Alternate Alignment Thoughts

[Serpentine]

I was just thinking about alignment debates, and how part of the disagreement seems to be mostly about issues of interpretation of the categories. Then I started thinking about a political chart I saw a while ago, and wondered whether it could be applied to D&D-type alignments. So I thought I'd have a crack at trying it.
Honestly, I don't expect many people to like this idea. It's more complicated, for starters, because it divides each alignment axis into two more axes, and people tend to prefer to make it simpler I think. Also it's more descriptive than categorical, and so probably less useful in-game, especially crunch-wise. Also, it's probably generally crappy.
Anyways, here 'tis:

Ethical Alignment (or: political/social/governmental, etc)
Economically Conservative X..........X Socially Liberal
Economically Conservative X..........|
Economically Conservative X..........|
Economically Conservative X-------|--------X Economically Liberal
Economically Conservative X..........|
Economically Conservative X..........|
Economically Conservative X..........X Socially Conservative

Moral Alignment (or: attitude/interaction/demeaner, etc)
Passive X..........X Selfish
Passive X..........|
Passive X..........|
Passive X-------|--------X Active
Passive X..........|
Passive X..........|
Passive X..........X Selfless

I'm particularly uncertain about the Economically Conservative/Liberal and Passive/Active axes, and am totally willing to hear any better optons.

Very roughly speaking, Conservative Active Selfish would approximate Lawful Evil, and Liberal Passive Selfless would be Chaotic Goodish, although (and Here Be Another Problem) Passive would be more indicative of Neutral leanings, rather than a determinent per se. Perhaps if there is an equivalent for the Ethical chart that could be a feature, but at the moment I think it's deviant... Perhaps I could just put Passive/Active on that chart, and change it to Liberal/Conservative?

Anyways, that's the rough idea. Any thoughts?

edit: I think I like that last idea a bit better, so here's that version:

Ethical Alignment (or: political/social/governmental, etc)
Passive X..........X Liberal
Passive X..........|
Passive X..........|
Passive X-------|--------X Active
Passive X..........|
Passive X..........|
Passive X..........X Conservative

Moral Alignment (or: attitude/interaction/demeaner, etc)
Passive X..........X Selfish
Passive X..........|
Passive X..........|
Passive X-------|--------X Active
Passive X..........|
Passive X..........|
Passive X..........X Selfless

edit again: Blegh, the more I think about this the more I find problems with it. I still like the double-axis idea, but I don't think much of my categories.

[PersonMan]

I like the idea, and I know how annoying lining up lines in a word processor can be. I'm not sure about the specifics, especially the names, but I like the two axes(axises? axi?) and, even if you end up changing the rest, that those are good for a system like this. But how to fit a grid like this onto a character sheet without is looking odd.

Heh. I'm imagining Alignment being read as ordered pairs. "I Detect Alignment!" "Okay, he's (2,3),(4,5)." "...Is that good?" "Yes. Er....he glows red."

[Serpentine]

Heh, yeah. Unless you keep Good, Evil, Chaos and Law as "elements" of the universe, it would probably change a lot of stuff. Devils might become the Embodiment of Active Conservative Selfishness. Bit of a mouthful...
This would probably really be more of just a roleplaying tool.

[averagejoe]

It's a neat idea. One problem I see is, like the lawful/chaotic counterparts, liberal and conservative mean many different things, and what pops into a lot of people's heads won't necessarily be the correct/most useful meanings. I dunno how it is elsewhere, but in America liberal and conservative have basically become synonymous with our two political parties and the policies most strongly associated with those parties, whether or not the policy itself is liberal or conservative in the more traditional sense. I'm pretty sure that most people don't know where the words come from or what they actually mean. So there's some danger there.

Still, neat idea. I'll have to think on this.

[PersonMan]

Heh, yeah. Unless you keep Good, Evil, Chaos and Law as "elements" of the universe, it would probably change a lot of stuff. Devils might become the Embodiment of Active Conservative Selfishness. Bit of a mouthful...
This would probably really be more of just a roleplaying tool.

Or maybe these cosmic forces don't exist, and many creatures just cling to these notions for excuses when they really think about things. They think that they can't change, that evil is in their very flesh and blood, so they don't.

Hmm. It'd make for an interesting campaign.


It's a neat idea. One problem I see is, like the lawful/chaotic counterparts, liberal and conservative mean many different things, and what pops into a lot of people's heads won't necessarily be the correct/most useful meanings. I dunno how it is elsewhere, but in America liberal and conservative have basically become synonymous with our two political parties and the policies most strongly associated with those parties, whether or not the policy itself is liberal or conservative in the more traditional sense. I'm pretty sure that most people don't know where the words come from or what they actually mean. So there's some danger there.

