Talk:Alignments/@comment-5519258-20121212081548/@comment-4536066-20121212155411

Neutrality versus evil (morally) is determined less by how often or how frequent a character kills or subjugates other sentient creatures and more by how a person reacts to doing so. The neutral individual most likely avoids it unless he had a very defined, clear personal motivation for doing so ("he wants to kill my wife" or "they are going to destory what I have been working on for my entire life and I am going to stop them"). In most cases, the neutral character doesn't actually like to kill, he just does it because the alternative is less ideal. An evil character, in contrast, doesn't have any reluctance against causing death or suffering; he is perfectly content to do it or may even get some form of pleasure out of the act depending on the character. Of course, that still doesn't mean all evil characters are chaotic, just that they get something out of it that the others don't, and have no compulsions against doing so (aside from "I don't feel like it right now" or "it would be inconvenient to have someone plotting revenge against me this week.")

Tendencies are totally optional and are only really there to be used by people who want that level of specification. For the guy who sits there thinking, "Well she's really more neutral than lawful, but she tries to be lawful, but when it comes down to it she usually doesn't succeed, but trying to be lawful in the first place is pretty lawful..."