"True Neutral"?

[Drakenborg]

I like the DnD alignement system and tried to play a Chaotic Good trooper.

Hard but not impossible.

Still, even with that I am allready at 2900 Light and 500 Dark.

[kartikeya]

All a "Grey Jedi" is, is a Jedi that will sometimes defy the usual order of the council.

Qui Gon Jin is considered a Grey Jedi. As is Jolee Bindo.

 

Ultimately, they are still good, they simply observe the force differently, and do not view the world, as cut and dry as the Jedi Order's doctrine.

 

They don't do one good thing, then one bad thing just to even out their score.

 

Grey Jedi were like priests who didn't agree completely with a religion's teachings. Much like how many Judeo-Christian denominations argue how best to serve God, and interpret the Bible. Ultimately they all serve the same end, but carry it out differently.

 

This, this, this.

 

There's no such thing as a 'true neutral' Jedi when it comes to the Force. That's because the Force doesn't have a 'Grey' side. If you're flipflopping from light side to dark side, that doesn't make you a Grey Jedi, that makes you...uh. Either a really bad Jedi or a really bad Sith, though in lore I think it would make you someone who would fall to the Dark Side really fast.

 

Revan could have been called a Grey Jedi when he/she was leading the fight against the Mandalorians, since that was in direct violation of the Council's wishes, prior to his/her falling to the Dark Side (or whatever you want to call what happened). Revan is NOT a Grey Jedi for being on both sides at one point. The Exile is closer to a Grey Jedi (as I recall, you could even get Grey Jedi Robes in that game).

 

Neutral gear for non-Force users would be neat. And in the name of balance neutral gear for Force users should happen if that does. But really, Grey Jedi are not neutral.

[MurphyNox]

George Lucas doesn't like things being morally grey. They have to be good or evil, that's it.

 

 

Hence Revan being killed by players.

 

Edited December 17, 2011 by MurphyNox

[Arcanedragon]

Except is there really such a thing as a "Grey Jedi" ? It would be a near impossibility one would think. I mean, Jedi are those that serve the light, and Sith serve the dark, so just by being a jedi, you are inherently light. So honestly, one would think in a logical sence,

 

A: THose that are Jedi, are Light

 

B: Those that are Dark are Sith

 

C: Those that do both can never be fully and equaly balanced because one side will always be there to outweigh the other.

 

I am only thinking out of Logic here though, I mean if you have a +450 and a -450 Ok, thats grey. But as soon as you make another decision, youre 1 or more points over or under and then you are inherently good or inherently evil again.

 

I think that if they do make a mechanic for this they will have to rewrite some programming to make a inherently neutral choice on such matters requiring a decision to be made.

 

Is this not the right course of thinking?

 

 

its called Revanite.

[GGTeMpLaR]

Jolee Bindo is a confirmed Grey Jedi. Another notable Grey Jedi is Qui-Gon Jinn

 

 

Qui-Gon being grey is extremely debatable.

[tbowen]

Problem with neutrality for me lore wise is people act like its neither bad nor good....but being good isnt supposed to be about a bullheaded ignorance to whats going on around you...its supposed to be about doing the RIGHT thing all the time (hence one reason why jedi can't have attatchment, otherwise they might sacrifice a 1,000 people to save 1 person they "love"). Also, are you truly 'neutral' if you only kill the defenseless kid SOMETIMES? Or even if you just decide not to act and let the kid die SOMETIMES? Neutrality is either impotence and inability to decide on a path (which deciding not to act is a decision in itself and therefore usually either good or bad, for example just watching your friend blast some little kid when you could have stopped him is almost as bad as blasting the kid yourself), or it is complete imbalance swaying wildly light to dark and back again. Lore-wise, why should an unblanaced and conflicted mind be rewarded the same as a consolidated and purposed mind focused towards a goal? Obviously a mind with purpose is more likely to achieve high levels than a mind who can't decide on a route. Who will reach the top of the mountain first? The man who picks the left path or the right with conviction? or the man who first picks left then every few hundred feet decides to traverse the face of the mountain to the other path?

