Beyond Good and Evil (well, instead of it at least) [PEACH]

[Omnicrat]

The good and evil mechanics of D&D have always bothered me. For a role playing game to objectively say "This is good and that is evil" always bothered me. No one can ever agree on what is good or evil in the real world. In fact, a lot of people might consider chaos to be evil and law to be good or visa versa.

What we probably could agree on is if something is selfish or altruistic. If one is motivated solely by their own self-serving nature or if one is motivated by the greater good. It is easy to imagine selfish good (Haley Starshine) or altruistic evil (Tarquin?) proving this system is less rigid and contradictory. A man who is evil does not think himself evil, but a man who is selfish most likely thinks selfishness is a good thing.

It's not too hard to modify spells to use Selfish and Altruistic descriptors instead of Good and Evil (although most with the evil descriptor would simply lose it). Clerics would no longer channel positive or negative energy based on their alignment. I plan on using the Altruism-Selfishness axis in the campaign I'm about to run and would love any advice on how to make it better.

[GunbladeKnight]

As I generally understand it, and they try to explain it in the BoED, Good is the act of willingly putting one's self at risk for another because it is what should be done. Evil is the act of harming others simply because you wanted. Neutral is either helping or harming others for selfish reasons (someone is paying you, you expect a reward, etc). It is Law and Chaos that are even more confusing, and something I would prefer to drop altogether.

[Omnicrat]

As I generally understand it, and they try to explain it in the BoED, Good is the act of willingly putting one's self at risk for another because it is what should be done. Evil is the act of harming others simply because you wanted. Neutral is either helping or harming others for selfish reasons (someone is paying you, you expect a reward, etc). It is Law and Chaos that are even more confusing, and something I would prefer to drop altogether.

I don't really like those for good and evil, especially due to the connotations good and evil have in our world. The man who harms another because he wants too does not see himself as an evil man, but the universe does? Never made sense to me.

Also, I always saw chaos/law as being unpredictability versus predictability. The more lawful you are, the more ordered and structured you are. I've never had a problem with it. Why do you find it confusing?

[Gideon Falcon]

Well, now you're just getting back to the age-old argument of whether or not there is an absolute morality, or whether good and evil only exist in the human mind. See, whether the man who kills others just because he wanted to sees himself as evil or not, everyone else does view him as evil. The question is whether that view is supported with something absolute rather than just subjective.

In D&D, you introduce the prospect of magic, which essentially specifically gives good and evil the opportunity to be defined by the universe instead of just popular opinion (if that's your view of real life good/evil, which I personally don't share). In a context with magic, it makes perfect sense for the universe to recognize certain acts as good or evil.

Also, the issue of an RPG defining what has been argued over for thousands of years technically misses an important point: It's the details that are being argued over, and the alignment system deals with the generalities. The only times the argument over what's good and what's evil comes into play is when deciding if a specific action is good or evil. When determining character alignment, it's usually a lot simpler. Either way, the best way to deal with it is to follow your gut instinct. If your character feels like a good guy, then he's good-aligned. If he feels like a villain, he's probably evil. If an act feels right, it's probably good. If it doesn't, then it's probably not. And, in any case, the good/evil alignment axis does not require 100% commitment. Sometimes good people will make choices that, despite being intended for good, are more evil. It's only when that kind of choice becomes common place that it affects their alignment, and even then it will most likely only drop them to neutral, since they still act in the interests of those around them. But in most cases, doing what your character feels is the right thing will usually be close enough to 'good' that it will work out (with a few notable exceptions, of course). It's not all that common in D&D for the villain to think he's a champion of righteousness, more likely either acknowledging and reveling in his evil or not really caring either way.

[Network]

As I generally understand it, and they try to explain it in the BoED, Good is the act of willingly putting one's self at risk for another because it is what should be done. Evil is the act of harming others simply because you wanted. Neutral is either helping or harming others for selfish reasons (someone is paying you, you expect a reward, etc). It is Law and Chaos that are even more confusing, and something I would prefer to drop altogether.
Evil is a little vaguer than what BoED say. Evil is not always selfish or sadistic, as demonstrated in BoVD and Exemplars of Evil. Dealing with fiends is evil. Pazuzu is the perfect example of a non-sadistic evil character : he help paladins to eventually corrupt them. His intentions are evil, although he isn't card-carrying or whatever.

The calling or creation of evil creatures is, likely, evil, even if these creatures are mindless. Of course, be made of evil help.

Revenge is also an evil act. It is neither sadistic nor selfish (most of the time), but it push the character to commit more and more evil acts.

If we take this even further, the classic PC group is definitely evil (especially killing monsters at sight, releasing fiends from the enemy prison, selling evil magic items, etc.). For its part, diplomacy is generally a ''good'' way to avoid fights.

[GunbladeKnight]

I don't really like those for good and evil, especially due to the connotations good and evil have in our world. The man who harms another because he wants too does not see himself as an evil man, but the universe does? Never made sense to me.

Also, I always saw chaos/law as being unpredictability versus predictability. The more lawful you are, the more ordered and structured you are. I've never had a problem with it. Why do you find it confusing?

It's more than just that. Let's take the example of Robin Hood. Classic example of Chaotic Good, right? He goes against the ruler who is oppressing the people. Well, is it really chaotic? His actions were done in service to King Richard, the rightful ruler. Prince John was usurping power that was not his, so Robin was simply doing the dutiful thing to his king and setting things right. Perhaps he may be considered lawful?

Or say you have a character that is not so organized, does things when they come up, sometimes even gets side tracked when on missions. But perhaps they have a strict allegiance to a lord, as well as a code of few rules: Do not use poison, do not strike first, never hide from an enemy. They follow the code and never question the lord, but perhaps they do not recognize any other rulers or laws. Are they lawful or chaotic, or are they just neutral?

The only real problem one can have with good and evil is: Do the ends justify the means? If you kill this one person to save a hundred, yet they have done nothing to deserve death, is it good to kill them or to sacrifice the hundred others?


Evil is a little vaguer than what BoED say. Evil is not always selfish or sadistic, as demonstrated in BoVD and Exemplars of Evil. Dealing with fiends is evil. Pazuzu is the perfect example of a non-sadistic evil character : he help paladins to eventually corrupt them. His intentions are evil, although he isn't card-carrying or whatever.
He is still sadistic. He derives pleasure from causing emotional damage to good people. His aim is to corrupt from the beginning, so just because he does not go around maiming people does not mean he is not evil. His goal is to bring as much harm to others through other people as possible. After all, a devil's best weapon is a slow corruption.


The calling or creation of evil creatures is, likely, evil, even if these creatures are mindless. Of course, be made of evil help.
I would say it is up to the DM, as it is more of a "do the ends justify the means" type of question. After all, what makes the Deathwatch spell evil? Perhaps a healer wants to know if someone can be saved?
Though, as currently written, using negative energy is inherently evil (with the exception of inflict and harm spells, maybe a few others). The reasoning would be that, though it is mindless, unless controlled it will act in evil ways due to its nature.


Revenge is also an evil act. It is neither sadistic nor selfish (most of the time), but it push the character to commit more and more evil acts.
I would disagree with the second point. If you notice in the BoVD, it states that the evil acts are not necessarily evil, but evil characters tend to employ them.


If we take this even further, the classic PC group is definitely evil (especially killing monsters at sight, releasing fiends from the enemy prison, selling evil magic items, etc.). For its part, diplomacy is generally a ''good'' way to avoid fights.
A poorly role-played group is more neutral than anything. Being good does not mean you do not kill, but you would be more likely to find alternative means. Killing monsters on site can be considered self defense (more metagaming than anything, really. "The DM put it there, he means for us to kill it."). Perhaps they released the fiend back to the abyss so that the enemy army could not use it. And you can always sell an evil magic item and alert the person to its danger, or return it to a good temple to be destroyed for a reward. And diplomacy is not good in and of itself. What if you talk your way to freedom at the cost of your friend's lives? You avoided a fight, right? All you had to do was sell out your friends and condemn them to death.

[toapat]

basically, the 4 alignments of DnD can be simplified down to single words:

Lawful: Ordered.
The attempts at defining lawful as obeys laws is wrong. Lawful means you are Systemic, organized, and you have solid plans.

Good: Constructive.
Good is defined in complex ways, when simply, good is something that is a sum of all actions. In war, a Good aligned General is going to attempt to force retreats, control the terrain, and end a war quickly so that the total loss is low.

Chaotic: Anarchic.
Chaotic individuals live life as they please. Typically they live within the law, but they do not have significant plans or organization, but they do not necessarily lack Long term or short term objectives. They simply dont plan, and do what they feel like.

Evil: Destructive.
Evil, like Good, is defined complexly when a simple definition would better work. Evil is the sum total of actions that result in loss. sure, you cleansed the orcish village, and in turn you are keeping the city safe. You just ended multiple lives for little reason, when diplomacy and trade would have been alot better. Unless you are playing Faerun, there is no justification for murdering Kobolds, Goblins, or Orcs, just because they are there.

to compare with the general: An Evil general is going to press the advantage when possible, execute prisoners, and typically not care for the soldiers on the opposing side of the battle.

Lawful-Chaotic Good: In this system, the 3 good alignments blend together. Where as the Lawful Good warrior would like to unite the world and does so by conquering a few kingdoms, the Chaotic Good ranger is going to help out the people around him.

Lawful Neutral: The LN bard wishes to become a master of his Thundering Shocking Burst Lute, and to do so, he practices during the day, and at night, he plays at the local Tavern. Slowly, word spreads of the Bard playing incredible music spreads, and other bards come to play with him, eventually they form a band, get a noble sponsor, and tour the countryside as Metallica.

True neutral: The TN Factotum Farmer follows the law, but he lacks any real long term objectives, he helps as often as he swears a grudge, and he just does a job and lives a life without ambition.

Chaotic Neutral: The CN Rogue lives day to day, doing his normal job, swiping the occasional apple from the market, and generally just going through life. He practices his own Shocking lute in hopes of one day forming a band, has a 401k, and wants to Eventually climb the tallest mountain and punch god in the face, but never gets around to learning how to mountaineer or learning what the tallest mountain is.

Lawful Evil: Tarquin in the comic. Post Character Developement Belkar

Neutral Evil: TAD

Chaotic Evil: You do what you like, when you like, how you like. The only Objectives you have are all immediate reward or impossible, and you enjoy it. Murder the evil chancelor one day, and the next torch the local orphanage. Plans? what are those for

[Yitzi]

I would say that the good/evil alignment axis should be determined by altruistic/selfish; if that means that you sometimes have evil heroes and good villians, so be it. (This imitates real life, where you often have people who are evil by nature but help society out of enlightened self-interest, or who are good by nature and cause harm through being overly zealous or pushing the wrong cause.)

As for Law/Chaos, I would say it should be a function not of obedience to external laws, but of one's own personal ethical code: Lawful has a code that they think is right (and so that they and everyone else is obligated to follow), Neutral follows a code but doesn't have the same right/wrong approach, and Chaotic has no intrinsic restraints (i.e. if they follow certain rules, it's only because under the circumstances following those rules is the best way for them to fulfill their goals).

[toapat]

I would say that the good/evil alignment axis should be determined by altruistic/selfish; if that means that you sometimes have evil heroes and good villians, so be it. (This imitates real life, where you often have people who are evil by nature but help society out of enlightened self-interest, or who are good by nature and cause harm through being overly zealous or pushing the wrong cause.)

As for Law/Chaos, I would say it should be a function not of obedience to external laws, but of one's own personal ethical code: Lawful has a code that they think is right (and so that they and everyone else is obligated to follow), Neutral follows a code but doesn't have the same right/wrong approach, and Chaotic has no intrinsic restraints (i.e. if they follow certain rules, it's only because under the circumstances following those rules is the best way for them to fulfill their goals).

Good vs Evil: No. Good and Evil doesnt work as an upfront moral gauge, because again, you have have guys who have evil motives and do the right thing (and thus ping as good), and the good guys who ruthlessly conquer the world, who ping as evil because they are currently killing everyone, but building infrastructure.

[Yitzi]

Good vs Evil: No. Good and Evil doesnt work as an upfront moral gauge, because again, you have have guys who have evil motives and do the right thing (and thus ping as good), and the good guys who ruthlessly conquer the world, who ping as evil because they are currently killing everyone, but building infrastructure.

What makes you think that people who have evil motives but benefit others will ping as good? I'd say that because they help others only when it benefits them, they're showing classic sociopathic behavior and would ping as evil. (Not the sort of evil that makes it a good idea to kill them, but still evil.) And if someone ruthlessly conquers the world, chances are they're not doing it for others (if they were, they'd be as merciful as possible without sacrificing the greater goal), and so would ping as evil regardless of what infrastructure they build. (In the rare cases where they really are conquering the world in the interests of the greater good for everyone, then they would ping as good (probably Chaotic good, because any sort of ethical code is probably going to interfere with real ruthlessness), but they still might have to be stopped.)

The way I see it, alignment isn't describing your actions so much as it describes the manner in which you think when determining your actions.

[toapat]

The way I see it, alignment isn't describing your actions so much as it describes the manner in which you think when determining your actions.

Because actions are what defines alignment. it doesnt matter how good you are, if you hold barbecues with Orc as the main course every weekend.

[Omnicrat]

Because actions are what defines alignment. it doesnt matter how good you are, if you hold barbecues with Orc as the main course every weekend.

Now what's inherently evil about eating Orc? Remember, there are lots of ways to get good Orc meat without murduring innocent people.

On a serious not, I have to disagree. As alignment is explained in ebberon (my personal favorite explanation of alignment), all that matters is intent. The barkeep dings as evil even though he's never done an evil act in his life because he would if he could get away with it.

[toapat]

Now what's inherently evil about eating Orc? Remember, there are lots of ways to get good Orc meat without murduring innocent people.

On a serious not, I have to disagree. As alignment is explained in ebberon (my personal favorite explanation of alignment), all that matters is intent. The barkeep dings as evil even though he's never done an evil act in his life because he would if he could get away with it.

The argument that Good and evil should be intention only ignores the fact that if a PC party sucessfully purged Baator of all evil, the entire multiverse would collapse, killing everyone and everything. if the barkeep would enjoy ripping a man limb from limb every once in a while, but doesnt because he wouldnt be able to get away from it, he would be considered low neutral, because he never commit evil. Intentions only matter so much, actions matter more.

[Yitzi]

Because actions are what defines alignment.

That is exactly the matter under dispute here; as such, it requires some sort of proof or evidence rather than merely being stated. (My basis is firstly that otherwise alignment often says more about the person's circumstances than the person himself, and secondly that it seems to me that alignment should be a matter where two different alignments think in fundamentally different, perhaps even incomprehensible to each other, ways.)


it doesnt matter how good you are, if you hold barbecues with Orc as the main course every weekend.

Wait, if someone barbecues orcs every weekend because otherwise the multiverse would be destroyed, that makes him not good? That's pretty much an extreme archetypical case of Chaotic Good.

Now, a non-Chaotic person is likely to have strong taboos against eating other sentients, but that's not the good/evil axis.


On a serious not, I have to disagree. As alignment is explained in ebberon (my personal favorite explanation of alignment), all that matters is intent. The barkeep dings as evil even though he's never done an evil act in his life because he would if he could get away with it.

I would go even further. The merchant would never harm others unjustly because he believes it's wrong, but he still dings as evil because he acts selfishly whenever it doesn't involve violating anyone else's rights (e.g. he wouldn't give a penny to a starving person, since it's his money so he's not obligated to do so, and he doesn't care about other people.)

More fundamentally, I'd say that what matters isn't even intent, but a way of thinking. Good people think "what's best for everyone", evil people think "what's best for me", and neutral people think "what's best for everyone, especially me". Lawful people think "is this course of action wrong", Neutral people have inhibitions or taboos without an absolutist sense to them, and Chaotic people merely act to achieve their goals.


The argument that Good and evil should be intention only ignores the fact that if a PC party sucessfully purged Baator of all evil, the entire multiverse would collapse, killing everyone and everything.

I'm wondering what your source for that fact is.

Also, I'm not sure how that's a problem; an adventuring party that purged Baator of all evil because they wanted to help others, and thereby destroyed everything, would still (if not for the fact that everything's been destroyed) ping as good; as I implied in my first post, "good" and "evil" do not line up with "beneficial" and "detrimental". They're simply ways of thinking, just as "lawful" and "chaotic" are. (There does tend to be a correlation, with good being more likely to be beneficial and evil being more likely to be detrimental, and with chaotic tending to have stronger effects in both directions, but those are merely tendencies, not hard-and-fast rules.)

