Also, am I the only person who draws the diagram with chaos on the left side?
It doesn't determine personality, it determines morality. The two are not equivalent or exchangeable.
Just take it as guidelines than cast iron.
Problems solved.
Just take it as guidelines than cast iron.
Problems solved.
This is still too much. Alignment should be completely ignored. Like I said in the other thread, if I could pick one thing to describe D&D it would be rules eclipsing what they were supposed to represent. People having vigorous arguments over labels to the neglect of the actual content of the labels. Another good example was the 4e cryfest over trade skills, mainly that they hindered roleplaying or some shit. Rules for their own sake rather than as a simple means to resolve opposing intentions between players.
Well Alignment shouldn't be completely ignored simply because of the nature of the setting where "good" and "Evil" are actual factual cosmic power.
But then again outside of outsiders or being tainted... alignment just doesn't really matter.
a lot of the alignment restrictions mind you is because Dungeons and dragons evolved.
Early Dungeons and dragons alignment made a lot more sense because the series was very paragon. It was about bigger then life Paladins and scoundrel thieves against the forces of blackest evil!
But as the series became more nuanced the alignment system likewise did not.
In fact in some older iterations of dungeons and dragons there were actually 1 additional alignment that represented basically Super good (a sort of un-ambiguously good) that only deities really had.
You know what, I'm just gonna leave it. You're entirely too wrapped up in your opinion of it and I am never going to agree with you.
You don't like my stance on grey morality? Fuck you. I think grey morality is a bullshit excuse for people who are afraid to do the right or wrong thing. Your assertions regarding alignment keep coming back to the same bullshit argument that alignment can be used to justify evil deeds, and I reject that argument, as any DM worth a fuck would never allow it. Your bad RP experiences are just a worthless as a gauge as my good experiences. I am done with this fucking shithole argument, and I am done with you.
I'm playing a 5e game and SOMEHOW, the neutral characters have committed more evil acts than my evil character. In fact, I'm pretty sure in order to keep his alignment a secret since he's manipulative, he's done more good things than bad (or made it seem that way). Its strange how neutral characters always pull off the stupidest shit and get away with it because they're neutralMaya hasn't done much bad since the game started, besides steal stolen property back from rich people, which is technically against the law.
I'm playing a 5e game and SOMEHOW, the neutral characters have committed more evil acts than my evil character. In fact, I'm pretty sure in order to keep his alignment a secret since he's manipulative, he's done more good things than bad (or made it seem that way). Its strange how neutral characters always pull off the stupidest shit and get away with it because they're neutral
Well, sometimes alignments make no sense even by their own standards. Like: Drow are Chaotic Evil. They live in this highly ordered and hierarchic society with social castes and all that crap, they have laws up the wazoo and it's very tightly controlled. But they are Chaotic, because they like to spread chaos or something...? Their deity is Chaotic Evil, which would mean something like evil for its sake, or manifestations of anger or something. But Lolth is actually a fallen goddess, with a clear agenda. She probably owns a trapper keeper with a long list of all the evil she's planning to do. Yet, she's Chaotic Evil, because she likes chaos or manages chaos or represents chaos or whatever. Yet she doesn't act "Chaotic" at all. So she's "Team Chaotic" just because she has a membership card.
I mean, she doesn't care for her followers but makes deals with them a lot and apparently respects those deals to some extent, otherwise she wouldn't have a huge underground society willing to keep making deals with her.
And apparently chosing to ignore gods in FR is worse than worshipping evil ones because... you go to some purgatory? Or become nonexistential or something, which is worse than getting tortured forever by demons for some reason.
I play True Neutral characters as just doing whatever the heck they feel like, good or bad. If they want to kill that dude, doesn't matter to them either way if he's the resident malevolent dictator or the benefactor of an orphanage.
Oh, and not worshiping a god is terrible because gods need that to live. And so they put you in the Wall of the Faithless if you don't do it, because gods need their food.
Well, now that I read more about it, even becoming a Petitioner for an evil deity can mean he gets to eat your soul for whatever reason if you're unlucky enough.
Still, it's a bit pointless to have an alignment if it's not even required by the standard Wheel Pantheon of LawChaosEvilGood. From what I saw, you go to whichever plane of the deity you worshipped as a petitioner, unless you're a bad follower then they kick your ass to be judged (to the same plane as the Faithless but to be punished for eternity rather than as Purina God Chow). But at no point they cast Know Alignment on you, I think. Maybe I missed it. Since you can be one step removed from the actual deity alignment, your actual alignment doesn't determine which plane you go to, just the deity. And you only get kicked out if you betrayed your deity, or did things that the deity didn't like, or something, which goes beyond just "good" and "evil" but the actual things that the deity likes, like long walks on the beach or illegal urination.
After that, you're a petitioner for the deity, where all bets are off, and the deity still gets to eat you if it needs some extra carbs. Or reward you for... extra-good petitioning, I guess.
Also, reposting a private PM is an evil act :P Taking a conflict to PMs is deescalation, and should be respected.
Your Achilles heel slashing raised a lot of concerns for me. I know you were trying to stop him and you thought that he would recover, but that is the one tendon you can never properly heal from in real life. You need a wrench forced into your leg to hold it in place and anytime you move your leg, it shoots back up your leg. It's so painful, you wish you were dead. Even with magic, chances are he'd bleed out before we could heal him before he stops trying to touch the vampire.I'm playing a 5e game and SOMEHOW, the neutral characters have committed more evil acts than my evil character. In fact, I'm pretty sure in order to keep his alignment a secret since he's manipulative, he's done more good things than bad (or made it seem that way). Its strange how neutral characters always pull off the stupidest shit and get away with it because they're neutralMaya hasn't done much bad since the game started, besides steal stolen property back from rich people, which is technically against the law.
Does being a vampire give you better stats? I couldn't find that info anywhere in the rulebook. Or is it a homebrew rule?DM talked to me about making a PC class a lycanthrope, and the DM's handbook says to make the stats match or increase a bit if they already do (leaving the higher ones alone). I asked this because I was thinking about making a barbarian that was inflicted with Lycanthropy (because my 4e game has an NPC dwarf berserker that has it and he teaches the party's werewolf some methods of coping with the disease, and I wanted to recreate him. This was also before I learned shfiters made a comeback and I couldn't make Storm Steelfang, my actual 4e PC I made for my first game of D&D, and sadly, my last character in that).
But in an extreme example, why would someone worship Dread Tharizdun? He just wants to destroy everything, and is genuinely and completely insane. Maybe awe of a being that could create the Abyss and cause the entirety of the gods to rise up against him? Or maybe just the power to decide the fate of basically everything should they succeed at fulfilling Tharizdun's harebrained schemes and avoiding an afterlife altogether?
Well, why do people follow evil gods in the first place? In the Forgotten Realms, closest to mainstream evil is Umberlee, who's followed for her sea mojo because the only somewhat-alternative is Talos, who's just as bad or maybe even worse morally, considering he's really an aspect of Gruumsh, god of orcs.
