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Lord_Gareth
2010-10-31, 11:55 PM
Disclaimer: The original Color Wheel was designed by Wizards of the Coast for their trading card game, Magic: the Gathering. Parts have been changed to make it more applicable to Dungeons and Dragons.


Color as Alignment

The Color Wheel differs from the traditional D&D alignments in that the five Colors possess both literal incarnations (such as Outsiders) and non-literal philosiphies; that is, they are both ideologies and forces that shape the cosmos. While no part of this system falls apart when dealing with literal incarnations, the following is centered around mortals, for whom the colors are ideologies. That last bears repeating - any given character's color-alignment is not irrevocable, and does not represent some cosmic force nesting in their soul; it serves merely as a baseline descriptor for personality and methodology.

Each character, then, has a Primary Color - this represents the greater portion (or most fundamental portions) of their personality, ideology, and goals. For a character who only possesses a Primary Color, it also represents their most commonly used methodology. Primary Color is very intrinsic to the character; while it can change, it should only change after long, involved character development, or after especially severe or sudden stress, trauma, or magical interference. The death of a loved one, the birth of one's child, systemic magical torture, or witnessing an incarnate deity are all examples of events that might change a Primary Color.

Each character also has up to two Secondary Colors, which modify their Primary Color. Secondary Colors combine with the Primary Color to create a new philosiphy and outlook on life, but the Primary Color retains precedence; that is, the goals and outlooks of the Primary Color are still a greater part of the alignment mix than those of the Secondary Colors. Most often, Secondary Colors represent the lengths that a character is willing to go in order to fulfill the goals postulated by their Primary Color; that is, Secondary Colors most often represents methodology, as opposed to ideology. This isn't always the case, but it is important to note that a character needn't support or believe in their Secondary Colors - merely use them. Secondary Colors are much more fluid than their Primary counterparts, and change as a character's belief in what is acceptable or effective changes.

Each color has two Allied Colors - colors closely related to them. A color shares certain aspects of ideology and methodology with its allies, and societies based on those colors often get along to a certain extent. What this means is that a given character doesn't necessarily have to take on Secondary Colors or change their Color alignment if they're dipping into the methods/ideas of their Allied Colors.

Additionally, each color has two Enemy Colors - colors opposed to them in both ideology and methodology. It is important to note that a character can have a Color Alignment that includes Enemy Colors; the combinations are not impossible, but do create sources of self-conflict. Generally speaking, any given color actively opposes its enemy, even if only out of self-interest, but this needn't necessarily be the case, and it's certainly possible for a mixed-color group to cooperate, even if they bicker and fight over methods (or ideas) whenever they have the chance to sit down with a few pints. Generally speaking, repeated or prolonged participation in the methods or ideas of an Enemy Color should necessitate taking it on as a Secondary Color or an alignment shift to include that color.

The five colors are broken down as follows:

White - Order and Community: White believes in the rule of law. Only by upholding the fabric of society can life become peaceful and ideal. White believes in a clear-cut sense of right and wrong, and works with unity, intelligence, and planning in order to accomplish its goals. To White, the individual is not as important as the society; though it might regret it afterwards, the sacrifice of the one to save the many is perfectly acceptable to White. At its best, White creates utopian societies where well-managed rules ensure peace, tranquility, and happiness. At its worst, White creates war-driven dictatorships ruled by fanatics and madmen. Good luck explaining that to White. Allied Colors - Blue and Green. Enemy Colors - Black and Red.

Blue - Knowledge and Discovery: Blue believes in perfection; every thing and every being has infinite potential, and all it takes to unlock that potential is enough knowledge. Thus, the "Platonic" goal of Blue is omniscience - if one knows all the answers, one can do anything, be anything, and change anything. Blue loves learning secrets, and trickery, roundabout solutions, logical thought and careful, methodical planning are all hallmarks of its methods. At its best, Blue's is the enlightened scientist, fulfilling an obligation to society in order to improve and perfect all aspects of life. At its worst, Blue is an emotionless torturer, prying into forbidden secrets and vivisecting its victims for the sheer sake of knowledge. Allied Colors - Black and White. Enemy Colors Green and Red.

Black - Power and Individuality: Black believes that everyone is selfish. It's a cold, bleak philosiphy, but it's there - everyone's going to look out for Number One, and so should you. Black's "Platonic" goal is omnipotence; only if you have all the power are you assured of your freedom. Those who espouse Black's philosiphies often end up participating in some rather unwholesome and/or bizzare practices (blood sacrifice, for example, or ritual scarification), but it is important to note that the profit-centric shopkeeper is just as Black as the soul-trading sorcerer. At its best, Black creates societies of enlightened self-interest, where individual rights and opportunities take precedence over communal rules. At its worst, Black creates societies where the worst atrocities are permissable so long as one is capable of committing them without retribution. Allied Colors - Blue and Red. Enemy Colors - Green and White.

Red - Freedom and Emotion: Red believes in acting on one's emotions, and in the freedom to do so; if you love, act upon it. If you rage, attack, if you feel sorrow, weep. Red believes in absolute freedom, and that people are happiest when they're honest with themselves. Trickery, spontenaity, and direct solutions are all hallmarks of Red's methodology; Red is far more likely to simply smash a wall or blow it up than it is to, say, build a door through it. At its best, Red is genuinely loyal, caring, and committed to the idea of personal freedom. At its worst, Red is random and pointlessly destructive, smashing through restricting obstacles, laws, and people simply because they're there. Allied Colors - Black and Green. Enemy Colors - Blue and White.

Green - Growth and Harmony: Green believes in the concept of predestination; in Green's view, there's a Plan to create a perfect world, and a being can be happiest simply by discovering their role in the Plan and fulfilling it. Green trusts its instincts and harmonizes with the world around it, using intuition and observation to "grow" their way around problems either physically, mentally, magically or spiritually. Green dislikes using new ideas and inventions when more naturalistic or traditional solutions will work, and distrusts influences such as artifice, logic, and selfishness that hinder a being's personal growth and potentially endanger the Plan. Green characters often associate heavily with the natural world in their quest to grow personally and seek their role in the multiverse. At its best, Green is wise, understanding, and insightful. At its worst, Green is savage, short-sighted and hidebound. Allied Colors - Red and White. Enemy Colors - Black and Blue.


Making the Shift - Introducing the Color Wheel to Your Game

Shifting the nine traditional alignments to the Color Wheel isn't as hard as it might seem. Certain classes require certain alignments; all one has to do is examine why they require those alignments and then translate to a color restriction. Paladins, for example, are required to be Lawful Good because they are expected to produce the most good for the most people whenever possible; this translates easily into a requirement that Paladins have White in their alignment mix. Monks, on the other hand, are required to be Lawful because they need strict self-discipline and control to learn their art; thus, a Monk's alignment requirement would be "Any Non-Red".

Abilities such as Smite translate simply into Smite Enemy Color; any given character/monster is treated as all of its colors for the purposes of such abilities. Similar methods can be applied to spells which require certain alignments.


Recommended Mechanical Changes

The following changes are recommended (but certainly not required) for games that include the Color Wheel.

- Clerics no longer channel positive/negative energy to spontaenously cast spells. Instead, a cleric may sacrifice a spell of equal or greater level to spontaenously cast a cure spell on a creature which either shares a color with them or has a color allied with their own, or to spontaenously cast an inflict spell on a creature which has a color opposed to their own. If a creature has both (a W cleric casting on a B/U wizard), they may choose whether to heal or harm. Keep in mind that, under this system, positive and negative energy no longer exist. That means that cure spells no longer hurt undead, and inflict no longer heal them; instead, the undead are affected by cure and inflict just as other creatures are.

- Smite [Alignment] becomes Smite Enemy Color. In the case of paladins, it becomes Smite Red/Black (affecting creatures who are red, black, or both).

- Detect [Alignment] becomes Detect Alignment; creatures are entitled to a Will save to avoid the affect. The Detect [Alignment] group of spells is otherwise unchanged.

- The following alignment restrictions change: Paladins must have White in their alignment mix, monks may not be Red, Clerics must have at least one of their deity's colors in their alignment mix, Barbarians may not be Blue, and Bards no longer possess an alignment restriction.


Self-Reference: Morality in Your Campaign Setting

The Color Wheel system, unlike default D&D, does not assume that characters wear their color stamped on their foreheads, and there is no reason for characters in your world to refer to each other by color unless you choose to build your world this way. Instead, various spells or philosophies that target certain color(s) are likely to target traits shared by that color - for example, a paladin may refer to his Smite Red and/or Black ability as Rebuffing the Wicked, or even Smite Chaos. Likewise, a character who detects as "Green" on a spell is identified as a seeker of the natural way, a follower of destiny, a creature who survives on instinct.

Mind you, there's nothing actually wrong with these spells or abilities revealing a creature as "Blue" or "Black", but, in all honesty, it would sound a little silly at the gaming table, no?


Two-Color Mixes

The following are general examples of what might happen when you start mixing two colors. It's important to note that these mixes can be done with either color Primary. One's choice of Primary color shifts the focus of the mix a bit, one direction or the other; for example, a White primary character with Black as a secondary color would more often put the agenda of their group as a whole first.

Black/White: Black/White, at first glance, look like they won't mix, but they find common ground in a compromise; a small group which constantly strives to increase its own power, wealth, and comfort. Organized crime is a great example of Black/White in action, but so would a small group of men who constantly pass the mayorship of a village between each other. The biggest self-conflict that occurs with a Black/White character is when the desires/needs of the group conflict with the desires/needs of the individual.

Black/Green: Black's conflict with green is one of individualism vs. predestination; their compromise is found in the idea of fluid destiny. In essence, a Black/Green individual or organization has a different idea of "natural" than a purely Green organization, while still adhering to the idea of conforming to Nature that would be distasteful to a purely Black one. The biggest self-conflict facing a Black/Green character is one of motivation and the definition of "acceptable" - how far can one push the boundries before one has left "nature", however vaguely it is defined. Pushed too hard or too far, Black/Green becomes paralyzed by indecision or else snaps into manic fanatacism.

Black/Blue: Black/Blue combines knowledge with the ruthless will to pursue it. Black's focus on individuality and selfishness gains a serious edge when combined with Blue's trickery and pursuit of knowledge, creating characters and organizations that delve deep into forbidden lore, make extensive use of blackmail, and other, similar maneuvers. Power corrupts, though, and combining knowledge and raw power can very easily lead Black/Blue to showcasing the worst examples of both colors. Black/Blue's biggest weakness is indecision - should it take a direct approach, or try something more subtle?

Black/Red: Anarchy ascendant; Black/Red "organizations" barely qualify as such. Black/Red believes in both selfishness and absolute freedom, and while this can, occasionally, lead to genteel philosiphers espousing the virtues of both, it most often ends up with hedonistic sociopaths gleefully seeking their next thrill without heed to the consequences or the collateral damage. Their unwillingness - or inability - to empathize with others is their biggest weakness; very often, Black/Red fails to understand the concept of consequences to their actions, let alone anticipate them.

White/Green: Harmony is the key word when talking about this color pair; White/Green integrates nature into its society, combining White's love of order with Green's belief in predestination. White/Green's greatest weakness is pride; all too often, it falls into the trap that its way is best, and that no one else can possibly know what's good. At its best, White/Green is genuinely caring, wise, and harmonious. At its worst, White/Green creates emotionless hive-minds, where each individual is enslaved to the will of the whole.

White/Blue: White/Blue believes in the rule of law, and creates and enforces laws that it believes will benefit the most number of people. It also uses those laws as a weapon and a shield, turning them so deliberate and obtuse that, in some of the most extreme cases, it can take a lifetime to learn all of the rules. White/Blue's greatest failing is overanalyzation; White/Blue has a very reactionary nature, and would often prefer to do nothing until it has more information rather than take a risk.

White/Red: White/Red believes in societies which support and protect individual freedoms while still looking out for the common good. Very often, White/Red is willing to use less-than-ordered means to achieve order or defend the public good; a vigilante might be White/Red, as might the leader of the mob out to lynch a local pedarast. White/Red's greatest source of self-conflict is when personal freedoms conflict with societal good; they must decide where to draw the line or go mad with the unresolvable conflict.

Red/Green: Savage is the term to describe Red/Green - raw emotion mixes with instinct to create a being that acts less on thought than it does intuition. Red/Green is brutally direct, preferring quick physical solutions over more lengthy intellectual social ones. Red/Green does not mix well with societies in general; Green's love of nature combines with Red's raw emotion (in this case, rage) with predictable results. Its greatest failing is an utter lack of thought; unless they fight to retain some form of self-control, Red/Green often barrels headfirst through life, unaware and unheeding of the consequences for their recklessly destructive actions.

Red/Blue: Red/Blue combines intuition with logic; mad tinkers, eccentrict old wizards, and gibbering oracles might all be Red/Blue. A Red/Blue character might resemble an obsessive fanboy, researching and practically worshipping their object of interest, but they might also easily resemble an absentminded genius, leaping from one project to the next without testing or sometimes even finishing their previous work. Red/Blue's greatest weakness is consistency; all their brilliance won't help them a lick if they can't carry a project, plan, or thought to completion.

Blue/Green: Blue/Green believes that nature's basic blueprint can be improved. At first, this attitude seems purely Blue, but Blue/Green is adamant that nature has the right idea; they're just speeding things along. Blue/Green mixes Blue's intelligence and foresight with Green's penchant for direct solutions, applying just the right amount of brute force to a weak point in a problem for maximum results. Blue/Green's greatest weakess is self-denial; rather than deal with the paradox of change vs. destiny, Blue/Green ignores it, and thus often misses vital flaws in its plans, thought patterns, and personality.


Alignment Subtypes and Outsiders

The idea of living beings which represent aspects of philosiphy, ideology, or morality is as old as human myth, and the Color Wheel certainly does not exclude the idea. However, each color shifts somewhat when one is dealing with it as a universal force, rather than purely as a matter of philosiphy. It is important to note that the forces represented by each color are amoral, and thus their creations carry quite a bit of that amorality with them. The colors as forces of reality break down as follows:

White - Order: White distills into pure cosmic order; the force that resists chance and independance. Where purely White forces pass, ironclad patterns and laws are left in the fabric of reality; overexposure to the distilled essence of White can leave local reality in a kind of feedback loop, forever caught in the same predictable chain of events.

Blue - Change: Distinct from the idea of Chaos, Blue distills into pure change; anything that can be changed is in the wake of Blue energy, refining or debasing itself into entirely new forms. Fabulous inventions of magic and technology are the result of the application of raw Blue energy - so are world-shattering catastrophes.

Black - Entropy: Individual cases may very, but the cold stark truth of it is that Black takes; in the presence of raw Black energy things break down, fall apart, and die. Left unchecked, raw Black energy consumes whole worlds, attempting to feed its endless hunger.

Red - Chaos: Red's love of freedom distills into pure Chaos; anything that can happen, will happen, and the passing of pure Red energy would often be hilarious if the effects weren't so devastating. Red leaves spells unstable and unsafe, rewrites the laws of physics, and turns the universe upside down; toying with it is not reccomended.

Green - Life: Unchecked growth is the consequence of pure Green energy; new forms of life emerge and change at a terrifying rate which, if left unchecked, will result in the rapid consumption of available resources and then itself. Raw Green energy spreads like a cancer; uncontrollable life, inevitably destroying all around it.

What this means for beings that are shaped by the raw Color forces, yet have intelligence (such as Outsiders with alignment subtypes) is that they either embody the color's "distilled" form and espouse whatever morals they wish or that they embody the philosophy and are only marginally shaped by the "distilled" form. In the first case, the being's alignment mix isn't affected by their color; that is, their motivations are their own to choose, and they may be any color, or none of them. In the second case, their alignment subtype is also their Primary color.

Regardless of their actual alignment mix, any creature with an alignment subtype is treated as though it included that color in its alignment mix for the purposes of being targeted by spells and abilities.


Enemy Color Conflicts

White vs. Black - Morality vs. Amorality: The core of the conflict between Black and White - even beyond the idea of Individual vs. Society - is the idea of morality. White believes firmly in the idea that there is Right, and then there is Wrong, and that failure to do Right is, by elimination, Wrong. Serving the needs of the whole over your own needs is Right, to White; after all, the whole will protect even its weakest member. Does this mean that all White characters are paragons of their virtues? No. But they either strive to be, or believe they already are.

Black, on the other hand, is amoral. Note the important difference between the terms "amoral" and "immoral"; Black does not believe in the concepts of Good and Evil. Black believes it's a cold, stark universe and that when push comes to shove, you can be damn sure that people are going to prioritize themselves. To Black, the ideas of Right and Wrong are, at best, tools used to manipulate others and at worst justifications for horrid atrocities, and as far as Black's concerned that's just low. If you're going to slaughter thousands of innocent people for power, at least have the courtesy to say so.

What this means is that White sees Black as a threat to the common good - a maverick at best and a foul source of infernal corruption at worst. Black, on the other hand, sees White as foolish, naive, and a threat to its freedom. It's interesting to note that, in a way, Black is less concerned with White than White is with Black; Black doesn't care if you choose to live your life kowtowing to someone else's set of rules, which often makes White the aggressor in their conflicts.

White vs. Red - Conformity vs. Freedom: The core of the conflict between White and Red are the concepts of rules and restrictions. White believes in the rule of law, and that the greatest good can be achieved by following laws. White is quite willing to enforce its laws with dire penalties, and members of White societies who don't conform are ostracized at best and may face much worse.

Red, on the other hand, upholds freedom as a moral ideal. Red hates restricting rules, laws, objects, spells, et cetera. More often than not, a Red character will flout or break a law or rule she doesn't like simply to demonstrate that the law does not rule her - and react savagely to any attempts to make her conform.

This definitely makes Red the aggressor in the relationship; White's laws are reactionary in nature, while Red is pro-active. That said, both sides of the debate hate each other, and a White/Red conflict can turn savage and bloody, especially between two organizations.

Blue vs. Red - Thought vs. Emotion: Blue thinks, Red feels. This basic conflict, much less visceral than that between, say, White and Black, is the reason that Blue and Red drive each other absolutely nuts. Blue prizes logic and learned, tested reasoning, eschewing emotion as unreliable and unsafe. Red, on the other hand, prizes emotion as the truest expression of who a person is; Red trusts its feelings. This only rarely leads to the kind of conflicts found between more viscerally opposed colors, though when it does, it should be pointed out that Red, following its impulsive nature, is usually the aggressor.

Blue vs. Green - Choice vs. Destiny: Blue believes in infinite potential; anything can be improved and anything can be perfected, if one has the will and knowledge to do so. Indeed, many Blue characters feel a sense of obligation - their knowledge can be used for good, so it should be used for good. Blue sees no problem whatsoever in changing and improving its environment into something wholly different if that's what it takes for improvement.

Green, on the other hand, sees Nature as something that as gotten it right; every creature has its own niche that it fills perfectly; to Green, perfect happiness and harmony is achieved when one finds one's own niche and fills it. Blue's "progress" is frightening and threatening to Green, because it endangers the entire system - change one thing out of its niche, and who knows how many others might be affected?

Like most conflicts in which one side is motivated by fear, Green is often the aggressor in these disputes, attacking and destroying that which it feels is threatening to its environment. Occasionally, the sitution reverses, usually because some profit-motivated Blue organization wants to exploit the resources that Green is protecting. Very often, these conflicts turn extremely savage, extremely quickly, with Green lashing out in overwhelming attacks and Blue responding with superior destructive technology/magic.

Black vs. Green - Entropy vs. Growth: The conflict between Black and Green is one of ideological consequences. Green sees Black as pointlessly destructive, consuming without creating and divesting people, places, and the environment of all its resources. Black, on the other hand, sees Green as hopelessly naive, incapable of comprehending that unchecked growth leads to the same kind of over consumption that Green accuses it of. Like the conflict between Blue and Red, this only rarely leads to open, bloody conflict. However, when it does, one side or the other is usually the underdog; either a Green force is attacking a well-established Black organization (which is consuming/tainting the land around it), or a Black force is desperately trying to hold Green in check as an unrestricted tide of Nature threatens to overwhelm all else.


The Colorless
Colorless creatures, at first glance, seem as though they lack alignment, and in a sense this statement is true, in that any creature incapable of making moral choices (animals and mindless beings) is colorless. However, it is possible for a sentient creature to have an "alignment" of colorless.

A colorless creature suffers from indecision or lack of motivation; general apathy pervades their belief system and methodology. Colorless creatures might resemble hell-in-a-handbasket depression cases, unmotivated slackers, or office drones who labor each day just to get by and get through without really knowing why. Alternately, a creature who has had their ability to make moral choices stripped from them is also treated as colorless; those who suffer from the Soulless template, for example, or creatures under the influence of dominate monster.

Colorless has no allied colors and no enemy colors. A colorless creature has no secondary colors. No creature may have colorless as an alignment subtype. For the purposes of determining the effects of friendly/hostile magics, a colorless creature is treated as a creature who is possessed of both an allied and an enemy color to the caster (meaning, generally, that the caster chooses the effect their spell has upon them).

A lack of color has no effect on any given part of the cosmos.

I'll gladly take any questions, clarify any confusions and, if requested, provide examples of color combinations to create alignments.


Additional Reading


Additional Reading: Basic Reading on The Colour Wheel (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/feature/14)

Good flavor articles for the individual colours: Green (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr43), White (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr57), Blue (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr84), Black (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr109), Red (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr133). Including character examples.

Articles on the colour pair combinations, also with good examples: Green\White (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr196), Black\Green (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr199), Black\Blue (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr201), Red\White (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr205), Red\Green (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr213), Blue\Red (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr217), White\Black (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr221), White\Blue (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr226), Green\Blue (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr229), Black\Red (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr241).

Lord_Gareth
2010-10-31, 11:56 PM
Edited Alignment Spells
They shall go here

Allied Colors - Cooperation and Conflict
Any given color has two allied colors, as has been mentioned above - colors with ideals that are compatible with its own, enabling easier cooperation. The following is a breakdown of why each color gets along with its allies and where the two of them get frustrated with each other.

White//Green - Harmony
White and Green both understand and value the idea of the group and the whole. White and Green both value the power of the flock and the importance of the whole over the individual; one bee or sparrow is insignificant in the face of the flock or hive, one ant is nothing to the safety of the colony. White and Green both believe in higher causes than mortality, and they find a lot of common ground therein.

Where White and Green conflict is in terms of methods; White is reactionary and prefers to plan its movements to ensure the greatest safety of the whole. Green, on the other hand, is often very pro-active, preferring to strike before their enemy has time to react (like an ambush predator might). White is thoughtful; Green is instinctual. Both are given to contemplation, but the two can drive each other to frustrated tears trying to debate the results.

White//Blue - Preparation
White and Blue both value good planning, sound strategy, and intelligent thought. White and Blue are both out to improve the world and they've got plans (in triplicate) to do so. Like White and Green, White and Blue believe in a better world than the one they've been given, and unlike White and Green, White and Blue often agree with each other as to what that world looks like.

Methods are, once again, the big conflict between White and Blue. While White values planning and caution, White also knows the value of decisive action and sacrifice. Blue, on the other hand, would rather think their plan through until they come up with a brilliant solution that solves everything in one stroke of elegance, which can often drive White up a wall when time is of the essence.

Blue//Black - Power
In a way, Blue and Black are some of the most similar colors; both of them are, ultimately, after power. Blue wants the power to perfect the world around it, and Black wants power to ensure its own freedom and safety, but at the end of the day it's all about how much of it you can bring to bear. Blue and Black both appreciate that sometimes, the end justifies the means and that someone has to have the power in order to keep it from running around unchecked.

Where Blue and Black run into trouble with each other is what they use that power for. Blue is, at its heart, altruistic. It wants to help with all that knowledge and power it's been gathering. Black, on the other hand, is unapologetic in its selfishness, and hoards any scrap of power or knowledge that comes its way unless sharing would be of greater profit. When Black acts decisively to secure its own comfort, Blue hesitates, seeking some kind of greater good, and this difference in ideals can make the two uneasy with each other.

Black//Red - Freedom
Black and Red both appreciate the idea of freedom and, in a way, they both savor the idea of living up to one's feelings. Black's personal freedom and gratification are, of course, paramount to it, while Red tends to champion others in its crusades, but the two of them can shake hands and respect an honest desire to do something.

However, Red can sometimes get driven to bloody tears by the fact that Black can be a damn cold fish. Black often denies or represses emotions that are inconvenient to it and can sometimes betray even close friends and loved ones, which looks insane from Red's point of view. Worse, Black doesn't care about the freedoms of others, and more than one conflict between Black and Red has broken out because Black was enslaving and degrading people that Red felt attached to - or simply because Red dislikes the idea of slavery in general.

Red//Green - Intuition
Red and Green both respect their feelings. Both Red and Green trust in the instincts that they were born with and act on their feelings as expressions of what they should be doing. Both Red and Green believe that denying these feelings and instincts is among the most foolish things a being could ever do.

Again, methods and interpretations cause the most conflicts between Red and Green. Red tends to be proactive and to act upon its feelings as immediately as possible, while Green has a tendency to reflect and contemplate its emotions and instincts in an attempt to cause personal growth. Thus, while Red is charging ahead, Green sometimes hangs back, which can cause both to see the other as foolish and generates misunderstandings. On the whole, however, Red and Green are probably the color pair that cooperates with greatest ease, and the two make natural allies.

Fiery Diamond
2010-11-01, 12:38 AM
Well, ignoring its origins in the card game (which I at one point played, so I'm not saying it's bad or anything, just that it isn't really relevant), I think this is very well put together. Frankly, I think that it is easier to understand and agree on than the alignment system used, simply because the terms are more easily defined from a more neutral (as in unbiased) standpoint.

I'm still trying to figure out what my Color Alignment would be. I'm not sure if I have a 2nd secondary color or not - My Primary is Red, and my Secondary is White (or maybe the other way around. The problem here is that it is the ideal in both cases, not just method). The greatest "enemy" color conflicts for me are White versus Black (I strongly believe in Good versus evil, for example) and Red versus Blue (I am very much on the emotion side of the emotion versus thought battle). The irony is that if I do have another secondary color, it is Blue - for the method reason. I am intelligent and prefer to have solid facts than to believe things just because I want to believe them. However, while I find knowledge helpful and useful (and in many cases, needed: "Blind faith" in something is abhorrent to me), seeking knowledge for knowledge's sake or valuing logic over feeling are incomprehensible and unconscionable, respectively.

Sooo....
Primary: White/Red
Secondary: White/Red, Blue?
Enemy: Black, Blue (Red and White can't be enemy, as I still can't decide which is primary)
Allied: Green, Blue?

Interesting idea, though.

Lord_Gareth
2010-11-01, 12:59 AM
Blue is an allied color to White, so dipping into Blue's methods without embracing them is fully to be expected.

As far as where you fall on White/Red, here's the question - which is MORE important, safety or freedom? White says Safety, Red says Freedom. The one you value more is your Primary, the other is Secondary.

Korias
2010-11-01, 01:29 AM
I have to agree... this is very well made. It provides a more ideological based system than the clear-cut morality presented in standard DND, while still giving enough crunch to make it easy for rules.

The only issue I can see is when there's going to be a mixed group, or even mixed alignments. While you covered, this somewhat, It's still a bit foggy.

Let me use myself as an example. For starters, I would classify myself as a Primary: Red and Secondary: Blue. The reason behind this is because while I enjoy my freedom and will often let my emotions dictate the course of action, I appeal to the rational nature in me to curb it and enable me to function in a society with rules and codes. Now, when my actions follow a distinctly Red path, The Blue side kicks in to make me feel guilty and depressed, causing bouts of Colorless action.

The issue when I would try to play a character that followed my specific Color Mix, would that the Methodology of my core nature conflicts with the Ideology of my core nature. This would lead to some issues specifically because the belief in the Secondary: Blue nature exists and presents the opportunity for an internal conflict with the Primary: Red side.

For example, I'll often take the "Brute Force" approach to many things, taking a simple solution to a complex problem. But when it comes to emotional interaction, it's more likely that I'll follow a "Think before Action" approach and plan out the next twelve steps in my head before taking one. And yet, if things go SHTF, I'll inevitably break all concepts of prethinking and just rush into it, which cause a number of issues later on since I haven't completely thought out the actions.

Because of this, would such situations incur a step towards Colorless in some sense?

Lord_Gareth
2010-11-01, 01:35 AM
Because of this, would such situations incur a step towards Colorless in some sense?

Colorless is not the same as neutral was in the previous alignment system. A colorless creature is either incapable of making moral choices or lacking in passion, drive, or ideology entirely - see the example of a miserable office drone under its description. Instead, a character with a vibrant internal conflict is just that; conflicted. If they WANT to do this but INSTEAD do that, then they're still both of their colors - it's just that their internal conflict is much more present than, say, someone that dabbles in methods or has two Allied colors.

Korias
2010-11-01, 01:49 AM
Colorless is not the same as neutral was in the previous alignment system. A colorless creature is either incapable of making moral choices or lacking in passion, drive, or ideology entirely - see the example of a miserable office drone under its description. Instead, a character with a vibrant internal conflict is just that; conflicted. If they WANT to do this but INSTEAD do that, then they're still both of their colors - it's just that their internal conflict is much more present than, say, someone that dabbles in methods or has two Allied colors.

In that case, how would that be represented? Would their Primary and Secondaries eventually swap places or would the conflict not be portrayed in terms of crunch, but rather fluff?

Lord_Gareth
2010-11-01, 01:53 AM
Typically, in terms of fluff. The difference between Primary and Secondary in this instance is a matter of degree and motivation. One must ask:

1. What does the character CARE about? What is their moral imperative?

2. How do the Secondary Colors modify this? If they're not acting according to their moral imperative, WHY?

So, if a Red/Blue character used thought and reasoning to restrain their emotions because, say, they feared arrest or censure, then Red is primary because Blue is only used for self-preservation due to an emotional response. But if it's a character that values intelligent thought as superior (but not exclusive to) emotions, then it'd be Blue primary, with Red (their emotional side) being the source of conflict to their primary morality.

Havvy
2010-11-01, 02:17 AM
Main: Black
Secondary: Blue plus half of Red.

Enemy: Other half of red, white, and green.

