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Cealocanth
2010-05-11, 10:17 PM
Hi! I'm playing in 4e DnD right now and my group is having a lot of trouble grasping how alignments work in 4e. We've decided to house rule that we use the old 3.5 alignment rules because they work and allow a lot of options for Rping your character. What's your opinion on the "new" system?

HMS Invincible
2010-05-11, 10:22 PM
Your alignment is "A rich violent hobo". Someone said that before, and it works.

Excession
2010-05-11, 10:24 PM
If you like describing your character as lawful neutral, go ahead and do that. What you write down as your alignment has no effect on mechanics any more.

Divide by Zero
2010-05-11, 10:24 PM
There are a few things about 4E I like better than 3.5. Alignment is not one of those things. They took a bad system and made it even worse. Admittedly I haven't played it much (only two sessions so far, and haven't gotten past 3rd level), but I have yet to see any alignment-dependent effects, so it might be fine to just do away with it entirely.

tribble
2010-05-11, 10:27 PM
In the spoiler is an image version of the reaction I have to just about any alignment.

http://www.memedepot.com/uploads/500/789_CoolFace.jpg

It's not that I actually think you're trolling, it's just that people tend to rage as if you are. I predict this thread gets very long and very nasty very fast.

JonestheSpy
2010-05-11, 10:28 PM
Lame, in a word.

Regression, for another word. Harkens back to the very first pre-AD&D books wherein chaos=evil and law=good.

Cealocanth
2010-05-11, 10:31 PM
In the spoiler is an image version of the reaction I have to just about any alignment.

http://www.memedepot.com/uploads/500/789_CoolFace.jpg

It's not that I actually think you're trolling, it's just that people tend to rage as if you are. I predict this thread gets very long and very nasty very fast.

I sure hope not. *flees from my monstrous creation as it begins to grow and become sentient*:smalleek: [Edit: Ninja'd! For the very first time!]

Edge of Dreams
2010-05-11, 10:31 PM
The closest mapping between 4e and 3.5 is roughly as follows (IMHO):

4e ~=~ 3.5e
Lawful Good ~=~ Lawful Good
Good ~=~ Good or Chaotic Good
Evil ~=~ Evil
Chaotic Evil ~=~ Chaotic Evil
Unaligned ~=~ Everything else

The best thing 4e did though was get rid of game-mechanics interacting with alignment. No more Detect Evil, Holy Word, Magic Circle Against Chaos or any of that stuff. So use whatever the hell alignment system works for you and your group, whether that means you're Lawful Good, Neutral Idiot, or Chaotic Sticky. What matters is that you make it work FOR YOU.

Kaun
2010-05-11, 10:40 PM
In 4e Alignment seems to hold a lot less importance then they did in early edditions.

Fuzzie Fuzz
2010-05-11, 10:47 PM
Yeah, I've never actually played 3.X, but my group still uses their alignment system. Not that alignment matters, as others have said. So really, do whatever you want, though I personally prefer the 9-point system to the 5-point one.

Thomo
2010-05-11, 11:05 PM
In short alignment doesn't 'work' in 4e. It's completely arbitrary and only affects how your character develops and their reactions to certain things (if at all). It has no mechanical basis in the game whatsoever, and frankly I prefer it this way. Now you can play paladins who are realistic, smart and not lawful stupid and aren't automatically destined to fall. Now you can play characters that develop emotionally and morally, without fear of mechanical repurcussions

Divide by Zero
2010-05-11, 11:08 PM
It's completely arbitrary and only affects how your character develops and their reactions to certain things (if at all).

Which I think is a good reason to take it out completely. Now it can only really be used as either an arbitrary restriction or a roleplaying crutch, neither of which is a good thing IMO.

Swordgleam
2010-05-11, 11:12 PM
I really love that alignment is no longer related to mechanics. Because now you can use any alignment system you want or none and all, and it's barely even a house rule to do so.

At first, I was annoyed at the simplified version. But on further thought, they took out the alignments that very few people (at least in my experience) played seriously anyway. CG is "I want to be good and my DM will make me Lawful Stupid otherwise." You can now do this with Good. CN usually means either the player or their DM is in some way a jerk about alignment; I have never seen someone play this because their character truly believes that chaos should be the guiding principle of the universe (and not just because it allows them to avoid responsibility and enrich themself). LN is really cool in theory, but I don't know anyone who plays it, and you can still play that was a Neutral. LE is the best descriptor for my current 4e party, but I don't really mourn its loss since we ignore alignment anyway.

Alignment is one of the many parts of 4e where at first I went, "This is the stupidest thing I have ever read why would they do this" and then ten minutes later went, "You know, that's actually kind of an improvement."

Thomo
2010-05-11, 11:44 PM
Which I think is a good reason to take it out completely. Now it can only really be used as either an arbitrary restriction or a roleplaying crutch, neither of which is a good thing IMO.

What's the difference between them taking it out completely and leaving it in the current format?
To all intents and purposes, gameplay wise, it is out.

Swordgleam
2010-05-11, 11:46 PM
What's the difference between them taking it out completely and leaving it in the current format?

The difference is writing it on your character sheet, and your DM saying things like, "If you do something like that again, you'll no longer be Lawful Good" or, "Are you sure you want to do that? You are a Good character, not evil." Also paladins have a minor alignment restriction on their deities.

Math_Mage
2010-05-12, 12:08 AM
I really love that alignment is no longer related to mechanics. Because now you can use any alignment system you want or none and all, and it's barely even a house rule to do so.

At first, I was annoyed at the simplified version. But on further thought, they took out the alignments that very few people (at least in my experience) played seriously anyway. CG is "I want to be good and my DM will make me Lawful Stupid otherwise." You can now do this with Good. CN usually means either the player or their DM is in some way a jerk about alignment; I have never seen someone play this because their character truly believes that chaos should be the guiding principle of the universe (and not just because it allows them to avoid responsibility and enrich themself). LN is really cool in theory, but I don't know anyone who plays it, and you can still play that was a Neutral. LE is the best descriptor for my current 4e party, but I don't really mourn its loss since we ignore alignment anyway.

Alignment is one of the many parts of 4e where at first I went, "This is the stupidest thing I have ever read why would they do this" and then ten minutes later went, "You know, that's actually kind of an improvement."

You have an extremely uncharitable view of the interaction between alignment and roleplaying...

As a matter of character description, I unequivocally prefer 3.5's system. I feel that in this area, there is sort of a bell curve relating the detail of a system to its quality. At the low end of the bell curve, the descriptions are so general that they can't really help you think about a character; at the high end, the descriptions are so specific that you have to do a tremendous amount of reading to get anywhere, and then you feel like you've put your character in a straitjacket. In the middle are systems that provide enough detail to be a real enabler to creative thinking. 3.5's alignment system is on the low side, I think--that's why I was so interested in SonofZeal's system of additional subdivisions when I saw it. But 4e gets even more general. Your character is Good, Evil, or Unaligned, and occasionally you might decide that a Good character is particularly Lawful or an Evil character is particularly Chaotic. That's it. There's nothing to get someone brainstorming about a character archetype.

It doesn't help that 4e has removed everything that made the alignment system intellectually interesting on an abstract level. We can argue day and night about how well the axes of morality and ethicality represented the space of possible behavior, but at least it was there to provide a fundamental logical backing to the alignment system. As is, what is the logical justification for making Lawful Good separate from other Good characters? Is it just that Lawful Good = Extra Extra Good or something? Or is it just a vestige of the old system, an appendage that has lost its basic function? Remove that, and you have nothing left but the old Good vs. Evil scale, which is utterly uninteresting due to its ambiguity.

Alignments should be specific enough that many or most characters have trouble fitting into a single category. 3.5 provides that, to some extent. 4e? No.

Swordgleam
2010-05-12, 12:14 AM
You have an extremely uncharitable view of the interaction between alignment and roleplaying...

I freely admit this. My very first DM would literally say, "You can't/must do that, your alignment forbids/requires it." He once had an enchantment that only Good characters could pass through. In front of a cave we needed to get into. While being chased by frost giants that would have been a challenge for the whole party. And the cave entrance was vertical. Result? Good characters fell through before they realized what was going on, neutral characters were stuck outside and got squished.

Due to that experience, I find it hard to view alignment systems without bias. I also haven't ever been in a group where alignment added to the roleplaying, so I don't have any personal counterexamples that show alignment even can be a force for roleplaying good.



Alignments should be specific enough that many or most characters have trouble fitting into a single category.

That's a view I haven't seen before. I rather like it, though I'll have to think on it more.

Thomo
2010-05-12, 12:26 AM
Alignments should be specific enough that many or most characters have trouble fitting into a single category. 3.5 provides that, to some extent. 4e? No.

And that is why I think the 4e system works. By broadening the previously narrow descriptions it allows the characters to fit into the categories available. The extremely rigid ones are still there (Lawful Good, Chaotic Evil) but the broadness of the remaining categories allows for characters to have a believable and realistic sense of morality, ethics and loyalties without having them be peg-holed into a specific category.

Sophismata
2010-05-12, 01:05 AM
Alignments should be specific enough that many or most characters have trouble fitting into a single category. 3.5 provides that, to some extent. 4e? No.

I like 3.5's generalisations, to some extent. I think having the 3.5 alignments be more specific would be ultimately detrimental. Agree with you on 4e, of course. Furthermore, I question whether people here have a problem with the alignment system, or with crappy DM's.

'Cause rules will only 'fix' the former.

Divide by Zero
2010-05-12, 01:11 AM
As far as 4e is concerned, you're totally straight with using the 3.5 alignments, the 4e alignments, or even throw in the axis of funk. Mechanically, I don't believe 4e utilizes alignment at all.

My new alignment system:
http://i44.tinypic.com/mrvgiw.jpg

Mando Knight
2010-05-12, 01:14 AM
My new alignment system:
http://i44.tinypic.com/mrvgiw.jpg

Didn't you know? It's hip to be a square! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdcHzquaMh8)

krossbow
2010-05-12, 01:18 AM
lawful evil Is, and always SHALL BE my favorite alignment; The current Comic just shows how awesome it is.


Thats something i dislike that 4.0 did away with.

Gralamin
2010-05-12, 01:23 AM
lawful evil Is, and always SHALL BE my favorite alignment; The current Comic just shows how awesome it is.


Thats something i dislike that 4.0 did away with.

LE is part of Evil now. It's not really gone.

Malificus
2010-05-12, 01:26 AM
My new alignment system:
http://i44.tinypic.com/mrvgiw.jpg

Inferior to the
Gentleman<---->Hooligan (with Neutral simply being Fellow)
Dapper<----->Scruffy
scale

Dapper Gentleman - True Gentleman - Scruffy Gentleman
Dapper Fellow - Fellow - Scruffy Fellow
Dapper Hooligan - True Hooligan - Scruffy Hooligan

AngelSword
2010-05-12, 01:27 AM
I find myself saying in almost every 4e game, "I marked him as 'Unaligned,' but I'm essentially playing [alignment X]." There's a certain level of explanation I didn't have to do because I gave a full, dual-axis alignment description.

Asbestos
2010-05-12, 01:27 AM
lawful evil Is, and always SHALL BE my favorite alignment; The current Comic just shows how awesome it is.


Thats something i dislike that 4.0 did away with.
Well, if you read the description of 'Evil' it sounds a lot like the old 'Lawful Evil'.

Divide by Zero
2010-05-12, 01:34 AM
Inferior to the
Gentleman<---->Hooligan (with Neutral simply being Fellow)
Dapper<----->Scruffy
scale

Dapper Gentleman - True Gentleman - Scruffy Gentleman
Dapper Fellow - Fellow - Scruffy Fellow
Dapper Hooligan - True Hooligan - Scruffy Hooligan

Better yet - combine the two for four-dimensional hyperalignment.

Reinboom
2010-05-12, 01:35 AM
I find myself saying in almost every 4e game, "I marked him as 'Unaligned,' but I'm essentially playing [alignment X]." There's a certain level of explanation I didn't have to do because I gave a full, dual-axis alignment description.

Why not just write the old alignment anyways? There is a very small handful of things that refer to alignment at all in the system.

Math_Mage
2010-05-12, 01:40 AM
And that is why I think the 4e system works. By broadening the previously narrow descriptions it allows the characters to fit into the categories available. The extremely rigid ones are still there (Lawful Good, Chaotic Evil) but the broadness of the remaining categories allows for characters to have a believable and realistic sense of morality, ethics and loyalties without having them be peg-holed into a specific category.

I've written before about what I feel to be the extremely common misconception of alignment as a box into which one must fit one's character. This leads to the idea that one must make the boxes big enough to be suitable containers--because characters will almost inevitably break whatever mold is laid down. And the result is 4e's enormous, bland categories that tell you nothing about what your character might be like. A veritable cacophony of 'believable and realistic' senses of morality, ethics, and loyalty might fit into any box, with no particularly meaningful distinction accorded to each box--in which case, what is the use of sorting the characters into boxes at all?

The fundamental mistake here is to treat the alignment as a restraint that 'permits' or 'forbids' facets of your character. If you let alignment be a straitjacket, your first impulse is to make the bindings so loose that the straitjacket falls off. Instead, alignment must be a tool of creative tension, a springboard from which to launch your character concept. When you have many narrow paths to follow, observing which one your character takes and where he leaves the path to plunge through the underbrush becomes interesting. Where is he going? Why is he taking those particular paths, deviating at those particular places, avoiding those particular routes? Then there are times when most characters would leave the path for the sake of expediency, but your character doesn't--why? If all you have is a big highway, it's boring to watch the characters meander around it. Sure, you can make a wonderful and interesting character and hang the "Unaligned" tag on him--but the tag itself has lost its meaning.

MCerberus
2010-05-12, 01:43 AM
If you were to implement the old 3.5 alignments, you'd need to give the Clerics/Paladins a little more slack as what they can start as. Paladins being the same as their god and some loose rules about other divines are the only time you have to be something.

Reluctance
2010-05-12, 02:23 AM
If all you have is a big highway, it's boring to watch the characters meander around it. Sure, you can make a wonderful and interesting character and hang the "Unaligned" tag on him--but the tag itself has lost its meaning.

And then what benefit does the 3x3 grid add, other than to draw attention away from moral complexities beyond "good guy vs. bad guy" and the horribly defined "lawful vs. chaotic"? Deep character studies need a completely different system. D&D alignment mostly exists because heroic fantasy works well with clear black and white, and it makes it easy to tell which team somebody's on.

Still, I'll parrot the point that removing the mechanical effect of alignment was a definite positive move in 4e. If you enjoy exploring alignmentspace with your actions, more power to you. If there are very solid in-game repercussions to your actions, enter extended debates and possible bruised friendships to start over whether somebody takes damage if they're caught in the area of a Holy Smite.

AngelSword
2010-05-12, 03:53 AM
Why not just write the old alignment anyways? There is a very small handful of things that refer to alignment at all in the system.

Well, it's kinda hard to write in "Lawful Neutral" into the drop down menu in the character builder. :smalltongue:

Bob the Urgh
2010-05-12, 04:02 AM
I liked the old alignment based spells, it's always fun as a dm to watch a single blasphemy bring the party to it's knees.

Math_Mage
2010-05-12, 04:55 AM
And then what benefit does the 3x3 grid add, other than to draw attention away from moral complexities beyond "good guy vs. bad guy" and the horribly defined "lawful vs. chaotic"? Deep character studies need a completely different system. D&D alignment mostly exists because heroic fantasy works well with clear black and white, and it makes it easy to tell which team somebody's on.

No, the 3.5 alignment system isn't perfect. No, it's not suited for accurately describing deep characters. As you say, it's not meant to. I would say that the players are the beneficiaries of WotC's utter failure with the ethical axis, to some extent: at least as a matter of personal experience, the process of coming up with various internally consistent character facets that go all over the map from Lawful to Chaotic helps me flesh out the characters. It's another thing to think about, if the player feels like it. Another avenue to explore for their character. Maybe it doesn't even matter so much what the two axes are, within reasonable limits, as long as it gets the player thinking sideways. In any case, alignment shouldn't be drawing attention away from other character traits. You bounce a personality off an alignment, develop some backstory, let that influence the personality, which shapes some more story that maybe changes the alignment...and the 3x3 alignment grid is quite a bit better for that than 4e's 5 choices in one dimension.


Still, I'll parrot the point that removing the mechanical effect of alignment was a definite positive move in 4e. If you enjoy exploring alignmentspace with your actions, more power to you. If there are very solid in-game repercussions to your actions, enter extended debates and possible bruised friendships to start over whether somebody takes damage if they're caught in the area of a Holy Smite.

Quite agreed there. Part of the reason alignment is treated as a straitjacket in character development is that it's so often used as such in gameplay mechanics. Although for my part, I can't say it's likely I'd be bruising any friendships over these discussions. There's quite a gap between being annoyed at my friend's DMing choices and letting our relationship sour over it.

Grimlock
2010-05-12, 05:03 AM
NOt that I've played much 4e yet, (just begun playing for the first time on pbp- on this very forum as it happens), but surely Alignment is there to give you a framework for roleplaying. Any alignment system would do as long as it is consistent. That's what I like abouy 4e is that it is non-restrictive, I can play my character as I feel they would develop without having to consider the mechanics of what I am about to do.

Even though 4e doesn't say you can be CG or LE etc, as a player, can't you play them as such?

tcrudisi
2010-05-12, 05:08 AM
Here's the thing about alignment: it's polarizing. You can tell it by this thread. Some people feel that it's necessary to help them roleplay -- that's fine. Some people feel that it's a silly label -- this is fine too. Part of the beauty of 4e is that it no longer has any (real) mechanical effect, so if you want to have a very rigid alignment, you can. If you don't want it, well, you can do that too.

I always thought 3.5's alignment system was a bit silly. I could not agree with my friends about which alignment was what, even if we were both playing CG, for instance. One look at the OotS forums will tell you that players differ strongly about each character: is V good or evil? Is Belkar now Neutral or Evil? Is he Lawful or Chaotic? There is so much disagreement that it's silly. That easily transfers over to games -- I may think that I'm playing my character CG and the DM tells me that my alignment has changed to True Neutral.

I personally really like the new system, though I wish they'd take it a step further and just make it "Good, Neutral, or Evil". That's really all I care about when I first start DM'ing a game -- "Are you guys good or evil? I need to know so I can make up a proper story." If one of the players wants to tell me that he's LG like the old paladin's -- great for him (and I mean that). But I don't let those letters tell me how to roleplay a character when I play. Instead, I think of my character as a character, not an alignment, and find him starting to fit into the role of an alignment. It works much better that way for me, rather than trying to pigeonhole him into an alignment from the start.

Project_Mayhem
2010-05-12, 05:22 AM
I'm entirely not fussed about alignment at all. I don't think it necessarily adds or removes anything from the game. I'm running DnD 3.5 again soon, and I'm going to use the default system.

However, I'm also planning a Changeling game, where the closest thing to alignment will be my modified version of clarity, a number that expresses how like a true fae you are. The only acts that cause degeneration are that make you more like your keeper. This is partly to see if I can, partly because I think that human morals aren't going to be the point of the campaign, and partly because my group have always mocked WoD for rating property damage as such a serious crime.

