Alignment Demographics

[Spore]

So basically the jist of this discussion between my friends and me is:

How would alignment be distributed in the populace? I am going for a 90% neutral (on all axes) with the rest filled by more dedicated people. The average joe isn't good or evil nor has the capability or motivation to fully dedicate himself to selflessness or selfishness. On the same boat, people follow rules and codes but sometimes just plain out ignore those rules when it suits them. Even fewer outright avoid a strict life style.

My friends however go for a more or less mixed approach. A lawful good dock worker is just as common as the neutral merchant on the cornershop and the chaotic evil barmaiden. While this lessens the impact of another problem I have with some alignment targetting spells (Holy Word outright KILLS any non-good 1 HD by-standers, even if the caster wouldn't want that) this somewhat makes a LG Paladin or a CE Cleric less impactful.

Righteousness and Pureness of heart then is merely a backstory fact rather than a seldomly met prerequisite of Paladins. Volatile minds who do evil because it aids them greatly are not that special anymore when the barmaid would do the same given the power.

What is your stance on alignment demographics?

[Florian]

Regular Joes are completelly unanligned (No, not even TN). They're not the Big Players, they don't do anything that counts, so they don't align to anything.

[AvatarVecna]

Kinda depends on how you view alignment, I guess.

I'd probably say that maybe a slight majority (or something close to a slight majority) are True Neutral for various reasons (not having beliefs strong enough to warrant a full shift to anything); at best, some of them might lean towards one of the four points slightly, but not enough to become Neutral Something. Let's say that's about 52% of the population.

Next, the people who feel strongly enough about a thing to fully shift to it (LN, CN, NG, NE); each one has about...let's say 10% of the population.

Finally, the real extremists (LG, CG, LE, CE); a very vocal minority. 2% each, nice and simple.

That's my vague outlines, assuming a race that varies across the alignment spectrum with a preference towards neutrality. Obviously, a race with no particular leanings at all will be boringly 11.1111% for every individual alignment, but...eh, that's not very interesting. Also obvious: the vague statistics I've pulled out of my butt and posted above are pretty meaningless for a race with a non-neutral lean.

[Spore]

Finally, the real extremists (LG, CG, LE, CE); a very vocal minority. 2% each, nice and simple.

Side question: Nations or cities in D&D are often given an alignment or several (such as Amn NG LN and LE). What people does this specify for? Similarly we have a LE nation (ruled by devil worshippers) and I really could see the DM saying: "Default alignment is LE because bog standard people abiding to the tyrannical view are pushed into cruelty and a strict corset of laws".

[AvatarVecna]

Side question: Nations or cities in D&D are often given an alignment or several (such as Amn NG LN and LE). What people does this specify for? Similarly we have a LE nation (ruled by devil worshippers) and I really could see the DM saying: "Default alignment is LE because bog standard people abiding to the tyrannical view are pushed into cruelty and a strict corset of laws".

All of my example numbers are for a hypothetical society large enough for statistics to be the best measurement of average alignment, rather than a head count or something similar; said hypothetical society as a whole leans towards neutral. If a particular town leans differently, the numbers would need to be changed to better reflect that. Again, I mostly just pulled those numbers from nowhere based on what felt kinda right to me, but please don't take them as gospel: I am not a population scientist, I don't even know the proper title for such a person. Statistician, maybe?

[Darth Ultron]

It will be mixed, depending on the population, of course.

You would just about never find a place of ''all neutral people''. People don't work that way. That is the one sided modern view of things.


A typical, classic small town would be mostly made up of good people. Lawful good would be about half the people in town, with neutral good and chaotic good close behind. Neutral good would also very well represented. Then you'd have the roughly 20% of evil people, lawful evil being the most common and with neutral evil a bit behind that. Chaotic evil and chaotic neutral people would be quite rare, as would true neutral people.

A typical, classic city is a bit different. Urban life means there is much less good, and a lot more evil. Lawful evil is the most common type of person here, as a lot of people fall for the allure of using power/laws/traditions/rules to do evil acts. Lawful neutral and neutral good come next, as there are plenty of ''normal good people at heart'' that just get caught up in the evils of the urban lifestyle. Then you'd get the roughly 20% of lawful good people. Then you'd get a mix of the rest, with chaotic good being notable as rare.

Though the above only describes two ''typical classic'' places, there would be others.

