numeric morality?

[Remirach]

Instead of only ranking characters from Lawful-Good through Chaotic-Evil, would this 15-ranking system work as a supplement?

From good to evil (8 is neutral)

1. "Crusader"

Cheerful, ebullient, and usually completely clueless, not to mention goofy. Ones may be fighters, but they have serious moral qualms about killing anyone, no matter how much of a threat they might represent. They often take this quality to ludicrous extremes, because killing is WRONG! The Crusader is pretty spiritual and has a lot of faith in the ability of people to see the error of their ways and reform. Although their bubbly and childish personality might wear on the nerves of other characters, they are usually correct in the final count, because a story that involves a Crusader usually does feature other characters who change their ways. Outright evil characters see the beauty of life, and cynical depressed characters discover the true meaning of love. No matter how irritating the overwhelming optimism might be, it's hard for anyone to deny that this person is possessed of a true vision.

It's kind of hard to accept that a person like this could ever truly exist, because their overall nobility is just relentless, and while it is supposed to be a reflection of the greatness in humanity it's almost impossible to see them as being human. Plus, it often comes up that they AREN'T human... they're aliens that look like humans, or something.

OOTS example: Elan. Is there anyone more good-hearted than Elan, seriously?

2. "Seeker"

The Seeker is a very common hero, but not necessarily the most interesting character of the story, because their actions are not terribly difficult to predict... no matter what the temptation, you know they're going to do the right thing in the end. The greatest sin a Seeker might ever commit is usually to allow their own private concerns to take precedence of over the greater good. Most of the conflict of this character usually stems from some obligation they have been given that they did not ask for. Frequently they are bestowed great powers which also come with some hideous world-saving responsibility, and it often makes them a mite cranky, or even outright WHINY. They usually lack self-confidence. Only when operating at their absolute peak would a Seeker demonstrate the kind of easy assurance that comes so naturally to the Crusader. The whininess-factor is more pronounced in younger versions of the character, as older Seekers often function in a kind of guardian-capacity to the main protagonist, and perhaps age and experience granted them a greater measure of confidence in their own abilities.

Seekers are heavily dependent upon their alliances, without true friends or allies they'd be screwed no matter HOW powerful they are on their own. Their ability to form friendships is usually what differentiates them from the villains of the piece, two stands as a reflection of the awesome powers of TEAMWORK! They don't have the Crusader's all-pervading belief that every person is capable of finding redemption, but they ARE willing to give everybody a chance.

OOTS example: Hinjo. Not too effective on his own, but loyal and honorable to a fault. Never asked for his position. I think he'd be happier as a straight Paladin instead of a leader... there's just so much more he has to take into consideration.

3. "Defender"

Unlike Two, the Defender has never had an invisible hand guiding their career choices, though their station in life in other matters may be -- usually is, in fact -- difficult or unfortunate. Defender generally lacks most of the insecurity issues which plague Two was well. Though not arrogant, they have a pretty good gauge of their own abilities. They are characterized by a serious, quiet temperament for the most part, which becomes more pronounced as they age. Even younger examples of this number, who can display more playful or irreverent traits, drop the jokes immediately once the situation calls for sobriety. Though sometimes reserved or even wary around strangers, they are not truly cold or unfriendly, simply a bit shy and conservative (relatively). Generally they are cool customers who do not become easily upset, though their temper may be explosive if finally released. Like Twos and Ones, they strongly disapprove of murder if it is not necessary, but they'd carry out the execution sentence themselves if it was.

Like the two numbers before them, Defenders tend to be stagnant in their roles and don't generally change "alignment" throughout their careers. In fact, the only real thing that tends to compromise them is their overstated sense of loyalty. They are sometimes supportive of their friends even when they are clearly out of line, attached to their family or the idea of family even if some members of said family have destructive goals in mind, or prone to turning a blind eye to their lover's less admirable traits. Still this trait seldom seems to lead anywhere too compromising -- pushed too far, Three does find themselves siding with their morals over their loved ones.

OOTS example: Durkon: Thrust into a situation he never asked for, and a generally unapproachable personality. Liked Hilgya, but his morals were too much to allow her in his life-- and he'd have executed Belkar for abandoning his post.

Possibly Celia, through her inexperience, although her true personality is yet to be ascertained...

4. "Adventurer"

Usually this character is young, and high-strung. They have overall good intentions, but they're self-absorbed and frequently very insensitive. Adventurers are more compromised morally than the preceding numbers and they have a tendency to rebel against even benign authority. So it's not infrequent to see them involved in acts of thievery, vandalism or the like. They come out looking good if they're in some kind of "Robin Hood" position, but this is not always the case. They have no lack of self-confidence and may be outright egotistical, and they're quick to unleash verbal barbs at those who can't appreciate their own innate awesomeness, or really sometimes that mouth of theirs gets put to use just for the hell of it. Sometimes their quips are funny, but they can be capable of being honest-to-God jerks. If they really hurt the feelings of someone who didn't deserve it, they'd feel regret, but they also tend to think that other people just aren't interpreting them right. They're generally optimistic, so when you see the Adventurer get depressed it's meant to signify that things have gotten REALLY bad.