Tengu_temp
2010-05-12, 05:38 AM
I'm puzzled why people think you can no longer have LE or CG characters in 4e. The character's morality and personality define its alignment, not the other way around - no matter how a game's alignment system looks like, and whether there are 9, 5, 3, 27 or no alignments to choose from, the character stays the same.

I think the reason 4e simplified its alignment is because nobody could agree what the lawful/chaotic axis even meant, including the developers.

Kurald Galain
2010-05-12, 05:40 AM
I think the reason 4e simplified its alignment is because nobody could agree what the lawful/chaotic axis even meant, including the developers.

That's kind of ironic, considering the law/chaos axis was there first (from the Elric and Stormbringer Saga), and good/evil was added later.

Nightson
2010-05-12, 06:21 AM
Well, it's kinda hard to write in "Lawful Neutral" into the drop down menu in the character builder. :smalltongue:

Just for the record, it's not. You can select the text and write whatever you want in the field.

Delta
2010-05-12, 06:51 AM
That's kind of ironic, considering the law/chaos axis was there first (from the Elric and Stormbringer Saga), and good/evil was added later.

Be that as it may, that still does not mean that the law/chaos axis is anything but completely arbitrary and so subjective that I can make a case for almost every character being either lawful or chaotic without changing a single thing about them.

That's what's always bothered me about the 3x3 alignment matrix, I can get into the distinction between good and evil, obviously, even if I don't know why I need labels to put on characters. But for the vast majority of characters, the law/chaos question is so utterly unimportant that I can't even answer it with anything but a shrug and something like "Whatever, guess I'm neutral then".

ShaggyMarco
2010-05-12, 07:17 AM
My understanding of 4ed alignment is that it no longer is a description of your character's personality like it was once meant to be. In 4ed, it is a description of, cosmically, which SIDE you are on.

LG: You are primarily interested in preserving the cosmic balance against the forces of entropy who seek to tear everything apart.
G: You are primarily interested in helping people live happier, safer lives.
E: You are primarily interested in using/abusing other people to achieve personal goals.
CE: You are primarily interested in the destruction of the world, universe, and/or multiverse.
Unaligned: You are primarily interested in goals which are entirely your own, not aligning with the other four cosmic outlooks on life.

I think most N druids from 3.5 with a viewpoint on protecting nature from things like Demons, Abberations, and other raving baddies might find themselves LG or Unaligned these days.

Many LG Paladins from 3.5 who are LG on a minor, help people every day scale, not on a protect humanity from the mindless horrors of beyond scale are reborn Good under 4ed alignments.

In 4ed, CE is the alignment of Cthulu. The alignment of anything so moon-bat crazy that it simply wants everything gone or driven crazy. This is distinctly NOT a PC alignment any more, short of running a game where the point is to end the world.

This is the only way alignment makes sense. Your character's personality is whatever your character's personality is; two axis (or 3, or 4) can't sufficiently describe the wealth of motivations and personalities that exist. You can be an honor-bound, stiff-necked crusader and be LG, Good, Unaligned, or Evil in 4ed Parlance (I can't see CE working there), where as in 3.5 that sounds distinctly LG, LN, or LE. What matters is, ultimately, at the end of the day, why does your character get up every morning? To make people's lives better? You're Good. To get what you want, no matter how many backs you must step on to get there? Evil. To fight the good fight, saving the world from forces beyond human comprehension? You, sire, are Lawful Good. To gorge yourself on the blood of innocents while the rest of the world burns down around your ears? Chaotic evil! Other? Unaligned.

TricksyAndFalse
2010-05-12, 07:20 AM
That's kind of ironic, considering the law/chaos axis was there first (from the Elric and Stormbringer Saga), and good/evil was added later.

I never felt that Moorcock's Law and Chaos worked as an alignment system. There were powerful beings that were champions of either cause (or champions for keeping a balance between the two). But, there didn't seem to be any sort of shared principles or values that all followers of a given side shared.

The only thing pro-Chaos characters had in common was anti-Law sentiment, and the only thing pro-Law characters had in common was anti-Chaos sentiment. It may as well have been blue vs orange.

oxybe
2010-05-12, 07:21 AM
personally? my view of alignment can be summed up thusly:

http://myspace.roflposters.com/images/rofl/myspace/1207882706217.jpg.%5Broflposters.com%5D.myspace.jp g


in 3rd ed i just stay away from the alignment restricted classes, write down CN and play the character however i feel he should be played according to his personality.

in 4th ed, i just write down Un and play the character however i feel he should be played according to his personality.

i never cared for alignment and i don't really see how it adds to the game more then an actual description of your character's values would.

Zombimode
2010-05-12, 08:56 AM
Be that as it may, that still does not mean that the law/chaos axis is anything but completely arbitrary and so subjective that I can make a case for almost every character being either lawful or chaotic without changing a single thing about them.

That's what's always bothered me about the 3x3 alignment matrix, I can get into the distinction between good and evil, obviously, even if I don't know why I need labels to put on characters. But for the vast majority of characters, the law/chaos question is so utterly unimportant that I can't even answer it with anything but a shrug and something like "Whatever, guess I'm neutral then".

Hah, thats exactly how I feel.

I've tried for years to work with the aligment system, but your posting outlines the conclusion I've finaly come to.

The problem with the good-evil axis is, that it requiers nearly perfect moral evaluation from the player and in particular from the DM. Something that is not really possible. This is bound to provoke arguments.

The problem with the chaotic-law axis is, as you said, that no one really knows what the parts actually mean. Under every definition I've heard so far, every character can easily be put under the chaotic, the neutral and the lawfull category at the same time.

DabblerWizard
2010-05-12, 09:45 AM
The law-chaos binary is absurdly simplistic. It would probably take me a whole book to meaningfully piece together the nuances of why this binary is totally ridiculous, and "goodness" knows I don't have the patience for that. I can hear cheering in the background... :smallwink:

Here are a few examples of "law" considerations that the binary just doesn't touch upon, or appreciate, as is.

Laws are socially and culturally constructed, and maintained. What's lawful in one region might be forbidden in another. This brings about a justification problem: Why should I follow your laws? What makes your reasons more "valid" and "true" than some other perspective?

This leads to the question, are there universal laws, that all people and things have to obey? If we assume they exist, what are they, and what happens when a "mortal" law contradicts one of these universal ones?

Can individuals create their "own" laws? Do all laws have to be agreed on by everyone? What happens when people disagree? Are only enforceable laws, "real" laws?

Laws are legislated, enforced, and interpreted, and anyone could spend the rest of their lives (!) studying these concerns.

My basic conclusion, considering the above:

The law-chaos distinction is useless because "law" is too complicated a subject to be summarized by a few sentences in the DMG. This leads to a whole lot of stumbling, confusion, and frustration.

Gnaeus
2010-05-12, 11:32 AM
4e alignments seem less to me like D&D alignments, and more like a less useful version of Rifts alignments.
(Good: Principled and Scrupulous
Selfish: Unprincipled and Anarchist
Evil: Miscreant, Aberrant and Diabolic).

Since I never liked that system in Rifts, and 4e does it worse, I think it is pretty horrible. It is one of the many factors that make me think that the developers and most players of 4e are of Aberrant or Diabolic alignment.

@ Swordgleam
I have played LN characters before. I am currently playing a CN but not chaotic stupid character. A patient methodical anarchist who believes that everyone will be better off when the societies, laws, and morals that restrict them are cast off and destroyed so that everyone can act to maximize their own personal benefit. He is neither evil, nor unaligned.

Tengu_temp
2010-05-12, 11:37 AM
Are you calling people who play 4e evil? Because it uses a different alignment system than what you like?

JonestheSpy
2010-05-12, 12:28 PM
The law-chaos binary is absurdly simplistic.

...

My basic conclusion, considering the above:

The law-chaos distinction is useless because "law" is too complicated a subject to be summarized by a few sentences in the DMG. This leads to a whole lot of stumbling, confusion, and frustration.

Well, I think one should remember that the whole law vs. chaos idea has its roots in the heroic fantasy that inspired the original D&D game. Rather than basic good vs evil, writers like Poul Anderson, Gordon Dickson, and most famously Michael Moorcock made the struggle between order and entropy the central struggle in their stories, usually with law on the "good" side and chaos on the "evil" side - which makes sense when you consider that the were writing in the mid-20th century, when the old social orders that lasted for centuries were disappearing and hugely destructive wars and revolutions were the result. Gygax simply adopted a very common trope into the game.

Later, lot of fantasy writers - including folks like Moorcock - came around to the idea that too much order could be as destructive and dangerous as too much chaos, and Balance became the ultimate good to strive for, with the heroes fighting against whichever side was growing too powerful (I am particularly fond of the view from Dickson's classic The Dragon and the George ((just the first, the sequels are sadly lacking)): the Dark Powers are constantly trying to upset the balance and don't care in which way, because either way is equally bad. And DnD's next generation, the Advanced game, followed along with this trend toward ethical complexity, giving us chaotic good, lawful evil, and all the neutral+ alignments, with the idea that Neutral (Balanced) Good is really the "highest" good, with the same being true for Neutral Evil.

Being familiar with the roots of the alignment system, I think it makes perfect sense and I like the 9 alignment plus middle grounds model quite a lot. But I can see why it seems odd to people just coming into it cold.

And that's also why I think the 4ed system is just a lame regression to a much more simplistic model.

BobTheDog
2010-05-12, 02:54 PM
... I am currently playing a CN but not chaotic stupid character. A patient methodical anarchist who believes that everyone will be better off when the societies, laws, and morals that restrict them are cast off and destroyed so that everyone can act to maximize their own personal benefit. He is neither evil, nor unaligned.

Interesting... *takes notes*

I agree with ShaggyMarco (and the PHB) on this one. Alignment is no longer a definition of your personality, but of where your loyalties are. In fact, a commonly overlooked fact is that, in 4e, alignment is but ONE of a bunch of words you can use to describe yourself. The others are: Personality (subdivided into Social Interactions, Decision Points and Dire Straits), Mannerisms, Appearance and Background.

Unfortunately, gamers in general only care about stuff that has game effects, so Backgrounds, with their minor but tasty bonuses, get all the glory here. Still, I have had players more focused on the RP aspects actually write down a list of Personality traits for their character, after which I gave them (and other players who wanted to) a minor bonus relevant to their personality (the cowardly cleric got Stealth as a class skill).

So, if you want to be patient, methodical, selfish or whatever else, just write it down in your Character Sheet (Personality Traits, right under the portrait box). Then, decide whose (if any) side you're on in the greater scheme of things and write that down under alignment.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-12, 03:12 PM
Wow, we've managed to combine an edition war and an alignment debate into one thread.

Core monks are OP. Fighters can beat wizards. There, that should fill our repeat thread quota for the week, unless I missed anything.

nightwyrm
2010-05-12, 03:19 PM
Wow, we've managed to combine an edition war and an alignment debate into one thread.

Core monks are OP. Fighters can beat wizards. There, that should fill our repeat thread quota for the week, unless I missed anything.

You left out ToB is anime and Psionics are sci-fi.

Swordgleam
2010-05-12, 03:29 PM
In 4ed, it is a description of, cosmically, which SIDE you are on.


I rather like a description of alignment I once saw that goes as follows: Ragnarok is upon us and the Elder Gods are facing off against chibi versions of the Asgardians. If you side with Cthulhu and co, you're chaotic, no matter how strict you were in life. If you side with Thor and the rest, you're lawful, even if you were a drunken axe-murder in life. If you run away or hide, you're neutral.



@ Swordgleam
I have played LN characters before. I am currently playing a CN but not chaotic stupid character. A patient methodical anarchist who believes that everyone will be better off when the societies, laws, and morals that restrict them are cast off and destroyed so that everyone can act to maximize their own personal benefit. He is neither evil, nor unaligned.

I've actually played a character who, at one time or another, fit into every alignment of the nine but can probably be best described as CN. She believes that balance is the most important thing, and that chaos is usually the best agent to achieve that balance.

Over the course of a few years, she dethroned both good and evil monarchs to return balance to their respective kingdoms. She's also been known to do things like turn around and start helping an NPC who was just about to attack her, because she suddenly realized the NPC's course was in fact the morally correct one in the situation. (That pissed off the DM more than anything else I've done - she was apparently really looking forward to that fight, and I unknowingly picked the one course of action that could possibly have stopped it from occuring.)

Project_Mayhem
2010-05-12, 03:32 PM
I rather like a description of alignment I once saw that goes as follows: Ragnarok is upon us and the Elder Gods are facing off against chibi versions of the Asgardians. If you side with Cthulhu and co, you're chaotic, no matter how strict you were in life. If you side with Thor and the rest, you're lawful, even if you were a drunken axe-murder in life. If you run away or hide, you're neutral.

Why would they have to be chibi?

Other than for reasons of win

Darakonis
2010-05-12, 03:52 PM
Some great points have been brought up in this thread.


What's your opinion on the "new" system?

At first glance, I didn't appreciate the apparent regression from 3e's alignment system. However, I've since changed my mind, for two reasons.

1. Chaotic Stupid. The CN alignment has caused me, as a DM, so much trouble over the years with players who believed that CN meant, "act in a completely random and unpredictable manner at all times."

"Why did you walk off with the torch, leaving your party to fight in darkness?"

"I'm CN!"

This is just one example--just about every alignment sparks debate, differing opinions, confusion... To accurately describe the alignments, the PHB would have to devote an entire chapter to the matter. Heck, maybe an entire sourcebook. After roughly a decade, the gaming population at large still has not reached a consensus on what, exactly, each 3e alignment means--which can lead to serious problems if you and your DM do not see things eye-to-eye.

Which brings us to...

2. Alignment in 4e is largely irrelevant, from a mechanics standpoint. It is now purely fluff, like mannerisms, background, and personality. If the DM disagrees with you about a certain alignment, it doesn't really matter.

In 3e, players were almost rewarded for being True Neutral by making them immune to the various spell effects that target Lawful, Chaotic, Evil, or Good characters. Perhaps something was added in 3.5, but in 3.0, there were no spells that affected Neutral.

In either case, a player may base his character's moral values on such mechanics, which is ridiculous.



In sum, the 4e system is much less of a headache, is flexible enough to substitute in any homebrewed alignment rules, and eliminates any metagame factors. Should the alignment system have been nixed entirely? Only if you also think the paragraphs describing Mannerisms, Personality, etc. should be nixed.

Peace,
-Darakonis

Morty
2010-05-12, 04:01 PM
The way I see it, 4e hasn't really changed alignment but rather it stripped it to its bare bones: after removing the Law-Chaos axis it has only one purpose - to make the "Good Guys vs. Bad Guys" distinction clear-cut and being a part of the rules, not just fluff. So as far as I'm concerned, nothing is different.

Lord Raziere
2010-05-12, 04:06 PM
*shrugs* eh, on real adventures on the wizards boards, the character sheets don't even include alignment.

hey, wonder what DnD would be like without alignment? why don't we talk about that for once? DnD without alignments, how do you think DnD work without alignment, if there was no arbitrary/objective force of good and evil there?

I'm interested, tell me.

oxybe
2010-05-12, 04:34 PM
D&D WITH alignments: "hey guys Lord Vorpal Von Hackenslash is terrorizing the villagers of Thorpeton with his hordes of zombies!" and thus our band of homicidal heavily armed hobos adventurers left to save the village of Thorpeton

D&D WITHOUT alignments: "hey guys Lord Vorpal Von Hackenslash is terrorizing the villagers of Thorpeton with his hordes of zombies!" and thus our band of homicidal heavily armed hobos adventurers left to save the village of Thorpeton

DSCrankshaw
2010-05-12, 04:50 PM
I don't think it's that big a deal. They got rid of the old way mainly because they felt the alignment categories worked against role-playing, making it hard to make complex choices and punishing certain classes for acting in realistic ways. Plus, many players used it as an excuse to behave as jerks. Lawful stupid and chaotic stupid especially, but even True Neutral PCs could be pretty bad ("We saved the last village. Let's raze the next one, in order to maintain the balance."). They kept some alignment categories so you could paint your character in broad brush strokes still. Plus, the DM still needs to be able to tell whether the NPCs and monsters are good (LG and G), bad (E and CE), or ugly (U--or is that unaligned).

It is true that chaotic PCs are pretty much gone, but as I've been betrayed a few times by friends playing chaotic PCs, I'll admit that I don't miss them a whole lot.

And if you prefer the 3.5e system, use the 3.5e system. It won't affect how the game's mechanics.

hamishspence
2010-05-12, 04:57 PM
That's kind of ironic, considering the law/chaos axis was there first (from the Elric and Stormbringer Saga), and good/evil was added later.

The Holmes Basic D&D set has five alignments (LG, CG, N, LE, CE)

Later versions of Basic (the version used for BECM D&D) had only 3 alignments- Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic.

Maybe 4E D&D has more in common with the old "cross-shaped" alignment system. With LE and CG being blurred, so just being called "Evil" and "Good".

DabblerWizard
2010-05-12, 04:58 PM
And that's also why I think the 4ed system is just a lame regression to a much more simplistic model.

JonestheSpy: I appreciate you describing the historical-literary foundations of the early alignment systems.

The DnD alignment system really poorly parallels real life moral systems, and this irks me. However, I can at least now understand where they got their foundation. It's just a shame that philosophy is unappealing to many people.

I agree with your final statement. I could wrap my head around the 3.5 alignment system, and found it acceptable if taken in small doses, without too much consideration. The 4.0 system, though, is not really helpful at all. Thank goodness (!) it's not part of the mechanics any more.

Swordgleam
2010-05-12, 05:01 PM
Why would they have to be chibi?

Other than for reasons of win

I have no idea. I've always wondered.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-05-12, 05:07 PM
That's kind of ironic, considering the law/chaos axis was there first (from the Elric and Stormbringer Saga), and good/evil was added later.
Which is one reason I doubt that "nobody understands law/chaos."

Seriously, I think 3.5 did a fine job of summarizing the alignments. Why they provoke such confusion is something I will never be able to understand so I won't get into it.

...save that the anarchist example fails to provide enough information to determine G/E. For an elaboration, please read the spoiler.
While G/E is certainly measured by your beliefs, the beliefs espoused so far don't actually say whether the character is Good or Evil by the Nine Alignments System.

For reference:

Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit.
. . .
People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships.

So, how does the Anarchist feel about protecting Innocents?

An Anarchist who is fighting for the rights of everyone is going to be CG - he is looking to protect innocents in the way he sees fit. A CE Anarchist would be one who is bringing down society so that everyone will be "better off" in that nobody will be limited by The Law and they will be able to do whatever they please - including oppressing those weaker than yourself.

A CN Anarchist would be someone who just hates The Law and is trying to destroy it for its own sake. He doesn't particularly care who is hurt as a result of his actions, though he isn't going to do something that kills a large number of people just to make a point, either.

Re: 4e Alignment
It is important to note that Good & Evil are now the only important consideration when determining Alignment - despite the misnomers of "Lawful Good" and "Chaotic Evil."

This is not to say that L/C is banned in 4e - a "Lawful Good" 4e character would be LG in any other edition of D&D - but it is important to see what happened to it.

In particular, Unaligned is surprisingly capacious:

If you’re unaligned, you don’t actively seek to harm others or wish them ill. But you also don’t go out of your way to put yourself at risk without some hope for reward. You support law and order when doing so benefits you. You value your own freedom, without worrying too much about protecting the freedom of others.
Note that this covers N and CN fairly well. The second paragraph describes LN.

