In my experience with Good and neutral aligned characters, it would appear that most if not all of the player base defines being neutral as being evil 50% of the time, and good 50% of the time. This contradicts everything I've ever known Neutrality to be. IF your neutral, your neither good nor evil, not sometimes good and sometimes evil, that just makes you evil.

Take the swiss for example, a country which prides itself on neutrality. They don't go waging war on unexpected countries half the time, then send aid to countries the other half of thier time. I'm fairly sure the world would consider them not neutral in such a case.

So, am I comparing apples and oranges? or am I making some sense here?

ordinarily I'd agree with you but unfortunately under my real life Ethical beliefs i'd classify Marans as anything but good. To ruthlessly hunt down and murder anyone simply becuase they percieve them as evil is actually more of an evil thing to do in my eyes, hell half the middle-eastern nations believed that when they attacked america, destroying evil. But i don't wanna get into a politcal discussion here. Just that you gotta understand that we are talking about a very different world with different [perspectives on good neutral and evil.

Having started shying away from the lightwalkers and having a personal distaste for the shadow walkers, I have come to start loving neutral characters. The epitome of these neutrals was my short-lived wood-elf Aeldermaine. He was a diplomat, and thus, made friends on either side. He adhered strictly to honor, and while he never slew the little children, he did slay those that walked the light at times, though with no discrimination.

Neutrality is more of an adherence to personal beliefs than strong sense of morality. The altars in the Academy define the tiers of neutrality perfectly, I think. Orderly neutral believes in law and government without concern of good or evil, neutral/neutral is a loose cannon with no regard for anything, really, and chaotic neutral would be the belief in total anarchy. Good could be defined as someone with scruples (obviously the good-hearted beggars on the street wouldn't kill someone for money, else they wouldn't have to be beggars), and the evil ones could be defined as lack of moral beliefs with selfish design.

I can fully understand that a neutral character could walk a line on either side of the good or evil scale, but not with the idea of moral accomplishment in mind, but with a purpose of something else. The Sylvans are mostly neutral because they adhere to the protection of the natural. They're driven with singular ambition to succeed in their goal without caring whether or not something is considered good or evil.

That's the best definition of neutrality I can think of. I would suggest reading all of the descriptions on all of the altars in the academy for a better understanding of the terms, as they were not written by fools (despite what many of you obviously think).

You are right on my friend. As a Maran I always get frustrated by the whining ghosts of neutrals who were grouped with evils and killing lightwalkers. In life it is your actions that determine if you are a good person, a neutral person, or an evil person. If you grabbed one end of a 14 year old for Dahmer, and carried a buddy off the battlefield in Iraq - you'd still be pretty damn evil. Deeds don't cancel eachother out, they work together to make you what you are.

nt

nt

nt

If you work for the highest bidder it means you care about money, what you are doing for the money is the largest indicator of the align.

Neutrals should shy away from extremes of good and of evil. They only lightly tread on the borders of either.

nt

I'll disagree with that. Being motivated purely by greed, with no qualms as to what might be required to achieve your goals, is evil. If you're willing to slit a toddler's throat to prevent him crying so you can rob the safe in his room then you're evil.

Some people equate evil with being psychotic or sadistic. I've always felt one doesn't have to derive intrinsic enjoyment from evil acts in order to be evil.