Moral philosophies as an alternative to alignments

[Greywander]

I've been considering using a moral philosophy system as an alternative to alignments, probably for an original system rather than for D&D, but that shouldn't make too much of a difference. I don't think the idea behind alignments is bad, I just don't like how it was executed. Rather than a two-axis system, with two pairs of opposed alignments, I think it will be more interesting to do a single set of three opposing moral philosophies.

One iteration of this idea was a system based off of Logos, Ethos, and Pathos. Which... isn't actually about moral philosophy, apparently, but rather methods of persuasion. But let's pretend that I'm stealing the names to reuse in a moral philosophy system and that they don't necessarily relate to their persuasive counterparts. The way I see this, Logos loosely relates to Lawful and values what is True or Correct, Ethos relates to Good and values what is Right or Virtuous, and Pathos relates to Chaos and values what feels Good or Positive. Neither is necessarily "more right" than others, each simply defines how one prioritizes their moral principles. You can see how this can resolve dichotomies such as whether to tell a lie to spare someone's feelings, or whether to do something a little bad in order to prevent something much worse. One thing I like about this is that it's simple and straightforward, but I could also expand these concepts into full-fledged moral codes.

Another thought was to draw on real life moral philosophies, which has the benefit of being well defined with much less ambiguity than D&D's alignment system. Two philosophies I think I'd want to include are Deontology and Utilitarianism. Deontology sees Good and Evil as clearly defined absolutes and believes that a person has a moral duty to do what is Good regardless of circumstances, e.g. you would not murder an innocent even if it would save millions of people. Utilitarianism takes a more pragmatic approach and looks at the expected outcome of an action, trying to maximize good and minimize harm. If you consider the trolley problem, a Deontologist would not pull the lever because in doing so they would murder one innocent person who would otherwise not have died, whereas a Utilitarian would pull the lever because it is better to save the five people at the cost of the one person.

I'm not sure what would make for a good third moral philosophy in this system. I'm considering Nihilism, but I think that fits better as a sort of "True Neutral" or "Evil" option, someone who doesn't believe morality exists and therefore Good and Evil don't really matter. One thing I do want to avoid is specifically having Evil itself as an option, because nobody believes themselves to be evil, everyone has some kind of justification for the things they do. The only entities that should be unapologetically evil are things like demons and such, and even then it's actually not hard to twist things so that they believe themselves to be rebelling against what in their mind is an unjust system.

Thoughts on this? Which of the two systems do you prefer (Logos-Ethos-Pathos vs. specific moral philosophies)? For the second system, what would make a good third option to oppose both Deontology and Utilitarianism?

[DammitVictor]

It's interesting to define these moral philosophies as forces in the game world, and it's interesting to categorize PCs and NPCs into categories based on them-- but if all they're used for is rewarding/penalizing PCs for acting in accordance with the DM's ideas of how those philosophies work, or using them to arbitrarily gatekeep character options... you're just back to the douchey implementation of D&D.

Mechanically, what do you want to do with these principles? What kind of player behavior do you want to encourage/discourage with them?

I don't know how I'd fit it into a D&D or d20-like structure, but in Cortex, I can see seven paired virtues/vices with each PC picking one from each pair, and rating them as a Core trait with a Value Statement. (Cortex Prime is actually my go-to system for running some AD&D settings, particularly Planescape.)

[Greywander]

I guess I mostly see it as a roleplaying aid, helping players to define what matters to their characters and act accordingly. It might manifest in other ways, such as magic items or magical effects that interact with a creature's moral philosophy. The point is not to punish players who act against their alignment, but merely to help the player figure out what their alignment actually is and to stick to it. If a player has their character act against the moral code they've selected, then it would make sense to simply change their moral code to realign with how they actually play the character, nothing more.

But you make a good point, perhaps there should be some kind of mechanical effect here. I'll have to give that some thought.

[DammitVictor]

Nothing wrong with roleplaying aids, though I don't think I'd use deontology-utilitarianism-virtue as the wheel because... well, the difference between those principles is kinda petty compared to the difference between two deontologists who follow different moral laws.

Or, like in my case, a traditional deed-based utilitarian (maximization of pleasure for all sapients) versus whatever kind of mutant utilitarian I am, rules-based with the object of maximization of agency for all sapients, weighted by kinship proximity to the moral actor.

It sounds like what you want is for every PC to have a player-defined moral code that they're expected/encouraged to uphold, but the only real penalty for habitually violating it is being required to reconcile it to their actual moral decisions. Pick a number of Affirmations, say between 3-7 and use it as the basis for awarding Inspiration or the equivalent?

[NichG]

I would definitely go for Logos/Ethos/Pathos over the philosophical schools, because it speaks more to a person figuring out what they actually care about whereas the schools are more like 'once you've made that choice, how do you deal with the difference between intent and consequence?'

Mechanically perhaps the thing that would be harmonious with the idea that these are descriptive rather than prescriptive would be to have there be powers/spells/etc that help answer the hard philosophical questions, but they always operate within the context of the principle that that particular character follows. So a follower of Logos who casts the spell might be able to know whether something is consistent with what they know - e.g. 'does A really follow from B?'. A follower of Ethos would be able to use the spell to distinguish courses of action based on how they relate to society as a whole - does behaving this way lead to harm, as you conceptualize harm, if everyone were to behave that way? A follower of Pathos might be able to use the spell to know whether they would regret a course of action or decision, but not its consequences to society as a whole.

So 'choosing an alignment' could be an in-character choice where the character is actually choosing how they wish the unified forces of the cosmos to present their revelations to that character. A Logosian receives raw facts devoid of explanation or context from their divinations. A Pathosian experiences it through feelings, emotions, intuitive attraction and revulsion. An Ethosian experiences their divinations through perceiving something about the shape and function of the system in which the things they divine on are embedded.

[brian 333]

Roleplaying aids are great in concept. Implementation has always been the hiccup.

The claim that D&D Alignments are used to penalize players is an example of this. The roleplay mechanic turned into a gameplay mechanic, and because of the adversarial relationship between players and DM, alignment morphed into a reward/punishment system.

The fact that this was never the intent of the system only points to the real problem: if it is a roleplaying aid, it cannot have mechanical game functions, and if it has mechanical game functions, it becomes another facet of the game players can game for benefits. When the DM tries to check players who do this he is 'punishing' them.

It does not matter how many axes or what the definitions for these axes may be. The issue is not that. The issue is, "How can I game this system to benefit my character?' Every player does it to some degree.

[Millstone85]

You can see how this can resolve dichotomies such as whether to tell a lie to spare someone's feelingsLogos: Tell them the truth.
Pathos: Spare their feelings.
Ethos: It depends?

[Mechalich]

So 'choosing an alignment' could be an in-character choice where the character is actually choosing how they wish the unified forces of the cosmos to present their revelations to that character. A Logosian receives raw facts devoid of explanation or context from their divinations. A Pathosian experiences it through feelings, emotions, intuitive attraction and revulsion. An Ethosian experiences their divinations through perceiving something about the shape and function of the system in which the things they divine on are embedded.

This sort of thing raises the question of 'why would the universe accommodate that?' though. I mean, it certainly could, especially in an all-myths-are-true sort of situation, and I guess that's actually more or less how Mage: the Ascension works, with cosmic truth filtered through the paradigm of each individual awakened, but such a setup doesn't lead to anything even close to a D&D style fantasy world or D&D style gameplay.