Somewhat paradoxically, this character can sometimes demonstrate what can only be described as a hyperactive guilt complex. It may take a lot for them to think that something is wholly their fault, but if they DO think it's their fault, they're devastated. Even the most egotistical character can be brought low by this, so it often shows up to soften more obnoxious personalities. They can be hard on others, but not as hard as they are on themselves.

OOTS example: Roy and Haley. Somewhat compromised, but they regret their serious transgressions. They have definite personalities established. They often think well of themselves, but they're hurt badly when they fall short of their own expectations.
5. "Vigilante"

The Vigilante has a stubborn irrational streak a mile wide. They may work to preserve society, but usually by stepping outside of society's traditional rules, and yet they usually have a whole host of old-fashioned prejudices of their own. Vengeance is the kind of thing they understand quite well, and God save you if you're the target of it because you'd better believe they also understand the concept of "merciless." Murder, however, while sometimes implied as a goal, is usually the line they don’t cross. The Vigilante considers themselves to be in the right, and they USUALLY are, but they don't forgive and they NEVER forget, and they can be quite unfair to somebody they've already dismissed as a crook. They are HIGHLY prone to obsessions, often of the darker sort, for this character IS pretty dark at the end of the day. Sometimes you might see a sunny-faced Vigilante, but the mask is gone in an instant when things get serious.

Horrible tragic pasts are usually the norm and not the exception. Generally a person has to have suffered quite a bit to get to this stage.

OOTS example: Miko. Mind that if 8 is the neutral line, she is clearly a good guy, only sadly misguided in the case of the OOTS. In SOME aspects (they are no pure innocents themselves). And she's had a hard, hard life, so she doesn't cut suspected criminals slack.

She's dark. But righteous. Complex, and controversial.

OOTS example: What about Vaarsuvius? She definitely has the revenge thing going for her... and she's a little bit amoral herself.

6. "Outsider"

Six is the first "good guy" number that is capable of working as a serious antagonist to the other "good guys" without requiring the use of mind-control or some kind of incredible misunderstanding. Outsiders very seldom get what they think they want, because what they want is something that doesn't really exist. They carry around an idealized future in their head in which they are appreciated and loved, but the trouble is that they're sometimes willing to compromise principle in the here and now in order to get there. So while they're sympathetic, they still have a tendency to cause trouble for the rest of the cast in their pursuit of a doomed romantic cause. Outsiders do shun what they consider to be "evil," but unfortunately their concept of "evil" might be a bit skewed. If they believe somebody to be their enemy they'd be willing to kill them, or at the very least make them squirm, and you don't have to really be a "bad guy" per se to make it onto an Outsider's hit list. They usually operate alone, and if part of a group they're often sidelined or even mocked. They're generally used to persecution or ridicule but it hurts them a lot more than they're willing to show openly.

They're very lonely characters, often through no fault of their own. They'd eagerly snatch at a chance to be a real hero for the most part, it's just that they don't get it. When really put to the test the Outsider's true colors shine through, and often their assistance is the make-or-break factor in any really important plan.

OOTS example: Possibly Shojo, but otherwise I don't see anyone else.

7. "Gambler"

Though not usually the main protagonist, the Gambler is instrumental in moving the plot along. Their actions are not easy to predict because their motives are conflicted and unstable. They don't strive to fulfill somebody else's notion of what a good guy should look like, and in fact they'd much rather be somebody's vision of a BAD ASS than a good guy, seeing as badasses get more respect, and frankly get to do cooler stuff. They're closed off to most of the world, but they appreciate people who stay loyal to them personally... though they may not be so great at showing their appreciation. Don't look for them to be anybody's follower, for they're natural-born rebels, and often attract a posse of their own. Though not particularly inclined to lend a sympathetic ear to their subordinates, they do try to look out for them and make sure they don't get killed.

Their view of the world is cynical, usually because of their first-hand experiences in it. They're brave, in fact sometimes suicidally brave, and capable of being very cutting in their speech for they are fearless in exposing hypocrisy. They know how to get under people's skin. The Gambler figures that they have come to the correct interpretation of how things REALLY work, and they know it's hard, and not always pretty, but they take their joy in things that they can. They are very ruthless in the execution of their plans and most of the time they can turn off their emotions to the pain and suffering they might wind up inflicting on someone else. That's what everyone else does to THEM after all. It's about survival, and they mean to be the last one standing.