Talos, who's just as bad or maybe even worse morally, considering he's really an aspect of Gruumsh
Ac 14!?! for a creature on the 663rd layer of hell?
But in an extreme example, why would someone worship Dread Tharizdun? He just wants to destroy everything, and is genuinely and completely insane. Maybe awe of a being that could create the Abyss and cause the entirety of the gods to rise up against him? Or maybe just the power to decide the fate of basically everything should they succeed at fulfilling Tharizdun's harebrained schemes and avoiding an afterlife altogether?
...
...
I briefly drew a comic set in the 663rd layer of the Abyss
http://www.mspaforums.com/showthread.php?52649-Ekolid-A-Demonic-Adventure
Ac 14!?! for a creature on the 663rd layer of hell?
That's before the dexterity bonus
EDIT:
Also they fly and get an extra move action per round, so they can make a full attack and then fly out of reach
EDIT:
But how do you all like the way I've portrayed the supernaturally chaotic evil society of the abyss? (or at least what little depicting I got to do before the project was shelved due to lack of interest)
Can I say I like the basic good/evil chaotic/good system?Yeah, I think this is more-or-less what I would go with. If you want to get philosophical, you can begin to question things as basic as whether evil even exists, or whether "good" is good, but none of that is really relevant to someone's desire to smite evil creatures with holy weapons. You can debate whether actions or intentions define morals, but that doesn't effect me being the overlord of all I survey. You can argue where the line is for transitions between alignments, but what if I just want to watch the world burn?
From the basic side, it's a simple, easy-to-adjudicate system that doesn't make assumptions about what the players believe. More deeply, it recognizes that any game system will fail to provide an clear and simple set of ethical categories- people have been trying for a millennia or two and haven't made much progress on that front, so it's probably not going to be solved in DnD. By accepting an self-admittedly cartoonish system, you can model mostly realistic characters well enough, and can make Tolkenesque elementally good PCs and fundamentally evil mooks because sometimes that's what you sat down intending to do.
When you intend to run more interesting political games, then the whole alignment system (and the attached parts of other systems, like the detect alignment spells...) can go away; it's not needed.
Well it isn't about alignment as in "What makes an alignment" this is about what makes a decent character that can be run in a setting.
A totally immoral character with no real connections, liabilities, or anything... Is a psychopath.
Sure Order of the Stick had Balker and he was "evil", but he was a kind of evil that could be directed and he definitely had some morals or inklings not to go around killing random people.
People just want to play the game's secret villain... but if they want to be the secret villain then just ask me if they can be the secret villain.
It's a crutch. Even D&D deities have their own spheres of influence. Like trade or hunt or sickness. It would make way more sense that each of these deities would reward behaviors that favored their own, rather than some nebulous Nice vs Icky axis just to help people know that they aren't supposed to like those deities and people that are Icky.
I'd rather it take a King Of Dragon Pass outlook, where deities of bad things are placated to make them not hurt you. This is also how some polytheistic cultures actually functioned.
I'd rather it take a King Of Dragon Pass outlook, where deities of bad things are placated to make them not hurt you. This is also how some polytheistic cultures actually functioned.
you had 5 months to make that replyI'd rather it take a King Of Dragon Pass outlook, where deities of bad things are placated to make them not hurt you. This is also how some polytheistic cultures actually functioned.
IIRC a lot of ancient real-world religions used to work this way too
Wait? Why is Zeus Lawful Good to you?
He isn't. His stat write up says Lawful good.
Also Hades is Lawful Evil... Because of course.
And as stated they do not rewrite any of the myths surrounding them.
Lawful Evil: Do you like living in a society? Of course you fucking do, and society is built upon violence. Only the rule of the sword is going to keep degenerates and psychopaths in line with the rule of law. Do you like honoring your enemies? Then Lawful Evil is for you, because while lots of people are dumb the would-be heroes are just mislead about the way things should be. It's a shame, because those of such will are excellent for achieving greater purpose. They don't deserve ire for a lesser philosophy, and they may be brought to see the light. Why would you want to let the worst among us hold us all back? It is for the good of everyone that the great rule over the small. The smartest and the strongest have the right to rule, because by following them all will prosper. Everyone has a part to play, and for sensate sewer rats that part is most certainly not deciding for the common welfare. Yes, it takes strength to lead the whole, even when they complain about the minor inconveniences that provide the best outcomes for an imperfect world. Do you have that strength?These two are both something I like.
Neutral Evil: You're wasting away. Every second of every day, your time left ticks down, inexorably, unstoppably. One day, that time will be up, and you will be gone from this world. But that's alright, as long as you find your meaning, your fulfillment. Unfortunately, the world is filled to bursting with those who insidiously desire to turn you away from yourself, and to serve their own power. Religion, politics, "morality", they are all greater causes that beseech you with the same message: "Forsake yourself, and spend away this life so that We may succeed in our great project!" Do you wish to die with nothing but the knowledge that you were part of a long and endless chain in but one faction in the war of ideas? There will be no end to it, not while you live, and not ever. By definition it may never end. These things are their own purpose, and what they hold in common is that there is no room for your good. So forsake your comrades, and your countrymen! Live for your own self, for your own sense of the world! Consume what you want, and do what you want, because the only real for you is this, here and now! Laugh, and grow fat!
Wait? Why is Zeus Lawful Good to you?
He isn't. His stat write up says Lawful good.
Also, heh, kinda great that one of the Greyhawk deities is a "saint", and named pretty much directly after some real world human. Guess that's the sort of thing those innovative nerds came up with back in '75.
God damn it. I didn't even realize this got necroed.
Does 4e really count as canon? :P
And why does it just rephrase the last sentence of the quoted post?you had 5 months to make that replyI'd rather it take a King Of Dragon Pass outlook, where deities of bad things are placated to make them not hurt you. This is also how some polytheistic cultures actually functioned.
IIRC a lot of ancient real-world religions used to work this way too
why did it take so long
1: Not all metallic dragons are good.
Gold dragons rarely consume humanoids, unless the people in question are blatantly evil (or pose some threat to the dragon or its domain). Even a straving gold dragon won't consume a sentient being that it doesn't think deserves to die - though of course, the definition of who deserves to die varies from dragon to dragon.
And why does it just rephrase the last sentence of the quoted post?you had 5 months to make that replyI'd rather it take a King Of Dragon Pass outlook, where deities of bad things are placated to make them not hurt you. This is also how some polytheistic cultures actually functioned.
IIRC a lot of ancient real-world religions used to work this way too
why did it take so long
Sounds like the nemesis of that Ankh-Morpork goddess of unsticking cabinets (and finding small items?). Who would I guess be lawful good, or just lawful neutral, yet not the paladin or St Cuthbert type.There is/was actually a Discworld god pretty much in this vein. A bit more in the Concerned Citizen vein, but reminiscent nonetheless.