A few unaligned people, and most unaligned deities, aren’t undecided about alignment. Rather, they’ve chosen not to choose, either because they see the benefits of both good and evil or because they see themselves as above the concerns of morality.
Personally, I am bothered by lumping both LN and CN into the same Alignment but it is done this way to make a point - Law and Chaos are no longer points on the Alignment compass, anymore than Aggressive/Passive or Funky/Square.

Of course, this does make "Lawful Good" and "Chaotic Evil" look pretty strange. It's easier if you think of them as Exalted and Vile, as that is what they are.

Cavelcade
2010-05-12, 09:18 PM
So this is my first post on the forums, sorry if I seem overly simplistic.

My take on Law vs. Chaos (3.5) is that a person who is lawful will do what is lawful (wherever they are!), someone who is neutral will consider the laws as part of each decision they make but be willing to break them to achieve their ends and a chaotic person will do whatever they want to, regardless of the laws entirely. If their morality aligns with that of the laws, great, if not, too bad! Most people would fall under Neutral here. Note that if two legal systems clash, the lawful person will have an interesting dilemma for themselves as they have to decide either which to obey, or how to obey both at once.

For Good vs. Evil...well actually, this is the one I consider more difficult to define. A Good person is a person who will actively try and improve the lives of others, a neutral person will try to improve their own life but not try to make anyone else's worse whereas and Evil person would actively be making other people's lives worse. Again, most people are neutral. However, defining what makes life better is a tricky one and that's where the itty-gritty comes into it.

Swordgleam
2010-05-12, 09:23 PM
Evil person would actively be making other people's lives worse.

This is the part that is usually trouble. There are only a small number of people who thrive on the misery of others. There are plenty of people who are out for themselves and don't care who they trample on their way to the top. And a lot of people who would choose themself over another, but do their best to avoid hurting others while they pursue their goals. If the last one is neutral, where does that put the first? If the second one is neutral, where does that put the third?

Cavelcade
2010-05-12, 09:48 PM
This is the part that is usually trouble. There are only a small number of people who thrive on the misery of others. There are plenty of people who are out for themselves and don't care who they trample on their way to the top. And a lot of people who would choose themself over another, but do their best to avoid hurting others while they pursue their goals. If the last one is neutral, where does that put the first? If the second one is neutral, where does that put the third?

You are absolutely correct, there are only a small number of people who are actually sadistically, outright evil. This is true for real life and should hold true for DnD (or any roleplaying session). However, just because people can be 'more' evil than others (though this is a tricky subject to deal with) does not make them not-evil. The first and last of your examples I would classify as evil (I slightly misrepresented my idea in my above post, I guess harming 'unintended' victims who aren't avoided would also count as evil) but the middle is neutral, I would say.

The idea of more evil is I guess the tricky one. But that is just it, the alignment is not a perfect descriptor of every character trait, but rather what philosophy people take on. This doesn't even mean they'll always follow it - emotions can always overcome logic as I'm sure we all know. The fact is that there are variances and layers within each category, which is why people can play the same alignment in different ways and still be in agreement that both are the same alignment (eg, Roy vs. Hinjo. Was going to say Miko, but I'd have to clarify which era Miko I meant and I've seen the debates about her so.....Hinjo it is!).


I guess key points are as follows:
1) People can behave differently but belong to the same alignment.
2) Alignment describes the philosophy of the character rather than having each action fall into the category.

Cealocanth
2010-05-12, 09:54 PM
I have recently put together some sort of idea for an alignment system that can cover a wide range of attributes. I was inspired by a few paragraphs in the 4e player's handbook nonetheless.

The book contains a series of multiple choice questions that define your alignment. Questions like: When a law works agains you, you...
A: Accept it. The law is the law.
B: Openly resent and disrespect the very idea of it in the first place.
C: Whatever...
D: I don't know, could it really be that bad?

The resulting answers to these questions add up like a personality quiz, putting you into a catergory that somewhat defines your reccomendations, but not forbidden boundaries. This is then written down on your character sheet. You are not penalized or restricted by this boundary by any means, it just gives something for the DM to work off of as far as alignment based spells go.

Then again, what's the point with an alignment system in the first place? Why not just define your character's personality however you want and then RP it. Why be restricted at all?

Lord Raziere
2010-05-12, 11:46 PM
D&D WITH alignments: "hey guys Lord Vorpal Von Hackenslash is terrorizing the villagers of Thorpeton with his hordes of zombies!" and thus our band of homicidal heavily armed hobos adventurers left to save the village of Thorpeton

D&D WITHOUT alignments: "hey guys Lord Vorpal Von Hackenslash is terrorizing the villagers of Thorpeton with his hordes of zombies!" and thus our band of homicidal heavily armed hobos adventurers left to save the village of Thorpeton

that is such an unimaginative answer and it disappoints the romantic in me :smallfrown:

but from that answer, its very clear to follow by logic to ask this question: why don't you just listen to common sense and just get rid of the alignment system completely using rule zero since it has no more mechanical impact on the game anyways?

furthermore, if the game is the same with or without alignment and alignment so polarizing, why is it even an issue? :smallconfused: if its obvious enough to figure out in about four pages of an alignment thread, then just dispense with it right now.

there, gone. no alignment, what issue?

huttj509
2010-05-13, 12:17 AM
DnD without alignments:

"But why are we killing these ogres that are here?"

"Because they're, um, do we actually know that they've done anything? I mean, they don't even know we're here yet, should we say hi and see if they attack?"


Some groups enjoy moral grey areas and ethical questions. Others want an excuse to kill things and take their stuff without feeling bad.

I like starting with the latter, then twisting it into the former when the players aren't looking, mwahahaha. The moment they decided they wanted to try to free the Black Queen from any potential outside influence rather than killing her outright, I was grinning from ear to ear.

Tiki Snakes
2010-05-13, 12:29 AM
DnD without alignments:

"But why are we killing these ogres that are here?"

"Because they're Ogres, you numty. Now draw your sword and get to it, before the man-eating brutes realise we're here and we lose the element of suprise!" :smallwink:

Asbestos
2010-05-13, 12:38 AM
1. Chaotic Stupid. The CN alignment has caused me, as a DM, so much trouble over the years with players who believed that CN meant, "act in a completely random and unpredictable manner at all times."

"Why did you walk off with the torch, leaving your party to fight in darkness?"

"I'm CN!"

This is just one example--just about every alignment sparks debate, differing opinions, confusion... To accurately describe the alignments, the PHB would have to devote an entire chapter to the matter. Heck, maybe an entire sourcebook. After roughly a decade, the gaming population at large still has not reached a consensus on what, exactly, each 3e alignment means--which can lead to serious problems if you and your DM do not see things eye-to-eye.

Which brings us to...

2. Alignment in 4e is largely irrelevant, from a mechanics standpoint. It is now purely fluff, like mannerisms, background, and personality. If the DM disagrees with you about a certain alignment, it doesn't really matter.

In 3e, players were almost rewarded for being True Neutral by making them immune to the various spell effects that target Lawful, Chaotic, Evil, or Good characters. Perhaps something was added in 3.5, but in 3.0, there were no spells that affected Neutral.

In either case, a player may base his character's moral values on such mechanics, which is ridiculous.

In sum, the 4e system is much less of a headache, is flexible enough to substitute in any homebrewed alignment rules, and eliminates any metagame factors. Should the alignment system have been nixed entirely? Only if you also think the paragraphs describing Mannerisms, Personality, etc. should be nixed.
This is pretty much how I feel entirely. I also encountered Chaotic Stupid PCs btw, but as a player rather than a DM. I found it equally frustrating.

Mastikator
2010-05-13, 01:09 AM
"But why are we killing these ogres that are here?"

"Because they're, um, do we actually know that they've done anything? I mean, they don't even know we're here yet, should we say hi and see if they attack?"



"Hi"

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOME?"

"Um.. just wanted to say hi"

"Oh.. well YOU'RE TRESPASSING! GET OUT BEFORE I DECIDE TO EAT YOU!"

"Gee someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning"

"I'm sorry, it's just my wife left me and some adventurer punks vandalized my home, I feel really rude, let me make it up by offering you some of my food"

"Oh man this steak is great, but I don't recognize the taste, what is it?"

"Just some adventurers"

Math_Mage
2010-05-13, 01:25 AM
Then again, what's the point with an alignment system in the first place? Why not just define your character's personality however you want and then RP it. Why be restricted at all?

Why regard it as a restriction? Why dispense with a paradigm that can help you think about your character? It's not like choosing to look at your character on the alignment axes cuts off other ways of looking at the character. That isn't the *point* of the alignment system--as others note, it's a way of drawing cosmic sides in-game--but it is a perfectly valid reason to keep alignment around.

Illithid Savant
2010-05-13, 01:48 AM
Why regard it as a restriction? Why dispense with a paradigm that can help you think about your character? It's not like choosing to look at your character on the alignment axes cuts off other ways of looking at the character. That isn't the *point* of the alignment system--as others note, it's a way of drawing cosmic sides in-game--but it is a perfectly valid reason to keep alignment around.

Real people don't fit into the alignment system. If you want it as an excuse to be chaotic stupid or lawful stupid go ahead. If you want to play a game where your characters have any sort of depth, the alignment system can only hurt. In the end it's just another way to make something that should be blurry and complex into just another stat. I have no problems with roll-players, but most people aren't pure roll-players.

If you want to use it for cosmic sides, then the 4e system is fine, but only if you apply it to things like angels and demons.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-05-13, 02:12 AM
Real people don't fit into the alignment system. If you want it as an excuse to be chaotic stupid or lawful stupid go ahead. If you want to play a game where your characters have any sort of depth, the alignment system can only hurt. In the end it's just another way to make something that should be blurry and complex into just another stat. I have no problems with roll-players, but most people aren't pure roll-players.
Yeah, not so much.

Y'see, the actual definitions of the Nine Alignments are broad enough that people do in fact fit within them. It just turns out many real, modern people turn out to be Neutral.

As such, Alignment is a helpful way to assist folks into viewing their characters as Fantasy Heroes; people devoted to particular universal, objective points on a moral compass. Plus, it's a handy shorthand when a DM needs to RP a NPC on the spot.

For proof, please read this excerpt of the "Good & Evil" section of the SRD:

Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit.
. . .
People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships.
I think that covers all the bases, no?

N.B. L/C is a more complex axis than G/E but it is hardly incomprehensible. In any case, if you can distinguish people along G/E you can give them 4e Alignments.

Also: "fits within" is not the same as "defined by." The Nine Alignments are categories, not complete personalities.

The New Bruceski
2010-05-13, 02:28 AM
Yeah, not so much.

Y'see, the actual definitions of the Nine Alignments are broad enough that people do in fact fit within them. It just turns out many real, modern people turn out to be Neutral.

So the fact that most people fall in the catch-all for "too complex to fit in a single group" is evidence that the system is good? That sounds odd.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-05-13, 02:30 AM
So the fact that most people fall in the catch-all for "too complex to fit in a single group" is evidence that the system is good? That sounds odd.
No, it's that most (real) people aren't particularly devoted to Good, Evil, Law or Chaos.

However, such devotion is de riguer for a Fantasy Adventure.

For example: when was the last time you sacrificed to help a total stranger? Is it something you do often? AFAIK such people are few and far between IRL, yet that is the core trait of every Good character.

N.B. "Neutral" is not the catch-all for "too complex;" it's for people who are not particularly devoted to any of the points of the moral compass provided by the Nine Alignment System.

Alignment Sorting At Work
If Bob generally Protects the Innocent, then GOOD
If Bob generally Harms the Innocent, then EVIL
If Bob neither generally Protects the Innocent, nor generally Harms the Innocent, then NEUTRAL.

I suppose you could have someone who both Protects the Innocent and Harms the Innocent in equal parts - at which point you have to examine their motivation for such action. But I would argue few "real people" act in such a fashion.

huttj509
2010-05-13, 02:46 AM
I think that Math_Mage's point is that the narrower alignment definitions are more useful as a roleplaying reminder.

The character can have a different worldview from your own. This does not depend on what alignment system you use. However, having a narrower definition as a 2-word summary can help you remember what the worldview is tending towards, and help you stay in character as opposed to drifting back towards what you personally view as proper behavior. An alignment system with broader definitions does not serve as well as a point of reference for your characterization.

If that is indeed his point, and I have not overly perverted it, then I can understand that stance, IF the alignment is disassociated from mechanical benefits/penalties.

If there are any mechanical things that depend on alignment, then you need to put each character in a box that fits in order to know when the mechanics apply. At this point the nine alignments are trying to be dividing lines rather than points of reference. Smaller boxes make it harder to feel that a judgment call on when, say, you're unable to hold that holy sword, is well defined. Most of the alignment arguments I've seen are about where you draw the line between two alignments, and this matters because the 3.5 mechanics use them as boxes to put creatures into to know what affects them. Edit: I think it's mainly divisions on the Law/Chaos axis that people find harder, though the DM and Player differing on where the G/E lines are come up too. /Edit

As a role-playing aid, I think the 9 alignments can be useful in some situations. I think for 4E the designers were treating them as potential boxes to categorize PCs, and figured a 5-alignment system with a broad middle, smaller good/evil sections, and then Exalted and Vile (but LG and CE were terms players were more familiar with, I can sorta see why they may have felt the need to keep those terms), would be easier to use mechanically if it came up.

Note that as a role-playing aid, you can use whatever system you like to help you hold onto an idea of what your character is like. I suspect that folks who used the nine alignment system for role-playing reasons, saw the change which I suspect was more for mechanical reasons, and felt like the book was saying "your way is wrong."

Wow, I'm making a lot of assumptions and interpolations outside the data that I actually have. Well, hopefully it's more useful to understand where people on both sides may be coming from than dead wrong nonsense, though it's almost 4 AM here, it may be both.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-05-13, 02:51 AM
Wow, I'm making a lot of assumptions and interpolations outside the data that I actually have. Well, hopefully it's more useful to understand where people on both sides may be coming from than dead wrong nonsense, though it's almost 4 AM here, it may be both.
If it helps, that is exactly my belief in the utility of the system.

The purpose of Alignment Restrictions was two-fold
(1) Making "elite" classes even rarer (e.g. Paladins, Rangers)
(2) Ensuring that certain classes possessed codes of conduct within certain parameters.

Note that this is more a 2nd Edition thing. WotC completely lost sight of why Alignment Restrictions exist when they made Bards Non-Lawful. When TSR was running things, Alignment Restrictions made perfect sense.

hamishspence
2010-05-13, 03:46 AM
This is the part that is usually trouble. There are only a small number of people who thrive on the misery of others. There are plenty of people who are out for themselves and don't care who they trample on their way to the top. And a lot of people who would choose themself over another, but do their best to avoid hurting others while they pursue their goals. If the last one is neutral, where does that put the first? If the second one is neutral, where does that put the third?


The first and last of your examples I would classify as evil (I slightly misrepresented my idea in my above post, I guess harming 'unintended' victims who aren't avoided would also count as evil) but the middle is neutral, I would say.

This bit seems a bit odd to me. A person who is out for themselves, but goes out of their way to avoid harming others, would IMO be Neutral rather than evil.

Whereas a person who is out for themselves, and doesn't care about the harm they inflict on others, would be Evil.

Choosing yourself over another, would only be outright Evil- if the act of choosing involves causing harm to that other person- taking something that they have a right to.

Two people on a sinking ship- only one lifejacket- the person with the jacket chooses to keep it and not give it to another- this would be Neutral, not evil.

Two people on a sinking ship- one has gotten the life jacket first, the second forces them to give it up- this would be Evil- because in "choosing themselves over another" they are actively harming the other person, rather than passively not choosing to sacrifice their own life to save another.

Yora
2010-05-13, 03:56 AM
4e Alignment has Good, Evil, More Good, and More Evil. I don't understand why the words Law and Chaos appear in it at all.

hamishspence
2010-05-13, 04:00 AM
Possibly because "Lawful Good" is actually very strongly devoted to order- even in 4E- to the point that they might oppose overthrowing an Evil ruler if they think the disorder and chaos would be a bigger problem than leaving the ruler in place.

Whereas a Good character might think opposing evil is more important than maintaining order.

Similarly, an Evil character wants order, whereas a Chaotic Evil character tends to want destruction.

Yora
2010-05-13, 04:10 AM
That seems more like a straitjacket to me 2nd Ed/3rd Ed. alignment could ever be interpreted as.
Either you are lawful good, or you are less good than other good characters. And chaotic evil characters are always more evil than other evil characters. So you end up with paladins and baby eating demons as the ends of a single dimensional spectrum.

Not that any alignment forces a character to behave in any way, so that certain was of playing a character wouldn't be possible. But this seems to imply even more that there's only one way characters are supposed to be played like.

tcrudisi
2010-05-13, 04:12 AM
Two people on a sinking ship- only one lifejacket- the person with the jacket chooses to keep it and not give it to another- this would be Neutral, not evil.

Two people on a sinking ship- one has gotten the life jacket first, the second forces them to give it up- this would be Evil- because in "choosing themselves over another" they are actively harming the other person, rather than passively not choosing to sacrifice their own life to save another.

Whereas the Good action would be to give the lifejacket to the boat so that it stays afloat and you save everyone!

(This bit of random silliness was to hopefully bring some joy into a contested thread.)

Yora
2010-05-13, 04:15 AM
No, that would actually be neutral. You save yourself while at the same time finding a way that nobody else dies.
To be good, you would have to pay a personal price to save others.

hamishspence
2010-05-13, 04:16 AM
The point I was trying to make was that sometimes Lawful Good is less good than Good is- they can sometimes be more focussed on maintaining order, than on "doing Good"

On Chaotic Evil- while it tends to be more destructive and "tear things down" than Evil is, because of this destructiveness, Evil might actually be more dangerous than CE- because it is better organized.


There may be exceptions to "CE tends to destroy" though- Orcs, for example, in Faerun, have managed to build a kingdom of their own, which has diplomatic relations with its neighbours.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-05-13, 04:24 AM
That seems more like a straitjacket to me 2nd Ed/3rd Ed. alignment could ever be interpreted as.
Either you are lawful good, or you are less good than other good characters. And chaotic evil characters are always more evil than other evil characters. So you end up with paladins and baby eating demons as the ends of a single dimensional spectrum.

Not that any alignment forces a character to behave in any way, so that certain was of playing a character wouldn't be possible. But this seems to imply even more that there's only one way characters are supposed to be played like.
No, no, no - you're confusing variables with constraints.

When an Alignment is defined by two variables, you character is "locked" in those two respects - a Lawful Good character must be both Lawful and Good. However, there are many other aspects of a character which are not bound within the definition of either - Passive/Aggressive, Funky/Square, etc. The more variables you add to the definition, the more constraining it becomes - A LGF character must be Lawful, Good, and Funky instead of having the choice of being Funky or not as the situation demanded.

By removing the L/C axis, 4e gives more freedom by encompassing fewer aspects of your character than 3.5 within the strictures of Alignment. It's not a total freedom - Good is both NG and CG, but Lawful Good is only LG - but there is a lot more latitude.