For example, a typical elven city would be just about all chaotic good, with just about no evil at all. The same way a typical dwarf city would be very lawful and good. And a typical ''lawless pirate port city'' would have a lot more chaotic evil people in it.

[Aetol]

Regular Joes are completelly unanligned (No, not even TN). They're not the Big Players, they don't do anything that counts, so they don't align to anything.

First, this assumes that Neutral does not mean "does not care one way or another", but specifically "dedicated to balance" (which is stupid, if you ask me). "Unaligned" is in fact generally taken to mean "could not possibly have an alignment".

Second, this assumes that alignment mean dedication to something. I don't think that would work in real life. A lot of people are nicest, meanest, more disciplined, more unruly than average : are they still TN or "unaligned" ? I don't think so. Someone who is overly empathic and doesn't like to let others suffer would be Good ; someone who lacks compunctions against hurting others would be Evil.

The answer really depends on how we define the alignments. But IMO, if we want the "alignments in real life" question to mean something, we can't limit the non-neutral alignments to the most extreme, borderline cases.

More to the point : I think there would be more Good people than Evil people, and more Lawful people than Chaotic people. Because we as a species are geared toward altruism and socialization.

[hamishspence]

I think there would be more Good people than Evil people, and more Lawful people than Chaotic people. Because we as a species are geared toward altruism and socialization.

This article:

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20041122a

suggests that:

"In a crowd of ten commoners, odds are good that three will be evil"

The DMG suggests that community power centres are more likely to be Good than Evil:


DMG (p136):
Community power centres:
41% Good, 23% Neutral, 36% Evil

And for Urban center (anything bigger than Small Town) community alignment (this is the overall outlook of the community taken as a whole) - Cityscape suggests the generic community is slightly more likely to be Good than Evil.

Cityscape (p8)
36% Good, 33% Neutral, 31% Evil

(It also suggests that about 65% of large communities have a community alignment of Lawful).

[Darth Ultron]

Side question: Nations or cities in D&D are often given an alignment or several (such as Amn NG LN and LE). What people does this specify for? Similarly we have a LE nation (ruled by devil worshippers) and I really could see the DM saying: "Default alignment is LE because bog standard people abiding to the tyrannical view are pushed into cruelty and a strict corset of laws".

It describes the general alignment views of the majority of the people, in order of the most common. Though you need to keep in mind every place is diffrent.

Amn for example a basically good nation where most people do the best good they can do and or follows law and order, with the typical evil (greedy) side. So many Amite merchants are good, honest and fair, but not all of them. Many believe in ''let the buyer beware'' type sales and some even go for outright lies, cheating and worse.

Though beware going by the books too much. A lot of places have Alignment N for ''we did not bother to look up anything about this place so we will just put N'' or Alignment All for ''this place is so awesome and popular that it is just like the cool modern world, but with dragons and magic''.



The DMG suggests that community power centres are more likely to be Good than Evil:


And again, beware going by what ''they'' say. Sadly a lot of things like this crept into D&D starting with 3E, where a writer put their own personal bias and beliefs down as a ''rule'' for the D&D universe. This is the modern gray: everyone who lives in a community is mostly good because they live in a community. It makes no sense in reality or the game world.

Even more so the game world, as the game world by the very definition of it being a game needs foes to oppose the player characters. In short ''someone must be evil''.

And the game world is full of ''evil foes'' in the more role play fluff, so why not add that into the rules? It would have been far better to say something more like ''A community power center can be of any alignment''. As that is true. After all a typical game world does include a lot of ''evil foes'' in the form of evil empires and places. So, all the ''communities of evil'' must just be some exception to the silly ''we and them are all good'' rule? But how many ''exceptions'' does it take to go from ''an exception'' to ''one of two ways'' or ''many ways''?

[hamishspence]

Considering that this is the "random number generator" figures - and that the difference in percentage between Good and Evil is small - it still allows quite will for a large number of "Evil communities" or "Evil power centers" - it's just that the good ones slightly outnumber them.

[Quertus]

Well, D&D evil is defined by delighting in / causing the suffering of others. So it's pretty safe to classify most children and all bullies (regardless of age) as evil. Most cultures Will oppose new rules, technologies, etc that go against their culture, so most people are chaotic.

Common wisdom says we're all playing D&D to have fun. D&D is based on bringing pain and suffering and death to others. So, by the D&D alignment system, playing D&D is evil.

So, population distribution? Since most everyone has demonstrated evil in their lives, and would oppose certain rules, 99.9% chaotic evil saturation, with a rare few outliers of other alignments.