[toapat]

I'm wondering what your source for that fact is.

Also, I'm not sure how that's a problem; an adventuring party that purged Baator of all evil because they wanted to help others, and thereby destroyed everything, would still (if not for the fact that everything's been destroyed) ping as good; as I implied in my first post, "good" and "evil" do not line up with "beneficial" and "detrimental". They're simply ways of thinking, just as "lawful" and "chaotic" are. (There does tend to be a correlation, with good being more likely to be beneficial and evil being more likely to be detrimental, and with chaotic tending to have stronger effects in both directions, but those are merely tendencies, not hard-and-fast rules.)

dont the planes of the great wheel expand with their number of inhabitents?

anyway, up until you slay the final demon, you are doing "good", because you are removing evil from the multiverse, when you kill that final Demon, the plane ceases to exist, and the other planes, being integral to eachother's existance, destroying one leads the other 15 planes to collapse into eachother.

of course, this is ignoring the fact that in order to destroy any plane of the Great Wheel, you would have to slay an infinite number of inhabitants, several gods, and seal raw cosmic power into nothing.

[Yitzi]

dont the planes of the great wheel expand with their number of inhabitents?

If they do, I've never heard of it before. (Of course, there's a lot in D&D lore that I've never heard of before, so if you have a source then feel free to bring it.) In fact, I got the impression that the evil planes were responsible for evil outsiders, not the other way around.


anyway, up until you slay the final demon, you are doing "good"

Not necessarily. If you kill the devils (Baator is the home of devils, not demons) because you feel less evil beings is better for others, that's clearly good. If you kill the devils because you're fighting alongside the demons in the Blood War, I think we can agree that's, if not evil, at least very much non-good. If you kill the devils purely because you expect to personally benefit, I'd argue that that's still usually leaning toward evil, because you're putting your own welfare far above that of other beings.

Meanwhile, your killing the last devil would (if your theories about the Great Wheel are true) clearly be an immensely destructive act, but I don't see why that makes it evil.

[toapat]

If they do, I've never heard of it before. (Of course, there's a lot in D&D lore that I've never heard of before, so if you have a source then feel free to bring it.) In fact, I got the impression that the evil planes were responsible for evil outsiders, not the other way around.

Not necessarily. If you kill the devils (Baator is the home of devils, not demons) because you feel less evil beings is better for others, that's clearly good. If you kill the devils because you're fighting alongside the demons in the Blood War, I think we can agree that's, if not evil, at least very much non-good. If you kill the devils purely because you expect to personally benefit, I'd argue that that's still usually leaning toward evil, because you're putting your own welfare far above that of other beings.

Meanwhile, your killing the last devil would (if your theories about the Great Wheel are true) clearly be an immensely destructive act, but I don't see why that makes it evil.

I believe it is both, that the number of outsiders native to the plane of the great wheel expands the plane, and the plane generates/transforms souls into those outsiders, which is why the 16 planes are infinitely large and have infinite population. (I dont actually believe this is 3rd ed material, but i havent looked in the Manual of the planes)

Im saying that the party are killing Devils for the sake of ruining devil schemes, but i put "good" in parentheses because you dont necessarily have to be doing it for good reasons, and 5% of infinite is still a huge number.

[Zale]

I prefer this (http://www.seventhsanctum.com/generate.php?Genname=ralign).

[Yitzi]

I believe it is both, that the number of outsiders native to the plane of the great wheel expands the plane, and the plane generates/transforms souls into those outsiders, which is why the 16 planes are infinitely large and have infinite population. (I dont actually believe this is 3rd ed material, but i havent looked in the Manual of the planes)

If you're not talking about 3rd edition, you should probably say so.


Im saying that the party are killing Devils for the sake of ruining devil schemes, but i put "good" in parentheses because you dont necessarily have to be doing it for good reasons, and 5% of infinite is still a huge number.

If you're not doing it for good reasons, then it doesn't really make you good, does it? As I said, demons kill devils all the time, doesn't mean they're good.

[Zale]

If you're not doing it for good reasons, then it doesn't really make you good, does it? As I said, demons kill devils all the time, doesn't mean they're good.

It would be amusing if a Devil Ascended for slaughtering countless demons.

[Network]

He is still sadistic. He derives pleasure from causing emotional damage to good people. His aim is to corrupt from the beginning, so just because he does not go around maiming people does not mean he is not evil. His goal is to bring as much harm to others through other people as possible. After all, a devil's best weapon is a slow corruption.
Pazuzu is a demon, actually. He is one of the few brilliant Chaotic Evil characters, doing good if it can help his goals. His greatest pleasure is to ''help'' Lawful Good characters... without corrupting their wishes, that's it. Pun-Pun is there to prove it.

I would go even further. The merchant would never harm others unjustly because he believes it's wrong, but he still dings as evil because he acts selfishly whenever it doesn't involve violating anyone else's rights (e.g. he wouldn't give a penny to a starving person, since it's his money so he's not obligated to do so, and he doesn't care about other people.)
He's a typical example of True Neutral character, isn't he?
It would be amusing if a Devil Ascended for slaughtering countless demons.
I'm working on it! :smalltongue:

The intend is not the only thing that counts ; the road to hell is paved with good intentions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_road_to_hell_is_paved_with_good_intentions). On the other side, an act that is unintended is generally not enough to change alignment.

Not necessarily. If you kill the devils (Baator is the home of devils, not demons) because you feel less evil beings is better for others, that's clearly good. If you kill the devils because you're fighting alongside the demons in the Blood War, I think we can agree that's, if not evil, at least very much non-good. If you kill the devils purely because you expect to personally benefit, I'd argue that that's still usually leaning toward evil, because you're putting your own welfare far above that of other beings.
I don't understand how can the act of murdering innocent devils make you anything else than Evil? A good character tries to harm his enemies as less as he can ; going on a rampage to kill all the inhabitants of a plan is more the job of demons. The ''good'' thing to do is as suicidal as it seem : trying to corr... redeem hell. If you can really destroy hell, the few who will try to kill you will deserve their fate.

[Yitzi]

He's a typical example of True Neutral character, isn't he?

Not the way I see it. I see Neutral as being that he sometimes acts for his own benefit and sometimes to benefit others; this guy is selfish through and through, he simply has a strict code which he believes to be right and abides by. But such codes are a feature of being Lawful, not of being Good or even non-Evil.

To be fair, I think it's pretty clear that that's not the interpretation of alignment taken by the PHB, so this is more how I feel alignment should be than how D&D actually has it.


The intend is not the only thing that counts

Counts for what? (This isn't just sophistry, by the way; I suspect that by using "counts" without further detail, you're conflating the effect on the world with what it says about the person's alignment.)


I don't understand how can the act of murdering innocent devils make you anything else than Evil?

"Innocent" and "guilty" are concepts that are fundamentally related to the law/chaos axis, not the good/evil one, so it isn't really relevant there.

That's besides the question of whether there even exists such a thing as an innocent devil.


A good character tries to harm his enemies as less as he can

Not necessarily if others will pay the price. Even a paragon of good (and you can be good-aligned without being the farthest possible in that direction) will do a smaller amount of harm to cause a greater amount of good (providing their ethics permit it).


The ''good'' thing to do is as suicidal as it seem : trying to corr... redeem hell.

So trying to redeem hell, and accomplishing nothing, is more "good" than killing devils and saving far more than you destroy? I find that hard to believe even within an action-based view of alignment.

[Network]

So trying to redeem hell, and accomplishing nothing, is more "good" than killing devils and saving far more than you destroy? I find that hard to believe even within an action-based view of alignment.
There are a few more or less mortal hell residents. Furthermore, all devils aren't equal either ; Bel is too busy working on the Blood War to do anything else. The guy who will kill him will make demons gain the war, and they would likely invade the material plane and the fugue plane not too long thereafter.

Killing Belzebuth, Levistus or Mammon would have less consequences, but killing Asmodeus, Dispater or Mephistopheles would still be dramatic. If you are going to destroy hell, there are only two possibilities :
1-You have a nuke-like weapon, and can destroy everything. You are definitely not good.
2-You are so powerful you can kill all devils by yourself in a few days.

In the first case, you are killing the innocent bystanders of hell ; in the second case, you have no reason to don't simply go ''Hi, I'm S.U. Perhero. Would you be cool and become good? Thanks.''

[toapat]

I don't understand how can the act of murdering innocent devils make you anything else than Evil? A good character tries to harm his enemies as less as he can ; going on a rampage to kill all the inhabitants of a plan is more the job of demons. The ''good'' thing to do is as suicidal as it seem : trying to corr... redeem hell. If you can really destroy hell, the few who will try to kill you will deserve their fate.

I was using something that is STUPIDLY RAW always a good act, which is Outsider [Evil] Genocide, the point was, even though you completely irradicate the population, and that your actions end up somewhere north of neutral but south of good, you collapse the entire great wheel, killing yourself, your party, and every plane linked to the great wheel that isnt one of the Prime Elemental Planes or Demi Elemental Planes, dropping you far south of Satanic, an alignment that is already well south of Evil

As far as Intent goes, Intent is only worth at most half an Alignment step in any direction. Ok, the paladin killed the Succubus who was forming a cult. He didnt know that that cult was based around love and helping out children, so he has to go find a Divine Emissary to pull her out of the Abyss forcibly.

[Yitzi]

There are a few more or less mortal hell residents.

A few. I strongly suspect that those who are innocent are far less than those who will be saved by destroying hell.


Furthermore, all devils aren't equal either ; Bel is too busy working on the Blood War to do anything else. The guy who will kill him will make demons gain the war, and they would likely invade the material plane and the fugue plane not too long thereafter.

Ok, so that is a good reason that a consequence-based view of alignment (which I still do not subscribe to) would have it be non-Good to destroy Baator.


In the first case, you are killing the innocent bystanders of hell

So? That's an problem from a lawful perspective, not from a good perspective.


in the second case, you have no reason to don't simply go ''Hi, I'm S.U. Perhero. Would you be cool and become good? Thanks.''

Maybe that still wouldn't work?


even though you completely irradicate the population, and that your actions end up somewhere north of neutral but south of good, you collapse the entire great wheel, killing yourself, your party, and every plane linked to the great wheel that isnt one of the Prime Elemental Planes or Demi Elemental Planes

Granted for the sake of argument.


dropping you far south of Satanic

Why? Why should accidentally destroying the multiverse change your fundamental psychological nature?

[toapat]

Why? Why should accidentally destroying the multiverse change your fundamental psychological nature?

because you continued bashing heads in despite the fact that the plane is now no longer any larger then your middle school towards the end of the battle.

and because your alignment is determined by actions as far as the outer planes are concerned

[Network]

A few. I strongly suspect that those who are innocent are far less than those who will be saved by destroying hell.
The people that will get saved by the destruction of hell are those that selled/will sell their soul to a devil. They aren't innocent, while the second layer of Hell (at least) is known to inhabit some humans, of... variable alignment.

So? That's an problem from a lawful perspective, not from a good perspective.
Whenever a good character knows he could accidentally kill innocent bystanders, he is supposed to stop. The idea of redeeming hell may be good, especially if you want to remain good (no pun intended) :
1-You don't harm innocent bystanders.
2-If someone attack you, it will be legit.
3-Most won't attack you, therefore most won't die.
4-On the infinite population of hell, you will have saved less than a few people ; those that will attack you will be killed, those that will ignore you will be spared, and so you purge hell from an awful lot of evil without destroying the plane (you will have killed roughly 65% of devils, namely the less intelligent and more evil devils).

[toapat]

4-On the infinite population of hell, you will have saved less than a few people ; those that will attack you will be killed, those that will ignore you will be spared, and so you purge hell from an awful lot of evil without destroying the plane (you will have killed roughly 65% of devils, namely the less intelligent and more evil devils).

just a point, that is definitively in 3.5:

For every <Great Wheel Native on home plane> you kill, a new <same type> of equal power rises from the core of the plane.

so you have to kill 95% of Infinity, about 120 times to reduce the outsider population to non-standard alignment

[Ninjadeadbeard]

I personally don't like any of the alignments because of all the gray areas between them (the Prisoner Dilemma, chaotic barbarians with honor codes, etc). So instead I just use this:

Altruistic-Mercenary
Altruistic - Puts the needs of others before your own, or with little incentive in the way of monetary compensation
Mercenary - Puts your own needs above those of others, looking out for numero uno.

Optimist-Cynic
Optimist - You generally think well of the people and events around you. You usually feel that everything will work out in the end.
Cynic - You rarely think well of the people and events in your life. People can let you down, or they can do terrible things to each other. If things change, they'll just get worse.

Combos!

Altruistic Optimist :elan: : A young Bard who has just begun his adventuring career.
Mercenary Optimist :haley: : A thief who generally wants to help, but gets caught up on the whole "payment" thing.
Altruistic Cynic :roy: : A man who despises his father and has a very low opinion of people in general, who nevertheless puts his life in danger to save the world.
Mercenary Cynic :vaarsuvius: : An Elven Wizard who tends to think everyone they come into contact with is an idiot compared to themselves, and is more focused on obtaining power than helping others.

I personally never bother with Neutrals.

[toapat]

I personally don't like any of the alignments because of all the gray areas between them (the Prisoner Dilemma, chaotic barbarians with honor codes, etc). So instead I just use this:

Altruistic-Mercenary
Altruistic - Puts the needs of others before your own, or with little incentive in the way of monetary compensation
Mercenary - Puts your own needs above those of others, looking out for numero uno.

Optimist-Cynic
Optimist - You generally think well of the people and events around you. You usually feel that everything will work out in the end.
Cynic - You rarely think well of the people and events in your life. People can let you down, or they can do terrible things to each other. If things change, they'll just get worse.

Combos!

Altruistic Optimist :elan: : A young Bard who has just begun his adventuring career.
Mercenary Optimist :haley: : A thief who generally wants to help, but gets caught up on the whole "payment" thing.
Altruistic Cynic :roy: : A man who despises his father and has a very low opinion of people in general, who nevertheless puts his life in danger to save the world.
Mercenary Cynic :vaarsuvius: : An Elven Wizard who tends to think everyone they come into contact with is an idiot compared to themselves, and is more focused on obtaining power than helping others.

I personally never bother with Neutrals.

that isnt really a replacement for alignment systems.

Alignment restrictions are mostly stupid in 3.5 (such as paladins being locked to Lawful Stupid)

also, Mercenary is the quick description of neutral on the Good-Evil axis.

[Network]

If you come with a system that can perfectly describe Deadpool, it's probably a good system. Let's see...

Altruistic-Cynic? (Ok, Deadpool is both artistic and mercenary. Does anyone has a suggestion to make?)

[Yitzi]

because you continued bashing heads in despite the fact that the plane is now no longer any larger then your middle school towards the end of the battle.

So? Why is bashing the heads of devils evil?


and because your alignment is determined by actions as far as the outer planes are concerned

You have a source for that claim?


The people that will get saved by the destruction of hell are those that selled/will sell their soul to a devil.

So devils never attack mortals who don't sell their soul? Please support that claim.


while the second layer of Hell (at least) is known to inhabit some humans, of... variable alignment.

Meaning?


Whenever a good character knows he could accidentally kill innocent bystanders, he is supposed to stop.

"Supposed to"...you're sounding awfully lawful there. Surely you agree that there's such a thing as Chaotic Good? And Chaotic Good generally isn't going to care about anything like "supposed to".


2-If someone attack you, it will be legit.

Again with the lawful-type language.

If you're going to define Good, and not just Lawful Good, you have to do it in a way that's compatible with the "I don't care about rules" approach of Chaotic alignments.


I personally don't like any of the alignments because of all the gray areas between them (the Prisoner Dilemma, chaotic barbarians with honor codes, etc).

I'm not so sure those are problematic gray areas. I'd say that the prisoner dilemma is a classic case of the difference between Good and Evil; Evil says "I do better by betraying him, so I'll betray him", Good says "Together we do better by me cooperating, so I'll cooperate." (For Neutral, it probably depends on the exact numbers, or maybe on how he's feeling that day.)

As for a barbarian with an honor code, I'd consider that neutral (neither lawful nor chaotic); for a sufficiently strong honor code, I'd even consider it Lawful, and then have a problem not with alignments but with the rule that a barbarian can't be lawful.


Altruistic-Mercenary

Again, that's pretty much the same axis as in the OP, or as what I'd consider to be the Good-Evil axis. I think most of us agree that's the way to go, and the only argument is what to call it.