Math_Mage
2010-05-13, 04:50 AM
Real people don't fit into the alignment system. If you want it as an excuse to be chaotic stupid or lawful stupid go ahead. If you want to play a game where your characters have any sort of depth, the alignment system can only hurt. In the end it's just another way to make something that should be blurry and complex into just another stat. I have no problems with roll-players, but most people aren't pure roll-players.

If you want to use it for cosmic sides, then the 4e system is fine, but only if you apply it to things like angels and demons.

Really, you're quite fond of making uncharitable assumptions about my play style. I understand that the alignment system encourages Lawful Stupid and Chaotic Stupid for those who are too lazy to make an actual character concept. I understand that pure rollplayers exist. But those are not the aspects of the system that I find to be valuable, and I would appreciate it if you avoided making such assertions. The "fine, if you want to be stupid I won't stop you" attitude isn't helping.

On 'fitting' into the alignment system: I'm not going to blame you for not having read my previous posts--that would be silly and self-centered. But I distinctly remember saying that my preference for an alignment system is one where most characters don't completely fit any one category. There is no point to having an alignment system that comfortably allocates any character to a single alignment. Then it really is just another stat.

I'm also confused by the ever-present opinion that alignment can only serve to replace character complexity with simplistic behavior. It's as if people think alignment is like wrapping paper, used to cover up the character with generic patterns, rather than a layer in the character itself. When you tell people that your character is Lawful Neutral, do you forget to mentally add the "because..."? When you build a character and casually think about what alignment it might be, do you not think about why your character might be better represented by one alignment or another? I mean, maybe you're so excellent a storyteller that you can build a complete, detailed character with eight pages of backstory without referencing such worthless devices as alignment. I like to let the character's potential alignment inform me of possible backstory details, and vice versa. So it's a little annoying when you sneer and say that the alignment system can only hurt this enterprise.



There may be exceptions to "CE tends to destroy" though- Orcs, for example, in Faerun, have managed to build a kingdom of their own, which has diplomatic relations with its neighbours.

I'm not sure Obould really counts as CE, though...:smalltongue:

Yora
2010-05-13, 05:46 AM
By removing the L/C axis, 4e gives more freedom by encompassing fewer aspects of your character than 3.5 within the strictures of Alignment. It's not a total freedom - Good is both NG and CG, but Lawful Good is only LG - but there is a lot more latitude.

I just think it doesn't make any sense to have LG if you don't have LE, and having CE if you don't have CG.


When an Alignment is defined by two variables, you character is "locked" in those two respects - a Lawful Good character must be both Lawful and Good.
And a human character must be human and a green object must be green. I don't see what you want to explain by this?

And as I see it, alignment doesn't lock a character into anything. It's a descriptor of the characters recent pattern of behavior. If he starts to change his view and shifts to a different pattern of behavior, the alignment changes too. What's the problem with that?

Kurald Galain
2010-05-13, 05:54 AM
For example: when was the last time you sacrificed to help a total stranger? Is it something you do often? AFAIK such people are few and far between IRL, yet that is the core trait of every Good character.
I suppose an issue with alignment is that most people in real life like to think of themselves as good, and most people like to think of themselves as either law-abiding nice people or cool and funky rebels, and as such they mentally redefine the respective alignments based on what they, personally, would do.

And, of course, everyone who redefines alignments in such a way does it slightly differently, and that easily leads to lots of discussion.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-05-13, 05:57 AM
And a human character must be human and a green object must be green. I don't see what you want to explain by this?

And as I see it, alignment doesn't lock a character into anything. It's a descriptor of the characters recent pattern of behavior. If he starts to change his view and shifts to a different pattern of behavior, the alignment changes too. What's the problem with that?
Your Alignment isn't supposed to change, for one. At least not unless you undergo an epiphany or corruption. If you don't treat your Alignment seriously, there's not much reason to have one - it's like writing "brown" for your hair color and then constantly describing it as blond.

Anyhow, unless I missed the context of your quote:

That seems more like a straitjacket to me 2nd Ed/3rd Ed. alignment could ever be interpreted as.

Either you are lawful good, or you are less good than other good characters. And chaotic evil characters are always more evil than other evil characters. So you end up with paladins and baby eating demons as the ends of a single dimensional spectrum.

Not that any alignment forces a character to behave in any way, so that certain was of playing a character wouldn't be possible. But this seems to imply even more that there's only one way characters are supposed to be played like.
It seems like you're saying 4e has a more restrictive Alignment system than 2nd or 3rd edition because it only has one axis (G/E) instead of two (G/E & L/C). If so, then I was pointing out that removing constraints actually increases the variation within a given category instead of reducing it.

And finally - yeah, keeping LG & CE was silly. They clearly meant for them to be Exalted and Vile - I guess they kept the old terms around for continuity's sake or something.

EDIT:

I suppose an issue with alignment is that most people in real life like to think of themselves as good, and most people like to think of themselves as either law-abiding nice people or cool and funky rebels, and as such they mentally redefine the respective alignments based on what they, personally, would do.

And, of course, everyone who redefines alignments in such a way does it slightly differently, and that easily leads to lots of discussion.
Oh yes, very true. But that's more an issue of the people doing the reading than the text - for the text is quite clear.

oxybe
2010-05-13, 06:16 AM
that is such an unimaginative answer and it disappoints the romantic in me :smallfrown:

but from that answer, its very clear to follow by logic to ask this question: why don't you just listen to common sense and just get rid of the alignment system completely using rule zero since it has no more mechanical impact on the game anyways?

furthermore, if the game is the same with or without alignment and alignment so polarizing, why is it even an issue? :smallconfused: if its obvious enough to figure out in about four pages of an alignment thread, then just dispense with it right now.

there, gone. no alignment, what issue?

romanticism died in me a long time ago.

honestly? if i could my +4 cleaver of cutting i'd gut alignment strait out of D&D. at best it's a simple footnote and at worst a straitjacket depending on the group & GM's interpretation.

i've met some GMs who were... abusive... towards the alignment system. they would actively penalize characters who didn't always follow his definition of the alignments outright ban some actions, totally disregarding what the character would actually do. otherwise, barring a class with alignment restrictions, it becomes basically a VERY vague shorthand for the personality of the character that would be better served by a small descriptive paragraph

i say remove alignment and put group rules in regards to behavior in place instead. you want to stop your player from killing each other? don't force a "good only" game, enforce the rule "don't be a d***hbag" and you'll be better off for it. you want to dissuade characters from doing something, don't tell them "a [alignment] character wouldn't do that/you know that sounds like something a [alignment] guy would do" tell them "yeah, doing that might just have some repercussions. alerting guards/lowering your rep with the public/ect..."

in our Wednesday game, our PCs are trying to change the balance of power from away the current corrupt government. we're not doing this because we're "good" or "chaotic" we're doing this because the government is a jerk and we believe we would be better served by someone else.

we've yet to actually kill anyone in our 3 "missions" (well, barring the sewer goblins that one time, but no one likes the goblins. at all. those jerks). we do hurt them, but make sure they're unconscious and in stable condition, then tied up/locked up where they can be found. why? not because we're "good" but because while the higher ups might be corrupt those guards/officials are probably just regular joes and we're trying to get the population to back us... and who would you support: the guards who do protect you but some are jerks or the guys who are more then willing & able to murder said guards to advance their cause of political upheaval?

we don't think "our characters are [Alignement X] so they would act this way", we think "our characters live and work in this town are tired of the officials acting like they do and want to change the power structure."

Oracle_Hunter
2010-05-13, 06:22 AM
So... Neutral then? :smalltongue:

EDIT: Slightly more serious - DMs who use Alignment as a bludgeon are one of the reasons Alignment Restrictions fell out of favor.

But I'll tell you one thing - as a DM I've sometimes reminded players of their Alignments in order for them to take a step back from the game and think about their characters.

It's all very well and good to say your worldview can be summed up in a single paragraph, but I've found it handy to have Alignment around for when something comes up I hadn't contemplated. It's a lot easier to ask "what would a LN response be here?" than "what would an ex-caravan guard, raised by a negligent father and abandoned by her warrior-queen mother do in this situation?" Oh, Alignment isn't the be all and end all, but it's handy when you're dealing with broader issues.

Yora
2010-05-13, 06:43 AM
Your Alignment isn't supposed to change, for one. At least not unless you undergo an epiphany or corruption. If you don't treat your Alignment seriously, there's not much reason to have one - it's like writing "brown" for your hair color and then constantly describing it as blond..
In that case we are talking about two completely different system that have very different purposes and only have in common that they both use the same terms introduced in an early edition of D&D.

I've heard people talk about your system before, but I wouldn't want to play in a game that uses it myself.
Though I agree that in this system, less options means more freedom as each option becomes wider.

hamishspence
2010-05-13, 07:06 AM
I'm not sure Obould really counts as CE, though...:smalltongue:

Maybe only mildly Chaotic- a bit like Grazzt in that respect- a schemer more than a destroyer.

4E makes Grazzt an ex-devil- explaining his unusual traits that way (he's not nearly as destructive as other demon lords).

Asbestos
2010-05-13, 07:15 AM
4E makes Grazzt an ex-devil- explaining his unusual traits that way (he's not nearly as destructive as other demon lords).
I like how 4e reorganized some of the demons/devils. Succubi being devils for example... just seems to click better than them being demons.

Yora
2010-05-13, 07:16 AM
I don't think so. Only if demons are supposed to be mindless baby eating chaotic stupid beasts that kill for the evulz.

Illithid Savant
2010-05-13, 07:28 AM
Really, you're quite fond of making uncharitable assumptions about my play style. I understand that the alignment system encourages Lawful Stupid and Chaotic Stupid for those who are too lazy to make an actual character concept. I understand that pure rollplayers exist. But those are not the aspects of the system that I find to be valuable, and I would appreciate it if you avoided making such assertions. The "fine, if you want to be stupid I won't stop you" attitude isn't helping.

On 'fitting' into the alignment system: I'm not going to blame you for not having read my previous posts--that would be silly and self-centered. But I distinctly remember saying that my preference for an alignment system is one where most characters don't completely fit any one category. There is no point to having an alignment system that comfortably allocates any character to a single alignment. Then it really is just another stat.

That's exactly what the 3e alignments are.


I'm also confused by the ever-present opinion that alignment can only serve to replace character complexity with simplistic behavior. It's as if people think alignment is like wrapping paper, used to cover up the character with generic patterns, rather than a layer in the character itself. When you tell people that your character is Lawful Neutral, do you forget to mentally add the "because..."? When you build a character and casually think about what alignment it might be, do you not think about why your character might be better represented by one alignment or another? I mean, maybe you're so excellent a storyteller that you can build a complete, detailed character with eight pages of backstory without referencing such worthless devices as alignment. I like to let the character's potential alignment inform me of possible backstory details, and vice versa. So it's a little annoying when you sneer and say that the alignment system can only hurt this enterprise.

When one decides to represent their character by an alignment, one automatically limits that character's potential. Terms like Lawful Neutral carry labels on how your character should be acting. You should be deciding how your character acts, not the alignment grid. Sure you can make a character and then say "oh I guess they belong here" but then what's the purpose of applying the alignment then? So spells like "detect good" can just throw out your concept and simplify it to a "knight kills dragon and rescues princess" fairytale?


Yeah, not so much.

Y'see, the actual definitions of the Nine Alignments are broad enough that people do in fact fit within them. It just turns out many real, modern people turn out to be Neutral.

Why are most people classified as neutral? Because it's there.


As such, Alignment is a helpful way to assist folks into viewing their characters as Fantasy Heroes; people devoted to particular universal, objective points on a moral compass. Plus, it's a handy shorthand when a DM needs to RP a NPC on the spot.

Like I said, nothing wrong with rollplayers.


For proof, please read this excerpt of the "Good & Evil" section of the SRD:

I think that covers all the bases, no?

For fairy tale characters, yes.


N.B. L/C is a more complex axis than G/E but it is hardly incomprehensible. In any case, if you can distinguish people along G/E you can give them 4e Alignments.

Also: "fits within" is not the same as "defined by." The Nine Alignments are categories, not complete personalities.

Real morality doesn't fit into categories, so they are still useless.

TheEmerged
2010-05-13, 08:06 AM
RE: Sacrificed to help a total stranger. Let's see, a week and a half ago? I'm on the schedule to do it next week, and the week after that is my monthly meal center work. And I don't mean in a give-money-so-someone-else-can way either.

I say this without bragging, but rather as a reminder that for some of us this is a fairly regular occurrance.

RE: Lawful Good =/= Ultimate Good. Mind if I use myself as an example here?

When I was in my teens/early 20's, I would have called myself Lawful Good when I was actually Lawful Neutral. As I grew up, I've ventured into Neutral Good territory -- working 'in the trenches' as it were I've come to understand that the Law is often part of the problem but the 'freedom' Chaos advertizes itself as is often worse. When the Law works I use it. When it doesn't? I don't. But I don't actively work against it either, so I'm not in Chaotic Good territory either.


(And I'm using "Law" above in the alignment sense, not the legal sense.)

---------------------------------------

As to the actual gaming question? I think 4e was right to divorce alignment from the mechanics of the system. It's a simplification that creates more arguments that it is worth, IMO. I still use the old system in my own 4e campaign, more for nostalgia than anything I find.

Kaiyanwang
2010-05-13, 09:01 AM
Maybe only mildly Chaotic- a bit like Grazzt in that respect- a schemer more than a destroyer.

4E makes Grazzt an ex-devil- explaining his unusual traits that way (he's not nearly as destructive as other demon lords).

Funny thing: that could very good... in 3.x alignment system. After several stereotyped falls from good to evil (Beelzebub, Malkizid) a fall from law to chaos without shifting the Evil part could be quite cool.

Even if... in pre 4th edition fiends it makes sense... in 4th edition not so much. Maybe it's me, I'm too much bound to traditions (and hence, lawful :smallbiggrin:).

I like the succubus being a demon. I like demon not only being chaotic in the sense of being destruction incarnate (even if, as a whole, I often play them this way) but even passions out of control.

hamishspence
2010-05-13, 09:07 AM
It's outlined in Manual of the Planes- Asmodeus sent Grazzt into the Abyss on a mission- he chose to stay.

4E devils tend to be more humanlike in appearance than 4E demons. Some of the exceptions (like gelugon "ice devils") are now said to be demons that came over to the side of the devils.

Maybe the reverse is also true, with mariliths being renegade devils who went with Grazzt into the Abyss, and were changed there?

Kaiyanwang
2010-05-13, 09:14 AM
It's outlined in Manual of the Planes- Asmodeus sent Grazzt into the Abyss on a mission- he chose to stay.

4E devils tend to be more humanlike in appearance than 4E demons. Some of the exceptions (like gelugon "ice devils") are now said to be demons that came over to the side of the devils.

Maybe the reverse is also true, with mariliths being renegade devils who went with Grazzt into the Abyss, and were changed there?

I ask.. barring the Grazz't thing and Succubus thing (that I don't like so much but makes really sense in the context) is all of this so much necessary?

Can't be the ice devil just an insectoid devil, and everybody is happy and forever damned? Why all this ret-con?

Not related, another thing about "old lawful evil is inside the new neutral evil" thing. Where are all the Yugoloth gone?
Did you played Yugoloth the same way as Devils or Demons in previous incarnations of the game?

BobTheDog
2010-05-13, 09:38 AM
Why all this ret-con?

This specific part of the "lore" changed basically because of the new definition of devils/demons.

Devils are now ex-celestials who got cursed because their boss (Asmodeus) betrayed his boss. Hence, they are all scheming, evil and humanoid-like.

Demons, on the other hand, were created when Tharizdun threw the Seed of Utter Evil(tm) into the Elemental Chaos and created the Abyss. Being corrupted primordials/elementals, they have varied looks and shapes and powers, and are all filled with hatred for everything.

Whenever something that was a demon/devil in older editions doesn't fit the mold, it's either moved to a different place or it gets some explanation as to why it's there (such as Grazzt).

Yugoloths I don't remember seeing in 4e, and I don't have the time right now to look it up.

ScionoftheVoid
2010-05-13, 10:15 AM
That's exactly what the 3e alignments are.

I can't disagree with this (though "exactly" is probably a stretch), but most stats still have a fluff impact (by default) so that's not necessarily a bad thing.




When one decides to represent their character by an alignment, one automatically limits that character's potential. Terms like Lawful Neutral carry labels on how your character should be acting. You should be deciding how your character acts, not the alignment grid.

Your alignment can change. It is generally better (IME) to look at your character and try to find an alignment that fits them than starting with the example behaviour for each alignment and building a character from that, those examples will probably lead to fairy-tale type charicatures. You seem to be assuming that the character should change to match two letters on a character sheet. That's like assuming any Druid that burns down trees on a regular basis is doing it wrong because their sheet says that they're a Druid. In both cases the solution is to alter the sheet or listen to an explanation of why their actions match what the sheet says, not change the character. There is an example of this in the DMG or PHB (can't remember which, something about a NG rogue that got changed to TN).


Sure you can make a character and then say "oh I guess they belong here" but then what's the purpose of applying the alignment then? So spells like "detect good" can just throw out your concept and simplify it to a "knight kills dragon and rescues princess" fairytale?

Applying alignment like that means that things can be black and white for players in favour of that, but that characters are not straightjacketed into an archetype if their player does not want them to be. If you don't let people change alignments and make them play each alignment only in a fairy-tale manner because you personally can't fit actions into alignment categories then alignment will be a straightjacket. It is not meant to be a straightjacket, so There are clear statements that alignments should be changed if the character is not acting in accordance with them (and anyone changing alignment all the time is TN). Why would "Detect Good" simplify your character to that? If anyone feels the need to make sure that you are good then you obviously aren't acting in such a fairy-tale manner and so your character is not being simplified to that anyway. That "knight" could be of any alignment, and Good covers a fair few concepts.


Why are most people classified as neutral? Because it's there.

I don't agree with what the person you were resonding to was saying and I can't understand what you mean here, so moving on.


Like I said, nothing wrong with rollplayers.

What you responded to had nothing to do with rollplay versus roleplay. It could be either.


For fairy tale characters, yes.

Seeing as the main difference is respect for innocent life, a measure often used when determining the morality of an action IRL, I'd say it works reasonably well for a lot more than that. I personally think that it doesn't actually do fairy-tale characters that well but if you insist.


Real morality doesn't fit into categories, so they are still useless.

Respect for innocent life=good, extreme disrespect for innocent life=evil is pretty much universal IRL. Hold on that sounds familiar... Almost like the basic split in that "fairy-tale morality". Exactly like it in fact. Real morality doesn't fit into categories as clearly because it doesn't have clear statements as to what is good or evil. In other words, that's because if we're in a game then it's one we can't see the rules for. In D&D morality is objective, IRL it is subjective. This makes it nigh-impossible to categorise people as "good" or "evil" in the real world, even if they won't object to the label we give. It is rather easy (well, easier) to put people into a D&D alignment because what makes someone Good or Evil or Lawful or Chaotic is spelled out and anything left over is Neutral (noting that in D&D Evil acts have a greater effect on alignment than Good acts, IIRC). The point is that real morality can be categorised, but it is harder and more likely to be debated because few people like being objectively called evil in a world where morality is subjective. Most D&D characters probably wouldn't like to be called Evil, even if it were objectively true, either.