[Aetol]

Well, D&D evil is defined by delighting in / causing the suffering of others. So it's pretty safe to classify most children and all bullies (regardless of age) as evil. Most cultures Will oppose new rules, technologies, etc that go against their culture, so most people are chaotic.

I'm pretty sure opposing novelty is a lawful behavior.


Common wisdom says we're all playing D&D to have fun. D&D is based on bringing pain and suffering and death to others. So, by the D&D alignment system, playing D&D is evil.

I don't think I want to know about your D&D sessions...


So, population distribution? Since most everyone has demonstrated evil in their lives, and would oppose certain rules, 99.9% chaotic evil saturation, with a rare few outliers of other alignments.

So, evil/chaotic once, evil/chaotic forever ? That's not how it works. Most people will exhibit at least one instance of goodness, evilness, lawfulness and chaoticness (?) at some point in their lives.

[Mystral]

So basically the jist of this discussion between my friends and me is:

How would alignment be distributed in the populace? I am going for a 90% neutral (on all axes) with the rest filled by more dedicated people. The average joe isn't good or evil nor has the capability or motivation to fully dedicate himself to selflessness or selfishness. On the same boat, people follow rules and codes but sometimes just plain out ignore those rules when it suits them. Even fewer outright avoid a strict life style.

My friends however go for a more or less mixed approach. A lawful good dock worker is just as common as the neutral merchant on the cornershop and the chaotic evil barmaiden. While this lessens the impact of another problem I have with some alignment targetting spells (Holy Word outright KILLS any non-good 1 HD by-standers, even if the caster wouldn't want that) this somewhat makes a LG Paladin or a CE Cleric less impactful.

Righteousness and Pureness of heart then is merely a backstory fact rather than a seldomly met prerequisite of Paladins. Volatile minds who do evil because it aids them greatly are not that special anymore when the barmaid would do the same given the power.

What is your stance on alignment demographics?

I'd say that it very much depends on the civilisation. You mostly get true neutral people, with a nudge towards RN in urban settings and CN in rural/wilderness settings. That holds true for the general population. Farmer Joe helps a stranger, but he doesn't make it his life goal. He doesn't abuse them either, but he wants his fair share of the pie. Also, he likes to be protected by the law and keeps it generally, but if he can smuggle a few coins from under the tax collectors nose, he does so.

On the other hand, more important people are more varied on the alignment grid. Most common people just want to survive, for their children to have a better life, and maybe they have 1-2 other goals that they pursue for themselves. On the other hand, important people have important goals, and those register on the alignment axis far more likely.

So, both of you are somehow right.

[Crake]

I think of it this way: If you would kill someone for profit, fun, or just for the sake of causing suffering, and know you could get away with it (doesn't matter if you've been given the opportunity or not) you have a L/N/C E mindset. Now think about how many people realistically would do something like that? How many people would then do something like steal the only purse of coins a starving family has and need to get through winter?

The example of a "CE" barmaid is more likely a CN jerk of a barmaid who would do something like spread lies about a scorned lover. Nothing truely evil, just a terrible person.

Same goes on the opposite scale of good, most people aren't hugely benevolent. As the PHB says, neutral people on the G-E scale tend toward good, because they would rather live in a society where other people treat them nicely, so doing something like reporting a lost piece of property is not good, it's neutral.

I personally view L-C as authority/liberty, more like a political standpoint, so I'd imagine most people would have a stronger stance along that axis.

All that said though, I determine where you end up in your afterlife not by your mindset, but by your deeds. So that evil person who WOULD murder someone, if they knew they could get away with it, but never recieved that opportunity in their life to truely test the possibility, would not go to hell just for their evil thoughts, though i do have spells affecting alignments work based on mindset, so that evil person would be hurt by a holy wrath spell for example.

From a numbers standpoint, I'd probably say, at least amongst civilization (so not counting things like marauding orc tribes) the L-C spectrum would be about an even spread, but the G-E spectrum would be a bellcurve with everyone in about one and a half standard deviations being neutral, with a slight leaning toward good. So something like 93% neutral, 5% good, 2% evil, with most of those evil people being on the fairly shallow end of the evil pool.

[atemu1234]

Regular Joes are completelly unanligned (No, not even TN). They're not the Big Players, they don't do anything that counts, so they don't align to anything.