 

But from a gameplay perspective and a 'fun factor' i can understand why a 'neutral' gear set would be put in, so people who want to do good and bad equally can have gear...

[Remiel]

George Lucas doesn't like things being morally grey. They have to be good or evil, that's it.

 

 

Hence Revan being killed by players.

 

not valid, THis ins't Lucas's story. And technically each class story is supose to be the players story. He shouldn't and doesn't have a say on the players story.

[HalcyonicPlague]

Except that it is Lucas' universe and his vision does have to be respected because to deviate from the world that Lucas created would to no longer be involved in Star Wars. It is one of the reasons that I get a massive kick out of people that "love" star wars but give little credence to that which is established through the movies and instead favor stuff from EU. EU is nice, but it is meant to enhance not define.

 

 

That being said. Some have said some great points on neutrality and grey Jedi. Machros said it well. The whole entire "balanced" meter idea would make the Jedi a psycho. It becomes arbitrary and fake. I can understand someone accruing some of the other sides points. On my Sith Inquisitor I've gotten some lightside points from picking options that I viewed as simply being more pragmatic. He is still overwhelmingly darkside but he has ~200 lightside points to his name. My Jedi chars are saints so they don't really get darkside points but I could see where they might get a handful if I wanted to play them less... saintly.

 

A truly nuetral character would not be good or evil and would be instead some sort of insane weird character with no real moral standing. In a world that thrives on the existence of two polar opposites this is a pointless effort. It defeats the purpose of the entire universe. Star Wars is a tale of the lightside vs. the darkside. To walk in there and be like "Ya know... screw that, I just want to be uber and have no side but reap all the benefits of both" is hilarious, and honestly I think shows that you don't actually like star wars.

 

 

Revan is boring a Mary-Sue of a character. I love KotOR1 and I loved playing as him. I thoroughly enjoyed his story as I ran with it. However, Revan suffers a problem when one tries to make an RPG character with defined backstory and a conclusion into a real character. You have to make a character that does not offend the majority of the people that played as him. So, you are forced into a hole and make a Mary-Sue which really just cheapens the character. The entire time that I dealt with the Revanites I spent the entire time scoffing at their desires to be a Mary-Sue. It was quite saddening, but I know that it had to be kind of done that way so I don't have issue with it.

 

Jolee Bindu is probably the only proper example of a so-called "Grey Jedi" in lore, but the only reason he comes off that way is because he was not really fond of the Jedi Order and its decisions. He draws parallels to Qui'Gonn Jinn in that regard but Qui'Gonn is by no means a Grey Jedi at all. He was a Jedi through and through and a lightsider all the way. He only did not like the council. And that's how Jolee was. As someone beautifully pointed out earlier, Jolee's meter was on the lightside, not all the way up, but it was up there and he does hold issue with you being devoted to the darkside at the end if you so choose that.

 

To paint Qui'Gonn a being a Grey Jedi is laughable at best. The man personifies the code. The only thing that differentiates him from Obi'Wan is that he was not all gung ho about every Council decision. If you absolutely must try and make a term for him outside of an absolute Jedi, He may be considered a Rogue Jedi, and even then that puts him more on the outside than he deserves.

 

 

TL;DR: Grey Jedi are a falsehood, perceived and concocted by those who do not actually like Star Wars. Want reasons why? Read the post.

[kartikeya]

As above, Grey Jedi is an actual term used for, not neutral Jedi, but light side Jedi that are for whatever reason out of sorts with the Council. That's why people are saying Qui'Gon was one, and Jolee was one. They're both light side Jedi, they're just both rather estranged (Jolee much more than Qui'Gon, obviously) from the Jedi Council.

 

Grey Jedi has nothing to do with alignment and everything to do with politics and policy/decision disagreements. Qui'Gon questioned the Council, didn't always toe their line, and tended to go his own way despite their rulings, hence, Grey Jedi. NOT neutral Jedi. Neutral Jedi don't exist in lore insofar as I know, as toeing that close to the Dark Side generally means you're in for a nasty fall. Witness Anakin.