I see that the world is entropic, and that we are blessed with the sun for an energy source of which be can push the entropy away from us to build up, as long as we do so logically. Knowledge can never be perfected, but it does show what is better overall. We might not know what the perfect plan is, but there is no way that the unthinking history of evolution, which is itself under constant change, has a perfect plan, and even if it does, the fact that we are a part of this plan by default, we can mess with it how we wish. It is impossible to separate ourselves from our environment.

Emotions, while helpful in many situations, should be used for two distinct purposes. The first is the basis goal of action. Emotions usually cause an uneasyness that can be relieved. The second is a sign post as to what is important for survival. But following each emotion without care is bound to cause conflict between competing emotions. It is okay to recognize that you are envious, but to act in an anti-ethical manner (one that inhibits the free expression of society by others) is not.

In fact, as far as the human race (not society) abuses their emotional reaction, they hurt the ability for their own ability to express freedom. Eventually it devolves into a complete breakdown of society, and society enables the ability to express more actions freely than it inhibits.

As far as law versus individuality, a little bit of law allows for peaceful coexistence of a lot of individuality, but even if this was not the case, individuality would be better than servitude under a monolithic system of rules. Society does not think, individuals do. If law did not allow for more individuality, I would be a complete Black over White, but instead, I am a minarchist/anacho-capitalist. Basically, government's only function is defense of property and if there can be done by competing self-defense agencies, then government is not needed at all.

As far as conformity versus freedom, I am with a weird position. While government cannot tell you what to do, each person is dictator over their property. They may make as many laws as they want or ostracize you from their property. People who go against the grain of social thought without aggressing upon another person's property would quickly be ostracized.

As far as thought versus emotion, I have what I said before. Logically analyzing your emotions leads to a better quality of life for those who can think, and anybody can learn to think.

Entropy versus growth has things in a weird position. Savings leads to the ability to take more ambitious projects for which to grow, so that later consumption may be higher. I state this as a praxeological fact.

On choice versus destiny...well, we have choice because we have imperfect information. If we were omniscient, we would have to follow our destiny. In a sense, choice is power, and destiny is knowledge. Perfect power (omnipotence) leads to no destiny, minus which limiting factors you decide for yourself while perfect knowledge (omniscience) leads to no choice, minus that which you choose right when you gain omniscience. So, if we want power, why do we look for information? It is because there is information that cannot be changed no matter how much power is gained, and that ignoring these facts leads to less power over the effects that they cause.

(Hope that helps with creating a character with a detailed morality)

Green is life...but life is change, which is blue...and change only occurs because entropy (black) is not maximized...which would lead to a state of order (blue). Chaos is a type of change, just change without care of the end. As such, the outsiders part really makes no logical sense to me.

Morph Bark
2010-11-01, 04:45 AM
Considering I have seen this posted twice before by you, what are the actual changes to it? :smallconfused:

IcarusWings
2010-11-01, 05:52 AM
I prefer the change to Green from nature to tradition and not changing (there's still a bit of nature in this one, and there was a bit of tradition in the previous ones, just not much). I always found it weird how the others were all idealogies while Green was liking nature.

Myself, I'd probably be primary blue and secondary black and white.

Tiki Snakes
2010-11-01, 09:19 AM
Considering I have seen this posted twice before by you, what are the actual changes to it? :smallconfused:

From a quick skim, I believe Green has been reworked slightly to follow a little more of the fate/predestination angle. May be other changes that I'm missing, though.

edit -

I found this post to be quite an interesting one, in the old thread, but it doesn't seem to have been replied to;


I like this system overall, (and I really like how you put multicolored alignments in there) though I've always likes the 2 trait element of the MtG color wheel. (BY that I mean that you can describe each color with 2 traits, and 1 trait is shared by the color on the 'left,' and one on the 'right'

So, it is, as I've understood it:
.................................................W hite
...............................................Lif e/Order

.................................Green............ ....................Blue
............................'Chaos'/Life.......................Order/Control

....................................Red........... ..................Black
...............................Chaos/death................death/Control

Of course some stuff is arbitrary, like Blue's water affinity, and order and control might be hard to be seen as different. (Think of it as the difference between planning and facilitating a bunch of activities at, say, summer camp, and planning a manditory schedule at the same.)

I wonder: would these be able to be adapted to the philosophies that you outline?

I may take the time later to go back and read through the OP with this twin-trait thing in mind, because I think it's an angle I would use if I was to switch to the colour-wheel, personally.

Lord Raziere
2010-11-01, 09:28 AM
The most accurate test results I ever got on my colors was that I was
red/black/blue.

so I guess my primary color would be black and my secondary colors be red and blue.

Lord_Gareth
2010-11-01, 12:31 PM
Considering I have seen this posted twice before by you, what are the actual changes to it? :smallconfused:

Green, full stop. I'll also be adding a running roster of edited spells and links to campaigns that use the Wheel.

flabort
2010-11-01, 12:45 PM
I'm kind of a combo of Doc Brown and Doc Ock (did you read the "extra reading material"'s examples for combo personalities?), who are blue/red and blue/green respectively.

I'd say I'm:
Primary: Blue
secondary: Red
Tertiary: Green
Enemies: White, green
Allies: Black, red

Doesn't make sense?
My primary is blue, ok?
So, red&green are my "enemy" colors, and white/black are my allies.
Then, Red is my secondary. It makes it's ally, black still my ally, while it's other ally remains unchanged, my primary's enemy, my enemy. it's enemy, white, my primary's ally, is changed, and becomes an enemy.
Third, Green is my tertiary. Third in line, the weakest influence. It's ally, red, until now was an enemy color. Boom! green makes it my ally color. Blue and red have already influenced me enough, that green has no influence left.

It makes sense, really. I'm creative, but not good at it, I'm obsessed with making things better, making new things, at moving forward. My room is an utter mess (beyond the teen-aged norm), revealing that I revel in chaos. In fact, nothing I do/touch is even remotely white. It's a rare day when I hand in an assignment. My grade rides 100% on my test scores. Or... 87%. whatever.
I very rarely finish anything. books, sketches (I never get far enough to call them "pictures"), homework, short stories, Lego models, ect. If blue/red embodies creativity, and blue/green embodies evolution, it fits. But, I am definitely much more red than green.

Really, you'd need a combination of color wheel+double axis to describe me. I'd definitely be CN on the double axis...
Yeah.



Good work.

flabort
2010-11-01, 12:49 PM
double post to avoid cluttered post, is the reserved post for the three color combos?

As there are ten two color combos, it would be easier to define three color combo's based on the two color combo it is not. therefore, simple math dictates there would only be 10 three color combos...

Want to get working on it, please?:smallbiggrin:

Lord_Gareth
2010-11-01, 06:25 PM
Folks appear to be under some confusion as to what "enemy color" actually means. Just as a creature counts as all of its colors for alignment, all of those colors are (currently) treated as enemy colors. That is, if you were Black/Blue/Red, every single color would be your enemy color (while every color would also be your allied color). Hence my frequent requests for some ideas on editing alignment spells >.>

Lord Raziere
2010-11-01, 11:16 PM
no, since black is yer primary color, white and green your enemy colors, the secondary colors, red hates white and blue hates green, and blue and red together hates white and green since white-green are super-conformist traditionalists while red-blue are individualist mad scientists.

so red/black/blue would be enemies with white-green since white-green cares about the group above all else while red/black/blue cares about the individual the most, simple.

DragonOfUndeath
2010-11-01, 11:43 PM
Folks appear to be under some confusion as to what "enemy color" actually means. Just as a creature counts as all of its colors for alignment, all of those colors are (currently) treated as enemy colors. That is, if you were Black/Blue/Red, every single color would be your enemy color (while every color would also be your allied color). Hence my frequent requests for some ideas on editing alignment spells >.>

if you had Primary Black, Secondary Blue and Tertiary Red then you would have the following:
Primary Enemy: White, Green
Secondary Enemy: Red, Green
Tertiary Enemy: Blue, White
so White is your Primary and Tertiary Enemy, Green is your Primary and Seconday Enemy, Red is your Secondary Enemy and Blue is your Tertiary Enemy.

as for alignment spells it should be something like this:
Unlogic: does 4D6 to a target with the Blue Outsider Type, 3D6 to a target with the Blue Primary Type, 2D6 with the Blue Secondary Type and 1D6 to a target with the Blue Tertiary Type. this damage stacks with each other.

Example: Bob casts Unlogic on Vance who has the Blue Outsider, Primary and Tertiary Types. Bob does 8D6 to Vance (4D6+3D6+1D6).

Glimbur
2010-11-02, 01:51 PM
I'm unclear on the distinction between Red and Green, or why they are allied colors. Red is spontaneous, and acts on impulses. Green either is seeking its part in the grand Plan or acts on its instincts without careful thought and reasoned discussion. The first interpretation makes it much like Blue and therefore opposed to Red, the second makes it much like Red and therefore... Red. What is the difference between acting on intuition and acting on emotion?

NineThePuma
2010-11-02, 02:08 PM
Subscribing to this so I can remember to read it later ^^ I'm very likely to use this more extensively.

IcarusWings
2010-11-02, 02:30 PM
I'm unclear on the distinction between Red and Green, or why they are allied colors. Red is spontaneous, and acts on impulses. Green either is seeking its part in the grand Plan or acts on its instincts without careful thought and reasoned discussion. The first interpretation makes it much like Blue and therefore opposed to Red, the second makes it much like Red and therefore... Red. What is the difference between acting on intuition and acting on emotion?

Think about it this way, each of the colours has two descriptors. Blue has Logic/Clear Thinking and Progress, Green has Tradition and Instinct/Predestination, and Red has Freedom and Acting on Emotion. Green's Instinct fits in well with Red's Acting on Emotion, so they're allied; Green's Tradition actively opposes Blue's Progress, so they are enemies; and Red's Acting on Emotion actively opposes Blue's Logic/Clear Thinking so Red and Blue are enemies too.

EDIT: Just realised the question you were actually asking was what the difference was between Intuition and Emotion Acting. I have no idea how to explain it though.

Lord_Gareth
2010-11-02, 02:38 PM
A color and its allies have common ground with which they can understand each other. In fact, instead of answering your question here, I shall begin a new spoiler - ALLIED COLORS!

I shall post here when it's done, so I'd appreciate it if someone else could post in the meantime so I'm not doubleposting.

ErrantX
2010-11-02, 02:42 PM
- Clerics no longer channel positive/negative energy to spontaenously cast spells. Instead, a cleric may sacrifice a spell of equal or greater level to spontaenously cast a cure spell on a creature which either shares a color with them or has a color allied with their own, or to spontaenously cast an inflict spell on a creature which has a color opposed to their own. If a creature has both (a W cleric casting on a B/U wizard), they may choose whether to heal or harm. Keep in mind that, under this system, positive and negative energy no longer exist. That means that cure spells no longer hurt undead, and inflict no longer heal them; instead, the undead are affected by cure and inflict just as other creatures are.

I disagree with this. Positive Energy and Negative energy have very mild alignment descriptors. At worst, Positive gains the White type and Negative gains Black, but it's not really important. I say do it like this: There is positive energy, and negative energy. They're independent of the alignment system. Specify under the Gods whether or not they use Positive or Negative channeling. That way positive energy still harms undead and heals people, and vice versa.

-X

Lord_Gareth
2010-11-02, 02:43 PM
I disagree with this. Positive Energy and Negative energy have very mild alignment descriptors. At worst, Positive gains the White type and Negative gains Black, but it's not really important. I say do it like this: There is positive energy, and negative energy. They're independent of the alignment system. Specify under the Gods whether or not they use Positive or Negative channeling. That way positive energy still harms undead and heals people, and vice versa.

-X

Then how, my friend, would you hash out which clerics/gods channel what? By domain, perhaps?

ErrantX
2010-11-02, 02:46 PM
Then how, my friend, would you hash out which clerics/gods channel what? By domain, perhaps?

By portfolio/domains (when available Portfolio first, Domains secondly). Heck you could use the old alignment system and the description of the God/dess and what they feel about things as a formatting. Gods of nature, healing, home and croft, succor, mercy and martyrdom, protection and defense, righteousness, etc. They'd get healing. Gods of warfare, death, undeath, suffering, pain, evil, treachery, etc they'd get negative energy. I'd say err on the side of caution, and give positive more often then negative.

-X

Hyooz
2010-11-02, 03:37 PM
That last bears repeating - any given character's color-alignment is not irrevocable, and does not represent some cosmic force nesting in their soul; it serves merely as a baseline descriptor for personality and methodology.

This bit seems to invalidate this as an alignment replacement. It's certainly nice alongside alignment, but really, this seems like a fancy way of reducing a complex character personality to a block of colors.

At the same time, it doesn't seem to address the problems of alignment. Monks can't be Red, but why? Its the same problem "Any non-chaotic" had. Monks can't love freedom? Avatar: TLA presented its monks as emotional, fun and freedom loving sorts. Paladins have to be part white, and people with black primary can't think at least one or two things are morally wrong, etc. It seems to have all the same problems the current alignment system has, but with additional layers to add to the confusion, and now we need celestial beings that embody Green and it gets all nuts.

I mean, for what it is, it works well, and at least seems internally consistent (from what I can tell) but its less an alignment replacement than a personality test. I totally agree that the current alignment system is wonky, but any system that tries to mechanically represent something as multifaceted and enigmatic as worldviews and philosophy.

EDIT: Also, I agree with Errant that Positive/Negative energy should stick around. I, for one, don't like the idea of clerics not being able to heal everyone. Just those that share a color? That seems odd to me. My goody-goody cleric should be able to offer healing to the evil overlord they just beat to show him there's absolute good in the world or something. Plus, positive/negative energy is kind of a big deal for undead and the like.

vicente408
2010-11-02, 05:22 PM
There is precedent for red Monks within the multiverse of Magic: the Gathering. The card Homura, Human Ascendant is a red card with the Monk creature type, and the planeswalker Chandra Nalaar was raised in and still makes her home in a monastery devoted to individual freedom and the development of pyromancy.

I love the Color Wheel, and think it's a fine way for trying to categorize an individual's or group's personality and/or methods without being too limiting or narrow (so long as one understands that there is room for a wide degree of variance within a color or color pair). Trying to force some of the "traditional" D&D alignment mechanics onto it doesn't feel right though. It seems better to scrap things like "smite X" and "detect X" and all that, and just craft a new system and/or cosmology that doesn't try to simply shoehorn the color wheel philosophy into a framework that wasn't built for it.

lightningcat
2010-11-02, 09:44 PM
By portfolio/domains (when available Portfolio first, Domains secondly). Heck you could use the old alignment system and the description of the God/dess and what they feel about things as a formatting. Gods of nature, healing, home and croft, succor, mercy and martyrdom, protection and defense, righteousness, etc. They'd get healing. Gods of warfare, death, undeath, suffering, pain, evil, treachery, etc they'd get negative energy. I'd say err on the side of caution, and give positive more often then negative.

-X

I'm using a variation of the color wheel system, and this is exactly what I did for all of my deities, and as my setting has something like 150+ gods, it took a while. In the end, about 2/3 of them have clerics that must channel one or the other, and for the rest the cleric chooses at 1st level. Most of the white and green aligned deities go for positive energy, and many of the black ones go negative, but there are exceptions.

Of all of the official classes, the one I had the most trouble working into this system was the one I had expected to have the fewest problems with: the Paladin. I'm currently not using it pending a better way to make it work with the system.

The Witch-King
2010-11-04, 03:21 PM
First--I love the concept--my friends love the concept and we'll certainly be using it the next D&D game we start. So thanks for that.


EDIT: Just realised the question you were actually asking was what the difference was between Intuition and Emotion Acting. I have no idea how to explain it though.

Okay--the difference is that Intuition typically serves an existing agenda and Acting on Emotion winds up creating its own agenda. If I have set for myself the agenda of catching a criminal and I have a hunch that guy A is the culprit, I may choose to investigate guy A first before guy B but the agenda remains the same.

Acting on Emotion--if I get angry, I may want to lash out at someone or if I get sad enough, I may want someone to feel sorry for me. My agenda becomes subverted by the emotion. It doesn't always happen that way but it can whereas intuition is a non-rational resource used to serve an existing agenda. Or to put it this way, I'm having some difficulty tracking down my criminal so I get drunk in a bar, start a bar fight and now I'm in jail. Not my original plan.


Clerics no longer channel positive/negative energy to spontaenously cast spells. Instead, a cleric may sacrifice a spell of equal or greater level to spontaenously cast a cure spell on a creature which either shares a color with them or has a color allied with their own, or to spontaenously cast an inflict spell on a creature which has a color opposed to their own.

I like this and I certainly don't have any problem with the rule change. Back when I played Everquest, I was part of a party and a Dark Elf cleric started healing us. He had a text macro linked to his healing spell that would shout "BE HEALED BY INNORUUK'S DIVINE HATRED!!" Despite really wanted and even needing the heals, he so creeped us out that we told him no thanks, we didn't want him to heal us any more. A Cleric's power should come from his/her deity, period. It should be "colored" if you'll forgive the pun by that deity and their domains, actions and personality. You should be concerned when the God of Hatred gives you healing through the person of his priest because you're being irradiated with his unholy power. It should be a problem for anyone with any morals, even if you decide the situation warrants it. And if the priest of the God of Hatred can only perform such a healing on someone he feels or his god feels some connection to, that should give you pause as well. I like this.

EDIT:
It seems to have all the same problems the current alignment system has, but with additional layers to add to the confusion, and now we need celestial beings that embody Green and it gets all nuts.

Fey have always embodied that role for me. I don't think it's written in stone that every concept or philosophy has to have Outsiders with a capital O to embody it but moving Fey to that role wouldn't take much. Faerie has always seemed to me like it was "some place other" anyway.

ErrantX
2010-11-04, 03:44 PM
Heh, could always use the Pain of Healing rules from Iron Kingdoms...

-X

vicente408
2010-11-05, 01:45 AM
Fey may often be part of the natural world in myth, but they are not Green at all really. Green hates deception, and if there's one thing that fey are known for it's deception. Green is the most honest color; a Green individual will tell you what they mean and nothing more, nothing less. Trickery, duplicitous dealings, and all that are not copasetic with green ideals; they are the purview of blue and black, green's enemies.

In MtG, green "outsiderish" things are pretty much always Elementals or Dryads, or sometimes Avatars. You're going to have to either make up something new to represent the color outside of the Prime Material or change the D&D fluff of one of those things to make them into suitable outsiders.

Like I said, trying to jam the two systems together is going to create a lot of friction, and most likely end up with too many compromises that don't feel right from one end or the other. Trying to force a system founded on a two-axis "grid" into a pentagon/pentagram mold is going to involve too much bending, twisting, and breaking. Best to make a new wholesale cosmology that incorporates the color wheel from the very beginning.

Lord_Gareth
2010-11-05, 01:54 AM
Like I said, trying to jam the two systems together is going to create a lot of friction, and most likely end up with too many compromises that don't feel right from one end or the other. Trying to force a system founded on a two-axis "grid" into a pentagon/pentagram mold is going to involve too much bending, twisting, and breaking. Best to make a new wholesale cosmology that incorporates the color wheel from the very beginning.

I've been meaning to do that for some time, actually, but you can use the Wheel as-is, for now.

Other posts to be addressed later, when I am less sick.

The Witch-King
2010-11-05, 02:53 AM
Fey may often be part of the natural world in myth, but they are not Green at all really. Green hates deception, and if there's one thing that fey are known for it's deception. Green is the most honest color; a Green individual will tell you what they mean and nothing more, nothing less. Trickery, duplicitous dealings, and all that are not copasetic with green ideals; they are the purview of blue and black, green's enemies.

"It's Not Easy Being Green" is one of the definitive articles on Green as a color in Magic: the Gathering. It can be found at: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr43

What does it say about it's enemies blue and black?

"In blue, green sees an enemy that does not respect the value of nature. Blue wishes to tear down all that is natural to construct its own artificial world. Blue has no respect for the importance of instinct choosing to value knowledge over one's gut. Blue looks to its cold impersonal future always forsaking the warmth of its past. Green must preemptively destroy blue before it destroys green.

In black, green sees a selfish, selfish color. Green understands the importance of the cycle of life. As such it respects the role of death. Black, on the other hand, uses death unnaturally as a tool for its own means. If green is to protect nature, it must stop black before it kills all living things for its own twisted agenda."

I don't see anything about Green hating deception. Green hates artifice and it's not the same thing.

As for a hatred of deception, there's an awful lot of it in Nature if it hates it. Snakes, insects and amphibians that are brightly colored to appear like animals that are poisonous when they aren't. Insects that look like branches and twigs and leaves and all manner of parts of plants to hide their presence from predators that might eat them. Predators that hide in the tall grass and strike from upwind to take herbivores by surprise. Animals that inflate themselves with air or stand on their hind legs and lift their front paws to make themselves seem bigger to intimidate a foe. Chameleons that change color in order to blend in with their environments.

If anything, I would say Green is perfectly happy with deception--when its in the animal's nature to be deceptive. Creating something new that wasn't there and isn't natural is artifice not deception.

Fey are Nature spirits and Green is all about Nature and I think they're a perfect fit. Some fey are deceptive. Some aren't. Fairy Godmothers tend to be pretty honest with their charges. Satyrs and Dryads and Nymphs are all pretty straightforward. The "rank and file" Tinkerbell type fairies are all caretakers of flowers and other plants, humble maintainers of the natural status quo.

The fey that are deceptive are the ones people focus on because its such a commonly used story concept. Without them, most stories involving mortal interactions with fey wouldn't make interesting reading. And even then, many of the stories about fey being deceptive involve a mortal going into their domain without permission, a situation where anyone could be forgiven for being deceptive. Elves are as Green as Green gets and I wouldn't expect to walk into an elven forest unannounced and see even half of the elves pointing arrows at me.

You can argue that some fey have an association with illusion because of the fey use of glamors in mythology. But again, I would argue that fey glamors are perfectly natural for fey because its a natural inborn fey ability. Fish swim, birds fly, and chameleons change color--fey glamor. And I would say not because of an inbred desire to deceive but because of a great rapacious inbred need to be beautiful at all times. Just like a male peacock spreading its feathers and prancing around to attract a mate--it's in their nature.


Like I said, trying to jam the two systems together is going to create a lot of friction, and most likely end up with too many compromises that don't feel right from one end or the other. Trying to force a system founded on a two-axis "grid" into a pentagon/pentagram mold is going to involve too much bending, twisting, and breaking. Best to make a new wholesale cosmology that incorporates the color wheel from the very beginning.

I just don't see this at all. Deities, planes, outsiders, races and individuals are currently associated with alignments. We now sit down and associate them instead with colors or combinations of colors. An alignment was never the whole story about anyone or anywhere to begin with. There's a world of difference between the world views of a Chaotic Good Viking warrior and a modern day Chaotic Good pacifist protester. Alignment or color, there's always going to be more information you're going to have to give someone in order for them to know what's going on.

And as for cosmology--really, please tell me: what changes do we really need to make? The Fourteen Peaceful Gardens of Shamballah were Lawful Good--now, they're White. Where's the "bending, twisting and breaking?"

Glimbur
2010-11-06, 10:44 AM
Red/Green: Savage is the term to describe Red/Green - raw emotion mixes with instinct to create a being that acts less on thought than it does intuition. Red/Green is brutally direct, preferring quick physical solutions over more lengthy intellectual social ones. Red/Green does not mix well with societies in general; Green's love of nature combines with Red's raw emotion (in this case, rage) with predictable results. Its greatest failing is an utter lack of thought; unless they fight to retain some form of self-control, Red/Green often barrels headfirst through life, unaware and unheeding of the consequences for their recklessly destructive actions.

Red - Freedom and Emotion: Red believes in acting on one's emotions, and in the freedom to do so; if you love, act upon it. If you rage, attack, if you feel sorrow, weep. Red believes in absolute freedom, and that people are happiest when they're honest with themselves. Trickery, spontaneity, and direct solutions are all hallmarks of Red's methodology; Red is far more likely to simply smash a wall or blow it up than it is to, say, build a door through it. At its best, Red is genuinely loyal, caring, and committed to the idea of personal freedom. At its worst, Red is random and pointlessly destructive, smashing through restricting obstacles, laws, and people simply because they're there. Allied Colors - Black and Green. Enemy Colors - Blue and White.
I don't see the difference between these two, at least not in a significant amount. A preference for using natural methods isn't the same as an alignment, and if you strip that out Red/Green is the same as Red.

Looking at the other descriptions, it seems like you could really simplify Green if you make it conservative/regressive. This instinctive thing, or there being an overall plan... they just muddy the water.

My other concern is that White is Lawful Neutral, Black is Neutral Evil, Red is Chaotic Neutral, and Blue is the only non-green color which is difficult to put in the original alignment system. It's True Neutral with an inquisitive bent... which is more personality than alignment anyway. Green doesn't fit the L-C G-E chart if you simplify it to simply conservative and let the preference for nature flow out of a preference for how things used to be done... but a preference for how things used to be done isn't fully action guiding: should we go back to slavery as it used to be done, should we return to a tribal society? Etc.

Final observation: none of these alignments really feel "good" to me. This isn't a big surprise coming from you.

IcarusWings
2010-11-06, 10:49 AM
"It's Not Easy Being Green" is one of the definitive articles on Green as a color in Magic: the Gathering. It can be found at: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr43

What does it say about it's enemies blue and black?

"In blue, green sees an enemy that does not respect the value of nature. Blue wishes to tear down all that is natural to construct its own artificial world. Blue has no respect for the importance of instinct choosing to value knowledge over one's gut. Blue looks to its cold impersonal future always forsaking the warmth of its past. Green must preemptively destroy blue before it destroys green.

In black, green sees a selfish, selfish color. Green understands the importance of the cycle of life. As such it respects the role of death. Black, on the other hand, uses death unnaturally as a tool for its own means. If green is to protect nature, it must stop black before it kills all living things for its own twisted agenda."

I don't see anything about Green hating deception. Green hates artifice and it's not the same thing.

As for a hatred of deception, there's an awful lot of it in Nature if it hates it. Snakes, insects and amphibians that are brightly colored to appear like animals that are poisonous when they aren't. Insects that look like branches and twigs and leaves and all manner of parts of plants to hide their presence from predators that might eat them. Predators that hide in the tall grass and strike from upwind to take herbivores by surprise. Animals that inflate themselves with air or stand on their hind legs and lift their front paws to make themselves seem bigger to intimidate a foe. Chameleons that change color in order to blend in with their environments.

If anything, I would say Green is perfectly happy with deception--when its in the animal's nature to be deceptive. Creating something new that wasn't there and isn't natural is artifice not deception.

Fey are Nature spirits and Green is all about Nature and I think they're a perfect fit. Some fey are deceptive. Some aren't. Fairy Godmothers tend to be pretty honest with their charges. Satyrs and Dryads and Nymphs are all pretty straightforward. The "rank and file" Tinkerbell type fairies are all caretakers of flowers and other plants, humble maintainers of the natural status quo.

The fey that are deceptive are the ones people focus on because its such a commonly used story concept. Without them, most stories involving mortal interactions with fey wouldn't make interesting reading. And even then, many of the stories about fey being deceptive involve a mortal going into their domain without permission, a situation where anyone could be forgiven for being deceptive. Elves are as Green as Green gets and I wouldn't expect to walk into an elven forest unannounced and see even half of the elves pointing arrows at me.

You can argue that some fey have an association with illusion because of the fey use of glamors in mythology. But again, I would argue that fey glamors are perfectly natural for fey because its a natural inborn fey ability. Fish swim, birds fly, and chameleons change color--fey glamor. And I would say not because of an inbred desire to deceive but because of a great rapacious inbred need to be beautiful at all times. Just like a male peacock spreading its feathers and prancing around to attract a mate--it's in their nature.

Green isn't all about nature anymore, just like black isn't about death and isn't portrayed as evil. They've been changed from MtG had them as.

Lord_Gareth
2010-11-06, 03:58 PM
Looking at the other descriptions, it seems like you could really simplify Green if you make it conservative/regressive. This instinctive thing, or there being an overall plan... they just muddy the water.

Hrmm. An interesting concept. I'll toy with it awhile.


My other concern is that White is Lawful Neutral, Black is Neutral Evil, Red is Chaotic Neutral, and Blue is the only non-green color which is difficult to put in the original alignment system. It's True Neutral with an inquisitive bent... which is more personality than alignment anyway. Green doesn't fit the L-C G-E chart if you simplify it to simply conservative and let the preference for nature flow out of a preference for how things used to be done... but a preference for how things used to be done isn't fully action guiding: should we go back to slavery as it used to be done, should we return to a tribal society? Etc.

This isn't supposed to fit the L-C G-E chart. That's why it's a replacement system. These ideals are neither good nor evil in and of themselves, and every color has the potential to spawn both heroes and villains. Most characters are probably going to be morally gray, really, which is how it should be (in my opinion, anyway).


Final observation: none of these alignments really feel "good" to me. This isn't a big surprise coming from you.

Anything taken to an extreme is harmful, is it not? But each color has the potential for good as well; even a Black character might do good (say, out of a vainglorious desire for praise) and thus be heroic.


Green isn't all about nature anymore, just like black isn't about death and isn't portrayed as evil. They've been changed from MtG had them as.

A-hem. Black wasn't evil to begin with. Black is just willing to play dirty.

hamishspence
2010-11-06, 04:05 PM
A-hem. Black wasn't evil to begin with. Black is just willing to play dirty.

Might the nicest Black types refuse to "play dirty" in the sense of "violate individual rights"?


At its best, Black creates societies of enlightened self-interest, where individual rights and opportunities take precedence over communal rules.

Lord_Gareth
2010-11-06, 04:10 PM
Might the nicest Black types refuse to "play dirty" in the sense of "violate individual rights"?

An eminent possibility; the main traits of Black are (A) selfishness and (B) amorality. Everything else is entirely up for grabs, and the idea of an actively democratic Black (common ground with Red) is not unreasonable at all.

hamishspence
2010-11-06, 04:12 PM
Some variants might even elevate "selfishness" in certain senses, into a form of morality, and build a moral code around it, rather than being strictly amoral.

Objectivism might qualify as a very Black philosophy.