OOTS example: Right-Eye, perhaps?

8. "Neutral"

Neutral is incredibly focused on some other internal issue which they see as being a lot more important than any other concept of good and evil. It might just be pure selfishness, or perhaps the way they were raised, but in the end it's about them and theirs and they're not amazingly concerned about what happens to anyone else. Sometimes they are written off as being complete sadists, but this is far from true, they just don't feel a need to try to justify themselves or their motives. If set up as an antagonist they still usually demonstrate some admirable traits. They certainly do not lack for courage or determination, and are in fact quite passionate. They feel very deeply toward any that they could be said to love. It's unfortunate that they feel every bit as deeply towards those they could be said to HATE. Vengeance is often a primary motivating factor for the Neutral character, and they really don't care what has to happen in order for them to get it. Some times they might find themselves working for a truly MONSTROUS cause, yet they will not apparently realize just how bad it is. Have they not thought it through? Or are they just insanely obsessed past the ability to reason?

Loyalty is on a case-by-case basis. A Neutral person doesn't mind being either a leader or a follower so long as playing that role is going to get them what they want. They'll work with either side, and frequently change sides in mid-story. If it goes on for too long, though, they usually wind up working for the good guys and mellowing out... because in the end, it just doesn't make any sense to promote evil over good.

9. "Crony"

Technically we are in evil territory now, and a crony is definitely capable of evil. Yet there is often something very tragic in this character as well, for they often have not thought their position through as well as they may think they have. If they are successful in an evil endeavor they may wind up having regrets... but only after it's too late to change things. A crony is callow, and as the name suggests they often wind up as someone's henchman, but it often stems from a misplaced admiration in someone or something that they perceive to be attractive. They are giddy to be on the winning side but they pay a high price for it when all has been said and done.

They may or may not be actual cowards, it's not impossible for this number to demonstrate bravery in putting their life on the line, but they lack conviction and integrity. Redemption is still a possibility for them, but they'd have to want it first.

OOTS example: Thog. Only just barely evil, yet he is. Maybe he'll come to regret his actions... or maybe not. But he admires his friends and will do anything for them, with no regard for conventional morality. He doesn't seem to WANT to cause harm to people, but he'll do it and even enjoy it if he's led along that route.

10. "Mercenary"

Mercenaries don't usually consider themselves evil, even though most of the time they wind up working as terrorists. They're devoted to some cause, or some person, to an extent that they feel justified in their actions. They usually work to bring the downfall of some group that presumably deserves it. Maybe some individual members of said group DO deserve it, but Mercenaries are pretty indiscriminant about determining who has earned death at their hands. Murder, genocide, or even torture is possible for this character, though they are not sadistic to the point that they would derive actual pleasure from it. Well... not TOO much pleasure. They're generally cynical, or failing that, insane. You don't get to this kind of mindset without having endured something really screwed up. Often they started their careers as a more clear good guy type, but somewhere along the line their faith in the goodness of others faltered.

Like Cronies, there is often an element of tragedy to this character, for they are not completely bereft of compassion, although they may try to stamp it out of themselves if it appears to be interfering in their work. Sometimes they may even be a story protagonist, for if they're working to bring down a group that really IS evil then people tend to sympathize. But they're still terrorists, and they still slaughter people.

OOTS: This is basically Redcloak, the "misguided extremist."

OOTS: Possibly Tsukiko, too. All she wants is for the Undead to be given their fair rights...

11. "Pirate"

A pragmatic back-stabber, Pirates are consciously amoral. Yet it would perhaps not be entirely fair to say that they ARE evil, more that they USE evil. They understand what it is that they're doing, of course, and they don't generally feel remorse for coming out on top, but a Pirate in a lot of senses is just a person who sees the world as a chessboard and doesn't have too much sympathy for people who don't share this opinion. They are both cynical and egotistical at the same time, for while what they're doing is dangerous, they think that they can pull it off. Frequently, they're correct.

Generally they are motivated by a love of money, or failing that a simple desire to promote themselves. They’re not trustworthy yet sometimes they will demonstrate honor. They're capable of love, and if they love you you're sitting pretty, though it doesn't mean that they love all their subordinates. They usually do have subordinates, for their sly confidence combined with a sometimes off-putting charisma inspires others to want to follow them, and they can generally be relied upon not to sacrifice them -- unless they suspect that their henchmen might betray them. This is a very tricky character to try and interact with, and it would probably be better to stay away from them if possible, but they're not "evil for the sake of evil," they're evil for the sake of GREED. As antagonists, they are usually more likely to capture than kill, and games of skill interest them to a degree that they might not even cheat. As losers, they are not generally gracious but they do recognize when the time has come to put survival over pride and retreat, but yield, never.