[HalcyonicPlague]

Grey Jedi does not really exist in lore either. It is a dumb term typically associated with people who do the RPG and whatnot who try and play a lightside-darksider who exploits the benefits of both. It is the for the Mary-Sue fans.

 

 

 

Rogue Jedi is the most apt canon term for Qui'Gonn and Jolee, not Grey Jedi.

[Fiachsidhe]

Grey Jedi does not really exist in lore either. It is a dumb term typically associated with people who do the RPG and whatnot who try and play a lightside-darksider who exploits the benefits of both. It is the for the Mary-Sue fans.

 

 

 

Rogue Jedi is the most apt canon term for Qui'Gonn and Jolee, not Grey Jedi.

 

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Gray_Jedi

 

It is part of the lore.

[HalcyonicPlague]

Canon a wookieepedia article it does not make. Even a lengthy one such as that. Know your lore from actual experience in reading it and you would realize that in all actuality, grey Jedi do not exist. Rogue Jedi, yes. Grey Jedi, no.

[LinJe]

Despite what some people may think about what's "true star wars", I'm not RPing or playing the game to honor whatever George Lucas wanted out of his lore or however the universe "should be".

I'm RPing and BEING the character I want to be.

 

Fact is, most games I play that DO have "morality/alignment" I just naturally tend to go neutral because the good/bad are ridiculously cheesy sometimes. Example:

 

Choice 1) Give money to beggar

Choice 2) Encourage beggar to get a job

Choice 3) Slice beggar's head off

Choice 4) Walk away and don't respond

 

Just because I am a Sith in the game doesn't mean I feel my character should just be overtly and ridiculously "evil" all the time simply because it's offered to me and it's "Lore". I'm not going to choose "slice beggar's head off" just because I'm Sith.

 

As far as "hating star wars" or other weird comments, I'm not going to get into a nerd fight and defend that.

Edited December 17, 2011 by LinJe

[Ambrogino]

Ok, as far as canon goes there are 2 main schools of though. They are not the only schools of thought, just the largest groups.

Jedi

Sith

 

Just off the top of my head, some other "Force User" organizations:

Barab Do Sages

Imperial Knights (Legacy Era)

MInd Walkers

Guardians of Breath

jal Shay

Sith

Fallanassi

Witches of Dathomir

Shapers of Kro Var

 

There are others as well. The truth is the Force has a light and dark side and some smaller organizations that utilize both. The New Jedi Order founded by Luke Skywalker sought a middle path!

 

FYI Healing is a dark side power so what does that say...

[Ambrogino]

FYI, Bioware did state somewhere that they would like to put more "GREY" gear in, but they are waiting to see the interest in the community.

[BrianDavion]

Exactly!

 

Imagine a grey sentinel or maurader with a red and a blue saber in his hands... only possible to the grey jedi who has neither achieved Dark I or Light I.

 

Also, Revan is a perfect example of a Grey Jedi. Its rare... but its fun to play something other than LAWFUL GOOD, CHAOTIC GOOD, or LAWFUL EVIL, CHAOTIC EVIL... adding neutrality to the game will allow us old pen/paper D&D veterans to play a LAWFUL NEUTRAL, TRUE NEUTRAL, and a CHAOTIC NEUTRAL player and not be penalised by that choice.

 

Looking forward to neutrality when it comes.

 

this isn't D&D.

[Fiachsidhe]

Canon a wookieepedia article it does not make. Even a lengthy one such as that. Know your lore from actual experience in reading it and you would realize that in all actuality, grey Jedi do not exist. Rogue Jedi, yes. Grey Jedi, no.

 

Perhaps, but "HalcyonPlague says so" is not the stunning font of irrefutable fact you think it is.

Prove it. Show me where Lucas denounces Gray Jedi as any from of SW canon. Please, an expert such as yourself shouldn't have trouble finding it.

Edited December 24, 2011 by Fiachsidhe

[kartikeya]

Grey Jedi does not really exist in lore either. It is a dumb term typically associated with people who do the RPG and whatnot who try and play a lightside-darksider who exploits the benefits of both. It is the for the Mary-Sue fans.