It is because the law versus chaos has ambiguity built right in there.
Sounds like the nemesis of that Ankh-Morpork goddess of unsticking cabinets (and finding small items?). Who would I guess be lawful good, or just lawful neutral, yet not the paladin or St Cuthbert type.There is/was actually a Discworld god pretty much in this vein. A bit more in the Concerned Citizen vein, but reminiscent nonetheless.
Anoia is afore-afore mentioned goddess of draw-stuck.AnoiaSounds like the nemesis of that Ankh-Morpork goddess of unsticking cabinets (and finding small items?). Who would I guess be lawful good, or just lawful neutral, yet not the paladin or St Cuthbert type.There is/was actually a Discworld god pretty much in this vein. A bit more in the Concerned Citizen vein, but reminiscent nonetheless.
Does 4e really count as canon? :P
Not only is the answer yes... but a hilarious yes. As the hoops they had to go through to convert it is amazing!
Basically the settings go through a "Post-Crisis" after every edition.
I mean, the... Where do you get these things? It's not an assumption, the monster manual flat out says gold dragons go out and actively quest for good. And the draconomicon (which I'd think is a bit of an authority on D&D dragons) states that they have a great amount of patience for other people and mentions nothing of this violent eating of anyone. They don't even outright kill evil people unless they are actively doing evil acts.Except in Eberron, where "always" such-and-such-alignment is generally downgraded to "usually" that alignment
Gold dragons are not just creatures with an explicable alignment attached onto them because of poor writing assuming it's fine to slap random dualities onto things. They actually work for that alignment and fit it in a reasonable and logical way.
Anoia is afore-afore mentioned goddess of draw-stuck.Not quite, a god of... actually not really well explained, Nuggan. 'Concerned citizen' as in 'those damn kids with their ragtimes and their Wagners are ruining our XXIth century society, signed Concerned Citizen' type.
I think scrdest was referencing a god of concerned citizens.
Question on a few instances of alignment in certain acts:
Our party Druid has a tendency to confuse opponents by making out with them. One of the guys he was doing this to got hit with a charm spell from someone else and kept making out with him against his will until the battle was over. The party fighter saw this, who is lawful good, goes up to him and shoots him in the head, saying it was to "end his suffering".
Is this a chaotic act or an evil act? Because he instantly got shot to chaotic neutral alignment for this (also, I don't want anyone getting pissy and saying its a hate crime and starting a flame war. He did it because his character didn't want the guy to live on knowing he was technically forced into a make out session with the Druid, which the Druid was then trying to get in his pants)
Lawful evil? I'd go neutral evil probably. Forcibly mind controlling someone is almost certainly not within the rule of the law. It's certainly a very evil act, and so worth an alignment shift, especially along the good evil axis (a weaker shift along the lawful chaotic axis), at least without extenuating circumstances. How far it shifts them is pretty dependent on the person in question and all their other actions and such, but I'd probably bump them down to evil pretty quickly, especially with repeated uses.I'm pretty sure the player of the Druid has some social problems. Him and the party ranger's player keep fucking with each other because the Druid's player keeps flirting with him in real life and the ranger's player keeps fucking with the druid's player by reciting the Shrek Is Love, Shrek Is Life stories from memory. The Druid himself, however, has been living in a mountain cave for his whole life until he formed the party, so he also probably lacks the concept of social norms
Edit: And about that druid people were talking about a week ago, if this was 3.5 I'd bust his ass down to chaotic evil and take away all his class abilities. Or if he could actually roleplay well and actually pull off having some type of mental illness I'd maybe let him stay true neutral, in the same way an animal is because of lack of mental facilities, but put a bestow curse effect on him that gives him -6 wisdom.
To make the opposite example, Ghandi is like the epitome of lawful good. The dude literally wouldn't hurt a fly and had a very sophisticated moral philosophy of non-violence. However he made a career of breaking laws. He had very high moral standards that he followed but those moral standards told him to break laws.And then he gets democracy and wants to nuke you more than a certain dictator that has become an infamous meme
To make the opposite example, Ghandi is like the epitome of lawful good. The dude literally wouldn't hurt a fly and had a very sophisticated moral philosophy of non-violence. However he made a career of breaking laws. He had very high moral standards that he followed but those moral standards told him to break laws.You know, except for how he was a racist as bad as any European when it came to Africans. Lawful Neutral if anything; his work was explicitly for the benefit of upper-caste Indians.
I'm talking more about saving them because they like or enjoy their company for example goodplayer has been evilplayers friend for years in game and the evil character genuinly likes good character but before now they have never in their life done something for another at the cost of their own convience.
So here's a question, because this is a topic brought up in my current pathfinder game:I... would actually argue that hanging around with your group would not be conductive to a good alignment of any sort, since you're working and condoning the actions of evil people (the rapist Druid, etc). From what I've read, you seem the stereotypical murderhobos. I'm not criticising that you are, merely stating what you seem to be, and what your party does not seem to be is "good".
A character has been abused and used by a lot of people, from their mother to an entire church, to the point they're sick of being used and hates everyone because of it. The player wants the character to grow to be able to see that not everyone wants to use them, and slowly shift them away from being a selfish asshole.
The player said they kind of want to shift them from NE to NG, but I don't know if the above would make them LE going to CG or something else. The character is definitely not lawful in the sense that we just discussed where they follow the laws of the world, but their own kind of "I do whatever benefits me, I don't care if I leave people in the dust because they'll hurt me" ideals. They're very secretive, but they slowly opened up to the party huntress.
What would cause an alignment shift in this case? I'm allowing it to happen, but I'm not sure what to expect. I'm also unsure if that would be considered evil at all. I'd like some insight on this
As a completely different topic, do any DMs here count casting [Good] or [Evil] descriptor spells as worthy of alignment change? For example, Create Undead? What about Summon Monster X?
As a completely different topic, do any DMs here count casting [Good] or [Evil] descriptor spells as worthy of alignment change? For example, Create Undead? What about Summon Monster X?I'm not a DM, but here's my take.
I much prefer this chart to vanilla. It adds 4 new qualifiers in between the 4 extremes.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I've read a few stories online of people casting Infernal Healing on an unknowing Paladin or Cleric for the lulz, and the Paladin/Cleric immediately falling because they accepted the aid of Evil.
I much prefer this chart to vanilla. It adds 4 new qualifiers in between the 4 extremes.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I don't really think it adds anything. It's better to assume that the "extremes" aren't actually extremes unless you are a personification of each particular Alignment (Outsider scum!).
Different group. The honorable but bloody barbarian, the questionable fighter, the rape druid, the shit talker ranger and the 15 year old rogue are one party, and the one who wants to grow into another alignment is one that I'm running myself.I'm talking more about saving them because they like or enjoy their company for example goodplayer has been evilplayers friend for years in game and the evil character genuinly likes good character but before now they have never in their life done something for another at the cost of their own convience.