Optimist-Cynic

Interesting approach, but I feel that the difference between "You are obligated to do this because it's right!" and "I'll do whatever best achieves my goals, ignoring rules whenever that is the most effective approach" is far more fundamental than optimist/cynic.


If you come with a system that can perfectly describe Deadpool, it's probably a good system.

I assume that by "perfectly describe" you mean that he fits into a box, not that there's a box where only he fits. (The latter is completely not a good system, as either it describes people too well and is overly complex, or it puts too much emphasis on the abnormal cases.)

If so, my own interpretation of the alignment system should be able to do that, the only problem is that I don't know enough about Deadpool to determine which box he falls into. So I'll ask a few questions:

1. Does he have a code that he follows (e.g. don't kill people who don't deserve it)?
2. If so, does he believe that code is a universally binding obligation, or does he just personally follow it?
3. Does he mainly act to benefit himself, or to benefit everyone, or is it a fairly even mix of the two?

[toapat]

You have a source for that claim?

Meaning?

Any Handbook dealing with planes, Roy getting a Deva secretary to review his file and saying the fact that because he will use chaos when it suits him, even in the verdict of law, he would be in one of the Neutral good planes, if he wasnt trying to be LG

The 16 planes of the great wheel have inhabitents who are not immortal, are not dead, and not the same alignment as the plane.

[Yitzi]

Any Handbook dealing with planes

Perhaps you can quote from one of them?


Roy getting a Deva secretary to review his file and saying the fact that because he will use chaos when it suits him, even in the verdict of law, he would be in one of the Neutral good planes, if he wasnt trying to be LG

Ok, conceded that at least in OOtS alignment is primarily determined by actions. Of course, that doesn't mean it's true in D&D in general; OOtS began as poking fun at some of the ridiculous aspects of D&D as it is commonly played, and as such will tend to represent rules-as-misused over rules-as-written (much less rules-as-intended) a lot more than a serious discussion should.


The 16 planes of the great wheel have inhabitents who are not immortal, are not dead, and not the same alignment as the plane.

Ok, so agreed that typical cases of Lawful Good and Neutral Good aren't going to go slaughtering their way through Baator due to the possibility of killing innocent people.

[toapat]

Perhaps you can quote from one of them?

Ok, conceded that at least in OOtS alignment is primarily determined by actions. Of course, that doesn't mean it's true in D&D in general; OOtS began as poking fun at some of the ridiculous aspects of D&D as it is commonly played, and as such will tend to represent rules-as-misused over rules-as-written (much less rules-as-intended) a lot more than a serious discussion should.

PHB on Alignment in examples.

the only reasons in that strip that Roy isnt Kicked out of Celestia for having the alignment of Neutral Lawful Good is because The Great Wheel isnt SRD, and that he wouldnt be able to meet his grandpa. Getting booted from heaven to a different one is funny, but the story must take precidence over rules minutia.

[Network]

So? Why is bashing the heads of devils evil?
If they didn't do anything to deserve it, and if you aren't part of a war, they are innocent, therefore you have no reason to bash their heads. Being made of pure evil doesn't change the fact that they have the right to live.
So devils never attack mortals who don't sell their soul? Please support that claim.
As Lawful outsiders, they have laws. Obviously those that sell their soul have an interest in the destruction of hell. If a devil kill innocent people, or even some that already sell their soul, he may have problems with his masters. Unlike demons, most devils never go on a rampage to kill mortals ; they prefer to convince them to become a devil/sell their soul/serve their lord.
"Supposed to"...you're sounding awfully lawful there. Surely you agree that there's such a thing as Chaotic Good? And Chaotic Good generally isn't going to care about anything like "supposed to".
You are saying Chaotic Good are murdering innocent people? On a regular basis?
Again with the lawful-type language.

If you're going to define Good, and not just Lawful Good, you have to do it in a way that's compatible with the "I don't care about rules" approach of Chaotic alignments.
This has only a few to do with law or chaos ; according to Heroes of Horror, killing an evil creature otherwise than in a very, very strict self-defence increase your taint score, making you more and more evil. Is this an argument?
I'm not so sure those are problematic gray areas. I'd say that the prisoner dilemma is a classic case of the difference between Good and Evil; Evil says "I do better by betraying him, so I'll betray him", Good says "Together we do better by me cooperating, so I'll cooperate." (For Neutral, it probably depends on the exact numbers, or maybe on how he's feeling that day.)
You consider as a fact that evil people are stupid while good people are innocent. An intelligent evil character may cooperate, while a good character may say ''I did it alone'' or ''Yes, it's true, we killed that guy. But is was an accident''.
1. Does he have a code that he follows (e.g. don't kill people who don't deserve it)?
2. If so, does he believe that code is a universally binding obligation, or does he just personally follow it?
3. Does he mainly act to benefit himself, or to benefit everyone, or is it a fairly even mix of the two?
1. Yes, he protect innocent people.
2. Don't know. He's a professional killer, if it can help.
3. Hard to tell. He's a typical example of antihero.

[Zale]

Ok, the paladin killed the Succubus who was forming a cult. He didnt know that that cult was based around love and helping out children, so he has to go find a Divine Emissary to pull her out of the Abyss forcibly.

You mean the Cult was draining love out of children, right?

Because she's literally a physical manifestation of chaos and evil?

I mean, I'm all for not just offing random goblins and bandits because they're "EVUL!", but most demons are on the lower right side of the alignment scale.

If that did happen, I'd think the DM is just screwing with the players at that point.

[toapat]

You mean the Cult was draining love out of children, right?

Because she's literally a physical manifestation of chaos and evil?

I mean, I'm all for not just offing random goblins and bandits because they're "EVUL!", but most demons are on the lower right side of the alignment scale.

If that did happen, I'd think the DM is just screwing with the players at that point.

there are documented and printed cases of LG Succubus paladins.

and the cult is more like the Hippies, but also runs orphanages. the reason why the paladin needs an epic spellcaster's help is when one of those 5%rs pop back on the home plane, they are captured and tortured/brainwashed.

and the point is, the Paladin knew the Succubus was forming a cult, and Detect evil wont show that that E is actually a G, so he had evidence enough to justify banishment, but didnt have the whole story, so he has to find a new head, who has to be the old head, who is then trapped on the 666th layer

[Yitzi]

PHB on Alignment in examples.

Those aren't exact descriptions of everyone of a given alignment. They can't be; there are people who don't really fit any of those descriptions, and they clearly must have some alignment. So there's still possibility in breaking up those cases that are less standard, such as where psychological tendencies don't match actions that well.


the only reasons in that strip that Roy isnt Kicked out of Celestia for having the alignment of Neutral Lawful Good is because The Great Wheel isnt SRD, and that he wouldnt be able to meet his grandpa. Getting booted from heaven to a different one is funny, but the story must take precidence over rules minutia.

So that's another reason that it's not such a good proof.


If they didn't do anything to deserve it, and if you aren't part of a war, they are innocent

So? (And "nothing to deserve it" might not be true anyway.)


therefore you have no reason to bash their heads.

Of course you do; they're going to harm people, and by killing them you prevent that.


Being made of pure evil doesn't change the fact that they have the right to live.

[Nonlawful person]"Right"? What is this concept of "rights" of which you speak? People act how they act, where does this abstract notion you call "rights" come into it?[/Nonlawful person]


As Lawful outsiders, they have laws.

Clearly. But those laws might be stuff like "You must obey those who are stronger than you", which does not at all preclude killing people for no reason.


If a devil kill innocent people, or even some that already sell their soul, he may have problems with his masters.

Or he may not, if his master turns out not to mind.


Unlike demons, most devils never go on a rampage to kill mortals

True, but they might assassinate an innocent person who's persuading their target not to sell their soul.


You are saying Chaotic Good are murdering innocent people? On a regular basis?

No, not on a regular basis. Only when it would serve the greater good (i.e. the benefit to people overall is more than the loss; naturally, this requires a pretty big benefit).


according to Heroes of Horror, killing an evil creature otherwise than in a very, very strict self-defence increase your taint score, making you more and more evil.

That's a universe with a concept of "taint", which tends to warp these sorts of things and corrupt good people who end up doing nasty things.


An intelligent evil character may cooperate

Nope; in the classic Prisoner's Dilemma case, where it's a one-shot with no further repercussions, there is no intelligent reason to cooperate unless you care about the other person.


while a good character may say ''I did it alone'' or ''Yes, it's true, we killed that guy. But is was an accident''.

Yes, there are other options; the prisoner's dilemma case, however, is if there aren't such options (or relevant repercussions on third parties), and that's what I was talking about there.


1. Yes, he protect innocent people.
2. Don't know. He's a professional killer, if it can help.
3. Hard to tell. He's a typical example of antihero.

So then he's not chaotic by my system, but I can't classify him further without knowing more.

[hamishspence]

[Nonlawful person]"Right"? What is this concept of "rights" of which you speak? People act how they act, where does this abstract notion you call "rights" come into it?[/Nonlawful person]

"Respect for life" is a trait of Good alignment- which includes CG.

[toapat]

Those aren't exact descriptions of everyone of a given alignment. They can't be; there are people who don't really fit any of those descriptions, and they clearly must have some alignment. So there's still possibility in breaking up those cases that are less standard, such as where psychological tendencies don't match actions that well.

So that's another reason that it's not such a good proof.

You really are being dense for ignoring the point. The entire section has people's alignments changing as a result of their actions, not because they wake up one day with the feeling that they need a good Genocide today.

No, Rich is pretty much staying to PHB-RAW during that entire conversation besides the non-booting because his story requires Roy to learn OotSiverse Mage Slayer from his Grandpa, and OotSiverse isnt in the standard cosmology because it isnt SRD, so Rich cant safely make fun of the fact that there are 9 Alignments, and 16 Great wheel planes.

the point is, Good-Evil works, if you drop the entire structure that was built around them and simply take them as Beneficial and Harmful actions and intents. Actions having a 60 day period in which you are considered partly responsible in a chain of events.

Law-Chaos can be fixed by simply applying the concept of how thorough the character's internal code is, and whether they go at a problem in different ways each time.

[hamishspence]

the point is, Good-Evil works, if you drop the entire structure that was built around them and simply take them as Beneficial and Harmful actions and intents. Actions having a 60 day period in which you are considered partly responsible in a chain of events.

Beneficial to whom though? If an act benefits a group, but harms an individual- is it always Good? What if its the group ganging up on the individual without any justification, and the individual has done nothing to them?

[toapat]

Beneficial to whom though? If an act benefits a group, but harms an individual- is it always Good? What if its the group ganging up on the individual without any justification, and the individual has done nothing to them?

100 point system along the axis: 100 meaning like anything that a Saint Half Celestial Paragon does, while 0 meaning just just cast Locate City Bomb against a city of Commoners.

basically, total effective benefits vs problems an action does, with 7 points of give in both directions for lack of information

[Othesemo]

Bonus points for the title, but if you're bothered by things being objectively good and evil, calling them objectively (synonym for good) and (synonym for evil) won't help much of anything.

Really, alignment isn't a big part of the game unless you're playing a paladin or somesuch. If you don't like it, you can just ignore it.

[toapat]

Bonus points for the title, but if you're bothered by things being objectively good and evil, calling them objectively (synonym for good) and (synonym for evil) won't help much of anything.

Really, alignment isn't a big part of the game unless you're playing a paladin or somesuch. If you don't like it, you can just ignore it.

the real problem with the entire alignment system is that besides Good and Evil being Objectively defined for players, is that Lawful and Chaotic are near impossible to use because they dont make any real sense.

[Othesemo]

the real problem with the entire alignment system is that besides Good and Evil being Objectively defined for players, is that Lawful and Chaotic are near impossible to use because they dont make any real sense.

Yep. Another good reason to scrap it altogether.

[hamishspence]

One way of looking at it is that "Law" in the alignment sense is just another word for "Order"- a Lawful person seeks to make the world a more Ordered, more Orderly place. Consciously or subconsciously.

A Chaotic person is the reverse.

Show them a bunch of items in a "semi-ordered" state, and leave them alone with the items, and the Lawful person will put them in order, organize them, and the Chaotic person will disorganize them even more- it's just their "natural response".

[Network]

Of course you do; they're going to harm people, and by killing them you prevent that.Not immediately. You are murdering people on the presumption you can't change them ; there are documented cases of the opposite.
Nope; in the classic Prisoner's Dilemma case, where it's a one-shot with no further repercussions, there is no intelligent reason to cooperate unless you care about the other person.
You take it the wrong way : you consider respect of life to be the Lawful/Chaotic axis and trust to be the Good/Evil axis. There are evidences of confidence/cooperation between evil characters in Book of Vile Darkness, Exemplars of Evil and Savage Species. When it does happen, the Prisoner's Dilemma would probably not work. It would also not work with intelligent and lawful evil characters, such as illithids. Worth nothing than 6 months of prison is better than 5 years? Assuming the classic case, it's also probably better than nothing for one and 10 years for the other.

[Yitzi]

"Respect for life" is a trait of Good alignment- which includes CG.

Oh, he respects life in general, he just doesn't treat any particular person's life as worth more than any other person, and doesn't assign any special status to action as opposed to inaction.

A pure utilitarian (i.e. the sort who would kill 100 innocent people to save 101 if there are no other relevant considerations) would be CG.


You really are being dense for ignoring the point. The entire section has people's alignments changing as a result of their actions

Are there actions changing their alignment, or are their actions proving to the DM that their alignment has changed? I'd argue the latter, as otherwise you end up with it contradicting that bit from Ebberon that Omnicrat quoted in post 12.


No, Rich is pretty much staying to PHB-RAW during that entire conversation besides the non-booting

You have a source for this? If not, you can't really use it in an argument.


and OotSiverse isnt in the standard cosmology because it isnt SRD, so Rich cant safely make fun of the fact that there are 9 Alignments, and 16 Great wheel planes.

True. Also, irrelevant.


the point is, Good-Evil works, if you drop the entire structure that was built around them and simply take them as Beneficial and Harmful actions and intents.

Oh, it definitely works. It just lacks certain desirable properties such as different alignment representing a fundamental difference in one's way of thinking. I would also consider it a negative that someone who would never consider giving a crust of bread to a starving person is still considered Neutral rather than Evil.


Law-Chaos can be fixed by simply applying the concept of how thorough the character's internal code is, and whether they go at a problem in different ways each time.

That does work somewhat, although again I prefer an interpretation where it's a fundamental difference in one's way of thinking.


the real problem with the entire alignment system is that besides Good and Evil being Objectively defined for players, is that Lawful and Chaotic are near impossible to use because they dont make any real sense.

The way I'd define it is as follows:
-Law believes in, and follows, an objective Right and Wrong.
-Neutrality does not believe in an objective Right and Wrong, but still has certain lines that they personally will not cross.
-Chaos has no inhibitions or restraints, other than achieving whatever their goal is.


Not immediately. You are murdering people on the presumption you can't change them ; there are documented cases of the opposite.

Yes, if our adventurer was smart enough to realize that, he'd probably first try to change them until it becomes clear enough that the harm of delaying solving the problem is more than the benefit of the slight remaining chance that they can be changed.


You take it the wrong way : you consider respect of life to be the Lawful/Chaotic axis and trust to be the Good/Evil axis.

Not at all. Respect for life is generally associated with Good, but when you're killing fewer people to save more, respect for life isn't going to stop that. Respect for rights often will, and that is what I'm associating with Law.

As for trust, you can have mutual trust among evil, if both sides know that cooperation remains in their best interest. What you generally won't have with evil is that one person cooperates because his utility function takes into account the welfare of the other person. The Prisoner's Dilemma case is, by construction, one where the former consideration will not result in cooperation, hence evil people will not cooperate there.


It would also not work with intelligent and lawful evil characters, such as illithids. Worth nothing than 6 months of prison is better than 5 years?

But it's not 6 months as opposed to 5 years, it's 6 months as opposed to nothing, or 5 years as opposed to 10 years.


Assuming the classic case, it's also probably better than nothing for one and 10 years for the other.

Better for whom? Not for the one who'd get nothing, and he's the one who's deciding. Since he's evil, he's looking out for himself, so he'll pick the case that benefits himself.

[toapat]

Oh, he respects life in general, he just doesn't treat any particular person's life as worth more than any other person, and doesn't assign any special status to action as opposed to inaction.

A pure utilitarian (i.e. the sort who would kill 100 innocent people to save 101 if there are no other relevant considerations) would be CG.

