You may not realize it, KG, but you're a lucky lucky guy to have avoided those people.
I don't think it's luck -- I'm pretty rigorous when it comes to screening potential players.
I have two game groups that I play with, where the members are all different.
Team 1, who I play with more frequently; one player is Lawful Evil 95% of the time; and Lawful Neutral the rest. Doesn't really play it straight though, and is more often ACTING Lawful Neutral. Seems to want the Evil tag just to be 'cool'.
The rest of team 1 are alternations of Neutral, with really only one player who sometimes plays good; though when he does, he ends up taking to over 9000. One famous example was standing up to their evil party member when he was a lvl 3 illusion wizard. Had a fair shot; but this was after a battle where he was nearly knocked out. It took the evil character one shot to down him. That kinda uprooted the game...
Anyway, Team 2 on the other hand; they are all Good 80% of the time; one player is always good, even when his paper says Neutral.
As for myself; I do like the glint of "Evil" but I abhor "Waha" evil. If my characters are evil, it's because they have viewpoints that demean the worth of others, or they adopt practices that are considered evil, in order to become powerful, or fulfill a compelling vice. Generally, they are pragmatic strategists, who will send NPCS to their death, and demand that their PC allies follow his plans to the letter.
One situation comes to mind; though it was a 3pp campaign (Way of the Wicked), and the 3pp Psionic healer: Vitalist. In quick summery, in order to regain enough PP to heal my more efficient allies in the fight, I killed our unconcious, but stable NPC ally, to drain his life force.
Now that being said; when I try to play good, I find my first group judges "Good" too harshly. In particular my one largely successful Lawful good character was declared lawful neutral for charging an elderly man who had frightened my soldiers, and PC allies into running off into the wilds of the Green Belt, alone (Kingmaker. My rational was that I had to subdue a danger to us, but because he was old, and didn't try to DAMAGE us, it was dropped from Lawful Good to Lawful neutral instantly. Mind you, the character also had a neutrotic 'follow my orders' tendency (a flaw of mine as a person), though he was more then fair with gold, giving more to others beneath or near him in rank, and always being the first to offer to pay for the jobs at hand.
Long story short; I tend to player Neutral alignments, while performing good acts as I can, but inevitably when the going gets tough, I'm going to make the pragmatic choices that make others tilt their heads, in order to preserve the lives important to me, above the ones around me.
One thing I will say about my current group is this: Left to their own devices and with no one they are in charge of and they are Good only via technicality; otherwise, some of the things they do make it very clear they are pretty much evil in everything except name only. Make them responsible for others and suddenly you see why they are not evil.
With the Leadership feat, they tend to take very good care of their followers and cohorts. Followers and cohorts are never sacrificed needlessly; they're always treated well, paid well, and kept out of danger.
Give them a mission to save the world and they will do everything in their power to complete the mission.
Put them in charge of a kingdom and you see a Lawful Good kingdom that quickly becomes well-known for how just its laws are, the lack of overtaxing people, the joyous mood the rulers encourage, and the care given to the poor and elderly.
Have them adventure for their own wealth and encounter a dragon with a wyrmling and, nine times out of ten, they will try to use the wyrmling as a melee weapon against the dragon.
Dontgonearthe Castle? Oi I've been there. Nice vacation spot, and t'ain't too far from home.
that just really rubs me the wrong way; as if being "crazy" is a singular condition reserved for characters who streak through a tavern with a chicken on their head singing showtunes.As if there were something wrong with that.
Let me clarify; being "crazy" is fine, saying you're crazy because "hey guys I'm Chaotic Neutral!" Is dumb. Just my opinion.
Be crazy. Be silly, but just be it. Don't blame being a certain alignment for it, especially when said alignment doesn't mean that.
that just really rubs me the wrong way; as if being "crazy" is a singular condition reserved for characters who streak through a tavern with a chicken on their head singing showtunes.As if there were something wrong with that.Let me clarify; being "crazy" is fine, saying you're crazy because "hey guys I'm Chaotic Neutral!" Is dumb. Just my opinion.
Be crazy. Be silly, but just be it. Don't blame being a certain alignment for it, especially when said alignment doesn't mean that.
If I do crazy, it is never CN. The most fun I had was as a goblin who "heard voices" and would "smashy-thing the bad-bad." He was a paladin of St. Cuthbert. Drove the party nuts because they were never certain how much of his hearing voices was divine mandate, and how much of it was just pure insanity (90% of it was pure insanity).
However, don't blame the players for this one. IIRC, 3.0 set the standard of CN being for the insane.
The players in my campaign are in no particular order a soldier in exile trying to rebuild his nation, an inquisitor trying to enforce orthodoxy, a traveler trying to find his way home, another soldier just following orders, and two mercs only in it for the money.