 

 

 

Rogue Jedi is the most apt canon term for Qui'Gonn and Jolee, not Grey Jedi.

 

You're kind've ignoring what everyone's writing about what Grey Jedi are, aren't you?

 

Grey Jedi pretty much = rogue Jedi. It is not a 'lightside-darksider'. Arguing about what to call them is semantics; they've been called Grey Jedi in expanded material, not just the RPG, and, if I remember right, this includes KotOR 2 as well.

[cpmd]

Light side / dark side decisions aren't always completely black and white here, people. Each decision has context. Switching between them does not make you bi-polar.

 

However, making decisions based on whether or not that little light/dark side symbol is there is not fun. It takes away the choice and adds nothing if you don't go along with it; you have to stick to one or the other to get rewards. There SHOULD be rewards for neutrality, not just pure dark or light.

 

As for Jedi/Sith, what stops them from making the same kinds of decisions? That's what rogue Jedi do, right, make their own decisions instead of basing them off their own order's view?

 

Anyway, I am going to continue playing grey, even if it gets me nothing. At least I will make choices based on the situation and not the light/dark side take.

Edited December 17, 2011 by cpmd

[Elithin]

So again a average person kinda does some bad things, hurts some ppl here and there but trys to help others close to them but nothing huge like help/hinder the world. But if we are talking about balancing the force then you would be able to use sith powers and jedi powers. The game doesnt allow that i remember in kotor you could balance and have said powers of both.

 

i think thats kinda the point that alot of people forget and why grey force users don't make a huge amount of sense, because unless you either go to one extreme or the other the abilites aren't available for you to use......yeah yeah i know its the mitocondrians or whatever lol but same principal.... a force user is a force user what makes a jedi a jedi and sith lord a sith lord is thier philosophys jedi espouse peace calm and serentiy, sith embody strong emotions, so a grey "Force User" would be niether Jedi OR Sith but something completely different,.....yeah i know crapy spelling and horriffic grammer so sue me=)......the game is AMAZING I LOVE IT, see everyone in game!!!

[Emencie]

Light side / dark side decisions aren't always completely black and white here, people. Each decision has context. Switching between them does not make you bi-polar.

 

Seriously... For example

 

It is light sided to assist a known corrupt senator.

It's dark sided to Take a young boy who was kidnapped and drugged, back to his loving family.

It's Light sided to save the life of one woman instead of holocrons that can save the lives of hundreds.

It's Dark sided to not give money to the needy.

 

So the Game already makes it stupid one way or the other. I never realized all these years that on the days I don't give my spare change to a panhandler I was becoming more evil.

 

And it's not about Picking a side. Because no matter what LD/DS choices you make you are still one side or the other. The republic has absolutely no problem with employing ruthless, killers and cut throats for missions against the Empire.

 

one of the main problems with it is that no real person is just all good or all bad. For example.

 

Adolf Hitler got an Iron Cross in WWI for saving a comrade under fire at risk to himself. He has also been well documented to have been great with children, not only in play but also in teaching.

 

And Pope John Paul II was well known to have, known about, and help cover up the indiscretions of priests, with their alter boys.

 

And of course the main problem is there shouldn't be a penalty with not going all light side or all dark side. Lets not even get on the implications that your clothing refuses to be worn by you because you are too good or too evil. But from a gameplay standpoint not being all LS or all DS hurts your character. And not being any LS or DS gimps them.

 

My neutral character still doesn't have a relic not because I haven't found one mind you but because the dozens I have gotten from treasure hunting, quests and seen on the auction house all require LS/DS alignment. I have to go out of my way to find equivalent new modable gear. And the LS/DS characters effectively have double the options I have. Because they can also wear the no alignment required gear.

 

This is a problem and needs to be addressed. At this point I feel BW is saying to either go light or go dark and if that's the case why even have a choice? If your just going to pick the white star every conversation without care of context or reasons. They might as well make a LS/DS checkbox at character creation and your character just auto chooses the options.

[Viera]

Interesting reading on the subject.

