Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
Yeah. But that's kinda what I was going after. Creatures (like golems) that are simply acting according to their nature, and with no specific intent or objective relating to the actions themselves, are neutral.
I disagree.
Creatures that have intelligence but no will can still perform Evil actions and hold an Evil alignment, if they are following the orders of an Evil creator/controller. The inverse is also true.
A creature that routinely and intelligently commits evil actions must be considered Evil, but if they authentically have no choice in the matter and had no prior alignment then on the alignment graph then they would be in the Neutral Evil zone but very close to Neutral. Removal of the compulsion to obey orders (gifting them with free will, essentially) would start them with a Neutral Evil alignment, but they could very quickly move to another alignment, as they were so close to the edge of the Neutral Evil alignment.

Spoiler: Terminator 2
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Witness Arnold's character in Terminator 2. Once his learning switch is turned on (in a scene in the Director's Cut), he very quickly learns to value human life and is able to ignore John's order not to self-terminate once he has decided that his continued existence is a threat to humanity.


There's a difference between "I kill you because I want you dead" and "I'm tring to do X, and if you try to stop me I'll have to use force, which may result in me having to kill you". In the latter case, the moral assessment of the action is not on the action itself, but on X. If X is an evil objective, then the action is evil, and the person is probably evil alignment as well (or heading that way to some degree). If X is a good objective, then the action is good, and has an appropriate alignment effect. We all get that somewhat innately. Adventurers are trying to save orphans in a fire, and someone tries to use force to stop them and the only way to proceed is to kill/harm the person in their way. That is "good", right? Adventurers are trying to summon an evil demon lord to bring a thousand years of pain and suffering to the world, and someone tries to use force to stop them and the only way to proceed is to harm/kill that person in their way. That is "evil", right?

The question I'm getting at, and trying to examine here is: What value for X can we plug into that equation which results in a neutral act/alignment? There must be one, or neutral doesn't really exist as a balanced alignment.
What do you mean by "a balanced alignment"? One equal in importance to the others? Does Neutral need to be equal in importance to the other alignments?

For X you could go with "I don't want any trouble. I simply want to be left alone and not get involved." Essentially selfish self-preservation. There's a reason the Palladium games changed Neutral to "Selfish" alignments in their system.

D&D3.5 describes Neutral as basically "lacking the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others," on the Evil/Good axis and "has a normal respect for authority and feels neither a compulsion to obey nor a compulsion to rebel," on the Law/Chaos axis.
In this view Neutral is the same as "insufficiently Good, Evil, Lawful, or Chaotic".