher-ups going quiet has anything to do with Eclipse going quiet) and ponder why she's being ordered to arrest a justicar? Especially one who's only killed Ecplise gangsters so far (the Eclipse Sisters branch we see on Samara's recruitment don't seem to be standard mercs, since you need to commit a murder to become one)?

Paladins don't usually believe in the 'well my boss ordered me to so it's not my fault' excuse, especially not ones with a justice-oriented god. Justice isn't a day job to them, it's a way of life. If you choose to stand in the way of justice, you have made your choice, prepare to meet your god. Good does not mean nice.

I mean, I certainly can't say that I'd have approved of Samara killing Anaya to get out of custody, but it seems like Lawful Good and a dedication to justice taken to its extreme. Samara's a paladin deconstruction.

And Anaya's not innocent--she chose to follow her orders (insert Bioshock reference here). She could have left work early, or refused, or quit, or made an excuse. She didn't. Samara does save innocents over pursuing a killer, though--recall the story with Nihlus, when he put an innocent in danger to escape she saved the hostage rather than pursue him. That is what puts her over the edge to good in my mind.

e: WHY MUST ALL ASARI HAVE SUCH SIMILAR NAMES

Crooked =/= evil. It's perfectly possible to have corruption in a non-evil or even good society. The reason the cops want her out of the way isn't so much because they don't want the killers caught, but because they're concerned about Samara destabilizing the district.

Collider wrote...

Thane to me is chaotic good. At current, at least. He does want to do good and IIRC almost all of the targets we learn that he killed (Dantius, slavers) were corrupt people who likely deserved it anyway.

Given his strong adherence to ritual and code I'd be tempted to call him lawful, actually. And I doubt that all the targets the hanar government sent him after were "evil" - his story about meeting his wife seems to imply as much. The freelancer, choosing his own targets thing seems to be something he adopted very recently.

[Collider]

Given his strong adherence to ritual and code I'd be tempted to call him lawful, actually. And I doubt that all the targets the hanar government sent him after were "evil" - his story about meeting his wife seems to imply as much. The freelancer, choosing his own targets thing seems to be something he adopted very recently.

Recent maybe, but that was still part of his character. Part of the reason why I'm not sure I like the alignment things (what role do they play in D&D anyway?) is because the characters can completely disregard laws and rules that they might otherwise agree with, but if they have their own set of rules and adhere to them, they're lawful. As for the wife story, why do you believe that?



post in the garrus thread btw. We're having a good time in there.

[Dr. Peter Venkman]

Collider wrote...

Thane to me is chaotic good. At current, at least. He does want to do good and IIRC almost all of the targets we learn that he killed (Dantius, slavers) were corrupt people who likely deserved it anyway.

Impossible. You cannot have a chaotic good character when they operate solely around the basis of a contract. He is a neutral/chaotic neutral, just like Zaeed.

[Collider]

Dr. Peter Venkman wrote...

Collider wrote...

Thane to me is chaotic good. At current, at least. He does want to do good and IIRC almost all of the targets we learn that he killed (Dantius, slavers) were corrupt people who likely deserved it anyway.

Impossible. You cannot have a chaotic good character when they operate solely around the basis of a contract. He is a neutral/chaotic neutral, just like Zaeed.

He doesn't. When you meet him in ME2 he is freelance. He killed Dantius because she was corrupt, rather than for money or a contract.

[enormousmoonboots]

Collider wrote...

Thane to me is chaotic good. At current, at least. He does want to do good and IIRC almost all of the targets we learn that he killed (Dantius, slavers) were corrupt people who likely deserved it anyway.

It may not be exactly how the wall o' text alignment descriptions treat it, but I've always considered the first axis (law-neutral-chaos) to be descriptive of how the character treats authority/law. Lawful obeys and respects it, neutral doesn't really care, chaotic actively bucks it. That's why I don't think Thane is a chaotic character--he doesn't seem to have any particular malice towards red tape and order (Kasumi, Garrus, and Grunt, however, all disdain it).

[Dr. Peter Venkman]

Collider wrote...

Dr. Peter Venkman wrote...

Collider wrote...

Thane to me is chaotic good. At current, at least. He does want to do good and IIRC almost all of the targets we learn that he killed (Dantius, slavers) were corrupt people who likely deserved it anyway.

Impossible. You cannot have a chaotic good character when they operate solely around the basis of a contract. He is a neutral/chaotic neutral, just like Zaeed.

He doesn't. When you meet him in ME2 he is freelance. He killed Dantius because she was corrupt, rather than for money or a contract.

One out of many. The reason Thane even joins Shepard is to make up for all of the things that he has done in the past. He's a neutral, through and through.

[Nivenus]

Collider wrote...

Given his strong adherence to ritual and code I'd be tempted to call him lawful, actually. And I doubt that all the targets the hanar government sent him after were "evil" - his story about meeting his wife seems to imply as much. The freelancer, choosing his own targets thing seems to be something he adopted very recently.

Recent maybe, but that was still part of his character. Part of the reason why I'm not sure I like the alignment things (what role do they play in D&D anyway?) is because the characters can completely disregard laws and rules that they might otherwise agree with, but if they have their own set of rules and adhere to them, they're lawful.

That's because "lawful" doesn't mean "respects the law of the land" - it means that they believe in a cosmic order that is just as or more important than good vs. evil. Gary Gygax drew specifically off of the Elric books by Michael Moorcock, with a cosmic war between order and chaos wherein both extremes are bad, for the inspiration. Another good example is Babylon 5, with the Vorlons representing order and the Shadows representing chaos.