[Greywander]

Mechanically perhaps the thing that would be harmonious with the idea that these are descriptive rather than prescriptive would be to have there be powers/spells/etc that help answer the hard philosophical questions, but they always operate within the context of the principle that that particular character follows. So a follower of Logos who casts the spell might be able to know whether something is consistent with what they know - e.g. 'does A really follow from B?'. A follower of Ethos would be able to use the spell to distinguish courses of action based on how they relate to society as a whole - does behaving this way lead to harm, as you conceptualize harm, if everyone were to behave that way? A follower of Pathos might be able to use the spell to know whether they would regret a course of action or decision, but not its consequences to society as a whole.
Definitely an interesting idea! That's a rather specific example, though, so I'm not sure how I might generalize that, but it's something to look into.


This sort of thing raises the question of 'why would the universe accommodate that?' though. I mean, it certainly could, especially in an all-myths-are-true sort of situation, and I guess that's actually more or less how Mage: the Ascension works, with cosmic truth filtered through the paradigm of each individual awakened, but such a setup doesn't lead to anything even close to a D&D style fantasy world or D&D style gameplay.
Good and Evil gods have long been a part of fantasy, so this could just be a natural extension of that idea. Alternatively, your personal moral philosophy could influence how you do magic in order to change the results. It isn't that some cosmic force is delivering a result because of the moral code they follow, but rather that they specific seek out that result because that's the one their philosophy cares about. There's definitely a lot of ways to do it without getting pigeon-holed into "all myths are true".

And anyway I can't take "all myths are true" seriously because it implies that the weird cult that eats babies to summon the aliens is equally as legitimate as major orthodox religions. I have a very similar problem with settings where Good and Evil have to be kept in balance, since it implies doing too much Good could actually be bad and you might need to eat a baby or two to restore the balance.


if it is a roleplaying aid, it cannot have mechanical game functions, and if it has mechanical game functions, it becomes another facet of the game players can game for benefits.
If you're saying roleplaying aids can't have mechanical effects, I understand where you're coming from but I have to disagree. A mechanical effect can be a powerful motivator for roleplay. Just as an example, another alternative to alignments I've worked on is a personality system based on the four temperaments.

Melancholics are task-oriented introverts, and one thing they're known for is being meticulous planners. So their special bonus is that they can replace a d20 roll for an ability check with a natural 15, but have to do so before rolling. This requires them to plan ahead, but it also gives them an almost guarantied success that they know they can rely on for a critical check they can't afford to fail.

By contrast, Sanguines are people-oriented extroverts, and one thing they're known for is being impulsive thrill-seekers. So their special bonus is that they can reroll one ability check after failing. This allows them to behave recklessly and still have a chance to recover from a bad roll. But as long as they keep rolling well they can save it for later.

And that's only half the temperaments. Players aren't punished for playing outside of their temperaments, instead they're just given small bonuses that are more effective when following their temperaments. It gives a subtle push for the player to act a certain way, not enough to be overbearing but enough to encourage them to stick to their character concept.


Logos: Tell them the truth.
Pathos: Spare their feelings.
Ethos: It depends?
Not every moral dilemma would involve all three philosophies. The example you quoted was mostly down to Logos vs. Pathos. With that in mind, it makes sense to me for players to pick a primary and a secondary, or to rank all three in order of their importance (both options are functionally identical). That way, regardless of which two philosophies are in competition in a given dilemma, the player always knows which one is more important to them. Of course, this doesn't mean they're locked into a specific moral path, just that their character is generally more inclined to follow certain broad strokes than others. Every specific situation has to be dealt with on a case by case basis, even if the result is a hard, "I don't do X, I will never do X, X is anathema to my character."

[brian 333]

If you're saying roleplaying aids can't have mechanical effects, I understand where you're coming from but I have to disagree. A mechanical effect can be a powerful motivator for roleplay. Just as an example, another alternative to alignments I've worked on is a personality system based on the four temperaments.

Melancholics are task-oriented introverts, and one thing they're known for is being meticulous planners. So their special bonus is that they can replace a d20 roll for an ability check with a natural 15, but have to do so before rolling. This requires them to plan ahead, but it also gives them an almost guarantied success that they know they can rely on for a critical check they can't afford to fail.

By contrast, Sanguines are people-oriented extroverts, and one thing they're known for is being impulsive thrill-seekers. So their special bonus is that they can reroll one ability check after failing. This allows them to behave recklessly and still have a chance to recover from a bad roll. But as long as they keep rolling well they can save it for later.

And that's only half the temperaments. Players aren't punished for playing outside of their temperaments, instead they're just given small bonuses that are more effective when following their temperaments. It gives a subtle push for the player to act a certain way, not enough to be overbearing but enough to encourage them to stick to their character concept.

I'm not saying that they cannot have mechanical effects in game. I'm saying that that is the problem with Alignments, and incorporating mechanical effects into your roleplaying aid is dragging the problems that you want to avoid from the old system into the new system.

Mechanical systems exist to be gamed by players. Rewards for following the chosen code entice the player to follow it. But when a player consistently fails to do so, are these rewards withheld? If the player intentionally violates the code, are there penalties? Once again the DM is imposing a role upon the player of the character.

"My character logically deduces the best course of action is to make an overtly emotional appeal." (I gain the benefits of two ethical viewpoints.) "What do you mean I can't do that? It's perfectly logical! You are dictating how I play my character!"

That has been the issue with Alignment all along. You said it in your original post: Alignment used to punish. While that was not it's intent, players who wanted to play murderhobo paladins found themselves up against DMs who either ignored alignment or who were forced to punish.

A roleplaying aid with in-game mechanical functions is an exploitable aspect of the game. Divorce the aid from the mechanics and you have flavor without the calories.

[Anymage]

And anyway I can't take "all myths are true" seriously because it implies that the weird cult that eats babies to summon the aliens is equally as legitimate as major orthodox religions.

"All myths are true" tends to either focus on earth myths that have spread large enough for frequent retelling, or that reality is a construction based on consensus opinion. The former actually applies decently to a lot of D&D given how many monsters/spells/items/etc are sourced from real world mythologies. The latter means that the baby eating alien summoners get less of a vote on consensus reality than a major world religion if they manage to gather a wide enough following, which is rather unlikely.


I have a very similar problem with settings where Good and Evil have to be kept in balance, since it implies doing too much Good could actually be bad and you might need to eat a baby or two to restore the balance.

Oh, that's just D&D cruft built around old fantasy ideas. The concept of Law vs. Chaos instead of Good vs. Evil was an interesting one at its time and does justify the idea that balance is a wise goal to seek, but D&D bolting the Good/Evil axis onto that and trying to apply similar logic did get to odd places. Luckily that's one of those ideas that most settings have tossed by the wayside, and it's been a while since the idea that true neutrality meant being compelled to back the underdog in any conflict to serve some abstract idea of balance.

More broadly while you could introduce Logos vs. Pathos vs. Egos as literal cosmic alignments akin to Forces of Law vs. Forces of Chaos or Forces of Air/Water/Fire/Earth, that seems very setting specific instead of something broadly applicable.

If you're just looking for player inspirations a list of possible personality traits/mannerisms is much more likely to springboard ideas. Having specific personality traits to start from is much easier for players to keep in mind than their character's abstract moral/philosophical categorization.

[NichG]

This sort of thing raises the question of 'why would the universe accommodate that?' though. I mean, it certainly could, especially in an all-myths-are-true sort of situation, and I guess that's actually more or less how Mage: the Ascension works, with cosmic truth filtered through the paradigm of each individual awakened, but such a setup doesn't lead to anything even close to a D&D style fantasy world or D&D style gameplay.