 

The term Gray Jedi, or Gray, had two meanings. First, it was used by Jedi and Sith to describe Force-users who walked the line between the light and dark sides of the Force without surrendering to the dark side, and second, it described Jedi who distanced themselves from the Jedi High Council and operated outside the strictures of the Jedi Code.

 

The term dated back as far as the Old Sith Wars, when the High Council attempted to consolidate their power and centralize the Order. Some Jedi felt that the Council did not have the authority to reinterpret the Jedi Code, and considered themselves beholden only to the Force. These early Gray Jedi clashed with the Council over new strictures of the Code, such as those barring attachment or restricting training.

 

My Jedi Sage has mostly darkside points because she has always done what she believes the best course of action, rather than trying to arbitrarily mash the lightside button. None of her choices have been definitively evil, however.

[BrainSplatter]

I was thinking, what about that old guy in the Wookie-world Forest in KOTOR?

 

He was sorta neutral I guess?

 

Jolee Bindo. Yes, he was a Grey Jedi.

[cdman]

my god. people, neutral isn't "insane".

 

In beta I played a neutral SI. I didn't choose "the path of least resistance". I made choices that made my character seem "more human". I punished those that needed punishing. I didn't pick fights, but I didn't run from them. If someone attempted to belittle me I told them to **** or i'd give them a new hole to breathe through. I captured pows instead of killing them (in my mind to interrogate later for info).

 

I played a character that didn't take crap from others, and he always thought ahead for what would be better over all. This led me to having a neutral character around level 20 with a little more than 1k light side points and a little under 1k dark side points(within 100 points of each other). At that point i noticed that there was no neutral gear... so I powered dark side -_-.

 

My point is that neutrality isn't a cop out due to choices being hard. It's possible to be neutral without flipping from one extreme to the other.

[Aemesh]

I guess the whole purpose of this argument/thread is that a lot of people will be disappointed if there's a penalty to "role-playing" a character you make, as compared to following a script. Sure, actors follow scripts, but I figure the purpose of a role-playing game, at least originally, was to play a character, and make whatever choices you feel are better for the plot (or at least your personal storyline). Nowdays, seems like roleplaying is a term that's come to mean "games where you gain levels and loots."

 

I mean, sure, mmo's are fine, but i'm tired of the same ol grind. Part of the reason I bought this game and came out of mmo retirement, was that it had a storyline. And I agree with the naysayers above; Why should I be penalized for playing a character the way I want to play it? Why not just do as one glib dude said above, and include a checkbox at the start ( [light] [dark]) or hell, why not just assume all sith are bad and all jedi are light, and just ditch the conversation options, and go with fully pre-scripted cutscenes?

 

I'll tell ya why, because it's supposed to be interactive entertainment. As in, you get to play it how you want. Most people, i daresay, play the game to suit their own personalites, which by and large IRL are grey-area. Not light/dark side.

 

Now maybe the developer's argument is that those that play it pure (light or dark, 100%) are supposed to get some kind of bonus for their dedication. Sure, I'd say why not. Being a hardliner for one side or the other makes sense, otherwise why would they mention it in conversations, or in the movies, etc. "yadadayada, the dark side makes me strong, blah blah" you know the speeches.

 

Anyway, here's a basic solution; how about some basic, grey relics, with the usual level requirements for items, that aren't as powerful as the light side/darkside equivalents?

I mean, they don't have to reprogram anything, just hook up some stuff in the game, call it what you like, "revanite relics" or whatever. I mean, some dude who's uber-powerful with the force, who's a "grey jedi" or whatever, could still use SOME kind of relic right? Just because a darkside item is too dark, why would that guy suddenly be unable to use ANY relics? What abour revan's mask? I mean, perfect example of a guy who, even by the game's script, was using BOTH lightside and darkside items.

 

Why can't I?

 

So here's solution 2: Dump the lightside/dark side modification system, i.e. If someone has light and dark points, then let them use both, not just whichever is higher. Raise the cap by 50%. Now, a grey jedi can't use the rank 5 light side/darkside items, but at least they can use SOME items, right? Why the hell not?