Alignment Based Roles and Goals [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

8BitNinja

2016-09-28, 05:52 PM

Koo Rehtorb

2016-09-28, 05:57 PM

What does having a prescribed role and goal add to a hypothetical game in the first place?

InvisibleBison

2016-09-28, 06:08 PM

So what are your thoughts?

I think that this is a manifestation of some of the worst aspects of alignment systems and a recipe for disaster. It's enormously prescriptive, which is the opposite of what alignment should be, and extremely limiting, as it only allows for 9 character archetypes. I also have some objections to the example you provided, but that's less relevant since it's just an example.

8BitNinja

2016-09-28, 11:25 PM

I think that this is a manifestation of some of the worst aspects of alignment systems and a recipe for disaster. It's enormously prescriptive, which is the opposite of what alignment should be, and extremely limiting, as it only allows for 9 character archetypes. I also have some objections to the example you provided, but that's less relevant since it's just an example.

This made me learn something.

I am good at thinking up arbitrary restrictions

weckar

2016-09-29, 04:42 AM

Your example seems to push the angle of "Law is good-er than Chaos". I don't like that angle. Not one bit.

All your Good goals are also... identical?

Lacuna Caster

2016-09-29, 08:00 AM

What does having a prescribed role and goal add to a hypothetical game in the first place?
Dungeon World does a bit of this, doesn't it? I remember you get alignment-related role-play options for each class that you can tick off for bonus XP.

I don't entirely agree with the OP's suggestions, and it definitely needs fleshing out, but I think it's an interesting starting point. (If nothing else, there'd be fewer arguments about 'am I X-aligned'.)

AMFV

2016-09-29, 08:04 AM

What does having a prescribed role and goal add to a hypothetical game in the first place?

Well that depends, in a game that's intended to really explore alignment, or where alignment is supposed to be a major factor in the game. It could certainly be interesting to explore something where your roles are more prescribed, even in terms of exploring how one carries it out.

I think that this is a manifestation of some of the worst aspects of alignment systems and a recipe for disaster. It's enormously prescriptive, which is the opposite of what alignment should be, and extremely limiting, as it only allows for 9 character archetypes. I also have some objections to the example you provided, but that's less relevant since it's just an example.

Well it's a hypothetical game. There's no reason that alignment shouldn't be prescriptive at all, particularly in a one shot. Also the interesting meat here is more in looking at different ways that each alignment might go about their goals. You could have some large degree of intra-party conflict with all LG folks who have different ideas about how to establish a safe zone or how to protect the civilians. I find that archetypes aren't limiting, they're freeing, you can explore a much wider range of things within an archetype then you first might suppose.

Lacuna Caster

2016-09-29, 08:37 AM

Your example seems to push the angle of "Law is good-er than Chaos". I don't like that angle. Not one bit.

All your Good goals are also... identical?

...what if in one setting, the alignment of a character came with a role and goal, here are some examples discussed in the context of a zombie apocalypse setting.
I think weckar is correct about 'LG being more good' under these guidelines, but... in the context of a zombie apocalypse that might actually make sense- survivors already have a lot of 'freedom', when what they desperately need is scientific knowledge and social infrastructure.

Maybe CG could be about 'explore and make contact'? (I'd alo point out that the TN 'survivor' is going to be hard to distinguish from the NE 'bandit'. I'd almost wonder if the alignment matrix might be simplified on that basis, though? Are you specifically planning to plug in D&D magic, or something?

hamishspence

2016-09-29, 08:45 AM

"Overthrow tyrants and thwart would-be tyrants" might be a good CG goal - rather than ordinary vigilantism.

erikun

2016-09-29, 09:17 AM

AMFV

2016-09-29, 10:13 AM

An interesting idea, although I would propose a slight change. Remove the alignment labels, only write down the "class" name and what they are required to do, then start a game of something like All Flesh Must Be Eaten while telling players they must each pick one of the "classes" and follow its requirements. How well do you think that might work?

That's definitely another interesting take on it! I think that could be very interesting for a one-shot, and potentially interesting for a longer game.

The biggest concern I have is that the goals or requirements would be fairly irrelevant without some method of enforcement. Sure, your Hero might be "required" to establish a safe zone or find survivors, but what if they don't? If the GM is just telling players that their "class" has changed from Hero to Gaurdian, then the entire system just becomes a bunch of meaningless titles that the GM tracks but ultimately mean little to nothing. If the GM puts roleplay restrictions on what a player wants to do based on which "class" they are in, then the system becomes a shackle unless players decide to pick the Survivor "class".

Well for example, one could have a system where instead of gaining XP for overcoming general challenges they gain experience and advance by playing to class tropes or overcoming class related challenges. That would be the method I would suspect would have the most concrete development.

Really, it's kind of a look at the alignment system in general.

The other concern is what happens if a player decides to do something outside this alignment-class system, possibly in opposition to every single one presented? What if a player is running a scientist, someone who is determined to discover the cause and/or create a cure despite great danger to themselves? Sure, they obviously fail whatever class they're subscribed to, but which class could reasonably fit them? They aren't overly concerned about their personal safety, not concerned with being in or supporting a town, and not concerned with hurting or taking over others. The character has, for the most part, fallen out of this goal-oriented class structure. And if that is the case, then what is the whole system attempting to represent?

Well at that point, you'd be trying to do something that the system can't handle. Which isn't necessarily the best goal. And you'd be better off doing something like that in a circumstance that isn't this particular one-shot. The alternative would be to discuss it with your DM. Try to make the case that curing the disease will save the most survivors. That's a pretty strong incentive.

RazorChain

2016-09-29, 10:22 AM

Why not just drop alignment completely and just ask the PC's for goals and motivation. How they achieve their goals and behave dictates their "alignment" not vice versa.

Cluedrew

2016-09-29, 12:28 PM

I think it is an idea. I would probably free the system from the 9 alignment groups (as in use different labels) but as an explanation of the alignment system this works.

I would recommend actually switching to an axis view rather than 9 archetypes/groups. By that I mean consider each row/column for a moment. For instance let's draw the goal from good-evil and means from lawful-chaotic.

Goals:
Good: Help people survive the apocalypse.
Neutral: Get through this with your fellows.
Evil: Survive by any means necessary.

Means:
Lawful: Set up a permanent encampment.
Neutral: Move from camp-to-camp.
Chaotic: Wonder and keep moving.

Then to get on of the 9 alignments, just look up the two axis and combine.

To RazorChain: I don't think that area needs much more in the way of exploration.

Lacuna Caster

2016-09-29, 06:59 PM

...What if a player is running a scientist, someone who is determined to discover the cause and/or create a cure despite great danger to themselves? Sure, they obviously fail whatever class they're subscribed to, but which class could reasonably fit them? They aren't overly concerned about their personal safety, not concerned with being in or supporting a town, and not concerned with hurting or taking over others.