The main idea being to get away from alignment as sides of a great war, and instead look at a formulation of alignment where the idea of someone 'acting in opposition to their alignment' becomes a category error. E.g. by looking at alignment as a a lens through which the holder of that alignment perceives the world (supernaturally) rather than a description of categories of behavior, someone can then look at the world logically but decide to do whatever they might want to decide to do. E.g. pinning a 'logos' on someone isn't a judgment, its impossible to 'violate' your own logos alignment, etc any more than you can 'violate' your Strength score.

It still remains that it might be mechanically optimal for someone to go Logos, just like it might be mechanically optimal to go high Strength, but it provides a lens without prescribing a way to roleplay looking through that lens - just like you can play the high Strength character as busting down the walls, or play them as cautious and careful and timid because they've grown up being used to a world that they can easily break.

So I don't see it as an 'all myths are true' thing. But it is very much like Mage in that it suggests that mortal minds cannot directly apprehend ineffable cosmic truths, and so any time you use magic or other means to get a glimpse at such your mind will always project that into a familiar form. Or, developing it a bit more, if you're a divine caster then the way you relate to spells is through mental resonance with the source of power you worship or follow and your own attitudes and ways of looking at the world are going to determine what can successfully resonate with you and what cannot. So that's more like Harry Potter where you have to be very emotionally self-perceptive to cast a Patronus but that doesn't matter so much if you want to cast a stunner or whatever, rather than like Mage where 'everything is true' and logos/pathos/ethos would be three inconsistent overlapping mythologies.

[brian 333]

The main idea being to get away from alignment as sides of a great war, and instead look at a formulation of alignment where the idea of someone 'acting in opposition to their alignment' becomes a category error. E.g. by looking at alignment as a a lens through which the holder of that alignment perceives the world (supernaturally) rather than a description of categories of behavior, someone can then look at the world logically but decide to do whatever they might want to decide to do. E.g. pinning a 'logos' on someone isn't a judgment, its impossible to 'violate' your own logos alignment, etc any more than you can 'violate' your Strength score.

It still remains that it might be mechanically optimal for someone to go Logos, just like it might be mechanically optimal to go high Strength, but it provides a lens without prescribing a way to roleplay looking through that lens - just like you can play the high Strength character as busting down the walls, or play them as cautious and careful and timid because they've grown up being used to a world that they can easily break.

So I don't see it as an 'all myths are true' thing. But it is very much like Mage in that it suggests that mortal minds cannot directly apprehend ineffable cosmic truths, and so any time you use magic or other means to get a glimpse at such your mind will always project that into a familiar form. Or, developing it a bit more, if you're a divine caster then the way you relate to spells is through mental resonance with the source of power you worship or follow and your own attitudes and ways of looking at the world are going to determine what can successfully resonate with you and what cannot. So that's more like Harry Potter where you have to be very emotionally self-perceptive to cast a Patronus but that doesn't matter so much if you want to cast a stunner or whatever, rather than like Mage where 'everything is true' and logos/pathos/ethos would be three inconsistent overlapping mythologies.

I never became involved in the cosmic scale war of alignments. I never got involved in the policing of alignments either. I just used the arbitrary lines drawn in the sand and went with it. I guess that is part of my problem with ideas like these: they are often presented as a fix for something that is only broken if used in a way it was never intended to be used.

The problem is not Alignments, the problem is disagreement over what they mean. This will follow into any system which has mechanical effects attached to roleplay functions. You will be forced to draw arbitrary lines in the sand and enforce them when players try to game the system.

As a 'campaign flavor' I like the idea. As a 'fix' I am dubious. In my opinion, one can completely ignore Alignment and have a fun game.

[Mechalich]

I never became involved in the cosmic scale war of alignments. I never got involved in the policing of alignments either. I just used the arbitrary lines drawn in the sand and went with it. I guess that is part of my problem with ideas like these: they are often presented as a fix for something that is only broken if used in a way it was never intended to be used.

The problem is not Alignments, the problem is disagreement over what they mean. This will follow into any system which has mechanical effects attached to roleplay functions. You will be forced to draw arbitrary lines in the sand and enforce them when players try to game the system.

As a 'campaign flavor' I like the idea. As a 'fix' I am dubious. In my opinion, one can completely ignore Alignment and have a fun game.

I mostly agree. The percentage of TTRPG campaigns with any interest in serious moral and/or philosophical debate is minute. Heck the proportion of potential tables where everyone involved can even successfully define the difference between Logos, Ethos, and Pathos is going to be tiny (and unless you game with philosophy or law students probably doesn't include your own).

Alignment, as a game mechanic, is mostly intended to say something like: in this universe there are good guy powers and bad guy powers, you can't use good guy powers if you're a bad guy and you can't use bad guy powers if you're a good guy. And, of course, players immediately try to find ways around this, and they try harder the more important and/or awesome-looking various gatekept powers happen to be (spontaneous casting of Cure spells in 3.X D&D is such a power, if the GM doesn't allow wand profusion, evil clerics have this funny tendency to disappear).

Now, it's certainly possible to gatekeep powers based on something else. I mentioned M:tA because it does this. Each tradition and to some degree each individual mage, has their own philosophy and thus their own unique approach to magic. This works, insofar as any WW game works, because mage magic has its powers bounded only by 'what you can talk your GM into allowing' but the game had a real power interaction problem in terms of deciding whether certain spells could work together, if different mages caused paradox in each other, and a bunch of other metaphysical garbage that mostly distracted from gameplay.

Generally it really only serves to engage in this kind of gatekeeping is the game draws on an existing universe and that universe already has rules of this kind, like Harry Potter or Star Wars.

[Yakk]

An issue I have with this is that most people don't consistently follow a specific moral philosophy. What more, many of those moral philosophies seem to act like retroactive justifications for behavior, rather than motivators, among all but the most abstract actors.

One thing I've played with is using something concrete, like D&D's "Bonds", and attaching alignment (or here, moral) keywords to them. As an example using alignment (which I've thought of more) is:

A LAWFUL bond is a bond to a system or group of people. "I am loyal to the Crown" would be a lawful bond, but so would be "I love being a pirate, and follow the pirate's code sometimes".

A CHAOTIC bond is a bond to an individual. "I am loyal to the Queen" is a chaotic bond, as is "I would never betray someone I sailed with, unless they betrayed me first".

An EVIL bond is a bond that benefits yourself; you get paid/supported by them. "My uncle the duke has always doted on me, and trained me in courtly graces" is an evil bond.

A GOOD bond is a bond that is for the benefit of someone else; you support them. "I love my sister and would do anything for her".

Having a Chaotic Evil bond doesn't mean you are Chaotic or Evil. It just means that one bond is both selfish and personal, not abstract and selfless.

...

To tie mechanics to it, the DM or player can tug on a bond.

If accepted, the PC goes down a plausibly sub-optimal path or has disadvantage on a check, but gains a resource to use later.

What you can use the resource for varies by the alignment of the bond. Suppose we use something like inspiration.

As a possible set of things inspiration reroll resources can be used:

Good bonds can be used to reroll an action on or by an ally or friend. (reroll an attack that hits your ally, an attack by an ally, a saving throw made by your ally, or a saving throw your ally imposed, or a similar ability check)
Evil bonds can be used to reroll your own actions or actions performed on you.
Lawful bonds can be used to reroll attack rolls.
Chaotic bonds can be used to reroll saving throws and ability checks.

If it aligns with both of the bond's alignments, the reroll is at advantage or disadvantage (depending on which is better).

The next bit would be to provide a reason for them to be used more often. Once per gaming session, a player can invoke a bond without tugging on it or having an inspiration point on it. To do so, they have to narrate a 1-3 minute flashback scene to how the bond relates to the PC.

