Is D&D fun? I'm thinking about getting into it.

[Japher]

My Barbarian is True Neutral BTW.

That's tough. Its much easier to give yourself a cause or quirk and play that. You get XP for playing in character toward your alignment, TN? Only a druid and ranger can really do this well, IMO. What's your character?

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Japher


That's tough. Its much easier to give yourself a cause or quirk and play that. You get XP for playing in character toward your alignment, TN? Only a druid and ranger can really do this well, IMO. What's your character?

As far as I understand True Neutral can also be played as "undecided" is that corrects? Also can I change my alingment by playing my character a certain way?


The lawfull alingments where off the table by default and I didn't know how I would cope from going from Paladin to Chaotic in 30 min. So I choose Neutral, I thought about evil, but then I don't really see my character that way, I think he might be best described as amoral. He has a code of "honor" that mostly reflect his warrior culture, his home village was destroyed by an orc horde and he has spent many years as a mercenary... his travels have taken him far south, far away from his home. The strange folk here show little tolerance for his unusuall ways and he himself would never even dream of changing his ways to suit them.


(I didn't have much time, so I decided that I would resort to vague clichés and embelish and detail them later so as to add some depth)

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Japher
Paladin's are tough. Also, any DM that doesn't kill a few players is a munchkin, get over it. I know it suck because you put time into them, but that's the fun.

I once loss, temporarily, a Lvl 12 Dwarven fighter that adored and put about a year in. While he was "gone" I played a albino half-orc barbarian and had a blast! He was pretty much a no brainer, low-low charisma and high-high strenght, con, and dex. He started pretty much as a pitbull on a chain. I eventually got him up to level 15, a year later, and he had pretty much become a ring leader. Well, I didn't lead the team, but I lead the army. It was awesome.

Play a bruiser, balls out. Name your weapons, your battle moves, etc... Random acts of violence, depending on your alignment, and/or feats of chivalry. You're the muscle, nothing else, treat it like that.

Oerdin Farr was my half-elf fighter/mage/thief and I played him for 2.5 years before our campaign fizzed out. I liked him so much I still use his name as my handle.

[Japher]

As far as I understand True Neutral can also be played as "undecided" is that corrects? Also can I change my alingment by playing my character a certain way?

But that doesn't help with XP

Oerdin Farr was my half-elf fighter/mage/thief and I played him for 2.5 years before our campaign fizzed out. I liked him so much I still use his name as my handle.

My first character, which I played for 4 years, was a Gnome illusionist/cleric of Tempus. Through wishes and a forgiving DM I became a full mage and Chaotic Good, despite these things not available to a Gnome in 2nd edition. I kicked but with the help of a female fighter, a mage boarderline necromancer, and a Paladin who was at ends with his God. That was fun.

My name... There were some who called me... Tim?

Timothy Kuma D'Roone

He was 14/15 Mage/Cleric when he died. I had command of a small town and was know as Tim the Giant throughout FG realms. The other characters had developed at rates that allowed me to control their reigns. My hunger after dragons had me. And, when an old foe reappeared as Lich Dragon I was screwed. Unfortunately my cleverness found his lair too soon. The DM warned me, out of character. Yet, we advanced. We had all but one, well everyone was dead but myself, and I need only to destroy the lich's soul, but couldn't because I couldn't cast wish.

After the lich destroyed me I realized my fallen henchman (a 15 lvl. fighter of awesome ability, thanks to me) carried a luck blade. On top of it I had the ability to raise the dead.

Thus, if I had recalled the luck blade we would have won. However, I didn't and we died. The DM suggested we ignore my drunken state and return to the scene and play forward. However, the game was played fair, and for 4 years. So, we all decided to stop... RIP.

Tim is still my favorite character. He was awesome.

[Lord Avalon]

Originally posted by Heraclitus

... I didn't know how I would cope from going from Paladin to Chaotic in 30 min.

Mass quantities?

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Japher


But that doesn't help with XP

True, but making up a culture and personality and sticking to it do. Also, playing a amoral character who really couldn't care less about good or evil seems to be something that could lend itself to getting XP from the DM as well.

[Elok]

[Lord Avalon]

Neutral Greedy: Kill things and take their treasure.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Heraclitus


True, but making up a culture and personality and sticking to it do. Also, playing a amoral character who really couldn't care less about good or evil seems to be something that could lend itself to getting XP from the DM as well.

But that sounds more like chaotic neutral than like true neutral (at least IMHO)

[Wraith]

I'm a little late joining in, but...

--"My character is a paladin. How I should play him so that I'm not too annoying?"
--"My Barbarian is True Neutral BTW."

Heh. You do like to pick the difficult ones ^_^ I've only ever seen a single well-played Paladin character. Oddly enough, it was played by a Korean kid I knew in college, and it was Paladin Wu. Not kidding. These were the 2nd edition rules, and I watched him roll his stats; 18/96 strength, no cheats. Fun campaign and good DM, too. It was a small group, but our characters almost killed each other off at the very start; we had a Paladin, a CG elven ranger, and a dark-elf. To say it took a while for everyone to trust each other is an understatement.

Anyway, neither of those are particularly easy for most people to role-play. Certainly not what I'd suggest for a beginner.

--"As far as I understand True Neutral can also be played as "undecided" is that corrects?"

Not really. True Neutral strives for balance. If you've read the Dragonlance books you'll have some idea of where they're coming from, but they're against extremes more than anything. Playing as undecided really doesn't work.

--"Also can I change my alingment by playing my character a certain way?"