Unaligned isn't a thing in 3.5. Even mindless creatures are considered TN, so it's not out of the way to suggest the same applies to people.

[Flickerdart]

Consider two men who gets up every morning, go to work, and file papers all day. One of them blogs about poverty in his spare time, the other one pirates DVDs and trolls Youtube comments.

One of them is certainly a lot more Good than the other, but ultimately, neither one has that much of an effect on society. An external observer dropped into this world would assume the society was Neutral no matter how many of either person there was.

Your complains are based on assuming that everyone in an alignment is the same. That's not even remotely true, though: most LG people are allowed to do things Paladins can't even dream of, and few CEs wallow as deeply in depravity as those who choose to directly serve evil deities.

A CE barmaid given fell powers might use them to embarrass her coworker so she can get better shifts, but it takes a particularly Evil person to eviscerate the coworker with an obsidian knife and drape her skin over the profane altar of Shub-Niggurath.

[Fizban]

The Monster Manual presents three likelihoods of alignment: Always, Usually (51+%), and Often (40-50%), which can apply to one or both axis of alignment (Always NE, or Always Evil (any) for example). PC races are described with often or usually a specific alignment, so depending on the main racial makeup it's likely 40% or more all have the same alignment. For Halflings this is Usually Neutral, and I'd expect the same of Humans. That said, I probably wouldn't put it more that 2/3 simply because huge percentages like 90% feel really stifling. Even if 90% of the population is farmers that don't care, saying 90% of the population is neutral will make people think 90% of the NPCs they interact with will be neutral, which may influence things poorly if the table expects alignment as a shortcut for motivations.

Using unaligned is a perfectly valid method for not bothering, great when you don't want to examine every single NPC's motivations because they're not important. Unaligned characters interact with alignment spells however the DM finds most convenient, though it should stay the same in a given game and the players should know before casting. It could be that Blasphemy as a meanie spell kills unaligned creatures, while Holy Word as a goody spell does not. Even mindless and animalistic creatures could retain their NN alignments on the grounds that they're not intelligent enough to feel true apathy.

[Ravian]

I think part of the reason this is an issue is because D&D makes such a big deal about the points on the alignment axis. The fact that evil people can so easily become problematic mechanically, such as the aforementioned holy word cast into a crowd of 10 commoners and murdering 3 of them problem.

In my mind, alignment is just as much about attitude as action. Intentions play a huge part in why an individual might be considered evil.

Some modern philosophers have been talking about the concept of a jerk. Defined in their terms, a jerk is a person that looks for self-advantage while ignoring the needs of those around them, an attitude that lines up quite nicely with lawful or neutral evil behavior. They don't promote tyranny or kill others, because they are restrained by the social fabric and instead just try to take advantage of it however they can.

And the thing is, jerks are common, as are people who are particularly compassionate towards others. To say that the majority of these people are just neutral with leanings in certain directions I think removes much of the point behind an alignment system.

I play with a fairly generous mix of all the alignments. Sure you have issues with evil people living in society, but I think that there are plenty of examples of these sorts of individuals that act in evil ways without being truly villainous individuals. (The Thernadiers from Les Miserables always seemed like a prime example of low-tier evil people living in society. They're awful individuals, but it's not really worth the effort killing them for their villainy.

As for societies, I think lawful societies are predominant, but I don't think they necessarily translate to primary demographics of their citizens. I don't believe that most citizens in a lawful evil dictatorship are also evil. It's not even necessarily that a society's alignment is determined by their rulers alignment. A kingdom could be considered lawful neutral because of its strict set of laws despite the fact that its king is lawful good and wants to make a difference. Governments are complicated, and even absolute monarchies and dictatorships have limits on what their rulers can realistically do. (For all of Louis XIV's authority, I don't think he could have have declared himself an actual god and demand human sacrifices, and even Nero had political enemies that he couldn't remove legitimately.) A settlement or society's alignment is much more determined based on the various forces that control it than anything else.

[Telok]

100% WotC Stupid.

Ditch the written alignment rules and use the [Foo] tags in a way that makes your game better. By the written rules human children are usually chaotic evil untill they have been taught to play nice with others, share their toys, and obey their parents. If you know any children who have no concern for the happiness, life, or liberty of others about half the time, those children are evil. If you know any children who do not want to obey rules and resist being told what to do about half the time, those children are chaotic.

The written rules for alignment are crap. Flush them and please remember to wash your hands.

