You people are hurting my head with this discussion! Honestly!!
Let me catch up and respond in turn.
To Druke, who said \"allignments are hard to determine w/o the use of the secong half ,the law/neutarl/chaos it really depends o how you rp\":
I am using the 9 alignment system. That includes those. What do you mean?
To Jedi, who said \"I really don\'t like alignments and stuff. They take away from the reality of the rp experience. Honestly, do you have alignments in real life? Then they shouldn\'t exist in games either. Role playing is supposed to be an imitation of real life with real people. People do things because they think they should, not because it\'s their alignment. Alignments waste crucial thinking power.\"
They what? Yes! You have an alignment in real life. You can define yourself by some kind of alignment or the tendency toward it. If you couldn\'t you\'d be completely haphazard. You have a consistency in how you make decisions. That, my friend, is an alignment. Role-playing is NOT AN IMITATION OF REAL LIFE. You are not a Jedi. I am not a Cipher. I am a freshman in college and that\'s not what I play. Role-playing is playing a character. Something else\'s life. Something fictional. Completely different. PEOPLE don\'t do these things. Characters do.
To Metal Gear, who posted \"Alignments never really have done anyone any good, i mean in real life what you do depends on the circumstances, because everyone knows that you can go from evil to neutral to good and back again several times a day, we all have our moments, and your morals also govern things to a lesser extent but they can change over time as well.\"
You are speaking for everyone in the world when you say this and that is totally ridiculous. You cannot generalize the entire planet as acting one way. People quit doing that 2000 years ago for a reason. You said it yourself. Your morals govern things to an extent but can change. That\'s your alignment.
To Elegrand, who posted \"That\'s what neutral basicly is doing whats best for you. Sometimes being a do-gooder is best, sometimes its being evil that\'s best.\"
Neutral is SO not doing what\'s best for you. That\'s EVIL. Read it: EVIL. Neutral is either actively not caring by fighting for balance or passively not caring by being apathetic. Neutral is NOT saying \"I don\'t care. I\'ll do what\'s good for me.\" That\'s neutral evil.
To Metal Gear again, who posted \"you got it!! it all depends on the circumstances, but everyone is neutral, some to a greater degree and some to a lesser degree but it\'s in everyone, good and evil are just shades of neutrality, one dark, one light.\"
Do you realize how intrinsically wrong that is? I\'m not trying to be ugly, guys, but come on. NEUTRAL. Have you ever heard of neutering a pet? That means making them the NEUTRAL gender. Neither male nor female. By your definition male and female are just \"shades\" of sterility not having reproductive organs when reproductive organs are their defining characteristics. You can define by comparison, you can combine by negation, but how can you define through non-existence? That would be such as saying \"Life is the condition of not being dead, and death is the condition of not being alive, but what actually defines being alive or dead is what lies in between them, which is an intangible that is neither alive nor dead.\"
To Kal, who posted an incredibly long post:
Good is an alignment. It cannot be both an alignment and a disregard of alignment. That would make it a self-reference to a self-denial. Even if it was possible, no one who was good could classify themselves as such because they would not recognize alignment. And it would be too paradoxical to use effectively as a tool. Evil is wanting power and money. Do you honestly think that\'s the ONLY way to be evil? I can be at the bottom of the food chain and broke, and if I kill someone for the hell of it, if I don\'t gain anything, by your definition, I\'m of no alignment instead of evil. As for neutrality, neutrality does not entail desires for gain. Desiring gain for either yourself or others is the antithesis of neutrality. Gaining money and power (first of all these are not qualities insofar as alignment-defining qualities would be virtues) without hurting other people is just a way to be self-serving and reclusive. You\'re still serving yourself even if you\'re harmless. Evil does not always cause harm. You cannot take a stance and be neutral or you\'re not neutral.
Now on to law/chaos. First thing\'s first. These are not \"styles.\" Style supercedes alignment by far. These are a secondary classification of alignment. You\'re trying to imagine your character\'s philosophical view of the world. He may or may not have a view on metaphysics (where we come from) or epistemology (what we can know) but he damn well probably has an ethical and political view. Ethics is good/evil and political is law/chaos. Do you know what chaos is? Disorder. The opposite of doing things systematically. FIGHT FIRST TALK LATER IS METHODICAL. And neutrality is not doing whatever you feel like. That\'s CHAOTIC! Abiding by your whims, which are ever-different, is chaos. It\'s not orderly. The only predictable part is that it\'s unpredictable. That\'s chaos. Chaos plain and simple. Textbook case, even. Neutrality is not the combination of every alignment. It is the absence of it. White light combines every light, and the difference is the absence of light, which is black. You have neutrality derived totally opposite from that which it means.
To Metal Gear a final time, who posted \"Neutrality: The combination of all the alignments in different proportions at different times, depending on the situation. Neutrality is everyone\'s one and only real alignment, all the others are just sub-alignments of it\":
No, no, no, no, no. See the whiteness/blackness comparison. You cannot derive caring from not caring because you cannot take something from nothing!!
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Sorry....