Are there actions changing their alignment, or are their actions proving to the DM that their alignment has changed? I'd argue the latter, as otherwise you end up with it contradicting that bit from Ebberon that Omnicrat quoted in post 12.

You have a source for this? If not, you can't really use it in an argument.

True. Also, irrelevant.

Oh, it definitely works. It just lacks certain desirable properties such as different alignment representing a fundamental difference in one's way of thinking. I would also consider it a negative that someone who would never consider giving a crust of bread to a starving person is still considered Neutral rather than Evil.

No, that is specifically Chaotic Neutral.

Ebberon's take on alignment was defined by the person who originally wrote the campaign. This is the one point where RAW, IS NOT RAW.

How about you read a PHB? Like the original 3rd ed one? expecially considering that that printing didnt go through editors twice.

That is because Personality and Alignment ARE NOT the same thing. This is the exact reason why Belkar got any character development at all, because people assume Chaotic Evil means True Hedonistic. if Alignment was based off of Personality, it would have Manic-Depressive, Lawful-Chaotic, and Dedicated - Procrastinator. (Belkar being Dedicated Lawful Manic)

Again, as i said, Intent only matters for half a step in any direction.

[zlefin]

the purpose of the alignment system is to classify a bunch of stuff as evil so you can kill it without thinking too hard; to have fun playing a game. If you want moral complications, skip alignment mostly; just use the descriptors as a generic type; like holy/unholy.

[Network]

Yes, if our adventurer was smart enough to realize that, he'd probably first try to change them until it becomes clear enough that the harm of delaying solving the problem is more than the benefit of the slight remaining chance that they can be changed.

Not at all. Respect for life is generally associated with Good, but when you're killing fewer people to save more, respect for life isn't going to stop that. Respect for rights often will, and that is what I'm associating with Law.

As for trust, you can have mutual trust among evil, if both sides know that cooperation remains in their best interest. What you generally won't have with evil is that one person cooperates because his utility function takes into account the welfare of the other person. The Prisoner's Dilemma case is, by construction, one where the former consideration will not result in cooperation, hence evil people will not cooperate there.

But it's not 6 months as opposed to 5 years, it's 6 months as opposed to nothing, or 5 years as opposed to 10 years.

Better for whom? Not for the one who'd get nothing, and he's the one who's deciding. Since he's evil, he's looking out for himself, so he'll pick the case that benefits himself.
Be good is sometime futile. A good character that does futile acts is still good.

You're not killing fewer people. There are at the very least billions of devils, while probably less than 1%, and definitely less than 5% of mortals would be saved. Then again, the strict majority of them are evil.

The evil guys don't have to be friends or lovers to cooperate. They may simply seek a common interest. Book of Vile Darkness and Savage Species feature good reasons why evil characters would cooperate ; if an evil character hire a thief, chances are the former will pay the latter, and it is in their common interest. It's pragmatic villainy (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PragmaticVillainy). Even mindless constructs prefer to work with those that help them. Helping other people may be purely egoistical.

If an evil character needs another to do his evil schemes, he will work with the aforementioned other guy, be it a cleric, fighter, thief or wizard.

This is the exact reason why Belkar got any character development at all, because people assume Chaotic Evil means True Hedonistic.
Am I doomed to live in a world where people don't know the Chaotic Neutral alignment? Please tell me. :smalleek:

[toapat]

Am I doomed to live in a world where people don't know the Chaotic Neutral alignment? Please tell me. :smalleek:

well, Yitzi is showing he doesnt understand the difference between Personality and Alignment.

[Yitzi]

No, that is specifically Chaotic Neutral.

No, Chaotic Neutral is as likely to harm someone for his own benefit as to harm someone for the benefit of the whole. The person I'm describing would never consider harming another merely to grant himself an equivalent benefit.


Ebberon's take on alignment was defined by the person who originally wrote the campaign. This is the one point where RAW, IS NOT RAW.

So you'd rather take your own personal interpretation of the PHB over what Ebberon clearly says?


How about you read a PHB? Like the original 3rd ed one?

Is 3.5 good? Because that's what I have and have read, and while it clearly does not go as far as my own personal homebrew understanding of alignment, but does indicate that alignment is a question of attitude, not merely actions.


That is because Personality and Alignment ARE NOT the same thing.

No they aren't; personality is a far more complex thing than alignment, and misses a few (generally ideal-based) things that alignment includes.


Again, as i said, Intent only matters for half a step in any direction.

So you say. And yet the main sentence about alignment in the PHB is "A creature's general moral and personal attitudes are represented by its alignment". Attitudes, not actions.


Be good is sometime futile. A good character that does futile acts is still good.

Yes he is, because his goal system is for the benefit of everyone, even if he isn't successful.


You're not killing fewer people. There are at the very least billions of devils, while probably less than 1%, and definitely less than 5% of mortals would be saved.

Now this is a good point. There are ways to deal with it (e.g. perhaps the devils are tyrannizing multiple material planes, or perhaps their being wholly evil means their welfare is unimportant), but it does need to be addressed by the good character who realizes it and is planning to depopulate Baator anyway.


The evil guys don't have to be friends or lovers to cooperate. They may simply seek a common interest.

Definitely. Common interest, knowledge that it will pay off in the long run, etc. There are plenty of possible reasons; it is merely in an artificially simple case such as Prisoner's Dilemma that there are no such reasons.

Now, there can be a Neutral Evil or Lawful Evil character who will betray others on principle, but that's an abnormal case.


well, Yitzi is showing he doesnt understand the difference between Personality and Alignment.

Oh, I understand the difference all right, I simply also understand how they are somewhat closely linked. Given a person's personality, you can usually tell their alignment with a relatively high degree of certainty; if alignment and personality were the same, you would always be able to tell with absolute certainty.

[vylet]

So once upon a time I played as a magus/rouge. She started off CG and ended up LE. Compleate 180 brought on my asmodeus F***ing with my mind. anyway through the entire ordeal she thought of herself as true neutral. I as a player knew what she really was at any givin time but she as a character only ever had her own selfish reasons for doing anything. for example I slaughtered a half celestial unicorn for a ritual in the name of more power. I knew that killing a pegacorn is an obviously evil thing to do regardless of the reasons, but to my character it was just a means to an end.

She ended up as a hitler-esque evil archetype. She wants to purge all humans from existance because they are the weakest race and the scource of all other races' problems. She knew what she was doing was wrong, but felt justified and righteous doing it. So her own percieved alignment was at N/N. The people as a whole thought of her as LE because she was consorting with devils and creating her own world under her tyranical rule. Asmodeus himself thought she was more NE because even though she was helping him into power she didnt 100% believe in what asmodeus was trying to acomplish. In his eyes her rule was more chaotic than he would like, and she wasnt blindly following him like he was used to.

To a holy devout LG character a CN one can seem CE. And to a CE outsider dweling in the abyss a CN player might appear to be NG.




TLDNR; Alignment of any kind is all based off of your perception of it. If you can separate yourself from your character you can get both an objective and subjective view of it.

[Yitzi]

To a holy devout LG character a CN one can seem CE. And to a CE outsider dweling in the abyss a CN player might appear to be NG.

True, but on the flip side there does need to be some objective standard for the alignments, and "what the DM thinks it is" is too fuzzy to be ideal.

[vylet]

True, but on the flip side there does need to be some objective standard for the alignments, and "what the DM thinks it is" is too fuzzy to be ideal.

What part of rule 0 is fuzzy for you?
DM is god of reality.

[toapat]

True, but on the flip side there does need to be some objective standard for the alignments, and "what the DM thinks it is" is too fuzzy to be ideal.

This is the circular Logic that leads to stupid RAW like Killing any being with the Evil type is a good act, despite there being printed and legal cases of alignment not being dictated by descriptors.

the only Objective definitions needed are that Good consists of actions that benefit significantly more then they hinder, where as Evil consists of actions that significantly hinder when compared to how much they benefit.

Characters, as Vylet said, should have their own personal oppinion of their alignment, while having an alignment that best describes how they act.

[Network]

Furthermore, the evil cleric is a blatant case : he seeks to serve his god. Only, his god happen to be evil. So he considers himself as far more good-aligned than he is.

[Yitzi]

What part of rule 0 is fuzzy for you?

Making it the default, rather than something that the DM only applies when it's necessary, greatly increases the quality of DM necessary for a good game.


DM is god of reality.

Not quite; he does still have certain OOC requirements, such as not breaking the barrier between IC and OOC except in case of extreme need.


This is the circular Logic that leads to stupid RAW like Killing any being with the Evil type is a good act, despite there being printed and legal cases of alignment not being dictated by descriptors.

How does my logic lead to stuff like "killing a good succubus is a good act"?


the only Objective definitions needed are that Good consists of actions that benefit significantly more then they hinder, where as Evil consists of actions that significantly hinder when compared to how much they benefit.

That is one approach, but means that the difference between Good and Evil is often simply "what he can get away with". You might not have a problem with that; I do.


Characters, as Vylet said, should have their own personal oppinion of their alignment, while having an alignment that best describes how they act.

Oh, there's no question about that. It has nothing to do with what I'm saying, though.

[toapat]

How does my logic lead to stuff like "killing a good succubus is a good act"?

because its the stupid logic that sees the need for incredible and shallow complexity in order to define Helping a community vs hurting it.

[hamishspence]

Not at all. Respect for life is generally associated with Good, but when you're killing fewer people to save more, respect for life isn't going to stop that. Respect for rights often will, and that is what I'm associating with Law.

A case can be made that "respect for rights" simply derives from "respect for life"-

the "right to not be murdered" the "right to not be robbed" and so forth.

[Yitzi]

because its the stupid logic that sees the need for incredible and shallow complexity in order to define Helping a community vs hurting it.

You didn't explain how they are connected. In what way can one take my position, apply proper logic (such as will not start with true conclusions and lead to a false premise) to it, and result in the sorts of absurdities that you're saying are connected to it?


A case can be made that "respect for rights" simply derives from "respect for life"-

Not really; "respect for life" does not distinguish between killing someone and failing to save their life, whereas "respect for rights" generally does.

[Network]

Not really; "respect for life" does not distinguish between killing someone and failing to save their life, whereas "respect for rights" generally does.

What is your source for this?

[toapat]

You didn't explain how they are connected. In what way can one take my position, apply proper logic (such as will not start with true conclusions and lead to a false premise) to it, and result in the sorts of absurdities that you're saying are connected to it?

because the logic that stupidly sees the need for incredible and shallow complexity.

[Yitzi]

What is your source for this?

Which part? The first is due to the fact that in terms of life, killing someone and failing to save their life are equivalent; in both cases there is one less living person than if you had taken a different course of action. The second is due to the fact that rights-based systems (such as the ones we have in real life) harshly punish killing someone (with rare exceptions), whereas failing to save their life is at most a far lesser crime (and possibly not a crime at all.)


because the logic that stupidly sees the need for incredible and shallow complexity.

That isn't even a grammatically correct sentence, never mind a factually correct one.

If you're going to argue with me, please have the decency to do so using proper logical arguments in which the premises and conclusion are clearly stated, and the conclusion follows from the premises via an appropriate logical system (I accept the propositional calculus, the predicate calculus, and even Bayesian arguments.) Please do not attempt to argue using vague or unsound arguments such as "your logic is stupid and this other argument is stupid, therefore your logic implies this other argument."

[toapat]

That isn't even a grammatically correct sentence, never mind a factually correct one.

If you're going to argue with me, please have the decency to do so using proper logical arguments in which the premises and conclusion are clearly stated, and the conclusion follows from the premises via an appropriate logical system (I accept the propositional calculus, the predicate calculus, and even Bayesian arguments.) Please do not attempt to argue using vague or unsound arguments such as "your logic is stupid and this other argument is stupid, therefore your logic implies this other argument."

You dont understand my Point, your Logic is the Stupid Roundabout Logic that sees the need to write complex, shallow rules governing every action and reaction for alignment, Which in turn requires even more rules to fix. The only solutions are to Define Alignment Dynamically and Subjectively, while throwing out the idea that Personality, Intents, and Motivations are even part of it.

[Yitzi]

your Logic is the Stupid Roundabout Logic that sees the need to write complex, shallow rules governing every action and reaction for alignment, Which in turn requires even more rules to fix.

Not at all. My own approach has relatively simple rules (probably more simple than the PHB on alignment), which nevertheless cover every case in an objective manner which allows a lot of depth.

Unless you disagree and can point to somewhere that I advocated complex rules for alignment?


The only solutions are to Define Alignment Dynamically and Subjectively

And if you define alignment subjectively, then whose subjective viewpoint is used when someone casts Detect Evil or Protection from Evil?


while throwing out the idea that Personality, Intents, and Motivations are even part of it.

I don't see any need to do that.


You keep on saying your approach is the only approach, but you have not once given a situation where every system which involves personality and intent is invalid. At best, you can point out a few strawmen that can be shown to be invalid, but that's not exactly a good argument.

[toapat]

And if you define alignment subjectively, then whose subjective viewpoint is used when someone casts Detect Evil or Protection from Evil?

I don't see any need to do that.

You keep on saying your approach is the only approach, but you have not once given a situation where every system which involves personality and intent is invalid. At best, you can point out a few strawmen that can be shown to be invalid, but that's not exactly a good argument.

You havent shown that your rules could remotely be simple or unflawed. The simple fact is, Actions do speak louder then words. WW2 ended in 1945 because the US dropped nuclear weapons on Japan, who had already been completely destroyed at war. we told them to surrender, they didnt, and we unleashed the power of the atom. They didnt sing fast enough.

All alignment is based off of the perspective of Time.

yes, you do. Because it doesnt matter how good your intentions are, If you Assassinate Baron Von Deathmarch the Fifth, 20th level Undetectable Mystic Fire Knight, and install the ruthless Countess Fluffybunnies because you have been lead to believe that the baron is going to betray the king, the heirs, and take over and rule with an iron fist, when that is in fact the Countess' plan, you did not commit a good act, no matter how much you believe so.

My approach is the only approach because it is the only one that bothers to take into account the fact that everything is subjective.

Personality: Belkar: For all intents, his personally is Lawful Neutral atm. He Kills who others point him at, he is incredibly predictable, and he stayed out of the way when a bar brawl broke out. He was acting so lawful, that he didnt know whether he should fight deadicus in the arena.

and your perspectives ignore the fact that there are personalities that dont even fit inside the square, like Vocal Nit-Picky.

[Network]

he is incredibly predictable
This has more to do with intelligence than alignment. Batman is Lawful Good, while he is so crazy prepared he's impossible to predict. We can probably find out another one here and there. Most are just normally predictable, thought.

On the other side, I admit some lawful characters are this, such as Teru Mikami.

[toapat]

Batman is Lawful Good.

I would say Batman has a vacation home in each non-evil side of the Alignment square, and which one he is living in depends on the current writer. Some batmen are Lawful good, like the Adam West one, some are Chaotic good like Christopher Nolan's. others are TN like when Death in a Family was being written

[Yitzi]

You havent shown that your rules could remotely be simple or unflawed.

I've shown my rules to be simple by saying what they are in a relatively simple way. (I have since then modified them slightly, to expand neutrality, but it's still quite simple.) And it's nearly impossible to show anything to be unflawed; that's why the burden of proof is usually on the one saying something is flawed, as they can simply point out the flaw.


The simple fact is, Actions do speak louder then words. WW2 ended in 1945 because the US dropped nuclear weapons on Japan, who had already been completely destroyed at war. we told them to surrender, they didnt, and we unleashed the power of the atom. They didnt sing fast enough.

Yes, actions speak louder than words. But the question here isn't which is more "loud" but rather which determines alignment. And I'd say that's neither actions nor words, but rather decision-making process and manner of thinking.


All alignment is based off of the perspective of Time.

Please explain.


yes, you do. Because it doesnt matter how good your intentions are, If you Assassinate Baron Von Deathmarch the Fifth, 20th level Undetectable Mystic Fire Knight, and install the ruthless Countess Fluffybunnies because you have been lead to believe that the baron is going to betray the king, the heirs, and take over and rule with an iron fist, when that is in fact the Countess' plan, you did not commit a good act, no matter how much you believe so.

No, you did not commit a good act. But you still might be a good (though misguided) person.

However, now that I think of it, I will concede that the text of the phylactery of faithfulness indicates that in RAW D&D (though not D&D as-it-should-be-IMO), actions do at least have a heavy effect on alignment.


My approach is the only approach because it is the only one that bothers to take into account the fact that everything is subjective.

Firstly, your approach is not the only possible subjective approach, although I will agree that if everything is subjective then my approach won't work.