I've played both crazy CN and sane CN. I also have played Lawful Lawful LN and OCD LN as well.
The PCs enter an abandoned theme park, and my LN character still paid the admission fee.
CN has included a mad but entertaining sorcerer, a preternaturally calm transmuter who saw change as so natural that it had to be embraced, and an infantile spoiled brat of an elf.
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Personally I tend to prefer the darker grittier characters...
Mr. Knight in shining armor is just utterly boring and has been played out way to many times. Additionally, Mr. Do-Gooder-for-the-sake-of-goodness is so utterly bland. It is kind of the reason why I hate superman. He is dull. When you are the epitome of boyscout, your character has no character and you are just kinda... a cardboard cut-out...
Amazing, because I feel the opposite. I find good character to be the ones with the great roleplaying challenges and character development. Not the CN greedy guy who wants to kill and then wonder why the village fears him (or doesn't care).
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This is good, though. K177Y C47 can play Angsty McGrit and Arnwolf can play Dudley Do-Right, and everyone wins. Is this a great game or what?
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Amazing, because I feel the opposite. I find good character to be the ones with the great roleplaying challenges and character development. Not the CN greedy guy who wants to kill and then wonder why the village fears him (or doesn't care).Personally I tend to prefer the darker grittier characters...
Mr. Knight in shining armor is just utterly boring and has been played out way to many times. Additionally, Mr. Do-Gooder-for-the-sake-of-goodness is so utterly bland. It is kind of the reason why I hate superman. He is dull. When you are the epitome of boyscout, your character has no character and you are just kinda... a cardboard cut-out...
Nowhere did I say a CN muderhobo...
What I like are say, teh grizled church inquistor who does the bloody deeds that the church requires getting done...
Or the Grey Guard or whatever it was called in 3.5 (the paladin prestige class that could pretty much break it's own code if it served teh greated good of its church)
Or the champion of his faith that is so invested in his ideal or dream (like say he believed he recieved a vision from his god and is a fanatic) that he is willing to sacrifice everything and anything to see his vision come to fruition...
Just because I like darker charactes does not mean CN Muderhobo who has no maturity and kilsl just for the sake of killing... I prefer REAL people, and REAL people tend to be complex.. with issues and concerns.. and darker corners of their minds, even if they refuse to acknowledge that portion of their mind...
3/4 of the characters in our current Jade Regent campaign are heroes. The other one is a bit mercenary.
I tend to play Han Solo/Captain Reynolds types. The ones who say, yeah I'm in it for the money, but underneath it all their conscience gets the better of them and they'll do the right thing in the end.Frankly, I'm not even sure I'd call malcom Reynolds an "antihero". He may be on 'the wrong side of the law' but he has a rather iron and steel unwavering moral code, and acts awfully idealistic. He strikes me more as an idealistic hero trying to convince himself he isn't one. But the bad boy suit just. Does. Not. Fit.
Malcolm had an enemy at his mercy, offered to let the enemy go, and when the enemy threatened him Malcolm kicked the guy into the intake of a jet engine. That's pretty much the definition of anti-hero :P
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Malcolm had an enemy at his mercy, offered to let the enemy go, and when the enemy threatened him Malcolm kicked the guy into the intake of a jet engine. That's pretty much the definition of anti-hero :PI tend to play Han Solo/Captain Reynolds types. The ones who say, yeah I'm in it for the money, but underneath it all their conscience gets the better of them and they'll do the right thing in the end.Frankly, I'm not even sure I'd call malcom Reynolds an "antihero". He may be on 'the wrong side of the law' but he has a rather iron and steel unwavering moral code, and acts awfully idealistic. He strikes me more as an idealistic hero trying to convince himself he isn't one. But the bad boy suit just. Does. Not. Fit.
A damn good scene though.
I prefer REAL people, and REAL people tend to be complex.. with issues and concerns.. and darker corners of their minds, even if they refuse to acknowledge that portion of their mind...
Who says that real people cannot be good? My grandpa was a picture of decency. Everyone liked and respected him, he was always smiling, always nice and polite, he always had words of wisdom for me, but one day when five guys attempted to mug me while I was waiting to meet him, he beat them all nearly to death. Broke one guys knee and half of another one's ribs. Most of them had teeth missing.
Still would call him Lawful Good.
EDIT: He was 67 at the time.
Your grand pa sounds like one tough dude but no where does it say lawful good has to use minimum force to protect what they believe or who they love
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His point is that being a nice person and not needing a to be a gritty hidden-dark-side antihero is still realistic, which K177Y seems to be saying is a necessity to being a REAL character.