I would recommend actually switching to an axis view rather than 9 archetypes/groups. By that I mean consider each row/column for a moment. For instance let's draw the goal from good-evil and means from lawful-chaotic.

Goals:
Good: Help people survive the apocalypse.
Neutral: Get through this with your fellows.
Evil: Survive by any means necessary.

Means:
Lawful: Set up a permanent encampment.
Neutral: Move from camp-to-camp.
Chaotic: Wonder and keep moving.

Then to get on of the 9 alignments, just look up the two axis and combine.
That sounds pretty functional.

It should handle erikun's example as well, since the cure would in theory 'help people survive the apocalypse'. Depends on how 'costly' the research is, though...

Milo v3

2016-09-29, 10:59 PM

As someone who'd probably end up being considered chaotic evil myself, I don't think there is any reason for CE = psychopath. Your "role" for true neutral could easily be chaotic evil for example. CE is just chaotic without lack-of-willingness to commit evil acts, not that you constantly want to commit evil acts for no reason.

8BitNinja

2016-09-29, 11:20 PM

(I'd alo point out that the TN 'survivor' is going to be hard to distinguish from the NE 'bandit'. I'd almost wonder if the alignment matrix might be simplified on that basis, though? Are you specifically planning to plug in D&D magic, or something?

Like I said, this is a purely hypothetical scenario I wanted to bring up for the fun of discussing it. The zombie apocalypse scenario is used because I thought it would be the easiest to apply to this. But the survivor would be more of a wanderer while the bandit would be more hostile towards settlers.

8BitNinja

2016-09-29, 11:21 PM

Why not just drop alignment completely and just ask the PC's for goals and motivation. How they achieve their goals and behave dictates their "alignment" not vice versa.

We could, but then we wouldn't be talking about alignment and there wouldn't be an alignment discussion and then we wouldn't have this thread on alignment.

nrg89

2016-09-30, 02:22 AM

I will preface with this; I don't like the nine alignments. I think they're probably the worst thing about D&D and is absolutely pointless, I have no idea why they stuck around so long. The creator himself admits that they were a bad idea. (http://www.jovianclouds.com/blackmoor/Archive_OLD/rpg2.html) So, my opinion is basically this post;

Why not just drop alignment completely and just ask the PC's for goals and motivation. How they achieve their goals and behave dictates their "alignment" not vice versa.

I don't think restricting the alignments to character tropes, not just your suggestions but any tropes, is a good solution either because you make it needlessly difficult to create interesting villains or allies with internal conflicts.

I know I sound like an obnoxious teenager who wants to be edgy now but I personally think that the main problem people have with alignment is that they try to shoehorn it into their awesome, cool settings with complicated individuals, organizations and philosophies that's brimming with conflict and adventure hooks when it was invented for a game about murder-hoboing through dungeons. Murder-hobo through dungeons and alignment will rarely, if ever, be a problem but if you want to play roles that do something more, maybe investigate corrupt officials, mediate a dispute between two trade guilds or provide disaster relief with limited resources (leading to ethical dilemmas) I think you should use some other system or simplify these conflicts a lot. They don't have to be Saturday morning cartoons, but epic and romantic fantasy stories are a good template.

Butcher the sacred cow that is alignment or respect the environment it lives in. But if you do end up running a game with alignments, at least make them philosophies and not trope makers. I think there's value in providing examples for alignments in a way that players can understand them, I would for example illustrate lawful evil with Darth Vader or neutral good with Lucky Luke, but they would be examples to derive inspiration from, not restrictive templates the characters have to match.

8BitNinja

2016-10-01, 04:51 AM

I will preface with this; I don't like the nine alignments. I think they're probably the worst thing about D&D and is absolutely pointless, I have no idea why they stuck around so long. The creator himself admits that they were a bad idea. (http://www.jovianclouds.com/blackmoor/Archive_OLD/rpg2.html) So, my opinion is basically this post;

I don't think restricting the alignments to character tropes, not just your suggestions but any tropes, is a good solution either because you make it needlessly difficult to create interesting villains or allies with internal conflicts.

I know I sound like an obnoxious teenager who wants to be edgy now but I personally think that the main problem people have with alignment is that they try to shoehorn it into their awesome, cool settings with complicated individuals, organizations and philosophies that's brimming with conflict and adventure hooks when it was invented for a game about murder-hoboing through dungeons. Murder-hobo through dungeons and alignment will rarely, if ever, be a problem but if you want to play roles that do something more, maybe investigate corrupt officials, mediate a dispute between two trade guilds or provide disaster relief with limited resources (leading to ethical dilemmas) I think you should use some other system or simplify these conflicts a lot. They don't have to be Saturday morning cartoons, but epic and romantic fantasy stories are a good template.

Butcher the sacred cow that is alignment or respect the environment it lives in. But if you do end up running a game with alignments, at least make them philosophies and not trope makers. I think there's value in providing examples for alignments in a way that players can understand them, I would for example illustrate lawful evil with Darth Vader or neutral good with Lucky Luke, but they would be examples to derive inspiration from, not restrictive templates the characters have to match.

1. That's cool. You can dislike alignment if you want. I personally like it.

2. I am NOT using this as an actual system or for an actual game. I just thought it would be fun to discuss one of the different things that could be done to alignment.

3. This is a nice take on alignment, I enjoyed reading your comment.

Satinavian

2016-10-01, 07:00 AM

I don't like this concept.

The normal part of "roles" in a group is about who does what, where are each ones strenth and weaknesses and how can the PCs work best together.

Your "roles" don't complement each other to a working party or society. Instead they lead only to trouble when mixed. That is basically a recipie to make those nasty intra-party alignment fisagreements worse.

Why would you want to do that ? What is the purpose of those "roles" ? What kind of game would be better with it and why ?

Lacuna Caster

2016-10-01, 08:53 AM

1. That's cool. You can dislike alignment if you want. I personally like it.

2. I am NOT using this as an actual system or for an actual game. I just thought it would be fun to discuss one of the different things that could be done to alignment.

3. This is a nice take on alignment, I enjoyed reading your comment.

The normal part of "roles" in a group is about who does what, where are each ones strenth and weaknesses and how can the PCs work best together.

Your "roles" don't complement each other to a working party or society. Instead they lead only to trouble when mixed. That is basically a recipie to make those nasty intra-party alignment fisagreements worse.

Probably, but in the absence of some nuance-flattening external motivator (e.g, the world will end), that is arguably what happens whenever PCs actually follow their alignment to the hilt. Law, Chaos, Good and Evil are supposed to be polar opposites, after all.