OOTS: Nale. He's evil. But he's capable of love. And he never, ever gives up.

Belkar, probably.

12. "Conspirer"

They think they've got it figured out, yet for some reason this group always seems to wind up working underneath someone else. It infuriates them, and Conspirer’s are usually harboring a great deal of bitterness over their life's situation. They generally do consider things like compassion to be a weakness, and they try to close themselves off from the world, but they lack the clear head to reap the full benefits of whatever plans they try to put into motion. They seem to lack awareness of their own true motivations, and it cripples them.

It's not infrequent that they should have gone through some monstrously unjust things to reach their current state, but they are too cruel and calculating to truly earn sympathy. As subordinates, they are as a rule working to bring about the downfall of their superiors, but not openly. So they may at times wind up assisting the good guys, though they claim to be disgusted. If they're capable of redemption, it's usually through a not-evil family member that is intent on saving them.

OOTS: Also possibly Redcloak, especially if his niece comes into play.


13. "Kingpin"

A Kingpin is a bit like a Pirate in personality, except that they'd all too happily throw their subordinates to the wolves if it gave them some kind of cheap thrill. They are manipulative AND sadistic, and about as evil as it's possible for somebody to be without being considered the original source of evil. They may not be as clever as they think they are, but they're still capable of quite a bit of damage. They definitely enjoy inflicting torment on others, but they're usually able to reign themselves in if some plan requires it, which ultimately makes them more dangerous than the groups just before and below them.

They might work for some power they consider all-encompassing, but the promise of ultimate power is the only thing that could get their knees to bend in genuine submission. (Though they might pretend to work for somebody else in the pursuit of another plan, they always always always are devious bastards with no respect at all for their so-called superiors.) It is not generally thought that this group is capable of reforming.
OOTS Example: XYKON! He's over-the-top evil but not cliche. He likes to make people suffer but it's not about Sadism per se. He's in charge, but it's through force and no real mental acuity.

14. "Sadist"

Sadists live to cause pain to others, they often have some kind of terrifying obsession with it. The only positive thing to take from this is that their own desires often end up consuming them. The means they use are often self-destructive, but they're still quite horrific if they ever manage to get power, because this group would quite possibly bring about the end of the world if given half a chance. They're not really interested in rulership, so it's possible for them to be seen working for someone else, although they might annoy their masters with their tendency to let their sadistic impulses run away with them.

It's easy to call sadists insane, and many are raving lunatics, but some are actually super-rational to the point of having some kind of unholy philosophy of destruction. But either way they're pretty scary.
OOTS example: Not really. Samantha, maybe?


15. "Evil Emperor"

The evil emperor is as evil as evil gets. They absolutely lack the capacity for love and completely fail to understand its significance. Sometimes this is because they are outright inhuman – a machine, a demon, a pure spiritual being. If they are human (or of a race with some human qualities) they are unbelievably cold and utterly without the capacity for redemption. They do not keep their promises, nor do they show compassion or loyalty. They're evil, just don't question it! They're pretty overused and not necessarily imaginative.

OOTS example: The snarl? ????

[toysailor]

When I was a DM, I used the D&D alignment system. But each level has a numeric value to chat how extreme the character was in his/her convictions (i.e. lawful 10 would be the epitome of mecchanus lawfulness; good 2 would be neutral with leanings towards good).

I think the D&D alignment system works if players don't take it too seriously and uses it to limit their roleplaying. Afterall, even a "good 7" character can be mean spirited at times (albeit very rarely).

[Remirach]

When I was a DM, I used the D&D alignment system. But each level has a numeric value to chat how extreme the character was in his/her convictions (i.e. lawful 10 would be the epitome of mecchanus lawfulness; good 2 would be neutral with leanings towards good).

I think the D&D alignment system works if players don't take it too seriously and uses it to limit their roleplaying. Afterall, even a "good 7" character can be mean spirited at times (albeit very rarely).

If you will please -- and I mean this earnestly -- excuse an outsider's POV, the lawful domain doesn't work with the good/evil domain because there is almost always an implied inherent "goodness" along side "lawfulness." You can have "evil lawful" folk but in so many cases a "lawful" alignment means you have principles -- I can't divide that kind of thing between "good" and "lawful," if you're going to risk your life to save your blood-relative I find it hard to give that action more weight to the law-chaos aspect than the good-evil aspect.

D&D -- which, admittedly, I have played once in my life under 2nd ed and it was a terrible session (I actually feel empathy for Redcloak because my more experienced PC's slaughtered the goblins who had SURRENDERED) -- feels like it is workable if you have well-defined characters that can fit under an alignment or two and you define the character first and the alignment comes second...

But what's the point of saying Roy is "lawful good" instead of "neutral good" if he could be EITHER but for the fact that he's "TRYING?"