It takes a lot more than a single action to become good, in my reckoning. If evil character consistently starts to act for the benefit of others as his motive, then his alignment might shift, but even evil people have friends.So here's a question, because this is a topic brought up in my current pathfinder game:I... would actually argue that hanging around with your group would not be conductive to a good alignment of any sort, since you're working and condoning the actions of evil people (the rapist Druid, etc). From what I've read, you seem the stereotypical murderhobos. I'm not criticising that you are, merely stating what you seem to be, and what your party does not seem to be is "good".
A character has been abused and used by a lot of people, from their mother to an entire church, to the point they're sick of being used and hates everyone because of it. The player wants the character to grow to be able to see that not everyone wants to use them, and slowly shift them away from being a selfish asshole.
The player said they kind of want to shift them from NE to NG, but I don't know if the above would make them LE going to CG or something else. The character is definitely not lawful in the sense that we just discussed where they follow the laws of the world, but their own kind of "I do whatever benefits me, I don't care if I leave people in the dust because they'll hurt me" ideals. They're very secretive, but they slowly opened up to the party huntress.
What would cause an alignment shift in this case? I'm allowing it to happen, but I'm not sure what to expect. I'm also unsure if that would be considered evil at all. I'd like some insight on this
See, this is why I like Ravenloft. Questions such as "why is necromancy evil" become so much simpler in a realm who's cosmology is formed entirely of hidden but definitely malevolent powers. Necromancy is evil because it gets their tender attentions, regardless of other concerns.I saw in a webcomic that someone decided to be a LG necromancer, which was the funniest thing I ever saw. It usually ended up with him reviving people's pets and other things, but it ended up causing things like Mr. Fluffles the rabbit eating little Emily's face
Fun fact: In 3.5e, a paladin's Detect Evil spell-like ability will detect all undead creatures as evil, even if their actual alignment is neutral or good. Pathfinder corrected this loophole in the spell.
Some Paladin Oaths come to mind. Flavour text for the Oath against Undeath says that such Paladins acknowledge that Good undead may exist, but must destroy them anyways.
Or the Oath against the Wyrm, which must kill any dragon who could potentially be dangerous. As well as anything with even the slightest relation to dragons, such as Kobolds, or a Sorcerer with the Draconic bloodline, because they are "tainted with the corruption of dragons".
Necromancy isn't so much evil in the dungeons and dragons universewhat the hell edition are you playing, I didn't get any of this from 3.5e
So much that the methods involved in it usually either slowly corrupt the user or eventually present them with a situation where their whole morality system is at jeopardy.Sure, except I don't think anyone in my group knew Orcus was involved. Orcus? ORCUS? All I remember about him is that he's a demon who hates undead, but has some dominion over them.
For example becoming a Lich? The reason it turns you evil is because Orcus specifically designed it that way. It is ultimately a trap.
what the hell edition are you playing, I didn't get any of this from 3.5e
Fun fact: In 3.5e, a paladin's Detect Evil spell-like ability will detect all undead creatures as evil, even if their actual alignment is neutral or good. Pathfinder corrected this loophole in the spell.My first thought was of Belkar and his lead sheet.
Fun fact: In 3.5e, a paladin's Detect Evil spell-like ability will detect all undead creatures as evil, even if their actual alignment is neutral or good. Pathfinder corrected this loophole in the spell.what the hell edition are you playing, I didn't get any of this from 3.5e
For instance, a religious inquititor who tortures people to get them to repent since they truly want to save their soul?An inquisitor doing so sanctioned by the church would be lawful neutral or lawful evil.
What about a racist who truly believes that it's in the disadvantaged group's best interest to "stay in their place"?
What about someone who would do any number of terrible things to protect their family and friends?
Or someone who would sacrifice innocent strangers to resurrect people they cared about?
In practice, everyone believes that what they're doing is justified in some way, after all.
3.5e: Detect Evil (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/detectEvil.htm)
Note that the 3.5e version doesn't specify Aligned for the Undead entry in the chart. Thus meaning, by RAW, that all Undead trigger Detect Evil. Also, another quirk of RAW is that, per the wording of the other Detect Alignment spells, undead trigger those too. Pathfinder fixed this oversight in the RAW by adding Aligned to the Undead entry.
tl;dr: RAW is silly.
(removed)But what truly is the definition of each of those? What does it mean to be good? Evil? Chaotic? Lawful? How far can we go with it until it's no longer what it is?
This isn't silly when you realized that the core assumption in base 3.5 is that all undead are in fact evil. It's a facet of them in the same way all demons or devils are evil. Of course if you change it for your own campaign, or play in a setting where it's explicitly changed, then this spell probably needs to be changed as well (unless the base power, negative energy, is still evil and the undead are just resisting their base nature, in which case it still makes perfect sense for them to detect as evil.). But it's not silly, having to say evil undead is practically tautology.
(removed)Evil isn't necessarily selfish. You can be a selfish cunt but still be considered neutral. As I stated earlier, one person was very hurt and doesn't want to let others in, but they aren't necessarily evil, especially since they want to be proven wrong that everyone is going to use them.
(removed)Evil isn't necessarily selfish. You can be a selfish cunt but still be considered neutral. As I stated earlier, one person was very hurt and doesn't want to let others in, but they aren't necessarily evil, especially since they want to be proven wrong that everyone is going to use them.
And I think the broad statements are like saying someone who killed over a million people is a mere murderer. There are so many niches that evil can fill that is more than just selfish. You can be doing evil things for all the right reasons and still be considered evil. Tragic villains tend to fall in this category, and their ideals are usually far from selfish, at least in seeing it from their eyes
I love that idea, but its difficult to really make it happen (for me at least)(removed)Evil isn't necessarily selfish. You can be a selfish cunt but still be considered neutral. As I stated earlier, one person was very hurt and doesn't want to let others in, but they aren't necessarily evil, especially since they want to be proven wrong that everyone is going to use them.
And I think the broad statements are like saying someone who killed over a million people is a mere murderer. There are so many niches that evil can fill that is more than just selfish. You can be doing evil things for all the right reasons and still be considered evil. Tragic villains tend to fall in this category, and their ideals are usually far from selfish, at least in seeing it from their eyes
Why are people so against letting other alignments be villains?
Yeah you don't want any psychopath to apply the good alignment because they are so willfully blind or outright psychotic that they believe themselves as doing the greater good.
Yet I always liked the idea that the "Evil" version of the Crusader... Is still a "Good" character.
Or rather I don't like the alignment system to be a Karmic balance that tells if the actions you take are truly good or truly evil.
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The reason many Tragic villains are still evil in spite trying to do good. Is because they are kind of "I will plunge myself into hell itself in order to achieve these ends" and honestly I prefer to keep them Neutral a lot of the time.
(muted cochramd for 3 days for insulting people)THE THREAD HAS BEEN GRACED BY THE ALMIGHTY TOAD! Though I wish it was on better tidings...