I think nrg89's comment about D&D alignment being intended primarily for dungeon-crawl scenarios (essentially as a labelling system for 'kill me' and 'don't kill me' NPCs), is valid. If you wanted to move outside that context, I would suggest some functioning combination of the following would be necessary, or at least helpful-

(1) Abandon the notion that the PCs are necessarily there to cooperate toward a singular goal.
(2) Have formalised procedures for resolving inter-PC disagreement.
(3) Expand the scope of what counts as an ethical/moral stance, so that different needs of the group can be fulfilled by different 'alignments' at different times, moderated by mutual affections and tolerances. (The OOTS storyline is basically about this, but does tend to blur the categories somewhat.)

On the lattermost point, I had some rough guidelines for a generic alignment system lying around. Maybe it would help?

Good/Evil:
* Preserve/Destroy other life
* Preserve/Destroy other's dignity
* Promote/Undermine others' enjoyment
* Neutrality- as for Good, but applied to self

Lawful:
* Keep your word or give accurate information
* Support the state or a traditional institution
* Make a schedule or plan and stick to it
* Enforce a rule with No Exceptions

Chaotic:
* Make use of deceit (magical or mundane)
* Undermine the state or a traditional institution
* Improvise wildly and make it work
* Use Ends to justify the Means

Numeric modifiers (if you want to track by degrees):
* Scale (up to +5 for 'planet-wide')
* Intensity (up to +2 for 'debilitating/excruciating)
* Duration (up to +5 for 'an eternity')
* Culpability (-1 for 'by inaction', 'under wrong impression', 'by association', 'indirectly', etc.)

Jay R

2016-10-01, 09:12 AM

Lacuna Caster

2016-10-01, 09:26 AM

Turn it around. Each player describes his or her character's role and goals, and use that to help determine alignment. That allows more than one possible goal for each alignment, and more than nine goals for the entire world. It makes conflict between members of the same alignment possible, and avoids restricting the player's ability to design the character they want, or have the goals they want.

[It's also how many people have used alignment for 40 years.]

Yeah, but that doesn't really solve the problem of arbitrating whether a given PC's goals and actions count as good or lawful, or whatever. Having individual, potentially divergent motives while still meaning well (or badly) is fine, but you still need a vector-definition as a yardstick to get the dot-product (http://www.mvps.org/DirectX/articles/math/dot/index.htm), so to speak.

You can just wing it, but... it's entirely possible the GM and/or other players will have different intuitions of what the words mean.

Jay R

2016-10-01, 10:43 AM

Yeah, but that doesn't really solve the problem of arbitrating whether a given PC's goals and actions count as good or lawful, or whatever.

That's correct, it doesn't. Nobody in the history of the world has come up with a simple system for arbitrating whether a good action is good or lawful, after thousands of years of religions, philosophies, laws, and courts. I hope nobody thinks a D&D rule is going to do so.

Having individual, potentially divergent motives while still meaning well (or badly) is fine, but you still need a vector-definition as a yardstick to get the dot-product (http://www.mvps.org/DirectX/articles/math/dot/index.htm), so to speak.

This is a bizarre new notion. I don't see any mathematical basis for the assumption that the inner product (dot product) has any inherent meaning in the alignment plane.

An inner product applies only if the two axes are linear and continuous, that is, for any action of a certain level of goodness, there could be an action exactly twice as good, or one half as good, or 0.367879441171442 as good.

It also assumes that there is an overall value of a given action, determined by its lawfulness value and its goodness value. There's no point taking the scalar product of two vectors unless each one has a scalar value. So you'd need to believe that an act (0.6 Good, 0.8 Chaotic) has the same overall value as an act (0 Good, 1 Lawful) or one (-0.96 Good*, 0.28 Chaotic).

* -0.96 Good is the same as 0.96 Evil, of course.

Finally, it assumes that the difference of lawfulness and the difference of goodness are of exactly equal value, so that the difference in angle is no different no matter in which direction. I might believe that the inner product of a Neutral Good action and a Lawful Neutral one is zero, but not that the inner product of a Lawful Neutral action and a Chaotic Neutral action is zero. The differences on the Lawful/Chaotic axis does not change the fact that the overall value of two Good acts has a positive good value.

Note also that the inner product always comes to zero for the poor fool who chose a True Neutral Alignment.

You can just wing it, but... it's entirely possible the GM and/or other players will have different intuitions of what the words mean.

Yes, of course. GMs and players have had different intuitions about morality for 42 years, and people have had different intuitions about it for thousand of years. I promise you that if you successfully reduce alignment to only nine possible quests, people will argue over what those words mean, too.

Lacuna Caster

2016-10-01, 11:12 AM

This is a bizarre new notion. I don't see any mathematical basis for the assumption that the inner product (dot product) has any inherent meaning in the alignment plane...

...also that the inner product always comes to zero for the poor fool who chose a True Neutral Alignment.
I'm... not certain I intended the analogy to be quite so literal, but... I'm also not seeing an inherent problem with any of what you've described?

Yes, of course. GMs and players have had different intuitions about morality for 42 years, and people have had different intuitions about it for thousand of years. I promise you that if you successfully reduce alignment to only nine possible quests...
That's not what I was personally suggesting (though perhaps 8BitNinja was). But every group, consciously or otherwise, is going to have to settle on some kind of underlying moral/ethical standards in order to make alignment functional. If you make those standards explicit, then at least the players with a differing conception can pretend otherwise for the time being, suggest corrections to said rules, or find another group. No harm, no foul.

Jay R

2016-10-01, 12:34 PM

I'm... not certain I intended the analogy to be quite so literal, but... I'm also not seeing an inherent problem with any of what you've described?

If you are measuring how close people are to their alignment by a dot product, then True Neutrals always score a zero. Therefore, it's a useless measure.

That's not what I was personally suggesting (though perhaps 8BitNinja was). But every group, consciously or otherwise, is going to have to settle on some kind of underlying moral/ethical standards in order to make alignment functional.

Yes, of course. But why stop there? Every human society from a family to an empire needs some overall consensus on moral behavior in order to function. But they never have to have full agreement, and trying to reduce it merely opens up all the disagreements and arguments at the start.

"Settle on some kind of underlying moral/ethical standards" is not the same thing as "only allow 9 possible goals".

It works much better to allow each character his own motivations and goals, and then to judge those goals by what we believe about morality, than to reduce all possible goals to only 9 possibilities.

There really are more than 9 possible goals.

If you make those standards explicit, then at least the players with a differing conception can pretend otherwise for the time being, suggest corrections to said rules, or find another group. No harm, no foul.

You'd have to make them explicit, precise, unambiguous, adequate to every possible situation, and universally accepted.