Lord_Gareth
2010-11-06, 04:13 PM
Objectivism might qualify as a very Black philosophy.

Common ground with Blue for the win, my friend ^_^

hamishspence
2010-11-06, 04:18 PM
Good point.

Indeed, since Blue is allied with Black and White (normally opposed to each other) that might be a good way of constructing a philosophy capable of uniting them both. :smallamused:

EDIT:

Come to think of it, what other well-known philosophies could be characterized in Color Wheel terms?

Lord_Gareth
2010-11-06, 04:31 PM
Alright folks, I'm running into a problem here; "Regressive" green is a helluva lot like White. "Nature" Green is more of a modern morality ("My carbon footprint is microscopic!") and, well, "savage" Green is more accurately Green/Red (until I change it, anyway). Ideas?

hamishspence
2010-11-06, 04:35 PM
Maybe the darker aspect of Green could be "uncontrolled growth"

A more sinister Green character might insist on "growth" to the point where it becomes threatening- and not understand why sometimes, things need pruning.

NineThePuma
2010-11-06, 04:39 PM
Not just wild growth, but perhaps something similar to naivete where they don't recognize that sometimes the bad things have to go?

hamishspence
2010-11-06, 04:41 PM
At it's darkest, tumour-type spells, might be green-based.

vicente408
2010-11-06, 09:15 PM
It's okay if you're finding overlap between colors. That's sort of the point of the color wheel; each color has its individual identity, but they still have common values with other colors. Not just with allies, even enemies can have common causes, though this happens more rarely.

What is uniquely green, though? The part of its philosophy that no other color has is that it desires a complete surrender to fate. Every other color will, in some way or another, want to change the path of fate to suit its ideals; red will instigate change according to how it feels, regardless of any overarching plan or destiny. Black will only settle for a fate that results in itself coming out on top. Blue knows what is best for the future and will try to shape the world to make it happen according to its vision. Even white will rebel against destiny if it feels that there is injustice that needs to be righted. Green, though, prioritizes the status quo above all else. The natural world is the epitome of this, a network of living things all acting in accordance with the roles they were born with, but it extends outside of the forests as well. A green individual will not aspire to anything greater than what they see as their destined position in the world; they are happy with what they were born into. If that life contains hardship, then they will endure. It is not one's place to change the world to make your own life more comfortable, or the life of another. Injustice and cruelty in the world is a shame, but even it has its place in the web of fate.

All that will be, will be, and those who try to change the world to suit their own wishes and plans are naive at best, and endangering the world's balance at worst.

vasharanpaladin
2010-11-07, 12:58 AM
This concept has been yoinked. Carry on. :smalltongue:

Havvy
2010-11-07, 03:39 AM
What color would this philosophy be: Aggressive coercion in the free dealings between people causes less satisfaction combined with people have property rights.

DragonOfUndeath
2010-11-07, 03:51 AM
maybe White with Red and Black Secondaries?

Lord_Gareth
2010-11-07, 03:59 AM
maybe White with Red secondary and Black Tertiary?

A-hem. This is another point of confusion; a character can have up to two Secondary colors. There is no tertiary.

The Witch-King
2010-11-07, 05:58 AM
A green individual will not aspire to anything greater than what they see as their destined position in the world; they are happy with what they were born into. If that life contains hardship, then they will endure. It is not one's place to change the world to make your own life more comfortable, or the life of another. Injustice and cruelty in the world is a shame, but even it has its place in the web of fate.

All that will be, will be, and those who try to change the world to suit their own wishes and plans are naive at best, and endangering the world's balance at worst.

I think that you are taking Green at its worst as being representative of Green at all times. Let's take another look at the given definition of Green:


Green - Growth and Harmony: Green believes in the concept of predestination; in Green's view, there's a Plan to create a perfect world, and a being can be happiest simply by discovering their role in the Plan and fulfilling it. Green trusts its instincts and harmonizes with the world around it, using intuition and observation to "grow" their way around problems either physically, mentally, magically or spiritually. Green dislikes using new ideas and inventions when more naturalistic or traditional solutions will work, and distrusts influences such as artifice, logic, and selfishness that hinder a being's personal growth and potentially endanger the Plan. Green characters often associate heavily with the natural world in their quest to grow personally and seek their role in the multiverse. At its best, Green is wise, understanding, and insightful. At its worst, Green is savage, short-sighted and hidebound. Allied Colors - Red and White. Enemy Colors - Black and Blue.

Green - Growth and Harmony

Philosophies don't exist for their own sake. Philosophies exist as a road towards happiness. I think you're missing both the potential and the beauty in the Green philosophy.

Green believes in the concept of predestination; in Green's view, there's a Plan to create a perfect world, and a being can be happiest simply by discovering their role in the Plan and fulfilling it.

Green is allied to White but Green isn't White. The Plan isn't being followed because laws or governments or tyrants or churches or priests or anybody tells you to follow the Plan. You follow the Plan because the idea is that's what's going to make you happy. If you aren't happy, then something is wrong. If you aren't happy, maybe you haven't discovered your proper role in the Plan or maybe you have discovered it but you haven't fulfilled it.

Green trusts its instincts and harmonizes with the world around it, using intuition and observation to "grow" their way around problems either physically, mentally, magically or spiritually.

You don't just accept problems and carry on. You don't just accept a life of pain and hardship and unhappiness. You sit down and do the hardest thing there is to do sometimes: you think. You look at your place in life and ask "why am I not happy?" You ask "what would it take to be happy?" Because that's the point of any philosophy.

Green characters often associate heavily with the natural world in their quest to grow personally and seek their role in the multiverse.

If you're the adopted son of a cruel step-father who's married your mother, you don't just put up with his abuse because it's your lot in life. You do what he says while you think about your situation. You watch the birds in the sky, you contemplate the animals in the forest, you commune with your ancestors. You search in Nature and in yourself for a place in the world, a place in the Plan where you can be happy. You might decide to leave home and seek work in a nearby village. After working hard just to survive in your new environment, you take up an apprenticeship or learn some job you think you'll be happy at. You work day and night if necessary to grow into the role that you believe you were meant to fulfill in the plan. You make it work, with hard work and honest re-appraisal of yourself and where you are in life.

Knowing there is a Plan and believing in the Plan are just the tip of the iceberg. The philosophy of Green as a guiding path isn't just "accept the Plan." It's look at the Plan, see yourself as a part of the Plan, a happy and harmonious part, and do what it takes to grow into that role so you can fulfill your part of the Plan.

At its best, Green is wise, understanding, and insightful. At its worst, Green is savage, short-sighted and hidebound.

Any philosophy can be reduced to one simple concept or directive. That's usually the point where that philosophy breaks down entirely. White venerates law, not for the sake of law, but because White perceives law as the best road to a life that's peaceful and ideal. It's that life that's peaceful and ideal that's the point. Green perceives Nature--the Plan--as the best road to a life that's happy, harmonious and that best develops the potential of each individual. You don't just accept. You're supposed to use observation and intuition to find your role, not let it be dictated to you, not by authority figures, not even by circumstance and then you're supposed to work hard to improve yourself and grow into that role so you can be happy and in harmony with those around you. And that's what so beautiful about Green as a philosophy.

Thrice Dead Cat
2010-11-07, 03:49 PM
So, one the major issues here is that Magic: the Gathering's alignment system is less "alignment" than even the DND system and bothers throwing in personality into the factor.

To be terse:
White = LN, going to either good or evil, natch.
Blue = TN, with the personality of a curious monkey, trickster, information broker, or similar in the mix.
Black = NE or TN, leaning more to chaos than law, but both are sill secondary to the focus of self and thus neutrality
Red = CWhatever
Green = TN in the sense that animals are TN.
WU = Even more LN than White, being less good or evil than either base color.
WB = LE, bleeding into the adjacent squares maybe. It's about the business (and/or family), after all.
WR = Nearly anything, really. You'll probably get a bunch of internal conflict between Law and Chaos, which could eventually land the person in either solid White or Red, but it really just runs the gamut.
WG = Very shamanistic and old guard style. Slight preference for nature, so either near LG or TN.
UB = Non-good, easy, as it's about getting info and power and not letting others have the same.
UR = Mad Scientist, so bunch of Chaos, little sense. Not much else to say.
UG = More "Visionary" Scientist or Evilutionary Biologist. Probably a shade of apathetic neutral or neutral whatever, depending. May be hammed up as Evlulz.
BR = Very easily CE, but could bleed out into the nearby alignments. It's all about the moment, the revelry and the self!
BG = Ranges from crazy old hermetic wizard to Nature above Man style Druids. So, some shade of neutral, probably some evil.
RG = Basically, an animal. Heavy on either some shade of KAY-OHS or TN due to sheer stupidity.

tl;dr: The color wheel is a decent addition, but not a replacement for the default alignment system. One's like the Big Five, the other like the Myers-Briggs test. There is some strong, positive correlating overlap, but they ultimately test different things. In this case, DND does a better job at alignment while the Color Wheel covers personality.

GnomeWorks
2010-11-14, 03:23 PM
In D&D terms, Green is roughly equatable to Neutral Good.

To get a useful philosophy out of green, you have to somewhat ignore its enemy status with Blue and instead focus on why it is an enemy of Black. You can work in the anti-Blue stuff later; anti-Black is where you start.

Black is amoral, selfish, paranoid, parasitic, individualistic, and indifferent to the plights of others. Some of those - amoral, selfish, paranoid - are anti-White.

Which leaves parasitism, individualism, and indifference as anti-Green virtues.

If we try to find opposites to those, we arrive at beliefs like: interdependence, empathy, and concern for the community.

These virtues are reflected in Green cards in M:tG, as well. Green has a strong theme of symbiosis, of the greater good, of lending assistance to others. It doesn't look out for itself, it looks out for the whole.

You can then add in Green's anti-Blue virtues, of instinct, tradition, and a feel for nature (which oppose Blue's virtues of reason, progress, and education), which brings you to the idea that there is a grand plan, to trust your instincts rather than to think ahead too much, and a preference for nature over artifice.

Hyooz
2010-11-14, 05:07 PM
An eminent possibility; the main traits of Black are (A) selfishness and (B) amorality. Everything else is entirely up for grabs, and the idea of an actively democratic Black (common ground with Red) is not unreasonable at all.

So how do you translate a selfish, amoral person into a Good guy? Seems fairly wedged into the Evil side of things with wanderings into neutrality.

hamishspence
2010-11-14, 05:11 PM
Selfish can be converted into "willing to help others (for what they perceive as their own gain)".

Some might (if they find helping others to be pleasurable enough) actually take considerable risks to help them.

Amoral is harder to justify though- some kind of a morality needs to be used for the Good guy to justify not doing Evil acts, though "I personally find them emotionally painful and not pleasurable" might do as an "amoral reason for not behaving immorally".

So, the person who subscribes to a generally Black ethic, might still have some of the traits associated with a Good alignment in D&D.

Specifically "takes risks to help others (strangers)" or "concern for life" or "respect for dignity".

Owrtho
2010-11-14, 05:54 PM
Similarly, a black character may be good if, despite being selfish, they feel that it is in their best interests to obey laws or other social conventions as it would cause too much trouble for them if they didn't do so. Thus they may act in the best interests of others as they consider such actions to be in their own best interests.

Also a black characters may view others as means to their own entertainment (like many fey and the like). They may work hard to help and protect those that they find entertaining the way someone would protect a favourite toy or other prized possession. The motivating outlook may seem bad, but the actions it motivates could easily be good depending on who they help.

It is also likely that such a character would not see themselves as evil in either case.

Owrtho

hamishspence
2010-11-14, 06:03 PM
Similarly, a black character may be good if, despite being selfish, they feel that it is in their best interests to obey laws or other social conventions as it would cause too much trouble for them if they didn't do so. Thus they may act in the best interests of others as they consider such actions to be in their own best interests.

To qualify as Good (in the D&D sense) they'd probably have to actually help others, even strangers, when there's little to be directly gained by doing so.

Otherwise, they'd probably be closer to Neutral- the PHB does point out that Neutral characters might risk themselves for friends, family, or even country- because they feel a personal attachment to it- but wouldn't normally risk themselves for strangers.

A "hedonist" who finds the sight of other people's happiness and gratitude pleasurable- so they help others at cost to themselves (but from their view, the personal pleasure outweighs the physical cost) might qualify as Good in this sense.

(Conversely, they might fight the sight of others suffering to be emotionally painful- and act to relieve their own emotional pain and maximise own emotional pleasure).

I like the idea of a character who is "self-centred but Good".

Maho-Tsukai
2010-11-14, 08:15 PM
Very interesting, and I have a proposition for you. I actually had the idea to organize all the Core Spells(and eventually the others) into the five MTG colors and making a sort of "D20 MTG." Seeing your color based alignment system and interest in having MTG related content translated into D&D I would love it if you could become a partner of sorts in this project. You would have imput and even help out with the actual changes to the game(There are some radical ones planed such as the elimination of certain classes and such.) if you wanted too and I would love your aid in this. I seek to either put it up on this forum when done or turn it into a 100% free PDF that will be released. You will get full credit for whatever you do once a finished product is created(Either a forum post or free pdf.)

However, I understand you may not have the time or wherewithal to do such a thing so whatever your answer is I will respect it. However, I would really like to plan some stuff out with you and have somebody else to work with.

Glimbur
2010-11-14, 08:41 PM
I like the idea of a character who is "self-centred but Good".

Good in what sense? Clearly not as in "acts selflessly", a utilitarian approach which only considers your own good is actually egoism which is... questionable; a deontological approach which only considers your own good is either very complicated and far-seeing or also egoism.

Hyooz
2010-11-14, 09:06 PM
Selfish can be converted into "willing to help others (for what they perceive as their own gain)".

Some might (if they find helping others to be pleasurable enough) actually take considerable risks to help them.

That takes... a really bizarre mental state. "Selfish" implies self first. Sure, a selfish person might work as a mercenary and save a bunch of people because he's being paid, but the moment risk outweighs the reward, selfish gets out of there. Finding pleasure in helping others is a Good-aligned thing, and pretty much the antithesis of selfishness.

Even if this guy just enjoys helping people SO MUCH that he goes around performing random acts of charity for selfish reasons, that's still neutral at best. Lex Luthor is one of the DC universe's biggest philanthropists. Intentions are big for alignment concerns.


Amoral is harder to justify though- some kind of a morality needs to be used for the Good guy to justify not doing Evil acts, though "I personally find them emotionally painful and not pleasurable" might do as an "amoral reason for not behaving immorally".

Not behaving Evil-ly does not translate into behaving Good-ly. Especially when selfishness is the other cornerstone of your Color. Utilitarian concerns become the sole reason for not killing indiscriminately, for example, and that still strictly forbids any Good characters.



So, the person who subscribes to a generally Black ethic, might still have some of the traits associated with a Good alignment in D&D.

Specifically "takes risks to help others (strangers)" or "concern for life" or "respect for dignity".

Again, intentions are everything for these kinds of concerns. If you'll forgive a Manga reference - in Full Metal Alchemist, when Envy is impersonating the pope-guy, he runs the religion as normal, encouraging charity and all that good stuff, doing good things, etc. But, he was only doing these things because the cover gave them political power for later, more selfish reasons.


Similarly, a black character may be good if, despite being selfish, they feel that it is in their best interests to obey laws or other social conventions as it would cause too much trouble for them if they didn't do so. Thus they may act in the best interests of others as they consider such actions to be in their own best interests.

Again, doing things for others because it's in your own interests is strictly neutral at best. The Lex Luthor example is still pertinent. The combination of "selfish" and "amoral" being the main features of this color really kind of dooms it. At best, you have a character who just doesn't have inclinations to wanton murder and theft, and might help a guy out if it works for him.


Also a black characters may view others as means to their own entertainment (like many fey and the like). They may work hard to help and protect those that they find entertaining the way someone would protect a favourite toy or other prized possession. The motivating outlook may seem bad, but the actions it motivates could easily be good depending on who they help.

It is also likely that such a character would not see themselves as evil in either case.

Owrtho

Luthor doesn't see himself as evil. The Homunculi from FMA didn't see themselves as evil. They were working in their best interests and in the interest of those they feel loyalty to. Black characters aren't necessarily EVIL, don't get me wrong, because that requires an active inclination toward evil acts.

It really is the combo of selfish and amoral that makes this hard. A character can believe in no absolute good or evil but still have a charitable personality, or value others over himself. A selfish character can still believe in absolute morality and follow the good path, as much as it might grate on him.

Owrtho
2010-11-14, 11:18 PM
First, it may be worth noting that falling into a particular colour's alignment does not mean you have to have all of the traits associated with it. A black character could simply have one or the other.
I also find that you seem to sell short how a selfish or amoral character may be good. While an amoral character may not believe in right or wrong, they may still choose to help people because they want to.
Similarly, a selfish person may help others because they find it brings them pleasure. Though bears noting that outside what D&D defines good as, the term is completely subjective.

Still it could be argued that all characters are selfish, with the only issue being what goal they work toward. Someone who helps others does so because they enjoy doing so (even if they are left worse off, they consider the feeling that they gain from it to outweigh the costs to themselves), they want to be 'good' (may be driven by the desire to reach a particular afterlife, or just the praise that comes with being good), they did so inadvertently (or it was needed to accomplish a goal they desired), they are being forced to, or some combination or middle ground of the other possibilities. In any case everyone has some reason they think it is worth helping others and all of them (except possible the accidentally doing so) could be considered selfish.

It is true though that intent plays a large part in determining if someone's actions are good or evil (though it also relies on the person's ideas of what are good and evil, as differing beliefs may result in one person doing what they consider a good act and another considering it an evil act).

Owrtho

Lord_Gareth
2010-11-14, 11:38 PM
Though bears noting that outside what D&D defines good as, the term is completely subjective.

This. Very much this. I'm having trouble understanding why folks are getting hung up equating these colors to the system they're replacing.

NineThePuma
2010-11-14, 11:42 PM
Simply put, this could SUPPLEMENT the Alignment system, but it is MUCH less retarded and is very good at what it is. Suddenly there are WIDE RANGES of interpretations for classes.

A thought: I would argue that secondary colors don't actually have any mechanical effects. If you're Blue Sec: Red/Black, you're treated as blue for all purposes.

DragonOfUndeath
2010-11-15, 12:33 AM
A thought: I would argue that secondary colors don't actually have any mechanical effects. If you're Blue Sec: Red/Black, you're treated as blue for all purposes.

you are effected by all spells that target those colours

NineThePuma
2010-11-15, 12:44 AM
I'm aware. I explicitly mean that it SHOULDN'T be that way.

Hyooz
2010-11-15, 01:18 AM
First, it may be worth noting that falling into a particular colour's alignment does not mean you have to have all of the traits associated with it. A black character could simply have one or the other.

This is not an argument in favor of the system. If one black character cannot be relied on to share certain base philosophical standings as another black character, then what's the point? We have one guy who is true Black, and another guy who is true Black. One is a selfish bastard, but maintains there is an absolute cosmic order of morality. The other is altruistic because he wants to be, because there is no absolute sense of morality. Both are black, but one has the tendencies described by the Black descriptor from the OP, and the other doesn't seem black at all.

So the Black color loses meaning fast if one or the other applies.



I also find that you seem to sell short how a selfish or amoral character may be good. While an amoral character may not believe in right or wrong, they may still choose to help people because they want to.
Similarly, a selfish person may help others because they find it brings them pleasure.

Right, separately. An amoral person can be Good no problem. A person who can be defined/described as selfish, not so much. DnD Good isn't giving to the poor so you can get tax write-offs or whatever - DnD Good is giving to the poor because its the right thing to do. You can take pleasure in it or not take pleasure in it. Motive is absolutely key, though.


Though bears noting that outside what D&D defines good as, the term is completely subjective.

Right, and outside of DnD, my personal philosophy doesn't give me superpowers and hitting someone with a sword doesn't rely on a die roll. Since we're talking about DnD, I don't see how this bears noting.



It is true though that intent plays a large part in determining if someone's actions are good or evil (though it also relies on the person's ideas of what are good and evil, as differing beliefs may result in one person doing what they consider a good act and another considering it an evil act).

Yes, you could argue that every character is selfish, you're basically arguing that no character is Good. It's totally legit, too. DnD Good is really stupid hard to be effectively. PCs just don't fit in well.


This. Very much this. I'm having trouble understanding why folks are getting hung up equating these colors to the system they're replacing.

That's just it, though: if such equations exist, then what's the point of the new system? At the same time, you make your own equations, which might be encouraging others to do so. Paladins have to be white, monks can't be red: one of the biggest problems of the standard alignment system are these kinds of mechanical restriction issues. Color arguments would be just as common as alignment arguments, etc.

Don't get me wrong, DnD alignment is wonked to hell. I generally ignore it when I can. I just let Smite work on basically anything they'd end up fighting except for allies, potential allies (people they don't have to be fighting, basically. Works well as an in-game hint that they might be killing off an important NPC), and creatures that would be colorless under your system.

Your system certainly gives a little more leeway than the typical alignment system, but basically encourages the removal or reworking of anything that would require alignment anyway. It just makes more sense to me to totally drop alignment altogether, encourage in-depth descriptions of a character's personality and belief, as well as defining any particular campaign specific moral issues.

NineThePuma
2010-11-15, 01:54 AM
Hyooz, I believe that you misunderstand. Lord Gareth is explicitly bemoaning the fact that people are making those connections, or trying. They aren't supposed to equate like that at all. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Hyooz
2010-11-15, 01:58 AM
Hyooz, I believe that you misunderstand. Lord Gareth is explicitly bemoaning the fact that people are making those connections, or trying. They aren't supposed to equate like that at all. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Right, and I'm bemoaning the fact that, if I can, what's the point of the new system? If people like Thrice Dead Cat can make direct parallels to the alignments possible under the normal alignment system, then this becomes a renaming of the old alignment system.

Owrtho
2010-11-15, 01:59 AM
Right, and outside of DnD, my personal philosophy doesn't give me superpowers and hitting someone with a sword doesn't rely on a die roll. Since we're talking about DnD, I don't see how this bears noting.

It bears noting because this system is intended to replace the normal alignment system and remove good and evil from alignments altogether. As such the standard D&D definitions become null and void when discussing it.


Yes, you could argue that every character is selfish, you're basically arguing that no character is Good. It's totally legit, too. DnD Good is really stupid hard to be effectively. PCs just don't fit in well.

I wasn't just talking about player characters. This was a statement about helping people in general (and selfish is quite different from not good). There is no choices that can willingly be made that can't be considered selfish. Everyone makes choices in their own best interest. Even placing other's interests above your own is done for selfish reasons, though the ones doing it may not consider it such.


That's just it, though: if such equations exist, then what's the point of the new system? At the same time, you make your own equations, which might be encouraging others to do so. Paladins have to be white, monks can't be red: one of the biggest problems of the standard alignment system are these kinds of mechanical restriction issues. Color arguments would be just as common as alignment arguments, etc.

There aren't really equations between them. The requirements made just happen to make sense. Paladins tend to believe in some form of order or working for the good of the group, which is white, and if they didn't they'd likely be some other martial group. Monks usually are focused around not being controlled by their emotions while red is about following your emotions with total abandon. Hence the restrictions. They are however much more open than the normal alignment system.

Also, while there are possible connections between this and the old system, they aren't direct connections. Most any alignment could be any colour, there are just some that are more easily seen than others.

Owrtho

NineThePuma
2010-11-15, 02:57 AM
White isn't just "good" because it can be horribly horribly Evil. It can also be very very Chaotic, with Freedom Fighters and everything, ruining the tendency toward Law people are harping on. Yes, it's about Law and Good, but that's because of the idiotic way that the alignment system is built, not because of the way that the color wheel is set up. You CAN draw those lines, but they are only just barely accurate.

hamishspence
2010-11-15, 04:17 AM
Good in what sense? Clearly not as in "acts selflessly", a utilitarian approach which only considers your own good is actually egoism which is... questionable; a deontological approach which only considers your own good is either very complicated and far-seeing or also egoism.

Good in the sense of "takes risks to help strangers" and "makes sacrifices to help strangers".

Plus "does not do Evil things"

Combine the two- and they fit Good alignment rather than Neutral, since according to the PHB, Neutral people will generally not take risks, or make sacrifices, for strangers.

The fact that, from their point of view, the risks are "worth it" and the sacrifices are "Not really sacrifices, since I'm trading something of value to me for something of greater value to me" is irrelevant- they are acting in a fashion that's consistant with D&D Good alignment.


Finding pleasure in helping others is a Good-aligned thing, and pretty much the antithesis of selfishness.

Even if this guy just enjoys helping people SO MUCH that he goes around performing random acts of charity for selfish reasons, that's still neutral at best. Lex Luthor is one of the DC universe's biggest philanthropists. Intentions are big for alignment concerns.

These two contradict each other. Either finding pleasure in helping others (and pain in the sight of others suffering) is a potential sign of a Good alignment, or it's not.

If it is, then "doing Good because it's pleasurable to do Good" is Good behaviour, not Neutral behaviour.

Evil intentions for Good behaviour, might make it cease to be Good.
But "It is pleasurable, therefore I do it" is not "Evil Intentions".

Might be interesting to sum up the colors:

Red- Emotion
Blue- Logic
Green- Natural
White- Community
Black- Individual

However, they can be combined in interesting ways:
Blue-Red-Black: It is logical to do what is emotionally enjoyable- when it's in your own individual self-interest.

Blue-White-Black: It is logical to support a community that protects individual rights- because it's in your own individual self-interest, to be a part of that community.

And so on.

Lix Lorn
2010-11-15, 05:01 AM
Any colour can be slanted as good or as evil. Imagine a cult of smiling, blood covered children working for 'the good of all' White evil right that.

Then again, there's Toshiro Umezawa, of kamigawa. Hello, good mono-black.

I'd also point out that most of the argument about black is calling selfishness and amorality as its cornerstones. I'd point out that black values ambition and power just as much.

hamishspence
2010-11-15, 05:07 AM
I'd also point out that most of the argument about black is calling selfishness and amorality as its cornerstones. I'd point out that black values ambition and power just as much.

Also a little tricky to justify in a Good mindset.

Still, a person who believes that wealth and power are not a zero-sum game, and that everybody can become more wealthy and powerful "if the cake is made bigger" might pursue an agenda that benefits both the individual and the group-

with their ambition and desire for power, actually leading to everyone else benefitting as well.

Lix Lorn
2010-11-15, 05:17 AM
(nods in agreement)
I'm not saying Black being good is easy, just that it's possible. Sane as evil White is possible. (And far more often, IMO)

hamishspence
2010-11-15, 05:48 AM
Yup. In D&D, intentions may matter, but not that much.

An evil act (torturing the innocent) done with Good intentions (to get info needed to save the community) may still be Evil.

Conversely, a Good act (making a sacrifice for a stranger) done with Neutral intentions (personal pleasure/avoiding personal pain) can still qualify as a Good act.

The Colour Wheel, is more useful for identifying why people tend to do things, rather than what they tend to do.

Havvy
2010-11-15, 06:33 AM
I'd say that being black and good is extremely easy if you truly know what is in your best interest. Seriously though, I could create a sentence I believe in that uses the five words suggested:

Red- Emotion
Blue- Logic
Green- Natural
White- Community
Black- Individual

I am an individual, but by using logic, I find that their is a natural order of humans to create a community so that they may improve their efficiency at getting emotions satiated.

Red blue combo is not one who logically chooses to follow his emotions. Any logical person would do so. Red blue would be somebody who chooses what to think about based on their emotional attachment to the idea.

hamishspence
2010-11-15, 07:41 AM
Red blue combo is not one who logically chooses to follow his emotions. Any logical person would do so. Red blue would be somebody who chooses what to think about based on their emotional attachment to the idea.

Possibly. Vulcans have very very strong emotions- but they choose to suppress them in favour of logic- might they be Red/Blue in certain ways?

A person who trusts both logic, and their "gut feelings", might be Red/Blue, depending on which they tend to favour more.


Seriously though, I could create a sentence I believe in that uses the five words suggested:

Red- Emotion
Blue- Logic
Green- Natural
White- Community
Black- Individual

Which may actually make sense, if you allow a "multicolored" person to draw from all five,

rather than assume no multicolored people exist, only people who draw from a few colors, or people who are colorless and draw only very weakly from any of the colors.

"The Balance" in this case, can actually work with the Color Wheel.

Havvy
2010-11-15, 08:13 AM
Suppressing emotions is basically saying "I'm not red."

hamishspence
2010-11-15, 08:47 AM
But having them, and needing to suppress them in order to prevent them going out of control (and releasing them under certain special circumstances), is a sign that there's at least some red in there.

Spock: "Logic is the beginning of wisdom- not the end"

That said "intuition" "feelings" "instincts" and so on, might be closer to green than red.

gkathellar
2010-11-15, 09:09 AM
I've brought years of lurking to an end so that I can make an argument about Vulcans.


Possibly. Vulcans have very very strong emotions- but they choose to suppress them in favour of logic- might they be Red/Blue in certain ways?

Vulcans make logicians cry. Their logic is just thinly veiled utilitarianism built on a powerful mold of repression.

Logic is a means, not an ends. Your culture can't be "built on logic," because logic is just a way of finding expedient paths to a goal. True, a culture can be more or less logical in its behavior, but that's a methodological concern, not a priorities one. The same applies for individuals - you can behave logically or illogically, but only in the context of what you are actually trying to achieve.

From the perspective of the color wheel, that means logic is in some ways a property of Blue as a secondary alignment (secondaries being explicitly defined as methodology), since logic basically means "pursuing a goal using the knowledge available to you." As a primary, Blue seems to be more about placing a high premium on knowledge and progress, even potentially valuing them over everything else. And ... vulcans don't really care about that all too much.

So where would we put Vulcans? Blue is right out. Their whole culture is about suppressing the Red virtues of passion, spontaneity and emotion. Part of Green's doctrine is "be yourself," which is pretty much the opposite of repression. Some of them have Black as a secondary alignment, embodied by occasional willingness to lie and cheat for the "greater good," though it's definitely never a primary with its focus on individualism. But they're utilitarian, hung up on rules, and they value the community over the individual. Solid White.