I was making a reference to fire emblem fates with the touch my face thing.My buddy got really butthurt they removed that... I don't see why its such an appealing thing...
I was making a reference to fire emblem fates with the touch my face thing.That still doesn't really help your case.
Eh if I'm ever gonna appear creepy it'd be on the internet where I can be sufficiently morbid/creepy though this was clearly a joke so meh.I was making a reference to fire emblem fates with the touch my face thing.That still doesn't really help your case.
Eh if I'm ever gonna appear creepy it'd be on the internet where I can be sufficiently morbid/creepy though this was clearly a joke so meh.I'd call it Neutral Creepy :)
I'd call myself good creepy considering I'm ussaly a good guy.Lawful Creepy, maybe.
Luckily my morals are not evil.No one thinks theirs are.
Again I ask, where do people who have ideals, but lack the strength of character to act on them? People who consistently act against their beliefs because it's more convenient that way?If they don't do good acts because it's easier to do evil acts, then they lean towards the evil side of the spectrum in my reckoning.
Again I ask, where do people who have ideals, but lack the strength of character to act on them? People who consistently act against their beliefs because it's more convenient that way?
Again I ask, where do people who have ideals, but lack the strength of character to act on them? People who consistently act against their beliefs because it's more convenient that way?
Neutral, pretty much. They prefer good overall (with a significant minority of highly unmotivated evil people), but aren't really committed to doing anything actually good (or profoundly evil) without additional prodding.
I prefer goodI love that one true coward rogue. He never said he was a good hero, and in reality he wasn't. All he did was make up tales about how heroic he was, how he slayed great monsters he never saw, enjoying in the hospitality of the townsfolk whilst robbing them senseless. Most amusingly he was sent to kill a vile bandit leader, that was in reality himself by another name - after an "epic battle", the villainous rogue was dead and Sir Coward became the town's Champion, its protector. The great luxuries in life were well enjoyed and nothing of value accomplished till the arrival of a fearsome warlord who wasn't visiting the town to marvel in its pond fauna. The townsfolk turned to their protector, who had kept them safe from bandits this whole time.
Good isn't naturally heroic and a lot of good people are cowed into compliance even in the manual.
A true coward is definitely neutral as they are too hypocritical to be good.
Neutral Evil has no drive? They're ineffectual? Ahahaha. I need my home PC, I'll refute that when I can.
Good, Neutral or Evil?
Good, Neutral or Evil?Personally I'd say a neutral life that ended with a good act.
Good, Neutral or Evil?Depends. Was the rogue also the warlord?
If you were asking me, I don't think the evil act has to be for any gain. In fact that cheapens it. Someone who robs to feed their family, or just themselves, isn't what I'd call evil (even in DND). Someone who robs because it feels good to take, is different.The person robbing to feed their family or themselves would be compelled to by necessity and so under my suggested idea would be neutral. The counterpoint under the same framework would be someone just stealing to get richer being evil, with lawful evil probably preferring to do it through legal means, chaotic evil through Nigerian prince tactics and neutral evil through burglary schemes. Someone who just steals for fun, yeah that's pretty evil but there's also not much depth to someone who's just doing it for the Evulz. Such characters are delicious malevolent cake, good every now and then but cannot make up a diet. Those just doing it because they can and it makes them richer with no compulsion by necessity? That gets on the evil without being 2 dimensional "I kick the orphan" sort of evil. Basically it allows for more motive than sadism from Evulz or compulsion from neutrality to committing villainous and wicked acts. Could be sadism, could be compulsion, could be other things like greed, avarice, master plan, science, wizard science, petty vengeance and so on
Ohohohoho what a tweestGood, Neutral or Evil?Depends. Was the rogue also the warlord?
Since he also goes out of his way to vex forces of authority, I'd say he's a clear Chaotic Evil. And yet he strongly believes in nonviolence when possible, saves the City, and is able to make temporary alliances of convenience. And he's awesome.I haven't played the games, but to me that sounds almost more of a Neutral or a Lawful even rather than Chaotic. The way I've always seen it is that Lawful characters are ones that hold to a forethought code (be it their own or the law of the area) while Chaotic are those acting on whims, doing whatever they feel like on the spur of the moment, and neutral being those that walk a little bit of both.
Why, exactly, would the dividing line be Law/Chaos, when most of Dnd has a more evil/good divide?"A lot of other people did it this way" does not inherently mean "you must do it that way". As for why law/Chaos would be preferable, it's a lot more morally definable. With good and evil, people have their own moral ideas of what's good and what's evil, and disagreeing there becomes a fundamental and moral argument which may attack a person's core beliefs. That's often not the intended experience for a play session. Law and chaos are also subject to disagreement, but not on the same level. Besides that, it's subjectively more narrative interesting, since rather than simply "the other guys are bad so I hate them" it can have two sides which consider themselves right and have legitimate arguments as to why they are.
Why exactly would a nice person work with a nasty rapist just because the rapist is Lawfully-aligned?Well ideally, they wouldn't. Alignment doesn't define the entirety of a person's moral principles, and not everyone agrees with each other even if they have a broadly parallel worldview. Even within religions, which are far more tightly defined and specific than alignment, there are loads of examples of people disagreeing on what's acceptable. For real life examples of this happening, consider Hollywood.
Alignment is not meant to be a restriction anyway, at least in 5e, merely a shorthand how they act.Yeah, this is more pertinent to games where alignment is a bit more relevant; WotC's D&D has never really done a great job with the concept. For something like 5e or, for that matter, 4e, I would recommend doing away with specific grid-oriented alignments in general, and putting a creed of some sort in that space on the sheet instead. Since the nine provided alignments aren't really related to a setting or anything, might as well make them maximally relevant to the character.
Besides that, it's subjectively more narrative interesting, since rather than simply "the other guys are bad so I hate them" it can have two sides which consider themselves right and have legitimate arguments as to why they are.Then why are they law/chaos in the first place? Why can't they all be neutral then?
So that it can have two sides which consider themselves right and have legitimate arguments as to why they are, instead of just one side existing in harmony without any alignment at all. Not that that isn't also valid; games don't have to feature alignment in any significant way, and it sounds like that's how you prefer to play, or at least what your background is. But order and chaos are great driving forces of conflict that apply to many stories. Aside from Moorcock and WHFB, consider that geopolitical situations such as colonialism and barbarian invasion are characterizable simply as order-aligned groups moving into chaos aligned lands and vice versa, respectively. Furthermore, the contrast between chaotic and negative magic like that of Robert E. Howard's tales and law oriented magics performed by churches and governments - or, in more than a few settings, the contrast between inherently chaotic magic and inherently orderly technology or infrastructure. If you want everyone in your setting to get along well, that's fine, games like Golden Sky Stories have their place, and if you want your plots to revolve around nebulous politics, things like Coriolis are also fun. And something that looks like good vs evil can be dynamic and interesting if there's more going on, like Magical Burst. But I have never in my own experience known the moral determinism of outright "good vs evil" played to the hilt to contribute positively to a game experience. At most I've heard of it leading to a Sword of Shannara situation where you gotta exterminate all the enemy because you're good and they're evil, because it says so in the monster manual, but that particular "genocide is good because" case is pretty well known in the gaming community these days, and it seems like few people want to just say that the in-character definition of good is defined by their in-character culture, and just enjoying fanatic dogma. More often, it just leads to philosophical arguments that derail the game, if it's not ignored completely.Besides that, it's subjectively more narrative interesting, since rather than simply "the other guys are bad so I hate them" it can have two sides which consider themselves right and have legitimate arguments as to why they are.Then why are they law/chaos in the first place? Why can't they all be neutral then?
consider that geopolitical situations such as colonialism and barbarian invasion are characterizable simply as order-aligned groups moving into chaos aligned lands and vice versa, respectively.