To clarify, a lawful or chaotic neutral might view "law" or "chaos" as "good" or "evil," from their subjective perspective, just as an evil character might feel they are doing good. But in the D&D alignment system, good and evil already have thoroughly explained, delineated, objective (as far as the rules are concerned)  meanings, so what a lawful or chaotic person thinks they're serving is of no consequence.

Generally speaking, a lawful character will have a respect for law - even those which they do not like. But if their idea of the "greater law" comes into conflict with whatever the local magistrate is, then they'll feel no great guilt over breaking that "lesser" law.

As for what role D&D alignments play - in 4e, next to nothing. In every other edition, they play directly into very large cosmological concepts for several settings as well as playing a part mechanically for certain magical effects.

Collider wrote...

As for the wife story, why do you believe that?

Why shouldn't I? Does he have a reason to lie to me about it? At the most, it makes him look less noble, since it implies he was morally compromised in that particular situation. It may be dramatically embellished, but IIRC, he also goes into "flashback" mode, which pretty strongly implies it's mostly true, at the very least.

Collider wrote...
post in the garrus thread btw. We're having a good time in there.

I've actually been avoiding the character threads for a few days because I have a lot of other things on my mind at the moment. In about a week I'll probably be back as usual but these small threads are easier to follow and track in my off-time. The character threads have a tendency to suck you in.

Glad it's going well though.

Modifié par Nivenus, 12 mai 2010 - 06:40 .

[Collider]

Thanks for clarifying. I never got into D&D so some of the things I didn't quite understand or know about.

Why shouldn't I? Does he have a reason to lie to me about it? At the most, it makes him look less noble, since it implies he was morally compromised in that particular situation. It may be dramatically embellished, but IIRC, he also goes into "flashback" mode, which pretty strongly implies it's mostly true, at the very least.

No no, I didn't mean it like that. I was asking because I haven't played the game for a while and all I remembered was that he met his wife while on the job.

[Nivenus]

Not a problem. I take alignment a bit more seriously than some DMs, though I try to keep it unrestrictive.

[Dokarqt]

LuckyIronAxe wrote...

I would have to disagree, Samara is an agent of justice, not law. Justice is not always lawful, if the law says the guy's innocent, but Samara knows the man is guilty, she will go kill the man. Maybe the law itself is unjust to the Justicar code, then Samara would have to act as well, even if it means braking the law because the law is unjust. Lawful Neutral is a person who serves the law, no matter if the law is just or unjust, it's the law. Lawful Good has another calling besides just law, good, so if a law is evil, a Lawful Good person is at liberty to act against it.

As for Thane, a man who blacks out and becomes a tool for another without will of his own....sounds solid neutral to me.

I've been doing D&D for over 10 years and Lawful does not mean "following the law".

A lawful evil assassin might break every law in the country without caring one bit but he might live by a personal code or be extremely "lawful"(organized, methodic) in his mannerisms and lifestyle. For example, he might hate to improvise or when things goes out of his control, basically a control-freak.

Samara is still textbook lawful neutral to me, Thane strikes me as very lawful as well because of his methods and lifestyle (think about how monks are restricted to only lawful alignments in D&D for example).

Modifié par Dokarqt, 12 mai 2010 - 08:55 .

[marshalleck]

Thane is Chaotic Neutral, with a heavy emphasis on the 'Neutral' part. Definitely. Probably skirting the line with a True Neutral; the only character more Neutral that I can think of would be Legion.

Credentials: ~20 years of AD&D and 2nd Ed. Not that it matters.

Modifié par marshalleck, 12 mai 2010 - 09:30 .

[Dokarqt]

marshalleck wrote...

Thane is Chaotic Neutral, with a heavy emphasis on the 'Neutral' part. Definitely. Probably skirting the line with a True Neutral; the only character more Neutral that I can think of would be Legion.

Credentials: ~20 years of AD&D and 2nd Ed. Not that it matters.

I could go with Thane being neutral maybe but Chaotic? He always struck me as far to methodical and meticulous to be anything but lawful, thats even disregarding the whole disciplined religion thing.

Not saying you're wrong or anything just giving my point of view.

[marshalleck]

Dokarqt wrote...

marshalleck wrote...

Thane is Chaotic Neutral, with a heavy emphasis on the 'Neutral' part. Definitely. Probably skirting the line with a True Neutral; the only character more Neutral that I can think of would be Legion.

Credentials: ~20 years of AD&D and 2nd Ed. Not that it matters.

I could go with Thane being neutral maybe but Chaotic? He always struck me as far to methodical and meticulous to be anything but lawful, thats even disregarding the whole disciplined religion thing.

Not saying you're wrong or anything just giving my point of view.

Well I just had an extensive response written, but I accidentally clicked Cancel instead of Submit and lost it all. 

To try and recompose my points in brief: Thane seems to understand agency, that his actions have an affect on his own life and the lives of people around him but he still acts as an assassin despite the disruptive side effects--specifically on his own son. His behavior is intentional, which he knows paints him in stark contrast to conventional social norms, and he is not an animal, guided by base instinct. So I can't rightly call him True Neutral. There are certain things he won't do, but I don't think he so stringently adheres to a codified set of rules such that he could be called Lawful--a position exemplified by Samara. He does strive to seek some measure of balance in the world through violent  action...while not particularly noble, he only kills those who have committed heinous crimes. So I arrive at Chaotic Neutral. His assassin philosophy puts him at odds with contemporary society, but he does try to achieve balance in his own way and shuns overtly malicious acts of cruelty.

Modifié par marshalleck, 12 mai 2010 - 10:42 .