The goal here is to bring a bit of meta-game character sharing to the action. You'll know a bunch more about the other PCs (as a player) from a bunch of flashbacks over a campaign. And, as a DM, the players flashbacking details about their bonds is a good way to be reminding of what bonds the PCs have, so I can tug on them later (either mechanically, or story-wise).

Turning this into a moral-philosophy based one should work.

Just attach some mechanics to each moral-philosophy tag, and describe how a bond relates to the moral-philosophy tag in question.

[Millstone85]

An EVIL bond is a bond that benefits yourself; you get paid/supported by them. "My uncle the duke has always doted on me, and trained me in courtly graces" is an evil bond.I would at least make it something that benefits yourself at the expense of others. The example still works if by "courtly graces" we mean the art of scheming, bullying and backstabbing in high society.

Plus, the list is missing a NEUTRAL bond. "I have a longtime business partner I would never swindle. Still, his problems aren't mine."


A CHAOTIC bond is a bond to an individual. "I am loyal to the Queen" is a chaotic bond, as is "I would never betray someone I sailed with, unless they betrayed me first".
A GOOD bond is a bond that is for the benefit of someone else; you support them. "I love my sister and would do anything for her".And these two, I am not sure if they are different.

[Yakk]

I would at least make it something that benefits yourself at the expense of others. The example still works if by "courtly graces" we mean the art of scheming, bullying and backstabbing in high society.

Plus, the list is missing a NEUTRAL bond. "I have a longtime business partner I would never swindle. Still, his problems aren't mine."
Lack of a tag isn't interesting.

But yes, it does make the two-tag boon a bit too important.


And these two, I am not sure if they are different.
"My old friend from school, a wealthy banker, always bails me out of trouble" is a CE bond.

It is a personal link (to your father), and it is evil (selfish, benefits you).

"I love my old friend from school, who lives in bridgeport" is a CG bond.

"I will defend my family name and honour" is LG.

"I can always rely on my family name getting me out of trouble" is LE.

"Family name" moves it from personal to organizational.

L/C is organizational vs personal.
G/E is selfless (the bond is for the benefit of the other party) vs selfish (the bond is for your benefit). Sure, you could call bonds that are balanced N, but we could just also drop the tag. I guess N could be "transactional" bonds?

The point is not that this is a universal way to describe all connections a person has. I'm just using 4 tags that match D&D alignment extremes and attaching them to connections and using them for a bit of mechanical weight.

And by highlighting L/C as organizational/abstract vs personal/individual I move away from CN as "chaos clown". Having a LG Paladin with some C and E bonds that don't define the paladin, but rather enrich them, without being a caricature of evil or chaos.

"My uncle helped get me into the order, and always has my back" is a CE bond.
"I really believe in the order's mission, and sacrifice anything for it" is a LG bond.

These could easily come into conflict. And the CE bond could rotate to CG if the uncle asks for help beyond what he can plausibly repay in the future and the PC feels obligated by it!

Which could conflict with the order's mission. Fun!

There are mechanical rewards for having conflicting bonds, but the bonds need not be in the story every session for them to matter (preventing them from decaying on the character sheet). When you invoke them, you remind the DM, yourself and other players about the existence of the bond, ensuring it doesn't fade out of everyone's memory.

Like:
Missed. Damnit. Ok, I invoke my "uncle" bond - "When I was a kid, I played with Uncle Bob's kid Simon. That one summer was amazing; then over the winter Simon died of the plague. Uncle Bob was never the same." - ok, I get to reroll that attack.

[Vahnavoi]

D&D alignments are moral philosophies, and since there are multiple different versions, which alignment stands for which philosophy varies.

I'll go by 1st edition AD&D definitions. The very basics are that the conflict between Good and Evil is that between life and happiness versus death and suffering. Neutral there is simply the point where the two even out. The conflict between Law and Chaos is that of large organized groups versus the individual, AKA collectivism versus individualism. Another way to conceptualize the contrast between Law and Chaos is to think of eusocial versus solitary animals. Adding in Neutral as a midpoint, you'd get eusocial versus social versus solitary.

AD&D then gives more detailed versions for each of its nine combinations. Of these, Lawful Good, True Neutral and Chaotic Evil are easiest to pin down. Description of Lawful Good explicitly mentions human rights, or more proper to D&D, creature rights, and invokes "greatest good for the greatest number of thinking good creatures, and least worst to all else". These comments place Lawful Good in the realm of natural rights thinking and classic utilitarianism.

True, or Absolute, Neutral, in AD&D meant to be for Druids only, is the viewpoint that there is desireable status quo and everything eventually comes back to it. The world can neither be improved or worsened on any long-lasting basis, all attempts to swing the pendulum one way inevitably bring it back in the other direction. Moral action then becomes avoiding or pre-empting radical actions, or evening out such actions taken by others. What gives Druids their special tree-hugging flavor is that the status quo is identified as sort of mythologized pre-human Earth, where all living things exist as components of a self-sustaining system. In short, they are ecological conservationists. What makes them look like ecoterrorists or baby-eating lunatics to contemporary players is that either those players don't believe there has been, or even can be, a natural status quo of this sort (which is fair, as it is a myth; the joke is, in D&D, some myths are true) - or, they simply refuse to entertain the idea that given how real humans operate, a Druid would be perfectly justified in deeming them an invasive species in desperate need of culling.

Chaotic Evil is egoism and "might makes right"; it's characterized by an individual not considering other people as having rights or worth beyond what they can give to that individual. More, on some level, the only thing of worth others can give to the individual is their suffering and death. That last part is what properly separates Chaotic Evil from other Chaotic alignments, and is often what trips player up about it, since such sadism doesn't always fit with other notions of "rational self-interest".

As far as mechanics go, typically sufficient mechanic to give meaning to different philosophies is simply admitting that people who genuinely believe different things also behave differently and do not get along very well. That is the main point of AD&D's alignment rules and can be made sense of by thinking of it as performance contest before outside observers who have differing opinions and consequently reward and punish actions differently. You can take that principle and apply it to any set of conflicting philosophies. If you want to be cruel, make players judge each other, rather than trying to wear every hat as a game master.

[Quizatzhaderac]

If you'd like to do background reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normative_ethics.

A shorter, more D&D friendly version of those philopshies:

A virtuist believes that what a person is is what matters. If the person is kind, hardworking, loyal, et cetra, other good things will naturally follow. Detractors accuse them of just doing empty virtue signaling.

A dutist believes that a person is defined by a myriad of duties; to one's community, family, comrades, and even minor duties to minor acquaintances. A dutist mainly care that another person is what they are expected to be and can be depended on. Detractors accuse them of being too inflexible and ignoring specific circumstances.

A Consequentialist only cares about results. Detractors same this framework is too easily twisted to whatever ends has in mind.

You also probably want some that don't have philosophers defending them, but seem to be things people believe:

Priorists believe that the world is already just. If someone is wealthy or poor it must be because they are good or bad people, even if you can't see why yet.

[MetroAlien]

"My uncle helped get me into the order, and always has my back" is a CE bond.
"I really believe in the order's mission, and sacrifice anything for it" is a LG bond.

These could easily come into conflict. And the CE bond could rotate to CG if the uncle asks for help beyond what he can plausibly repay in the future and the PC feels obligated by it!

Which could conflict with the order's mission. Fun!


I just really love this example!
I think you perfectly captured the richness of roleplaying in just those two lines.

The CE bond could be rephrased as:
"My uncle put in a good word for me with the paladin order, for which I'm forever grateful."
turning the same situation into CG.