Still, neat idea. I'll have to think on this.

True. That's why I was thinking of changing the names.

Maybe Reformist and...I'm not sure.

[Eloi]

Reformist and Traditionalist would make a good, more literal pair for the alignment system. And it could be "Reform" and "Tradition" for the alignment quantifiers themselves.

[Corporate M]

I like it to some extent that alignments have some actual philosophical meaning now. But quite frankly it seems like more work then one needs at the gaming table.

As well, if you think arguments arise now, just wait till real political leanings actually comply to alignment ridges. Noone wants to call themselves evil, even the people who supposedly don't believe it. (Sept me because I'd rather be evil then cooperative) Like in the alignment test I took, I got chaotic evil. And by your series of axis, I would be...

Economically Liberal (Centrist though, as I'm only so for my own benefit)
Socially Moderate (Again, for my own skin. I have a sense of moral duty, but it's paper thin.)
Selfish (Other people suck, lookout for yourself)
And active (moderately because I have to feel up to it)


It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the equasion of I'm a selfish jerk, so I'm evil. Too passionate to be confined and follow the rules, (chaotic) but also not a zealot. I can easily take or leave something. (Even more chaotic) So basically we just complicated the whole proccess to convey the fact I'm a prick. Ironicaly I sound more neutral giving my wavering alleigance on the axis meter, untill it all comes together and is explained...


I like the direction, but really I was seeing devils in my mind quoting Ayn Rand before you even played with the idea... lol!

[Serpentine]

PersonMan: It would.

Averagejoe: That was actually part of why I like that original political chart, and why I thought it could be useful in D&D: because it divides two factors that are actually quite distinct but often conflated, causing various confusions.
I just found the chart, which turns out was attached to an OKCupid quiz. Here's (http://www.okcupid.com/politics) the quiz (looks like it's changed since last time I did it), and here's (http://is3.okcupid.com/graphics/politics/chart_political.gif) the chart. Please don't discuss its contents here, I just wanted to show my inspiration.

edit: What about Progressive/Traditionalist? I'm pretty iffy about the "traditionalist" part, though, as it's much more narrow than my intent. How about Progressive/Conservative?
It's a shame Liberal/Conservative have so much loading, because they're really probably the best terms... At this point all I can suggest is that people take them for their basic definitions, not political alignment.

[PersonMan]

Yeah, Progressive/Conservative sounds good. The problem is that with Liberal v. Conservative, most people will jump to political, while if there's only one of the two they're more likely to look at the basic definition rather than the political one.

[averagejoe]

The problem with passive/active is selfish/less already kind of embodies this; not precisely, of course, but being selfless implies that one is at least somewhat active in giving a leg up to others, whereas selfishness suggests a certain amount of passivity when it comes to others' plights. Even if you're doing something selfless in a "passive" way, you're still making the decision to help someone else at the expense of oneself, which means you're taking action. And even if one doesn't agree with this, passive/active is really ambiguous.

Perhaps instead of liberal/conservative you could have honorable/pragmatic, then the other axis could be progressive/conservative, or perhaps open minded/closed minded, though maybe that's too loaded.

Then you have a kind of honorable/pragmatic <--> selfish/selfless as being sort of analagous axes for the different graphs, where h/p tells about one's self-conduct and s/s tells about one's conduct with regard for others. conservative/progressive is similar to h/p, except for replacing "self" with "societies." So maybe the active/passive replacement could be an analogue to this. Maybe manipulative/unassuming, or meddlesome/opposite of meddlesome.

I dunno, just some thoughts, forced out of a tired brain.

[Serpentine]

I had this in mind with the Passive/Active axis:
Active Selfish would actively hinder or or betray other people for their own gain. Passive Selfish would be generally out for themselves, but not at any deliberate expense of others.
Active Selfless would be actively seeking to make the lives of others better, even - or especially - at their own expense. Passive Selfless generally wish well for other people, but won't go to especial effort or self-sacrifice to make it happen.

Of course, those are at the extremes of the axes. You could have an Active Selfish who might make someone look just bad enough that they will be passed over for a promotion, but they wouldn't go so far as to try to get them fired or anything like that.

Is there something that could incorporate respect/distrust for authority and similar, or is that overall incorporated into conservative/liberal?

edit: New approach. My aim, more or less, was to come up with a system that acknowledges and incorporates some of the complexity in alignments. So with that in mind, what are some of the really, really big things you think define the alignments? Maybe we can find terms that apply to them.
To start with what I've already got, Good/Evil are to a large extent, I think, defined by Selflessness/Selfishness.
A preference for established processes and policies/search for new ways of doing things for Law/Chaos (but this would be one of the debatable ones, methinks).
Respect for authority/Suspicion of authority for Law/Chaos again.