I personally dislike the implication that Evil cannot be Lawful, Good cannot be Chaotic and Neutral cannot be either in 4e. It may have descriptions that seem like LE and CG but they could have used different terms. The implication that Lawful was more Good than Chaos was deliberately removed, why it needed to be dragged back is beyond me. Not being able to be non-good and non-evil without also being non-chaotic and non-lawful would bug me too. May I ask if Slaad and/or Inevitables are in 4e and if they are what are their alignments? I don't play 4e (not to my tastes, I'm in this thread to see the debate and chipped in 'cause this section was on 3.x alignments, I'm sure it's a good game for others though) so I don't know.

Kaiyanwang
2010-05-13, 10:19 AM
Devils are now ex-celestials who got cursed because their boss (Asmodeus) betrayed his boss. Hence, they are all scheming, evil and humanoid-like.



Ok.. but seems to me a little bit.. awkward all this movement.. is not simpler say that gelugons were beautiful but became giant frost bugs after the fall?

BobTheDog
2010-05-13, 10:58 AM
Ok.. but seems to me a little bit.. awkward all this movement.. is not simpler say that gelugons were beautiful but became giant frost bugs after the fall?

"Simpler" I don't think so. As valid as the official fluff, sure. Just as you can say that half-orcs were created by a mad wizard who wanted the perfect army (btw, they don't even get a definite origin in official 4e fluff).

Some people would cry out that it makes no sense for a subset of devils to be cursed differently, and it would make more sense for gelugons to be from somewhere else, and be part of the Nine Hells denizens for some other reason.

Personally, I like the idea... Angels of beauty and passion (warm) being cursed as ugly cold bugs. Very In Nomine.:smallbiggrin:

Illithid Savant
2010-05-13, 11:19 AM
I can't disagree with this (though "exactly" is probably a stretch), but most stats still have a fluff impact (by default) so that's not necessarily a bad thing.

But when the only purpose of a stat is to give you a fluff impact (or for a handful of spells/items to work) then maybe it shouldn't exist.


Your alignment can change. It is generally better (IME) to look at your character and try to find an alignment that fits them than starting with the example behaviour for each alignment and building a character from that, those examples will probably lead to fairy-tale type charicatures. You seem to be assuming that the character should change to match two letters on a character sheet. That's like assuming any Druid that burns down trees on a regular basis is doing it wrong because their sheet says that they're a Druid. In both cases the solution is to alter the sheet or listen to an explanation of why their actions match what the sheet says, not change the character. There is an example of this in the DMG or PHB (can't remember which, something about a NG rogue that got changed to TN).

I agree with you that you should change your alignment to fit your character, not the other way around. But why have the alignment then? Players needing to change their alignment to fit their character just helps my argument that it's constraining. Play the character how you want, don't worry about what pigeon hole it fits into.


Applying alignment like that means that things can be black and white for players in favour of that, but that characters are not straightjacketed into an archetype if their player does not want them to be. If you don't let people change alignments and make them play each alignment only in a fairy-tale manner because you personally can't fit actions into alignment categories then alignment will be a straightjacket. It is not meant to be a straightjacket, so There are clear statements that alignments should be changed if the character is not acting in accordance with them (and anyone changing alignment all the time is TN). Why would "Detect Good" simplify your character to that? If anyone feels the need to make sure that you are good then you obviously aren't acting in such a fairy-tale manner and so your character is not being simplified to that anyway. That "knight" could be of any alignment, and Good covers a fair few concepts.

Like Oracle Hunter you use TN as a catch-all. The fact that the alignment system needs a catch-all is a crack in it's foundation. The existence of things like "detect good" means either two things: that the world is black and white like a fairy tale or that "good" is a completely arbitrary.


What you responded to had nothing to do with rollplay versus roleplay. It could be either.

If you are playing with Fantasy Heroes devoted to objective points on a moral compass, you're not really gonna have complex characters. To be fair it could be light roleplaying but you can get the same sort of thing in modern video game RPGs. The shorthand bit is just silly.


Respect for innocent life=good, extreme disrespect for innocent life=evil is pretty much universal IRL. Hold on that sounds familiar... Almost like the basic split in that "fairy-tale morality". Exactly like it in fact. Real morality doesn't fit into categories as clearly because it doesn't have clear statements as to what is good or evil. In other words, that's because if we're in a game then it's one we can't see the rules for. In D&D morality is objective, IRL it is subjective. This makes it nigh-impossible to categorise people as "good" or "evil" in the real world, even if they won't object to the label we give. It is rather easy (well, easier) to put people into a D&D alignment because what makes someone Good or Evil or Lawful or Chaotic is spelled out and anything left over is Neutral (noting that in D&D Evil acts have a greater effect on alignment than Good acts, IIRC). The point is that real morality can be categorised, but it is harder and more likely to be debated because few people like being objectively called evil in a world where morality is subjective. Most D&D characters probably wouldn't like to be called Evil, even if it were objectively true, either.

I personally like my games not to have objective good and evil. Games with objective good and evil are fairy tales. There's nothing wrong with this, fairy tales are timeless for a reason. But don't pretend you can have deep characters in fairy tale.

Let me ask you something about this innocent life business. Where would someone who supports the torture of suspected terrorists or people suspected of having terrorist ties in order to protect people in an area wracked by terrorist acts lie?

hamishspence
2010-05-13, 12:22 PM
If you're going by BoED or FC2- such a person would be evil if they actually do this sort of thing routinely (torturing "villains" for info, or as part of the punishment system of the country).

Some acts are considered evil even if the victims aren't "innocent".

A person who approves of this, but has never done it themselves, might be Neutral though.

Daimbert
2010-05-13, 12:22 PM
A couple of points, so I won't quote back to the original points that I end up replying to, and apologize in advance.

I like alignment, like 3.5e's alignments, and like there being mechanical impacts for alignments because if there are you then have to think about alignment when making a character, and therefore think about where you fit on Law/Chaos and Good/Evil when making the character.

I'm shocked that people are claiming that they have issues understanding Law and Chaos, since it always seemed the easiest to me and, oddly enough, seems to be the area that moral philosophy has, in fact, actually figured out. Law would be: your moral philosophy is based on rules and/or objective calculations. Everyone in the same situation with the same abilities and knowledge should always do the same thing. There is no room for individual conscience or individual opinions in deciding your moral actions; there is, in fact, an objectively right answer to every single problem. Chaos would be: your moral philosophy is not based on rules at all, but on individual evaluations. Different people in the same circumstances with the same knowledge may well do different things, and that's okay. Your individual conscience is what you go with.

Essentially, for the philosophy geeks amongst you, Law is probably deontological and Chaos is relativist.

My opinion is that Lawful characters can allow for exceptions to the rules they follow -- but they don't have to -- and Chaotic characters can follow the rules and laws if their conscience says they should. Neutral characters then are probably best described as people who'd say that sometimes and in some areas we have to follow laws, but in some cases we have to follow our consciences.

Someone else asked about LN, and my first three characters ended up being LN. The first was a dwarven archivist who thought in a strict philosophical sense: he thought that the morally right thing to do was, in fact, determined by absolute rules that could apply to circumstances, but held that view above. He also, however, didn't think he knew what they were [grin]. So he acted mostly lawfully, but allowed for some uncertainty. He also, however, thought that the right moral code didn't not allow for complete self-sacrifice, meaning that he thought that there were times when moral people did things that might even hurt other people for their own gain, but that they shouldn't make a habit of it.

The second was an import from another media into a Ravenloft game, and while the original character's personality was more chaotic monk didn't allow it (I think) so I tweaked the character to be holding to a strict promise to live up to the memory of her former leader and drive her actions from that (and her initial training as a monk). But she was only interested in finding a purpose for her life, and didn't care about helping or hurting others outside of that. Hence neutral.

The third was a young teen in training who always followed the rules and honour but could be selfish (since she was a teen). The character was changed to neutral good in another campaign, as she relaxed her view that the rules are the way to solve all problems but decided -- due to an event -- that she should aim to help people in what she does.

See, one of the issues is that I think when we consider this, we always consider people to have to be the PARAGONS of their alignment. We ask "Why is this character lawful?" or "Why is this character good?" if they aren't the epitome. This, to me, in a game is the wrong way to go. For me, it's always been harder -- generally -- to answer "Why is my character NEUTRAL? Why don't they think rules are good, or bad? Why do they not have any strong opinion on whether we should sacrifice to help others or only think of ourselves?" Most people consider neutral a dumping ground for ideas that don't fit, but I think that you should have to have a philosophical reason for opting out of the debate.

If this is done, then DMs can be less restrictive with alignment shifts. If the characters aren't paragons, then they will make mistakes and not act according to their alignment occasionally. If it's too often, THEN the DM can warn them and shift it as appropriate. And characters can decide to change their alignment by changing their worldview. It's all good, as long as people generally agree with a decent argument for why their worldview fits an alignment, and I'd encourage DMs, then, to be fairly easy-going if they take the time to spin a good story, and hold them to their professed mindset.

And I agree that, for me, the right way to build a character is to come up with a basic personality, and then pick a class and an alignment for it. But I disagree that that makes alignments unnecessary, because of the second part of that: as you go through the alignments, you may find that either the class you want has an alignment restriction or that you read the alignment and discover that your personality doesn't fit it all that well. Since to me classes are important parts of my character, if my class doesn't fit I may go back and tweak the character to get the right class and have it fit in with the archetype. And the same thing with alignment: if LN sounds like more fun or more in line with where I want it to go than LG even though my base personality fits LG better, I may tweak the personality. It's the iterative process of this that makes everything fit.

And you can start from class and follow all the steps -- including alignment -- to get a personality, too.

Simplifying alignment takes something out of my thoughts and so makes it harder to make -- I think -- interesting and unique characters, because there isn't enough of a structure there. I can do it -- and have, since I've done a M&M character who had a distinctive personality and no alignment -- but it's nice when I don't have to make everything out of whole cloth, and can let the structure make some decisions for me or influence my thought process.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-05-13, 01:47 PM
In that case we are talking about two completely different system that have very different purposes and only have in common that they both use the same terms introduced in an early edition of D&D.
Oh... were you talking about a custom homebrew system? I thought we were talking about D&D. Sorry about that :smallredface:

@TheEmerged - Good for you! Naturally there are people who are non-Neutral, but they are no means as common as you'd find in a world of D&D.

N.B. Alignment is, game-wise, your actual beliefs - not your professed beliefs. It's easy to believe you're acting according to one set of principles when your actual principles are different. This is the reason that D&D places such a focus on the actions of characters when it comes to Alignment change; a player can write whatever they want on the character sheet, but if the character doesn't act that way, then the player wrote down the "wrong" Alignment. IRL there is no "character sheet" to show what your true alignment is, but in both systems Revealed Preferences (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference) are used to "prove" an Alignment.

@Illithid Savant - I kind of wish you'd use a little less invective when responding, but so it goes :smallsigh:

ScionoftheVoid
2010-05-13, 01:47 PM
But when the only purpose of a stat is to give you a fluff impact (or for a handful of spells/items to work) then maybe it shouldn't exist.

Plenty of things in D&D do just that, most are ignored instead of actively being suggested for being cut from the game despite that.


I agree with you that you should change your alignment to fit your character, not the other way around. But why have the alignment then? Players needing to change their alignment to fit their character just helps my argument that it's constraining. Play the character how you want, don't worry about what pigeon hole it fits into.

Pidgeon holing something implies that the categories are narrow. Players shouldn't need to change alignment that often unless the categories are very narrow, if they do change alignment often regardless the DMG suggests that you dump them in TN with all the other undecided people (as well as people who are TN for other reasons, of course). Alignment is not designed to be particularly constraining, if it appears to be so then that is a sign that you should tweak or drop alignment to make it more suited to your game, as with anything else. Not thinking of characters as paragons of their alignments is a very good idea, as is thinking about why the character is not just Neutral if you struggle to find reasons why they are aligned at all. Having to change your alignment occasionally is not so much a failing of the system as it is the reason alignments are not straightjackets and the rules for the are still contained in only a few pages. A system that allowed you to never change your alignment whilst still allowing you freedom in creating an interesting character, with changes in their worldview as the story goes on and suchlike, would probably be far longer than most are willing to read. People struggle with the grappling rules and they aren't that long.


Like Oracle Hunter you use TN as a catch-all. The fact that the alignment system needs a catch-all is a crack in it's foundation. The existence of things like "detect good" means either two things: that the world is black and white like a fairy tale or that "good" is a completely arbitrary.

It is the second. What actions are what alignment was decided by a group of people that didn't communicate much and weren't usually looking through other material apart from Core. This is why there are inconsitancies, errors, loopholes and downright contradicting statements throughout the game. What was considered Good in D&D was decided and printed and it does not always make sense. Those are not necessarily the only options in any case, that alignment is objective does not stop discussions about what category everything falls in. Discussions on in-game alignment happen here all the time, why wouldn't such things be commonplace in-world? TN is used as a catch-all because that's what it is. It accomodates people who do actions of all alignments with no notable trend, people who have decided to be TN, people who just don't care about their alignment, people who don't have the traits required for the alignment that they think themselves to be and much else besides. That is not a flaw, any system which accomodated everything with no exceptions would be more effort than it's worth.


If you are playing with Fantasy Heroes devoted to objective points on a moral compass, you're not really gonna have complex characters. To be fair it could be light roleplaying but you can get the same sort of thing in modern video game RPGs. The shorthand bit is just silly.

Why in the Nine couldn't you have complex characters? What shorthand bit?


I personally like my games not to have objective good and evil. Games with objective good and evil are fairy tales. There's nothing wrong with this, fairy tales are timeless for a reason. But don't pretend you can have deep characters in fairy tale.

They don't have to be fairy tales. They only become so if you make them so. That what is technically good is known does not prevent people from having depth. Why would anyone in a world with objective morality have any less depth than they would otherwise? I honestly can't think of a reason.


Let me ask you something about this innocent life business. Where would someone who supports the torture of suspected terrorists or people suspected of having terrorist ties in order to protect people in an area wracked by terrorist acts lie?

In terms of D&D morality? Evil if they participated in the torture themselves (inflicting not recieving, obviously), otherwise there is not enough information given to know. Evil acts are evil regardless of the victim's alignment. If that's not what you meant please inform me.

Zombimode
2010-05-13, 01:50 PM
I'm shocked that people are claiming that they have issues understanding Law and Chaos, since it always seemed the easiest to me and, oddly enough, seems to be the area that moral philosophy has, in fact, actually figured out.

"Lawful" and "chaotic" and anything related do not appear in moral philosophy.
This indicates that those are artifical categories made up by game desingers with no clues on philosophy.


Law would be: your moral philosophy is based on rules and/or objective calculations. Everyone in the same situation with the same abilities and knowledge should always do the same thing. There is no room for individual conscience or individual opinions in deciding your moral actions; there is, in fact, an objectively right answer to every single problem.

Moral philosophy is never based on rules and calculations because those are only methods. Moral philosophy is based on principles, goals, and anthropologic as well as metaphysic assumptions. Because there is no unified opinion on any of those aspects, ethic is a philosophical hot topic since over 2000 years.


Chaos would be: your moral philosophy is not based on rules at all, but on individual evaluations. Different people in the same circumstances with the same knowledge may well do different things, and that's okay. Your individual conscience is what you go with.

A moral philosophy based on individual evaluations without any objective measurement is no moral philosophy at all: it completely lacks any kind of interpersonal comparability of actions, which is the source of the prescriptivity (is this a word?) of moral judgments.
Now, you could say: well, the level of adhenrence to individual conscience is the objective principle and base for moral jugdments. But if I have understood your corectly this would put it under the lawful category.


Essentially, for the philosophy geeks amongst you, Law is probably deontological and Chaos is relativist.

1st: there is no such thing as a relativistic ethic. Yeah, some people claim there is, but people claim a lot of things.
2nd: and what about ethics that arent either "relativistic" nor deontological?


Bottom line:
All ethics are either not "lawful" because "lawful" are only the rules and calculations (which are only methods and helps, but not the theories itself), or all are "lawful" because they have to have some form of objective measurement.



My opinion is that Lawful characters can allow for exceptions to the rules they follow -- but they don't have to -- and Chaotic characters can follow the rules and laws if their conscience says they should. Neutral characters then are probably best described as people who'd say that sometimes and in some areas we have to follow laws, but in some cases we have to follow our consciences.

In other words:
Lawful: follows rules, execpt when they think its better not to follow them.
Chaotic: follows rules, execpt when they think its better not to follow them.
Neutral: follows rules, execpt when they think its better not to follow them.

Now, what was the difference between lawful, chaotic and neutral people again?

ScionoftheVoid
2010-05-13, 02:00 PM
Lawful: follows rules, execpt when they think its better not to follow them.
Chaotic: follows rules, execpt when they think its better not to follow them.
Neutral: follows rules, execpt when they think its better not to follow them.

Now, what was the difference between lawful, chaotic and neutral people again?

How "wrong" a rule has to be before it isn't better to follow it.

Agrippa
2010-05-13, 02:06 PM
No, that would actually be neutral. You save yourself while at the same time finding a way that nobody else dies.
To be good, you would have to pay a personal price to save others.

So by your diffinition Good is intentionally self destructive?

hamishspence
2010-05-13, 02:16 PM
By PHB definition- "Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others"

Not necessarily to the point of self destruction- but you can certainly make a case that in D&D, if you only do acts of benevolence which are not sacrificial, you're Neutral rather than Good.

ScionoftheVoid
2010-05-13, 02:28 PM
By PHB definition- "Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others"

Not necessarily to the point of self destruction- but you can certainly make a case that in D&D, if you only do acts of benevolence which are not sacrificial, you're Neutral rather than Good.

Though most would take it to mean making personal sacrifices when necessary. Good requiring you to make sacrifices where none are needed would be odd. Actually, I find Good odd anyway, I might just implement this (giving the players appropriate warning of course). Paladin falls because he dispatches threats too efficiently and therefore doesn't get enough Good acts, ha.

Zombimode
2010-05-13, 02:35 PM
How "wrong" a rule has to be before it isn't better to follow it.

Ok, but isnt this an evaluation depending on the rule in question? So it has to be made for every rule independently.

Some scenarios:

Subject A has encoutered 5 cases in his life where he had the choice of following or not following the rules in the particular case. Those cases were: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.
He followed the rules in case 1 and 4.

Subject B has encountered 6 cases in his life where he had the choice of following or not following the rules in the particular case. Those cases were: 2, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10
He followed the rules in case 2, 7, 8 and 10.

Subject C has only encountered 2 cases in his life where he had the choice of following or not following the rules in the particular case. Those cases were: 5 and 6.
He followed the rules in both cases, but would have chosed NOT to follow the rules in all other cases, but s/he never had the chance in his life to make this decision.

Now, on a superficial consideration subject A would be neutral or chaotic with neutral tendencies (40 %); subject B would be lawful (but a bit leaning to the neutral side) (66%) and subject C would be diehard lawful (100%).

But how are subject A and B even comparable? They mostly had not the same choices to make.