For instance, by the proposed rules, a character who enslaves the rural populace wouldn't be considered evil. He didn't kill, and he didn't rule a town. Making the standards so simple that they can be written down in a sentence or two is requires throwing out 99% of everything we believe about moral behavior.

You're trying to use a game rule to solve a problem nobody in the history of the world has ever been able to solve. Good luck with that.

Lacuna Caster

2016-10-01, 01:51 PM

If you are measuring how close people are to their alignment by a dot product, then True Neutrals always score a zero. Therefore, it's a useless measure.
Well... no. True Neutrals can be defined by their proximity to zero on both the law/chaos and good/evil axes. It's more-or-less an absence of the other alignments.

"Settle on some kind of underlying moral/ethical standards" is not the same thing as "only allow 9 possible goals".
Again, JayR, this is not the system that I outlined (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21259828&postcount=21). I recommend taking up your complaints with the OP.

Cluedrew

2016-10-01, 05:31 PM

I personally think that the main problem people have with alignment is that they try to shoehorn it into their awesome, cool settings with complicated individuals, organizations and philosophies that's brimming with conflict and adventure hooks when it was invented for a game about murder-hoboing through dungeons. [...] but they would be examples to derive inspiration from, not restrictive templates the characters have to match.There is a word here, there is a lot actually here but for a moment I want to focus in on one word. That word is shoehorn, if you ever try to shoehorn anything into an alignment you are probably doing it wrong.

I say this because the idea that always seems to come up is that alignments are "small" in some way, like you would have to struggle to make a character fit into them. Really I think alignments (at least in their modern form) are much broader than that. I have never considered them 9 archetypes, rather 9 areas = 2 axis x 3 ranges. And those areas are pretty broad, and you don't have to fit in the middle of them. You can call a character in the Lawful Evil corner of Chaotic Good Chaotic Good, no problem. And if it is ambiguous, call them Neutral. It is essentially a buffer region between the extremes anyways.

They shouldn't be, as was said "restrictive templates". Make a character, any character, and figure out what alignment they are after the fact. Or not but the point is you can.

Jay R

2016-10-01, 05:38 PM

Well... no. True Neutrals can be defined by their proximity to zero on both the law/chaos and good/evil axes. It's more-or-less an absence of the other alignments.

Again, JayR, this is not the system that I outlined (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21259828&postcount=21). I recommend taking up your complaints with the OP.

My complaints? We're discussing your complaints with my system. I didn't reply to your proposal; you replied to mine.

You complained that my idea "doesn't really solve the problem of arbitrating whether a given PC's goals and actions count as good or lawful, or whatever." I've been trying to show that that is impossible for any system.

If you like, we can abandon your complaint about my system and talk about your system instead.

I disagree that D&D alignment is intended primarily for dungeon-crawl scenarios. That doesn't match the history. It would be more accurate to say that the original Law/Neutralaity/Chaos element was intended for large scale miniatures battles. It was originally a single Law/Chaos axis, intended to include morality (which is an essential part of fantasy literature) while using the terms Law for goodness and Chaos for evil for flavor, from the books of Michael Moorcock and others.

But many players in the mid-70s, myself included, pointed out that "Lawful" doesn't mean "Good", and "Chaotic" doesn't mean "Evil".

So the developers at TSR had three choices:
1. Admit their mistake and change the D&D terms to Good and Evil,
2. Make the rules clear by explaining the gaming jargon and spelling out that Law and Chaos were being used in a specific sense of Good and Evil, or
3. Try to hide the mistake by inventing an unrealistic and overly complicated game mechanic.

For Gygax, this was always an easy choice.

So since about 1977, we have been stuck with the inaccurate 9-way alignment system. It wasn't "intended primarily for dungeon-crawl scenarios"; it grew out of a need to cover up a rules-writing mistake.

If you wanted to move outside that context, I would suggest some functioning combination of the following would be necessary, or at least helpful-

(1) Abandon the notion that the PCs are necessarily there to cooperate toward a singular goal.
(2) Have formalised procedures for resolving inter-PC disagreement.
(3) Expand the scope of what counts as an ethical/moral stance, so that different needs of the group can be fulfilled by different 'alignments' at different times, moderated by mutual affections and tolerances. (The OOTS storyline is basically about this, but does tend to blur the categories somewhat.)

This proposal boils down to (1) abandoning working as a party, (2) telling players how their characters are required to interact, and (3) deciding that we have the authority to change the morality of a given stance. Even if I agreed with the goal, that method of reaching it will never work.

Your generic alignment system is attempting to quantify what philosophers, moralists, and moral leaders of all types throughout history have told us cannot be quantified. Neither you nor I nor anybody else has the moral authority to determine (for instance) what amount of scale is equivalent to a certain level of intensity, or duration.

Like your "vector product" complaint about my proposal, this assumes a level of measurability and quantification that simply does not exist.

Unfortunately, we're going to have to struggle along judging each moral situation using our own judgment, just like everyone else in the history of the world.

2D8HP

2016-10-01, 06:12 PM

Three graphs on alignment

Made simple-
https://1d4chan.org/images/thumb/4/45/Alignment_Demotivational.jpg/350px-Alignment_Demotivational.jpg

From Pratchett's Discworld-
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/71/47/1c/71471c4a84496bb6ae3cb129d35b036c.jpg

And from
THE MEANING OF LAW AND CHAOS IN DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
AND THEIR RELATIONSHIPS TO GOOD AND EVIL
by Gary Gygax

In the February 1976 issue of The Strategic Review (http://annarchive.com/files/Strv201.pdf)

http://lh6.ggpht.com/mitchaskari/SN9Kj5-_N2I/AAAAAAAAGsM/f6v1q8cQDGY/s1600/illus2%5B2%5D.jpg

Hope they help!

Lacuna Caster

2016-10-01, 06:28 PM

My complaints? We're discussing your complaints with my system. I didn't reply to your proposal; you replied to mine.
Yes, and then you complained that having a single prescribed goal per-alignment didn't make sense. Since I never suggested that in my reply, your complaints on the subject were not applicable. I don't know where this hostility is coming from, but please remove the chip from your shoulder.

I was aware of the historical shift from a Law/Chaos axis to the 9-way matrix, but the Good/Evil division is what tends to be used to determine how players react to NPCs in dungeon-crawl scenarios, up to the present day. This doesn't really alter my point- in these games, it's a labelling system for valid and non-valid combat targets.

