7 réponses à ce sujet

[dearlyblvd]

I was playing with a chaotic neutral character and I realized that in many parts of the game, the engine let me do things that did not seem right. It's very strange how you can build a paladin and start robbing houses, without receiving some sort of penalty. I never cared much about these things in other games, but the BG saga clearly is an adaption of pen&paper RPG, using AD&D rules that includes things like "alignment".

So,
If you are playing with a neutral/good character, do you loot every highlighted object?
Do you invade unmarked buildings?
If a NPC comes to you asking for help on urgent business and you accept the quest, do you stop pursuing other quests to help him/her? (Example: Nalia's quest in BG2)

Here is an image of a common moment where I don't know how to act: i52.tinypic.com/2iiz990.png
This is in the beggining of BG1. My party is weak and I'm poor. A health potion definitly is useful for all my characters.
According to http://easydamus.com...ticneutral.html
"6. You shall break the law whenever convenient.
10. You shall promote unlimited freedom for yourself."

Unlimited freedom probably is impossible to achieve, but I become more free if I accumulate a large amount of gold. Also, when I'm stealing I'm breaking the law and this case seems more convenient than if the shelf had only one gold coin.

Would you steal from the shelf if you were playing a chaotic neutral character? Does it make difference if it has a powerful magic item or if it has 5 pieces of gold?

Please, try to answer all the questions and avoid spoilers.

Modifié par dearlyblvd, 14 octobre 2010 - 05:25 .

[Eurypterid]

Chaotic Neutral pretty much does what they want. No issues with taking the potion with that alignment. Hell, you can even make an argument that good characters would as well. There's nothing inherently evil about stealing. The only characters that IMO would definitely not are Lawful Good and maybe Lawful Neutral. All others could have a justification that would jibe with their alignment. (In some cases, maybe even the LG and LN as well).

[Son of Imoen]

I often play parties with Ajantis and Imoen. Ajantis doesn't approve of stealing, but Imoen will steal (she's NG, but a Thief after all), if she can put the items to a better use. In practice, I won't let Ajantis take items illegally, even from unlocked quests, but I select Imoen to take them instead (kind of mix between roleplay and cheese perhaps?). But if Imoen breaks into a house she will only take from people who are rich. If the lockers and closets only have small amounts of money, the people are apparently poor and she won't take the money.



Further, if my party is good and someone is in need, I never asked for a reward. People can give it if they want to if i complete their quest, but I won't ask for a reward, just do what they're asking. Another party would ask for a reward: a True Neutral PC would ask for a reward to set the balance straight, a Chaotic Neutral or Neutral Evil character to make a profit from it.



Strangely BG rewards you often with bigger rewards if you don't ask for a reward.



The game is very unrewarding to playing totally selfish. If you only do things that would help yourself as an evil person, you miss out on a lot of xp, I tried playing an evil character thrice, but got bored with it. Although it's just a game, I still like being good to people. I'm not a great actor of being evil.

[BelgarathMTH]

Breaking into houses and getting caught lowers reputation. Unless you've modded, characters like Ajantis are going to leave your party when it gets too low.



I remember being a BG beginner years ago when it was first released. On my first playthrough ever, I thought that Imoen would probably break into places and steal stuff even though my character wouldn't approve. So I had her behave as I thought her character would. Boy, was I ever surprised when Jaheira all of a sudden said something to the effect of "Better leadership! Come on, Khaleid", and she and Khaleid up and walked away from my party, leaving me standing slack-jawed on the street in Beregost!

[RetroTails]

I am awaiting arrival of the 4 in 1 BG pack so have not yet played, but from my experience with DAO (and previously Elder Scrolls and Fallout) I reasoned away a lot of stealing under the guise that I am usually trying to save the world for everyone, so I need to take what I can.



Really looking forward to starting out on my BG adventure.

[Morbidest]

With 3 major exceptions (too high or too low a Reputation will lose you evil/good NPCs and mishandling the Hades "tests" impacts your alignment and the party's behavior can effect Anomen's ultimate alignment), the whole moral alignment stuff might as well not be there. So, it's a question if you enjoy role playing do you stay consistent with your alignment choices purely for the fun of it? IMHO the justification for a Good PC doing things like shop lifting is
1- Toril is not Earth; being a thief is a perfectly "legal" profession
2- If you have a thief in your party (particularly Jan), even the most upright paladin can't be expected to spend all their time monitoring him. If he goes invisible and does things like  looting temples, it's not your fault, is it?
3-Even Keldorn regards your patronizing all the black markets as a merely venial sin.

To me the real flaw in the alignment system is that there should be two neutral categories:
One for those who justify inaction with the need to maintain BALANCE! - after all, vampires killing shadow thieves is just part of the natural order of the universe
And one for those who won't lift a finger to help UNLESS they get paid up front.
I don't agree that NG or NE really covers these mindsets. But, BG inherited the DnD alignment system whole hog, so we're stuck with it.

[Qyburn]

 As long as you're roleplaying, you could also consider roleplaying your NPCs as individuals rather than just extended "weapons" for your main character to use in battle.

For example, just because your paladin wouldn't rob a town blind doesn't mean that a character or two in your party wouldn't sneak out of the inn at night and grab some loot. Stick your paladin with a couple party mates at a table in said inn and take your thieving characters out to do their thing. Have them stow the loot somewhere where goody two-shoes pally isn't going to be asking how they came across it, and have them sell it when convenient.

Have them buy their own gear (as if spending the money from the loot), or pretend that your pally looks at them oddly when you're in a store and they pull out a fat bag of coins to add to the party stash. If your pally "finds out," perhaps that's pretext for kicking an NPC out of the party. etc. etc.

IOW, you are truly only limited by your imagination...

[RetroTails]

Qyburn wrote...

IOW, you are truly only limited by your imagination...

absolutely!