And what about subject C? Is he lawful because in all cases he choosed to follow the rules? Or is he chaotic because he would have chosed not to follow the rules in the majority of all posible cases?

hamishspence
2010-05-13, 02:37 PM
When necessary might be part of it- but it might also be required, to make small acts of self-sacrifice when not necessary- sacrificing your time, some of your wealth, and possibly putting yourself at risk.

A Neutral person would only make such sacrifices rarely- and generally for people they have an attachment to, when the situation is forced on them.

A Good person might seek out people to help- earmark a portion of their wealth to spend on helping others at their own cost, and so on.

If time is considered a sacrifice, then adventuring might qualify. in Roy's Judgement in OoTS the deva says:

"I don't think there's any doubt you're a Good man- you regularly battle the forces of Evil without compensation"

So spending time risking your own life- to help others (by defending them from Evil) for no gain, may qualify as the kind of sacrifice needed.

Adventurers who adventure for profit, to make themselves more rich and powerful- with helping others being only a "beneficial side-effect" should be closer to Neutral than Good though.

Daimbert
2010-05-13, 02:50 PM
"Lawful" and "chaotic" and anything related do not appear in moral philosophy.
This indicates that those are artifical categories made up by game desingers with no clues on philosophy.

Well, they all are in AD&D, so that really isn't any sort of objection. However, moral philosophy DOES distinguish between rules-based moral philosophies and ones that are not, which was my point.


Moral philosophy is never based on rules and calculations because those are only methods. Moral philosophy is based on principles, goals, and anthropologic as well as metaphysic assumptions. Because there is no unified opinion on any of those aspects, ethic is a philosophical hot topic since over 2000 years.

Sorry, but there are moral codes where the entirety of the moral code is indeed following objective rules or making objective calculations. Kant, for example. Or any religious one (follow the rules of the creator). You seem to be -- and this will be consistent in this post -- arguing that moral philosophy hasn't settled on which view is RIGHT. But that's not the point here. The point is in being able to tell the difference between a lawful -- follow rules -- and chaotic -- act on personal conscience -- alignment.


A moral philosophy based on individual evaluations without any objective measurement is no moral philosophy at all: it completely lacks any kind of interpersonal comparability of actions, which is the source of the prescriptivity (is this a word?) of moral judgments.

The actual objection to relativistic moral codes is, in fact, that you can't get a proscriptive mindset from them. And those that advocate them say that they don't care. Again, the distinction is indeed clear, whether or not it is correct.

The basic idea is that for relativistic views the only rule might be "You ought to act only on your own conscience". But that's not a rule at the right level to interfere with our discussions of alignment, since that's a rule about how to approach individual interactions and alignment is about individual interactions.


Now, you could say: well, the level of adhenrence to individual conscience is the objective principle and base for moral jugdments. But if I have understood your corectly this would put it under the lawful category.

I don't think they consider even that statement objective. Additionally, to be lawful you have to hold that different people in the same circumstances with the same knowledge should all do the same thing, which is NOT the case for acting on personal conscience.



1st: there is no such thing as a relativistic ethic. Yeah, some people claim there is, but people claim a lot of things.

Again, we are not talking about what is the correct view, but about the distinctions. People do hold relativistic viewpoints. Hume, for example, argued that moral answers were just value judgments, and just an expression of "I like X", "I dislike Y". Relativistic, certainly.


2nd: and what about ethics that arent either "relativistic" nor deontological?

They're probably neutral, but we'd have to look at them in detail to say for sure. Absolutist, BTW, is the word I prefer for deontological, and it makes the distinction far more clear. But having in-between states -- for views that, say, have no real notion of rules either pro or con -- is useful in this context.


Bottom line:
All ethics are either not "lawful" because "lawful" are only the rules and calculations (which are only methods and helps, but not the theories itself), or all are "lawful" because they have to have some form of objective measurement.

You are mixing up the justification for the system with how the system works. With alignment, we care how it works, not how people argue whether or not it is the right one. So this is all irrelevant to the issue of how Law and Chaos are confusing alignments.


In other words:
Lawful: follows rules, execpt when they think its better not to follow them.
Chaotic: follows rules, execpt when they think its better not to follow them.
Neutral: follows rules, execpt when they think its better not to follow them.

Now, what was the difference between lawful, chaotic and neutral people again?

Lawful: Follow the rules. The rules may have exceptions, but ultimately you should follow the rules. If there are exceptions, they should be driven from the spirit of the rules.
Chaotic: Follow your own conscience. If your conscience tells you to follow the rules, follow them, otherwise feel free to not follow them.
Neutral: In some cases, the rules take precedence, and we should always follow the rules. In some cases, personal conscience takes precedence over the rules.

Between Law and Chaos directly, the best way to sum it up is this: when in doubt, Lawful characters follow the laws as opposed to their own opinions and conscience, while Chaotic characters follow their own opinions and conscience as opposed to the rules.


Now, on a superficial consideration subject A would be neutral or chaotic with neutral tendencies (40 %); subject B would be lawful (but a bit leaning to the neutral side) (66%) and subject C would be diehard lawful (100%).

That's the problem right there: you don't do this on a superficial consideration. You judge it by overall philosophy and worldview. The idea is not to count up how often they actually follow the rules, but to look at what their attitude is towards following the rules, and why they do or do not follow rules in certain cases.

Asbestos
2010-05-13, 02:57 PM
I don't think so. Only if demons are supposed to be mindless baby eating chaotic stupid beasts that kill for the evulz.
No, I just expect CE demons from the infinite Abyss to be a bit more blunt than a succubus.

Math_Mage
2010-05-13, 04:32 PM
That's exactly what the 3e alignments are.

One post ago you were arguing that the alignment system is bad because most people don't fit into an alignment. Now you're arguing that the alignment system is bad because most people do fit into an alignment. Make up your mind.


When one decides to represent their character by an alignment, one automatically limits that character's potential.

This makes no sense. If I decide that the term 'Secular humanist' is a pretty good representation of my life philosophy, am I automatically limiting my potential? Or let's turn the order around: say I'm looking to build a life philosophy, and I think Secular Humanism is a pretty good place to start. Is that a limitation of my potential? You keep treating alignment and character depth as mutually exclusive, as if thinking about a character's alignment can never help you build or play a character concept. This simply isn't true.


Terms like Lawful Neutral carry labels on how your character should be acting. You should be deciding how your character acts, not the alignment grid.

Terms like Lawful Neutral carry implications for a character's viewpoint, but this can lead to a wildly different set of actions based on the rest of the character. You're considering alignment in isolation, rather than as an integrated part of a character concept. You're forgetting to ask "why?"

I mean, if you really consider alignment to be a straitjacket that dictates character actions, it's no wonder you think so ill of it.


Sure you can make a character and then say "oh I guess they belong here" but then what's the purpose of applying the alignment then? So spells like "detect good" can just throw out your concept and simplify it to a "knight kills dragon and rescues princess" fairytale?

This is the flip side of your false dichotomy; you seem to think that character building and playing must occur either entirely from the alignment viewpoint, or not at all from the alignment viewpoint.

And no, I'm not going to try to defend the mechanical impact of alignment from a roleplay perspective. That's mostly intended for the rollplay side of D&D. You keep hammering away at that red herring, if you like.


Why are most people classified as neutral? Because it's there.

Rather, because most real people do not have strong enough tendencies to qualify for other alignments. D&D characters are built to be extraordinary, and that applies to their alignment just like their magic or muscle.


Real morality doesn't fit into categories, so they are still useless.

I guess all those terms they throw out in philosophy class must be pretty useless. What are those, if not categories?

tcrudisi
2010-05-13, 05:17 PM
Ya know what -- I'm editing away my own comment. I'm not sure how it would be received. If you are interested in my views, feel free to IM me, but it's probably for the best if I removed it due to my fears that people would think I was trolling.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-05-13, 06:25 PM
Time to quote some text:


Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties.

Chaotic characters follow their consciences, resent being told what to do, favor new ideas over tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it.
. . .
Someone who is neutral with respect to law and chaos has a normal respect for authority and feels neither a compulsion to obey nor a compulsion to rebel. She is honest but can be tempted into lying or deceiving others.
Emphasis mine.

IMHO, these highlighted portions describe the major divisions of the L/C axis.

Lawful characters Respect Authority & Honor Tradition - they pay attention to, and follow, the law barring exceptional circumstances.

Chaotic characters Follow Their Consciences - they ignore, and denigrate, the law barring exceptional circumstances.

Neutral characters Feel No Compulsion Either Way - they follow the law or their consciences depending on which is the easiest way forward.

N.B. ignoring and denigrating the law does not mean you run around breaking laws for the lulz. However, it does mean that you are not about to let the "legal precedent" to affect your decision. Likewise, a Lawful character will always consider the Laws & Traditions that affect a given course of action before going forward. Still, they will break/violate them when it is absolutely necessary - and even then to the least extent possible.

Squider
2010-05-13, 10:31 PM
Wow, I honestly had intend to come and make a thread on that with that exact OP, then I saw this one. odd.

I never under stood the arguments about the alignment system before 4th and would have been kind of insulted by 4th's streamlining, if it was just gloss over the fact that 4 doesn't actually have an alignment system.

Of course the nine option spread doesn't make sense in the context of RL, it's a fantasy world. In RL everyone has specks of good, evil, law, and chaos. Thus I'd propose that everyone IRL is neutral. D&D Good isn't "I would be upset if someone punched an infant", It's an honest and powerful devotion to a sense that you can be better.

D&D alignments are larger then life, they act to extents that simply wouldn't make sense IRL, which is where all the illogical debate comes from, IMHO.

That being said, in the end it doesn't matter, because as long as your sitting at a relatively reasonable table, you'll find a system that everyone is alright with, and that's all the really matters

Shpadoinkle
2010-05-14, 12:00 AM
how alignments work in 4e.

They don't.

Tequila Sunrise
2010-05-14, 12:10 AM
They don't.
/thread

(Seriously, that's all you have to know.)

FoE
2010-05-14, 01:00 AM
In my opinion, the people who really love the old alignment system fall into three categories:

1) People who like to have long, tiresome arguments about whether certain actions are Chaotic Good, Lawful Evil, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Neutral, Lawful Chaotic, Chaotic Disco, Lawful Bubblegum, Neutral Giraffe, Black and Grey, Grey and Grey, Sort of a Whitish Grey With a Bit of Black, Black and White, It Doesn't Matter If You're Black and White, Beyond Good or Evil, Blue Control, White Weenie or Whatever I Feel Like At the Moment.

2) People who use the alignment system to justify reprehensible/zany actions at the game table. Hey, I had to moon the king/burn down the orphanage/slaughter that quest-giver. If I'm not adhering to Chaotic Attention Deficit Disorder every second, I'm not RPing.

3) DMs who love springing the alignment trap on your characters. "Sorry, your paladin falls for not adhering to the Turquoise Polka Dot alignment. You should have simultaneously donated money to the widow and burned down her house via time travel."

Personally, I think it gets in the way of important matters like killing things and taking their stuff.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-05-14, 01:01 AM
They don't.
Except when they do :smalltongue:

@FoE - Well, I think you can object to the misnomers of "Lawful Good" and "Chaotic Evil" when used in 4e without "loving" the Nine Alignments System. While I'm not particularly interested in arguing over who-is-what-alignment (mostly because I've never personally had trouble on that score) I think it's an elegant way to phrase a RP shorthand while reinforcing core concepts of the setting.

4e Alignment is fine, I suppose, but I can't say I feel comfortable collapsing LN and CN into a single Alignment. But I freely admit this is a YMMV situation.

EDIT: Now now, the Nine Alignment System sets up some interesting conflicts. If you consider faction along Alignment lines, you start to see some interesting interplay amongst the Neutrals and the 4 corners (LG, LE, CE, CG). A LN nation may prefer the alliance of the LG kingdom, but it may also sympathize with the LE faction-leader who finds the LG king too "weak" for the coming war. Likewise, the CG freedom-fighters might not get along with any of the Lawful types, even though they support the same ends as the LG.

Sure, you can have this sort of conflict without Alignment, but when you frame it in this fashion you can more naturally grasp the "Good vs. Evil" aesthetic of Heroic Fantasy. As framed by the 4e spectrum you just have two poles with an undifferentiated middle that just doesn't choose sides; it suggests far less complicated motivations.

Math_Mage
2010-05-14, 01:22 AM
In my opinion, the people who really love the old alignment system fall into three categories:

1) People who like to have long, tiresome arguments about whether certain actions are Chaotic Good, Lawful Evil, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Neutral, Lawful Chaotic, Chaotic Disco, Lawful Bubblegum, Neutral Giraffe, Black and Grey, Grey and Grey, Sort of a Whitish Grey With a Bit of Black, Black and White, It Doesn't Matter If You're Black and White, Beyond Good or Evil, Blue Control, White Weenie or Whatever I Feel Like At the Moment.

2) People who use the alignment system to justify reprehensible/zany actions at the game table. Hey, I had to moon the king/burn down the orphanage/slaughter that quest-giver. If I'm not adhering to Chaotic Attention Deficit Disorder every second, I'm not RPing.

3) DMs who love springing the alignment trap on your characters. "Sorry, your paladin falls for not adhering to the Turquoise Polka Dot alignment. You should have simultaneously donated money to the widow and burned down her house via time travel."

Personally, I think it gets in the way of important matters like killing things and taking their stuff.

Is there 'like' somewhere between love and dislike? I can understand that many people might dismiss the alignment system because of all the stereotypical nonsense that pops up, but why ignore the possibility that some might not?

FoE
2010-05-14, 01:39 AM
Alignment is a millstone to hang around a character's neck, and the less complicated the system is, the better. I look at character-building as an exercise in building a personality, not adhering to a vaguely-defined axis of morality. I don't worry about whether an action is Lawful Good or Chaotic Neutral or Neutral Neutral Penguin. I worry about whether an action is "in-character" for Kraagor Bloodaxe or Roy Greenhilt if I'm playing those characters.

The old system was especially over-stuffed and led to some of the excesses I listed above. And how can something as complicated as morality be whittled down to a few vague classifications? And how can a character's life history be summed up into a neat little two-word definition that determines how some spell or artifact affects you?

If I spent my life eating kittens, do I get to tango through a Protection from Kitten-Eaters spell because I repented my kitten-eating ways a day ago and converted to kiitten-petting? How about an hour ago? Five minutes? I swear, not one more delicious kitten will pass by my lips. Whoops, still got some paw on my cheek there.

Whatever, I'm just here to kill things. Point me in the direction you need something dead and let me get to work.

Math_Mage
2010-05-14, 01:44 AM
Alignment is a millstone to hang around a character's neck, and the less complicated the system is, the better. I look at character-building as an exercise in building a personality, not adhering to a vaguely-defined axis of morality. I don't worry about whether an action is Lawful Good or Chaotic Neutral or Neutral Neutral Penguin. I worry about whether an action is "in-character" for Kraagor Bloodaxe or Roy Greenhilt if I'm playing those characters.

The old system was especially over-stuffed and led to some of the excesses I listed above. And how can something as complicated as morality be whittled down to a few vague classifications? And how can a character's life history be summed up into a neat little two-word definition that determines how some spell or artifact affects you? If I spent my life eating kittens, do I get to tango through a Protection from Kitten-Eaters spell because I repented my kitten-eating ways a day ago?

How about an hour ago? Five minutes? I swear, not one more delicious kitten will pass by my lips. Whoops, still got some paw on my cheek there.

Whatever, I'm just here to kill things. Point me in the direction you need something dead and let me get to work.

*sigh*

Read my most recent response to Illithid Savant (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8487310&postcount=122). He expressed basically the same sentiments you do (albeit somewhat more provocatively), and I can't say anything to this that I didn't already say to that, or in other nice long posts earlier in the thread.

FoE
2010-05-14, 01:50 AM
If actions do not spring from alignment, then what is the need for it? Why not simply dispose of it and be done with it?

And yet despite everyone saying alignment should not be a straitjacket, that's entirely how it comes out in play if it's strictly adhered to, which is why a lot of people disregard it completely.

What is the point in a unneccessary add-on that leads to glaring excesses?

Convince me why D&D needs an alignment system, why it can't survive without it and is absolutely essential, and I'll throw away my sword and shield to hoist the alignment banner and march in its armies.

Math_Mage
2010-05-14, 02:05 AM
If actions do not spring from alignment, then what is the need for it? Why not simply dispose of it and be done with it?

And yet despite everyone saying alignment should not be a straitjacket, that's entirely how it comes out in play if it's strictly adhered to, which is why a lot of people disregard it completely.

What is the point in a unneccessary add-on that leads to glaring excesses?

Convince me why D&D needs an alignment system, why it can't survive without it and is absolutely essential, and I'll throw away my sword and shield to hoist the alignment banner and march in its armies.

Oh, come on. Is everyone going to play the fallacy of the excluded middle? Where is the space between 'absolutely essential' and 'worthless chaff'? Where is the space between 'completely free of abuse' and 'entirely without merit'? Where is the space between 'alignment is a straitjacket if strictly adhered to' and 'alignment is useless if ignored'? Let us reason with one another, not endlessly knock down straw men and hoist red herrings.

Kaiyanwang
2010-05-14, 02:06 AM
In my opinion, the people who really love the old alignment system fall into three categories:

1) People who like to have long, tiresome arguments about whether certain actions are Chaotic Good, Lawful Evil, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Neutral, Lawful Chaotic, Chaotic Disco, Lawful Bubblegum, Neutral Giraffe, Black and Grey, Grey and Grey, Sort of a Whitish Grey With a Bit of Black, Black and White, It Doesn't Matter If You're Black and White, Beyond Good or Evil, Blue Control, White Weenie or Whatever I Feel Like At the Moment.

2) People who use the alignment system to justify reprehensible/zany actions at the game table. Hey, I had to moon the king/burn down the orphanage/slaughter that quest-giver. If I'm not adhering to Chaotic Attention Deficit Disorder every second, I'm not RPing.

3) DMs who love springing the alignment trap on your characters. "Sorry, your paladin falls for not adhering to the Turquoise Polka Dot alignment. You should have simultaneously donated money to the widow and burned down her house via time travel."

This is almost insulting.



Personally, I think it gets in the way of important matters like killing things and taking their stuff.

Point is, not everybody see the game that way.

FoE
2010-05-14, 03:28 AM
So what does this middle ground entail? Because I see only two extremes: a system that must dictate a character's behaviour and is admittedly open to abuse, or a system that effectively amounts to a couple of words on a character sheet. And what does it bring to the table that wrings a little more enjoyment out of the game?

Coidzor
2010-05-14, 04:12 AM
I have to say, I've encountered more people who say, "No, you can't do that because your character is X" than people who keep a running tally of deeds in order to accurately shift alignments.

So, the reason you don't encounter very many people talking of the rational middle ground is because humans tend towards extremes of belief and interpretation, especially when they feel like being polarizing or a topic is polarizing in and of itself. So, most of the people one will end up playing with IRL will either disdain the alignment system or cling to it perhaps more than is sane or healthy. This will then color their perception of things.

I always figured if alignment weren't meant to be abused as a straitjacket and bludgeoning weapon by DMs, they would have included some guidelines for the ethical calculus that is alignment (since it seems to be only the sum total of one's deeds rather than an actual reflection of the inner person. Except when it is the sum total of the inner person.) in order to keep track of when to switch alignments. D&D has always seemed at least slightly schizophrenic to me when it comes to the subject though, so it might be another case of the developers and writers not being able to come to a consensus either.

