Rob
asked
Sebastien de Castell:
Hello Sebastien! My question is, if you're familiar, under the old Dungeon and Dragons alignment system, do you consider the Greatcoats to be Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral? The lawful part is obvious, but I'm not sure if they are more Good or Neutral. If they are LG, then I like how this provides a much more nuanced vision of the alignment than the goody-goody or near-fanatical portrayals that I've encountered!
Sebastien de Castell
Hi There!
I have a passing familiarity with the old D&D alignment stuff. The problem is that in a role playing context, alignment is really a way of putting rails on what the player does (or at least, how the player justifies their actions.) In the context of a novel, notions of good vs evil and law vs chaos exist more as ideals that the characters wrestle with. In the case of the Greatcoats, Falcio is constantly struggling with whether to follow the law – which he sees as the greater long-term good – or whether to do what needs to be done in the moment, which almost always means undermining that long-term good. Furthermore, when he's acting out of personal vendetta (which he tries to avoid but loses it sometimes), he's no longer even neutral good, but rather, true neutral.
If I was forced to fit the characters into the D&D mold . . .
Falcio would be bouncing around between Lawful Good (we have to believe that following the law will make things better), Neutral Good (screw the law, I'm just going to help this person and deal with the consequences later), and True Neutral (I'm going to kill this bastard and I don't care what happens after that.)
Kest would slide between Lawful Neutral (if we're supposed to be lawmen, then we can't make decisions based on the outcome) and Neutral Good (the law clearly can't help us solve this problem, so I'll do what's necessary for the greater good even if it means going back on my oath).
Brasti contends with Neutral Good (screw the law, we're supposed to help people) and Chaotic Neutral (I started as a poacher, and I'm perfectly happy watching the world go to hell and getting myself a nice drink while it happens.)
Hope some of that helps!
I have a passing familiarity with the old D&D alignment stuff. The problem is that in a role playing context, alignment is really a way of putting rails on what the player does (or at least, how the player justifies their actions.) In the context of a novel, notions of good vs evil and law vs chaos exist more as ideals that the characters wrestle with. In the case of the Greatcoats, Falcio is constantly struggling with whether to follow the law – which he sees as the greater long-term good – or whether to do what needs to be done in the moment, which almost always means undermining that long-term good. Furthermore, when he's acting out of personal vendetta (which he tries to avoid but loses it sometimes), he's no longer even neutral good, but rather, true neutral.
If I was forced to fit the characters into the D&D mold . . .
Falcio would be bouncing around between Lawful Good (we have to believe that following the law will make things better), Neutral Good (screw the law, I'm just going to help this person and deal with the consequences later), and True Neutral (I'm going to kill this bastard and I don't care what happens after that.)
Kest would slide between Lawful Neutral (if we're supposed to be lawmen, then we can't make decisions based on the outcome) and Neutral Good (the law clearly can't help us solve this problem, so I'll do what's necessary for the greater good even if it means going back on my oath).
Brasti contends with Neutral Good (screw the law, we're supposed to help people) and Chaotic Neutral (I started as a poacher, and I'm perfectly happy watching the world go to hell and getting myself a nice drink while it happens.)
Hope some of that helps!
More Answered Questions
Emelia
asked
Sebastien de Castell:
This is more of a begging post than a question.... Please, will you write a book about Ugh? Yes, I read all the way to the back ;) I love Ugh as did my BR group for books 1-3 for Greatcoats. I think a book about his life would be most excellent and all Ugh's fans would read it. You can't bring a character like Ugh into a book and drop a tidbit about him and not expect your GC followers not to want more !
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