In fact, both could be true at the same time!
But whichever the player chooses, highlights what's important for their character.
And that, I think, really boils down the essence of "alignments" in roleplay. Rather than being mutually exclusive, many times they're different ways to look at the same situation.

(of course the more extreme the situation, the more opposed the alignments become, but those extremes aren't why you're struggling with this topic, I assume)

Other interpretations of the same bond could sound something like this:
LG: "The order's leadership showed mercy in heeding my uncle's words and allowing me to join."
NG: "I shouldn't disappoint the trust put in me by my uncle and the order."
CN: "I can make use of the order's facilities as long as I fulfil its commandments."
etc...

[brian 333]

If you'd like to do background reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normative_ethics.

A shorter, more D&D friendly version of those philopshies:

A virtuist believes that what a person is is what matters. If the person is kind, hardworking, loyal, et cetra, other good things will naturally follow. Detractors accuse them of just doing empty virtue signaling.

A dutist believes that a person is defined by a myriad of duties; to one's community, family, comrades, and even minor duties to minor acquaintances. A dutist mainly care that another person is what they are expected to be and can be depended on. Detractors accuse them of being too inflexible and ignoring specific circumstances.

A Consequentialist only cares about results. Detractors same this framework is too easily twisted to whatever ends has in mind.

You also probably want some that don't have philosophers defending them, but seem to be things people believe:

Priorists believe that the world is already just. If someone is wealthy or poor it must be because they are good or bad people, even if you can't see why yet.

How is this different from Good, Lawful, Chaotic, and Neutral?

Changing from one arbitrary label with an arbitrary definition to another arbitrary label with the same definition is no change at all.

[MetroAlien]

How is this different from Good, Lawful, Chaotic, and Neutral?

Changing from one arbitrary label with an arbitrary definition to another arbitrary label with the same definition is no change at all.

The different schools of thought say nothing about what they consider to be "the right thing", only how they reason about it and what conclusions follow.
These being real-life examples, the implicit assumption is that they take the point of view of what we call "Good" in D&D.

That doesn't have to be the case in-game.
An Evil "dutist", for example, might say that it's his "duty" to provide for his family at the cost of the community.
Or, to provide for his community at the cost of another community, etc...

Anyway, I disagree with that "dutist" is necessarily lawful, even...
A chaotic dutist could make an argument Ã*-la Thatcher that "there's no community, only a collection of individuals".

Thus, a chaotic evil "dutist" would believe that he only has a duty to himself and nobody else.

Actually, I find this approach kinda fascinating.
Though I'm not sure if there's a rules-mechanical advantage to mapping characters' "ideology" instead of their actual moral values.
Sure, it's different, but is it better?

[brian 333]

How, then, is that more useful as a game mechanic or characterization tool? It seems to me that the ambiguity results in greater opportunity to argue.

[Millstone85]

A virtuist believes that what a person is is what matters. If the person is kind, hardworking, loyal, et cetra, other good things will naturally follow. Detractors accuse them of just doing empty virtue signaling.

A dutist believes that a person is defined by a myriad of duties; to one's community, family, comrades, and even minor duties to minor acquaintances. A dutist mainly care that another person is what they are expected to be and can be depended on. Detractors accuse them of being too inflexible and ignoring specific circumstances.

A Consequentialist only cares about results. Detractors same this framework is too easily twisted to whatever ends has in mind.

Priorists believe that the world is already just. If someone is wealthy or poor it must be because they are good or bad people, even if you can't see why yet.
How is this different from Good, Lawful, Chaotic, and Neutral?For what it is worth, my first thought was CG, LG, LE and CE:

A virtuist puts emphasis on the individual and cultivating one's heart toward kindness and more. CG
A dutist puts emphasis on doing well by the group through their expected place and role within it. LG
A consequentialist most easily accepts the necessary evil (like devils paint themselves in the BW). LE
A priorist deserves all they have and all they can take (like 5e's portrayal of the demonic mindset). CE

[MetroAlien]

How, then, is that more useful as a game mechanic or characterization tool? It seems to me that the ambiguity results in greater opportunity to argue.

Why play RPGs at all? It could cause an argument.

In any social situation ever, there's only "opportunity" to argue if you actively want to start an argument.

The very reason OP opened this thread is because they didn't want "opposed axes" in their alignment system. This invites "ambiguity" by default.

You call it ambiguity, I call it flexibility.

[brian 333]

I'm sorry, I didn't intend to hit a nerve. I am honestly mystified how this accomplishes the intended goals.

In the proposal there are three philosophies, which can be held to varying degrees. Each has varying interpretations for the stated philosophy. If one wishes, one can set these up in an XYZ coordinate system, and plot a single point on the 3d graph where the character's fervency for or in opposition to each philosophy is measured in relation to an absolute zero point.

It is effectively the same system.

The original problem this is supposed to fix is not addressed by the replacement system. We have only added an additional axis, so now we have 27 base alignments instead of 9.

To be clear, if the idea is to create a new 'image' this might work. However, if these philosophies are linked to game mechanics in any way it will still require DMs to enforce arbitrary philosophical points based on arbitrary text descriptions of those philosophies. If this is only a roleplaying tool, then its usefulness beyond character generation is severely limited.

Example: the player chooses a Knight Exemplar character, one requirement of which is that the character's philosophy be rooted in Logos. Who defines the limit to which said character can stray from Logos?

Example: there is a Ring of Empathy with amazing powers, but you have no characters in the group who espouse the philosophy of Empathy. Who decides if the ring can be used?

Unless these moral philosophies are not linked to mechanical benefits, the proposed system does not address the situation for which it is presented as a fix. And if they are not linked to mechanical benefits, why have them at all?

In over twenty years of active DMing, followed by another twenty of intermittent and online DMing, the number of times Alignment was an issue at the table can be counted on two hands at most. The number of times they took more than five minutes to resolve was zero. Don't get me wrong: out of game time we had a goodly number of discussions about it. But in game, the text in the PHB and DMG was enforced, knowing that it was arbitrary and had little relationship to real philosophies. The rest of the time it was background info with very little impact on our games.

In that time we also enjoyed playing games with no moral system at all. Characters still found that law enforcement was quick to respond to criminal activity. (Sometimes. Depends who these officials were.)

[The Patterner]

One iteration of this idea was a system based off of Logos, Ethos, and Pathos. Which... isn't actually about moral philosophy, apparently, but rather methods of persuasion. But let's pretend that I'm stealing the names to reuse in a moral philosophy system and that they don't necessarily relate to their persuasive counterparts. The way I see this, Logos loosely relates to Lawful and values what is True or Correct, Ethos relates to Good and values what is Right or Virtuous, and Pathos relates to Chaos and values what feels Good or Positive. Neither is necessarily "more right" than others, each simply defines how one prioritizes their moral principles. You can see how this can resolve dichotomies such as whether to tell a lie to spare someone's feelings, or whether to do something a little bad in order to prevent something much worse. One thing I like about this is that it's simple and straightforward, but I could also expand these concepts into full-fledged moral codes.


Thoughts on this? Which of the two systems do you prefer (Logos-Ethos-Pathos vs. specific moral philosophies)? For the second system, what would make a good third option to oppose both Deontology and Utilitarianism?

Okey, I can see that there is already a lot of discussions taking place here, but I want to jump in.

I have a masters degree in rhetoric, so the concept of ethos, logos and pathos greatly apeals to me. I do also belive that you could build an interesting alignment system from them. However, I'd define them quite differently.

To begin with, they wouldn't be so much ethical systems as they are systems to explain your inner decision making process. You can be good or evil, dosen't matter, this is something else.