Hopefully, this is helpful beyond the context to Vulcans. The Color Wheel idea is elegant precisely because it maps to concrete objectives and behavior, not a set of weird abstracts that don't really tell you anything.

hamishspence
2010-11-15, 10:02 AM
From the perspective of the color wheel, that means logic is in some ways a property of Blue as a secondary alignment (secondaries being explicitly defined as methodology), since logic basically means "pursuing a goal using the knowledge available to you." As a primary, Blue seems to be more about placing a high premium on knowledge and progress, even potentially valuing them over everything else. And ... vulcans don't really care about that all too much.

So where would we put Vulcans? Blue is right out. Their whole culture is about suppressing the Red virtues of passion, spontaneity and emotion. Part of Green's doctrine is "be yourself," which is pretty much the opposite of repression. Some of them have Black as a secondary alignment, embodied by occasional willingness to lie and cheat for the "greater good," though it's definitely never a primary with its focus on individualism. But they're utilitarian, hung up on rules, and they value the community over the individual. Solid White.

So, always White as primary, possibly with traces of Blue or Black as secondary, then?

Jedi vs Sith in terms of the Color Wheel might be something like this:

Sith are very Red, and very Black. They draw their power from passion, and they prize ambition and power considerably.

(Some Sith might value the pursuit of knowledge, or the strength of the group, and lean to White or Blue as secondary)

Jedi are very anti-Red, and anti-Black. Ambition, and passion, are strongly disapproved of.

They also lean toward White virtues (guardians of the Republic, selflessness highly valued) and Green teachings "Let go your conscious self and act on instinct" "Trust your feelings" and so on.

"A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge (and defense)" might imply Blue as a secondary.

gkathellar
2010-11-15, 10:49 AM
Well, the more complicated a fictional group's ideology is, the more variation and ambiguity you're going to get. To wit, your example: in the EU, Exar Kun founded the Sith tradition we see in the original trilogy, and his sole concern was advancement and mastery of the force within the Sith tradition. That sounds Blue to me, with Black and possibly White as secondaries. Palpatine and Dooku, on the other hand, are probably the worst kind of Black primary (possibly with White as a secondary), whereas Vader and Maul are pretty much driven wholly by rage and would likely be Red, secondary Black. Revan from KOTOR was ostensibly an ends-justify-the-means type. He might be primary White, secondary Black.

Of course, characters in popular fiction aren't necessarily the best representation of any "moral system" because writers don't usually create them with such a system in mind. People have concluded that Batman is every alignment in the traditional nine, and I'm sure you could do the same for this. But we can make generalizations, and those are more useful in constructing characters - Sith, for example, are pretty much Not Green, because in canon the dark side is pretty much totally unnatural. Vulcans are Usually White, because they have a well-defined set of rules and ethics. Hobbits are Unlikely Blue, because they prefer stability to progress. Ad nauseum.

Glimbur
2010-11-15, 11:20 AM
Ok, example time. There is a person who works at an orphanage. This person seems to really enjoy the work and refuses offers for more prestigious and lucrative positions in favor of helping orphans. What alignment is this person?

White, of course. Helping orphans is good for society as a whole, as it reduces their odds of turning to thievery.Red, of course. This person is filled with compassion and sees a need in these orphans which they help fulfill.Blue, of course. This is a superb chance to examine how children develop and thereby understand adults.Green, of course. Animals care for their young, and everything is connected so kindness is important.Black, of course. It will be useful later to have a group of adults who feel indebted to you, and the reputation for altruism is valuable.If the exact same action can be justified by every color, this suggests that motive and not actions are what matter. I've lost track of what I was trying to prove here but this example will stir further discussion.

hamishspence
2010-11-15, 11:53 AM
Motives play a big part in Color Wheel-based descriptions of actions.

But one might say that if the overall result of actions is antithetical to the motive, that might also be relevant for Color.

A person who seeks knowledge- but only in order to profit from it- might be closer to Black than Blue in action. Especially if, once they have knowledge, they take steps to prevent others from getting it.

And the previously mentioned "Hedonistic, altruistic Black character who does what's in his emotional self-interest" might have a lot of Red, rather than being purely Black- with his reasoning being:

"Being happy is in my interest, being sad is against my interests. Other people's happiness makes me happy, other people's unhappiness makes me sad. Therefore, I will be acting toward my own interest by maximizing my happiness and minimizing my sadness".

Leliel
2010-11-15, 01:09 PM
I think people are forgetting the fact that most people are going to have secondary colors, which interact with the primary in ways that well...are nigh-infinite.

Take a priest of Pelor. From the outside, he looks exactly like the stereotype-kind, wise, freedom-loving, and forgiving. Sounds like White, or at least Green with White secondary, right?

Nope. His primary is pure Black, with Red and White secondary. He just uses the latter to draw power from.

See, he might believe in random acts of kindness and good deeds, but it's not because he thinks his religion mandates it. Rather, it's because he thinks a strong, happy society is a far more nice place to live and thrive in, and he also thinks true freedom requires a modicum of order. Can't live for yourself if you're just struggling to survive, after all.

That said, he's not dishonest, or even manipulative-he geniunely wants to do good for the world, albeit only the parts he likes (a perfectly valid Good philosophy in D&D; no one wants Mind Flayers to get the upper hand). However, he also believes to his core that there is no true good or evil in the world-as Terry Prachett would say, there is no Atom of Justice, or Particle of Altruism. They're lies. They also happen to be very productive lies, necessary to the world for actually improving.

gkathellar
2010-11-15, 01:32 PM
A person who seeks knowledge- but only in order to profit from it- might be closer to Black than Blue in action. Especially if, once they have knowledge, they take steps to prevent others from getting it.

Right, that seems like pretty much the definition of Primary Black, Secondary Blue. Said individual is motivated by a desire for power, and uses knowledge as the means to achieve that power.


And the previously mentioned "Hedonistic, altruistic Black character who does what's in his emotional self-interest" might have a lot of Red, rather than being purely Black- with his reasoning being:

"Being happy is in my interest, being sad is against my interests. Other people's happiness makes me happy, other people's unhappiness makes me sad. Therefore, I will be acting toward my own interest by maximizing my happiness and minimizing my sadness".

Self-interest isn't necessarily the exclusive province of Black, though. If the character was acting mostly based on how they felt about things, that's a Red trait. Black is about power, both over the outside world and over oneself, and the freedom of the individual that comes from power. Red's emotional fulfillment and Blue's self-actualization through knowledge aren't necessarily opposed to that, but a Primary Black character would never put them first.

I would see it like this: An altruistic Black character is more interested in the action they are taking than the positive benefits that result. The behavior itself is a statement of power and autonomy: "I can influence the world," "I am in command of my own behavior," "in doing this, I define myself by my actions." White helps others because doing so is moral and fosters social good, Green helps others because it's natural and essential behavior, Black helps others because it's an affirmation of selfhood and capacity to influence the world.

IcarusWings
2010-11-15, 03:34 PM
I think what many people aren't realising, is that people are ot going to be the embodiment of these colours. A black primary person doesn't have to value themselves no matter the cost to other people. They just value and think of themsleves first, before other people. I myself am a little selfish, and I would probably be Black (probably not primary though) and I will still do stuff for the good of others, and I'm definitely not evil.

I'd also chip in that black being selfish makes it evil. IMO I believe that selfishness is more of a neutral trait, looking out for yourself. Evil, in itself, does not actually mean anything. It's just a label people created to slap on people they don't like to try to get others to not like them either.

I'll also say that people keep talking about summarizing colours with one word, but it actually takes about two in my eyes.
Blue: Logic (thinking coolly and planning ahead, knowledge is just a small facet of this) and Progress (moving forward civilization, changing things).
Green: Instinct (acting on your intuition and gut) and Tradition (things are fine as they are, we don't need to change it).
Black: Freedom (nobody can tell me what to do) and Selfishness/Ambition (I'd like to have that, I want to be that).
White: Order (organization, can apply to tyrants too) and Community (two heads are better than one).
Red: Freedom (nobody can tell me what to do) Emotion (:thog: angry, :thog: hit stuff)

Jallorn
2010-11-15, 03:53 PM
I like this system, and I think, personally, that I fall under:

Primary: Blue, I am smart, and it has kind of overtaken my life. Not bad, just is. When I was younger my primary was Red, as to be expected
Secondary: Red, I'm pretty sure about this. I value individuality and freedom.
Other Secondary: I'm not sure, but probably Green, just because the other two don't really fit. I don't believe in predestination at all, but I definitely feel that everyone can find a place in the world where they can be happy.

Lix Lorn
2010-11-15, 04:17 PM
I'm Red-White primary, with red just edging it out, and (choose any colour) tertiary.

NineThePuma
2010-11-15, 04:17 PM
I'm Red//Blue, oddly. And there is no tertiary, only a second secondary.

hamishspence
2010-11-15, 04:26 PM
I would see it like this: An altruistic Black character is more interested in the action they are taking than the positive benefits that result. The behavior itself is a statement of power and autonomy: "I can influence the world," "I am in command of my own behavior," "in doing this, I define myself by my actions." White helps others because doing so is moral and fosters social good, Green helps others because it's natural and essential behavior, Black helps others because it's an affirmation of selfhood and capacity to influence the world.

If Primary represents ends, and Secondary represents Means, you could have Black/white and White/black characters, who behave in a very similar way, and both fit with D&D Good.

The Black/white character's End is power- personal and social- and their Means are community-based, and altruistic- they make considerable sacrifices of time, wealth, and personal safety, in order to help people, and helping people increases their popularity and furthers their gain of power- and with more power, they help others more, and so on.

The White/black character's End is the good of others- individual and especially community- and their Means is power- they accumulate it in order to help others, and helping others increases their power, which enables them to help more others and improve the community, and so on.

Both are behaving in a generally Good fashion (helping others at their own cost) and both are accumulating power.

(they might have evil counterparts though- who take of everything worst in Black and White, rather than everything best).

Similar logic could apply to most of the others- a person who sees Knowledge (or logic?) as an end in itself, and everything else, as means to that end, might be primary Blue.

A person who sees a particular emotional state (say, happiness) as an end in itself, and other things as means to that end, might be primary Red.

And a person who sees Harmony as the end, and other things as the means, might be primary Green.

Lix Lorn
2010-11-15, 04:46 PM
I value freedom above all, but think that law and order is (unfortunately) necessary. I will/would use any means I could to acheive a happy world.

Morph Bark
2010-11-15, 04:49 PM
I value freedom above all, but think that law and order is (unfortunately) necessary. I will/would use any means I could to acheive a happy world.

So you're Green/White, like your avatar?

Lix Lorn
2010-11-15, 04:50 PM
Isn't freedom red? And that's a TERRIBLE pun. XD
My avatar is probably white...

V Yes. Agree.

hamishspence
2010-11-15, 04:50 PM
I thought it was closer to Red/white- Freedom is the End, law, community, order, etc, are the means.

"Laws that protect the freedom of others" might be the ideal, of the Red/white perspective.

Green/white, might be less about "freedom" as the ends, and more about "harmony".

Morph Bark
2010-11-15, 04:52 PM
I'm not terribly familiar with MtG stuff beyond this thread. XD All I know is that someone made a chart where he broke up the colours and assigned two things to each colour (stuff like Chaos, Order, Law, Death and Life) and Red and Green where basically the ones with freedom and all that.

hamishspence
2010-11-15, 04:56 PM
In this thread (1st post) Red was "freedom and emotion" Green was "growth and harmony"

Little or nothing was said in Green, about freedom.

I think there was another similar "color wheel personality chart" which was commonly quoted in people's signatures- a picture of the color, and some text on the personality.

I'm not sure if that differed much if anything from this one.

Lix Lorn
2010-11-15, 05:13 PM
My extended sig has several magic colour banners. Red, RedWhite, and RedWhite(colour)

Glimbur
2010-11-15, 07:27 PM
The problem I have with this system is this:

As my previous post showed, it is possible for more than one alignment to endorse a given action for different reasons. The argument about black=selfish shows that a given alignment can have serious disagreements on not just methods but values as well. Put these together and you see that the system is not predictive and it's not descriptive, which makes it useless as an alignment system.

Would you want to live in a city which is majority White aligned, and governed accordingly? It depends on if they are authoritarian white (White-Green? Undefined?) or permissive white (White-Red or White-Black.)

Would you hire someone who is Green aligned to work as a sailor? Depends on if they are regressive Green or intuitive/harmonious Green.

Take your classic moral dilemma of a demon holding a hostage. Black would maneuver for its own advantage, White would protect the community as a whole which probably means calling the demon's bluff to prevent the precedent of folding to demons, and the other three colors would... I don't know.

The wizard who sits in his tower and studies is... a) Blue, because he is studying and researching or b) Black because he is increasing his personal power or c) Red because he likes reading books so he keeps reading books or... I can't make a good case for Green or White here. The point is that this alignment system does not help us categorize people by how they will react to some situations nor does knowing someone's color alignment help us predict their behavior.

gkathellar
2010-11-15, 09:40 PM
As my previous post showed, it is possible for more than one alignment to endorse a given action for different reasons. The argument about black=selfish shows that a given alignment can have serious disagreements on not just methods but values as well.

I think your examples from before are a bit off. All of them are probably X color with White as a secondary (except the solid White one, of course), because they use White's tools. If we proceed from that assumption, I don't really understand the complaint. Is it a problem that characters who share one alignment trait and differ in others can conceivably do the same thing? Is it problematic from a design standpoint that Lawful Good and Chaotic Good characters probably run orphanages?

Further, I don't know that I see those "disagreements in methods and values." The colors look pretty concrete, actually. Take Black, for example, because this thread is basically one giant argument about it. Black is always amoral and power-obsessed. You can always expect a Black-primary character to behave without regard for morality, in a way that advances their personal power. There's room to maneuver within that, especially once secondary colors are applied, but there's very little genuine ambiguity.

The same goes for other colors. Blue is always interested in skill, knowledge and progress. Red is always emotional and unrestricted. Green is always focused on life and "the correct way." White is always big on community and rules. This is all made pretty clear in the first post.


Would you want to live in a city which is majority White aligned, and governed accordingly? It depends on if they are authoritarian white (White-Green? Undefined?) or permissive white (White-Red or White-Black.)

Would you hire someone who is Green aligned to work as a sailor? Depends on if they are regressive Green or intuitive/harmonious Green.

This seems like two arguments: that (1) secondary colors allow for too much variation, and that (2) even within a given color there's too much variation, and this aggravates the first problem. I don't know that I can respond to the first point, it appears to be one of taste that I just disagree with. That said, shades of it filter into the other argument, which I will answer.

My issue with the second point may just be a difference in interpretation, but I read each as outlining a complete ideological viewpoint, not a set of several views that you mix and match. Assuming the sailor in your example is solid Green, he's not going to be either regressive or harmonious, he's going to be both depending on the situations he's confronted with. You don't have "altruist-Black" and "hedonist-Black," you just have the color Black. Variations are, again, represented via secondary colors.


Take your classic moral dilemma of a demon holding a hostage. Black would maneuver for its own advantage, White would protect the community as a whole which probably means calling the demon's bluff to prevent the precedent of folding to demons, and the other three colors would... I don't know.

It would depend on the character's personality, relationship with the hostage, and the context of the situation. The traditional alignment system isn't really any clearer on this, nor should it be. Alignment describes a character's methods and behavioral priorities, not every facet of their personality.


The wizard who sits in his tower and studies is... a) Blue, because he is studying and researching or b) Black because he is increasing his personal power or c) Red because he likes reading books so he keeps reading books or... I can't make a good case for Green or White here.

D) Solid Blue or Secondary Blue, because whatever his eventual goals, the way he achieves them is primarily through the cultivation of knowledge.


The point is that this alignment system does not help us categorize people by how they will react to some situations nor does knowing someone's color alignment help us predict their behavior.

Even if it didn't do those things, it would still be a handy tool for developing characters and understanding their place in the world. And it does do those things, so yeah.

Thrice Dead Cat
2010-11-15, 11:39 PM
The problem here is that Magic itself gives a lot of examples where things are not exactly clear. Some wizards are black, others blue, and more white. Why? Well, they all learn, but that's not what matters, despite blue being so primarily "lol knowledge." As I showed earlier, you can correlate everything here back to the 3x3 grid in bogstandard DND. If such is the case, then why bother?

GnomeWorks
2010-11-15, 11:42 PM
As I showed earlier, you can correlate everything here back to the 3x3 grid in bogstandard DND. If such is the case, then why bother?

Flexibility.

Just because you can directly correlate straight-up colors to standard D&D alignments, doesn't mean that that holds for all color combinations.

Not only that, but there is flexibility within the colors that doesn't necessarily exist in standard alignments.

I would also argue that using the color wheel, as opposed to the alignment grid, lends itself to a more subjective world rather than an objective one. Just because someone is Black doesn't mean they're evil, and just because someone is White doesn't mean they're good or lawful.

Jallorn
2010-11-15, 11:44 PM
The problem here is that Magic itself gives a lot of examples where things are not exactly clear. Some wizards are black, others blue, and more white. Why? Well, they all learn, but that's not what matters, despite blue being so primarily "lol knowledge." As I showed earlier, you can correlate everything here back to the 3x3 grid in bogstandard DND. If such is the case, then why bother?

I disagree. He has never said all wizards should be blue, he just said all wizards should at least have a secondary color be blue.

NineThePuma
2010-11-15, 11:47 PM
Wizards should TEND toward blue. But I'm crazy, ignore me.

Lix Lorn
2010-11-16, 03:49 AM
What's confusing me is that you seem to be arguing that the ambiguity of motives when using the colour system is a bad thing. (shrug)

hamishspence
2010-11-16, 03:55 AM
Take Black, for example, because this thread is basically one giant argument about it. Black is always amoral and power-obsessed. You can always expect a Black-primary character to behave without regard for morality, in a way that advances their personal power. There's room to maneuver within that, especially once secondary colors are applied, but there's very little genuine ambiguity.

Behaving in a way that advances personal power, yes- for a Black character, power is the End, rather than the means.

However, how much they regard morality, might vary- Black's defining feature is "Power as an end in itself" rather than "lack of regard for morality"- you could have Black characters who regard morality with considerable approval, and try to behave morally within the constraits of their overall goal (power-seeking).

The aforementioned "Nice Black/white character" who likes both the exercise of power, and helping others (but power just a little bit more) might fit.


What's confusing me is that you seem to be arguing that the ambiguity of motives when using the colour system is a bad thing. (shrug)

I like the element of ambiguity. Even for two characters with the same primary and secondary, there can be a great deal of internal variation.

Morality, is completely separate, from the Color Wheel, you could have a fairly moral Black/white person who helps others a great deal, and does not harm them, and a very immoral Black/white person who is a tyrannical dictator.

gkathellar
2010-11-16, 06:02 AM
I disagree. He has never said all wizards should be blue, he just said all wizards should at least have a secondary color be blue.

Assuming this is referring to my comment before, I said a wizard who sits in a tower researching all day probably has some Blue in there. I would also say a warrior who does nothing but train has some Blue in there, because Blue's trait and tool is knowledge.


However, how much they regard morality, might vary- Black's defining feature is "Power as an end in itself" rather than "lack of regard for morality"- you could have Black characters who regard morality with considerable approval, and try to behave morally within the constraits of their overall goal (power-seeking).

Right, except that amorality is right in Black's description in the first post, in the same way that morality is right in White's. It's not that Black is interested in one moral code and White is interested in another like traditional D&D Good and Evil. It's that Black doesn't believe morality is actually a thing, and White believes morality is an essential thing. To say Black acts "morally" in any situation is a problem because it demands the kind of objective standard that White, the moral alignment, doesn't set. Black does what it wants, and sometimes what it wants benefits people.

Note I'm talking about solid black there. Secondary colors allow for a great deal more variation and that's absolutely the point. A Black // White character is without a doubt doing a clever balancing act between morality and amorality.

hamishspence
2010-11-16, 06:20 AM
It's not that Black is interested in one moral code and White is interested in another like traditional D&D Good and Evil. It's that Black doesn't believe morality is actually a thing, and White believes morality is an essential thing. To say Black acts "morally" in any situation is a problem because it demands the kind of objective standard that White, the moral alignment, doesn't set.

That's the thing though- a person doesn't have to believe in morality, to act "morally" by a D&D standard.

In D&D, "making sacrifices to help others" (especially strangers, rather than people you feel a close connection to) is "moral behaviour" and "harming the innocent for fun or profit" is "immoral behaviour".

(There might be other parts to it- like harming the "not-innocent" for fun, but these are the two most notable factors).

A person can "act morally" and "choose not to act immorally" and yet not believe in morality as a thing, at all (at least, not consciously, though one might argue that he must subconsciously believe in it to act this way).

gkathellar
2010-11-16, 06:36 AM
"Act morally by a D&D standard" is pretty much a nonsense term without the traditional alignment system. Are you saying that Black-primary characters could still be Good by the standards of the old system? I don't think that's a helpful comparison. Why bother implementing a new alignment system if you're going to keep the ethical terminology of the old one?

If you're using the color wheel, D&D morality need not apply. Ever.

hamishspence
2010-11-16, 06:44 AM
You might be playing a D&D game- and using the Color Wheel, to describe the personalities, and goals, of D&D characters.

gkathellar
2010-11-16, 07:07 AM
"D&D morality," as you're describing it, is based on the two-axes alignment system. And if you're using the color wheel, you've already decided that the alignment system as it is fails to adequately describe morality and behavioral tendencies.

In using something besides the conventional alignment system, you throw out the need for that specific brand of poorly-defined morality in your D&D game. If you're going to bother wondering where Color Wheel characters fall on the traditional system, why bother bringing it in? Stick with the two axes, they describe classic D&D morality perfectly.

hamishspence
2010-11-16, 07:16 AM
The two axes might describe morality (in a D&D context) but not personality.

There can be circumstances where one might want to use both. In a crossover campaign, where Magic The Gathering characters are brought into a D&D world (or vice versa) it may be handy to know where characters fall using both systems.

So- one might take a D&D character with a canonical alignment, and ask "What color are they, in Magic terms"?

gkathellar
2010-11-16, 08:28 AM
Oh, I hadn't even thought of a combination of this and traditional alignment. I don't personally like the idea, and I don't know how you would work that out mechanically, but it would inject a clearly defined moral system into the color wheel.

The only problem is that if you're fusing the two, some colors are pretty typecast. Solid White in particular is pretty much always going to be Good and almost never going to be Chaotic in a world with Moral Truth and Perfect Order like the two axes gives us. Eh. Maybe that's a feature, not a bug?

hamishspence
2010-11-16, 08:35 AM
The only problem is that if you're fusing the two, some colors are pretty typecast. Solid White in particular is pretty much always going to be Good and almost never going to be Chaotic in a world with Moral Truth and Perfect Order like the two axes gives us. Eh. Maybe that's a feature, not a bug?

White would tend to default toward non-Chaotic and non-Evil- but a slight addition of "evil means" toward the overall goal, might bring it toward Evil rather quickly.

Even if doing evil deeds toward "maintaining order" is corrupting- a character might not see it that way. Just because morality in D&D normally works a certain way, doesn't mean most D&D characters are aware of this, or believe it.

There's plenty of precedent for evil D&D characters who "believe themselves to be pure and un-corrupted".

Similarly, Black would tend to default toward non-Lawful and non-Good, but with a little extra empathy or kindness, it might cross over into Good despite Power being the overall goal.

With its focus on "freedom" Red is also likely to be non-Lawful.


Oh, I hadn't even thought of a combination of this and traditional alignment. I don't personally like the idea, and I don't know how you would work that out mechanically, but it would inject a clearly defined moral system into the color wheel.

I might not bother with mechanical effects, and use the Color Wheel as a roleplaying tool- to provide info on a character's Ends and Means.

Lord_Gareth
2010-11-16, 10:41 AM
Far be it from me to say that you're using my Wheel wrong - it is, after all, your game - but it may help to re-consider the goals of each Color. Technically, the goal is happiness, but how each Color thinks that is gained is different:

White - Peace
Red - Freedom
Black - Power
Blue - Perfection
Green - Harmony

In the end, those are the only moral considerations each Color follows in and of itself (with individual variances, of course). If I wanted to re-color the individual cosmology, I'd put, say, Baator as a White-aligned plane (with a significant Black streak) and Celestia/Mechanus as purely White (with the knowledge that Mechanus believes law to be morality in and of itself and Celestia ascribing to a [technically arbitrary] moral code that separates it from Baator's code of law and punishment).

From an objective point of view, each of the colors does come across as pretty amoral, but each color does have a moral imperative. Blue's pursuit of Perfection is its moral imperative; Blue thinks the world would be a better place if it could improve it. Likewise, absolute Freedom is Red's moral imperative; nothing is more important to Red than everyone being free.

hamishspence
2010-11-16, 11:29 AM
White - Peace
Red - Freedom
Black - Power
Blue - Perfection
Green - Harmony

From an objective point of view, each of the colors does come across as pretty amoral, but each color does have a moral imperative. Blue's pursuit of Perfection is its moral imperative; Blue thinks the world would be a better place if it could improve it. Likewise, absolute Freedom is Red's moral imperative; nothing is more important to Red than everyone being free.

I paraphrased it as "Order" for White, and either "Freedom" or "Passion" for Red, and "Knowledge" for Blue- but these may be variants on a theme.

"Order" may be seen as an essential part of "Peace"
"Passion" may be a subset of "Freedom"
"Knowledge" may be a subset of "pursuit of perfection"

The idea that Primary Color represent the character's ideal, goal, etc- and secondary colors represent the methods the character uses in pursuit of that ideal, makes sense to me though.

The Sith code seems to be Red and Black intertwined:

Peace is a lie. There is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.

(On the other hand, Darth Revan said that all who master the Dark Side, are bound to serve it- so in a sense, by mastering the Dark Side, the character actually does not free themselves, but binds themselves).

Owrtho
2010-11-16, 12:35 PM
It seems order fits white much better than peace, as an ordered structured society can still be focused around engaging in rather unpeaceful conduct (such as war), provided they do so in an orderly fashion.

Owrtho

Hyooz
2010-11-16, 12:59 PM
It seems order fits white much better than peace, as an ordered structured society can still be focused around engaging in rather unpeaceful conduct (such as war), provided they do so in an orderly fashion.

Owrtho

This actually gets into some interesting theory on positive vs. negative peace. A society that seeks peace, but doesn't care to make the differentiation might go to war to subjugate other peoples and enforce their own peace (their own Pax Romana, if you will) through coercion.

If all we define peace as is an absence of war, then White valuing peace fits with the idea of order that's being put forth. If we prefer to define peace as positive peace, i.e. not just the absence of war but the presence of justice, then there's more contention.

Glimbur
2010-11-16, 04:02 PM
There's an important question we haven't answered satisfactorily. What is an alignment system for?

gkathellar
2010-11-16, 04:18 PM
Two things:

A) They provide mechanical representations of abstract concepts which are very real forces within many fantasy worlds.

B) They serve as guidelines for the character development and set the tone of the world they're at play in.

Since we tend to assume alignment has real, mechanical effects, any given system has to do both. NWoD's major supernatural templates and LFR show how to do this well. D&D's two axes ... not so much.

hamishspence
2010-11-16, 04:50 PM
B) They serve as guidelines for the character development and set the tone of the world they're at play in.

Since we tend to assume alignment has real, mechanical effects, any given system has to do both. NWoD's major supernatural templates and LFR show how to do this well. D&D's two axes ... not so much.


What about the Palladium system?

This site:

http://easydamus.com/alignment.html

appears to try mapping Palladium alignment to D&D alignment.

Glimbur
2010-11-16, 09:24 PM
To me, alignment should be an indicator of the kinds of ethical choices a person will make. This requires choosing an ethical system, so we'll go with deontology.

In WoD, Vampires on the path of Humanity will in general limit themselves to keep their humanity in the face of the beast. It's interesting and thematic for the game, and tells us some things about methods but little about goals. It also suggests how they will make ethical choices, so it's legit alignment by my definition.

In GURPS, RISUS, Wuthering Heights, and many other role playing systems there is no overarching alignment system. Common goals and common methods are recognized by individuals or groups who then work together, or don't.

Star Wars has the Light and Dark side... but if you're not force sensitive then that's not a big deal. Ethics is up to the character's personality, and is not categorized.

Dungeons and Dragons has the two axes we all know and... well, know anyway. They do a decent job of telling us the sort of people who will generally have similar goals and methods: lawful good will build strong communities, chaotic good will build strong individuals to protect freedom and "good", lawful evil will build strong communities and rule them for personal power, chaotic evil will pursue personal power with less focus on powerful organization. Good and Evil are reasonably clear in most situations, Chaos and Law are murky. Amusingly, it's possible for LE characters to be ethical by their own standards if deontology is accepted as correct... as long as they choose the correct rules for themselves. This means the DM and players need to select an actual set of rules which actually determine Good, but we mostly have such a list in our society anyway, so that's not hard. It does take some refinement to make good sufficiently broad as to allow both CG and LG to exist. Angels will in general act in accordance with the meta-game universal standards for good, devils and demons will not, and neutral outsiders will sometimes follow the standards.

This alignment system tells us what people value as the highest good, but there is too much variation in each color for it to really tell us about groups which will have similar methods and goals. White could be anywhere from LG to LE in D&D terms, Red is by nature unpredictable like CN, Blue doesn't tell us about the ethical stance on issues, Black seems most like NE, so they are likely to choose themselves over others in ethical situations, and Green is like Blue in that it doesn't tell us about a person's ethics. It's an interesting personality test and helps you explore your character's thoughts but doesn't guide ethical decision making and therefore fails as an alignment system under my standard.

Hyooz
2010-11-16, 09:30 PM
Classic DnD alignment represents a character's allegiances to the primordial forces of Good/Evil and Law/Chaos. It assumes a base existence of definite "Good" and "Evil" practices that give rise to beings that represent these philosophies, which are also eternally at war with each other.

A Good character in DnD, then, has aligned himself with the forces of pure goodness, and follows in the absolute morality they are manifest of.

Repeat for the other alignment stuff.

Outside of the whole "defining your allegiance to primordial Good that makes up the universe" alignment is largely useless and just gets in the way of things. Any system that tries to break it down into manageable chunks is going to be too vague to really matter and generally meaningless. Unless these forces of absolute Good and/or Evil/Law/Chaos/Red/Green/Blue/Pimento/Chevy/Ford play a major enough role in a campaign or setting to necessitate knowing where every character stands, it really is a pretty pointless mechanic. That's what the "Personality" box on a character sheet is for.