I am the kind of person who considers herself a "personality system junkie" (Just ASK me what I think the astrological signs of the main cast are!) but D&D's is broken.. you can work around it, and you seem to have come up with a nice 2-dimensional grid to get around it, but inherently, I don't think it works as well as it could because the two dimensions are LINKED!

Why not just make the whole thing linear if lawful is going to have connotations of good???????

[Callista]

You could also say that there's an inherent "goodness" about Chaos if it came to that. Chaos can be defined as individualism, personal rights, personal feelings, reaching your own goals, following your gut, and freedom.

CG: Make sure other people can do those things.
CN: Make sure I get them.
CE: Make sure I get them, if necessary at the expense of others.

There's nothing good or evil about Law and Chaos. Law is wide-scale, disciplined, organized, careful... But there's nothing ethical about those things; they just make very effective Good or Evil systems.

If you want to make a numeric chart, you have to ignore Law and Chaos altogether. Chances are that extremely Lawful or Chaotic people would simply be "8" because they are devoted to something other than an ethical system.

[Remirach]

You could also say that there's an inherent "goodness" about Chaos if it came to that. Chaos can be defined as individualism, personal rights, personal feelings, reaching your own goals, following your gut, and freedom.

CG: Make sure other people can do those things.
CN: Make sure I get them.
CE: Make sure I get them, if necessary at the expense of others.
There's nothing good or evil about Law and Chaos. Law is wide-scale, disciplined, organized, careful... But there's nothing ethical about those things; they just make very effective Good or Evil systems.

If you want to make a numeric chart, you have to ignore Law and Chaos altogether. Chances are that extremely Lawful or Chaotic people would simply be "8" because they are devoted to something other than an ethical system.

I would think that would be a beautiful way to run it, but it doesn't come across that way in a lot of cases. Especially when you look not at the good side of the spectrum but the evil. A Lawful Evil person, at least, has some principles, some code of conduct that a Chaotic Evil person can ignore at whim.

In practice "Chaos" doesn't seem to be so much about freedom as not being beholden to anyone... and it's easy to see why that side of the "ETHICAL" spectrum would be more prone to taking the law into their own hands.

And Gods, they CALL it the "ethical" spectrum!

And there's so much prejudice built in toward chaos. Like the sorcerer/wizard debate. Wizards are generally Lawful, Sorcerers are usually Chaotic -- but who made that rule? Sorcerers are gifted with powers nature themselves chose to bestow on them -- isn't that a divine order? While Wizards choose to seize power for themselves, and anyone with the intelligence can choose to become one -- isn't that somewhat uncontrolled and chaotic?

It reads to me as skewed, and deliberately so. Order and Chaos should be equal, but it's NOT "order" and "chaos," it's LAW and "chaos..."

[Theodoriph]

The DnD alignment system is actually quite good. It does what it needs to do superbly, that being categorizing a continuum so that the categories make some sort of sense.

Sure, there are going to be problems...there are whenever you categorize continuums, but it's a workable system.

Now yours might be workable as well, but I'm wondering how you're going to handle spells that only affect chaotic people, or lawful people etc.


That's the power of the DnD system. It captures the alignments well enough and categorizes them so they can be used in spells, effects, PrC requirements, feat requirements, etc.


Instead of simply coming up with a new system, why not just write different definitions for the DnD ones? Or change their names and write different definitions for them. That would restrict you to 9 alignments and there would need to be types as there are in the DnD system, but it would make handling spells and such much easier :smallsmile:

[Remirach]

The DnD alignment system is actually quite good. It does what it needs to do superbly, that being categorizing a continuum so that the categories make some sort of sense.

Sure, there are going to be problems...there are whenever you categorize continuums, but it's a workable system.

Now yours might be workable as well, but I'm wondering how you're going to handle spells that only affect chaotic people, or lawful people etc.


That's the power of the DnD system. It captures the alignments well enough and categorizes them so they can be used in spells, effects, PrC requirements, feat requirements, etc.
I am glad that you find the alignment system workable, it still strikes me as weird but if you've had fun with it I can't argue with that.

I was thinking, game-wise, you could cut off certain numbers as neutral, good or evil and base spells off that, and base spells off of another attribute. Like an elemental affiliation (depending on what system you could have 4, 5, 8, 12, etc affiliations), even if not everyone who had one could use it actively in spellcraft. So you'd still get an overlap between good and bad guys occasionally sharing a "domain."

I'm just having fun arguing here, I hope no one takes offense. :smallcool: Ever since reading this strip I've learned so much about D&D I've given some thought to finding a group to play with...

[Alfryd]

Instead of only ranking characters from Lawful-Good through Chaotic-Evil, would this 15-ranking system work as a supplement?
As a supplement, maybe, but your system will not be able to reasonably accomodate characters who fall outside of your quite specific descriptions. (Also, this might be better accomodated in one of the general role-playing forums.)