However, you haven't supported your claim that everything is subjective, so it can't really be used to prove anything.


Personality: Belkar: For all intents, his personally is Lawful Neutral atm.

Definitely not. Lawful Neutral would (as I understand it) mean that he doesn't kill randomly because he thinks it's wrong, and he cares about other people to some extent (maybe when he's in a good mood, or he only cares about party members.) In reality, he only cares about himself, and would kill indiscriminately if not for the fact that he benefits more personally by playing by the rules of society. That's what I'd call clear Chaotic Evil; it's only his actions that even begin to look like LN.


He was acting so lawful, that he didnt know whether he should fight deadicus in the arena.

Yes, acting. And that's part of why I feel that actions can't be the whole story.


and your perspectives ignore the fact that there are personalities that dont even fit inside the square, like Vocal Nit-Picky.

Of course there are personalities that don't match any particular alignment. As I said, alignment and personality are correlated, but not identical. (Nitpicky does tend to correlate with Lawful.)

[Deepbluediver]

For a role playing game to objectively say "This is good and that is evil" always bothered me. No one can ever agree on what is good or evil in the real world. In fact, a lot of people might consider chaos to be evil and law to be good or visa versa.

I'm still working my way through the whole thread, but I wanted to say this: it's silly to claim that you cannot have black and white rules about good vs. evil in a fantasy game. This game is NOT the real world, and we are perfectly free to make arbitrary judgements about certain actions. You (or your character) might disagree with what is classified as good and evil, but that doesn't make it not good or evil. They way I see it, if necromancy is deemed "evil", then arguing that raising the dead is not evil is like arguing a fireball isn't hot.


When it comes to morality, I admit up front that it is vast and complex. Sometimes it feels like the porn vs. art debate, and you just have to say "I can't define it, but I'll know it when I see it". My experience is that (in game, at least) the vast majority of things people try to pass off as moral grey areas are really just evil for a good cause. You might have a net gain of good in the world, but to me that doesn't make your actions not-evil.


More on topic, I think removing the good/evil descriptors from most spells would work just fine, and classifying people as selfish vs. altruistic won't have very many negative effects. Ultimately, it doesn't seem like you are changing that much; simply redefining how the morality system judges people.
You might want to modify a few spells or effects to work both ways though, such Holy Word having a Profane Word counterpart, or altering the spell to just make it affect anyone of a different alignment from yourself.

For law and chaos, whichare even more debatable, I think of lawful aligned creatures as being more disciplined. Law tends toward altruism, as it is more group based, and chaos tends toward self-interest, but there are plenty of exceptions to both.
I don't know if you read webcomics, but a while back Dominic Deegan had a storyline involving the law/chaos conflict, and they described law as representing reason, logic, and perfection, but also opression and conformity. Chaos represents adaptabilty, freedom, spontaniety, but also instability and madness.
I enjoy working with these descriptors as guidelines, but if they only cause arguments at your table, go ahead and get rid of them.

[Yitzi]

You might have a net gain of good in the world, but to me that doesn't make your actions not-evil.

I would argue that that's an inherently Lawful approach, to look at the merit of individual actions. A Chaotic Good approach would (IMO) not care about the individual actions, only about the end result.


Ultimately, it doesn't seem like you are changing that much; simply redefining how the morality system judges people.

And even that is questionable.


such Holy Word having a Profane Word counterpart

It does; it's called Blasphemy. :smallsmile:


For law and chaos, whichare even more debatable, I think of lawful aligned creatures as being more disciplined. Law tends toward altruism, as it is more group based, and chaos tends toward self-interest, but there are plenty of exceptions to both.

I don't really see it as discipline so much as a sense of acceptable and unacceptable actions. To Law, some actions are simply wrong, whereas to Chaos, any means can be justified by a sufficient end. That way, you end up with a fundamental worldview split, similar to that between good and evil (or altruism and selfishness, if you prefer), rather than a mere difference in discipline.

[Deepbluediver]

I would argue that that's an inherently Lawful approach, to look at the merit of individual actions. A Chaotic Good approach would (IMO) not care about the individual actions, only about the end result.
Whenever I have been called upon to judge the morality of an action in game, I base my decision on 3 criteria (and having read more of the thread now, I think you will largely agree with me): the action itelf, the intent of the action, and the end result (net gain or loss) of the action. So long as you define what is counted as good and evil in your game, I think you can use this to arbitrate most disagreements fairly easily.
Again, a player's real-world view of good and evil does not have to correlate with their character's actions or the rules of the game-system.

If you (or anyone) is having problems with in-game alignments, and would like a nuetral third-party opinion, I am happy to assist in any way I can (but no real-world issues, preferably).


It does; it's called Blasphemy. :smallsmile:
Frickin' frackin' thesaurus :smallfurious:


I don't really see it as discipline so much as a sense of acceptable and unacceptable actions. To Law, some actions are simply wrong, whereas to Chaos, any means can be justified by a sufficient end. That way, you end up with a fundamental worldview split, similar to that between good and evil (or altruism and selfishness, if you prefer), rather than a mere difference in discipline.

I was on the debate team in highschool, and one thing they taught us early on was to define what you meant for certain terms, such as "justice", "fairness", "beneficial", "greater good", etc. Part of the debate, I think, comes from law and chaos defining the same terms differently.
A lawful person might say "killing is wrong, but killing a criminal is different; that's justice".

A lawful system relies on courts or judges, and a chaotic system might rely on vigilantes or bounty hunters, but the action is the same, the intent is the same, and the end result is the same.

You could still, I think, define at least some actions as lawful or chaotic (i.e., killing is chaotic because it destroys a well-ordered system, increasing the ratio of entropy in the world) but that get's very esoteric. So long as you define what you consider lawful and chaotic behavior, I don't see any problems with requiring your players to conform to that in order to maintain their alignment.

[Network]

In reality, he only cares about himself, and would kill indiscriminately if not for the fact that he benefits more personally by playing by the rules of society. That's what I'd call clear Chaotic Evil; it's only his actions that even begin to look like LN.
If he obey the rules of society, he is probably not chaotic. The character you define is either Lawful Evil or Neutral Evil, depending of the rest of his actions.

A Chaotic Evil character is more like Drake Merwin or the Joker.
"killing is wrong, but killing a criminal is different; that's justice"
I AM justice! Couldn't resist, sorry. :smallbiggrin:

My opinion is that TvTropes definition of alignment, for all intends and purposes, is the better I saw on the net. I range on the same side as them.

[Yitzi]

Whenever I have been called upon to judge the morality of an action in game, I base my decision on 3 criteria (and having read more of the thread now, I think you will largely agree with me): the action itelf, the intent of the action, and the end result (net gain or loss) of the action.

In terms of judging the action itself, I would use primarily the end result, with the intent as a secondary factor. I would not count the action itself when judging its morality, but would count it extremely predominantly if not solely when judging its ethicality.

However, judging a person's alignment is different than judging the alignment of their actions, as an action is only mildly affected by the intent, whereas the person's alignment is extremely heavily affected by their intent.


Again, a player's real-world view of good and evil does not have to correlate with their character's actions or the rules of the game-system.

However, if the rules of the system are too divorced from a real-world view of good and evil, then it starts to become absurd to call it "good" and "evil".


I was on the debate team in highschool, and one thing they taught us early on was to define what you meant for certain terms, such as "justice", "fairness", "beneficial", "greater good", etc.

Definitely. Defining your terms is key.


Part of the debate, I think, comes from law and chaos defining the same terms differently.
A lawful person might say "killing is wrong, but killing a criminal is different; that's justice".

Or you might even have someone who believes that any killing is wrong; that would also be lawful. As I see it, the very concept that some actions are "wrong", rather than just usually a bad idea if you're trying to be a good person, is an intrinsically Lawful one.


and a chaotic system might rely on vigilantes or bounty hunters

I'd think chaotic people (they might not even form a system) will rely on whatever works best, be that a court system or a more anarchic one.


You could still, I think, define at least some actions as lawful or chaotic (i.e., killing is chaotic because it destroys a well-ordered system, increasing the ratio of entropy in the world) but that get's very esoteric.

I'd say that no action is intrinsically lawful or chaotic, but an action may be according to or against a particular lawful approach. For instance, killing a slave for disobedience is against the lawful belief that killing is wrong (or the lawful belief that slavery is wrong), but in accordance with the lawful belief that disobedience to those more powerful than oneself is wrong and should be punished with death.

[toapat]

Definitely not. Lawful Neutral would (as I understand it) mean that he doesn't kill randomly because he thinks it's wrong, and he cares about other people to some extent (maybe when he's in a good mood, or he only cares about party members.) In reality, he only cares about himself, and would kill indiscriminately if not for the fact that he benefits more personally by playing by the rules of society. That's what I'd call clear Chaotic Evil; it's only his actions that even begin to look like LN.

And you completely destroy your own argument right there.

You go out of your way to claim Actions hold no relevance to you gameplay alignment, that Personality and intentions matter only. Belkar's Personality atm IS Lawful Neutral for all intents and purposes.

Chaotic means unpredictable or anarchic. Belkar pre-character developement didnt see any value in playing by rules, and had to have Shojo's talking head tell him to start playing the game. Sure, Belkar Opposes the system when it isnt Evil, but he isnt going to break it post development, because its not what society expects of him.

Neutral is only caring for yourself and your own Gain. Evil Cares only to Gain by any means necessary (This is why CE is often only portrayed as True Hedonist, they dont care about anything but pleasure). Belkar didnt get involved with the Barfight because to him, it was worth more to sit back and watch a Fighter pummel a Half Dragon Ogre then to actually get into the fight. He gained Entertainment at the price of nothing. The only time since Character Developement that Belkar has broken the Masquerade is when he asked Ian to open the lock to the Dinosaur, Because the battle was making him really depressed.

[Yitzi]

Belkar's Personality atm IS Lawful Neutral for all intents and purposes.

Not at all. His personality is selfish and willing to kill people; it's merely his actions that are lawful neutral at the moment, because at the moment that's what best serves his selfish interests.


Chaotic means unpredictable or anarchic.

Not as I understand it. As I understand it, Chaotic means that the character doesn't follow any rules other than "whatever best advances my goals", but he can be predictable (if you know his goals and what will best advance them) and may support authority if that's what's best in the situation.

Unpredictability and anarchy are often not the optimal choice, and therefore following them requires principles. A chaotic character has no principles.


Neutral is only caring for yourself and your own Gain.

I'd call that Evil; Neutral cares about others to some extent.

[toapat]

I'd call that Evil; Neutral cares about others to some extent.

Again, you use my own arguments about Alignment being almost exclusively Action based to prove that Belkar is CE in Personality and not just alignment, even though Belkar post Character Development is for all intents and purposes wearing a LN spraypaint on his personality.

Alignment Is the sum total of one's actions and methods

Personalities are the emotions and Motivations of a character.

Motivations determine the typical actions a person does.

A Theif only cares about himself, But he really likes shopping at the failing Marts R Us store, which he doesnt know is failing. He has low Hide, but high Diplomacy, Move Silently, and Sleight of Hand.

He sees a particularly expensive suit of armor he wants to buy, but doesnt have the money for, so he goes and steals from the Lord walking the street.

He does this a few times.

Over time, He revitalizes the failing store, enough so that they are able to hire more employees.

The Thief, thus using CE motivations, performs a NG act.

[Yitzi]

Again, you use my own arguments about Alignment being almost exclusively Action based to prove that Belkar is CE in Personality

That doesn't even make sense. The interaction between alignment and action has nothing to do with what Belkar's personality is.


even though Belkar post Character Development is for all intents and purposes wearing a LN spraypaint on his personality.

Really? Perhaps you'd like to support that? I see LN actions, but no indication that his actual personality has changed.


Alignment Is the sum total of one's actions and methods

That is the very issue under dispute; claiming it without proof (again) is worth NOTHING.


Personalities are the emotions and Motivations of a character.

Not quite. Personalities do include emotions and motivations as major components, but also include things such as preferred way of doing things.


Motivations determine the typical actions a person does.

True in general; they are not, however, directly correspondent to those actions.


A Theif only cares about himself, But he really likes shopping at the failing Marts R Us store, which he doesnt know is failing. He has low Hide, but high Diplomacy, Move Silently, and Sleight of Hand.

He sees a particularly expensive suit of armor he wants to buy, but doesnt have the money for, so he goes and steals from the Lord walking the street.

He does this a few times.

Over time, He revitalizes the failing store, enough so that they are able to hire more employees.

The Thief, thus using CE motivations, performs a NG act.

No, that's a CE act with NG consequences. The act of theft for self-benefit due to not caring about ethics is inherently CE, regardless of its consequences.

I'll give you a good case of someone with E-aligned motivations who performs a NG act: Bob is a business owner of the worst type: he exploits and abuses his employees as much as he can (both for profit and for the feeling of power he gets), he cheats on his taxes whenever he thinks he can get away with it, he defrauds his customers on a regular basis. One day, a very famous charity comes collecting in the town. Now Bob is quite clearly a nasty piece of work, but he's not stupid; he realizes that if he donated a large sum of money to the charity, he'd more than make it up in increased business. So he makes a big deal of writing a huge check for the charity and publicly gives it to them, despite the fact that he doesn't care in the least about the charity itself. So his motivations are purely selfish (which is as evil-aligned as most people get), but the act is innately a NG one.

I can't really give a case of CE-aligned motivations, as the way I understand it there is no such thing as a Chaotic motivation; Chaotic characters are simply those who don't have even marginally Lawful motivations or beliefs.

[willpell]

In my campaign I have a very clear distinction between Law and Chaos, and I interpret Good and Evil in a fashion that I feel is more consistent with morality than the version described in the books. Absolutely no-one can ever commit cold-blooded murder and still call themselves Good, regardless of the species of the target (though outsiders may be an exception; I don't know if an LG Succubus is even possible in my cosmology, but if one is, it is still dangerous enough that keeping it under a "one strike" threat of death is probably not unjustified, particularly if it's mucking around with children). Conversely, though, I define Evil in terms of "will do anything to survive and flourish" or "enjoys being cruel to those they don't care about", not as a cartoonish black hat in almost any cases (even devils and demons have sensible agendas and they essentially uphold the idea that Evil is the real Good).

I use an informal version of SonofZeal's expanded alignment system, which distinguishes "uber-good" as Exalted and "uber-evil" as Vile (I plan to do this for Law and Chaos eventually but it's more difficult due to the confusion regarding them); a Vile character might engage in particularly atrocious behavior, but a non-Vile Evil character is probably just trying to get ahead in the world by hook or by crook, and occasionally enjoying jerkish amusements at others' expense, without generally going to unreasonable extremes like setting fire to his own house just to burn down the ones around it. Likewise, Good characters who aren't Exalted have generally benevolent attitudes, but don't concern themselves with the scope of actions beyond their sphere of influence, while an Exalted character constantly worries about the message his actions are sending and tries to ensure that he always achieves the greatest good for the greatest number over the span of all space and time, including through the psychological consequences to himself and others. The vast majority of persons fall into Neutrality in any case, and Neutral can range from "will give money to a bum because it makes him feel good, but only if he's just cashed his paycheck and has plenty to spare" to "will beat a bum and rob him, but only because he's a junkie whose life is clearly almost over anyway" (the latter might have crossed the line into Evil but it's the sort of justification that Neutral characters are likely to try and grope for in case of such actions, while an unrepentantly Evil character just figures "better you than me, buddy" and takes whatever he can get away with taking).

[Deepbluediver]

I can't really give a case of CE-aligned motivations, as the way I understand it there is no such thing as a Chaotic motivation; Chaotic characters are simply those who don't have even marginally Lawful motivations or beliefs.

Sorry Yitzi, but I disagree. A lawful character prefers an orderly system, with a defined command structure, well-established rules, and accepted authority figures. A chaotic person is one who either distrusts or finds distasteful those same things. Not caring what type of action gets the job done seems like it should be the middle ground; i.e. Nuetral.

If you think differently, then please try to describe where you think Neutral should fall when determining chaotic/lawful personalities in your system, because I don't see any place for it.

[Yitzi]

Absolutely no-one can ever commit cold-blooded murder and still call themselves Good, regardless of the species of the target

So...say a character is placed into a situation where they can save an entire plane full of innocent people from destruction, but only by killing an innocent child. If they do it, does that mean they are no longer Good?

If so, you're essentially declaring an absolutist (and thus intrinsically lawful) view of Good and Evil, which I find difficult if you're going to have two separate alignment axes.