This proposal boils down to (1) abandoning working as a party, (2) telling players how their characters are required to interact, and (3) deciding that we have the authority to change the morality of a given stance. Even if I agreed with the goal, that method of reaching it will never work... Neither you nor I nor anybody else has the moral authority to determine (for instance) what amount of scale is equivalent to a certain level of intensity, or duration... ...Unfortunately, we're going to have to struggle along judging each moral situation using our own judgment, just like everyone else in the history of the world.
In the same sense that combat rules 'tell' players how their characters are 'required' to survive... yes. And in the same sense that no set of finite rules will capture the infinite nuances of actual swordplay... also yes. But it's not considered a quixotic goal to add detail to swordplay mechanics, and there are perfectly functional RPGS with formalised rules for settling inter-PC disagreements. I'm not speaking as a hypothetical here.

I would suggest that moral/ethical estimations of this type are implicit whenever a GM rules on the timing and circumstances of a PC's alignment shifts (or lack thereof, if they ever put a foot wrong), and while I don't claim to have any spectacular additional credentials for making that kind of ruling, how do you justify alignments rulings at all if no-one is qualified?

Let me put this another way- if I, as GM, quietly used this kind of system to work out the PCs' alignments over time from behind my screen as an expression of my personal judgement, all in my head, and never let on... would you be complaining? Is this about nuance, or is it about power?

8BitNinja

2016-10-02, 01:45 AM

GrayDeath

2016-10-02, 02:38 PM

My Pratchett-Fu is weak (or the drawing bad) but whos the fat guy in the lower right Spot (with the .... FUN Alignment^^)?

8BitNinja

2016-10-02, 03:19 PM

My Pratchett-Fu is weak (or the drawing bad) but whos the fat guy in the lower right Spot (with the .... FUN Alignment^^)?

CE is the fun alignment?

So that's why they say we paladins hate fun.

2D8HP

2016-10-02, 03:27 PM

My Pratchett-Fu is weak (or the drawing bad) but whos the fat guy in the lower right Spot (with the .... FUN Alignment^^)?It's the Dean (http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Dean) while under the influence of "Music with Rocks in".

nrg89

2016-10-03, 07:46 AM

There is a word here, there is a lot actually here but for a moment I want to focus in on one word. That word is shoehorn, if you ever try to shoehorn anything into an alignment you are probably doing it wrong.

I'm not talking about shoehorning something (or someone) into alignments, I'm talking about shoehorning the D&D alignment system into settings that have more complicated plots than "murder the villain, take his stuff, get a good night's rest at the tavern". You don't need the alignment system, and it creates all types of problems when you want characters to become more complicated and relatable with internal struggles, so don't shoehorn it into settings that get absolutely no benefit from it whatsoever.

Beleriphon

2016-10-03, 09:10 AM

Goals:
Good: Help people survive the apocalypse.
Neutral: Get through this with your fellows.
Evil: Survive by any means necessary.

Means:
Lawful: Set up a permanent encampment.
Neutral: Move from camp-to-camp.
Chaotic: Wonder and keep moving.

Then to get on of the 9 alignments, just look up the two axis and combine.

To RazorChain: I don't think that area needs much more in the way of exploration.

So for the most part Rick and crew are Chaotic Neutral, The Governeror is Lawful Evil, Negan is Chaotic Evil, and Ezekiel is maybe Lawful Good?

Quertus

2016-10-03, 09:21 AM

So, I tried to reply in a calm, collected tone, but... IMO, alignment is the worst thing to happen to role-playing in the history of RPGs.

So recently I discussed a purely hypothetical idea with some people and I want you guys to tell me what you think.

Alignment is usually something that gives guidelines on how characters live. A Lawful Good character could be anyone from a knight in shining armor to a helpful and honest farmer. A Neutral Evil character could be anyone from an evil wizard to a really selfish guy. The examples could go on and on.

This is good, but what if in one setting, the alignment of a character came with a role and goal, here are some examples discussed in the context of a zombie apocalypse setting.

Lawful Good: Hero- Find and help survivors, kill zombies and evildoers, establish a safe zone.

Neutral Good: Gaurdian- Help's survivors and kill evildoers.

Chaotic Good: Vigilante- Kill zombies and anyone who harms or wants to harm survivors.

Lawful Neutral: Colonist- create or join and contribute to a town.

True Neutral: Survivor- Do whatever to stay alive

Chaotic Neutral: Anarchist: Destroy any last remnants of civilization

Lawful Evil: Tyrant- become the leader of a town and begin a conquest

Neutral Evil: Bandit- Get supplies you want and need by killing and taking from others

Chaotic Evil: Psychopath - Kill anyone and everyone

So what are your thoughts? Remember that even though I suggested this, I take no side in this.

So... your Chaotic Good Vigilante wants to kill all your Lg and Ng Heroes and Guardians, because evildoers are by definition survivors, and kill by definition harms. And then they have to kill themselves, probably with alcohol.

And then you've got the problem of the archetypes it explicitly doesn't cover. This system is a hindrance to role-playing diverse personalities. Worse, as can be seen from some of the responses in this thread, the system encourages people to not roleplay complex personalities, and to discourage those who do.

There are people who chafe at the yoke of civilization and would actively avoid it, who greatly value their own personal freedom... without needing to tear everyone else's civilizations down. In fact, some of them might even be willing to help build other civilizations up / protect them from destruction. The hero protagonist from Water World comes to mind.

As a tool to teach people to roleplay... like alignment, it's pretty bad, as it provides increasingly negative feedback as their role-playing skill improves. As a tool to explain alignment your personal take on each of the alignments, I guess it's OK.

So... I'd say it's clearly as functional as one would expect from something based on the D&D alignment system. :smalltongue:

Really, it's kind of a look at the alignment system in general.

The other concern is what happens if a player decides to do something outside this alignment-class system, possibly in opposition to every single one presented? What if a player is running a scientist, someone who is determined to discover the cause and/or create a cure despite great danger to themselves? Sure, they obviously fail whatever class they're subscribed to, but which class could reasonably fit them? They aren't overly concerned about their personal safety, not concerned with being in or supporting a town, and not concerned with hurting or taking over others. The character has, for the most part, fallen out of this goal-oriented class structure. And if that is the case, then what is the whole system attempting to represent?

You've done a better job saying what I want to say than I have.

I don't like this concept.

The normal part of "roles" in a group is about who does what, where are each ones strenth and weaknesses and how can the PCs work best together.

Your "roles" don't complement each other to a working party or society. Instead they lead only to trouble when mixed. That is basically a recipie to make those nasty intra-party alignment fisagreements worse.

Why would you want to do that ? What is the purpose of those "roles" ? What kind of game would be better with it and why ?

OK, this is the one good thing I have to say about this idea: it works as a good basis for "setting up the social contract". It allows you to discuss what you mean when you say that you want to play a party of "heroes".

There really are more than 9 possible goals.

Not according to some of my DMs. My own personal DM horror stories include multiple DMs who had tables of scenarios, and the response each alignment should give. If your character didn't give the response that matched the alignment on their sheet, these DMs would claim you were doing it wrong.