The advantage, such as it is, of the current alignment system is that it is possible to shoehorn just about any character into one of the 9 categories, once you settle on a system of objective, consistent, comprehensive criteria for doing so. Of course, WotC haven't bothered to provide any such criteria in practice, but it could be done in principle.

A Lawful Evil person, at least, has some principles, some code of conduct that a Chaotic Evil person can ignore at whim.
Yes, but Lawful Evil is also better organised and longer-lasting, which means that it tends to inflict more wide-scale damage.

Pop quiz: Who is more Evil- Asami from Audition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audition_(1999_film)), or Dr. Peters from Twelve Monkeys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Monkeys)? Trick question.

[chrono]

The DnD alignment system is actually quite good. It does what it needs to do superbly, that being categorizing a continuum so that the categories make some sort of sense.


I have to disagree - the DnD system is deeply flawed and completely fails to represent reality or even to map out a number of clearly defined concepts. There is much evidence to support my claim (i.e. people making threads like this), but most of all it is obvious because there are more arguments about DnD alignment than all other DnD arguments combined. Simply put, the system isn't good when a LOT of people are unclear even when talking about the most blatant or extreme examples. Consider all the "is Belkar really evil?", "Belkar's not CE", "Miko is evil", "Miko is neutral", "Miko can't be lawful because..." threads. Different WotC books present alignment in different light which creates even more confusion.

So in my view any thought-out alternative is better than the DnD system. This one seems pretty thought out and I like the way morality is tied to roles (though that in itself is a bit risky). What I disagree with is the link between morality and spirituality (i.e. in #1). Yes, in our modern reality gods are omnipotent, benevolent and generally LG. However in DnD that's not the case (much like in most ancient polytheistic cultures) and there are gods who endorse and encourage chaos, evil, etc. Thus saying things like "The Crusader is pretty spiritual" and/or implying that a person's moral code is directly linked to the gods does not benefit a usable alignment system.

[Remirach]

What I disagree with is the link between morality and spirituality (i.e. in #1). Yes, in our modern reality gods are omnipotent, benevolent and generally LG. However in DnD that's not the case (much like in most ancient polytheistic cultures) and there are gods who endorse and encourage chaos, evil, etc. Thus saying things like "The Crusader is pretty spiritual" and/or implying that a person's moral code is directly linked to the gods does not benefit a usable alignment system.

OOOOH, thank you! I actually did not mean that the #1 was spiritual in the sense of "god-fearing," but spiritual-minded, like believing that all people can find redemption if they truly seek it out, and trust that mankind is good at heart.

[chrono]

Yeah, I must admit I was pretty sure you didn't mean "spirituality" to be devotion to a deity, however ambiguity is what can screw up an otherwise reasonable alignment system. And "spirituality" is pretty ambiguous in a context where magic and gods are very real (if not commonplace) and many people walk around armed with an array of supernatural abilities. Not to mention various actual "spirits", undead and outsiders ;)

[King of Nowhere]

A Lawful Evil person, at least, has some principles, some code of conduct that a Chaotic Evil person can ignore at whim.

A LE person may have code of conduct that FORCES him to do evil even when they wouldn't. For example, a strongly racist person could oppress other people without reason, while a CE would not do it. So a lawful alignment don't necessarily make an evil person less evil.

Anyway, I think the alignment sistem works well. It's flawed, but I don't know anything better. This sistem of 15 degrees is as much flawed as this, and more complicated to use. For example, I'd put Xykon on 15 (I can't imagine anyone more evil), Belkar on 15-14, and Thog I wouldn't know but he don't fit very much. We may start discussing and it will gather even more arguments than the actual alignment system.

The actual system is a good compromise between workability and semplicity. You may define better a personality saying "strongly good", "chaotic tending towards neutral" or such. Or you may directly describe a character. The more informations you add, the better the description, but the more complicated it gets to create a system to decide wheter a spell affects someone.

The alignment system works if you accept it being flawed. You don't need books over books of rules, just use your common sense. Of course there will be doubt about the alignment of a certain character, or how a certain action should be judged: in real life you may discuss whether a certain person is kind or hypocrite, or if an action is right or wrong. That don't means that our ways of judging people in real life are wrong, it just means that they're not objective, and not objective means no clear way of applying them. There is no objective morality, so there can be no objective moral alignment system. Just cope with it.


P.S. About calculating morality in nuber, you can use numbers to give a generic idea, but you can't assign a clear nomber to anyone because you can't "measure" morality. You can measure the mass of an object or the heat exchanged between two bodies, but not ethic.
If this wasn't an attempt to calculate the goodness of people, then it was just an attempt to make a new alignment system, just with more alignments and different names and description.