[willpell]

I will add that in my interpretation, the "Always Evil" descriptors of various races all but go out the window. Orcs, for instance, are generally brutish, foul, stubbornly wrongheaded, and reflexively violent; that all lines up significantly with Evil, and so saying "most orcs are Evil" is accurate. But that doesn't mean being an Orc means being evil; it's a product of their culture and to some extent their instincts, and humans have similar instincts and have been known to form similar cultures. Killing orc noncombatants is no more acceptible than killing the wife and child of a human who is secretly a serial killer; if the character is Good, he will not engage in aggression against an Orc encampment except in the case of a clear and present danger (even then, the forces of Good would really prefer he hunkered down and waited for them to attack first, though sometimes a preemptive strike can be called justifiable, to save a significant number of lives in the event that an unstoppable attack is very likely if you wait). If he does end up charging into an orc warcamp and slaughtering all the males, he is expected to make arrangements for the care of the infants and possibly the females (depending on their attitude toward the destruction of their oppressive "owners"; think Stockholm Syndrome vs geninue, if twisted, spousal loyalty, and at that point the Law/Chaos distinction of the hero is likely to come into play). Either he should teach the tribe's survivors to live in peace, or he should take the innocents back to human lands and try to get them appropriate foster care; he absolutely should not murder orc babies if he expects to keep the Good label, neither directly nor by leaving them to starve with no adult care (and this can extend to their mothers too, depending on whether the females alone can survive if they've never learned to hunt or gather because that was the males' job).

This principle largely extends to all other Evil races, except for Outsiders and some Aberrations and the like (repentant mind flayers, for instance, are possible but absurdly rare, so killing a mind flayer on sight when in the Underdark is usually reasonable self-defense, something Thoqqualm from the BOXD had best keep in mind before she goes back to her old stomping grounds). Goblins are vermin akin to mice and cockroaches, and their marginal intelligence doesn't make it easy to convince them that it's not acceptible to breed into the millions and then steal food from everyone else, but such convincing is possible. The Drow have it especialy bad because the Church of Lolth actively enforces Evil "virtues" throughout their society, but the occasional Drizzt clones are more than flukes; Evil is no more inevitable for them than Good is for Corellonite elves, who are perfectly capable of turning villainous for any of the usual reasons.

Ultimately, taking the chance of letting something live for a few seconds, so that you can determine whether it's Evil or not, is what being good is all about. You don't necessarily have to make sacrifices per se, but at the very least you should trust your gods, your fate, or the general decency of folk, and not actively engage in destructive acts simply to avoid the possibility of risk. Good Is Not Dumb, but Prudence Is Not Paranoia, and encouraging intolerant, quick-fix solutions to potential dangers is very much not how Good rolls - in fact I would usually characterize counseling others to be twitchier and more defensive as a step in the Evil direction, since it encourages viewing life and reality in general as hostile things to be attacked before they can attack you, and that's very much not-Vile Evil's take on things (whereas Vile goes still further into the realm of actively preferring that life become that way, rather than just not being able to escape the belief that it is).


Sorry Yitzi, but I think you're at least partially wrong on this one. A lawful character prefers an orderly system, with a defined command structure, well-established rules, and accepted authority figures. A chaotic person is one who either distrusts or finds distasteful those same things. Not caring what type of action gets the job done seems like it should be the middle ground; i.e. Nuetral.

I agree with all of this, and self-identify as Chaotic IRL because this is my attitude. Chaos is an ethos just as Law is; the lack of any ethos is Neutral (though it's not impossible for Neutral to have an ethos of its own, unrelated to the alignments; in general I assume TN to be far and away the most common alignment and thus to have the most variation within it).


So...say a character is placed into a situation where they can save an entire plane full of innocent people from destruction, but only by killing an innocent child. If they do it, does that mean they are no longer Good?

Ideally they would have taken steps to avoid letting that situation arise, but if it can't be prevented, that would be a case of them having to make a difficult choice. However, in most cases the ethically correct, though pragmatically incorrect, decision is for them not to kill the child, as that would be an evil act they were directly responsible for, while the mass death was caused by something else and they simply did not stop it. There's much drama attached to either version of the choice, and regardless they will almost certainly have atonement to perform (not just the spell, but roleplaying their guilt over their inability to Take a Third Option and neither commit nor permit atrocity). As long as they treat the choice with gravity and do not consider either option automatic (save in cases where it's absurdly obvious, such as if the child is among those who will die if the child is not killed; in that case the justification "for" is pretty ironclad, though they should still be haunted by the memory of it), I'm not likely to ding their alignment too hard.

Now, if they find themselves fantasizing about the situation, realizing that it felt good to have the power of life and death like that, and wishing it would happen again, THAT is getting into act-of-Evil territory. But again, I'm more interested in milking the situation for drama than in slapping the player with a mechanical penalty, unless they just aren't taking it seriously (always a dangerous choice in my games).


If so, you're essentially declaring an absolutist (and thus intrinsically lawful) view of Good and Evil, which I find difficult if you're going to have two separate alignment axes.

I don't know where you get the idea that absolutism is Lawful. There can be absolutist Chaotic beliefs just as easily - the belief that it's better to kill someone than leave him in a cage, regardless of how comfortable the cage is, for example. Good and Evil are objective in D&D land, but they're too complex to be simply stated; even my entire wall of text above only begins to detail the general pattern. (I could seriously write multiple books on the topic.)

[toapat]

*Snip*

There is a Third Option: take the kid to an Illithid Orphanage. Tell them to take care of the kid, then leave, and never, ever look back.

Asto Yitzi: dont even bother, He clearly cant see the flaws in his own perspectives on Alignment, even when i turned his own points against him the same way that Rich continually calls Alignment as Personality stupid, with Belkar.

[Yitzi]

Sorry Yitzi, but I disagree. A lawful character prefers an orderly system, with a defined command structure, well-established rules, and accepted authority figures. A chaotic person is one who either distrusts or finds distasteful those same things.

The way I see it, aversion to something is itself orderly, in that it restricts one's actions. That holds true even if it's aversion to orderly systems.


If you think differently, then please try to describe where you think Neutral should fall when determining chaotic/lawful personalities in your system, because I don't see any place for it.

Neutral is someone who has principles or a code they try to follow, but doesn't think of it in universal ethical terms. e.g. he won't kill innocent people himself even to save more people, but wouldn't go so far as to say that it's wrong for other people to do so.


I will add that in my interpretation, the "Always Evil" descriptors of various races all but go out the window. Orcs, for instance, are generally brutish, foul, stubbornly wrongheaded, and reflexively violent

Even in 3.5, orcs aren't "always evil", just "often CE". "Always evil" alignments are generally reserved for creatures that have evil as part of their essence (e.g. demons and devils) and a few others such as chromatic dragons. For the former, at least, your argument against "always evil" doesn't really apply; for the latter, it would probably depend on the setting.


Killing orc noncombatants is no more acceptible than killing the wife and child of a human who is secretly a serial killer

Definitely true. Of course, whether a CG* character might find it acceptable if the alternative is risking the creation of a vengeance-fueled monster is another question.


if the character is Good, he will not engage in aggression against an Orc encampment except in the case of a clear and present danger

Why must it be clear and present? Why (assuming he's chaotic) can't he do it due to a future or probable danger?


even then, the forces of Good would really prefer he hunkered down and waited for them to attack first

That's silly to a Chaotic worldview; why should it matter who attacks first?


If he does end up charging into an orc warcamp and slaughtering all the males, he is expected to make arrangements for the care of the infants and possibly the females (depending on their attitude toward the destruction of their oppressive "owners"; think Stockholm Syndrome vs geninue, if twisted, spousal loyalty, and at that point the Law/Chaos distinction of the hero is likely to come into play).

"Expected" is really too strong a term for Chaotic characters; I'd say "would almost always find it more beneficial". The concept still holds, though.


Goblins are vermin akin to mice and cockroaches, and their marginal intelligence

Goblins are (at least in 3.5) actually just as smart as humans; it's orcs that are the stupid ones.


Ultimately, taking the chance of letting something live for a few seconds, so that you can determine whether it's Evil or not, is what being good is all about.

That's not how I see it; I'd say that acting on behalf of others rather than just yourself or friends and family is what being good is all about.


Good Is Not Dumb, but Prudence Is Not Paranoia, and encouraging intolerant, quick-fix solutions to potential dangers is very much not how Good rolls

Actually, the alignment most associated with intolerance is Lawful Good. Nonlawful alignments tends not to care so much about what other people do unless it affects someone they care about (and even then it's not so much intolerance as taking action to preserve some interest), whereas Lawful Evil and Lawful Neutral tend to have shorter lists of what they're intolerance of. But a strong sense of right and wrong that applies to any interaction between two people...that leads very easily to intolerance.
And overall, that's probably a good thing, as intolerance of things like murder and theft and fraud are very necessary for society to function well.

Quick-fix solutions aren't associated with any alignment, but rather with a low INT score and a high CHA score (also known as "arrogant idiot".)


in fact I would usually characterize counseling others to be twitchier and more defensive as a step in the Evil direction

Not at all; Evil would rather counsel others to be naive, as they're easier to exploit that way. Counseling other people to be trigger-happy is usually done by good-aligned people who don't think things through.


I agree with all of this, and self-identify as Chaotic IRL because this is my attitude.

It looks like I'm in the minority here; I still feel that my position is a more fundamental distinction.


Chaos is an ethos just as Law is

So "ethical alignment" is a question of which ethos you have, not how much of an ethos you have? If so, why should only Law and Chaos get recognition, and not all the other possible ethoses?


However, in most cases the ethically correct, though pragmatically incorrect, decision is for them not to kill the child

That's what I feel too. However, if they do kill the child, that doesn't mean they're not-Good, merely not-ethical. The ethical alignment is law/chaos, rather than good/evil, so that probably pushes them toward Chaotic but not toward Evil.


I don't know where you get the idea that absolutism is Lawful. There can be absolutist Chaotic beliefs just as easily - the belief that it's better to kill someone than leave him in a cage, regardless of how comfortable the cage is, for example. Good and Evil are objective in D&D land, but they're too complex to be simply stated; even my entire wall of text above only begins to detail the general pattern. (I could seriously write multiple books on the topic.)

Whereas I feel that they should be clearly and simply defined, and let the complexity arise from the complexity of the situation itself.


There is a Third Option: take the kid to an Illithid Orphanage. Tell them to take care of the kid, then leave, and never, ever look back.

Very clever, if saving that world requires merely that the kid die. But if the character himself has to do the deed, with a special ritual, then that won't work and you're stuck with the original case.


the same way that Rich continually calls Alignment as Personality stupid

Of course "alignment=personality" is stupid. Not as stupid, though, as "personality=behavior", which is the only way I can see to claim that Belkar's personality has changed.

, with Belkar.[/QUOTE]

[Deepbluediver]

The way I see it, aversion to something is itself orderly, in that it restricts one's actions. That holds true even if it's aversion to orderly systems.

Neutral is someone who has principles or a code they try to follow, but doesn't think of it in universal ethical terms. e.g. he won't kill innocent people himself even to save more people, but wouldn't go so far as to say that it's wrong for other people to do so.

Ok, whoa. I had to reread the first line a few times to get what you are trying to say, and I think that the distinction in your second paragraph is very subtle (possibly too subtle for most casual players).

It seems like (and correct me if I'm wrong) you are lining things up like this:

Lawful- thinks his standards should be applied to everyone
Neutral- has standards for himself, but not for anyone else
Chaotic- has no standards whatsoever

If I'm getting this right, it looks like you are trying to say that the definition of chaos is that it has no definition. Why that may be a valid philosophical debating-topic, when we talk about a game mechanics it seems like it would be really hard to enforce, and as I mentioned before, in our game world we can define things however we want them to be.

Imagine if a player says something like "I'm a chaotic-aligned individual. I just happen to always pick the exact same solution as the lawful-paladin, but yeah, I'm totally chaotic."
I think at that point you've basically tossed alignment out the window.

I'm not usually one to play to the Lowest Common Denominator, but if you are going to include alignment as an important factor in your games, then I think more description and specifics are better than less.


Actually, the alignment most associated with intolerance is Lawful Good. Nonlawful alignments tends not to care so much about what other people do unless it affects someone they care about (and even then it's not so much intolerance as taking action to preserve some interest), whereas Lawful Evil and Lawful Neutral tend to have shorter lists of what they're intolerance of. But a strong sense of right and wrong that applies to any interaction between two people...that leads very easily to intolerance.
And overall, that's probably a good thing, as intolerance of things like murder and theft and fraud are very necessary for society to function well.

I think it's important to distinguish between intolerance of action and intolerance of other factors, such as race or creed. Mercy, charity, understanding, and forgiveness are qualities strongly associated with good that I think many gamers (on both sides of the table) tend to ignore because they don't lead to as much face-smashing and loot-taking. A racist or bigotted society is not one that I would classify as lawful good.

The player who runs around killing everying that shows up in the Monster Manual as "usually evil" is where we get the lawful-stupid alignment from, and their DM should be calling them out on it.
And yes, I think that the standard adventurer PC model skews HEAVILY towards chaotic neutral (if not outright evil), no matter what is written on their sheet.

[toapat]

Lawful- thinks his standards should be applied to everyone
Neutral- has standards for himself, but not for anyone else
Chaotic- has no standards whatsoever

Even though the PHB 3.0 pretty clearly defines it as:
Lawful: Follows the Law to the Letter
Neutral: Follows their own personal Code
Chaos: Does not Follow the Law, and their Personal Code is a Framework, not a guideline.

while Good through evil is:
Good: Actions that Benefit others
Neutral: Actions that Benefit yourself first.
Evil: Actions that Harm others or yourself in persuit of your own motivations.

which, while in that PHB, its not too well in support of those, can be repaired into an actually Opperable system, that makes sense and has no relyance on the Sanity free logic Yitzi wants of Personality = Alignment

also, Lawful Stupid is based off of the fact that the 3/3.5 paladin code prevents a Paladin from subduing a Theif because of laws against assault, even though a paladin is supposed to be a Good first class.

[willpell]

There is a Third Option: take the kid to an Illithid Orphanage. Tell them to take care of the kid, then leave, and never, ever look back.

Remember, Good, not Dumb. If the character knows what will happen, he's responsible, and if he's too dumb to realize this, his buddies are irresponsible for letting him adventure when he's a danger to himself and others. There continues to be no Good solution to that scenario (though I still maintain that it's absurdly unlikely to occur in the first place.


The way I see it, aversion to something is itself orderly, in that it restricts one's actions. That holds true even if it's aversion to orderly systems.

Well you're probably alone on that one.


Neutral is someone who has principles or a code they try to follow, but doesn't think of it in universal ethical terms. e.g. he won't kill innocent people himself even to save more people, but wouldn't go so far as to say that it's wrong for other people to do so.

Sounds like Lawful Semantic to me....


Even in 3.5, orcs aren't "always evil", just "often CE". "Always evil" alignments are generally reserved for creatures that have evil as part of their essence (e.g. demons and devils) and a few others such as chromatic dragons.

Also every undead creature ever, pretty much. I just made a ghoul PC, and while I did end up making her CE in this case, I think ghouls in general should be TN. They're just scavengers who occasionally aren't above manufacturing a corpse if one cannot be found; they're not any more evil than any other predator. Okay their bite transmits disease, but does that mean dogs are evil because they sometimes cause rabies? The disease won't be likely to kill anyone with a good Fortitude save, and IMO the ghoul isn't in a big hurry to bite anyone anyway most of the time; he just wants to sit on a tombstone and enjoy his meal in peace.


For the former, at least, your argument against "always evil" doesn't really apply; for the latter, it would probably depend on the setting.

Well I was speaking of my setting. I agree that even there, making devils and demons anything but Evil strikes a sour note...but they're still not Stupid Evil, they have very understandable and semi-sympathetic positions, despite their inherently twisted nature.


Why must it be clear and present? Why (assuming he's chaotic) can't he do it due to a future or probable danger?

Chaos isn't big on assuming the future is predictable. Acting on suspicion is far more consistent with a Lawful alignment, which assumes that trends can be counted on not to spontaneously change for no visible reason. The Chaotic person knows there's a nonzero chance that the orc warlord who's been massing his troops for an attack every night for the past three weeks might wake up one night from a dream about fluffy kittens, and decide he doesn't want to attack anymore; the Lawful person counts on the chances of such an occurrence being virtually zero, but the Chaotic one doesn't want to rule out the possibility by taking rash and unnecessary action. He'd rather hold his defensive line and see what happens; if the orcs attack, he'll do whatever it takes to stop them, since he's not bound by codes and principles that limit how hard he can fight back. But if he's Good, he should be more interested in seeing how things play out and hoping against hope for the miracle victory, because that's what the bards's best stories are made of.