Havvy
2010-11-22, 06:17 PM
It would be a helpful addition to this system to have non-[Color] creatures be described.

For example, non-Red would include creatures like Kingdom Heart's heartless and nobodies. Heartless as a whole tend towards being non-Green as well, though are definitely black. Nobodies are White with blue secondary.

The Auditors of Reality in the Discworld universe would be non-Black.

Anything mindless (including most primitive computers) would be non-Blue.

Those who are egotistical to the point of uncaring of the outside world would be non-White.

NineThePuma
2010-11-22, 06:27 PM
"Non-color" just means "Different color" unless it's completely mindless. If it's completely mindless, it's Colorless.

Havvy
2010-11-22, 07:18 PM
But there are creatures that literally are without an aspect of the alignment. If an Auditor has a thought not in sync with the other auditors, it winks out of existence. It cannot be black. As such, it is non-Black. It is also white for this very reason, but black and white can coexist together, so distinguishing the two expands the field. And the fact that no color is truly against the other means that non-[Color] does not bring in contradictions.

NineThePuma
2010-11-22, 09:04 PM
But that does make the system more than slightly ridiculous and also breaks the relative simplicity of the system. I'd avoid that whole shabang and stick with what is actually supported by the cards and fluff.

Havvy
2010-11-22, 09:27 PM
Complexity in alignment is a bad thing? If you want it simple, you only need one paragraph to explain it.

While most creatures have a little bit of each color in them, there are some creatures that are devoid of one or more colors. Any creature which does not think is completely colorless. Two examples are the lacking of red and black. Creatures that cannot feel emotion cannot be red. Creatures who act only in concert with other creatures cannot be black.


Also, by having such a paragraph, you inspire people to go out to create these creatures void of specific colors, and possibly use them as enemies for the PCs.

Owrtho
2010-11-22, 10:38 PM
Actually a black creature could act only in concert with others. It would just to so in such a way as to best benefit itself.

Owrtho

Thrice Dead Cat
2010-11-23, 02:58 AM
Actually a black creature could act only in concert with others. It would just to so in such a way as to best benefit itself.

Owrtho

Sounds like he's still only acting in his own self interest, then. Best case scenario, the person is a mobster and thus WB (or LE-cornered, as I described earlier).

Lord_Gareth
2010-11-23, 03:00 AM
To clarify on the case of Auditors specifically: gaining an individual identity destroys an Auditor, so they always act in concert.

Owrtho
2010-11-23, 03:01 AM
That's my point. You can act only in concert with others, but still be black.

Owrtho

Thrice Dead Cat
2010-11-23, 03:11 AM
That's my point. You can act only in concert with others, but still be black.

Owrtho

Right, but he's not black because he's working with others. He just happens to be black and happens to have the same goals as others - or, as I already mentioned, is multi-colored with probably white in this case and would have roughly the same predictions if you had used the old 3x3 grid in the default DND setting.

Lord_Gareth
2010-11-23, 03:13 AM
Right, but he's not black because he's working with others. He just happens to be black and happens to have the same goals as others - or, as I already mentioned, is multi-colored with probably white in this case and would have roughly the same predictions if you had used the old 3x3 grid in the default DND setting.

Since folks want to keep coming back to the Grid and I'm getting rather sick of this, here's the primary difference:

3x3 pre-supposes an objective morality system, whereas the Wheel pre-supposes a subjective system. 3x3 is great for dungeon crawls and black-and-white campaigns; the Wheel is great for moral ambiguity and exploring realistic motivations and personality traits. 3x3 has villains that work FOR THE EVULZ and...well, the Wheel probably doesn't, but I won't put anything past my fellow DMs.

Does that help define it any?

Admiral Squish
2010-11-23, 03:41 AM
Hmm...
I think I'd have to say:
Primary: White
Secondary: Green/Red
Enemies: Black

I'm all for the greater good. I am. I am totally willing to help others, often at my own expense. Usually, it's little things, like holding doors or carrying the bags. I think that if I can take the consequences, I have a duty to make the sacrifice. Partially, it's probably a pride thing. Atlas syndrome. If I can carry the weight of the world, then it would be wrong to make another, who might not be able to take it, deal with it.

But my secondary is muddled. I believe in instinct and personal freedoms. I do almost everything on intuition. There's no logic behind pirouetting across the kitchen, I just wanted to. I also like to believe that there is some kind of plan, some force guiding the flow of the world. On the other hand, I'm almost never angry in any serious way. I might curse at the TV when Jersey Shore comes on, but that's only natural, and that's as far as it goes. I barely ever shout and I've never actually hit someone out of anger (Though, I did hit some THINGS when I was younger and stupider). Plus, I don't get along well with nature, and i can't stand when 'traditions' get in the way of making progress. i think there's a touch of blue in there, but it's odd. I like knowledge. I love it, in fact, and I have a massive library of completely useless trivia in my brain. I'm also in full support of progress and change. Adaptation is how you stay alive. But the whole 'logic' thing? Planning, subtlety? I'm terrible at it. While I respect people who can pull off the logical process, I know it's just not my thing and move on to the usual red/green strategy of 'try again, and harder'.

So, while blue's not my enemy, I can't say it's a part of my colors, either. As for black... We do not get along. I'm going to leave it at that before I get venomous.

Vermithrax
2010-11-23, 06:43 AM
I disagree with your statement that Red is always the aggressor in White/Red conflicts. It is only when White oversteps its bounds, applies rules too generally and without regard for individual needs, or reactively prohibits actions that are not actually detrimental to the community that Red balks at society's mental chains. Red has the same sort of disregard for White's procrustean efforts as Black has for its diametric bigotries, and is more likely to simply ignore restrictions it considers arbitrary and pointless than deliberately seek out rules to break for the sheer joy of provoking White (though some may, that is more on the black side).

Another difficulty I have with the system is that all the color conflicts are false dichotomies:

If Green is all about continuity of the status quo in nature, then it embraces both Growth and Entropy as life is always a delicate balance between the two. I grow a new layer of dermis each week on average, which means that I slough off and regrow all my skin every month-and-a-half. If it were to grow a little bit faster I would turn into a giant blob of flesh and die. If it were to decay faster my insides would be exposed to disease vectors and the elements, and I would die. All life is a process, a small ripple of current within the pool of reality. There is nothing static about the status quo as nature is in constant, violent flux. There is nothing that is not already part of nature, nothing for it to work against except itself.

Which brings me to Progress vs. Tradition, because life is an optimization process. Through fierce competition and constant adaptation it seeks to be better at survival, and humanity's seeming supremacy is evidence of such. Our tool using nature has caused us to compete better and adapt faster, out-pacing ordinary evolution while remaining subject to it. There is much we can yet learn from nature, but we are better able to do so through artifice.

Logic and Emotion are both decision making tools and while each have their uses, they are best used in tandem. Clear thinking and knowledge help find the best methods of achieving my goals, but I have to know what they are first. I have to ask the right question to get an answer that's useful. Desire and passion provide such direction. At the same time, emotions are the aggregate wisdom of my direct ancestors as pertains to situations similar to the one in which I find myself having them. It would be foolish to disregard such useful information.

Altruism and Self Interest are essentially synonyms: The best way to raise yourself is to raise those around you; the best way to raise those around you is to raise yourself. Neither charity nor coercion are effective means to achieving my ends. Both have negative unintended consequences, whether that be demeaning the other and causing dependency or allowing harm and reciprocal wrath to plague my best intentions. Tit-for-tat, with forgiveness, is the best strategy. Trade is the only form of interaction in which both participants benefit.

Choice and Destiny are one and the same. I can choose what I do, but I can't choose what I want to do. Paradoxically, if I choose to do something other than what I desire, it is only because I desire something else more. I am always choosing what I want, whether or not I realize what that is, and to the degree my desires are biologically preprogrammed, so too are my actions. The only conflict arises when my choices are constrained by circumstances outside my control to include only undesired options, such as between submission and death when overpowered by an enemy. I desire to choose something other, and am thus destined to rail against my oppressors.

As such, Order and Freedom are also inclusive. Repressing people causes societal conflict, not the other way around. If individual needs are met, the community thrives by default.

All the colors complement each other, with conflict arising only through shortsightedness.

As to what an alignment system is for, that is simple: Plot hooks for conflict and character development. I have to say though, that Burning Wheel has the best system for that I've yet seen. It's very simple too, just make player goals explicit:

Players describe the three most pertinent beliefs of their character (which can be indicative of the kind of game they want to play) and what actions he or she intends to take in accordance with them this gaming session. There are unique mechanical benefits for acting both with and against such beliefs. If a character acts with a belief enough, they gain a permanent benefit related to such action. If they act against it enough, they must change it to something else. Great for creating action, conflict and consequences without all the pointless semantics arguments.

Glimbur
2010-11-23, 01:46 PM
Since folks want to keep coming back to the Grid and I'm getting rather sick of this, here's the primary difference:

3x3 pre-supposes an objective morality system, whereas the Wheel pre-supposes a subjective system. 3x3 is great for dungeon crawls and black-and-white campaigns; the Wheel is great for moral ambiguity and exploring realistic motivations and personality traits. 3x3 has villains that work FOR THE EVULZ and...well, the Wheel probably doesn't, but I won't put anything past my fellow DMs.

Does that help define it any?

What's the point of a relative alignment system? It's possible to pull out alignment entirely from D&D or many other games and play a morally ambiguous game, but I don't see the advantage in adding the Color Wheel. It's a personality test which tells you something about goals and methods, but you can do that just as easily for each person individually without the Color Wheel.

The mechanical implementation is a bigger concern: selfish people can heal other selfish people as well as scholars and emotional people, but not community focused people or instinctive/insightful/Green people. Paladins have to believe in communities, monks cannot act on their emotions, and the new outsiders are... actually, they feel more alien than standard D&D outsiders do which is a good thing. But the person to person interactions get stranger: a hypothetical selfless person who pursues the good of everyone through organization and cooperation cannot heal everyone they meet.

Jallorn
2010-11-23, 01:52 PM
What's the point of a relative alignment system? It's possible to pull out alignment entirely from D&D or many other games and play a morally ambiguous game, but I don't see the advantage in adding the Color Wheel. It's a personality test which tells you something about goals and methods, but you can do that just as easily for each person individually without the Color Wheel.

The mechanical implementation is a bigger concern: selfish people can heal other selfish people as well as scholars and emotional people, but not community focused people or instinctive/insightful/Green people. Paladins have to believe in communities, monks cannot act on their emotions, and the new outsiders are... actually, they feel more alien than standard D&D outsiders do which is a good thing. But the person to person interactions get stranger: a hypothetical selfless person who pursues the good of everyone through organization and cooperation cannot heal everyone they meet.

Why not? There are no restrictions on whom healing can be used...

As for the restrictions to classes, well, it makes a good deal more sense that a Paladin should be community minded than it does that he should be LG, even though there are many similarities.

Lord_Gareth
2011-01-01, 04:46 AM
Another difficulty I have with the system is that all the color conflicts are false dichotomies:

Right *cracks knuckles* Let's do this!


If Green is all about continuity of the status quo in nature, then it embraces both Growth and Entropy as life is always a delicate balance between the two. I grow a new layer of dermis each week on average, which means that I slough off and regrow all my skin every month-and-a-half. If it were to grow a little bit faster I would turn into a giant blob of flesh and die. If it were to decay faster my insides would be exposed to disease vectors and the elements, and I would die. All life is a process, a small ripple of current within the pool of reality. There is nothing static about the status quo as nature is in constant, violent flux. There is nothing that is not already part of nature, nothing for it to work against except itself.

And that's the thing. Green sees one harmonious, unbroken whole, where death is a part of growth. Black doesn't care about growth, except perhaps growth of the self. As was stated, Green's beef with Black is one of ideological consequences: because Black doesn't necessarily care who or what Black damages, Black is an inherent threat to the whole, to the Plan. Green cannot abide that, and thus they seek to limit the damage Black can deal.


Which brings me to Progress vs. Tradition, because life is an optimization process. Through fierce competition and constant adaptation it seeks to be better at survival, and humanity's seeming supremacy is evidence of such. Our tool using nature has caused us to compete better and adapt faster, out-pacing ordinary evolution while remaining subject to it. There is much we can yet learn from nature, but we are better able to do so through artifice.

Green has shifted away from pure naturism into a more predestination-focused theme, which is where it conflicts with Blue. Blue doesn't believe in predestiny. Blue is kind of offended that you asked, in fact. Blue believes that knowledge can grant a being perfect power over itself and its environment, allowing it to bring out that which is great in anything it touches. Green says that everything is already great, and if Blue would leave it the hell alone it'd get back to being totally rad. Remember, Blue is about change and Green is about harmony - Blue would rather tinker with something to improve it rather than learn from it to improve itself, which is where it conflicts with Green.


Logic and Emotion are both decision making tools and while each have their uses, they are best used in tandem. Clear thinking and knowledge help find the best methods of achieving my goals, but I have to know what they are first. I have to ask the right question to get an answer that's useful. Desire and passion provide such direction. At the same time, emotions are the aggregate wisdom of my direct ancestors as pertains to situations similar to the one in which I find myself having them. It would be foolish to disregard such useful information.

Sounds like a personal ideal to me, as very often logic dictates that your emotions be ignored and you make the optimal choice in any given situation, while your emotions or ideals may dictate that you do something else entirely. Blue also favors thought over action, where Red favors action over thought.


Altruism and Self Interest are essentially synonyms: The best way to raise yourself is to raise those around you; the best way to raise those around you is to raise yourself. Neither charity nor coercion are effective means to achieving my ends. Both have negative unintended consequences, whether that be demeaning the other and causing dependency or allowing harm and reciprocal wrath to plague my best intentions. Tit-for-tat, with forgiveness, is the best strategy. Trade is the only form of interaction in which both participants benefit.

An interesting idea, but I'm failing to see a false dichotomy here. White believes in Right and Wrong and encourages people (sometimes forcefully) to do what it perceives of as Right. Black doesn't care. Sure, maybe a Black character is the trader you described above, but a Black character might also be a con artist, a corporate embezzler, or a killer for hire. Such ruthlessness is appalling to White, which can do nothing less than strike against it and attempt to kill the evil at its root.


Choice and Destiny are one and the same. I can choose what I do, but I can't choose what I want to do. Paradoxically, if I choose to do something other than what I desire, it is only because I desire something else more. I am always choosing what I want, whether or not I realize what that is, and to the degree my desires are biologically preprogrammed, so too are my actions. The only conflict arises when my choices are constrained by circumstances outside my control to include only undesired options, such as between submission and death when overpowered by an enemy. I desire to choose something other, and am thus destined to rail against my oppressors.

Don't even touch this can of worms, my friend. Not only do many folks choose to do things that they don't want to do, but attempting to reconcile choice and destiny into mutually compatible concepts is something that theologians and theorists have been failing at since the Greeks rolled into town. The two ideas just don't reconcile. Period.


As such, Order and Freedom are also inclusive. Repressing people causes societal conflict, not the other way around. If individual needs are met, the community thrives by default.

Not necessarily true, my friend. And remember, just like folks in real life, people using the Color Wheel are not always aware of optimal choices or in harmony with each other's ideals. Some White characters might balk at setting up a facist dictatorship, but others might think it's just fine in order to ensure that law and peace are maintained. Likewise, some Red characters might not flaunt the law just to do so, but others might go out and stir up chaos just because they hate rules that much. Both colors view these activities as equal, which is where conflict comes in.


@The Mods - I'm pretty sure this isn't necromancy, but if it is, I beg you to keep the thread open - I've work to do on it.

Jallorn
2011-01-01, 04:51 AM
I believe that since it is in the homebrew thread and you are the creator, you are allowed to resurrect it.

Thrice Dead Cat
2011-01-01, 05:13 AM
I'm hoping the work takes it farther away from the established alignment grid, as I'm still seeing a large, large amount of positive correlation going on here. And while I like the idea in concept and for the joy of homebrewing, I don't think you're going to step away from that. White's going to end up primarily in LG turf. Red in KAY-OHS. Black in Evlolz. Green, the Neutral zone and Blue whereever is "optimal." :smalltongue:

And I honestly think that has more to do with the source material than your own work, Gareth. Just my two cents.

Jallorn
2011-01-01, 05:14 AM
I'm hoping the work takes it farther away from the established alignment grid, as I'm still seeing a large, large amount of positive correlation going on here. And while I like the idea in concept and for the joy of homebrewing, I don't think you're going to step away from that. White's going to end up primarily in LG turf. Red in KAY-OHS. Black in Evlolz. Green, the Neutral zone and Blue whereever is "optimal." :smalltongue:

And I honestly think that has more to do with the source material than your own work, Gareth. Just my two cents.

See I think that in a lot of those, you're seeing the extremes. But yeah, source material, and an unavoidable desire to compare it to the 3.5 alignment system does tend to create a bit of pressure to see extremes.

What I like most about this is the fact that you can have a character encompass opposing ideals. For example, a primarily red character, one who is a champion for freedom, perhaps one who is protesting slavery, could still have the white and blue colors as well. In fact, that's what I would see Martin Luther King Jr. as, primarily red, with white and blue secondary colors. He fought for freedom, but he did it through knowledge and by trying to use the established system.

Lord_Gareth
2011-01-01, 05:16 AM
I'm hoping the work takes it farther away from the established alignment grid, as I'm still seeing a large, large amount of positive correlation going on here. And while I like the idea in concept and for the joy of homebrewing, I don't think you're going to step away from that. White's going to end up primarily in LG turf. Red in KAY-OHS. Black in Evlolz. Green, the Neutral zone and Blue whereever is "optimal." :smalltongue:

And I honestly think that has more to do with the source material than your own work, Gareth. Just my two cents.

Well, I'm continuing my work on the Allied Colors: Cooperation and Conflict right now, so if you wanted to read what I've got going it may help. I'm still not quite getting how White is going to end up LG, however, given that racist fanatics and fascists are just as White as your classic paladin image.

Jallorn
2011-01-01, 05:23 AM
See I think that in a lot of those, you're seeing the extremes. But yeah, source material, and an unavoidable desire to compare it to the 3.5 alignment system does tend to create a bit of pressure to see extremes.

What I like most about this is the fact that you can have a character encompass opposing ideals. For example, a primarily red character, one who is a champion for freedom, perhaps one who is protesting slavery, could still have the white and blue colors as well. In fact, that's what I would see Martin Luther King Jr. as, primarily red, with white and blue secondary colors. He fought for freedom, but he did it through knowledge and by trying to use the established system.

Or what about various economists who would, at some point in their life at the least, be described as primarily black and white and blue secondarily? They seek personal power and/or wealth, but do it by being smart and through the established system.

I changed my mind. What I like most about this system is that you can actually tell something about someone with it. 3.5 alignment system is just far too generic.

Lord_Gareth
2011-01-01, 05:27 AM
Allied Colors - Cooperation and Conflict is up for your edification and enjoyment - just check the second post of this thread!

Comments are, as always, appreciated.

Thrice Dead Cat
2011-01-01, 06:53 AM
I personally don't like the personification of the colors in the allied sections, as that is generally used only for the board strokes that apply to that color and I find that it clashes with the general idea that the philanthropist and the fascist are both white, but for very different reasons, natch. In the case of W/U, I can see less of a conflict between decisive action and sacrifice versus "just as planned" and more "better world now versus best world later."

Assuming you're still sticking to source material, Blue is far from altruistic. One of the overlapping themes with blue and black is, y'know mindrape. That and the fact that thieves of thought and information hoarders/brokers alike are both common blue characters and archetypes that's not the guaranteed clash.

Red/Black usually steps beyond mere freedom and into honest hedonism. It's less "I am free" and more "Every moment is better than the last!" Again, if moving away from source, that's cool.

NineThePuma
2011-01-01, 07:45 AM
Sticking to source material is hard since, you know, pretty much every character archtype has been embodied at different points by pretty much every color. We even had a Hot Blooded Berserker Artifact once, if memory serves.

Saying "Oh, this is how the source material depicts it!" is alright in most scenarios, but unless you're going to point to specific examples, the source material is simply too broad to encompass perfectly.

Havvy
2011-01-01, 11:09 AM
Yay, additions! It is almost like this thread was lost to the burials of time. Still, I have it in my signature. Great work so far. I still think my anti-color idea has some merit. But ultimately, it is up to you in how you present this. It is probably too much to digest at once in they were integrated in the main rules, but as an aside, they could work.

And no, you did not gravedig, since you own the thread.

Lord_Gareth
2011-01-01, 12:24 PM
Good news, folks! A fellow poster of mine has expressed interest in this project and wishes to write up a Cosmology! Now if we could only get down to changing some alignment subtypes. Hrm, maybe I can get Trib to make us some monsters...

GuesssWho
2011-01-01, 09:22 PM
So I would be Red with Blue and Black.

As for planes, I can imagine five Outer Planes--one for each color, or fifteen--one for the good, neutral and evil aspects of each color.

Red could have Far Realms-y, lovecraftian Chaos elements to it, with lot of volcanoes. Blue would be a lagoon full of scientist mermaids! Black might be like the Swamp of Sadness from The Neverending Story. Green would just have to be a Great Forest, and White a perfectly square Chessboard Plain.

Lord_Gareth
2011-01-02, 03:15 AM
My (suddenly acquired) Build Team and I are busy with cosmology even now, ya'll ^_^

InaVegt
2011-01-02, 06:41 AM
I happily announce we have named each plane in our cosmology, and assigned them a Sobriquet. Spoilered for length.

Conflicted Planes
Nozdar, the plane of Righteous Torment. Primary White, Secondary Black and Red
Liros, the plane of Endless Searches. Primary Blue, Secondary Red and Green
Anroi, the plane of Meted Entropy. Primary Black, Secondary White and Green
Kaldor, the plane of Checked Impulse. Primary Red, Secondary Blue and White
Garon, the plane of Discordant Harmony. Primary Green, Secondary Black and Blue

Complete Planes
Lyria, the plane of Ordered Cadence. Primary White, Secondary Blue and Green
Dondi, the plane of Gilded Edges. Primary Blue, Secondary White and Black
Jusia, the plane of Shattered Justice. Primary Black, Secondary Red and Blue
Vilon, the plane of Burning Rebirth. Primary Red, Secondary Green and Black
Nara, the plane of Natural Majesty. Primary Green, Secondary Red and White

Domineering Planes
Merisk, the plane of Neverending Harvest. Primary White, Secondary Green and Black
Pheix, the plane of Perfect Mediation. Primary White, Secondary Blue and Red
Fris, the plane of Asserted Dominance. Primary Blue, Secondary Black and Green
Engla, the plane of Imperial Thought. Primary Blue, Secondary White and Red
Venc, the plane of Forbidden Secrets. Primary Black, Secondary Blue and Green
Daran, the plane of Bloodied Battlements. Primary Black, Secondary Red and White
Bazd, the plane of Primordial Forms. Primary Red, Secondary Green and Blue
Sordan, the Plane of Bloody Altars. Primary Red, Secondary Black and White
Dawi, the plane of Evolved Survival. Primary Green, Secondary Red and Blue
Gondil, the plane of Natural Law. Primary Green, Secondary White and Black

Contended Planes
Nisak, the plane of Eternal Vigilance. Primary White, Secondary Blue and Black
Plesk, the plane of Inevitable Conflicts. Primary White, Secondary Green and Red
Ivil, the plane of Fathomless Wisdom. Primary Blue, Secondary White and Green
Mada, the plane of Unbound Genius. Primary Blue, Secondary Black and Red
Haror, the plane of Forced Brotherhood. Primary Black, Secondary Blue and White
Karia, the plane of Reluctant Glory. Primary Black, Secondary Red and Green
Srotta, the plane of Leashed Hatred. Primary Red, Secondary Black and Blue
Vena, the plane of Invisible Chains. Primary Red, Secondary Green and White
Kalos, the plane of Unnatural Selection. Primary Green, Secondary White and Blue
Atna, the plane of Warring Fates. Primary Green, Secondary Red and Black

Harmonic Planes
Romna, the plane of Aqueducts. Primary White, Secondary Blue
Comys, the plane of Settlement. Primary White, Secondary Green
Inar, the plane of Plans. Primary Blue, Secondary White
Haved, the plane of Lore. Primary Blue, Secondary Black
Gerad, the plane of Ambition. Primary Black, Secondary Blue
Idival, the plane of Self. Primary Black, Secondary Red
Pasir, the plane of Hedonism. Primary Red, Secondary Black
Marix, the plane of Anarchy. Primary Red, Secondary Green
Gigon, the plane of Growth. Primary Green, Secondary Red
Medar, the plane of Nurturing. Primary Green, Secondary White

Disharmonic Planes
Holt, the plane of Tyranny. Primary White, Secondary Black
Knit, the plane of Propaganda. Primary White, Secondary Red
Natol, the plane of Sabotage. Primary Blue, Secondary Red
Sil, the plane of Progress. Primary Blue, Secondary Green
Horos, the plane of Armies. Primary Black, Secondary White
Ansen, the plane of Aging. Primary Black, Secondary Green
Eos, the plane of Love. Primary Red, Secondary White
Xanos, the plane of Gambits. Primary Red, Secondary Blue
Bada, the plane of Enlightenment. Primary Green, Secondary Blue
Beit, the plane of Predation. Primary Green, Secondary Black

Perfect Planes
Odan, the plane of Order. Monocolor White
Sian, the plane of Change. Monocolor Blue
Gorn, the plane of Entropy. Monocolor Black
Mont, the plane of Chaos. Monocolor Red
Apel, the plane of Life. Monocolor Green

Colorless Planes
Prima, the plane of Mortals.
Astra, the plane of Travel.

Edit: Note that not all of these have been granted Gareth's official stamp of approval. Edits can and likely will be made.

GnomeWorks
2011-01-02, 01:15 PM
You've got two "planes of Progress" in there.

InaVegt
2011-01-02, 01:32 PM
You've got two "planes of Progress" in there.

Whoops, that was a copy error. Fix'd.

Thrice Dead Cat
2011-01-02, 01:49 PM
Glad to see how the rest of the names came out. I'd be happy to help work out more of the themes to some of the planes, maybe even do a few right-us myself.

GnomeWorks
2011-01-02, 03:24 PM
Whoops, that was a copy error. Fix'd.

Much better.

Havvy
2011-01-02, 04:44 PM
A full list of names of your build time would be useful to know.

InaVegt
2011-01-03, 04:41 AM
The Conflicted Planes
Note that these are the short versions of the planes, and while containing enough detail to play, are far from the detail planned for the final product.

Nozdar, the plane of Righteous Torment.
Nozdar is dominated by infinite monarchies. Each has a strict yet clear legal code. These monarchies don't see eye to eye, however, vehemently disagreeing upon their respective differences, no matter how subtle.

It is for this reason this plane is physically dominated by heavy fortifications, castles, walls, towers. All made out of perfect stone. And between those fortifications armies march, soldiers led to battle by knights in shining armor.

In between the borders of these monarchies are the monasteries of the Justicars. Great fortified monasteries with strong barred gates. Prevented from assault by the natives by treaties that date back to the dawn of time.

Inside these monasteries are those who have been sent for punishment. Whether they were dissidents to their own monarchy, enemy soldiers captured, or people sent there from other planes, they are here for eternal torture.

The Justicars are dedicated and powerful, knowing ways to torture a soul even after the body has passed on. They are unrelenting in their torture, believing that every single being sent for punishment by them must have committed some kind of terrible crime.

Traits
Primary White, Secondary Black and Red
Normal Gravity.
Normal Time.
Infinite.
Alterable Morphic.

Special Rules
Targets of an Imprisonment spell cast anywhere in the multiverse are sent to a Justicar Monastery, rather than deep underground.

Liros, the plane of Endless Searches.
Liros is an infinite library, its books containing everything that is, was, shall, and can be known. It is therefor a shame that it is so difficult to find what one is looking for.

The plane shifts around when nobody is looking. Just as you leave a corridor behind, a bookcase shifts to block the way back. Just as you leaf through a book, the bookcase behind you shifts to reveal a new pathway.

Fate itself conspires against the seeker of knowledge. That bookcase that just shifted away had the answer you were looking for, but now it is somewhere else inside Liros entirely. Or perhaps you find an answer, but the rules of physics have changed subtly while you were looking, leaving the answer ineffective.

And if you manage to find the book with the answer inside despite all this, the other books start flinging themselves at you in a raging fit, in the hope that you'll drop the book and take your eyes off of it. At which point it promptly disappears.

While searching, a subtle tune fills the air, played by instruments that can never be seen, never be found. Its as though its emitted by the plane itself. The music is haunting, and seems to be taunting the seeker.

Occasionally, the music changes. This signifies major changes to the landscape of Liros. Usually this happens when a seeker was particularly close to finding the answer they seek.

As inorganic as it is, Liros is not without its inhabitants. Librarians and Guides, usually both at the same time, inhabit this plane. While even they are near-incapable of finding answers, they know how to travel the plane, and have fast amounts of wisdom to entertain the seekers with.

Traits
Primary Blue, Secondary Red and Green
Normal Gravity.
Normal Time.
Infinite.
Highly Morphic.

Special Rules
Those coming to this plane to seek an answer must make a will safe each day (DC 10+amount of days spent here.) If they fail, they become engrossed in their search, never ceasing until they have done the near impossible... found their answer.

Anroi, the plane of Meted Entropy.
Life is abundant in Anroi. Too much so. Its inhabitants wage a constant yet careful war to keep life in check. For to not do so means their villages and cities will be overrun and destroyed.

Sadly, they can't just cut down or kill what they can find outside their settlements. For to do so means they are likely to kill vital pieces of the environment which will reverse the situation temporarily.

Starvation is the result of such a reversed situation, and while those never last long, they last long enough to cause the death of many, crippling a settlement for years to come.

Even killing a single plant, if the wrong one is chosen, can have this result. For that plant might have played a big part in the grand scheme, and only the small parts of the scheme can be safely disrupted.

As such, even as they kill and destroy the nature outside their settlement's borders, they never kill what they don't believe was fated to die by their hands, for to mess with those fates is to cause untold death and destruction.