This thread feels like it harkens back to the old, bad days, and horrors I'd thought were long behind me.

Three graphs on alignment

And from
THE MEANING OF LAW AND CHAOS IN DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
AND THEIR RELATIONSHIPS TO GOOD AND EVIL
by Gary Gygax

In the February 1976 issue of The Strategic Review (http://annarchive.com/files/Strv201.pdf)

http://lh6.ggpht.com/mitchaskari/SN9Kj5-_N2I/AAAAAAAAGsM/f6v1q8cQDGY/s1600/illus2%5B2%5D.jpg

Hope they help!

Um... So... Liches are... almost true neutral? And vary from slightly evil to slightly good? :smallconfused:

2D8HP

2016-10-03, 10:46 AM

Um... So... Liches are... almost true neutral? And vary from slightly evil to slightly good? :smallconfused:According to the guy who invented this claptrap inspired aid to role-playing, yes.

Satinavian

2016-10-03, 12:49 PM

That was before undead became evil by definition. Note that, in the graph zombies are true neutral and less evil than thieves, while vampires who need to harm for existence are marked as pretty evil.

Seto

2016-10-03, 12:59 PM

Hey!
I didn't read everyone's posts but in response to the OP: that sounds like a neat idea, but it sounds more like a board game than a campaign. I think it would work best in a horror semi-cooperative one-shot, where your character matters less than your end goal (you must ally to survive the zombies, but your endgame eventually pits you against the others).

dps

2016-10-03, 01:02 PM

The biggest problem I see with this idea is that alignment isn't just about ends (goals), it's also about means.

Seto

2016-10-03, 04:38 PM

The biggest problem I see with this idea is that alignment isn't just about ends (goals), it's also about means.

In D&D 3.5, yes. But intrinsically, no, it doesn't have to: indeed, to be aligned with a force or person generally means sharing the same agenda, rather than methods. With such a revamping of alignment as we have here, we can drop methods. (In fact, that's not alignment at all anymore, so we might as well just call them Roles)

Cluedrew

2016-10-03, 06:08 PM

I'm not talking about shoehorning something (or someone) into alignments, I'm talking about shoehorning the D&D alignment system into settings that have more complicated plots than "murder the villain, take his stuff, get a good night's rest at the tavern". You don't need the alignment system, and it creates all types of problems when you want characters to become more complicated and relatable with internal struggles, so don't shoehorn it into settings that get absolutely no benefit from it whatsoever.I agree the alignments system is not nessasary, disagree that it will create problems if handled properly, also agree you shouldn't bother adding it to things when there is no benefit.

Actually I was mostly agreeing with you. You said don't shoehorn things into the alignment system, I said that if you are shoehorning things into the alignment system you are using it wrong. Not exactly the same point but there you have it. I liked the word, shoehorn, it seem to fit here.

Also, what is the difference between the shoehorning something into the alignments vs. the alignment system? You use them as separate ideas but I would have considered them interchangeable.

8BitNinja

2016-10-03, 11:15 PM

Lacuna Caster

2016-10-04, 05:32 AM

And then you've got the problem of the archetypes it explicitly doesn't cover. This system is a hindrance to role-playing diverse personalities. Worse, as can be seen from some of the responses in this thread, the system encourages people to not roleplay complex personalities, and to discourage those who do.
I think it does to the extent that particular powers or abilities hinge in a fairly binary fashion on keeping your feet inside a given alignment box. If they don't, then the planchette on the moral ouija board can wander where it likes and it doesn't make a difference to play. (Then again, if it makes no difference, there's no reason to include the system...)

It's a concept I would like to see explored with properly robust mechanics in some game or other, though, since the contrast between structure and dissonance and the circumstances where those work out for better or worse is theoretically interesting philosophical territory. Making it work with nuance and agency would be a design challenge at least.

Quertus

2016-10-04, 07:23 AM

I think it does to the extent that particular powers or abilities hinge in a fairly binary fashion on keeping your feet inside a given alignment box. If they don't, then the planchette on the moral ouija board can wander where it likes and it doesn't make a difference to play. (Then again, if it makes no difference, there's no reason to include the system...)

It's a concept I would like to see explored with properly robust mechanics in some game or other, though, since the contrast between structure and dissonance and the circumstances where those work out for better or worse is theoretically interesting philosophical territory. Making it work with nuance and agency would be a design challenge at least.

... Powers keyed to alignment boxes? That sounds like D&D alignment. Let's not go unnecessarily reproducing the bad worse parts of the D&D alignment system. Otherwise, we'll start seeing scenarios like this:

Player: my Survivor steals the last ration pack.
DM: That's an evil act. Your character is now evil.
Player: ... <looks up evil> ... Ok, I set off the emergency explosives, killing all the survivors we have saved. How much of their meat can I preserve with the supplies I have on hand?
DM: that sounds like the pragmatism of a survivor; change your alignment back to neutral.

Friends don't let friends use alignment.

-----

Now, suppose you had 30-40 differerent archetypes, spread out among the 9 alignments, and rules for creating new archetypes. That could give new players a way to easily pick an archetypes that sounds fun, while allowing more skilled roleplayers to create complex personalities without being unreasonably hindered.

But, at that point, what does alignment add to the system? In what way would the system not be strictly improved by removing the alignment component?

That was before undead became evil by definition. Note that, in the graph zombies are true neutral and less evil than thieves, while vampires who need to harm for existence are marked as pretty evil.

Huh, I failed to notice that: killing for money (assassin) is less evil than killing for hunger (mindflayer, vampire).

So, anyone else want to build a character with the goal of "fixing" undead, removing their ties to the negative energy plane / removing the evil taint that has corrupted the negative energy plane, to once again allow good liches?

Lacuna Caster

2016-10-04, 10:15 AM

... Powers keyed to alignment boxes? That sounds like D&D alignment. Let's not go unnecessarily reproducing the bad worse parts of the D&D alignment system. Otherwise, we'll start seeing scenarios like this...
No, that's what I was positing as the source of the dysfunction you mentioned. (i.e, discrete alignment boxes encourage people to not roleplay complex personalities, because that carries the risk of losing class abilities.) And yes, as I said, if one removes any links between power and alignment, then you can make PCs as nuanced as you like (but then there's no point to having the system.)

I don't have a fully fleshed-out idea of what 'flexible alignment' would look like (though I did sketch out (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21259828&postcount=21) some ideas.) As to what it would add... I don't know, I guess part of me just squints with consternation at brittle-but-interesting things and wonders how to fix it. Sunk-cost fallacy, maybe?

Lacuna Caster

2016-10-04, 03:15 PM

@8BitNinja: I don't know if you saw this, but FWIW there was a previous thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?496649-Alignment&p=21079184#post21079184) on the subject.