That's silly to a Chaotic worldview; why should it matter who attacks first?

This is a Good thing, not a Chaos thing. Unprovoked aggression is never consistent with Good IMO; if the character is on the C side of CG and makes a habit of this, he'll be CN before long.


Goblins are (at least in 3.5) actually just as smart as humans; it's orcs that are the stupid ones.

You're right, I always forget that.


That's not how I see it; I'd say that acting on behalf of others rather than just yourself or friends and family is what being good is all about.

Well I'm basically selfish IRL and I refuse to believe that this means all my good intentions are utterly for naught because the only way to be Good is to martyr yourself. To me that's Lawful thinking: "you are obligated to pay back the world for the gift of your existence". As a self-identified CG, I believe that everyone deserves to have the good life, as nearly as they can without taking it away from someone else. I'll cop to being inconsistent and somewhat irresponsible, but I mean to do the right thing, and my selfishness is not ever about taking away from other people, it's just about knowing myself better than anyone else can possibly know me and thus being a trustworthy authority only on myself, and the only such. I don't accept that my efforts at enlightened self-interest are doomed to fail, or that others have a right to demand of me more than I can reasonably be expected to give, and guilt me for failing to comply with what they have the gall to demand of me. It's my life, I didn't choose to have it, but I'm going to make the most of it as best I can, and try to do right within those parameters. Not Exalted, perhaps, but I think it's good enough to qualify as Good, and make me better than someone who's utterly indifferent to the concerns of others.


Actually, the alignment most associated with intolerance is Lawful Good.

Intolerance = Bigotry; Bigotry =/= Good. Lawful Evil fits best there. This kind of thinking is exactly what produces Lawful Stupid paladins, and it does NOT fly in my gameworld.


So "ethical alignment" is a question of which ethos you have, not how much of an ethos you have? If so, why should only Law and Chaos get recognition, and not all the other possible ethoses?

Mostly due to lack of time. Adding additional alignments is certainly possible, and I've done it (though I wouldn't call them ethical systems), but it means a lot of extra work homebrewing new versions of all the alignment-based things you're otherwise using.


That's what I feel too. However, if they do kill the child, that doesn't mean they're not-Good, merely not-ethical. The ethical alignment is law/chaos, rather than good/evil, so that probably pushes them toward Chaotic but not toward Evil.

Yeah, I just don't buy that this fits a common-sense definition of the word "good".


Very clever, if saving that world requires merely that the kid die. But if the character himself has to do the deed, with a special ritual, then that won't work and you're stuck with the original case.

So why exactly is a Good character performing such a ritual in the first place? This whole scenario just smells to me like a sadistic GM punishing one of his players for trying to roleplay a Good alignment; I don't buy that it could ever actually happen without being specifically engineered for the sole purpose of tormenting a vulnerable conscience.


And yes, I think that the standard adventurer PC model skews HEAVILY towards chaotic neutral (if not outright evil), no matter what is written on their sheet.

Agreed. The "psychotic hobo" paradigm of standard adventuring does not fly in my game, not for very long. Just because the PC is, in actual fact, one of the only people in the universe who matters...does NOT mean he gets to act on that fact in-character. It's called suspension of disbelief; if the gameworld has that little versimilitude you might as well just put your books away and play Doom or Half-Life.

[Yitzi]

and I think that the distinction in your second paragraph is very subtle (possibly too subtle for most casual players).

Wait, the distinction between absolutist ethics and subjectivist or personal ethics (Law/Neutral) is subtle? Or the difference between someone with principles and someone who will do anything for the goal/cause (Neutral/Chaos) is subtle? Those seem pretty blatant to me.


]Lawful- thinks his standards should be applied to everyone
Neutral- has standards for himself, but not for anyone else
Chaotic- has no standards whatsoever

Pretty much.


If I'm getting this right, it looks like you are trying to say that the definition of chaos is that it has no definition.

Not "no definition", just "no standards".

It sounds to me like your hangup is that you're thinking of alignments as ideals or causes, and my interpretation of Chaos doesn't allow for that. I'm thinking of alignments as fundamental ways of thinking (Lawful first asks "is this an acceptable act", Chaos only asks "will this serve my goals", and Neutral has the same scruples as Law but without the absolutist terminology/thought mode. Good asks "is this best for everyone", Evil asks "is this best for me", and Neutral either switches between the two, or takes something in between, or asks "is this best for me and the people I know personally")


when we talk about a game mechanics

Ah, that's the other thing. I see alignment as an RP feature with a few game-mechanical consequences, much like height or weight or hair color are, not as a fundamentally mechanical feature.


Imagine if a player says something like "I'm a chaotic-aligned individual. I just happen to always pick the exact same solution as the lawful-paladin, but yeah, I'm totally chaotic.

Maybe he believes that it's best if people think he has scruples, even if he doesn't. Then when one of the cases comes up that distinguishes between LG and CG (e.g. kill one innocent to save a million, and nobody will know), he'll decide how he actually wants to play his character.

Remember, Belkar is currently picking the same courses of action as at least True Neutral, but (unless there's been some changes we haven't seen) he's still CE in how he actually thinks.

I think at that point you've basically tossed alignment out the window.


but if you are going to include alignment as an important factor in your games, then I think more description and specifics are better than less.

I feel that more description and specifics increases the danger that someone will slip through the cracks, and makes things more contrived. Well-designed definitions can often capture the essence of something with a relatively small amount of description and specifics.


I think it's important to distinguish between intolerance of action and intolerance or other factors, such as race or creed.

Intolerance of race is almost always used as an excuse for other things, and as such tends to be Evil (often Chaotic Evil). Intolerance of creed can be like intolerance of race, or it can be a form of intolerance of action. After all, intolerance of the creed of the church of Erythnul probably is quite common among Good characters.

But yes, bigotry is almost never Good-aligned, and usually shows up among the Evil-aligned.


And yes, I think that the standard adventurer PC model skews HEAVILY towards chaotic neutral (if not outright evil), no matter what is written on their sheet.

That's really just the munchkin model; I wouldn't go so far as to call it the "standard" adventurer PC model (well, not in true RPGs; MMOs may be different).


Even though the PHB 3.0 pretty clearly defines it as:
Lawful: Follows the Law to the Letter
Neutral: Follows their own personal Code
Chaos: Does not Follow the Law, and their Personal Code is a Framework, not a guideline.

while Good through evil is:
Good: Actions that Benefit others
Neutral: Actions that Benefit yourself first.
Evil: Actions that Harm others or yourself in persuit of your own motivations.

If the PHB 3.0 does in fact say that (a quote would be nice), then I concede that my views on alignment are very much against the PHB 3.0. Of course, the PHB 3.5 is also against the PHB 3.0, though not as far as I take it.


Yitzi wants of Personality = Alignment

How many times do I have to say that I'm not claiming personality=alignment before you stop claiming that I am?


Remember, Good, not Dumb. If the character knows what will happen, he's responsible, and if he's too dumb to realize this, his buddies are irresponsible for letting him adventure when he's a danger to himself and others.

I think toapat was saying that it's a way to get the kid killed (and thus save a whole plane) without having to do it himself.


though I still maintain that it's absurdly unlikely to occur in the first place.

Probably; I was going for a case where there's a clear distinction, not for a likely case.


Sounds like Lawful Semantic to me....

There is a semantic element to Lawful, but that represents an actual way of looking at things. Those who don't understand it (because they're not lawful) often dismiss it as semantics.


Also every undead creature ever, pretty much. I just made a ghoul PC, and while I did end up making her CE in this case, I think ghouls in general should be TN.

I think the idea is supposed to be "undead=negative energy=destruction=bad=evil". I don't consider it particularly strong, but see below in the particular case of ghouls.


They're just scavengers who occasionally aren't above manufacturing a corpse if one cannot be found; they're not any more evil than any other predator.

Any intelligent predator that feeds on other intelligent beings is probably going to be CE-aligned.


Well I was speaking of my setting. I agree that even there, making devils and demons anything but Evil strikes a sour note...but they're still not Stupid Evil, they have very understandable and semi-sympathetic positions, despite their inherently twisted nature.

Indeed; in what I'm planning, demons and devils don't care about anyone other than themselves, but they still can form a society if it's in their own best interests (or, in the case of devils, if someone more powerful than them tells them to. You see, to a devil's way of thinking, obedience to those more powerful than yourself is not merely a good idea, but is fundamentally the right thing to do.)


Chaos isn't big on assuming the future is predictable. Acting on suspicion is far more consistent with a Lawful alignment, which assumes that trends can be counted on not to spontaneously change for no visible reason. The Chaotic person knows there's a nonzero chance that the orc warlord who's been massing his troops for an attack every night for the past three weeks might wake up one night from a dream about fluffy kittens, and decide he doesn't want to attack anymore; the Lawful person counts on the chances of such an occurrence being virtually zero, but the Chaotic one doesn't want to rule out the possibility by taking rash and unnecessary action.

I'd say they're both equally aware of the chances of things changing; the difference is that the Lawful person isn't willing to take a chance of killing an innocent person if he can help it, whereas the Chaotic person doesn't subscribe to notions such as innocence or guilt. As I see it, pure CG is pure utilitarianism.


But if he's Good, he should be more interested in seeing how things play out and hoping against hope for the miracle victory

I'd classify that under "stupid Good".


This is a Good thing, not a Chaos thing. Unprovoked aggression is never consistent with Good IMO

I don't see why not, if he's doing it for the benefit of the whole. I think you're unconsciously following the "moral=ethical" concept that Western civilization tends to support; the whole point of having two axes is to recognize that that's not quite true.


Well I'm basically selfish IRL and I refuse to believe that this means all my good intentions are utterly for naught because the only way to be Good is to martyr yourself.

If your intentions are good, how are you selfish? I don't see how that works.


To me that's Lawful thinking: "you are obligated to pay back the world for the gift of your existence".

That is a type of Lawful thinking. Chaotic isn't going to say something like that, but might say "I find that I want people overall to be happy and well-off, so I act to make that happen."


As a self-identified CG, I believe that everyone deserves to have the good life, as nearly as they can without taking it away from someone else.

I'd classify that as Lawful; if everyone deserves to have the good life, that means that depriving someone of such is wrong and should be prevented by law.


but I mean to do the right thing, and my selfishness is not ever about taking away from other people, it's just about knowing myself better than anyone else can possibly know me and thus being a trustworthy authority only on myself, and the only such.

How selfish are you really? If you saw someone starving, would you buy them a loaf of bread? (Possible answers include, but are not necessarily limited to, "yes", "no", "depends how I'm feeling that day", and "depends if I know them personally".) What if they weren't starving, but quite clearly could use your spare change, and you could afford it?


Intolerance = Bigotry

False. Bigotry is a type of intolerance, but you can also have intolerance of actions or creeds, which depends on the nature of the action or creed.


Mostly due to lack of time. Adding additional alignments is certainly possible, and I've done it (though I wouldn't call them ethical systems), but it means a lot of extra work homebrewing new versions of all the alignment-based things you're otherwise using.

It also means added complexity.

But I see your position; it looks like we fundamentally disagree on what alignment should mean.


Yeah, I just don't buy that this fits a common-sense definition of the word "good".

They did something for the benefit of people they've never even met. How is that not "good"? (Also, be wary of relying too much on common sense, as common sense is often internally inconsistent when looked at as a whole. It's a good starting point, but be ready to abandon it when you have better evidence.)


So why exactly is a Good character performing such a ritual in the first place?

In order to save an entire plane.


This whole scenario just smells to me like a sadistic GM punishing one of his players for trying to roleplay a Good alignment; I don't buy that it could ever actually happen without being specifically engineered for the sole purpose of tormenting a vulnerable conscience.

Of course it could happen in a non-GM-ed world, it just isn't very likely. But that sort of scenario is often what really tells the difference between different approaches to things.


Agreed. The "psychotic hobo" paradigm of standard adventuring does not fly in my game, not for very long.

I'd say let them do it, but mark them as CE or CN (depending on whether they also help people), and let the natural consequences catch up to them. Much better for Suspension of Disbelief than a heavy DM hand. :smallsmile:


Just because the PC is, in actual fact, one of the only people in the universe who matters

I wouldn't even say that he is. He doesn't matter either in an out-of-character context; only his player does.


It's called suspension of disbelief; if the gameworld has that little versimilitude you might as well just put your books away and play Doom or Half-Life.

Indeed.

[Network]

Just as a mention, Chaotic Evil =/= For the Evulz. Chaotic Evil is not necessarily worse than evil. They just happen to do anything they may think of, AND to be evil. True Hedonists are CN, and True Evil People are NE.


No, that's a CE act with NG consequences. The act of theft for self-benefit due to not caring about ethics is inherently CE, regardless of its consequences.
No, that's a CN act with LN consequences. This has definitely nothing to do with evil. If it help the armour industry, and thus improve the system, it's lawful and not evil (who said the system was good, in the first place?).

Even in 3.5, orcs aren't "always evil", just "often CE". "Always evil" alignments are generally reserved for creatures that have evil as part of their essence (e.g. demons and devils) and a few others such as chromatic dragons. For the former, at least, your argument against "always evil" doesn't really apply; for the latter, it would probably depend on the setting.
It's wrong. For made of evil people, it depend on the setting. For beings that happen to be always evil, such as dragons, the argument is fully valid. To my knowledge, only two official races came with absolute alignments (the Lingworm, which are never Lawful nor Good, and the Unholy Scion, which are never anything else than Evil). Even then, there are a few powerful spells that can change the alignment of almost anything, such as Compel or Mind Rape. They are Mind-Affecting, but have no other limitation. Still, this mean there can be good onis in Rokugan!

The way I see it, aversion to something is itself orderly, in that it restricts one's actions. That holds true even if it's aversion to orderly systems.
You're still alone on this.

Very clever, if saving that world requires merely that the kid die. But if the character himself has to do the deed, with a special ritual, then that won't work and you're stuck with the original case.
If you have to kill a child, this mean a prophecy is announcing the child will bring fiends to the ''famous'' other plane. In this case, you typically doesn't have to follow a specific ritual. Or the child is possessed by a fiend, you have to exorcise him, and then he lives. Or the child is an Unholy Scion, and you just have to cast Impotent Possessor. The fiend can't do anything, and because it is the soul of the child, the threat is entirely neutralised and comatose. Until it die, but Suspended Animation may do the job.

Any intelligent predator that feeds on other intelligent beings is probably going to be CE-aligned.
Evil yes, but not necessarily chaotic. Take any of the LE dragons, for example.

[Yitzi]

Just as a mention, Chaotic Evil =/= For the Evulz. Chaotic Evil is not necessarily worse than evil. They just happen to do anything they may think of, AND to be evil. True Hedonists are CN

I'd disagree; CN cares at least somewhat about other people. True Hedonists, who don't care at all about other people, are CN by my standards.


and True Evil People are NE.

On this, I'd agree. CE isn't going to do evil if doing good is more beneficial to them under those circumstances.


No, that's a CN act with LN consequences. This has definitely nothing to do with evil.

He's taking from others for his own gain. I suppose that it could be CN, if he wouldn't do the same if circumstances were different (if the lord couldn't afford it, or were a family member).


If it help the armour industry, and thus improve the system, it's lawful and not evil (who said the system was good, in the first place?).

On the other hand, he is helping other people economically. How do you think the effect is lawful?


If you have to kill a child, this mean a prophecy is announcing the child will bring fiends to the ''famous'' other plane. In this case, you typically doesn't have to follow a specific ritual. Or the child is possessed by a fiend, you have to exorcise him, and then he lives. Or the child is an Unholy Scion, and you just have to cast Impotent Possessor. The fiend can't do anything, and because it is the soul of the child, the threat is entirely neutralised and comatose. Until it die, but Suspended Animation may do the job.

Those are some possible situations, not the only ones.


Evil yes, but not necessarily chaotic. Take any of the LE dragons, for example.

True.

[Network]

On the other hand, he is helping other people economically. How do you think the effect is lawful?
If Good is about helping other people, then Law is about working to make the system work. A good character will aid people in need. A lawful character will aid the system (or those that possess the system, as the case may be).

Typical paladins come from a paladin order, don't they? They obey to the head of the order, and this is where their lawful alignment come from. They are good because these orders are about helping other people. The chaotic paladins aren't part of an order, while the evil ones are members of an evil order (obviously). Of course, we then have to explain where their divine powers come from. From the orders, the gods, or something else entirely? This probably vary with the setting, though.