Traits
Primary Black, Secondary White and Green
Normal Gravity.
Normal Time.
Infinite.
Highly Morphic.

Special Rules
Enhanced Magic: Spells that cause growth of plants, animals, or vermin in any way are considered to be maximized and extended.

Kaldor, the plane of Checked Impulse.
Kaldor hates its inhabitants. The plane's natural penchant for order and preparation makes the free-willed inhabitants the plane's natural enemies. This emotion is so fierce, so powerful, that it overcomes even that natural penchant, and turns the place in a plane as chaotic as its inhabitants.

As such, the plane uses magic to create illusions, its got living agents that seek to lure the natives out and get them into Kaldor's many dark traps. The most prominent are the Witches of the Wastes, extensions of Kaldor itself, their siren songs enthrall. When a hapless soul is caught by their song, they are devoured by such a Witch, never to return back to their safe havens.

Because the inhabitants have their Utopian havens. Protected from Kaldor by enchanted domes that cap their cities, the inhabitants pool their knowledge to create orderly defenses. So that the inhabitants of Kaldor's domed cities may live in utter freedom to do as they wish, whether that is song and dance, outright hedonism, or something else entirely.

Too bad that no plants will grow inside the domes. The occasional hunting and gathering party is required to bring food to the domes. Often times, these parties are taken by Kaldor in part or in full. Those who return with food are lauded as heroes, and those who did not are mourned as the same.

Traits
Primary Red, Secondary Blue and White
Normal Gravity.
Normal Time.
Infinite.
Highly Morphic.
Sentient

Special Rules
Besides the monstrous inhabitants of Kaldor, Kaldor is capable of casting major image whenever it likes, and without restraints on area or duration. The Will save DC to disbelief these is DC 25, or DC 20 within five hundred feet of a domed city. Kaldor is incapable of casting these inside the domed cities.

Garon, the plane of Discordant Harmony.
Peace and Harmony are abundant on Garon, its inhabitants helping out one another when help is needed. Thriving communities coexist with abundant natural resources, and with abundant spirits of malice.

These spirits take their sweet time to corrupt the inhabitants of Garon. Researching the weaknesses in their mental state before striking. If at first they don't succeed, they keep on trying and trying until they do succeed.

And that's when the inhabitants crack. Most do, eventually. They turn insane, and most start striking out against the harmony that fills their plane, killing or torturing others because they are no longer a part of the plane's harmonic society. They never live long, soon being killed by those yet sane.

A few of those who become corrupted are more lucky, or less, depending on who you ask. Instead of killing and torturing at random, they attempt to insert themselves at positions of power, and if they succeed, they use that power to disrupt harmony.

They too, tend to be caught. But their effects are more severe, more insidious. More damaging to the harmonic society. Even so, they too are killed, so they won't disrupt harmony any further.

Traits
Primary Green, Secondary Black and Blue
Normal Gravity.
Normal Time.
Infinite.
Alterable Morphic.

Special Rules
Those travelling through or living in this plane must make a will save each year (DC 10+amount of years spent here.) If they fail, they become insane, and start actively disrupting the harmony of Garon.

Lix Lorn
2011-01-03, 12:36 PM
I really like Kaldor.

flabort
2011-01-03, 01:36 PM
Liros sounds like home to me. (all to quite literally. Since 69% of my time is spent online... But it's very different all the same)
Any sort of settlement or city would dissapear pretty fast there. you couldn't rely on having any friends to help you out of a jam, because they'd get just as lost as you, and infinitely separated. Putting an adventuring party into Liros would be like railroading them into inescapable separate prison cells.
:smallbiggrin: I luv it. Can I live there?

Lord_Gareth
2011-01-03, 04:39 PM
I really like Kaldor.

Nifty - I like Kaldor too. Any particular reason you like it?

Lix Lorn
2011-01-03, 04:42 PM
I like the idealogy, mainly. Freedom above most things, hedonism... good fun. xD

Havvy
2011-01-07, 05:05 PM
You know what would be a useful addition to this system? "Colorful Words" a.k.a. the words of creation from the Book of Exalted Deeds or the dark speech from the numerous vile books that WotC put out.

Basically, I think it would work like this. You would first choose to get the minor words feat which gives you the powers of your primary and secondary colors. Then, if you want, you may take a second feat for the major words which only gives the power for your primary color.

The minor colorful words would not be damaging to your body when said, but the major words should probably be. Hopefully whoever makes them creates them at tier 3 level (or rogue balance point).

GhostwheelZ
2011-01-15, 08:34 AM
One thing I'd add to this are "positive" and "negative" archetypes for each color. Each one has a positive (good, building, worthy, moral) aspect, and each has a negative (bad, evil, destructive) aspect. Let me give examples for each color:

Red: Individual freedom (positive), blind and impulsive destruction (negative)
Green: Harmony, tranquility, growth (positive), cancerous, diseases, ignorance, instinct over all, going too far with naturalness over advancement (negative)
Blue: Inquiring, curious, knowledgeable (positive), robotic, removed, distant, disconnected from emotions (negative)
White: Well-being, community, inner strength (positive), oppression, squashing that which is unique (negative)
Black: Individuality, believing that everyone should be able to be individual, working towards bettering oneself while respecting the individuality of others (positive), selfishness, corruption, working only for oneself, exploiting others (negative)

Thus, you would have a three-dimensional "wheel"; two dimensions are the usual wheel, and then each part can have a positive or negative aspect. As you can see, these are still very broad concepts, but it allows more diversity within the wheel rather than clumping everything into one of the colors and having to have people explain it.

For example, a green (positive) // red (negative) person might be one who respects nature, believes in harmony, and wants to nurture natural growth, yet becomes uncontrollable and destructive when the nature is hurt.

A red (positive) // black (positive) person might be one who believes that everyone should be free to do as they please as long as it doesn't harm others, and that people should follow their passions in what will make them happy.

A white (positive) // blue (negative) person might be a scholar (judge, lawyer?) who believes that what they do is good for the whole, yet is unresponsive emotionally and has distanced themselves from others in their attempt towards being impartial, harming their own social relations in pursuit of their perceived duty towards the community.

Edit: In short, the main difference here is the ability to easily delineate specific character flaws that can be used to deepen a character and make them more "real". For example, a DM might require that each character have at least one negative archetype from any color to prevent Mary Sues or others who are two-dimensional and have no flaws and the like.

Book Wyrm
2011-01-16, 09:36 PM
Not that I want to resurrect the arguments about the false dichotomies and other stuff since they seem to have finally died out, but I just wanted to clarify some of the concepts that people seem to be misinterpreting.

Amoral is not the same as immoral. Immoral is the opposite of moral, amoral actually means to disregard moral questions altogether. Thus black is not equatable to evil. Evil is immoral in the traditional DnD sense of the term. Black is more equatable to neutral since it is neither good nor evil. That said, someone on the side of "good" will often look at the actions of an amoral person as evil since they fail to consider anyone else but themselves, thus the source of conflict between White and Black.

Altruism is not at all synonymous with self interest. The definition of altruism is the unselfish concern for the welfare of others at the expense of ones own welfare. Altruism is the exact opposite of self interest. Dictionary.com gives the example of an animal giving a warning cry since it alerts the group to the danger of a predator but also alerts the predator to the location of the individual.

My interpretation of pure Blue is knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Thus the wizard who studies magic for purely academic purposes is blue, but the wizard who only studies magic for the purpose of benefiting himself is Black with maybe secondary Blue characteristics.

I don't like assigning community to White though. A community that cares about their own interests at the expense of another community would be Black not White. I think its best if the concepts can be applied on both the individual level and the large scale.

What I like most about this system is that it does away with traditional Western dualistic morality. The colors don't have clear opposites like good is to evil and law is to chaos. It allows you to characterize a traditional orc settlement (brutal, chaotic, savage, warlike, opposed to the interests of elves, humans, and dwarves, etc) without labeling them all "evil" as the traditional 9 alignment system does. Good and evil and law and chaos can still exist but everything isn't inherently one or the other. Two orcs can both be Red/Green even though one eats babies for breakfast and the other doesn't.

Jallorn
2011-01-16, 09:48 PM
Not that I want to resurrect the arguments about the false dichotomies and other stuff since they seem to have finally died out, but I just wanted to clarify some of the concepts that people seem to be misinterpreting.

Amoral is not the same as immoral. Immoral is the opposite of moral, amoral actually means to disregard moral questions altogether. Thus black is not equatable to evil. Evil is immoral in the traditional DnD sense of the term. Black is more equatable to neutral since it is neither good nor evil. That said, someone on the side of "good" will often look at the actions of an amoral person as evil since they fail to consider anyone else but themselves, thus the source of conflict between White and Black.

Altruism is not at all synonymous with self interest. The definition of altruism is the unselfish concern for the welfare of others at the expense of ones own welfare. Altruism is the exact opposite of self interest. Dictionary.com gives the example of an animal giving a warning cry since it alerts the group to the danger of a predator but also alerts the predator to the location of the individual.

My interpretation of pure Blue is knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Thus the wizard who studies magic for purely academic purposes is blue, but the wizard who only studies magic for the purpose of benefiting himself is Black with maybe secondary Blue characteristics.

I don't like assigning community to White though. A community that cares about their own interests at the expense of another community would be Black not White. I think its best if the concepts can be applied on both the individual level and the large scale.

What I like most about this system is that it does away with traditional Western dualistic morality. The colors don't have clear opposites like good is to evil and law is to chaos. It allows you to characterize a traditional orc settlement (brutal, chaotic, savage, warlike, opposed to the interests of elves, humans, and dwarves, etc) without labeling them all "evil" as the traditional 9 alignment system does. Good and evil and law and chaos can still exist but everything isn't inherently one or the other. Two orcs can both be Red/Green even though one eats babies for breakfast and the other doesn't.

I think that equating White to the community works fine. It's the ultimate opposite of the selfish aspect of black, or very nearly. An example of a community that is White primary but secondary Black would be the Borg. The individual is subsumed to the point where he doesn't exist, only the collective exists. However, they constantly attempt to assimilate more species and technologies, they seek power, and they seek it selfishly, at the expense of those who are not the collective. Why are they White primary? Because they seek perfection and pure order, and they use orderly means to do it, their goal is White, and they use both White and Black means to reach it. They aren't terribly creative either, and have no emotion, leaving Red as a solid opposite, another reason.

Lord_Gareth
2011-01-17, 11:49 AM
You know what would be a useful addition to this system? "Colorful Words" a.k.a. the words of creation from the Book of Exalted Deeds or the dark speech from the numerous vile books that WotC put out.

Basically, I think it would work like this. You would first choose to get the minor words feat which gives you the powers of your primary and secondary colors. Then, if you want, you may take a second feat for the major words which only gives the power for your primary color.

The minor colorful words would not be damaging to your body when said, but the major words should probably be. Hopefully whoever makes them creates them at tier 3 level (or rogue balance point).

If you make it, we will review it. Right now, the cosmology project is taking precedance over feats, PrCs, and other bonus content.


One thing I'd add to this are "positive" and "negative" archetypes for each color. Each one has a positive (good, building, worthy, moral) aspect, and each has a negative (bad, evil, destructive) aspect. Let me give examples for each color:

Stop. Re-read the already-available content. You see all that text? That is more than enough text. What you're suggesting should be incorporated as part of roleplaying your character, and is a needless level of detail for the main system. I appreciate the enthusiasm, though!

Rion
2011-01-17, 01:23 PM
I don't like assigning community to White though. A community that cares about their own interests at the expense of another community would be Black not White. I think its best if the concepts can be applied on both the individual level and the large scale.
Actually a good example (and IIRC an actually mentioned one on the M:tG site) of White/Black would be a small community or oligarchy, where the small community acts as the community for white and the individual for black. I.e. a group of people who acts white towards each other, and black towards the rest of the world, but with the interests of the group superseding the interests of the individual.

IcarusWings
2011-01-17, 01:31 PM
Actually a good example (and IIRC an actually mentioned one on the M:tG site) of White/Black would be a small community or oligarchy, where the small community acts as the community for white and the individual for black. I.e. a group of people who acts white towards each other, and black towards the rest of the world, but with the interests of the group superseding the interests of the individual.

As an alternate to this, I would even suggest that most modern day civilisations are Black primary, and White and Red secondary. Primary represents the ideology, and capitalism is best represented by Black. And we act on this ideology by forming structured nations in which we can work with this.

Jallorn
2011-01-17, 01:45 PM
As an alternate to this, I would even suggest that most modern day civilisations are Black primary, and White and Red secondary. Primary represents the ideology, and capitalism is best represented by Black. And we act on this ideology by forming structured nations in which we can work with this.

Well, I think a Modern Democracy, like, say, the US, is Red primary, with White and Black. The purpose of the government is supposed to be to protect the freedoms of the people. They use order to do that, as well as raw power. The individualistic goals of the nation are more Red than Black.

Lord_Gareth
2011-01-30, 12:34 PM
Bump, for great justice and continued work!

ErrantX
2011-01-31, 02:29 PM
Bump, for great justice and continued work!

Can I get a heck yeah for great justice and continued work?! Heck yeah!

-X

Super_Dave
2011-02-02, 01:50 PM
I am SO glad I stumbled across this! The alignment system in D&D always bugged me, because your aligment depends not on how you act, or how you view yourself, but how the world/society/the pantheon sees you

For example, a warrior who seeks to overthrow a corrupt king could be seen as either Lawful or Chaotic, based on the point of view of an observer. But the Alignment Grid constrains you to one or the other, with no room for difference of opinion regarding your motivations and goals. Similarly, a Barbarian might come from a tribe with an extensive oral history, a complex language, an a rigidly-defined caste system, but he still counts as Chaotic because he's "uncivilized."

This new alignment system solves many (maybe all?) of the problems I had with the old system, by allowing characters to self-determine their alignments. If you feel like you're a person ruled by your emotions, then you're Red, even if another member of your party sees you as reserved and sullen. The choice is given to the player, not imposed on them by the DM, or cultural consensus.

Lix Lorn
2011-02-02, 01:58 PM
Just pointing out, it is your decision what your alignment is. Sounds more like a problem with your DM/players to me.

...but maybe that's just me.

lightningcat
2011-02-02, 11:30 PM
Just pointing out, it is your decision what your alignment is. Sounds more like a problem with your DM/players to me.

...but maybe that's just me.

You're probably right, but how many alignment debates rage just across this site? Or your own group has had? By changing the how alignments are done, maybe a few of these debates can be avoided in a group. At least that's part of the reason why I use this system.

NineThePuma
2011-02-02, 11:32 PM
This IS my alignment system.

Even in games that don't use it.

"What's your alignment?"

"Red Green."

"... What?"

Havvy
2011-02-03, 04:40 AM
Since I have no real need to say that a person is good or evil, and since the chaos/law dichotomy is entirely false, this is what I think about when adding an alignment to a person. Why? Because it works, in game and out. And that makes it a success. Sure, you can continue adding layers upon layers to it (see Ghostwheelz's suggestion for a good/bad side of each color), but at some point, you need it working. And IMO, it's a useful personality test after alignment is dealt with.

Lord Raziere
2011-02-03, 10:34 AM
You know, from now on my alignments blue-red, with maybe some black. I maybe chaotic neutral, but blue-red is more specific of how I am Chaotic Neutral.

GhostwheelZ
2011-02-06, 03:00 AM
Since I have no real need to say that a person is good or evil, and since the chaos/law dichotomy is entirely false, this is what I think about when adding an alignment to a person. Why? Because it works, in game and out. And that makes it a success. Sure, you can continue adding layers upon layers to it (see Ghostwheelz's suggestion for a good/bad side of each color), but at some point, you need it working. And IMO, it's a useful personality test after alignment is dealt with.

The primary motivation behind my blurb is less as a codified mechanical system for alignment, and more as a way to flesh out characters. In all the games I've played over the years, most of the characters seem flat and very Mary Sue-ish. They don't really have any negative aspects. Each and every one is almost a zen Buddha who can't be manipulated or emotionally hurt, who never feels self-doubt, who doesn't ever act out of anger or have conflicting emotions that war in various directions, and rarely if ever fall prey to their darker emotions only to feel guild, regret, and sorrow afterwards.

Adding the positive and negative descriptors could be a good way IMO to flesh out characters more fully. A DM can say, "pick at least one color, and choose primarily negative aspects from that color", and poof--you have deep, meaningful character flaws that make the characters far more like real people, far more three-dimensional rather than caricatures who can do no wrong and feel very fake in their perfection.

Take it or leave it, figured I'd at least explain the reason for the above so it might make sense on one level.

Lord_Gareth
2011-02-06, 03:40 PM
The primary motivation behind my blurb is less as a codified mechanical system for alignment, and more as a way to flesh out characters. In all the games I've played over the years, most of the characters seem flat and very Mary Sue-ish. They don't really have any negative aspects. Each and every one is almost a zen Buddha who can't be manipulated or emotionally hurt, who never feels self-doubt, who doesn't ever act out of anger or have conflicting emotions that war in various directions, and rarely if ever fall prey to their darker emotions only to feel guild, regret, and sorrow afterwards.

Adding the positive and negative descriptors could be a good way IMO to flesh out characters more fully. A DM can say, "pick at least one color, and choose primarily negative aspects from that color", and poof--you have deep, meaningful character flaws that make the characters far more like real people, far more three-dimensional rather than caricatures who can do no wrong and feel very fake in their perfection.

Take it or leave it, figured I'd at least explain the reason for the above so it might make sense on one level.

That's something best handled between a DM and his players, though, and not structured into the system.

Eldest
2011-05-20, 09:10 PM
Probably red, with White/black secondaries. And are you planning on fleshing out he remaining planes?

The Witch-King
2011-06-15, 11:14 PM
Just some ideas of my own on gods, goddesses and spirits of color. Nothing here is sanctioned by the design team or anything. Opinions preferred.

White:

The spirits of White are referred to as Devas and Virtues. They are spirits of Community and embody concepts that engender, support and underlie community. Thus Moror the Angelic Duke of Justice is a major Deva who embodies the concept of Justice and he and the lesser devas under his command seek to increase the amount of Justice in the Material Plane and elsewhere in the multiverse. However, so is Aegll the Defender. Aegll lends His support to communities in his purview who are under attack. But He and His attendant spirits also encourage paranoia, xenophobia, militarism and constant preparedness against enemy attack. Susale, Virtue of Love, seeks to engender romantic love in all its forms throughout the universe. Legends speak of Her sparking the First War when She lured together a dwarven prince and an elven princess, both doomed to marry those they did not love, into the deeps of the primordial forest for an adulterous tryst. Many times the interests and purview of one Deva conflict with another, however, in the interests of community, the Devas do not war openly. Instead, they play a complex hidden game of influence and cajole, seeking to direct their mortal followers to follow their ethics and not those of their spiritual competitors. Of course, the Devas do band together to openly fight Demons, Devils and Egregores when needed.

Black:

Most of the spirits of Black are referred to as Demons and Devils. They are spirits that seek power at any cost. Demons are freelancers who seek power on their own and are beholden to none. They scoff at any who follow rules and order and are the ultimate anarchists. They only respect those of greater power than themselves. Devils have established a hierarchy and work tirelessly to climb the ladder. Less known to mortals than Demons and Devils are the Chaotes, also known as the Outlaws or Entropics. They work tirelessly to bring down calcified systems and structures of order and promote freedom throughout the multiverse. Jack-of-Skulls is served by a cult of harlequin assassins known as the Kingslayers, who seek to achieve radical change through violence. Samath-daegn, the King of Undeath, seeks to turn all realms in the mortal plane into charnelworlds, burnt out cinders inhabited only by liches and their undead servants.

Green:

The spirits of Green are referred to as Totems, Elementals and Fey. They include Dryads, Satyrs, Air, Earth, Water and Fire Elementals as well as greater and lesser animal totem spirits. King-of-Cats is not only a protector and advocate of all felines and those who love felines, but also embodies concepts of patriarchal natural leadership and dutiful attention to family. An ally of His is Grandfather-of-Trees who lends His paternal protection to all pixies, fairies, dryads, elves and animals of the forest. His daughter, Dihadria Greendreamer, is a goddess to elves and dryads alike. Like the Devas, the Fey do not war among themselves openly. They do, however, endlessly contend among each other for prestige and influence in the Fey Courts even as they defend natural splendor and actively promote personal beauty, grace, poise, refinement and artistic growth and development throughout the multiverse. Many a poet and painter have been secretly inspired by a fey whispering in their dreams at night and many a Muse has taken credit for an artist's achievements in the Fey Courts. Some say--or rather whisper, lest other ears hear, that the Fey's ultimate objective, if the Fey can be said to agree on any one thing, is to make the mortal plane a mirror of Faerie and that the only difference between the Seelie Court and the Unseelie Court is that one side works through charm, inspiration, temptation and cajole and the other side through deceit, lies, treachery and force. The usual response to this is "which side is which?"

Red:

The spirits of Red are called Egregores and embody emotions. Aulgron Soulreaver is an Egregore of Rage and is worshipped as a god by many of goblinoid blood. The Traveler is Egregore of Wanderlust and favors those who leave home in search of adventure. The greater egregore that simply goes by the name Envy is a dangerous and cunning adversary that few seek to cross. And yet, She has inspired the creation of whole civilizations because one group of people looked over at another group of people and asked why they couldn't have towers and monuments, why couldn't they have art and culture and great works of literature and sat down to achieve just that. Kritha, legendary sage of Shadowwynne, once said that he truly believed that orcs were the mortal grandchildren of Envy.

Blue:

The spirits of Blue are called Abstracts or Ideals and embody concepts of knowledge and innovation and their pursuits. The Librarian, Ciodol the Guardian of Truth, the Seeker, and Fare, Heir of Scrolls are all Abstracts. But so is the Dissector. Abstracts favor those who devote themselves to study and research and seek to promote learning and the cultivation of wisdom throughout the multiverse. Even as the Librarian and His agents seek to promote the peaceful and orderly accumulation of knowledge for the good of all, the agents of the Dissector feed on the delicious joy of all those who learn more about their universe at the expense of others.

EDIT: I had another thought. With regards to green and the elements--this might be one of those times when the Chinese Elements--Metal, Wood, Earth, Fire and Water--might be better than the traditional Western four elements. One, it would have the advantage of making Wood an element, which implies Wood elementals such as ents, pixies, dryads and other faeries, and two, there's five of them, which would better represent a pentarchal cosmos.

Lord_Gareth
2011-06-16, 01:55 AM
I like these for the most part, but you definitely need to re-examine your priorities on Green. I'm surprised, actually - shocked - because you're the one who spoke so eloquently on what it means to be Green just earlier, but the embodiments you present here seem so...red.

On the subject, remember that Black is selfishness and ambition, ruthlessness and amorality. Black doesn't actually CARE about other people's freedom - just it's own. Your Entropics, seeking universal freedom, are more Red than anything.

BladeofOblivion
2011-06-16, 02:37 AM
I like these for the most part, but you definitely need to re-examine your priorities on Green. I'm surprised, actually - shocked - because you're the one who spoke so eloquently on what it means to be Green just earlier, but the embodiments you present here seem so...red.

On the subject, remember that Black is selfishness and ambition, ruthlessness and amorality. Black doesn't actually CARE about other people's freedom - just it's own. Your Entropics, seeking universal freedom, are more Red than anything.

Agreed. The Seelie Court, to me, appears to be White/Red, while the Unseelie Court resembles Blue/Black. The Green Embodiments need a bit of work, I'm afraid.

The Witch-King
2011-06-16, 02:39 AM
On the subject, remember that Black is selfishness and ambition, ruthlessness and amorality. Black doesn't actually CARE about other people's freedom - just it's own. Your Entropics, seeking universal freedom, are more Red than anything.

I guess the way I see it is there's a difference between seeking something and caring about it. Entropics, in my view, are the kinds of guys who just enjoy knocking over other people's castles, sand or otherwise. They're the kinds of guys who exhale heavily when you're trying to build a house of cards. They don't care one jot about freedom. There's not a noble freedom fighter type among the whole lot of them. They're just the kinds of bastards who laugh when a kid's balloon pops and the kid starts crying. They tear down ideas and philosophies, social orders, kingdoms and whole civilizations while talking about the folly of Man the whole time because they get off on power-tripping. When Jack-of-Skulls targets a king, it sure as hell isn't because of some desire to see peasants be free. In fact, it's more likely that the king he targets is the kind of king who does good things for even the lowest ranked of his subjects, the kind of king whose power and influence are bolstered by his being a good man and his subjects knowing he's always fair and always trying to do the right thing. Entropics are just--well--jerks.


I like these for the most part, but you definitely need to re-examine your priorities on Green. I'm surprised, actually - shocked - because you're the one who spoke so eloquently on what it means to be Green just earlier, but the embodiments you present here seem so...red.

*exasperated sigh*

I'll admit the Fey give me fits. Fey are green, dammit. I'm just having trouble explaining why they're green. Fey aren't about freedom--fey are about an appearance of freedom. Fey are about keeping their leaders on their toes. Fey about messing with their rivals. Fey are beautiful and deadly as Nature is beautiful and deadly. The eternal struggle of Nature is mirrored by the eternal struggle among fey. But in their heart of hearts, they all know there's a system and that they're a part of it as is their "struggle". No fey ever gets tired of the game and quits. No fey ever just walks away from it all and doesn't look back. They might sequester themselves for a bit or occupy themselves with something for a few centuries or so but eventually, they always come back to court life. And no one would ever think of deposing the King or Queen of the Fey, just like no fey genuinely tries to kill their rivals. There's a difference between an elaborate and beautiful artistic depiction of chaos and real chaos--real craps-on-fire-people-are-dying-in-the-streets chaos. It's about the art of the fight. It's keeping people on their toes and trying to get one up on their rivals but no one ever--ever--tries to buck the system, let alone tear it down and replace it with something else even if it were in their own best interests. At least, that's my view of the fey. They're like Ferengi--Ferengi don't want to be free of grinding, oppressive capitalism--they just want to be better off than the next guy.

I'll keep at it.

*skulks off into the shadows*

BladeofOblivion
2011-06-16, 02:47 AM
I guess the way I see it is there's a difference between seeking something and caring about it. Entropics, in my view, are the kinds of guys who just enjoy knocking over other people's castles, sand or otherwise. They're the kinds of guys who exhale heavily when you're trying to build a house of cards. They don't care one jot about freedom. There's not a noble freedom fighter type among the whole lot of them. They're just the kinds of bastards who laugh when a kid's balloon pops and the kid starts crying. They tear down ideas and philosophies, social orders, kingdoms and whole civilizations while talking about the folly of Man the whole time because they get off on power-tripping. When Jack-of-Skulls targets a king, it sure as hell isn't because of some desire to see peasants be free. In fact, it's more likely that the king he targets is the kind of king who does good things for even the lowest ranked of his subjects, the kind of king whose power and influence are bolstered by his being a good man and his subjects knowing he's always fair and always trying to do the right thing. Entropics are just--well--jerks.


Except that's a decidedly Red philosophy. Red does things because it wants to. That guy who kicks your sand castle down at the beach for no reason? Probably Red.

It would be Black if it killed the king because it wanted to take control over the peasants for it's own purposes, though.



*exasperated sigh*

I'll admit the Fey give me fits. Fey are green, dammit. I'm just having trouble explaining why they're green. Fey aren't about freedom--fey are about an appearance of freedom. Fey are about keeping their leaders on their toes. Fey about messing with their rivals. Fey are beautiful and deadly as Nature is beautiful and deadly. The eternal struggle of Nature is mirrored by the eternal struggle among fey. But in their heart of hearts, they all know there's a system and that they're a part of it as is their "struggle". No fey ever gets tired of the game and quits. No fey ever just walks away from it all and doesn't look back. They might sequester themselves for a bit or occupy themselves with something for a few centuries or so but eventually, they always come back to court life. And no one would ever think of deposing the King or Queen of the Fey, just like no fey genuinely tries to kill their rivals. There's a difference between an elaborate and beautiful artistic depiction of chaos and real chaos--real craps-on-fire-people-are-dying-in-the-streets chaos. It's about the art of the fight. It's keeping people on their toes and trying to get one up on their rivals but no one ever--ever--tries to buck the system, let alone tear it down and replace it with something else even if it were in their own best interests. At least, that's my view of the fey. They're like Ferengi--Ferengi don't want to be free of grinding, oppressive capitalism--they just want to be better off than the next guy.

I'll keep at it.

*skulks off into the shadows*

Except Ferengi are almost textbook Black: Black's entire philosophy is that it's all about ME. Black consumes, it wants. Capitalism, by it's nature, is an inherently Black philosophy. That's not too great of an example...

Still, I can see your point about the Fey. The problem with describing an embodiment of Green is that Green really isn't far off from Red. The difference, at least in my eyes? Red does things because it wants to. Green does things because it feels that it needs to.

NineThePuma
2011-06-16, 02:52 AM
So, maybe the fey hide behind the 'it's jus chaos for the sake of chaos! heehee!' excuse, while they're actually doing it in order to perpetrate a never ending cycle of events, to ensure 'the story never ends'?

... I just scared myself.

The Witch-King
2011-06-16, 04:17 AM
Except that's a decidedly Red philosophy. Red does things because it wants to. That guy who kicks your sand castle down at the beach for no reason? Probably Red.

It would be Black if it killed the king because it wanted to take control over the peasants for it's own purposes, though.

You know what? You've convinced me. Black is about power and I don't think Jack-of-Skulls gives a damn that there are beings out there more powerful than he is. As long as those more powerful than he don't interfere with his peeing on mortal parades, he wouldn't care one bit. I'll move the Entropics to Red.


So, maybe the fey hide behind the 'it's jus chaos for the sake of chaos! heehee!' excuse, while they're actually doing it in order to perpetrate a never ending cycle of events, to ensure 'the story never ends'?

... I just scared myself.

YOU--ARE--BRILLIANT!

So Fey are the embodiment of Life as Story/Story as Life. As the Aztecs believed their sacrifices enabled the Sun God to continue on his course through the sky maintaining the world, so do the fey believe that their endless cycle of contention keeps the Cosmic Story going. Conflict is the soul of drama, conflict fuels the Eternal Story, conflict drives fey. But just like fairy tales have rules, the conflict between fey has rules. All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. Brilliant!