Tyrandar
2010-05-14, 05:54 AM
As the mighty Giant once said, "Alignment is a guide, not a strait-jacket." It's sorta like the lines painted on a road versus a railroad track. You can swerve into the opposing lane if you want, but there'll be consequences unless you have a good reason (ex. you're driving an emergency vehicle, and that's about it).

Daimbert
2010-05-14, 06:15 AM
So what does this middle ground entail? Because I see only two extremes: a system that must dictate a character's behaviour and is admittedly open to abuse, or a system that effectively amounts to a couple of words on a character sheet. And what does it bring to the table that wrings a little more enjoyment out of the game?

It provides a structure that players can use when building their character to help define a personality, and a reference so that when they encounter situations in the game that they didn't think of at character creation they have a framework for how the character should react.

I see it as being like classes: a starting point or job that helps define who the character is. It doesn't settle everything about the character because there is a range of attitudes in each alignment, but at the end of the day you at least know if your character likes rules or not and if they like to help people or help themselves. It's nice, then, for new players as it gives them archetypes to work off of.

This is why I dislike the "You should act however you want" idea, since you'll tend to act in ways that you think give you a gaming advantage and less in terms of an overall personality, unless you really, really try to do so. An alignment that has mechanical implications forces you to, at least, think mechanically in terms of at least one aspect of your character's personality, limiting that sort of meta gaming (kinda).

Illithid Savant
2010-05-14, 07:46 AM
Plenty of things in D&D do just that, most are ignored instead of actively being suggested for being cut from the game despite that.

If they're ignored, maybe they should be cut.


Pidgeon holing something implies that the categories are narrow. Players shouldn't need to change alignment that often unless the categories are very narrow, if they do change alignment often regardless the DMG suggests that you dump them in TN with all the other undecided people (as well as people who are TN for other reasons, of course). Alignment is not designed to be particularly constraining, if it appears to be so then that is a sign that you should tweak or drop alignment to make it more suited to your game, as with anything else. Not thinking of characters as paragons of their alignments is a very good idea, as is thinking about why the character is not just Neutral if you struggle to find reasons why they are aligned at all. Having to change your alignment occasionally is not so much a failing of the system as it is the reason alignments are not straightjackets and the rules for the are still contained in only a few pages. A system that allowed you to never change your alignment whilst still allowing you freedom in creating an interesting character, with changes in their worldview as the story goes on and suchlike, would probably be far longer than most are willing to read. People struggle with the grappling rules and they aren't that long.

When I say pigeon holing, I don't mean that the categories are narrow, I mean that they come with ways your character ought to act. Of course you can change your character to another way they ought to act, but it's still constraining. Unless you drop them into the catch-all TN, which might as well be called Other.


It is the second. What actions are what alignment was decided by a group of people that didn't communicate much and weren't usually looking through other material apart from Core. This is why there are inconsitancies, errors, loopholes and downright contradicting statements throughout the game. What was considered Good in D&D was decided and printed and it does not always make sense. Those are not necessarily the only options in any case, that alignment is objective does not stop discussions about what category everything falls in. Discussions on in-game alignment happen here all the time, why wouldn't such things be commonplace in-world?

You keep speaking of reasons why the alignment system doesn't work and defending it in the same breath. It's very strange. You admit that good is arbitrary. That adds ambiguity to the system. Why not accept that ambiguity and throw out the system?

[quote]TN is used as a catch-all because that's what it is. It accomodates people who do actions of all alignments with no notable trend, people who have decided to be TN, people who just don't care about their alignment, people who don't have the traits required for the alignment that they think themselves to be and much else besides. That is not a flaw, any system which accomodated everything with no exceptions would be more effort than it's worth.

Try and think about why TN is the catch all. Let's look at the reasons you list someone might be TN.

"It accomodates people who do actions of all alignments with no notable trend" - these people reject the alignment system through their role-play.

"people who have decided to be TN" - these people embrace the alignment system and run into the problem of what their character ought to do because of their alignment or what they want their character to do. This doesn't have to be a problem a problem, but in any case it's limiting.

"people who just don't care about their alignment" - more people rejecting the alignment system

"people who don't have the traits required for the alignment that they think themselves to be " - still more rejection


Why in the Nine couldn't you have complex characters? What shorthand bit?

Let me answer your question with a question. What would the real world be like if there was an objective good, neutral, and evil and everyone knew about it? Things would be a lot more simple. The ambiguities of morality would go away. We could classify actions as either good, evil, or neutral. Sure you can still have characters with strengths and weaknesses, vices and virtues, but it would be clear where they lie, and that alignment category would be a label upon their forehead. Moral ambiguity facilitates complexity.

The shorthand thing was "Plus, it's a handy shorthand when a DM needs to RP a NPC on the spot."


They don't have to be fairy tales. They only become so if you make them so. That what is technically good is known does not prevent people from having depth. Why would anyone in a world with objective morality have any less depth than they would otherwise? I honestly can't think of a reason.

I talked about this just above, so I won't make a response here.


In terms of D&D morality? Evil if they participated in the torture themselves (inflicting not recieving, obviously), otherwise there is not enough information given to know. Evil acts are evil regardless of the victim's alignment. If that's not what you meant please inform me.

My point is in the real world we wouldn't call this person evil (I didn't mean they took part). We might disagree with them, but we wouldn't call them evil.


One post ago you were arguing that the alignment system is bad because most people don't fit into an alignment. Now you're arguing that the alignment system is bad because most people do fit into an alignment. Make up your mind.

I was speaking of this comment: "There is no point to having an alignment system that comfortably allocates any character to a single alignment"


This makes no sense. If I decide that the term 'Secular humanist' is a pretty good representation of my life philosophy, am I automatically limiting my potential? Or let's turn the order around: say I'm looking to build a life philosophy, and I think Secular Humanism is a pretty good place to start. Is that a limitation of my potential? You keep treating alignment and character depth as mutually exclusive, as if thinking about a character's alignment can never help you build or play a character concept. This simply isn't true.

If you decide upon a label for yourself you are limiting your potential because your potential changes from "anything" to, for example, "probably secular humanist". Look at the D&D alignment grid. It's a bunch of boxes. If secular humanism was to be looked at from the same sort of vantage point, it would be more like a gradient that fades into the page. There are lost of reasons one might call themselves secular humanist, and most of those reasons aren't because they fit nicely into under that label. With the D&D alignment system you either fit nicely under a label or you fall into the catch-all TN.


Terms like Lawful Neutral carry implications for a character's viewpoint, but this can lead to a wildly different set of actions based on the rest of the character. You're considering alignment in isolation, rather than as an integrated part of a character concept. You're forgetting to ask "why?"

I mean, if you really consider alignment to be a straitjacket that dictates character actions, it's no wonder you think so ill of it.

I've mentioned it before with Void Walker, but no, alignment doesn't dictate character actions. It dictates what a character with that label ought to do. So if your character doesn't do what it ought to do you change your alignment, probably to true neutral.


This is the flip side of your false dichotomy; you seem to think that character building and playing must occur either entirely from the alignment viewpoint, or not at all from the alignment viewpoint.

And no, I'm not going to try to defend the mechanical impact of alignment from a roleplay perspective. That's mostly intended for the rollplay side of D&D. You keep hammering away at that red herring, if you like.

Let me ask you something then. Why, in your opinion, does the alignment system exist?


Rather, because most real people do not have strong enough tendencies to qualify for other alignments. D&D characters are built to be extraordinary, and that applies to their alignment just like their magic or muscle.

When you say extraordinary, do you mean like a super hero? If so then I agree, alignment removes ambiguity and makes your character into a fairy tale character. That's what superheroes are, our modern mythology. Have you seen that alignment grid image where Batman is put under every alignment?


I guess all those terms they throw out in philosophy class must be pretty useless. What are those, if not categories?

I think leading the discussion into this area will lead to a derail.

Tiki Snakes
2010-05-14, 08:41 AM
Alignment is a trap.
Even if your DM is one who isn't likely to use it as a bludgeon, simply having it as a part of the game, in some small way, directs your character concept into those nine existing flavours.

Simply by acknoledging them, you have limited yourself, because that's how the human brain works. Like how people who are doing a police line-up feel obliged to pick someone (and can even convince themselves entirely that the person they pick is indeed the perp.)

Luckily, they removed the Alignment system from 4e. They did. They just happened to leave behind a hollow shell of it, it's shadow, as a comfort blanket for the types of people who by this point have an ingrained psychological need to codify their character according to the arbitrary little boxes.

Personally, when pretended there even IS an alignment system anymore, I choose to describe Unaligned as being what ALL the alignments where rolled into, with Good being Exalted / Directly allied to the self proclaimed forces of sparkly light and evil being Vile / Directly allied to the self proclaimed forces of Icky Dark Badness.

Then I just write Unaligned on all my characters sheets and get on with playing a person, in all their magnificent self-delusions and inherant contradictions.
Full in the knowledge that Ultimately, every action (even a self-less one) is done with selfish reasons in mind. But that's just me being bitter and jaded, perhaps.

hamishspence
2010-05-14, 09:21 AM
When I say pigeon holing, I don't mean that the categories are narrow, I mean that they come with ways your character ought to act. Of course you can change your character to another way they ought to act, but it's still constraining. Unless you drop them into the catch-all TN, which might as well be called Other.

the PHB does state that characters don't always act exactly according to their alignment. A Lawful Good character might occasionally do something Chaotic or Evil- it's just that these are rare.

The categories are the way the character ought to act most of the time- but exceptions are permissible without changing alignment.


So if your character doesn't do what it ought to do you change your alignment, probably to true neutral.

Evil is a rather wider category than Neutral. According to Champions of Ruin- repeatedly committing evil acts is the mark of an Evil character.

So a character who routinely does both Evil and Good things, or who exhibits both Evil and Good personality traits (like self-sacrifice or altruism for Good) is Evil, not Neutral.

Kaiyanwang
2010-05-14, 09:26 AM
So a character who routinely does both Evil and Good things, or who exhibits both Evil and Good personality traits (like self-sacrifice or altruism for Good) is Evil, not Neutral.

And, BTW, is the sign of the fact that by intention of the designer, you can play each alignemnt as a guideline and a, say, does not exist two LE identical characters.

IMO of course.

hamishspence
2010-05-14, 09:29 AM
Thats the impression I got from the PHB and the various splatbooks.

Lawful Good characters could vary a lot as well.

They might be mildly Good-strongly Lawful, mildly Lawful-strongly Good, mildly Lawful-mildly Good, strongly Lawful-strongly Good.

Which could be represented in shorthand as Lg, lG, lg, and LG :smallamused:

And that's before you start getting into personality traits.

Kelunas
2010-05-14, 09:48 AM
My understanding of 4ed alignment is that it no longer is a description of your character's personality like it was once meant to be. In 4ed, it is a description of, cosmically, which SIDE you are on.

LG: You are primarily interested in preserving the cosmic balance against the forces of entropy who seek to tear everything apart.
G: You are primarily interested in helping people live happier, safer lives.
E: You are primarily interested in using/abusing other people to achieve personal goals.
CE: You are primarily interested in the destruction of the world, universe, and/or multiverse.
Unaligned: You are primarily interested in goals which are entirely your own, not aligning with the other four cosmic outlooks on life.

I think most N druids from 3.5 with a viewpoint on protecting nature from things like Demons, Abberations, and other raving baddies might find themselves LG or Unaligned these days.

Many LG Paladins from 3.5 who are LG on a minor, help people every day scale, not on a protect humanity from the mindless horrors of beyond scale are reborn Good under 4ed alignments.

In 4ed, CE is the alignment of Cthulu. The alignment of anything so moon-bat crazy that it simply wants everything gone or driven crazy. This is distinctly NOT a PC alignment any more, short of running a game where the point is to end the world.

This is the only way alignment makes sense. Your character's personality is whatever your character's personality is; two axis (or 3, or 4) can't sufficiently describe the wealth of motivations and personalities that exist. You can be an honor-bound, stiff-necked crusader and be LG, Good, Unaligned, or Evil in 4ed Parlance (I can't see CE working there), where as in 3.5 that sounds distinctly LG, LN, or LE. What matters is, ultimately, at the end of the day, why does your character get up every morning? To make people's lives better? You're Good. To get what you want, no matter how many backs you must step on to get there? Evil. To fight the good fight, saving the world from forces beyond human comprehension? You, sire, are Lawful Good. To gorge yourself on the blood of innocents while the rest of the world burns down around your ears? Chaotic evil! Other? Unaligned.

I think that this best answers the OP's question. I think it's excellent that they have seperated the alignment system from the game mechanics. As a DM, I see the player's alignment as a hint to the DM about the type of adventure the player wants to have and the type of moral debates he wants.

A strongly polarized character (Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil) is going to be looking for clear-cut moral decisions. He will be more interested in a story about an order of paladins fighting off the demon horde for example.

Under the 4ed system, a character closer to Unaligned will be far more interested in the shadier and more ambiguous decisions that cannot be clearly placed on the alignment table since it depends on the point of view of the observer.

Your alignment should not directly influence your roleplay unless you want it to. Some players thrive on creating a character that adheres to a specific code of morality and that's great. Others prefer to play the personality of the character and let the alignment fall where it will and that's great too. What's important is that everybody enjoys the game in the manner that they want to without cramping the style of everybody else.

Think of the relationship between Roy and Belkar. Belkar would be Evil in 4ed. He simply wants to do whatever he wants and has no problem using and abusing others to do it. He delights in challenging the moral ideals of more polarized characters like Roy and Miko, showing them shades of gray that they try to deny the existence of. This actually enables Roy to better develop his own character by strugling to justify his own actions according to his own code of morality and forces him to make more complex moral decisions. Deciding to smite a demon bent on killing everyone you love is easy, deciding to kill an innocent child to prevent it from infecting the rest of a village with lycantropy, that's hard.

I also see the campaign as having an alignment of it's own. The OOTS is a Lawful Good campaign, they are primarily interested in preventing the forces of entropy (the scribble monster) from tearing the world apart. The players each approach the campaign according to their own goals (acquisition of wealth, loyalty to Roy, curiosity, a sense of obligation to live up to their own code of conduct, etc) but the general storyline assumes a Lawful Good goal.

My point is, your alignment should be a source of inspiration to create a character with strong goals and a deep sense of purpose and it should be a way to communicate that goal and purpose to the DM. Your alignment should empower you to create more interesting and deep characters, it should not be forced upon you anymore than you want it to. To me your alignment is very similar to the character themes they presented in 3.5's PHB2.

I recommend DMs check out this video created for video game designers to get them thinking about designing deeper and more stimulating moral choices into video games.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_KU3lUx3u0

hamishspence
2010-05-14, 10:28 AM
The 4E splatbook The Plane Above seemed to emphasise that the gods, while they might prefer the company of gods like themselves, aren't exactly directly opposed to gods of other alignments, either.

Grummsh, while CE, usually fought alongside the gods rather than the primordials.

The deities while of varying alignments, were led by the Evil-aligned Bane, in the war.

Tiamat and Zehir, while both Evil-aligned, are enemies- so not all Evil beings "are on the same side".

And so on.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-05-14, 11:39 AM
Then I just write Unaligned on all my characters sheets and get on with playing a person, in all their magnificent self-delusions and inherant contradictions.

Full in the knowledge that Ultimately, every action (even a self-less one) is done with selfish reasons in mind. But that's just me being bitter and jaded, perhaps.
Doesn't anyone think that people have core beliefs or personalities?

Seriously. This post, FoE's "millstone" post and several others all seem to be saying "people act randomly all the time." Or, to put it less obliquely - that people do not operate with consistent principles.

Because that is what alignment is - a broad series of principles that remain consistent with your character over time. They are no more a millstone than writing "male" on your character burdens you with a choice of gender.

It's as Math_Mage says - the idea that "Alignment is a Straightjacket" or "Alignment is Meaningless" is a False Dilemma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_excluded_middle).
To write the proposition in the form of Morton's Fork:

"Either Alignment is a straight-jacket, and is bad because it forces your character to act one certain way, or Alignment is without meaning, in which case it provides no guidance and serves only to confuse people."

The third way is:

Alignment is a tool for developing your character’s identity. It is not a straitjacket for restricting your character. Each alignment represents a broad range of personality types or personal philosophies, so two characters of the same alignment can still be quite different from each other. In addition, few people are completely consistent.

Bad DMs are bad DMs, and bad Players are bad Players - anyone can abuse a system if they're jerks about it. For the DM that forces you to act in a certain way, point to above paragraph - it's in the PHB; for PCs that falsely claim an Alignment, make them prove it by consistent action within the broad range of their supposed Alignment.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - Alignment is a method of categorization, not prescription. You, the Player, are supposed to pick an Alignment that fits your character - if you do not plan on playing a LG character, then don't write LG on your character sheet! However, once you make that decision, everyone is going to be expecting you to work within the broad strictures of your choice. The DM may watch your actions, but that is for a double reason:

(1) Alignment has been important for certain in-game effects (pre-4e) so if your character is not acting according to their listed Alignment, it is important that the correct one be listed on their sheet. It's like keeping track of magical effects or class choice - it has an in-game effect, and it's the DM's job to referee the game.

(2) DMs have an interest in promoting good RP. If a player is walking around talking about videogames to the local cleric the DM might chide them for "being out of character." Likewise, if a player is playing a CG Fighter but spends all their time beating up widows and orphans, the DM may chide them for the same reason.
Now, why is Alignment important for D&D? For the very reason Tiki Snakes wrote - "simply having it as a part of the game, in some small way, directs your character concept into those nine existing flavours."

This is because D&D is framed (as a game of Heroic Fantasy) as a struggle between poles - Good versus Evil, Law versus Chaos. When the whole world is wrapped up in these battles, it's important for the protagonists to - at the very least - think about which side they're on. If they decide that they don't ascribe to any of those world views they can be Neutral - trying to get by without stepping on anyone's toes. But if you want to wield a Holy Avenger you had better be supporting the side of Good and if you are going to seek help from Devils and Demons you are going to be its implacable enemy.

If you don't want to play a game where these motifs are present then Alignment serves a less useful function - it's like trying to play D&D with oWoD's "Humanity" morality system - but they can still serve as useful shorthands for your character's core beliefs; helpful when you are faced with a situation that you - as a player - hadn't previously contemplated when designing your character's persona.

hamishspence
2010-05-14, 11:44 AM
But if you want to wield a Holy Avenger you had better be supporting the side of Good and if you are going to seek help from Devils and Demons you are going to be its implacable enemy.

Except on the extremely rare occasions when the character seeks help from demons, to fight demons, on an "enemy of my enemy" principle.

The Savage Tide had this as part of the last few episodes.

In fact, the characters seek help from both demons and eladrins, and have to persuade them to help-

so its you + some demons + some eladrins, vs Demogorgon.

For an example of devils and archons teaming up, there is the Regulators organization in the Epic Handbook.