Logos: People who adhere to this process focus on logic and reason, they try and distance themselves from emotions and culture when making decisions and instead aspire for objective truths.

Ethos: These people holds culture, traditions and community as the most important part on how to make decisions. Often something is done a specific way because that is how it has always been done. They often have a strong focus on the community and the idea of sticking together.

Pathos: Passionate and impulsive. the primary focus lies on doing what feels right in any given situation. That can mean hight empathy, compassion etc, but it can also be anger, hate etc.

All three can and will co-exist, however different societies would probably have different groups in the majority.

[Quizatzhaderac]

How is this different from Good, Lawful, Chaotic, and Neutral?

Changing from one arbitrary label with an arbitrary definition to another arbitrary label with the same definition is no change at all.Let me give some counter examples.

Xykon is a virtuist, he believes that what matters is that he is independent, powerful, and in control.

Ian Starshine is a dutist. He believes in duties to family. Duties of revenge to enemies, and duties of all to freedom.

Targuin is a consequentialist. If he kills 100,000 people in wars, political persecution, and shame trails, but prevents 1 millions deaths from other wars, crime, and economic collapse, he's the best person in the world.

Gin-Jun is a priorist. He believes that goblins being hated and impoverished is evidence that they must have earned those conditions through wanton violence, banditry and general barbarism.


How, then, is that more useful as a game mechanic or characterization tool? It seems to me that the ambiguity results in greater opportunity to argue.It's absolutely not a 'fully cooked' idea. I bring them up to facilitate discussion, introduce ideas.

So far there are still way to vague, as these are categories meant to find most possible ideas about morality.

To make it game-able, we'd probably need to introduce either sub-categories, or subjects to each. Deontology/dutism already has the law-like sub-categories of Kantian categorical imperatives and Contractualism, and less law like ideas of natural rights.

Utilitarian-ism is the most famous sub-type of consequentialism, but there's also the law-like state consequentialism.

But at this stage I think maybe a framework and a subject combination would work best for mechanics. Explanations could be given of a few of the main ones (virtuist (kindness), virtuist (authenticity), dutist (agreements), dutist (the helpless),consequentialist (happiness), consequentialist (state), but a player would have a path to pluggining in a new subject that they think is important.



Actually, I find this approach kinda fascinating.
Though I'm not sure if there's a rules-mechanical advantage to mapping characters' "ideology" instead of their actual moral values.
Sure, it's different, but is it better?The only real advantage I can think of is that these have been philosophically explored and have sophisticated definitions so if you want to get into drawn out debates, much of the work is already done.

[brian 333]

I realize I've been tasting the soup before it's salted, but I am trying to figure out how this proposal benefits gamers. Please be patient with me as I am not the boxest sharp in the tool.

Roleplay Aid: use of the system gives players a guide to follow when portraying a personality distinct from his own. There are no penalties or rewards for failing or succeeding in the attempted portrayal.

Gameplay Mechanic: the system is used to affect die rolls, NPC interactions, item compatibility, build options, etc., and failure to act consistently within defined boundaries results in penalties while consistent exemplary portrayal of the characteristics is rewarded.

Of course, virtually all D&D games fall into a hybrid between these extremes. The rules prevent abuse of game but game administrators are rarely required to enforce them.

Which leads into the next half of the question: is it intended to be a superior system to the traditional Alignment Grid? Or is it flavor?

Superior is entirely subjective. It is the equivalent of deciding that Green is the superior color. So, instead of pointless arguments about whether antlered ungulants are better than horned ones, (and what about those weird not-quite-horn things like giraffes and pronghorns?) let us begin with a graph.

On a plane, imagine an origin point from which a ray, labeled with 99 points along its length, is opposed by two similar rays emerging from the common origin point, each set at 120 degrees from the other. (Let's label them Antler, Horn, and Ossicone for convenience.) Let us give the PC 99 points to arrange on this graph. The PC can give his character 33 points in each, indicating the character is open-minded, (or dingy.) He can assign 100 points to Antler, (opening up the hybsil class as an option,) or 100 points to Horn, (enabling the Satyr class,) or he can assign 75 points to Horn and 25 to Ossicone to enable the selection of the Gore and Rhino-Charge feats, and so on. Class selection and features could be regulated by the requirements on this kind of grid, so that powerful combinations, such as Gore and Mesmerize cannot be used by the same character.

Another option would be to imagine a die with one corner pointed toward the viewer. Now the origin is this corner and the three rays are set at 90 degrees to each other. With this a 3d coordinate system can be set up such that by assigning 66 Antler, 23 Horn, 13 Ossicone, a Player identifies a specific point on that 3d grid, and seeks to follow the basic belief systems that flow around that. In this example, to take the Hybrid class, one would need more than 75 points in Antler, so the character would not qualify for that class. Meanwhile, there may be a feat available to characters with at least 25 points in Horn, and another requiring 65 point in Antler that the player wants.

I hope the above gibberish does not detract from the mental images of the graphs and some potential ways they can be used.

However, there may be no need for such an exhaustive system if your intent is to create a 'flavor' for your game. Gamma World had a simple mutants versus naturals characterization that was only a roleplay thing. Every player wanted all the 'best' mutations with the fewest, least debilitating disabilities. Robotech had a clan loyalty value built into roleplay which had zero mechanical impact in combat. Shadowrun has the loss of interest in life as one acquires more implants, while Traveller has none either implied or imposed. Betraying the Empire is virtually meaningless, supporting it gets you nothing, and there is no metric to track that.

So, the question of intent, (why do you want this?) and the question of how the stated intent is met, (mechanical rules to support the intended feature,) are what I have been asking about. So far, I have, "Alignment sucks, I want a better alignment system," followed by, "So here are three Alignment positions to replace the traditional nine."

(Again, my apologies if that sounds harsh to you. It is not meant as such. It it only meant as illustration.)

Games don't need alignment. D&D is the first, of which I am aware, that asked the player to consider his character's morality. For longer than any other game, the mechanics of its system have been compared to real life and various "Ah-ha!" moments have come up. Well, I never move 5 feet in a single step, so the five foot step rule is out. I never hit a guy then stand there while he swings at me, (I hope he rolls a 1, I just got this retainer adjusted!) so melee combat is out. And since I know it takes longer than one minute to produce fire with my bare hands, let's ditch that totally unrealistic Fireball spell.

So, comparing a fantasy game mechanic to anything real, or trying to model anything real in all but the grossest terms in a game, is an exercise in futility. No mechanic stands up to scrutiny under the microscope. For a good many years I have asked why gamers have so many issues with Alignment. Nobody seems to have the answer. But if we move these deck chairs around the Titanic won't sink this time.

[Mechalich]

Games don't need alignment. D&D is the first, of which I am aware, that asked the player to consider his character's morality.

Well, since D&D is the first TTRPG and it introduced alignment pretty early, of course it would be the first to have a morality system. That said, most games don't need morality systems. The only games that do are those were the setting has an explicitly extant in-universe moral arbiter whose moral arbitration has an active effect on gameplay. And there are quite a few settings like that, since that applies to basically any setting where there is a god(s), who is judging the fate of everyone. For example, in the Wheel of Time a character can sell their soul to the Dark One and there are some rather substantial consequences that go along with that, and in Vampire: the Masquerade, vampirism is in fact a divine curse passed in an unending chain of victims all the back to the first murderer and that has a huge amount of implications for well, basically everything surrounding that game.

