A different perspective on Alignments

[Jowgen]

In D&D, alignment is portrayed as a cross-sectional dicotomy of the G/E and L/C axes.

I would like to get some thoughts on a different way of looking at the 9 alignments.

The basic premise of this school of thought is that Good is just another kind of Law (i.e. just another way to judge actions as being desireable or reprehensible), so that alignment should be understood based on how one deviates from Chaotic Evil in terms of the degree of "corruption" by moral and/or ethical law.

Lemme Elaborate

NE TN CN
LE CE CG
LN LG NG


This perspective views CE as the original/natural alignment, i.e. freedom of choice unrestrained by any compunctions, placing it at the centre of the grid. Neutral alignment components are understood as rejection of Chaos or Evil but without embracing the corrseponding type of Moral/Ethical Law.

The bottom row has the alignments of maximum rejection of CE in favour of either or both kinds of Law, sharing no common denominators with CE. I.e. the Corrupted.

The middle row, on either side of CE, has the alignments that subscribe to one of the laws, but still share a common trait with CE. I.e. the half-corrupted.

The top row has the alignments that don't subscribe to the laws, but don't embrace the core CE alignment either. I.e. The Wayward.

Looking at it by Collums, Law exerts its influence on the left from the bottom up and Good affects the left collum from the bottom. Hence why TN is at the top centre, representing a complete rejection of not only CE but both kinds of Law as well, while LG is at the bottom centre, representing rejection of CE in favour of embracing both laws.

Of course the grid could be rotated around in whatever way one chooses, with the relative relationships not changing still.

[Abroane]

I like the idea of mixing up the alignments but i don't agree.

There is no way that i could get behind CE as the default position.
To be CE would mean an almost all consuming ego that lacks empathy or compassion.

Hurting others, stealing, breaking the law, etc. are all things you wouldn't have an issue with and that just isn't a natural position to start from.
literally no one but the worst of the worst would be there.

I feel you are trying to turn the alignment grid into a line like a 1 to 9 scale with CE being at 1.

I'll mull over it, maybe i haven't given it enough thought but for now i don't really like this method of categorization of alignments.

[H_H_F_F]

I think you're going for kind of a Hobbesian natural state as your center - but even accepting that perspective on humanity, which I don't, I think it is described far better as chaotic neutral.

I like the Idea of trying to reimagine the alignment system, but I think it's bad enough as is without us making it worse by pretending humans are naturally inclined to have an appetite for destruction and 0 empathy.

[zlefin]

I don't see how it really makes sense as a grid there; I'm also unsure what each of those alignments actually mean in practice, you use the standard terms for them, but are they the same or different from the normal definitions of the alignments?

[Jowgen]

I should probably elaborate on how the origin idea came from lore regarding early planar history.

It's pretty universally known that Law vs Chaos was the original cosmic conflict in the planes, with Good / Evil only really becoming distinctions that were made a bit down the line (i.e. Asmoedeus / Hexetor going "bad"). Some FCI lore text goes so far as to propose the Abyss was the original cradle of creation, even.

So I was wondering how creatures would have conceptualised alignments (and thus how the great wheel would have looked) back then.

Like, modern day material plane creatures are very much born with Neutrality as their "default" setting, and the intelligent ones by en large have been created/evolved to have an inherent tendency towards learning empathy and forming societies.


As for the question of whether the alignments as described on here are the same as the modern ones, I would say that they very much are, except that there is more of a distinction in terms of passive vs active subscription/opposition to an ideal; i.e. one can be CE because one doesn't care/understand Law/Good, or one can be CE because one actively disagrees with Law/Good and thus holds up CE behaviours as "virtues" in a sense.