[Werephilosopher]

While I think there's a demographic balance between Good and Evil, with most people morally Neutral, I think there are a lot more Lawful people than there are Chaotic people. I think, at the end of the day, a lot of people, even those who value individualism, would prefer the safety and security that comes from an outside authority of some kind, governmental, religious, or otherwise.
Plus, most people live in communities and societies that have some kind of laws and social codes, which skews things. A race of beings that live on their own, or in small bands, I can see being more Chaotic. But the "civilized races," by virtue of being "civilized," would skew towards Law.

[AvatarVecna]

While I think there's a demographic balance between Good and Evil, with most people morally Neutral, I think there are a lot more Lawful people than there are Chaotic people. I think, at the end of the day, a lot of people, even those who value individualism, would prefer the safety and security that comes from an outside authority of some kind, governmental, religious, or otherwise.
Plus, most people live in communities and societies that have some kind of laws and social codes, which skews things. A race of beings that live on their own, or in small bands, I can see being more Chaotic. But the "civilized races," by virtue of being "civilized," would skew towards Law.

Law works out long-term, but only if most everybody is working together...and nobody's taking advantage of that. The less capable the society, the more reasonable a Chaotic outlook seems, even in the long-term. If you go really long-term, Law ends up in charge because it involves more cooperation and teamwork, while Chaotic chafes at working together...that is to say, while any average society will have an equal number of Lawful and Chaotic members, the Lawful is more likely to spread because it can recruit both by debate and by force, while Chaotic can't really recruit by force (since forcing somebody to not be an oppressive ******* makes you an oppressive *******).

Starting from scratch, with no alliances and every person for themselves, Chaotics start out in charge, with the Lawful people gathering together for the safety in numbers. As their capabilities grow, the power of the individual becomes less significant in the face of the collective power; 20 Chaotics vs 10 Lawfuls is a landslide victory for Chaos, in terms of who's left alive to spread their beliefs afterwards but the Lawfuls are going to advance magically/technologically quicker, so when the numbers become more 1000 Chaotics with full plate and halberds vs 500 Lawfuls with guns, it becomes a much more fun fight for the Lawfuls; extending further, 100000 Chaotics with submachine guns are no match for the 1 Lawful guy with a nuke.

In the end, Lawful wins...but not because it's necessarily the superior philosophical position, but rather because it has more options for convincing, converting, and/or eliminating the opposing philosophers. Being the superior option in terms of efficiency doesn't make it the superior option in terms of morality...not to say that it can never be the morally superior option, just that efficiency in spreading your belief does not make it the superior belief.

[hamishspence]

I think part of the reason this is an issue is because D&D makes such a big deal about the points on the alignment axis. The fact that evil people can so easily become problematic mechanically, such as the aforementioned holy word cast into a crowd of 10 commoners and murdering 3 of them problem.

In my mind, alignment is just as much about attitude as action. Intentions play a huge part in why an individual might be considered evil.

Some modern philosophers have been talking about the concept of a jerk. Defined in their terms, a jerk is a person that looks for self-advantage while ignoring the needs of those around them, an attitude that lines up quite nicely with lawful or neutral evil behavior. They don't promote tyranny or kill others, because they are restrained by the social fabric and instead just try to take advantage of it however they can.

And the thing is, jerks are common, as are people who are particularly compassionate towards others. To say that the majority of these people are just neutral with leanings in certain directions I think removes much of the point behind an alignment system.

I play with a fairly generous mix of all the alignments. Sure you have issues with evil people living in society, but I think that there are plenty of examples of these sorts of individuals that act in evil ways without being truly villainous individuals. (The Thernadiers from Les Miserables always seemed like a prime example of low-tier evil people living in society. They're awful individuals, but it's not really worth the effort killing them for their villainy.
I like this - and it goes well with Eberron's take on alignment.

As for societies, I think lawful societies are predominant, but I don't think they necessarily translate to primary demographics of their citizens. I don't believe that most citizens in a lawful evil dictatorship are also evil. It's not even necessarily that a society's alignment is determined by their rulers alignment. A kingdom could be considered lawful neutral because of its strict set of laws despite the fact that its king is lawful good and wants to make a difference.
Fiendish Codex 2 suggests that, if a society has been influenced by devils for generations (to the point that Coming Of Age rituals require evil acts, and so forth) then about 90% of souls in that society will be going to the Nine Hells of Baator after death.

But an "ordinary" (less directly influenced) LE society might have a significantly smaller percentage.