A difficult issue, I have dealt with in D&D, is alignment. In the past there was an axium of outer planes following chaos, law, good, evil, neutral, and to a lesser degree unaligned. There were 9 alignments, as well as, unalignment that all creatures followed. But what does it mean to be lawful good or neutral evil especially in a Hero character. Evil in D&D, is for most part, anybody agaist the well being of the party or all that they hold dear like a village or a kingdom. To me evil is a corrupting force in your life that makes you desire or want that brings about fealings of hatred, infatuation, pride,and envy that cause you to cause injure to another by malice. A preditor hunting down, slaying prey is not evil, it is a natural instinct. Good is even harder to understand.
In D&D, good is being kind and helping others and doing the right thing. It can also relate to putting others before oneself. The problem with "good" is it is even more subjective, in my opinion than evil. Everyone has an Idea of universal evil, but good varies so greatly. Many events in history have been achieved for the good of mankind, but were they really good for everyone or just the victors. I use the Crusades as an example. If you aided in taking the Holyland in the 1st crusade, you automaticaly went to Heaven. I bet many did this for selfish reasons like bragging rights or to create personal kingdoms in the name of God.
Law and chaos are force of nature not of man. Chaos is a greek term for "nothing." In other words out of nothing came order or stucture (law). It is the will of nature to always revert back to it's simplest state or chaos. In D&D terms, law is structure and order at it's glory. Chaos is disorder and favors indiviualism. I find it interesting that even chaotic beings like Demons and Slaad follow some form of order even if it is pecking order. That leaves unaligned.
Unaligned is a default alignment given to undead or those with an animal IQ. The confusion is in comaring it to true neutral. In design true neutral and unalignment are the same. I guess true neutral is designed for unaligned creatures that are not undead or have animal IQ's.
This is the very reason I ignore alignment. I have played D&D long enough to have an idea of what each one is, but in the game, I always play based off of social dynamics. A creature needs food, water, selter, and tend to defend what is thiers. If they are socially primative, thier needs are differant than if they are civilized. If you are a hero, you follow your heart or wims across the land to change to world(s) as you see fit. I guess alignment is best used as a guideline or a measuring stick for what you like and dislike about world around you. You may lean towards a certain view, but in the end your destiny is an accumilation of your choices in life.
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