[John Campbell]

Alignment is the single worst concept ever to be introduced into role-playing. Fiddling with the details doesn't help.

[chrono]

Anyway, I think the alignment sistem works well. It's flawed, but I don't know anything better. This sistem of 15 degrees is as much flawed as this, and more complicated to use. For example, I'd put Xykon on 15 (I can't imagine anyone more evil), Belkar on 15-14, and Thog I wouldn't know but he don't fit very much. We may start discussing and it will gather even more arguments than the actual alignment system.


A lot of people say the alignment system is good but we're 10 posts in the discussion and there's already a disagreement (i.e. difference in opinion about the very basic stuff, not even touching on borderline ambiguous issues). And that discussion isn't even really on topic.

As for "calculating" morality it is possible, but a bit pointless if you want any precision. It is not so hard to give numbers to actions, and then average to get the net weight of a person's morality. On the other hand it's a lot more practical to play it by ear. In my games I find that eliminating morality entirely works better than fiddling with details. What we lose is a few spells that aren't that critical anyway and a few restrictions to classes, a lot of which didn't make much sense to begin with.

[Alfryd]

Alignment is the single worst concept ever to be introduced into role-playing. Fiddling with the details doesn't help.
It's not a problem provided there's a set of decent rules for determining exactly where you stand alignment-wise, and some tangible benefit to the players for living up to those expectations (such as the Humanity score in Vampire.)


There is no objective morality, so there can be no objective moral alignment system. Just cope with it.
"Coping with it" is exactly what D&D players have been trying to do for years, and that is exactly what's wrong with D&D alignment in the first place. I mean, seriously- do you think that players would be happy if the answer to melee combat was: "no simple numerical system could possibly capture the subtleties of swordmanship, depending on the weight and balance of the blade, along with fencing and footwork and posture, or personal build. There is no single system for swordplay, so there can be no objective combat resolution mechanic. Just cope with it." Imagine if the combat system had 9 possible outcomes, across the messy/clean and victory/defeat axes, and you just had to "use common sense" to determine which actually applied in a given conflict.

To take an example (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/jFppYwv7OUkegKhONNF.html):
It makes it very difficult to "wing" an adventure when there is no system for determining how to assess modifiers to this skill. Is that circumstance worth a -1? A -4? A -15? There's no guidelines given. In short, I want tools to use in the game, not a blank check to do what I want. I can already do what I want.

Rules exist to help you "cope with it".

[factotum]

If you're going to replace the D&D alignment system then why not replace it with something that actually has some weight in real life? Myers-Briggs personality types or something like that...something that an actual trained psychologist (who ought to know about the way people tick) has come up with!

[Remirach]

As a supplement, maybe, but your system will not be able to reasonably accomodate characters who fall outside of your quite specific descriptions. (Also, this might be better accomodated in one of the general role-playing forums.)

Well, they weren't intended to be such exclusive archetypes, but when you get more specific it seems to turn out that way. I apologize if this IS in the wrong forum, the Mods totally have my consent to move it if it is disrupting.


The advantage, such as it is, of the current alignment system is that it is possible to shoehorn just about any character into one of the 9 categories, once you settle on a system of objective, consistent, comprehensive criteria for doing so. Of course, WotC haven't bothered to provide any such criteria in practice, but it could be done in principle.

I can shoehorn all the characters into one of the 12 zodiac signs. It just doesn't strike me as MEANINGFUL when it's supposed to be all ABOUT the nature of Good versus Evil.


Yes, but Lawful Evil is also better organised and longer-lasting, which means that it tends to inflict more wide-scale damage.

Is this the Stalin vs. Hitler debate again? I think, honestly, Stalin was more CLEVER, which doesn't really have anything to do with Law, unless it does, which is another unfair point in Law's direction.


Pop quiz: Who is more Evil- Asami from Audition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audition_(1999_film)), or Dr. Peters from Twelve Monkeys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Monkeys)? Trick question.

Have to look it up, I am so sorry! But I wonder if both might fit on the same level on my scale. And honestly, 13, 14, and 15 are all so far beyond the pale it may seem difficult to distinguish between them.



A LE person may have code of conduct that FORCES him to do evil even when they wouldn't. For example, a strongly racist person could oppress other people without reason, while a CE would not do it. So a lawful alignment don't necessarily make an evil person less evil.

Is racism or sexism a wholly Lawful trait? Chaotic people are all democratic-minded now?


Anyway, I think the alignment sistem works well. It's flawed, but I don't know anything better. This sistem of 15 degrees is as much flawed as this, and more complicated to use.

Supplement. For discussion. If you can rank morality "objectively," as D&D claims, why not a totally linear scale?