In that view, the Seelie and Unseelie Courts are the embodiments of the twin forces of yin and yang which comprise the universe. They oppose each other but in a way that paradoxically supports each other as well and in doing so, maintains the multiverse. The eternal cycle of life goes on.

You are brilliant, sir. Have you a sister that I might marry?

And also--that whole "it's just chaos for the sake of chaos heehee" line was really funny. I'm picturing people prancing around throwing flower petals and confetti while another guy turns back and forth from left to right while blowing a trumpet and someone marches in place in a circle banging a drum and when someone asks, "What the hell are you people doing?" the answer is someone throwing his hands in the air and saying "It's chaos! We're just totally out of control!"

EDIT:
The problem with describing an embodiment of Green is that Green really isn't far off from Red. The difference, at least in my eyes? Red does things because it wants to. Green does things because it feels that it needs to.

I didn't say so earlier but that was an incredibly useful thing to say. Thanks!

Lord_Gareth
2011-06-16, 10:48 AM
I knew we'd get it solved eventually ^_^

Lix Lorn
2011-06-16, 11:51 AM
And also--that whole "it's just chaos for the sake of chaos heehee" line was really funny. I'm picturing people prancing around throwing flower petals and confetti while another guy turns back and forth from left to right while blowing a trumpet and someone marches in place in a circle banging a drum and when someone asks, "What the hell are you people doing?" the answer is someone throwing his hands in the air and saying "It's chaos! We're just totally out of control!"

This made me giggle too.

TheLonelyScribe
2011-06-16, 03:47 PM
I'll have to admit that I haven't read the whole thread, but I think this is probably the right forum (no pun intended) in which to submit the following opinion:

I've never really understood the conflict between blue and red on the grounds of thought vs. emotion (although I do understand it as order vs. chaos). The reason for this is that I find that my thoughts and my emotions work together in integral ways to create me. I can also have a limited amount of control over my emotions with my thoughts, for instance trying to think of happy things to cheer myself up, and I can also use emotions to fuel my more calculating brain movements. I can even plan my emotions sometimes, for instance, I listen to certain music and tense myself in certain places before exams, because I find that this gives me just the right balance of focus and excitement.

On another note, I have to say that I absolutely adore the idea of fey as the perpetuators of story. It is super cool.

Jallorn
2011-06-16, 03:55 PM
I'll have to admit that I haven't read the whole thread, but I think this is probably the right forum (no pun intended) in which to submit the following opinion:

I've never really understood the conflict between blue and red on the grounds of thought vs. emotion (although I do understand it as order vs. chaos). The reason for this is that I find that my thoughts and my emotions work together in integral ways to create me. I can also have a limited amount of control over my emotions with my thoughts, for instance trying to think of happy things to cheer myself up, and I can also use emotions to fuel my more calculating brain movements. I can even plan my emotions sometimes, for instance, I listen to certain music and tense myself in certain places before exams, because I find that this gives me just the right balance of focus and excitement.

On another note, I have to say that I absolutely adore the idea of fey as the perpetuators of story. It is super cool.

Thought and Emotion are diametrically opposed because they are the two primary motivators of sentient beings such as humans. Although most of the time things that make you happy and things that are smart to do are often the same, such as doing well at a task, they are just as often not, such as any time when you have a choice between, say, ice cream and spinach, or watching tv and getting exercise.

And ultimately, emotion can override logic at times to such great degrees, that you sacrifice the rest of your life for the moment, IE crimes of passion.

Eldest
2011-06-16, 04:33 PM
A better way of putting it may be passion vs logic. Also agreeing with the cool fey idea, I might steal that if I ever get my DnD group actually working...

Lord_Gareth
2011-06-16, 06:51 PM
I'll have to admit that I haven't read the whole thread, but I think this is probably the right forum (no pun intended) in which to submit the following opinion:

I've never really understood the conflict between blue and red on the grounds of thought vs. emotion (although I do understand it as order vs. chaos). The reason for this is that I find that my thoughts and my emotions work together in integral ways to create me. I can also have a limited amount of control over my emotions with my thoughts, for instance trying to think of happy things to cheer myself up, and I can also use emotions to fuel my more calculating brain movements. I can even plan my emotions sometimes, for instance, I listen to certain music and tense myself in certain places before exams, because I find that this gives me just the right balance of focus and excitement.

On another note, I have to say that I absolutely adore the idea of fey as the perpetuators of story. It is super cool.

This right here is very Blue behavior; instead of letting your emotions rule you or reveling in them, you've used knowledge (see what I did there?) to turn them into a tool with which you better your experience in your immediate environment. Pure Red would find that thing kinda weird. Pure red would be like, "Why don't you just feel what you feel?"

TheLonelyScribe
2011-06-17, 09:38 AM
So it's kind of like uncontrolled emotion vs. controlled emotion? Makes sense, really, but I think we already have a whole uncontrolled vs. controlled thing going on, so there's not really a need to mention emotion specifically.

Anyway, I think that the whole colour wheel is a pretty cool idea, and, Lord_Gareth, you're correct, every quiz I've ever done on the colour wheel has come out Blue (sometimes blue/white, but not very often).

Lord_Gareth
2011-06-17, 09:48 AM
It's less a 'controlled vs. uncontrolled' thing and more a matter of values. Red puts value in its emotions; it trusts them more than it trusts logic or reasoning. When Janeway told Tuvoc, "You can use logic to justify any atrocity," she was engaging in Red-speak. Red would rather follow its gut than try to temper its reactions, and pure Red weeps, laughs, and loves as openly as it rages.

The act of leashing one's emotions implies a lack of value or trust in them; it indicates that a person doesn't like or trust the actions inspired by them. That's Blue-think. Blue likes reason, thought, deduction and hypothesis. Blue likes objective answers and opinions and tries to minimize how emotions affect those, because that distorts the facts.

Make a little more sense now?

TheLonelyScribe
2011-06-18, 02:54 AM
Yes, that makes sense. I like the idea of Blue seeing trust and faith as illogical.

Xanmyral
2011-06-18, 10:49 PM
Man, according to this, I am very much Blue/Black. Which one is the primary and secondary I couldn't say, however as I have strong ties to both sides. Which doesn't really surprise me. A very thought out replacement, one I wouldn't mind actually implementing honestly. I always wound up as True Neutral somewhere in games, as honestly I would never try to insinuate that I'm good. It would be incorrect to do so. Doesn't mean I'm evil ether, I just don't really care about this concept of "morality," as it means little to me. Which ever path would get the best results, be the most efficient and so such. I won't deny that I'm selfish, but it probably isn't that obvious I admit. I've never understood how someone could make decisions over emotion, I can understand it being a factor, but never it being the sole reasoning. That's like burning down a forest because you stubbed your toe on a tree root. There are much better reasons to burn down a forest, like it being the home of some people who've done something none nice to you/friends/family. Although, one must make sure to make it look like an accident, and to have eyes on exits of the forest in case some escape. But that's another topic already. White sounds annoying to me, Green even more so somehow. I'm okay with some laws, mostly because they don't really bother me. Other laws miff me however, in the fact that I can't understand the audacity someone could have to actually put forth such frivolous, ludicrous excrement that has been turned into law. People always seem to be more moronic then they normally are when in large groups. Green just makes me shiver in their ideology. The idea of nothing being a choice is just... Not something I want to think about. Apathetic over Red, although it sounds rather... Bullheaded? I won't lie though, I'm probably streaked with a bit of Red, but not enough for me to really consider it. The rebelliousness I don't really get. Why flout laws just to prove it to other people? It's just a waste of time, if you already know that they don't matter. Still can't understand the choice of emotion over logic. Black/Blue//Blue/Black though makes me sound a bit evil however, if a person could be described as such.

Concise - A big reason I like this is because it more correctly drops me on the alignment scale. On the original, I'm normally bouncing back and forth from good to evil like a metronome, same as law to chaotic as well. I normally just pin me down as True Neutral, which doesn't describe me as well as I would have wished, as it seems to hint at apathy to stimuli, which is incorrect.

Primary/Secondary - Black/Blue//Blue/Black
Enemy - White, Green, Red

BladeofOblivion
2011-06-19, 03:08 PM
Well, glad to see that this argument's solved. Glad to see I was able to offer something helpful for once, as opposed to the meaningless drivel I usually toss out. :smalltongue:

I'd also like to thank this thread for introducing me to MtG. Now there's a PbP thread here that I basically run. :smallbiggrin::smallsmile:

For the record, I'm Blue with Black and White as secondaries.

The Witch-King
2011-06-20, 10:28 AM
The Embodiments, take two:

White:

The spirits of White are referred to Devas and Virtues. They are spirits of Community and embody concepts that engender, support and underlie community. Thus Moror the Angelic Duke of Justice is a major Deva who embodies the concept of Justice and he and the lesser devas under his command seek to increase the amount of Justice in the Material Plane and elsewhere in the multiverse. However, so is Aegll the Defender. Aegll lends his support to communities in his purview who are under attack. But he and his attendant spirits also encourage paranoia, xenophobia, militarism and constant preparedness against enemy attack. Susale, Virtue of Love, seeks to engender romantic love in all its forms throughout the universe. Legends speak of Her sparking the First War when She lured together a dwarven prince and an elven princess, both doomed to marry those they did not love, into the deeps of the primordial forest for an adulterous tryst. Many times the interests and purview of one Deva conflict with another, however, in the interests of community, the Devas do not war openly. Instead, they play a complex hidden game of influence and cajole, seeking to direct their mortal followers to follow their ethics and not those of their spiritual competitors. Of course, the Devas do band together to openly fight Demons, Devils and Egregores when needed.

Black:

Most of the spirits of Black are referred to as Demons and Devils. They are spirits that seek power at any cost. Demons are freelancers who seek power on their own and are beholden to none. They scoff at any who follow rules and order and are the ultimate anarchists. Llathoggua the Bleeder, Cta-yisth the Nine Tailed Serpent and Ephakael the Fallen are all powerful spirits known as archdemons, the most powerful of demonkind. Devils have established a hierarchy and work tirelessly to climb the ladder. At the top of their hierarchy lie the archdevils. Samath-daegn, the King of Undeath, seeks to turn all realms in the mortal plane into charnelworlds under his control, burnt out cinders inhabited only by liches and their undead servants. Nalana, known to men as the Burning Whore, has built her power upon the corruption of the innocent through sex. Her incubi and succubi scour the countryside, seeking out the chaste and the powerful to lure into her unholy service.

Green:

The spirits of Green are referred to as Totems, Elementals and Fey. They include Dryads, Satyrs, Air, Earth, Wood, Water and Fire Elementals as well as greater and lesser animal totem spirits. King-of-Cats is not only a protector and advocate all felines and those who love felines, but also embodies concepts of patriarchal natural leadership and dutiful attention to family. An ally of His is Grandfather-of-Trees who lends His paternal protection to all pixies, fairies, dryads, elves and animals of the forest. His daughter, Dihadria Greendreamer, is a goddess to elves and dryads alike. Like the Devas, the Fey do not war among themselves openly. They do however, endlessly contend among each other for prestige and influence in the Fey Courts even as they defend natural splendor and actively promote personal beauty, grace, poise, refinement and artistic growth and development throughout the multiverse. Many a poet and painter have been secretly inspired by a fey whispering in their dreams at night and many a Muse has taken credit for an artist's achievements in the Fey Courts. The constant jockeying for position, seemingly petty rivalries and endless machinations between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts do serve their purpose however. Fey are the embodiment of Life as Story and Story as Life. Their endless cycle of contention keeps the Cosmic Story going. Conflict is the soul of drama, conflict fuels the Eternal Story, conflict drives fey. The Seelie and Unseelie Courts are the embodiments of the twin forces of yin and yang which comprise the universe. They oppose each other but in a way that paradoxically supports each other as well and in doing so, maintains the multiverse. The eternal cycle of life goes on.

Red:

The spirits of Red are called Egregores and embody emotions. Aulgron Soulreaver is an Egregore of Rage and is worshipped as a god by many of goblinoid blood. The Traveler is Egregore of Wanderlust and favors those who leave home in search of adventure. The greater egregore that simply goes by the name Envy is a dangerous and cunning adversary that few seek to cross. And yet, She has inspired the creation of whole civilizations because one group of people looked over at another group of people and asked why they couldn't have towers and monuments, why couldn't they have art and culture and great works of literature and sat down to achieve just that. Kritha, legendary sage of Shadowwynne, once said that he truly believed that orcs were the mortal grandchildren of Envy. Less known to mortals are the Entropics, also known as the Outlaws. They work tirelessly to bring down calcified systems and structures of order throughout the multiverse. They tear down ideas and philosophies, social orders, kingdoms and whole civilizations, simply for their own delight and amusement. Jack-of-Skulls, for example, is served by a cult of assassins known as the Kingslayers, who target figures of power and authority.

Blue:

The spirits of Blue are called Abstracts or Ideals and embody concepts of knowledge and innovation and their pursuits. The Librarian, Ciodol the Guardian of Truth, the Seeker, and Fare, Heir of Scrolls are all Abstracts. But so is the Dissector. Abstracts favor those who devote themselves to study and research and seek to promote learning and the cultivation of wisdom throughout the multiverse. Even as the Librarian and His agents seek to promote the peaceful and orderly accumulation of knowledge for the good of all, the agents of the Dissector feed on the delicious joy of all those who learn more about their universe at the expense of others.

Lord Raziere
2011-06-20, 10:44 AM
This right here is very Blue behavior; instead of letting your emotions rule you or reveling in them, you've used knowledge (see what I did there?) to turn them into a tool with which you better your experience in your immediate environment. Pure Red would find that thing kinda weird. Pure red would be like, "Why don't you just feel what you feel?"

I'm blue/red. I like using logic, but there have been a lot of times where I just said "screw it, I'm doing what I feel like doing" or where I just do things on intuition or just plain gambled and liked those too. I always seem to go back and forth, one time I'm planning things out, another I'm just making things up as I go along cause I don't feel like going through the trouble of planning at the moment.

but there have also been times when I've had to calm myself down and think calmly to keep more extreme emotions form overwhelming me, mostly cause I used to be much more red- and had anger management issues, had to calm down to get rid of them and feel stuff naturally y'know?

The Witch-King
2011-06-20, 11:10 AM
So... I'm thinking a lot about paladins right now. I'm planning a new campaign setting for my D&D group and I'm using the five colors as an alignment system. Part of my background is that the King of the land has been deposed and a regent placed on the throne until the Prince comes of age. The regent has appointed his chief religious supporter, the head of the inquisition, which has been so far a minor force in church politics, as the new leader of the church. The inquisitor in return has placed his paladins at the regent's disposal.

Now here's my problem. Paladins can Detect Evil. My players are good. So how exactly are we reworking this ability? Does the Paladin still believe he is detecting evil and the criteria for whether or not he gets a positive return is if the person is Red or Black? Or does he Detect Color and get the specific information that the person he's scanning is Red or Black? Would a Paladin use his Detect Color ability and just get White from a xenophobic, racist, neo-nazi type guy who loves his country and be okay with that but would draw his sword to smite evil after using it on George Washington and getting a Red response?

And can they detect secondaries with their Detect Color ability? Both the regent and the inquisitor are white but certainly with a secondary color of black. They both want power and are prepared to do almost anything to get it but they both certainly love their community and genuinely believe they're the only ones who can get the job done. So would a paladin think of them as being "okay" or "misguided" or "partially evil" or what?


And in a completely unrelated note:

I've been thinking (for some reason) about the colors of the characters from Thundarr the Barbarian.

Thundarr is clearly Red. He literally leaps before he looks and in response to the deeply complex question "What manner of man are you?" Thundarr without hesitation lifts his sword and shouts "Free!!" I might argue that he has Green as a secondary color because he certainly believes in the power of instinct and has on occasion announced that he "smells the stench of sorcery about" something or other. That and I believe his hatred of sorcery stems from the deeply seated belief that it's completely unnatural and corrupting, which is at least partially borne out by the fact that all the evil wizards in the land are horribly mutated, a fact that makes me believe that, in their world, sorcery is akin to magic in Dark Sun, except that instead of defilers drawing the life from the land, they mutate it.

Just as clearly, I don't think there's any doubt that Ariel is Blue. She believes in logic and reason and thinking things through. She utilizes sorcery, which she doesn't see as being corrupting or innately evil despite almost every other wizard they run across being a complete bastard. She certainly believes in trying to make things better which easily explains her close alliance with Thundarr. The biggest point of contention between the two of them seems to be Thundarr's wanting to just race forward into conflict and Ariel's wanting them to come up with a plan first.

Ookla seems Green to me. I could see where you might think him White based off what appears to be his only solid motivation is a love for his friends. Ookla is a lover of people in general, he wishes just about everybody who doesn't cause trouble well and puts his life on the line to help people all the time. I would say however that his portrayed "bestial" nature makes him Green. I also base that on Green's being an ally to Red as Ookla is such a close ally of Thundarr's. And there's Ookla's dependency on his instincts. He doesn't think things through either. White can and does plan, often intricately. Ookla and Thundarr don't. And then there's Ookla's protectiveness of Ariel, which is hard to explain since she's arguably the most powerful member of the party. Both Thundarr and Ookla seem to have a very Green need to protect Ariel because she's female and it's the role of men to protect women.

Blue being an enemy of Red, you would think Ariel and Thundarr wouldn't get along. Since they do get along so well--despite Thundarr's absolute hatred of everything sorcerous (except of course the Sun Sword*), the obvious sexual tension between them and the constant argument about whether or not it would be a good idea to think just for a change--I would hypothesize that Ariel has a secondary of Red, since she is part of Thundarr's ongoing war for freedom. I might have said that Ariel had a secondary of White in that she risks her life to make things better for humans and moks but then the three of them always leave as soon as they free people from the wizard's tyranny. There seems to be either a Red belief that freedom is all you need or a Green belief that the Plan has gone astray because of wizard's using magic to force people to do their bidding and that once that impediment is removed, that the Plan will naturally re-assert itself and these people (despite living in one of the most dangerous environments imaginable) will now automatically be all right.

EDIT: On second (third? fourth? fifth?) thought, I believe Ariel is primary Blue, secondary Green and that Thundarr is primary Red, secondary Green and that Ookla is mono Green based off that whole leaving "oh you'll be all right" thing. I mean, they don't stick around to ensure anyone's freedom--they don't instill any democratic virtues or make sure the newly liberated set up an equitable system of government or anything. Hell, they don't even organize militias to protect the townspeople from mutant creatures or future incursions by wizards. And they seem to be okay with villages being run by "headmen" so long as the leaders aren't tyrannical. So it really does seem to be a "the Plan will re-assert itself now that the Big Bad is gone" sort of thinking. I might be talked into thinking Thundarr and Ookla are just a bit stupid, except that they aren't and Ariel's around and she's certainly not stupid.


*I recognize that the Sun Sword might be technological in nature rather than sorcerous but I doubt Thundarr could tell the difference. Unless, again, he can just feel that the Sun Sword is alright. Which, maybe he can.

Lix Lorn
2011-06-20, 11:33 AM
As far as I see it, you have two choices.

Keep the good/evil system as well, or just tell them the result as you see it, with colours being irrelevent.
Advantages: Results are accurate.
Disadvantages: More DM fiat than just giving an alignment.

Change to Detect Colour
Advantages: Fits rest of world.
Disadvantages: Players need to not play Lawful Stupid Stupid Good Stupid Mono-white?

The Witch-King
2011-06-20, 12:06 PM
As far as I see it, you have two choices.

Keep the good/evil system as well, or just tell them the result as you see it, with colours being irrelevent.
Advantages: Results are accurate.
Disadvantages: More DM fiat than just giving an alignment.

Change to Detect Colour
Advantages: Fits rest of world.
Disadvantages: Players need to not play Lawful Stupid Stupid Good Stupid Mono-white?

I think I'm going with Detect Color based off of how Protection From (Color) and Circle of Protection: (Color) work in Magic: The Gathering. Yes, I know they don't necessarily apply but I choose to draw from them in this case. If you lived in the worlds of Magic: The Gathering as a Paladin, you would quickly learn that there's a difference between Protection From Red and Protection From Black. Protection From Red won't stop a Black demon in the least. So what I'm going to go with for now is that Detect Color detects your primary color and that White Paladins decide based off of what people are doing at the time (or what they've done in the past given their information) before deciding to use their Smite Red/Black power. And that way, I can have the regent and the inquisitor as evil manipulating bastards and not have the game spoiled immediately by paladins hitting them over their heads.

EDIT: Which is how I think it should be. I wouldn't want a setting where a Paladin can walk into a merchant's shop, scan the merchant and see he's an evil, selfish bastard even though he's never broken a single law and just whip out his sword and cut the "evildoer" in half. That's just not cool.

BladeofOblivion
2011-06-21, 04:42 AM
As far as I see it, you have two choices.

Keep the good/evil system as well, or just tell them the result as you see it, with colours being irrelevent.
Advantages: Results are accurate.
Disadvantages: More DM fiat than just giving an alignment.

Change to Detect Colour
Advantages: Fits rest of world.
Disadvantages: Players need to not play Lawful Stupid Stupid Good Stupid Mono-white?

And the bolded part is a disadvantage HOW? :smallamused:

hamishspence
2011-06-21, 08:24 AM
I
EDIT: Which is how I think it should be. I wouldn't want a setting where a Paladin can walk into a merchant's shop, scan the merchant and see he's an evil, selfish bastard even though he's never broken a single law and just whip out his sword and cut the "evildoer" in half. That's just not cool.

This is pretty much what the Eberron Campaign Setting points out- that being evil and being deserving of on-the-spot attack, are definitely not the same thing.

BoED also mentions that being evil isn't of itself enough to warrant attack.

Lix Lorn
2011-06-21, 11:34 AM
[/B]

And the bolded part is a disadvantage HOW? :smallamused:
It's not, but it may make finding players harder. :smalltongue:

Yitzi
2011-06-21, 06:49 PM
EDIT: Which is how I think it should be. I wouldn't want a setting where a Paladin can walk into a merchant's shop, scan the merchant and see he's an evil, selfish bastard even though he's never broken a single law and just whip out his sword and cut the "evildoer" in half. That's just not cool.

It's also going to be illegal in any but the most Chaotic of societies (and those where having an evil alignment is itself illegal), so any paladin who did that sort of thing wouldn't stay a paladin for long.

The Witch-King
2011-06-21, 07:04 PM
It's also going to be illegal in any but the most Chaotic of societies (and those where having an evil alignment is itself illegal), so any paladin who did that sort of thing wouldn't stay a paladin for long.

I agree that's how it should be but I disagree that that's how it is. In most of the games I've played in, a paladin's word was good enough for nobles, courts of law, good-aligned temples and the city guard so long as there wasn't a noble involved. I've never seen anyone in a feudal society in D&D ever insist on the right to a fair trial for someone of low birth. European knights had the "right to bear arms and the power to mete justice," I'm not sure anyone would bat an eyelash if one decided to execute a peasant--especially given the abuse meted out to innocent people in the film Braveheart. And as for samurai, they had the right to kill peasants on a whim...

Eldest
2011-06-21, 07:36 PM
Your right, peasents don't have many rights under a feudal system, but wonton slaughter is not going to happen.

Lord_Gareth
2011-06-22, 01:26 AM
Friendly reminder, ya'll - if you talk too much politics (including political systems) the mods will lock my thread, and then I will cry myself to sleep every night for the rest of my life.

hamishspence
2011-06-22, 04:26 AM
D&D morality may differ somewhat from "what's accepted by the average D&D society".

Thus- D&D nobles who abuse their subjects, might be able to get away with it easily- but the alignment system would probably be used to peg them as Evil-aligned.

Plus- D&D societies aren't exactly intended to match medieval ones- female adventurers being perfectly normal, for example.

Eldest
2011-06-22, 07:47 AM
My bad.
Yeah, and this system would even help out with that, cuz even the people who are mono-black could be good. So even less detect/smite evil stuff.

hamishspence
2011-06-22, 10:13 AM
The closest thing to a "D&D Good" mono-black character, would be someone who has embraced reciprocal altruism wholesale (combined with karma)- and isn't too insistant on being paid back by the particular individuals they are helping.

Thus- they would take personal risks for strangers- based on the assumption that by doing so, this will benefit them in the long term when they themselves get into danger.

Thus- they combine the "it's all about what benefits me" attitude of Black, with the "takes personal risks to help strangers" attitude of Good.

Lord Raziere
2011-06-22, 04:00 PM
there is more ways to be good black than that...

you wouldn't believe me though.

Eldest
2011-06-22, 08:37 PM
Sure. In a zombie apokalyspe (dear god I can't spell), it's to your own advantage to help others. So then you have more people hanging around and helping you out.

gkathellar
2011-06-22, 09:36 PM
Here's a different reading, then:

Mono-black (or mixed black) could very well read like something out of Nietzsche* - that is to say, it rejects absolute values as mere cultural mores and places supreme value on the will and the power of the individual. A mono-black individual isn't good or kind because they think it's their obligation to be, they're good or kind because in doing so they make a statement of their own identity, exercising a personal power on the world.

Mono-black is uninterested in good and evil - whether it comes from a fool or a philosopher, it is the path of unquestioning adherence to one's own will and desire. From there, how "good" mono-black is depends on your optimism about humanity. If you think ambition is the source of all evil, then mono-black is evil. If you think good can't exist without ambition, then you probably expect some mono-black characters to be benevolent. (Bear in mind, though, that the archetypal adventurer is reasonably benevolent and extremely ambitious.)

All of this might sound like "chaotic," but mono-black isn't afraid to behave in a consistent and disciplined fashion, so long as it doesn't fall into the trap of "going along to get along." In fact, mono-black detests mono-white's obsession with "ethics" as a kind of hypocrisy - in mono-black's eyes, all mono-white is doing in being good is following a code someone else has figured out, avoiding the questions that make such decisions "ethical" at all.

*I'm just going to ask that anyone who plans on contesting the mention of this particular philosopher actually have read the man at a college level first, because misinterpretation is very common.

Jallorn
2011-06-22, 09:55 PM
In fact, mono-black detests mono-white's obsession with "ethics" as a kind of hypocrisy - in mono-black's eyes, all mono-white is doing in being good is following a code someone else has figured out, avoiding the questions that make such decisions "ethical" at all.

This idea seems like it could be at the core of a primary Black (with any secondary or even no secondary) really good good guy. There is no universal right in his eyes, but there is still right and wrong, and he still tries to do right, it's just he doesn't always agree. So he could be apparently totally selfless, even a monk type, forgoing all possessions and spending his efforts to help the poor and sick. But he doesn't do it for them, he does it because it makes himself richer, because it helps him to get closer to a state of perfection, a personally pinpointed state of perfection, rather than an externally mandated one.

hamishspence
2011-06-23, 02:52 AM
there is more ways to be good black than that...

The tricky part is whether they're "Good" in the D&D sense- which requires one to "make personal sacrifices to help others".

Given that Neutral alignment will generally make personal sacrifices for those they value (friends, relatives, country) but not strangers, this may imply that what makes Good different, is that they will do it for strangers as well.

If the person believes they're getting more out of it than they're putting in, does it really qualify as a sacrifice?

Hence "takes personal risks" as a subtype of "makes personal sacrifices" may be needed.

The Witch-King
2011-06-23, 02:52 AM
This idea seems like it could be at the core of a primary Black (with any secondary or even no secondary) really good good guy. There is no universal right in his eyes, but there is still right and wrong, and he still tries to do right, it's just he doesn't always agree. So he could be apparently totally selfless, even a monk type, forgoing all possessions and spending his efforts to help the poor and sick. But he doesn't do it for them, he does it because it makes himself richer, because it helps him to get closer to a state of perfection, a personally pinpointed state of perfection, rather than an externally mandated one.

While I wholeheartedly support the notion of and quest for a noble mono-black protagonist--isn't this philosophy either Green (focusing on the growth of the individual) or Blue (focusing on the ideal and pursuit of perfection)?

hamishspence
2011-06-23, 02:57 AM
"enlightened self interest" is the better side of Black philosophy.

Thus, if the character believes in karma, they might risk themselves for strangers, or sacrifice things they value for strangers, on a belief that "what goes around comes around".

Result- person is doing Good things, and yet still not contradicting the "everyone is selfish" perspective of Black.

A "selfish altruist" is not a complete contradiction in terms, but it may require a certain amount of clarification or redefinition.

If "altruist" is

"person who makes sacrifices (which can include resources, time, personal safety) without the intention of external reward"

then internal reward (emotional happiness, endorphin rush, and so on) may justify them being termed a "selfish person", when "selfish person" is

"person who does things because those things are pleasurable and/or of physical/emotional benefit to them"

BladeofOblivion
2011-06-27, 06:57 PM
While I wholeheartedly support the notion of and quest for a noble mono-black protagonist--isn't this philosophy either Green (focusing on the growth of the individual) or Blue (focusing on the ideal and pursuit of perfection)?

Toshiro Umezawa. (http://magiccards.info/query?q=!Toshiro+Umezawa)

There's a Monoblack Protagonist. :smallbiggrin:

hamishspence
2011-06-28, 05:51 AM
"I like me" + "I like power" might be good general principles for Black.

Not incompatible with a Good alignment- but it would need to involve a lot of helping strangers, sometimes at personal cost, without the expectation of physical reward. As well as an aversion to doing evil, even when there's something to be gained by it.

Besides "Good Black" there might be other combinations that are unusual but possible.

"Chaotic White" for example- a character who is chaotic in alignment yet devoted to the needs of the community. An elven king might be this.

"Lawful Red"- might combine passion with lawfulness. They could be a crusader for law and order- driven by their own rage at a disordered, anarchic society.

BladeofOblivion
2011-06-28, 05:58 AM
"Chaotic White" for example- a character who is chaotic in alignment yet devoted to the needs of the community. An elven king might be this.

"Lawful Red"- might combine passion with lawfulness. They could be a crusader for law and order- driven by their own rage at a disordered, anarchic society.

Actually, I'd say these fit under White/Red fairly well. The latter probably has double strike. :smalltongue:

hamishspence
2011-06-28, 06:52 AM
I was wondering how far into "mono-color" either of these can go.

