[3/3.5] Alignment Tests

[Zovc]

A friend of mine was taking a "quiz" (a multiple choice 'test') that was going to tell him his alignment in terms of Dungeons and Dragons. He got Lawful Neutral, I expected him to get something similar (LN/LG/G/N). Another of our friends took the test a little later, and I was surprised. Based on what he was choosing, I guessed he would get Chaotic Good*. He ended up being Lawful Good (and not happy with that).

*This is where I have a problem with these tests, not only are they sometimes too vague to arbitrarily count towards one alignment, but I feel like many creators fail to consider that that answer could be interpreted as an evil one.

A lot of these "quizzes" tally up points towards each of their ends, which unfortunately doesn't work for D&D. If you've got six marks in Law, five marks in Chaos, and four in Good and Evil, you're not Lawful Good/Evil, you're True Neutral.

Does anyone have a good alignment test, or one that is actually evaluated by a person? Would anyone want to collaborate and make one here?

[Riffington]

Sure, the ones out there do seem to suck, and it'd be kinda fun to work on a better one. Wouldn't need a human evaluator, just simple arithmetic and good questions to start.

[Myshlaevsky]

Couldn't you just make it so that any addition to an axis results in a deduction to the opposing side? And install a certain minimum to gain any of the 'Good', 'Evil', Lawful' or 'Chaotic' titles. Say 2, 3 or 4 marks. That'd make the example you mentioned come out as True Neutral.

[The Dark Fiddler]

Couldn't you just make it so that any addition to an axis results in a deduction to the opposing side? And install a certain minimum to gain any of the 'Good', 'Evil', Lawful' or 'Chaotic' titles. Say 2, 3 or 4 marks. That'd make the example you mentioned come out as True Neutral.

Or use a graph and start in the origin. Treat the y axis as Law/Chaos and the x axis as Good/Evil. Then figure out what's neutral. Pretty close to your idea, but it uses graphs, so it's better.

[Silentlee]

i've always hated alignment test....


i don't believe i fit into any of the listed alignments....i take to much into account at all times.....i might answer C on a question one day....but i might answer A the next....or i might not like any of the answers given by a alignment test....

Is there an alignment between CG and CN?........with a dash of lawful good?
....but the next day completely CE with a dash of lawful good?


----edit---

yes "completely CE with a dash of lawful good" is written that way on purpose...only thing that keeps me from doing evil things most time is that i don't want to go to jail...or cause trouble for my friends/family......sometimes i cause trouble anyways...for the hell of it.

[Silentlee]

i vote for a new alignment....chaotic evilneutralgood with a dash of LG

[Zovc]

i don't believe i fit into any of the listed alignments....i take to much into account at all times

I somewhat agree with you--but on a different scale. For example, I would say that I fall within four alignments. I'm mostly Good/Chaotic Good, but I am occasionally selfish (read "not selfless, but not greedy"), I thus tend towards Neutrality, as well. I'm somewhere in between 'NG/CG;NN/CN', nevertheless, I would consider myself Neutral Good since that's the most common aspect.

If there are no most common aspects to your alignment then you're not "sometimes this, sometimes that," wishy-washy characters are neutral; that's in the Player's Handbook if I'm not mistaken.

I approve of the +x/-x,+y/-y representation, where "x = Law (-x = Chaos), y = Good (-y = Evil)." I suppose our test doesn't have to be hand-evaluated, but the answers need to NOT be ambiguous enough to "answer wrong." I suppose I just like the idea of having open questions, answering them in writing, then having a few people review saying, "This answer is totally Lawful Neutral," or "This philosophy seems Evil to me."

[gdiddy]

The code has been done already in something called "The World's Smallest Political Quiz". It would take VERY little effort to modify it for alignment stuff.

Link below:

http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz-quotes.html

[Acrux]

M.J. Young has a pretty good alignment quiz here: http://www.mjyoung.net/dungeon/javalign.html

(And see this page (http://www.mjyoung.net/dungeon/align.html) for more background info and why some responses are coded the way they are).

Overall, I think it's a great effort (and Gygax approvded :D). There are a few items that he codes as good/evil or law/chaos that I think are incorrect, and a couple of years ago I was putting together a new coding system that I felt improved on some of the items that are "incorrect". That is, an answer might get +1 good, +2 chaos or -1 evil, +2 good, -1 law instead of being weighted on only one dimension. I haven't done anything with that lately though.

[Ravens_cry]

i vote for a new alignment....chaotic evilneutralgood with a dash of LG
We have it, it's called True Neutral.

[Yukitsu]

Didn't like that it forced you to categorize some answers in one direction, even if you strongly agreed with them. Most answers weren't clearly contradictory to the other answers, which is the only time questions should force you to arrange them from best to worst.

Scored inanely lawful good though for whatever reason.