Quertus

2016-10-04, 05:45 PM

No, that's what I was positing as the source of the dysfunction you mentioned. (i.e, discrete alignment boxes encourage people to not roleplay complex personalities, because that carries the risk of losing class abilities.) And yes, as I said, if one removes any links between power and alignment, then you can make PCs as nuanced as you like (but then there's no point to having the system.)

I don't have a fully fleshed-out idea of what 'flexible alignment' would look like (though I did sketch out (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21259828&postcount=21) some ideas.) As to what it would add... I don't know, I guess part of me just squints with consternation at brittle-but-interesting things and wonders how to fix it. Sunk-cost fallacy, maybe?

Wow, I'm really striking out on understanding people lately. I guess I must need sleep. Until I regain proper reading comprehension skills to understand exactly how badly I've messed up, consider this a placeholder apology.

Cluedrew

2016-10-04, 06:15 PM

That sounds like D&D alignment. Let's not go unnecessarily reproducing the bad worse parts of the D&D alignment system. Otherwise, we'll start seeing scenarios like this:OK, I don't think that someone's alignment was ever supposed to change off of a single action. I thought it was supposed to be a sum-total thing?

So, anyone else want to build a character with the goal of "fixing" undead, removing their ties to the negative energy plane / removing the evil taint that has corrupted the negative energy plane, to once again allow good liches?Yes, I would join that campaign. A bunch of good & neutral characters (with a slight death theme) out to change the world in a big way.

And yes, as I said, if one removes any links between power and alignment, then you can make PCs as nuanced as you like (but then there's no point to having the system.)How does having a link between power and alignment limit PC characterization? Are we talking about heroes with evil-like powers?

Lacuna Caster

2016-10-04, 07:12 PM

Wow, I'm really striking out on understanding people lately. I guess I must need sleep. Until I regain proper reading comprehension skills to understand exactly how badly I've messed up, consider this a placeholder apology.
Not to worry. I don't always word myself with maximum clarity...

OK, I don't think that someone's alignment was ever supposed to change off of a single action. I thought it was supposed to be a sum-total thing?
Yeah, but... theoretically, if you're averaging actions over time, and were right on the very threshold between neutral and chaotic, say, then even a single minor act of randomness would modify the average enough to tip you over. And if you then- I dunno, returned a lost wallet to the cops, etc.- that could tip the average enough to send you back. It's the 'discrete boxes' rather than 'sliding scale' assumption that could hypothetically lead to these odd 'quantum state shifts'.

Well, paladins and clerics are the obvious case of powers being tied to alignment, but more broadly things like monks-must-be-lawful and barbarians-must-not in order to retain class features (at least in 3E.) Which... implicitly places at least some limits on their characterisation. (More broadly, if alignment doesn't really impact how well you can pray, heal, shoot, ride, barter, limbo dance, conjugate verbs, french kiss, or something else at least tangentially adventuring-related, it's a bit of boondoggle.)

8BitNinja

2016-10-05, 12:16 AM

@8BitNinja: I don't know if you saw this, but FWIW there was a previous thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?496649-Alignment&p=21079184#post21079184) on the subject.

Oh, I guess I was just reopened a portal to the planes of chaos

Cluedrew

2016-10-05, 07:01 PM

Yeah, but... theoretically, if you're averaging actions over time, and were right on the very threshold between neutral and chaotic, say, then even a single minor act of randomness would modify the average enough to tip you over.Theoretically, we could add a value X such that you must cross over into another alignment by X to shift alignment. And shift 2X the other way to change back.

Practically, we are not actually summing numbers. The summing is just a metaphor for taking a look at a characters personality by examining their actions over a variety of situations.

Plus, since we are designing the character we can skip the filter of actions and look at the (intended) personality directly and use that.

Malifice

2016-10-06, 01:07 AM

So recently I discussed a purely hypothetical idea with some people and I want you guys to tell me what you think.

Alignment is usually something that gives guidelines on how characters live. A Lawful Good character could be anyone from a knight in shining armor to a helpful and honest farmer. A Neutral Evil character could be anyone from an evil wizard to a really selfish guy. The examples could go on and on.

This is good, but what if in one setting, the alignment of a character came with a role and goal, here are some examples discussed in the context of a zombie apocalypse setting.

Lawful Good: Hero- Find and help survivors, kill zombies and evildoers, establish a safe zone.

Neutral Good: Gaurdian- Help's survivors and kill evildoers.

Chaotic Good: Vigilante- Kill zombies and anyone who harms or wants to harm survivors.

Lawful Neutral: Colonist- create or join and contribute to a town.

True Neutral: Survivor- Do whatever to stay alive

Chaotic Neutral: Anarchist: Destroy any last remnants of civilization

Lawful Evil: Tyrant- become the leader of a town and begin a conquest

Neutral Evil: Bandit- Get supplies you want and need by killing and taking from others

Chaotic Evil: Psychopath - Kill anyone and everyone

So what are your thoughts? Remember that even though I suggested this, I take no side in this.

Its way too narrow.

For a good example of the complexities of alignments in a ZA scenario, watch AMCs Walking Dead.

Carols character is a good example of a NG character that gradually shifts to LE over the course of the show (where she has been for a few seasons now). Her current story arc involves her moving away from this alignment and perhaps back towards a N alignment.

Shes a great example of a LE protagonist who does what she needs to (killing and threatening children and the sick) to protect others.

Rick also bounces between acts of LG and LE (although generally sticking to a LN middle ground). Shane shifted from LN to LE before his death.

About the only character that is (and remains) LG is Glenn. Tyresse also before his death. Maggie follows her fathers footsteps as NG. Morgan progresses from NG to CE (when he loses his mind) to a very firm LG (after getting all Zen monk on us).

Daryl shifts from CN lone wolf to CG as the series progresses and he softens.

One of the central themes of the whole show is 'Who are the real monsters; the mindless zombies who cant help themselves, or the people who can make choices?' and most of the characters grapple with morality of what they are forced to do in the face of the apocalypse.

Shane and Carol (and Rick and Carl to an extent) shifted towards evil.

superturkle

2016-10-06, 04:25 AM

I used to play various Palladium system games along with DnD, and I always felt that their alignment system was much better handled. It follows essentially the same blueprint as DnD but includes specific examples of actions. I've found that it really helps to have a specific list of specific "typical" behaviors; even as a casual reference it is invaluable in making sure everyone is on the same page. hope it helps, here it is (i did not write this list, credit goes to Kevin Siembieda):

Unlike D&D, Palladium has no Neutral Alignment. Here are the available Alignments and BRIEF descriptions of them.