I was saying so they could have more realistic sides (Even true neutral is not one big happy family existing in harmony.), instead of three groups arbitrarily grouping themselves based on law and order. It seems to me that either alliances aren't directed by just one aspect of the alignment wheel, if any, or otherwise the sides are Evil, Neutral, or Good in a more Black, Grey and White world. It makes no sense for sides to choose their alliances entirely on their Law/Chaos alignment. Anyway, what I am really talking about is this following quote.So that it can have two sides which consider themselves right and have legitimate arguments as to why they are, instead of just one side existing in harmony without any alignment at all.Besides that, it's subjectively more narrative interesting, since rather than simply "the other guys are bad so I hate them" it can have two sides which consider themselves right and have legitimate arguments as to why they are.Then why are they law/chaos in the first place? Why can't they all be neutral then?
Alignment should be law/neutral/chaos and reflect only the color of your piece in the grand multiversal chess game the gods of law and chaos are playingAgain, this makes no sense. Alliances should at least be somewhat guided by Good and Evil, if not neutral. Admittedly, he could have meant that all the gods are Neutral in the Evil/Good axis, now that I think about it, which would make sense, and is certainly more realistic.
The writers of D&D don't even know what D&D alignment means, and they never have. It's all calvinball.Again, I am not saying that alignment is necessary, I am just saying that if you do have alignment, it doesn't make sense for Law/Chaos to be the sole dividing line.
When it comes to DnD alignment, I can't help but think it's always going to be a fairly ugly fit when you try and cram personal positions on morality into a 2d axis.I did like this post however I disagreed with the lawful/neutral and chaotic/neutral descriptions.
Lawful Evil will value rules, but will look out for themselves first and foremost within those rules.
Lawful Good will value rules, but will be looking out for the well-being of others.
Lawful Neutral will value rules, at the expense of both their own benefit and the benefit of others.
Chaotic Good will help others, and will laugh at the notion that they should do so in any way but what their heart tells them is correct.
Chaotic Evil will help and please themselves, and will laugh at the notion that they should do so in any way but what their heart tells them is the best way to do so.
Chaotic Neutral will go out of their way to ignore rules, but without any notion that they do it for the benefit of themselves or others.
Yeah, it's not fully consistent with our modern understanding of history as seen (to the best of the ability of a historian) objectively. But setting aside the aztecs (and incas) which involved more direct invasion, colonialism was most often a case of European powers with complex societies imposing their order upon disordered peoples and areas. The cefong system can be considered parallel in this regard. The cause of that chaos is not necessarily relevant since the PCs will normally only constitute one generation of adventurer. Consider also the imposition of specific philosophies (usually Christianity in European colonialism, and Confucianism in cefong) contributes to the imposition of order; although you're not wrong in the implication that this is simply a new order replacing an old one, this is also what the culture of the PCs defines as order, as opposed to some alien rules. In real life, human societies require order to flourish, but flourishing orderly societies aren't always the setting for a game you want, and the difference there is a good thing to use when designing your narrative.Quoteconsider that geopolitical situations such as colonialism and barbarian invasion are characterizable simply as order-aligned groups moving into chaos aligned lands and vice versa, respectively.
TBH, this feels like a very poor fit. Consider the conquistadors invading and destroying the Aztecs for example. It would be hard pressed to claim the conquistadors represented Order and the Aztec Empire represented Chaos. The problem is that order and chaos exist as points in a flux of events and can't be assigned as "traits" to large groups in any way of that nature.
Usually, colonialism involves breaking down of actually quite ordered previous existing social relations. That breakdown creates volatility (which can be profitably exploited). That doesn't imply the groups fighting represent chaos and order. Both groups want to impose their own order, just as both groups consider themselves the "good guys". That's why any such critique of the good/evil axis can't just be replaced with the chaos/order axis. Chaos is a state generated from conflict. It's the instability of being in between two ordered states, but ordered states which contradict each other. It's not a trait of the groups to start with.
Thus, even Robin Hood isn't a proponent of "chaos" [...] If Robin Hood had more guys, he'd be the government and set the rules, and Prince John would be the "rebel".Robin Hood can be considered chaotic since Prince John was the lawful representative of the King, and since he aligned himself with the wilderness. But I agree that this isn't necessarily an ideal fit, and Prince John deviating from the King's policies can be considered the influence of chaos as well, despite the fact that he possessed the mandate of the system.
Prince John and Robin Hood can't be said to embody "law" and "chaos" in any meaningful sense. Not when merely adding enough troops to Robin Hood's group turns him into the effective government, without any need to change his policy approach. "robbing from the rich to give to the poor" would just be called taxes if you were the biggest armed force around.
Animals don't have the capability to *ask* the question in the first place, and that's why a bear is true neutral.Although this is consistent with WotC's version, I'd like to remind you that in older uses of the system, a bear is affiliated with the wilderness which is opposite to society, and therefore the bear is opposite to law/order, and so is associated with chaos.
For such narrative metaphysics I prefer to break it down to less order/chaos or good/evil, and more King vs Rebel. There's a person in their position of power, and a person seeking to remove them from that position of power.In my view, this is a very clear case of law vs chaos. Setting aside that a king can be an arbitrary despot, his actions are backed and empowered by the order of society, while a rebel's actions are empowered only by the freedom he seizes to disrupt that order.
Like I said, very few good characters slot into an alignment. What alignment is daenerys? On one hand she's lawful cause her entire justification for existing is divine right of kings. On the other, she casts down social orders and frees slaves. What about Jaime Lannister?Whether Daenerys is a good character is a whole other discussion. But it's only natural that a well-written character can't be said to be entirely one way or another. This by no measure unique to alignment.
<description of TSR's alignment omitted because this is already a very long post>Yeah, I'm maintaining that the original form is far more useful for staging adventures than the modern system. That's not to say that it's always useful, but I've never known WotC's version to be useful.
In old school, law/chaos is the classical heroic boundary. Law is civilization, walls, structure, chaos is nature, breaking boundaries, dissolution. Grendel breaking into Heorot and being fought by Beowulf is an archetypal Law vs Chaos scenario as old school DnD sees it
The writers of D&D don't even know what D&D alignment means, and they never have. It's all calvinball.That's true of WotC. TSR knew it meant "that thing we thought was cool in Moorcock books".