[averagejoe]

edit: New approach. My aim, more or less, was to come up with a system that acknowledges and incorporates some of the complexity in alignments. So with that in mind, what are some of the really, really big things you think define the alignments? Maybe we can find terms that apply to them.
To start with what I've already got, Good/Evil are to a large extent, I think, defined by Selflessness/Selfishness.
A preference for established processes and policies/search for new ways of doing things for Law/Chaos (but this would be one of the debatable ones, methinks).
Respect for authority/Suspicion of authority for Law/Chaos again.

In the broadest terms, I find it useful to think about good and evil as how a person acts toward the world at large, and law and chaos as how a person acts with regard to themselves. It's not perfect, and a lot of ambiguity occurs when it comes to "ends justify the means" type stuff, and it's pretty easy to construct scenarios where one can create a very blurry line between, "immoral," and, "dishonorable but morally identical." (Dishonorable for lack of a better word.) Basically, according to this idea, a good person is someone who tries to treat people well, and a lawful person believes there to be a "right" way to do things, where an evil person will treat people badly and a chaotic person will do things just because they go against what the majority of people around him think the "right" way to do things is.

Imperfect, but in many ways satisfying. It puts the two alignment axes on roughly equal footing, and there's a nice symmetry. It's also nice because it gives a good definition to law/chaos, which has always been pretty vague; there's a lot of room for argument as to what falls under that definition, but the definition itself is pretty clear.

I've never really liked things like, "Respect for authority," or, "Preference for established order," when it comes to alignment. It just seems really janky and off-base. They're neither personality traits nor moral positions, they're opinions, and a person could come by these opinions through any number of means whether they're lawful or chaotic. I'll grant that a lawful person is more likely to respect authority, in the same way a good person is more likely to be kind to people, but one can have anti-heroes just as one can have lawful counter-culturalists. Imagine a person who makes sure to wake up at precisely 7:00 each morning. He has a routine each day, and he sets aside a specific amount of time for everything he does. At work he maintains a professional attitude and carefully follows regulations, not because there's anyone who would be hurt by the regulations being not-followed, but because it's important to him to do so; in his own mind it makes him better than the people who don't. He constantly fails at dating because he is off-puttingly honest, yet he insists that any girl who's put off by such honesty isn't worth dating. Now, I'd have a hard time calling this guy, "chaotic," but I see no reason why he couldn't disrespect authorities. He simply has a strong sense of right and wrong as it pertains to his own conduct.

[Serpentine]

I really dislike the "a chaotic person will do things just because they go against what the majority of people around him think the "right" way to do things is" idea. I think of that part more in terms of external vs. internal: a Lawful trait would be to get your idea of what is "right" from society/organisation/an external source, while a Chaotic trait would be to get your idea of what is "right" from your own concience/experience/an internal source.

The second part of your post highlights well what I think is a major source of conflict over alignment: people think that if a particular trait is classified as a particular alignment, any character with that trait must be of that alignment. I think it's much more degrees and such. For example, you might have these traits associated with Lawfulness:
- Respect for authority
- Preference for order in one's life
- Obedience
- Belief in law and order
- External basis of concept of right and wrong
- Trust for tradition.
- Well-developed honour system
- Stability/lack of flexibility
And these with Chaos:
- Distrust for authority
- Unordered lifestyle
- Insolence
- Mistrust of law and order
- Internal basis of concept of right and wrong
- Trust in progress and change
- No need for honour
- Instability/flexibility.

A reasonable character might be distinguished by his distrust for authority, internal basis of a concept of right and wrong, obedience, trust in law and order, well-developed honour system and ordered lifestyle. Although such a character would have some Chaotic traits, he is overall Lawful. To add another element into that, if that same character is primarily driven by his distrust for authority, and his natural obedience and trust in law an order take a definite back-seat to that overriding priority, then he will probably fall into Neutral on that axis.

Now, my mention of "respect for authority" and "preference for established processes" were examples of "alignmented" (of the same type as "gendered") traits that might be all combined into broader categories (like selfish/selfless) that can both cover everything/most of what is incorporated in Law/Chaos/Good/Evil, while also being (hopefully) more precise. It's not "respect for authority is the defining feature of Law", it's "respect for authority is on its own merits a Lawful trait, many of which will generally indicate a Lawful character" (with an extension, in this context, of "can we place this trait in a broader category that can be considered significantly representative of Lawfulness?").