GOOD ALIGNMENTS: Principled & Scrupulous

Principled:
1. Always keeps word
2. Avoids lies
3. Never kill OR attack an unarmed foe
4. Never harm an innocent
5. Never torture
6. Never Kill for pleasure
7. Always helps others
8. Works well with others
9. Respects authority, laws, self-discipline and honor
10. Never betrays a friend
11. Never breaks the law UNLESS conditions are desperate.

Scrupulous:
1. Keeps word to any other GOOD person
2. Lies only to people of selfish or evil alignments
3. Never kill OR attack unarmed foe
4. Never harm an innocent
5. Never torture for pleasure, may use muscle to extract info. from criminals or evil people
6. Never Kill for pleasure, will always attempt to bring villains to justice alive even if evil
7. Always helps others
8. Attempt to work within the Law whenever possible
9. Bends and occasionally break Laws when necessary.
10. Distrusts Authority
11. Works with groups, but dislikes confining laws and Bureaucracy (red tape)

SELFISH ALIGNMENTS: Unprincipled & Anarchist

Unprincipled
1. High regard for life and freedom
2. Keep word of honor
3. Lie & cheat if necessary (especially to Anarchists or evil persons)
4. Will not kill an unarmed foe (but will take advantage of one)
5. Help those in need
6. Not use torture unless absolutely necessary
7. Work with a group, especially if profitable
8. Never harm an innocent
9. Never kill for pleasure
10. Dislikes authority
11. Never betray a friend

Anarchist
1. May keep word
2. Lie & Cheat if he feels necessary
3. Not likely to kill an unarmed foe, but will certainly knockout, attack, or beat up one
4. Never kill an innocent, but may harm or kidnap
5. Not likely to help someone without ulterior motive
6. Seldom kill for pleasure
7. Use torture to extract info but not likely for pleasure
8. Doesn't work well in groups he will do as he d**n well pleases
9. Have little respect for self-discipline or authority
10. May betray a friend

EVIL ALIGNMENTS: Miscreant, Aberrant & Diabolic

Miscreant
1. Not necessarily keep his word to anyone
2. Lie & Cheat anyone
3. Most definitely attack an unarmed foe, they are the best kind
4. Use or Harm an innocent
5. Use torture for extracting info and pleasure
6. May kill for sheer pleasure
7. Feels no compulsion to help without some kind of tangible reward
8. Work with others if it will help him attain personal goals
9. Kill an unarmed foe as readily as he would a potential threat or competitor
10. Has no deference to laws or authority, but will work within them if he must
11. Will betray a friend if it serves his needs.

Aberrant
1. Always keeps his word of honor
2. Lie & cheat those not worthy of his respect
3. May or may not kill an unarmed foe
4. Not kill an innocent particularly a child but will harm or kidnap
5. Never kill for pleasure
6. Not resort to inhumane treatment of prisoners, but torture, although distasteful, is necessary means of extracting info.
7. Never torture for pleasure
8. May or may not help someone in need
9. work with others to attain his goals
10. Respect honor and self-discipline
11. Never betray a friend

Diabolic
1. Rarely keeps word
2. Lie and cheat anyone
3. Most certainly attack or kill an unarmed foe
4. Use, harm and kill an innocent without a second thought for any reason
5. Use torture for pleasure and info.
6. Kill for pleasure
7. Likely to help someone only to kill or rob them
8. Not work well with groups. Consistently disregards orders to do as he pleases
9. Despise honor, authority, and self-discipline
10. Associate mostly with other evil alignments
11. Betray friends at anytime.

Quertus

2016-10-06, 07:29 AM

OK, I don't think that someone's alignment was ever supposed to change off of a single action. I thought it was supposed to be a sum-total thing?

In play, it usually turns out that way. Which is part of why I've learned it's best to just ignore it.

Yes, I would join that campaign. A bunch of good & neutral characters (with a slight death theme) out to change the world in a big way.

:smallsmile:

Theoretically, we could add a value X such that you must cross over into another alignment by X to shift alignment. And shift 2X the other way to change back.

Practically, we are not actually summing numbers. The summing is just a metaphor for taking a look at a characters personality by examining their actions over a variety of situations.

Don't devalue the math side - that's how a lot of CRPGs calculate your alignment. And, if you don't have a scale, but instead use discrete boxes / thresholds, it'll work out like in your example.

Plus, since we are designing the character we can skip the filter of actions and look at the (intended) personality directly and use that.

Unfortunately, there's usually this **** component called "DM" that seems to feel the need to ignore what you think about your character, and knee-jerk their alignment over individual actions. At least, that's been my experience.

Lacuna Caster

2016-10-06, 09:54 AM

What Quertus said. Subjective on-the-spot interpretations are probably okay when using relatively narrow personality or goal-descriptors, but 'good' and 'bad' are so broad and reaching that I think doing some arithmetic is unavoidable if you want to maintain the appearance of objectivity. Despite some reservations (https://kierkeguardians.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/eliezer-yudkowsky-doesnt-understand-ethics/comment-page-1/), I usually lean toward 'shut up and multiply'.

8BitNinja

2016-10-06, 07:51 PM

So what I'm getting at is that alignment shouldn't have specific goals.

Okay, I'm not complaining.

Cluedrew

2016-10-07, 07:17 AM

Don't devalue the math side - that's how a lot of CRPGs calculate your alignment. And, if you don't have a scale, but instead use discrete boxes / thresholds, it'll work out like in your example.Getting away from the limits of computers is part of the reason I like TT/PP RPGs so much anyways.

Unfortunately, there's usually this **** component called "DM" that seems to feel the need to ignore what you think about your character, and knee-jerk their alignment over individual actions. At least, that's been my experience.My experience has generally been no one else really cares, leaving me to fiddle with it until I get it "right". Which may or may not be the critical difference here. I've always managed to make it work (or at least not get in the way) in my experience, but I have yet to do so in anyone else's.

Subjective on-the-spot interpretations are probably okay when using relatively narrow personality or goal-descriptors, but 'good' and 'bad' are so broad and reaching that I think doing some arithmetic is unavoidable if you want to maintain the appearance of objectivity.Well lets not getting into false advertising. We are dealing with some very intangible here, not like counting or distance. Whether we quantify it or not the result is subjective. Actually some complaints about alignment seem to have come from people making "subjective on-the-spot interpretations" and then encoding them as objective. Your best case is that all the subjects (everyone at the table) agrees on it.

And that is probably going to be my option on the matter until someone presents me with a unit for 'good' expressed in mass, time and distance.

So what I'm getting at is that alignment shouldn't have specific goals.If you want a generic system that can handle a full (effectively infinite) range of characters, then no. If you are aiming for something much smaller than that... then maybe.

Lots of little replies this time.