D&D, as usual, both does and does not need a morality system. Played as a sword & sorcery inspired dungeon crawler, it doesn't. Played as epic heroic save-the-world fantasy it does. it doesn't need alignment specifically, since that system is really overcomplicated and bad, but defining good versus evil does matter if you're trying to run the Dragonlance Chronicles.

The thing about trying to use moral philosophies is that it implies moral arbitration by said philosophies, or at least deities who serve as perfect exemplars of said philosophies, which is frankly just kind of bizarre. I struggle to imagine a satisfying scenario wherein one's place in the afterlife is determined by how dutist or utilitarian they were. What would that even mean? I'm fairly certain this would end up judging good versus bad utilitarians anyway, in which case everything loops back around to good and evil.

[Vahnavoi]

What would that even mean? In practice, being put on a trial, with some supernatural entity as the judge, enumerating your duties and then looking at actions you took in life to see if you ever tried to fill those duties. For an utilitarian or other consequentiamist judge, they would also look at whether what you did served the greater good, possiby contrasting what you did with what a hypothetical reasonable mortal with the same amount of knowledge would've done. A particularly unforgiving system might simply account for all ultimate consequences of your actions, even unforeseable ones, disregarding your personal knowledge; to bring virtue back in the mix, such a system may then give an option to repent by showing humility, acceptance, regret (etc.) while condemning those who stand by their sins with pride, denial etc..

Since we want a game out of this, it is possible to make one or all players serve as the judge(s) - so when a character dies, it's how they looked to the other players (in their role(s) as god(s)) that determines their ultimate afterlife. The process can be on-going too, give players voting tokens (such as white and black stones) that they can cast to indicate when they think a particular character is acting particularly well or particularly poorly according to moral philosophy they're judging.

[Justanotherhero]

I'm not sure what would make for a good third moral philosophy in this system. I'm considering Nihilism, but I think that fits better as a sort of "True Neutral" or "Evil" option, someone who doesn't believe morality exists and therefore Good and Evil don't really matter. One thing I do want to avoid is specifically having Evil itself as an option, because nobody believes themselves to be evil, everyone has some kind of justification for the things they do. The only entities that should be unapologetically evil are things like demons and such, and even then it's actually not hard to twist things so that they believe themselves to be rebelling against what in their mind is an unjust system.

Thoughts on this? Which of the two systems do you prefer (Logos-Ethos-Pathos vs. specific moral philosophies)? For the second system, what would make a good third option to oppose both Deontology and Utilitarianism?

May I recommend:Intentionalism measuring intentions of the agent not utilitarian outcomes.
Particularly for agents that want to feel good while deciding.

Or contractualism : measuring an agent’s trustworthiness to a given promise or statement regardless of outcome or legality?
Particularly useful for not so legal actors.

[Morphic tide]

May I recommend:Intentionalism measuring intentions of the agent not utilitarian outcomes.
Particularly for agents that want to feel good while deciding.

Or contractualism : measuring an agent’s trustworthiness to a given promise or statement regardless of outcome or legality?
Particularly useful for not so legal actors.
I think that Orthodoxy/Orthopraxy would be a better way of phrasing such an axis than Intentionalism/Utilitarianism, to divorce from full philosophical frameworks. More generally, I think that it'd work out much better to construct something like Moral Foundations Theory, in deliberate in-tension pairs for use as alternate axes, or to derive from Exalted's five Virtues. Because pegging it to components of ethics lets you break down arbitrary philosophies and avoid needing to give a 101 course to people who aren't "clued in" to the ivory tower details of the chosen philosophies.

[Quizatzhaderac]

TO get into the questions of what a moral system in a game is even for. I see there being two categories:

1) In the game. Which has the subcategories (a) objective: what the rules, magic system or big gods say (b) subjective: what societies, factions, and little gods think

2) At the tables, to help (a) the player (b) the DM.

The player might have never really considered outside of their personal situation especially in this is their first RPG. The moral system might want to encourage the player to morality from the perspective of someone with a different social role in a society with unjust laws.

For the DM, they want to be able to created a lot of characters and entire societies expediently.

[Devils_Advocate]

How clear do you want the philosophies to be? The descriptions of Logos, Ethos, and Pathos in the OP, for example, are plenty vague, to the point that even calling them "descriptions" feels somewhat generous. Less so with Deontology and Utilitarianism, but still pretty much.

I don't think that you can rely on common understanding of those, either, because that seens fairly incoherent as well. E.g. the two are often presented as fundamentally opposed, but... rule utilitarianism is clearly a fusion of the two? Like, it's utilitarian deontology and deontological utilitarianism? Doesn't make the categories meaningless, any more than Lawful and Good are meaningless because someone can be both, but it suggests that common understanding is flawed.


If you consider the trolley problem, a Deontologist would not pull the lever because in doing so they would murder one innocent person who would otherwise not have died, whereas a Utilitarian would pull the lever because it is better to save the five people at the cost of the one person.
This is a good illustrative example. Someone might say that a deontologist won't redirect damage to a smaller group due to unwillingness to kill. But were that really the case, deontologists wouldn't argue in favor of deontolgy, as that might persuade consequentialists not to save lives, thereby killing people! The obvious counterpoint is that causing deaths isn't necessarily killing in a morally relevant sense. But that's also the obvious counterpoint to your characterization of the trolley problem!

Replacing "kill" with "murder" just seems to make things even more dubious. There are deontological arguments for obeying the law, but in this sort of context, "murder" is generally understood to mean "unethically kill", not "illegally kill". And "A deontologist would consider that killing unethical on the grounds that it's an unethical killing" is pretty vacuous. Not entirely, mind. It indicates that the deontologist thinks that some killings are unethical and that this is one of them. But it certainly doesn't explain why.

More broadly speaking, there's the issue that killing, in any non-contrived sense, includes causing death. It's a category of action defined, at least in part, by consequence. So a prohibition on killing innocents is fundamentally incompatible with a moral philosophy that disregards consequences!

Honestly, the general impression I get is that adherence to or even sincere belief in one's stated ideology is the exception rather than the norm. E.g., of everyone who says things like "I think that right and wrong are independent of circumstances", even of all the people who think that they believe it, none of them actually think that swinging a sword in front of you is equally right whether or not someone is standing there, and regardless of who it is. Rather, particular sorts of descriptions have positive and negative associations for people, and they like to frame the courses of actions they favor in what they consider favorable terms. But those are rationalizations, not motivations.

Which suggests that if psychological realism is a goal, vagueness of ideology is a feature, not a bug. That way, players are supposed to give weaselly explanations of how their actions agree with their purported values. It's the in-character thing to do!

This is even kind of already a thing in D&D lore. A devil says that she has to betray and supplant her superior because she's more qualified for the position. A demon says that he has to obey his boss most of the time to survive long enough to get revenge on the one who controls him. Both of those make sense. With the upshot that these "ideologically opposed" beings wind up actually acting pretty much the same for, like, surprisingly nearly all significant purposes? AKA politics as usual. A lot of stuff does kind of seem like it makes more sense if an entity's alignment is just its preferred talking points. Kinda pathetic, but there ya go.


nobody believes themselves to be evil, everyone has some kind of justification for the things they do.
Was this knowing hyperbole, or do you think that everyone who says otherwise is lying, and if so, why? Or do you mean to claim that you've never encountered someone with a low opinion of their own moral character? And even that you've never witnessed anyone acknowledge their own vices without trying to excuse them?

[Justanotherhero]

This is a good illustrative example. Someone might say that a deontologist won't redirect damage to a smaller group due to unwillingness to kill. But were that really the case, deontologists wouldn't argue in favor of deontolgy, as that might persuade consequentialists not to save lives, thereby killing people! The obvious counterpoint is that causing deaths isn't necessarily killing in a morally relevant sense. But that's also the obvious counterpoint to your characterization of the trolley problem!