How close to "mono-White" can a Chaotic character be?
Or "mono-Red" for a Lawful character?

The Witch-King
2011-06-29, 11:43 AM
I created a holy warrior class for use with the Color Wheel alignment system: the Accorder (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=205261). Accorders are the church's roving troubleshooters who seek out and deal with threats to the harmony of the community. Besides their considerable military might, they also act as diplomats and emissaries to try and resolve conflicts through peaceful means whenever possible.

If you're interested and wouldn't mind PEACHing it for me, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

Lord_Gareth
2011-07-17, 11:37 PM
I was wondering how far into "mono-color" either of these can go.

How close to "mono-White" can a Chaotic character be?
Or "mono-Red" for a Lawful character?

Well, White believes in morality and expresses this belief through a dedication to order. A Chaotic mono-White character has a clear-cut sense of right and wrong (at least, to them) that vastly conflicts with the laws of the society around them, and as such they probably work to oppose or change those laws. The trouble starts happening when such a character succeeds, of course, as they'd then BE the law of the land.

Curious
2011-07-18, 12:54 AM
-Snip-

Thank you; this is my next character.

Lord Gareth, I adore this system, and will henceforth attempt to implement it in all my games. Adaptation may be necessary, but it'll be worth it!

Othniel Edden
2011-10-16, 05:57 AM
Actually found this here (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/askwizards/1106), comparing the two colored Ravnica's guilds to the dnd alignment system. This might help any character hoping to make a conversation in systems.


November 16, 2006

Q:Where would each Ravnican guild fall on the spectrum of D&D alignments?

Thanks!

-- Jeremy
College Park, Maryland, USA

A: From Brady Dommermuth, Magic creative director:

When we were building the identities of Ravnica's guilds, Jeremy, we actually talked about each color in terms of D&D alignments (and in terms of superheroes, animals, food, and whatever else we could think of). There's not a clean match, but the closest we came was that white = good, blue = lawful, black = evil, red = chaotic, and green = neutral. (Lawful is a stretch for blue, and good and evil have less meaning in Magic than in D&D.) Those assignments would yield the following guild alignments:

Azorious = lawful good

Dimir = lawful evil

Rakdos = chaotic evil

Gruul = chaotic neutral

Selesnya = neutral good

Golgari = neutral evil

Orzhov = [good evil]

Boros = chaotic good

Izzet = [lawful chaotic]

Simic = lawful neutral

This scheme works surprisingly well, in my opinion. The exceptions are the Boros, which would be "lawful passionate" or something, and the Orzhov and Izzet, which have two values on the same alignment spectrum. Interestingly, this scheme also reveals how conflicted the Orzhov are, how insane the Izzet are. If I had to choose alignments for the Orzhov and Izzet, I guess I'd choose lawful evil and chaotic neutral, respectively. That in turn demonstrates that the Orzhov and Dimir are two sides of the same coin, and that maybe the Izzet and the Gruul have more in common than it would appear at first glance. They're both chaotic and passionate, but otherwise mostly amoral (blue and green are united by their amorality).

NineThePuma
2011-10-16, 10:50 AM
How's the cosmology coming?

Tanuki Tales
2011-11-16, 03:49 PM
Ok, only has been 4 weeks, so I don't think I'm casting any Necromancy here.

Would a race that is by nature humble, honest, hardworking and simple, who only eek out their existence day to day while trying not to make waves or to stand out, be colorless?

I know "Office Drone" was used as an example but all I can think of is Dilbert when that phrase is used and I can't think of a single one of the cast not possessing some Coloring to them.

NineThePuma
2011-11-16, 04:26 PM
Why are they that way?

Eldest
2011-11-16, 10:03 PM
Ok, only has been 4 weeks, so I don't think I'm casting any Necromancy here.

Would a race that is by nature humble, honest, hardworking and simple, who only eek out their existence day to day while trying not to make waves or to stand out, be colorless?

I know "Office Drone" was used as an example but all I can think of is Dilbert when that phrase is used and I can't think of a single one of the cast not possessing some Coloring to them.

That's just what they do. Why they do it would be what determines the color.
That could be green (they wish to live with their natural way and not try to rock the boat), white (they want to live on their own in a community, collectively). Heck, even black if you stretch it.
So the colors only matter for why they do it.

Lord_Gareth
2011-12-28, 03:21 PM
Would a race that is by nature humble, honest, hardworking and simple, who only eek out their existence day to day while trying not to make waves or to stand out, be colorless?

I know "Office Drone" was used as an example but all I can think of is Dilbert when that phrase is used and I can't think of a single one of the cast not possessing some Coloring to them.

Echoing the above, a race or creature is colorless only if it lacks essential drive or motivation. It doesn't mean that they have no personality, just that it either tends to be bland or well-hidden. Other than that, why is usually more important than what.

Delvin Darkwood
2011-12-30, 03:10 PM
Ive never seen anyone apply the Magic: The Gathering color wheel to DnD. This actually seems like a pretty good idea, most of the people are very familiar with it as well. i might just try and incorporate it.

Slartibartfast
2012-02-25, 09:29 PM
I really love this system, and have even played in a game with it, but I still baulk at some of the meaningless connections people still tend to draw.

Green vs. Nature

This is the most common misconception, probably because it is the closest to being true while completely missing the point. Green is not an embodiment of Nature, but rather the reverse. Green is about the essence of tradition and prophecy, doing things the sames ways because that is how they were always done. Green does those things because that it how it should be. To take a line from GLaDOS out of context "We do what we must, because we can." In other words, we fulfill the actions required to us (by the universe itself) as long as we are capable of doing so.

Nature is a subset of this. Nature is simply a very old tradition. Naturists (followers of Nature; not naturalists) are Green, but it is very easy to be Green and unnatural, or even anti-Nature. For example, a man may know that his people have always burned forests, and therefore he does so as well. This is a Green motivation; burning forests is What Is Done, and so he Does it. This is not very Nature-friendly at all. (This is actually a pretty terrible example, I'll admit, but I couldn't think of a better one yet.)

Really, the description in the first post needs to be changed. The forum's discussion has brought to light too many changes in how we viewed Green from the original MtG definition, and even the modified one displayed there. Green is no longer about "Growth and Harmony" so much as "Tradition and Necessity". I would also like to see the description changed to remove the confusing references to Nature. Nature belongs in a discussion of elements, not alignment, much in the same way that Blue has been disconnected from Water.

To attempt to clarify once more, the distinction of Green is best made in comparison to Red. Red does things because it wants do. Green does things because it is Right, in a way that is wholly transcendent of Good and Evil. The Right thing can be something the Green character dislikes, like murdering his own father. It can be something simple, like always waking at dawn. It could be something altruistic, like donating his entire life savings to charity. The important part is that the action is not done for itself, but because it is Right and it Must Be Done, as part of Prophecy or Fate. This is an ultimate form of selflessness which makes Green highly opposed to Black and in a way White could never dream of.

What not Why - Why not What

This one has been addressed several times in the thread, and its misunderstanding has sparked several arguments that got nowhere. I'd like to clarify the vital distinction.

The Color Wheel (if not all alignment systems) describe why a person does things, not what they will do. Understanding someone's motives may help you to predict their actions, but it does not determine them. Thus the colorful example about the man helping orphans, who could have done it from connection to any of the five colors. The Color Wheel doesn't express whether or not you help kids, it talks about why you do the things you do.

The 3x3 grid (since people keep referencing it) seeks to Judge the actions of a character, and by extension to Judge the character themself. This confuses most people, who see morality as a description of intent, thereby mutating the L-C/G-E system to express intent the way a good alignment system should. This creates a wide range of ambiguity and confusion which is near the core of why that system fails so miserably.

The Summary

The main descriptors of the Colors seem to get confused a bit.

White - Order and Community
Red - Freedom and Emotion
Blue - Knowledge and Discovery
Black - Power and Individuality
Green - Growth and Harmony

These are the descriptors provided in the first post. My previous complaints about Green nonwithstanding, below are the Colors as they have tended to be referenced:

White - Community and Wholeness(?)
Red - Freedom and Emotion
Blue - Knowledge and Logic
Black - Power and Amorality (Power and Self)
Green - Nature and Protection

Uh oh, we've got a bit of discord here don't we?

White tends to be referred to only in the aspect of Community, and thereby through Wholeness and acting as a group. This leaves out the original position that White is about Order, which inherently tends to create a Community by imposition of rules/structure. In other words, Community, by way of Order, is within the domain of White, whereas the existence of a community in general is not necessarily so, and could very easily be Red or Green, if the community is founded on mutual friendship or traditional togetherness. A community could be Blue; for example a town of militia who band together against savage monsters knowing it is the rational course of action to produce a better change of survival. A community could even be founded on the Black ideals that one's own power is more easily heightened with others to work for/with them. (That last example probably bears more elaboration to fully make sense, but that is tangential to my main point that community is not an inherently White aspect, so I'll decline to continue here). To really understand White, "Community through Order" must be better understood. In this way, White is not concerned nearly as much about Community as it is about Unity. White doesn't just want Order in a given place; White wants this Order to exist in the entire multiverse, to bind it together and make it as one. Unity.

Red seems to be the most easily understood of Colors. Nothing to say here. Good job! :smallbiggrin:

Blue is more or less fine. I would contend that the important aspect of Blue is more related to a core concept of Rationality, but that's getting into a technical nuance-y discussion, so I'll leave that one alone for now.

Black... well, half of this thread has been about Black. Honestly, I have no idea where the Amorality concept came from, but it stuck hardily which caused no end of complications. Seriously, the word "amoral" doesn't even appear in the original description. The connection between Black and Amorality or even Immorality seems pretty contrived in any case. Black actually seems to have settled on Power and Self, which is a much more accurate depiction.

Green beyond the connection to Nature, a bizarre bond with "paternity" and "caring" appears to have formed. In Western tradition, paternity is pretty much the rule, which would make paternity very Green in a Western context, and equally odd in most others. More confusingly (to me at least) the discussion of Thundarr the Barbarian tried to classify both Thundarr and the other guy (Ovork?) as Green because they "wished to protect Alara" (I think that was her name? Don't know Thundarr very well). Again, the relation to the Western tradition that "a man defends women" could make that Green, but the empathic bond is much more inherently Red, as caring and empathy are, well, emotions. A tenuous argument could be made for White-ness here, but this isn't really related to either Order or Community, as it preference towards protection of an individual and not women as a whole or a similarly universal concept.

--------

I would fix the descriptors this way:

White - Order and Unity
Red - Freedom and Emotion
Blue - Rationality and Knowledge
Black - Power and Self
Green - Tradition and Instinct

------

Afterword

Deconstructionism expresses the belief that no communication is perfect, because it must be interpreted. I similarly feel confident that I have failed to accurately described my views and that a possibly lengthly discussion will follow this post (Blue?). I apologize in advance for seeming too adamant or certain about any of these points (Red). Part of this is a pent-up rage after having read all eight pages of meandering discussion at once and noticing their flaws (Red) inflamed by my desire to construct a complete, comprehensive, and functional system (White) that is understood the same way by all of us (White) and tempered slightly by my desire to, through this discussion, learn how people think, both in the context of this discussion and as people in general (Blue). I hope to alleviate the confusion (White/Blue/Black) and batten this down so we know what to ask Lord Gareth to change the descriptions in the first post to (White).

Lord_Gareth
2012-02-25, 10:30 PM
I will give a more in-depth reply later, my friend - I'm falling over dead of fatigue here.

Owrtho
2012-02-26, 05:07 PM
First, I'd say that I agree on how green shouldn't be intrinsically tied to nature. With that, I find it odd how after arguing that for the first part of your post, you proceed to list natures as what should be one of the two main descriptors for green. Further, as you mentioned, green seems more about doing what has always been done, which shouldn't imply protection. I'd also note that doing what has always been done wouldn't mean you are doing what is right, but rather what is to be done in that situation. Personally, I would place the two main descriptors of green as being tradition and instinct, even if those seem to edge some on white and red respectively. That said, they remain distinct, as while white might use traditions, they do so as a tool for order, while green sees tradition as the reason itself. Instinct on the other hand is distinct from emotion which red uses as its motive, even if the two may at times overlap.

On the issue of black and amorality, I think the reasoning is mainly that most moral systems are based around one placing the needs of others above personal wants and desires. Black places itself above others, and as such would be amoral by that reasoning, but is not inherently immoral as placing itself above others does not mean it will do things that detriment others.

Owrtho

Slartibartfast
2012-02-26, 10:06 PM
Alright, I now no longer feel I understand the words "amoral" and "immoral" or their distinction, given how just used them, but I think I managed to get your point anyway.

I agree that my connection back to Nature after arguing against it was weird, and that probably is only situationally applicable at best.

The comparison to "compassion" was just an observation I'd made on how the discussion had been going, and I was trying to point out that it seemed entirely arbitrary and inappropriate.


I'd also note that doing what has always been done wouldn't mean you are doing what is right, but rather what is to be done in that situation. Personally, I would place the two main descriptors of green as being tradition and instinct, even if those seem to edge some on white and red respectively.

Okay, I think these need to be separated to be examined properly.

Tradition is the aspect of "doing what has been done" while Instinct is where "doing what is Right" comes in. I use the word "right" because I couldn't think of another one, and this is admittedly the most obscure concept I tried to use here. I don't mean Right and in "right or wrong" but rather in terms of "fitting" or "appropriate". In broad terms, this is "following the Plan". At the level a Green character would conceptualize it, this would be reflexive or impulsive action done without thinking, actions they may never understand why they did, yet still feel they were the Right Thing To Do. This, in a nutshell, can be summarized as instinct, but I was trying to express it better than "that feeling in your gut" (also I hadn't made that connection in my head yet).

Does that make sense? I'm not sure I can explain that any better, and I know that I think kind of weird and can confuse people without really trying sometimes...

EDIT: I just realized that I wrote "Protection" as one of my domains of Green. I don't remember doing that. I agree with "Tradition and Instinct" though. I'm gonna go reread my post to see if I can make out my own thinking. Apparently I don't just confuse other people... Maybe I should stop posting things after 2:00 AM.

EDIT2: I get it! It was a copy+paste error. I was lazy and just copied the first block and changed the titles, and I guess I missed Green. I'll go fix that to avoid confusing everyone else.

gkathellar
2012-02-27, 12:05 PM
Black... well, half of this thread has been about Black. Honestly, I have no idea where the Amorality concept came from, but it stuck hardily which caused no end of complications. Seriously, the word "amoral" doesn't even appear in the original description. The connection between Black and Amorality or even Immorality seems pretty contrived in any case. Black actually seems to have settled on Power and Self, which is a much more accurate depiction.

Because total individualism is selfish, and from a "cosmic" perspective, it's amoral because it either ignores or denies the existence of any "cosmic morality." People draw a connection between Black and amorality because Black characters only care about what they personally believe, and have no overriding basis for their moral sensibilities.

But, as Claire Stanfield, the textbook mono-black hero, says it: "Those who are strong can afford to show compassion...and I am strong!"


On the issue of black and amorality, I think the reasoning is mainly that most moral systems are based around one placing the needs of others above personal wants and desires. Black places itself above others, and as such would be amoral by that reasoning, but is not inherently immoral as placing itself above others does not mean it will do things that detriment others.

Sort of. Black believes that people never do anything for any non-selfish reason. Ever. So even if you behave totally selflessly, you're doing it because you want to see yourself as a selfless person. But in that, Black isn't necessarily amoral, so much as its morality is inevitably personal.

Copper
2012-02-27, 06:49 PM
I would say the connection between Black and Amorality is that Black places the needs of the self over any moral code. It's a belief that lends itself a lot to moral relativism. They see the world as a collection of individuals who are complicated and all are working purely for there own means. There is no higher power. There is no "Good" or "Evil". There are just people, all working for themselves.

However, amoral does not mean you are bad person. It just means you have a much more complicated view on the world than most people. Black isn't always bad, just as white isn't always good.

gkathellar
2012-02-27, 08:23 PM
I would say the connection between Black and Amorality is that Black places the needs of the self over any moral code. It's a belief that lends itself a lot to moral relativism. They see the world as a collection of individuals who are complicated and all are working purely for there own means. There is no higher power. There is no "Good" or "Evil". There are just people, all working for themselves.

However, amoral does not mean you are bad person. It just means you have a much more complicated view on the world than most people. Black isn't always bad, just as white isn't always good.

Black can indeed establish good and evil. It just does so in an entirely self-centered fashion: "good is behaving by standards I want to hold myself up to, and evil is behaving by standards I despise." Mono-black has tremendous conceptual space for both kindness and cruelty, or even both in the same individual.

Slartibartfast
2012-02-27, 08:25 PM
Thank you Copper. You have probably summarized Black as accurately and concisely as possible.

Of course, we on GiTP aren't very smart (and/or goal oriented) so now that we can't do any better than that, we'll continue talking about Black for a few posts ignoring that you've just defined Black better than we ever will. :smalltongue:


Because total individualism is selfish, and from a "cosmic" perspective, it's amoral because it either ignores or denies the existence of any "cosmic morality." People draw a connection between Black and amorality because Black characters only care about what they personally believe, and have no overriding basis for their moral sensibilities.

Of course, from a Black perspective, this is stupid, because is their is no "cosmic" viewpoint to view things from. :smallbiggrin:

Personally, I find the connection between "no external source of morals" and "amorality" to bit going a little far with very little (I recognize you were not making or supporting this point). Actually, I probably think very Blackly in respect to morality, as I find it hard to fathom a sense of morals which exists outside the self at all. Morality is essentially a code one follows in order to ensure one does "good" or "right" (this time as in "not wrong") things. It's perceivable that morality might exist in a community, but much in the same way that no two people truly understand a language the same way, the morality would be similarly colored by their individual essence.

gkathellar
2012-02-27, 08:34 PM
Of course, from a Black perspective, this is stupid, because is their is no "cosmic" viewpoint to view things from. :smallbiggrin:

Which, without delving too much into things, is a view I personally agree with. I was only attempting to fairly represent the contrary opinion.


Personally, I find the connection between "no external source of morals" and "amorality" to bit going a little far with very little (I recognize you were not making or supporting this point).

The issue is that for many people, if morality isn't absolute than it's not really morality (which is basically the White view). That's not a fundamentally bad viewpoint, and if somebody likes the categorical imperative in its Kantian and Sartrian incarnations, more power to them. Which is why White and Black are opposed colors :smallbiggrin:.

White/Black, I would imagine, would have a strong interest in imposing their personal morality on the world writ large.

Slartibartfast
2012-02-27, 09:26 PM
Which, without delving too much into things, is a view I personally agree with. I was only attempting to fairly represent the contrary opinion.

Yeah I know, that's why there's that big smiley face there. Best way I know to mark a joke.


The issue is that for many people, if morality isn't absolute than it's not really morality (which is basically the White view).

Sounds about right. And yeah, the blatant opposition is probably where that "enemy color" thing comes from. Not sure a better example of that exists.


White/Black, I would imagine, would have a strong interest in imposing their personal morality on the world writ large.

I like where this is going... :smallwink:

sidhe3141
2012-03-13, 11:46 PM
At the risk of pulling up an old discussion (which may have been mentioned on the old thread), I think I've worked out what anti-colors would look like. The idea there is that some characters might not just disagree with the philosophy behind a color, but instead actively reject it. And so:

Anti-White: Chaos and Anarchy
Anti-White believes that all order, especially social order, must be eliminated. According to Anti-White, order poses a threat to freedom and makes the best possible worlds impossible, and that the hierarchical, bureaucratic types of order generally favored by White are worst in this respect. A revolutionary who seeks to destroy all social norms is an example of an Anti-White character, as is a bard who spreads chaos for its own sake.
Sample Combinations:

Red/Anti-White:"Society requires that emotion be repressed and that individual freedom be subjected to the 'good of the whole'."
Black/Anti-White:"I am oppressed by the current order. That is why I seek to overthrow it."
Blue/Anti-White:"The pursuit of perfection and knowledge cannot proceed if seekers must fear that their work will threaten the existing structure."
Green/Anti-White:"People are best when in a 'state of nature', with no structures enforced upon them."


Anti-Green: Rebellion and Transcendence
Anti-Green believes that "because it is 'What Is Done'" is not enough reason to do something. To Anti-Green, "What Is Done" forbids changes to adapt to new situations, and unthinking embrace of tradition and fate is the fastest path to stagnation. A wizard who believes that all should embrace lichdom and use forbidden spells in order to transcend their own limitations is an Anti-Green character, as is a "rebel without a cause" who sabotages the rebellion before it can become the new order.
Sample Combinations:

Black/Anti-Green:"How can I do what is best for me while constrained by the dictates of others?"
Blue/Anti-Green:"Every improvement is a change; nothing can be perfected while remaining the same."
White/Anti-Green:"The way traditions are developed is too disordered; an orderly structure must replace them."
Red/Anti-Green:"While bound by tradition, no one can be truly free."


Anti-Red: Restraint and Counter-Emotivism
Anti-Red believes that emotion is the easiest path to folly and must be repressed constantly. To Anti-Red, emotion is worthless, and emotional decisions must be ignored. A monk who carefully decides on actions with no passion is an Anti-Red character, as is a severe depressive who finds no reason for pursuing any goal.
Sample Combinations:

Blue/Anti-Red:"Emotion is imperfection; gut instinct is no substitute for reason."
White/Anti-Red:"Passion cannot be allowed to challenge the social order."
Green/Anti-Red:"Tradition must always be observed before the freedom of the individual."
Black/Anti-Red:"I cannot allow myself to be manipulated into a mistake; emotion is the easiest way to manipulate people."


Anti-Black: Selflessness and Self-Destruction
Anti-Black believes that it is worthless. It, at its most basic, seeks to harm itself. A reformed villain, now a paladin, driven by guilt and a martyr complex is an Anti-Black character, as is a classic tanar'ri, seeking to end reality along with itself.
Sample Combinations:

White/Anti-Black:"The survival of the group is more important than the survival of one person."
Green/Anti-Black:"Tradition has no place for the individual."
Red/Anti-Black:"There are worse ways to die than pursuing passion without concern for one's own well-being."
Blue/Anti-Black:"Some knowledge can only be obtained with risk to oneself."


Anti-Blue: Safety and Stagnation
Anti-Blue believes that safety is better than risk, and that new things are threatening. To Anti-Blue, the way things already work is good enough (or in extreme cases, the way things used to be done is better than the way they are), and there is no point to risking breaking something that does work. A barbarian set in his ways who refuses to even consider learning the ways of "civilized" folk is an Anti-Blue character, as is an inquisitor who burns any "dangerous and heretical" materials that question the teachings of the church.
Sample Combinations:

Green/Anti-Blue:"What was good enough for my ancestors is good enough for me."
Red/Anti-Blue:"This is the way I've always done it, and I'm attached to it."
Black/Anti-Blue:"If I change the way I do things, I risk losing everything I have."
White/Anti-Blue:"Any 'improvement' is a change, and change brings chaos with it."


(The reason none of my "Sample Combinations" include a Color/Anti-Same-Color pair is that it is assumed that none of the examples use a method running counter to their own goals.)

Slartibartfast
2012-03-16, 03:58 AM
Well, they're well-intentioned, but if you're sticking to anti-colors you've got a few missteps in there. I'm not going to go into infinite detail here because I'm not entirely vested in the endeavor, but in the immortal words of Tenenbaum: "If you're going to do such things, at least you should do them properly." Here's your friendly advice for the day.

Extra spoiler for compactness: Anti-White: "Freedom" is fine, but "freedom of the individual" is straying into Black territory. Anti-White should focus on the removal of order, or the embrace of chaos.

Anti-Green: Your lich example feels straight-up Black, not anti-Green at all. Anti-Green should go beyond rejecting "what is done" as a rationalization and extend into actively opposing Green lifestyle, by actively seeking to reject tradition. The "rebel without a cause" seems unable to pin to any color because he is, *ahem*, without a cause which would define him in color-terms. A real Anti-Green example would be more like a man who goes out of his way to defile sacred ground solely to spite the traditions which revere them.

Anti-Red: Rejecting emotion is good, but embracing logic is a Blue philosophy. The rejection of emotion has to be much lower level, an unthinking rejection of feeling, not to the end of reason but simply to remove emotion from one's mind.

Anit-Black: This is not about self-worthlessness, this is about selflessness. Black is all about Power and the Self, so anti-Black is about letting those go. Not so much about generosity and accepting weakness, but by eschewing wealth and ability. An anti-Black character need not give away his wealth and power; destroying it is sufficient. An anti-Black character taken to extremes may not tolerate any power, even if it is not his own. A reasonable anti-Black character with internal strife might strive to accumulate power in order to destroy all power, and the paradox of his actions haunt him throughout his days, his only comfort being that his ends justify his means, or so he tries to tell himself.

Anti-Blue: The counter to logic is anti-logic. Anti-Blue characters are not necessarily "okay" with anything; they honestly don't think about it. In fact, they don't like to think. Anti-Blue is about living in the moment, just doing things without knowing why. This ironically overlaps with certain interpretations of Green, but rather than trying to fit into a Plan or believing it will all just "work out", anti-Blue characters honestly don't care or haven't considered the future at all. They have no logic and are very unreasonable, and they don't know what they're going to do next either. This is also different from anti-White, as an anti-Blue character isn't striving for chaos, but rather is just failing to consider the consequences of their actions. They don't think ahead, and they find it highly offensive that you might expect them to.

sidhe3141
2012-03-18, 03:01 PM
Well, they're well-intentioned, but if you're sticking to anti-colors you've got a few missteps in there. I'm not going to go into infinite detail here because I'm not entirely vested in the endeavor, but in the immortal words of Tenenbaum: "If you're going to do such things, at least you should do them properly." Here's your friendly advice for the day.

Extra spoiler for compactness: Anti-White: "Freedom" is fine, but "freedom of the individual" is straying into Black territory. Anti-White should focus on the removal of order, or the embrace of chaos.

Will fix.

Anti-Green: Your lich example feels straight-up Black, not anti-Green at all. Anti-Green should go beyond rejecting "what is done" as a rationalization and extend into actively opposing Green lifestyle, by actively seeking to reject tradition. The "rebel without a cause" seems unable to pin to any color because he is, *ahem*, without a cause which would define him in color-terms. A real Anti-Green example would be more like a man who goes out of his way to defile sacred ground solely to spite the traditions which revere them.
The lich could probably be better-done, yes.
The "rebel without a cause" rebels for the sake of rebelling, sticking it to the Man without asking what the Man stands for, which is Anti-Green. Anti-Green at its best understands that there's better ways of doing things than the ways they've always been done, but at its worst is knee-jerk contrarianism.

Anti-Red: Rejecting emotion is good, but embracing logic is a Blue philosophy. The rejection of emotion has to be much lower level, an unthinking rejection of feeling, not to the end of reason but simply to remove emotion from one's mind.
Will fix.

Anit-Black: This is not about self-worthlessness, this is about selflessness. Black is all about Power and the Self, so anti-Black is about letting those go. Not so much about generosity and accepting weakness, but by eschewing wealth and ability. An anti-Black character need not give away his wealth and power; destroying it is sufficient. An anti-Black character taken to extremes may not tolerate any power, even if it is not his own. A reasonable anti-Black character with internal strife might strive to accumulate power in order to destroy all power, and the paradox of his actions haunt him throughout his days, his only comfort being that his ends justify his means, or so he tries to tell himself.
Will fix. I thought I'd gotten that across.

Anti-Blue: The counter to logic is anti-logic. Anti-Blue characters are not necessarily "okay" with anything; they honestly don't think about it. In fact, they don't like to think. Anti-Blue is about living in the moment, just doing things without knowing why. This ironically overlaps with certain interpretations of Green, but rather than trying to fit into a Plan or believing it will all just "work out", anti-Blue characters honestly don't care or haven't considered the future at all. They have no logic and are very unreasonable, and they don't know what they're going to do next either. This is also different from anti-White, as an anti-Blue character isn't striving for chaos, but rather is just failing to consider the consequences of their actions. They don't think ahead, and they find it highly offensive that you might expect them to.
Except Blue != Logic and Forethought. Blue may use logic, but logic (as was pointed out upthread) is not a goal in itself. Blue, at least as I see it, is about Knowledge and Progress. Blue never sees anything as "good enough", so its opposite has to see everything as "good enough". Blue is about improving things just because they can be better, so Anti-Blue has to be about resisting any change because changes are dangerous. "Thinking is hard" might be part of it, but so might "I've thought about all the ways this might go horribly wrong".
(In fact "thinking is hard" might be a reason for any color: White because it's easier to go with the established order, Green because it lets Tradition do your thinking for you, Red because feeling is easy, Black because thinking includes thinking about others, even Blue because "more progress!" makes a nice default answer to most problems.)

Slartibartfast
2012-03-18, 07:36 PM
Knee-jerk contrarianism seems a decent description of anti-Green, but the rebel who sabatoges his own rebellion didn't come off like that to me. I think it was mostly the part about "before it can become the new order." because that seems more like chaotic than just contrarian. I dunno, I guess it makes sense though.

Blue does seem to pose a little bit of a problem for it's anti though. I like the idea of "not thinking too hard" can explain any Color, so I'm gonna try to avoid that in anti-Blue mark II. The problem with "resisting change because change is dangerous" is because that is almost definitional Green thinking, and doesn't really seem to go against what Blue is doing directly. If Blue is about rationality, knowledge, and progress, then anti-Blue is the opposite. Anti-Blue doesn't like "not thinking", anti-Blue honestly believes that thinking is bad. Anti-Blue doesn't believe in progress, it only believes in different, but not in better. Trying to "improve" life is purposeless, because there is no meaning to what an "improved" life even is. And as a corollary, anti-Blue condemns excessive knowledge, because knowledge is derived from, and inspires, thought, which is dangerous. Anti-Blue doesn't need a reason to hate thinking, because they know that it's bad, and (by nature of being anti-Blue) they don't stop to think about why that might just be plain stupid (which to them it's not).

In case I failed to make it clear, the distinction I'm trying to make is that while any Color can "go with the flow" because "thinking is hard", anti-Blue actively opposes thought and thinking in general. I think that sums it up... well, kinda awkwardly really. Maybe I'll rewrite that more concisely if I figure out how.