I certainly agree with the notion that in any reasonably pragmatic setting, alignment will not be the only determiner of allegiance. But your notion (that good vs evil is more important) seems to me to be predicated on very unrealistic assumptions in the first place: That good and evil exist. With regards to good, let me reiterate my earlier point that people disagree on what good is. Previously I brought this up to highlight that making an objective good within the context of the game invites conflict at the table, but if there can be conflict over this notion at a table, imagine how much disagreement there can be across nations and cultures. As for evil, what is an evil society? Even with the famously unambiguous example of the nazis, it was a case of revenge against perceived transgressions and of working hard to benefit one's kin. It can be considered a problem of chaotic and fundamentally damaged individuals at the reins of a powerful (and orderly) system. And, one can notice, in this case the side of order, the fascists, did align themselves on this principle against the more freedom (and, therefore, chaos) oriented democracies, and both sides considered themselves to be in the right.I was saying so they could have more realistic sides (Even true neutral is not one big happy family existing in harmony.), instead of three groups arbitrarily grouping themselves based on law and order. It seems to me that either alliances aren't directed by just one aspect of the alignment wheel, if any, or otherwise the sides are Evil, Neutral, or Good in a more Black, Grey and White world. It makes no sense for sides to choose their alliances entirely on their Law/Chaos alignment.So that it can have two sides which consider themselves right and have legitimate arguments as to why they are, instead of just one side existing in harmony without any alignment at all.Besides that, it's subjectively more narrative interesting, since rather than simply "the other guys are bad so I hate them" it can have two sides which consider themselves right and have legitimate arguments as to why they are.Then why are they law/chaos in the first place? Why can't they all be neutral then?
Yeah, the paradigm of chaos and law as the only alignment necessarily implies the irrelevance of the good vs evil alignment. I would have thought that was self-evident. Whether you say everyone is evil, everyone is good, or everyone is neutral just depends on how grim your setting is, or how optimistic you are within that setting. Minor variations between altruism and pragmatism don't erase the fact, after all, that consistent malice is always counterproductive and not compatible with an ordered society, meaning it's synonymous (rather than independent of, as implied by the WotC alignment axes) with chaos.Alignment should be law/neutral/chaos and reflect only the color of your piece in the grand multiversal chess game the gods of law and chaos are playingAgain, this makes no sense. Alliances should at least be somewhat guided by Good and Evil, if not neutral. Admittedly, he could have meant that all the gods are Neutral in the Evil/Good axis, now that I think about it, which would make sense, and is certainly more realistic.
Law and Chaos make no sense to be the ONLY marker for which alliance you are taking, unless, again, it bears repeating, everyone is neutral in the Good/Evil axis.
I don't believe anyone was saying that it would be a sole dividing line among mortal folk, though. Cthulhu's reference was to Moorcockian celestial contest, not to terrestrial politics.The writers of D&D don't even know what D&D alignment means, and they never have. It's all calvinball.Again, I am not saying that alignment is necessary, I am just saying that if you do have alignment, it doesn't make sense for Law/Chaos to be the sole dividing line.
In real life, I would say the French & Indian war is a good example of this, they fought alongside each other against other colonists and other native americans, without being based on Alignment.
QuoteFor such narrative metaphysics I prefer to break it down to less order/chaos or good/evil, and more King vs Rebel. There's a person in their position of power, and a person seeking to remove them from that position of power.
In my view, this is a very clear case of law vs chaos. Setting aside that a king can be an arbitrary despot, his actions are backed and empowered by the order of society, while a rebel's actions are empowered only by the freedom he seizes to disrupt that order
Like I said, very few good characters slot into an alignment. What alignment is daenerys? On one hand she's lawful cause her entire justification for existing is divine right of kings. On the other, she casts down social orders and frees slaves. What about Jaime Lannister?Whether Daenerys is a good character is a whole other discussion. But it's only natural that a well-written character can't be said to be entirely one way or another. This by no measure unique to alignment.
Alignment should be law/neutral/chaos and reflect only the color of your piece in the grand multiversal chess game the gods of law and chaos are playingAgain, this makes no sense. Alliances should at least be somewhat guided by Good and Evil, if not neutral. Admittedly, he could have meant that all the gods are Neutral in the Evil/Good axis, now that I think about it, which would make sense, and is certainly more realistic.
Law and Chaos make no sense to be the ONLY marker for which alliance you are taking, unless, again, it bears repeating, everyone is neutral in the Good/Evil axis.
Switching from chaos to law is no more bizarre than switching from rebel to king, first of all. But I see your point, if the lawful side is simply weaker, that doesn't make them not lawful. Perhaps your king vs rebel is fundamentally a question of weak vs strong, with some of the flavor of law vs chaos added; I initially interpreted it as the other way around.QuoteFor such narrative metaphysics I prefer to break it down to less order/chaos or good/evil, and more King vs Rebel. There's a person in their position of power, and a person seeking to remove them from that position of power.
In my view, this is a very clear case of law vs chaos. Setting aside that a king can be an arbitrary despot, his actions are backed and empowered by the order of society, while a rebel's actions are empowered only by the freedom he seizes to disrupt that order
Except what if the rebel seeks to impose their own laws, and it's just the lack of power that prevents them? The rebel could also have lawful backing and be the legally rightful ruler. And often if they win, the rebel becomes the king in the next conflict. King here isn't literally a king.
Less Law vs Chaos and more Stasis vs Change.I would see stasis and change as subsidiary components of law and chaos, respectively, and inalienable from those more overarching principles.
<examples omitted for length>I see, I would characterize this as not so much an alignment system as a confucian-like relationship of individuals. It certainly seems like a useful tool for telling stories of conflict, though.
My point isn't that this king/rebel is a useful alignment system, and more that alignment systems are perhaps better considered as character measures and not to involve the actual narrative of the story. That a characters actions should only be measured in so far as what they reveal about that characters internal worldview, and alignment is a label assigned to that internal worldview.I'm not sure I understand this point though, especially on the heels of its predecessor; after all you've just described how very important alignment type relationships were in several cases to the narrative. Do you mean that alignments need not be directly referenced within the narrative? I don't disagree, but neither do I think that it's bad to reference them.
I don't entirely agree. Yes, the ideal is to make a good character, but especially for dungeon delving and high lethality campaigns, it's not that rare for writing a good character to be not worth the effort. Alignment, in that context, can serve as a bit of a placeholder for better writing. Personally, I don't think it's the best one; I'd rather go with a system of personality traits, allegiance, goals and problems, and things like that. Even if it's select a couple from a list, there's more going on there. But law vs chaos suggests enough of a meaningful paradigm that I think it has strong potential use, particularly if you take into account not only the version printed in WotC material but also the TSR/Moorcock versions, and the Egyptian version which can be thought of as a synthesis between west Asian good vs evil and African wilderness vs society, and therefore incorporating these broad themes as well.Like I said, very few good characters slot into an alignment. What alignment is daenerys? On one hand she's lawful cause her entire justification for existing is divine right of kings. On the other, she casts down social orders and frees slaves. What about Jaime Lannister?Whether Daenerys is a good character is a whole other discussion. But it's only natural that a well-written character can't be said to be entirely one way or another. This by no measure unique to alignment.