You certainly can, but it can cause problems. Some classes more than others (Paladins and Druids will suffer the most), but if your DM is any good you will not be happy with the consequences of an alignment shift unless there's a really good story reason for it.

--"but then I don't really see my character that way, I think he might be best described as amoral. "

Neutral Evil or Chaotic Good would probably have been your best fit, then, depending on exactly how he's set up. Amoral with a code of honor could work with either, depending on the code.

(Edit) Lawful Neutral could work as well, depending on the character's viewpoint. If he's following his tribe's customs simply because they're his tribe's customs, that would fit.

--"I agree, half our party got obliterated in a battle that we shouldn't have gotten ouselves into"

It's a good sign when they follow through like that ^_^

Wraith
When the DM smiles, it's already too late

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST


But that sounds more like chaotic neutral than like true neutral (at least IMHO)

True in several aspects, but I've thought about it for several min now, and it seems to me that neutral neutral would allow me to show at least *some* respect to authority, since being a really "chaotic" character would be problematic for me. A sense of honor which I've made part of the back story doesn't seem to chaotic, a chaotic person wouldn't care about rules or even guidelines, my character does (albeit what he consideres honorable may not be what people in the southern lands consider legal )

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Wraith
I'm a little late joining in, but...

--"My character is a paladin. How I should play him so that I'm not too annoying?"
--"My Barbarian is True Neutral BTW."

Heh. You do like to pick the difficult ones ^_^ I've only ever seen a single well-played Paladin character. Oddly enough, it was played by a Korean kid I knew in college, and it was Paladin Wu. Not kidding. These were the 2nd edition rules, and I watched him roll his stats; 18/96 strength, no cheats. Fun campaign and good DM, too. It was a small group, but our characters almost killed each other off at the very start; we had a Paladin, a CG elven ranger, and a dark-elf. To say it took a while for everyone to trust each other is an understatement.

Anyway, neither of those are particularly easy for most people to role-play. Certainly not what I'd suggest for a beginner.

--"As far as I understand True Neutral can also be played as "undecided" is that corrects?"

Not really. True Neutral strives for balance. If you've read the Dragonlance books you'll have some idea of where they're coming from, but they're against extremes more than anything. Playing as undecided really doesn't work.

--"Also can I change my alingment by playing my character a certain way?"

You certainly can, but it can cause problems. Some classes more than others (Paladins and Druids will suffer the most), but if your DM is any good you will not be happy with the consequences of an alignment shift unless there's a really good story reason for it.

--"but then I don't really see my character that way, I think he might be best described as amoral. "

Neutral Evil or Chaotic Good would probably have been your best fit, then, depending on exactly how he's set up. Amoral with a code of honor could work with either, depending on the code.

(Edit) Lawful Neutral could work as well, depending on the character's viewpoint. If he's following his tribe's customs simply because they're his tribe's customs, that would fit.

--"I agree, half our party got obliterated in a battle that we shouldn't have gotten ouselves into"

It's a good sign when they follow through like that ^_^

Wraith
When the DM smiles, it's already too late

Thanks for your advice, I hope you keep an eye out for this thread since as our campaign progresses I'm bound to end up posting more questions. Its great to see that there are so many D&D players on poly, since I really really need advice.


Now to the content of your post.... good advice, there is a bit of a snag now. My character as a barbarian can be good or evil or neutral, this has no effect on his class abilities, but he can not be lawful. When I picked his alignment, my thought process went like this:


1. I can't be lawful (6 alignments remaining)
2. Playing chaotic something often feels like playing dumb something, so I'll stay clear of that (3 alignments remaining)
3. Neutral good? A noble savage? A rebel with a cause? No thanks. (2 remaining)
4. Neutral evil? Don't feel like playing that right now...





Actually in the end my Barbarian could dislike extremes in a almost "druid like" way, very evil things would seem wrong to him (especially unnatural magic, pedophilia, sacrilege and other things that where probably taboo in his society) but doing acts of charity or helping the weak would also be a foreign concept to him and should anyone in the party try either extreme he would try to talk them out of it, and if they don't listen he might just loose his cool and go berserk (literally ).


I'm yet to choose a god to worship so that may also lend some flexibility.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Elok

What?

[Wraith]

--" a chaotic person wouldn't care about rules or even guidelines"

No, but I'm not sure you've quite got the idea. A chaotic good person wouldn't care about the laws, but would very much care about their own idea of right and wrong. Someone with a strong code of honor that gets him in legal trouble, in other words. Robin Hood is usually used as an example.

Check out the Character Alignement page on Tv Tropes. It's a bit tongue in cheek, of course, but it (and the links in each alignment description) should give you a good idea where they're coming from. As a quick note about their Neutral Neutral description, the balance version is the one usually referenced for D&D. Check with your DM, though, since there's always house rules. He may not mind the "doesn't care" interpretation, but I've never had a DM on that side of the argument.

--"Its great to see that there are so many D&D players on poly."

There's more around everywhere than normally talk about it ^_^ It's a fun game.

--" but he can not be lawful."

Yeah, I never play barbarians, so I forgot about their alignment restriction.

Wraith
PC:"There are HOW MANY GNOLLS in that courtyard?"
DM:"Well, about 200. Want to stop and count them?"

[Elok]

Click the smiley. EEEVIL!

Actually, I do think nobody should play D&D. Not because it's evil. Just because it's really sad to roll dice and make up a highly derivative story about Tolkien ripoffs battling Lovecraft ripoffs. Masturbating employs the imagination just as much without nearly as much money spent on rulebooks and dinky metal figurines.