Sometime the order will be an Omniscient Council of Vagueness, such as with druids. These kind of disorganized orders, whose membership means basically nothing, are on the Neutral scale of the Law/Chaos axis.

I'd disagree; CN cares at least somewhat about other people. True Hedonists, who don't care at all about other people, are CN by my standards.
The Dungeon Master Guide, talking about the True Neutral governments, says they allow their people to do by themselves. It explains they are so buzzy working for their own interests they don't care that much about citizens. This would be taken to the logical extreme with CN governments, if their power was anything else than honorific. I just realise this, but true hedonistics may as well be Chaotic Good or Chaotic Evil ; this just depend of what they enjoy (torture? charity? sex? A combination of the three?).

[toapat]

I just realise this, but true hedonistics may as well be Chaotic Good or Chaotic Evil ; this just depend of what they enjoy (torture? charity? sex? A combination of the three?).

Ill run with the Dark Eldar (Hard core CE faction) for this:

The Dark Eldar torture, fight, love, steal, mutilate, donate, and pretty much do anything for pleasure. they are the most terrifying faction after the Tyrannids because they will do anything to those they fight, and even worse to those they capture. They fit both the hard definitions of CE and of True Hedonistic.

I think it really depends on how far you define Evil as going past Trying to get what you want regardless of consequences, which in the original printings of the 3rd* ed books, Evil was destructive through desire. (OtoH, the book doesnt actually follow the definitions it builds out.)

either way, dont bother, Yitzi has his (Completely wrong) Beliefs about alignment that no matter how many times you break his arguments in half, will he change.

*I reference this book for alignment because it was the original source for Alignment in 3/3.5, and as thus, can be considered the most accurate because of least number of revisions.

[willpell]

The general impression I am getting here, Yitzi, is that you define Law and Chaos (in the case of a Good character at least) as a measure of how committed you are to your definition of Good; the Chaotic Good has no particular plan for defending Good, he just kinda wings it, while the Lawful has an ironclad definition and defines as Evil anything that deviates from his own standards. Leaving aside the idiocy of the latter position (not yours, but the character's), there is one serious problem with this approach: it is completely RAW-legal to create a Cleric of Chaos Itself, which makes no sense if Chaos is nothing more than a methodology for implementing other ideals. It must be an ideal in and of itself in order for a character to be able to draw divine power from it, and Law must be a diametrically opposed other ideal which is similarly independent from Good or lack thereof.

Your method essentially arranges the alignments into a line - Lawful Good is "more good" than Chaotic Good, which is "more good" than True Neutral, which is "more good" than Lawful Evil, which is "more good" than Chaotic Evil (it's a little harder to arbitrate where the two Something Neutral alignments fall in the sequence, whether LN is "better" than CG or the reverse). I dislike this approach, and it fits poorly with the number of game mechanics which make Law and Chaos exactly as prominent as Good and Evil, though there are admittedly other mechanics which do support your version (the Magic Circle spells are an example of the former, while Turn/Rebuke Undead is one of the latter). In general, I don't want Alignment to be a "score" which is tracked on a single continuum; I want something complex and multidimensional which models the vagaries of people's ethical standards, the way one person would kill a hundred strangers to save one person they care about, while another signs a piece of paper to condemn a personal friend to death out of duty to society, and still another crusades to end the death penalty and then wants to end all crime by brainwashing people to happily obey the law, etc. etc. etc. I don't want a system which fails to account for all these interesting possibilities.


It sounds to me like your hangup is that you're thinking of alignments as ideals or causes, and my interpretation of Chaos doesn't allow for that. I'm thinking of alignments as fundamental ways of thinking (Lawful first asks "is this an acceptable act", Chaos only asks "will this serve my goals", and Neutral has the same scruples as Law but without the absolutist terminology/thought mode. Good asks "is this best for everyone", Evil asks "is this best for me", and Neutral either switches between the two, or takes something in between, or asks "is this best for me and the people I know personally")

Well, this is all you. I pretty much don't agree with any of it, and the only part I see corresponding to RAW is the BOXD/BOVD-style definitions of good and evil, which much of the community (rightly IMO) disparages anyway.


Ah, that's the other thing. I see alignment as an RP feature with a few game-mechanical consequences, much like height or weight or hair color are, not as a fundamentally mechanical feature.

There are entire classes revolving completely around alignment (Cleric, Incarnate, Paladin and Blackguard at the very least), so that really doesn't hold water.


Well-designed definitions can often capture the essence of something with a relatively small amount of description and specifics.

Well the Legion of Lawful Stupid Paladins pretty clearly demonstrates that alignment isn't one of those.


After all, intolerance of the creed of the church of Erythnul probably is quite common among Good characters.

I wouldn't say that. They argue against that creed, certainly, but do they murder everyone who holds to those beliefs, even if they never act on them? (Okay, they kinda do, but only out of player munchkinism and/or paranoia about what'll happen if they let their guard down; it's still not behavior I would accept as Good.)


That's really just the munchkin model; I wouldn't go so far as to call it the "standard" adventurer PC model (well, not in true RPGs; MMOs may be different).

Well it's certainly not *good* adventurer behavior, but it is the stereotype, and most players cleave to it more than they'd like to admit, especially in D&D where it's pretty much built into the rules. There's an entire table telling you how much experience to award for killing a monster, and several tables for taking its loot; RP awards have to be ad-hocked, with no guidelines whatsoever.


I think toapat was saying that it's a way to get the kid killed (and thus save a whole plane) without having to do it himself.

The character still killed the kid, using the illithids as a murder weapon. Not personally delivering the blow doesn't exempt him from responsibility.


There is a semantic element to Lawful, but that represents an actual way of looking at things. Those who don't understand it (because they're not lawful) often dismiss it as semantics.

Uh, yeah, sure, whatever you say.


I think the idea is supposed to be "undead=negative energy=destruction=bad=evil".

Or at least "unnatural" since living things don't normally use neg-energy. But I disagree to a fair extent with the logic in both cases. While I have a hard time accepting Good undead, I certainly think Neutrality is acceptible in all but a handful of cases (wights and probably mohrgs come to mind, along with the standard D&D vampire, though I don't use those). Mummies, ghouls, liches - all come across as having said "no" to death, but not necessarily as recreational baby-eaters.


Any intelligent predator that feeds on other intelligent beings is probably going to be CE-aligned.

But a ghoul doesn't have to feed on intelligent beings; it can just dig up corpses and eat those. Granted resurrection is possible, but it's not commonplace, so in most cases necrophagia isn't an especially harmful act; I see the ghoul as being no more inherently evil than a maggot or vulture in this regard. They're just recycling.


I'd say they're both equally aware of the chances of things changing; the difference is that the Lawful person isn't willing to take a chance of killing an innocent person if he can help it, whereas the Chaotic person doesn't subscribe to notions such as innocence or guilt. As I see it, pure CG is pure utilitarianism.

Well I profoundly disagree. Chaotic Good doesn't necessarily reject notions like innocence or guilt, it simply feels that its own subjective opinion of what those terms mean is more trustworthy than the majority definition.


I'd classify that under "stupid Good".

This is a world where there is a nonzero possibility that a random Solar will wander by, notice your problem, and miraculously fix it with a wave of his hand. Even if the odds of such happenings are long, the possibility indicates that it is inherently less reasonable to say "screw this, I'm killing you now just in case I'll wish I had later" than in our own world, where divining the future, casting Detect Evil, praying for divine intervention and so forth are not (verifiably and reliably) possible.


I think you're unconsciously following the "moral=ethical" concept that Western civilization tends to support; the whole point of having two axes is to recognize that that's not quite true.

This is one of the few points you've made which I somewhat agree with. Still, I'm a Westerner so I don't really know how to purge that way of thought from my mind; I figure I might as well make the best of it rather than try to change it.


If your intentions are good, how are you selfish? I don't see how that works.

This part I'll have to come back to when I have a lot more time.

[Yitzi]

If Good is about helping other people, then Law is about working to make the system work.

That works according to the alignments-as-ideals approach, but not the alignments-as-ways-of-thinking approach that I find superior.


Typical paladins come from a paladin order, don't they? They obey to the head of the order, and this is where their lawful alignment come from. They are good because these orders are about helping other people. The chaotic paladins aren't part of an order, while the evil ones are members of an evil order (obviously). Of course, we then have to explain where their divine powers come from. From the orders, the gods, or something else entirely? This probably vary with the setting, though.

It would vary wildly on the setting.


The Dungeon Master Guide, talking about the True Neutral governments, says they allow their people to do by themselves. It explains they are so buzzy working for their own interests they don't care that much about citizens.

Not quite; it says that True Neutral power centers tend to keep to their own goals and not bother the populace. In other words, they don't act as governments (this seems to be true of all the nonlawful power centers, which may be why there is a tendency in power center alignment toward law).


I just realise this, but true hedonistics may as well be Chaotic Good or Chaotic Evil ; this just depend of what they enjoy (torture? charity? sex? A combination of the three?).

Yeah, true hedonists who enjoy helping others will generally be CG. I'd say that those who enjoy something neutral (say, good food), but are willing to hurt others a lot to get a little for themselves, are still CE.


either way, dont bother, Yitzi has his (Completely wrong) Beliefs about alignment that no matter how many times you break his arguments in half, will he change.

Actually, I have conceded the law/chaos alignment when it comes to D&D RAW (just not how I think it should be), and I also conceded that RAW actions have a significant effect. So I do change my position somewhat, just not in response to the sort of non-argument you've been putting forward.


*I reference this book for alignment because it was the original source for Alignment in 3/3.5, and as thus, can be considered the most accurate because of least number of revisions.

Accurate to what? It's more accurate about 3.0, but less accurate about 3.5 than the 3.5 PHB is.

[toapat]

Accurate to what?

The intentions of the original Author of the Alignments section. Being Edited at least twice means the 3.5 version is not as accurate.

[Yitzi]

The intentions of the original Author of the Alignments section. Being Edited at least twice means the 3.5 version is not as accurate.

In the original intent of the original author of the alignments section, things were as in original D&D (or as early as alignments existed), which IIRC had only Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic. Are you really claiming that that's relevant?

[toapat]

In the original intent of the original author of the alignments section, things were as in original D&D (or as early as alignments existed), which IIRC had only Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic. Are you really claiming that that's relevant?

the original author of 3rd eds alignment system.

[Yitzi]

the original author of 3rd eds alignment system.


Why stop there? If you're going to ignore 1st and 2nd edition to look at 3rd, why not ignore 3.0 to look at 3.5?

[toapat]

Why stop there? If you're going to ignore 1st and 2nd edition to look at 3rd, why not ignore 3.0 to look at 3.5?

because Dawizard is a great evil

[willpell]

Evil yes, but not necessarily chaotic. Take any of the LE dragons, for example.

Kind of a bad example, as there's nothing terribly lawful-seeming about Green dragons (apart from the bit in Dragon Magic where they signed a pact with the elves, and that came out of left field relative to their Monster Manual description where they just pick fights all the time to prove how tough they are, which is not especially lawful behavior). Blues aren't much better either, but I'm less clear on them in the first place. In my game I made the green dragon NE, since I don't especially see why dragons can't ever be neutral, and the green lives in forests, and forests are associated with nature, and nature is associated with neutrality.

[Yitzi]

because Dawizard is a great evil

Huh? That doesn't even make sense.

Are you intentionally trolling by making nonsensical arguments?



That said, I've thought the matter over some more, and come to the following conclusion:
There are two approaches to alignment (well, three, but the third is a bit more esoteric and not really relevant here.) One, which I'll call "psychological alignment" deals with an individual's psychology. It has a moral axis of selfish/altruistic (mainly motivation-based), and an ethical axis of ethical (right-and-wrong-focused)/pragmatic. It's more useful for describing characters, and is what I was claiming.
The other approach is what I'll call "ideological alignment". It has one axis (which can be called "moral" only by a stretch) of benevolent/malevolent (mainly action-based), and another axis (which really can't be justifiably called "ethical" at all) of orderly/chaotic. It is more useful for describing the Great Wheel or similar things.

The PHB 3.5 uses terms ("ethical alignment", "moral alignment") and placement (in the description section) more suited to psychological alignment, but the actual description seems to be more in line with ideological alignment. Thus, I was wrong and the people arguing with me were right, but my mistake was due to the fact that the PHB itself was sending mixed messages.

[willpell]

I'm curious what that third one was, if you can discuss it without breaking the TOS. The distinction you make is a pretty good one, though I go more to the ideological end in my game, very much on purpose - to me, the cosmic force of Good aren't doing their job if they aren't enforcing a worthwhile definition of Good on the behavior of anyone that wants to draw upon them for power. If you have no connection to any divine forces, you can probably call yourself True Neutral and just disregard the alignment system without much trouble, but if you do have connection to divine forces, IMO you shouldn't be able to keep powers that are derived from the literal manifestation of all that is Good if your behavior is at best technically within Good's boundaries. Others may want their game to give the player the freedom to keep his paladin powers while slaughtering orcs on sight, and that's a valid choice, if the point of the game is to have fun making easy decisions and generally be a beer-and-pretzels experience; nothing wrong with any of that. But it's not how I want to play, and definitely not how I want to worldbuild and then run the resulting creation. If that means I have few or no players, so be it; my masterpiece will stay in the box, pristine in its moral perfection, until someone comes along who appreciates it as-is and wants to play within those parameters.

[toapat]

Huh? That doesn't even make sense.

Are you intentionally trolling by making nonsensical arguments?

DaWizard is a story of an actual overzealous Editor who in editing one of the 2nd ed rulebooks at TSR (whatever the 2nd ed version of MIC is) who, in word, selected " Mage" to be replaced with "Wizard". This mistake made it all the way through publishing and lost the guy their job.

basically, Dawizard means a stupid and overzealous editor not reading what they did.

this event is also the entire reason why the Wizard is named such in 3rd and onwards

[willpell]

Ah, so it replaced "mage" even in words like "damage", I see. Do you happen to have the editor's name? Poor guy; obviously a serious error, but it's not like it was totally his fault, if nobody else could manage to catch it before the thing went to print, and it's got to sting to have lost your job to such a dumb goof which anybody could have made

[Yitzi]

I'm curious what that third one was, if you can discuss it without breaking the TOS.

The third is more appropriate to determining the "alignment" of a natural or societal force. The two axes there are cooperation/competition and amplifying/dampening (i.e. whether it tends to amplify changes or dampen them). So, for instance, the economy as a whole is cooperative/amplifying, but Keynesian economic policy (where the government acts to dampen the business cycle) is cooperative/dampening. Evolutionary effects tend to be competitive/amplifying, and revolutions are competitive/dampening.


The distinction you make is a pretty good one, though I go more to the ideological end in my game, very much on purpose - to me, the cosmic force of Good aren't doing their job if they aren't enforcing a worthwhile definition of Good on the behavior of anyone that wants to draw upon them for power.

The ideological end is definitely far better for describing cosmic forces of alignment, though the psychological approach is better for describing people.

Interesting point: You can have any combination between the ideological and psychological "good/evil" axes. Selfish/benevolent is easy (enlightened self-interest.) Altruistic/malevolent is quite a bit harder, but can happen in the case of a devoted servant of a malevolent being (say, a demon god who wants to destroy reality), who puts even complete strangers ahead of or comparable to himself (and so is altruistic), but puts that malevolent being's goals ahead of everything else (and so ends up being malevolent overall.)


Others may want their game to give the player the freedom to keep his paladin powers while slaughtering orcs on sight

Actually, the question of whether to allow that depends not so much on the psychological/ideological distinction, but rather on how you interpret the alignments within whichever one you choose. (I'd actually say that it's easier to have "slaughtering orcs on sight could be LG" in the ideological approach than the psychological approach, as for the psychological approach the lawful aspect almost always means that you end up having to worry about whether they deserve it, whereas for the ideological approach you might be able to argue pragmatism even for LG.)


and that's a valid choice, if the point of the game is to have fun making easy decisions and generally be a beer-and-pretzels experience; nothing wrong with any of that. But it's not how I want to play, and definitely not how I want to worldbuild and then run the resulting creation. If that means I have few or no players, so be it; my masterpiece will stay in the box, pristine in its moral perfection, until someone comes along who appreciates it as-is and wants to play within those parameters.

Agreed on the general approach; IMO, MMOs or MMO-like tabletop games are far superior for the beer-and-pretzels experience than something like D&D 3.5 or earlier.