That said, it's a pretty good general rule that if you're Good, evil beings in general and beings with the Evil subtype in particular, will usually be your enemies- but exceptions will still exist.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-05-14, 11:54 AM
Except on the extremely rare occasions when the character seeks help from demons, to fight demons, on an "enemy of my enemy" principle.
. . .
That said, it's a pretty good general rule that if you're Good, evil beings in general and beings with the Evil subtype in particular, will usually be your enemies- but exceptions will still exist.
D&D does use "enemy of my enemy" sometimes, but rarely do (or should) Good & Evil support each other - if for no other reason that Evil generally wants human sacrifices or other Evil acts to be performed to gain their help.

Better formulation: "The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy, no more, no less" (http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20030929.html) :smallbiggrin:

hamishspence
2010-05-14, 12:10 PM
Interestingly in 4E, Evil and Good (and LG) deities routinely worked together during the war against the primordials.

This is one of the reasons that while they frequently try to thwart the plans of each other, they don't generally attack each other.

In The Plane Above:


Even the gods who hate each other the most (Bahamut and Tiamat, Avandra and Zehir, Moradin and Asmodeus) seldom launch direct attacks against each other. No matter how much they might hate each other, the gods fought on the same side in the Dawn War while a great number of other deities were destroyed.

The primordials may have been beaten down, but they are still a threat. Evil gods who ultimately intend to pin all the other gods and the world below beneath their heel are conscious of the fact that as the cosmos is presently balanced, their moment of victory would pass too quickly, replaced by eternal dispair as they were themselves crushed by the resurgent primordials.
The good and unaligned gods are likewise conscious of the fact that the full might of all the gods is what contains the primordials, no matter how much one god might want to permanently eliminate or maim a hated rival. The god slain today could be the god who was destined to be your savior in the next war against the primordials or the Far Realm.

As gods of chaos, Lolth and Tharizdun have demonstrated that they might side with the primordials in the next war. Gruumsh is chaotic and unreliable, but the odds are he would fight against chaos and the primordials more oten than against the gods, much as he did in the Dawn War.

Daimbert
2010-05-14, 12:41 PM
Doesn't anyone think that people have core beliefs or personalities?

Seriously. This post, FoE's "millstone" post and several others all seem to be saying "people act randomly all the time." Or, to put it less obliquely - that people do not operate with consistent principles.

Personally, I think I tend -- in real life -- towards being Lawful, but certainly more "Spirit of the law" than "Letter of the law". I deal with processes as part of my job, and while I generally try to follow them I'll often use them to do something useful as opposed to what the letter says we should do. I also tend to follow rules in general and think things go far better when people simply follow the rules, most of the time. And I submit that most people fit somewhere in this category.

So, yeah, real people can have alignments that aren't just "True Neutral".

ShaggyMarco
2010-05-14, 12:43 PM
Interestingly in 4E, Evil and Good (and LG) deities routinely worked together during the war against the primordials.

This is because Evil gods, Good gods, and especially LG gods like the universe the way it is. It's where they keep all of their stuff.

CE gods seem to want to burn the sucker down. Gruumsh is an interesting exception...he wants to destroy EVERYTHING, so CE works. Why side with the gods?

Nightson
2010-05-14, 01:02 PM
This is because Evil gods, Good gods, and especially LG gods like the universe the way it is. It's where they keep all of their stuff.

CE gods seem to want to burn the sucker down. Gruumsh is an interesting exception...he wants to destroy EVERYTHING, so CE works. Why side with the gods?

Because if all of existence really were reduced to chaos he wouldn't have things to destroy anymore/

WoodenSword
2010-05-14, 01:13 PM
4e alignment shoulda stayed in the 3.5 format:

http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/84/dndcharthf7.png (http://img117.imageshack.us/i/dndcharthf7.png/)

The Rose Dragon
2010-05-14, 01:14 PM
The Medic as Lawful Good?

The guy who could only earn his M.D. when the Hippocratic Oath was downgraded to a Hippocratic Suggestion?

Really?

nightwyrm
2010-05-14, 01:47 PM
So the 4e gods are one big Nakama (http://http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Nakama).

Math_Mage
2010-05-14, 04:22 PM
I was speaking of this comment: "There is no point to having an alignment system that comfortably allocates any character to a single alignment"

I know. In your earlier post, you denigrated the alignment system because 'most real people don't fit the alignment system'. Now you are claiming that 3.5's alignment 'boxes' are broad enough to comfortably contain anybody. My issues with each statement aside, you are being inconsistent, which makes it difficult to hold a discussion.


If you decide upon a label for yourself you are limiting your potential because your potential changes from "anything" to, for example, "probably secular humanist". Look at the D&D alignment grid. It's a bunch of boxes. If secular humanism was to be looked at from the same sort of vantage point, it would be more like a gradient that fades into the page. There are lost of reasons one might call themselves secular humanist, and most of those reasons aren't because they fit nicely into under that label. With the D&D alignment system you either fit nicely under a label or you fall into the catch-all TN.

I'm sorry, I was under the impression that you meant 'limiting your potential' as something negative. Every time I make a choice about what my character is like, I am limiting his/her potential. Every decision is a potential constraint on future decisions. But if I didn't make decisions for fear of limiting potential, I'd never get a character. If I didn't make any decisions about what I think my life philosophy should be, I'd never have one.

Tell me--why do you think characters must 'fit nicely under a label' in order to avoid falling into TN? I think it ties in with your exclusion of the middle, illustrated below:


I've mentioned it before with Void Walker, but no, alignment doesn't dictate character actions. It dictates suggests what a character with that label ought to do.

Fixed that for you. I told you, I'm looking for a middle ground between the straitjacket and the useless chaff.


So if your character doesn't do what it ought to do you change your alignment, probably to true neutral.

Or, you realize that alignment is not an absolute dictatorship. Characters can be bigger than their alignment, without making the alignment system meaningless.


Let me ask you something then. Why, in your opinion, does the alignment system exist?

Oracle Hunter posted the SRD citation, and I think that's a pretty good assessment. In fact, Oracle Hunter's post is basically where I stand on the subject of alignment.


When you say extraordinary, do you mean like a super hero? If so then I agree, alignment removes ambiguity and makes your character into a fairy tale character. That's what superheroes are, our modern mythology. Have you seen that alignment grid image where Batman is put under every alignment?

Leaving aside the fact that Batman's ambiguous alignment is in no small part due to multiple authorship, the ambiguity of one's character concept hardly correlates to the quality of one's character concept. But I'll drop this argument, as I've never really bought the assertion that real-life people are all TN, just as I've never really bought the assertion that the only away to be associated with an alignment is to fit completely into that alignment. I apologize for the inconsistency on my part.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-14, 04:29 PM
The Medic as Lawful Good?

The guy who could only earn his M.D. when the Hippocratic Oath was downgraded to a Hippocratic Suggestion?

Really?

Having just come off a TF2 Wiki trawl, that was my first reaction too. I'd swap him and the Spy, except for the fact that Spy's video evidences him as having an affair with Scout's mom - not Lawful behavior.:smallbiggrin:

FoE
2010-05-14, 04:35 PM
This is because D&D is framed (as a game of Heroic Fantasy) as a struggle between poles - Good versus Evil, Law versus Chaos

Eberron called. The setting would like to have a word with you.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-05-14, 05:17 PM
Eberron called. The setting would like to have a word with you.
It's welcome to. The exception does not make the rule :smalltongue:

Heck, even Eberron has Good vs. Evil - The Emerald Claw et al are clearly Evil organizations bent on power and domination. Just because little of the rest of the world can be called wholly Good (the Silver Flame having been made to Kick the Dog via pointless pogroms) does not mean that the whole dang place is suddenly a morass of gray.

And, of course, Law vs. Chaos is still a major conflict even in the setting with the greatest claim on being a Gray/Grey world.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-14, 05:26 PM
It's welcome to. The exception does not make the rule :smalltongue:

Heck, even Eberron has Good vs. Evil - The Emerald Claw et al are clearly Evil organizations bent on power and domination. Just because little of the rest of the world can be called wholly Good (the Silver Flame having been made to Kick the Dog via pointless pogroms) does not mean that the whole dang place is suddenly a morass of gray.

And, of course, Law vs. Chaos is still a major conflict even in the setting with the greatest claim on being a Gray/Grey world.

Is it an exception, though? Major settings, at least to the point of being recognizable by a majority of players:
-Forgotten Realms (High Fantasy, Good vs. Evil, Yes)
-Grayhawk (High Fantasy, Good vs. Evil, Yes)
-Ebberon (Magicpunk? Murky Alignments, No)
-Planescape (Kitchen Sink, Hell No)
-Spelljammer (D&D IN SPAAAAACE, varies widely, N/A)
-Dark Sun (Survival, No)
-Dragonlance (pretty much defined by Good vs. Evil, so Yes)
-Ravenloft (Gothic Horror, you're kidding right?)

3 settings strongly defined by Good vs. Evil, 4 settings that either don't care about Good vs. Evil or actively subvert it, and 1 that I couldn't effectively classify.

Cealocanth
2010-05-14, 10:21 PM
Alignment is a trap.
Even if your DM is one who isn't likely to use it as a bludgeon, simply having it as a part of the game, in some small way, directs your character concept into those nine existing flavours.

Simply by acknoledging them, you have limited yourself, because that's how the human brain works. Like how people who are doing a police line-up feel obliged to pick someone (and can even convince themselves entirely that the person they pick is indeed the perp.)

Luckily, they removed the Alignment system from 4e. They did. They just happened to leave behind a hollow shell of it, it's shadow, as a comfort blanket for the types of people who by this point have an ingrained psychological need to codify their character according to the arbitrary little boxes.

Personally, when pretended there even IS an alignment system anymore, I choose to describe Unaligned as being what ALL the alignments where rolled into, with Good being Exalted / Directly allied to the self proclaimed forces of sparkly light and evil being Vile / Directly allied to the self proclaimed forces of Icky Dark Badness.

Then I just write Unaligned on all my characters sheets and get on with playing a person, in all their magnificent self-delusions and inherant contradictions.
Full in the knowledge that Ultimately, every action (even a self-less one) is done with selfish reasons in mind. But that's just me being bitter and jaded, perhaps.

Wow, that is so deep, I'm drowning in it. Preach on man. :smallcool:

As a response; Then there are the people who grew up in an alignment system that doesn't restrict people into "nine flavors" but categorizes these flavors into millions of sub flavors that stem from each flavor within the whole flavor that is the 3.5 alignment system as compared to other edition's flavors.

There are Chaotic Evil characters like Xykon that kill for fun and hate the concept of other people in their life, then there are Chaotic Evil characters like Belkar that are psychotic and kill crazy, but can live with people and mind their own buisness.

This is why my group can use the old system, because it's just a way to catergorize now, instead of being a barrier. So what if my palladin is LG, he can still be ignorant, napoleonic, unwilling to accept denial, and can hide behind Bahumut when he just can't stop digging.

Touchy
2010-05-15, 12:29 AM
4e alignment shoulda stayed in the 3.5 format:

http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/84/dndcharthf7.png (http://img117.imageshack.us/i/dndcharthf7.png/)

This is so screwed up it's not even funny, Pyro is Chaotic X(Since he definately built his character with pyrokineticist in mind, and we cannot judge one without personality); Sniper is Neutral Evil(Chaotic tendancys) because he is an assassin, and he throws jars of bottled urine at people; Heavy is Chaotic Evil, he is a shaved bear who hates people; Scout is Chaotic neutral at best; Medic is a great example of Lawful Evil; Soldier is spot on; Demoman is Chaotic Evil, he is a drunken, explosive, insane cyclops; and the engineer is spot on as well. Spy is Close-to spot on.

Nightson
2010-05-15, 12:40 AM
The only thing I hate in an alignment system is tying it to mechanics. It's a whole slew of problems that don't need to be introduced. Mechanical systems basically force people to try and sort the areas into black and white camps because there's a different game effect if it's black or white. And neutral doesn't solve the problem it just means there's two smaller bands around neutral as opposed to one big band between good and evil. And of course some bands run crazy vertical or spiral patterns.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-05-15, 11:46 AM
Is it an exception, though? Major settings, at least to the point of being recognizable by a majority of players:
-Forgotten Realms (High Fantasy, Good vs. Evil, Yes)
-Grayhawk (High Fantasy, Good vs. Evil, Yes)
-Ebberon (Magicpunk? Murky Alignments, No)
-Planescape (Kitchen Sink, Hell No)
-Spelljammer (D&D IN SPAAAAACE, varies widely, N/A)
-Dark Sun (Survival, No)
-Dragonlance (pretty much defined by Good vs. Evil, so Yes)
-Ravenloft (Gothic Horror, you're kidding right?)

3 settings strongly defined by Good vs. Evil, 4 settings that either don't care about Good vs. Evil or actively subvert it, and 1 that I couldn't effectively classify.
Dark Sun is the quintessential Good vs. Evil setting! Defilers vs. Preservers, a big flippin' Dragon!

Original Planescape was a setting all about opposites. Yes, they all lived in one space, but most (if not all) of the creatures roaming about were the literal agents of Alignment Planes!

And Ravenloft actively kicked your ass if you did anything remotely Evil. Dark Power Checks are not funny :smalleek:

Not to mention that you left out several of the original D&D settings - Blackmoor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmoor) for one.

3.5 may have watered down the role of Alignment already, but that isn't going to make it less central to the foundations of D&D.

Illithid Savant
2010-05-15, 04:03 PM
words

This guy knows what's up.


the PHB does state that characters don't always act exactly according to their alignment. A Lawful Good character might occasionally do something Chaotic or Evil- it's just that these are rare.

The categories are the way the character ought to act most of the time- but exceptions are permissible without changing alignment.

This doesn't change my argument.


Evil is a rather wider category than Neutral. According to Champions of Ruin- repeatedly committing evil acts is the mark of an Evil character.

So a character who routinely does both Evil and Good things, or who exhibits both Evil and Good personality traits (like self-sacrifice or altruism for Good) is Evil, not Neutral.

You don't see this as a weakness of the system?


I know. In your earlier post, you denigrated the alignment system because 'most real people don't fit the alignment system'. Now you are claiming that 3.5's alignment 'boxes' are broad enough to comfortably contain anybody. My issues with each statement aside, you are being inconsistent, which makes it difficult to hold a discussion.

TN is broad. The others are not. But because the other alignments are there, it's very heavily suggested that players use them (and is required for certain classes).


I'm sorry, I was under the impression that you meant 'limiting your potential' as something negative. Every time I make a choice about what my character is like, I am limiting his/her potential. Every decision is a potential constraint on future decisions. But if I didn't make decisions for fear of limiting potential, I'd never get a character. If I didn't make any decisions about what I think my life philosophy should be, I'd never have one.

Tell me--why do you think characters must 'fit nicely under a label' in order to avoid falling into TN? I think it ties in with your exclusion of the middle, illustrated below:

Fixed that for you. I told you, I'm looking for a middle ground between the straitjacket and the useless chaff

Yes, you limit a character's potential as you build them. But the existence of alignments mean you're supposed to use them. Your character is supposed to fall in line with one of these predetermined categories of behavior.

If your character is LG there is a way your character should act, otherwise they are not LG. This is "fitting nicely under a label".

The 4e alignment scale is better if you want to have the objective good vs objective evil dynamic (notice everyone is talking about good vs evil, not law vs chaos).


Or, you realize that alignment is not an absolute dictatorship. Characters can be bigger than their alignment, without making the alignment system meaningless.

What do you mean by "bigger"? More complex?


Oracle Hunter posted the SRD citation, and I think that's a pretty good assessment. In fact, Oracle Hunter's post is basically where I stand on the subject of alignment.

So your answer would be "Alignment is a helpful way to assist folks into viewing their characters as Fantasy Heroes"?


Leaving aside the fact that Batman's ambiguous alignment is in no small part due to multiple authorship, the ambiguity of one's character concept hardly correlates to the quality of one's character concept. But I'll drop this argument, as I've never really bought the assertion that real-life people are all TN, just as I've never really bought the assertion that the only away to be associated with an alignment is to fit completely into that alignment. I apologize for the inconsistency on my part.

If you're dropping it why did you respond? I would've thought just posting this final paragraph would be enough.

Kaiyanwang
2010-05-15, 07:13 PM
Dark Sun is the quintessential Good vs. Evil setting! Defilers vs. Preservers, a big flippin' Dragon!

Original Planescape was a setting all about opposites. Yes, they all lived in one space, but most (if not all) of the creatures roaming about were the literal agents of Alignment Planes!

And Ravenloft actively kicked your ass if you did anything remotely Evil. Dark Power Checks are not funny :smalleek:

Not to mention that you left out several of the original D&D settings - Blackmoor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmoor) for one.

3.5 may have watered down the role of Alignment already, but that isn't going to make it less central to the foundations of D&D.

I agree with this, expecially the planescape part - all the opposition were show.. there were faction really believing in this or that particular principle.

Math_Mage
2010-05-16, 12:06 AM
TN is broad. The others are not. But because the other alignments are there, it's very heavily suggested that players use them (and is required for certain classes).

Elaborate on the relative breadth of TN vs. the other categories. I'm not seeing it.


Yes, you limit a character's potential as you build them. But the existence of alignments mean you're supposed to use them. Your character is supposed to fall in line with one of these predetermined categories of behavior.

Aligning a character merely provides them with a base attitude towards the Lawful-Chaotic and Good-Evil axes. This attitude can be subverted according to other aspects of the character. This isn't the Paladin's Code of Conduct we're talking about here: it doesn't have to be obeyed to the letter. As I wrote some hundred posts ago, examining where your character strays from one path or another is just as interesting as noting where it stays on the path. Does this pressure the player to consider his/her character's behavior in terms of alignment? Absolutely. Where is it writ that this is a bad thing?


If your character is LG there is a way your character should act, otherwise they are not LG. This is "fitting nicely under a label".

All LG characters are not created equal. Each alignment is meant to represent a diversity of attitudes and behavior, with particular common elements. An actual character, who does not have to keep his behavior 100% within one alignment to be associated with that alignment, has even more possibilities available to him. And fairly similar 'ways' can be characterized by very different alignments, with a little effort.


What do you mean by "bigger"? More complex?

A character is more complex than its alignment (usually), and a character's behavior space is bigger than its alignment's behavior space.


So your answer would be "Alignment is a helpful way to assist folks into viewing their characters as Fantasy Heroes"?

At the risk of redundancy, my answer would be:


Alignment is a tool for developing your character’s identity. It is not a straitjacket for restricting your character. Each alignment represents a broad range of personality types or personal philosophies, so two characters of the same alignment can still be quite different from each other. In addition, few people are completely consistent.

I do think alignment is helpful for the purpose of 'choosing sides' in a high fantasy objective good vs. objective evil/objective law vs. objective chaos game, but I don't put as much emphasis on that aspect as Oracle Hunter does. You'll notice most of my discussion, with you and others, has been based around how the player thinks about his/her character in the process of developing it. I think considering alignment in that process can help whether you're playing high fantasy, gritty realism, grimdark horror, or anything else.


If you're dropping it why did you respond? I would've thought just posting this final paragraph would be enough.

The argument I'm dropping is the argument that *most real-life people are TN because it takes an extraordinary character to have a different alignment*, not *the alignment system is a worthwhile tool for D&D*. I still disagree with your position, that *real people tend to be TN, and complex, realistic characters tend to be TN, because the alignment system does a bad job of representing complex characters*. At least, that is what I think your basic position is on this issue; am I missing or misinterpreting anything?