Presumably we're all here to make a good character, so whence alignment in the first place? placement in unthinkable cosmic schemes, fodder for DM
Ah, but this is fun :P Also I think we aren't even really talking about DnD alignment itself anymore so much as the things one has to consider when constructing an alignment system. Which is a more interesting discussion anyway.I agree, very much so.
@Cruxador, What I'm trying to explain, and probably not doing an amazing job at, is that the King/Rebel position, or Stasis/Change, or the way you are explaining Law/Chaos, are dealing with the roles the character fulfils. Like the 'hero' in The Hero's Journey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey), the 'hero' is the role the character falls into and not necessarily meaning they are the good guy. A villain can be the focus of a Hero's Journey, so long as they fulfil the role of the 'hero' in the checklist of The Hero's Journey.Yeah, this makes sense. I would say that the three dichotomies listed are different in scale or scope, though. Your king/rebel is very oriented towards the individual, whereas stasis/change exists on an abstract level, and civilization/wilderness is relevant to a societal level, while law/chaos can be looked at as a synthesis of different levels and an attempt to incorporate all of them. Aside from the scale, I think these dichotomies all have pretty substantial thematic overlap, to the extent that it's not hard to identify which one of any pair corresponds (at least in general) to which member of another pair. In that regard, I consider law and chaos to each include one side of pairs like this, which is why I think it has the ability to exist on a higher level as an alignment system for an entire setting.
Hero's Journey, King/Rebel, Stasis/Change and Law/Order here are all examples of monomyths: Attempts to simplify multiple or all narratives to a single abstract cyclical narrative that any story can be seen as an elaboration on.
Alignment, in my view, seems more useful as a way to categorise the most fundamental internal beliefs and motivations of a character. The reasons that they enact the actions they do, irrespective of the actions themselves.Although it is most typically used in this sense, I see alignment as far too imprecise to be ideal for this purpose. "Lawful good" only paints with very broad strokes. On the other hand, if I were to describe a character and affably hedonistic and secretly patriotic, each of those gives you an important motivation and a way to express or roleplay it; "lawful" and "good" tell you a comparatively tiny amount. But while you can fit the traditional alignments into the former paradigm (rigidly altruistic, cheerfully altruistic, independently altruistic, rigidly balanced, measuredly balanced, independently balanced, rigidly malicious, utterly malicious, arbitrarily malicious – easily done off the top of my head) they lack the specificity to be much of a guideline unless overapplied - as in "I kill that guard because I'm chaotic".
So Alignment is internal to the character and could be applied without directly referring to the actions of that character and instead only referring to their thoughts/feelings/beliefs, whilst Role is external and defined by the character's position within the narrative irrelevant of what they think/feel/belief.I don't find that to be very meaningful, though. The nine alignments don't capture much of personality even if you divorce it from behavior. Thoughts and feelings are themselves reactive to the situation you're in, and beliefs are better handled by specific creeds whether religions, philosophies, or what have you. As a roleplaying aid, I don't find these to be useful in this case, as a categorization of mental qualities, it's not great either, but that's something you don't really need. As for my own opinion, I only really see alignment as strongly relevant on a grander scale, for the narrative theme and perhaps for cosmology.
Does that make sense?Oh yeah, absolutely.
I'm not sure I'm even using the right word with thoughts/feelings/beliefs. It seems more fundamental than belief or creed. Like, the core of a character when all creeds and dichotomy is stripped away. Like, if you took away all actual laws then a 'lawful' character in thought would still have to be something you can call 'lawful'. And no matter how much you bound them to lawfulness, a 'chaotic' character will still be 'chaotic' in mind.I think if you go too deep, the character can't really be distinct from the player in that way. To the extent that what you're describing doesn't include the more surface-level stuff I was talking about, I think what you're referring to may run close to that problem.
A lawful characters will probably follow a creed, but they aren't necessarily lawful because they follow it. Instead, it could be said that they follow it because they are lawful. That seems an important distinction to me. They can still be tempted to stray though. What's a character without some internal conflict, after all?Perhaps I was being unclear in terminology, I didn't mean anything particularly lawful by creed, only that each character has their own set of beliefs and their own worldview, but if those are to be relevant to the game they should be enumerated to some degree. I listed religions as an example of something that would count for this, but besides cults and faiths it could be political or military doctrine as well, and would most usually correspond to some in-setting group; few characters are entirely unique in their world in this regard.
It's one of the problems I think video games have that try and apply an alignment system of any kind. By being driven by player agency and having to make decisions based on player inputs, your actions dictate your 'alignment' when it should really be alignment...drives? justifies? influences? suggests? actions. Again, I'm not finding the words for what I'm trying to convey and that annoys me.Your meaning is clear, though. You prefer that alignment to be a determiner, rather than a descriptor, of action. I agree, but aside from my endorsement, whatever value that has, I have nothing else to contribute to this line of thought in particular.
Either way, I would agree that the more options you add to a description the better a description it'd be, albeit more complex one to use as well. Ultimately the exact architecture of the alignment system is best left defined by the setting crafted after all.But as increased complexity is a detriment, systems should be evaluated based on the benefit they provide and only the ones with the greatest benefit relative to complexity should be used. Admittedly, the one I came up with in my previous post could use some work on the complexity front, but it was far more powerful already than the nine alignments as a character thing.
In traditional Dungeons and Dragons it uses the Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic and Good/Neutral/Evil to categorise the gods, and so the alignments match to represent which type of god a personality would be most appealing to. But really, by itself any system of categorisation is never going to tell you more useful information than the vaguest of outlines of personality. You need more of a description to fill in the detail, at the end of the day.Dungeons: the Dragoning used the WoD system for gods, in fact; each god has their own track that corresponds to their own ideals, and there are groups of aligned deities who value chaos, order, and are neutral in that war, but those groups are more to do with divine politics and only matter strongly if your character is a soldier from those wars or something like that. I think that's a pretty good way to do it which is consistent with what you're describing here, although I don't find the degeneration system there to be particularly satisfying.
To go for a different setting: whilst World of Darkness doesn't really have 'governing gods' as such in the same sense, to take Vampire as an example the default morality system of the Path of Humanity is crafted more based around a scale of Control vs Carnality. 'A beast I am lest a beast I become' and all that. But there is likewise going to be nuance between the characters even amongst the same Humanity level. And that raises the same type of idea of what I have at the start of my post: Are they more bestial because of their low humanity, or is their humanity low because they are more bestial?