Replacing "kill" with "murder" just seems to make things even more dubious. There are deontological arguments for obeying the law, but in this sort of context, "murder" is generally understood to mean "unethically kill", not "illegally kill". And "A deontologist would consider that killing unethical on the grounds that it's an unethical killing" is pretty vacuous. Not entirely, mind. It indicates that the deontologist thinks that some killings are unethical and that this is one of them. But it certainly doesn't explain why.

More broadly speaking, there's the issue that killing, in any non-contrived sense, includes causing death. It's a category of action defined, at least in part, by consequence. So a prohibition on killing innocents is fundamentally incompatible with a moral philosophy that disregards consequences!


In contrast to consequentialist theories, deontological theories judge the morality of choices by criteria different from the states of affairs those choices bring about.
The most familiar forms of deontology, and also the forms presenting the greatest contrast to consequentialism, hold that some choices cannot be justified by their effects—that no matter how morally good their consequences, some choices are morally forbidden.

For your examples:
Saying killing is wrong and having a person listen to that does not constitute an act of killing if acting within the deontological mind frame. Because saying killing is wrong is not a morally forbidden act.

Source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/

[brian 333]

And we are still left with a tool which requires a DM to adjudicate where any boundaries may be in order to determine if a player character has 'crossed the line' and to assign any remediation or punishments necessary to encourage adherence to the standard.

Or we are left with roleplaying guidelines which do not have much of an impact on gameplay.

[Vahnavoi]

Again: it doesn't have to be the game master who serves as a judge. It's a game, you can have the players judge each other, vote with tokens, etc..

[NichG]

And as I said upthread, you can also do it in a way such that a player declaring 'alignment' is telling the world how to interact with them, rather than saying how they will necessarily RP the character. In which case no one judges anyone's play and its impossible to 'do it wrong', any more than its possible to 'play a human wrong' when that human could be from any number of cultures, upbringings, attitudes, etc - but it still makes a difference if you declare on your sheet 'human' vs 'halfling' or whatever.

It's not D&D alignments, but I had a GM who used a bunch of 'cosmic signatures' or 'taints' that characters could obtain or be forcibly inflicted with, through a wide variety of methods. In that game you could be aligned with, say, Madness, but that wasn't an obligation to play your character as insane. It just meant that sometimes the GM would narrate things differently to you than to the rest of the party - in some cases this was your character actually perceiving something true but which was impossible to otherwise sense (like hearing the music change when you're about to be ambushed), and other times it was your Madness messing with you. Or a character aligned with something like Hell didn't have to be played evil or demonic or trying to corrupt people or steal their souls, but it would mean that wounds they dealt to others would be harder to heal, that certain cosmic forces would react in different ways around them, maybe that certain gateways and wards would open or close to them but not others, etc.

The point being, it can be neither exactly prescriptive or descriptive but rather more like a (permanent, voluntary) status condition attached to the character that has consequences but doesn't necessarily directly say anything about their personality or actions beyond the level of seeing someone bearing a bunch of scars and concluding that maybe they like to get into fights.

[Devils_Advocate]

In contrast to consequentialist theories, deontological theories judge the morality of choices by criteria different from the states of affairs those choices bring about.
They may also take other factors into consideration, but remotely normal deontological ethicists don't actually think that it's ethical to disregard the consequences of one's actions. Maybe a few of them say so, but they do so with the expectation that such statements will not be interpreted literally. Because that's... just a fundamentally deranged position to genuinely hold, and very obviously so.

The concept of consequences has to somehow figure into a prohibition against e.g. killing, as resulting in death is necessary for an action to constitute killing. Killing is inherently a cause-and-effect thing. And this isn't a grey area; it's true for every sense of the word "kill". To be clear, I'm not disagreeing with an unfamiliar usage here, I'm denying that such usage exists. Zero percent of deontologists think that anyone "killed" someone who never died. Zero percent of deontologists think that anyone "killed" someone whose death was in no way a result of the "killer's" actions. I am open to examples to the contrary, but I fully expect that you won't be able to find any.

If you want to get technical, it's possible if not inevitable to look at things like intended consequences or expected consequences rather than actual consequences. And "deontological" and "consequentialist" theorists both do that, thus belying the characterization of deontology and consequentialism as fundamentally opposed with zero overlap, as I've said.


Saying killing is wrong and having a person listen to that does not constitute an act of killing if acting within the deontological mind frame. Because saying killing is wrong is not a morally forbidden act.
Anyone can give a No True Scotsman definition of any word that excludes whatever they want. A relevant question, to put the situation in ethical terms, is whether we have a duty not to do that. In particular, is it unethical to arbitrarily exempt acts of some description from moral prohibitions, e.g. deciding that killing someone "doesn't count" if done indirectly, unintentionally, or whatever? I strongly doubt that many people think that it's fine to do anything at all so long as you decide it's exempt first, so safe to say that the common sense answer is "Yes", for obvious reasons. That's a loophole big enough to drive a proverbial truck through!

One shouldn't claim to believe that killing innocents, for instance, is always inherently wrong unless one genuinely and unequivocally thinks that there are no exceptions. Pretending not to understand how transitive verbs work isn't going to convince anyone reasonable that you're correct about anything, but at most that you're intellectually dishonest and/or ignorant. Same if you legitimately don't understand how transitive verbs work.


To be clear, I'm not criticizing deontological ethics in general, I'm saying that certain sound bites that are supposed to describe deontology... don't? Because they're not literally right and there's no clear non-literal interpretation. Which... is probably true for a lot of philosophies. Which would be annoying on it own, but feels pretty concerning when combined with my suspicion that a lot of people engage with various philosophies mostly on the level of sound bites.

Come to think of it... Logos, Ethos, and Pathos could be how a character relates to a nominal philosophy, regardless of what that philosophy is. Logos goes with what makes sense, Ethos favors orthodoxy, and Pathos is flexible about the interpretation of terms whose vagueness is a not a bug but a feature.

[Bohandas]

One thing I do want to avoid is specifically having Evil itself as an option, because nobody believes themselves to be evil, everyone has some kind of justification for the things they do.

IIRC there actually have been a handful of serial killers who have professed serve the cause of evil itself or claimed to be the servants of some mythical force of supernatural evil. Although even among serial killers this seems to be rare. But nonetheless it is not entirely unheard of.

[Vahnavoi]

Regarding deontology versus virtue versus consequence, when you're talking in the context of a game system or constructed world of a speculative fiction, these can be congruent to the point of not being distinct.

As in: the constructed rules of game/setting can define following certain virtues as generating particular consequences. Oh right, and this schema exist because of the sovereign decision of the Great Mind, GM for short, who is responsible for everything. It works because the GM wills it, and the GM wills it because it (can) work(s). :smalltongue:

But, of course, this leads to what DammitVictor noted a page ago: "Nothing wrong with roleplaying aids, though I don't think I'd use deontology-utilitarianism-virtue as the wheel because... well, the difference between those principles is kinda petty compared to the difference between two deontologists who follow different moral laws."

The GM picking a set of rules for virtues and their consequences does not, in itself, a prohibit the existence of an entity who would insist on following incongruent set of rules for virtues and consequences. In familiar terms, such contrarians would be out of alignment with moral universe of their game/setting, because something they want is orthogonal or diametrically opposed to what is moral by decree of the GM. Track and categorize how and why they are out of alignment, and it will eventually generate a moral landscape showing relative distance of such contrarians from universal morality - D&D Great Wheel cosmos is one such landscape.