For example, I'd put Xykon on 15 (I can't imagine anyone more evil),
Xykon is a jackass who is also epic-level and totally amoral. He is not the evillest thing that has ever crawled the earth. He's a very amusing Heel, but how does he compare to Stalin, really? Even his level of "torture" is mild compared to what makes the news today.


Belkar on 15-14,

YMMV, but Belkar lacks the sheer sadism in my book to rank above 14. It's an amusing diversion for him, not his life's obsession. He likes to win, which involves others losing, but it's the WINNING that is important to him.


and Thog I wouldn't know but he don't fit very much.
Where does he fit in the nine-alignment system that everyone agrees on?


We may start discussing and it will gather even more arguments than the actual alignment system.
I'd be amused to no end, but I doubt it.


The actual system is a good compromise between workability and semplicity. You may define better a personality saying "strongly good", "chaotic tending towards neutral" or such. Or you may directly describe a character. The more informations you add, the better the description, but the more complicated it gets to create a system to decide wheter a spell affects someone.

I find it slightly disappointing that one of the main buttresses of support for the 9-point alignment system is "it makes the magic work." What about actual morality? There isn't much difference between mine and D&D's, and I never suggested mine was superior. You did read the "supplement" part of my OP, right?


The alignment system works if you accept it being flawed. You don't need books over books of rules, just use your common sense. Of course there will be doubt about the alignment of a certain character, or how a certain action should be judged: in real life you may discuss whether a certain person is kind or hypocrite, or if an action is right or wrong. That don't means that our ways of judging people in real life are wrong, it just means that they're not objective, and not objective means no clear way of applying them. There is no objective morality, so there can be no objective moral alignment system. Just cope with it.

How is mine worse than D&d's then? "Objective morality" won't ever be defined but that hasn't stopped courts and magistrates and judges and kings for millennia.


P.S. About calculating morality in nuber, you can use numbers to give a generic idea, but you can't assign a clear nomber to anyone because you can't "measure" morality.

No... I compared a bunch of series and "ranked" characters within the series ("character 2 is clearly of better moral fiber than character 7"). Then I compared series to other series and was surprised at how well things lined up. Maybe on occasion a higher number is "less evil" than a lower one... but not often. Sure, morality is objective... but authors are not particularly subtle, most of the time, about who is sympathetic and whose crimes are mitigated. It's a VERY subjective scale.


You can measure the mass of an object or the heat exchanged between two bodies, but not ethic.
If this wasn't an attempt to calculate the goodness of people, then it was just an attempt to make a new alignment system, just with more alignments and different names and description.
Why attribute my motives to malice? I worked on this for a while. I've found D&D morality conflicted and interesting for a while. I was wondering if anyone else might be interested. I hardly aspire to "Replace" anything.


If you're going to replace the D&D alignment system then why not replace it with something that actually has some weight in real life? Myers-Briggs personality types or something like that...something that an actual trained psychologist (who ought to know about the way people tick) has come up with!

A quack Psychologist who based most of it on astrology. Myers-Briggs has one over on Numerology, but that's about it.

FTR:

Roy - Capricorn
Elan - Libra
Redcloak - Virgo

the others I'm not so sure of.

[David Argall]

A lot of work put into a wrong-headed idea.

The problem is that these types spread over several numbers. Indeed, to some extent, they spread over all of them.

The Crusader is bright and cheerful? That can be true of the mass murderer.

The Evil Emperor won't keep his promises? Actually he will, when it suits him, and it will suit him in a surprising numbe of cases.
He's cold? This is a negative way of describing realistic. We have the very common case of the emotional fool denouncing the one suggesting a sensible idea as cold.

Properly, alignment centers on one's attitude towards others. We are hear to serve others? - Good. We are more or less indifferent to others - Neutral. We actively like the pain of others - Evil.

[Remirach]

A lot of work put into a wrong-headed idea.

The problem is that these types spread over several numbers. Indeed, to some extent, they spread over all of them.

The Crusader is bright and cheerful? That can be true of the mass murderer.

The Evil Emperor won't keep his promises? Actually he will, when it suits him, and it will suit him in a surprising numbe of cases.
He's cold? This is a negative way of describing realistic. We have the very common case of the emotional fool denouncing the one suggesting a sensible idea as cold.

Properly, alignment centers on one's attitude towards others. We are hear to serve others? - Good. We are more or less indifferent to others - Neutral. We actively like the pain of others - Evil.

No offense David, but while I'm new I've read your posts. If by your standard it is not only acceptable but GOOD to slaughter defenseless goblin children, then I'm glad you think I'm wrong when it comes to defining morality.

[Gamerlord]

I have to disagree - the DnD system is deeply flawed and completely fails to represent reality or even to map out a number of clearly defined concepts. There is much evidence to support my claim (i.e. people making threads like this), but most of all it is obvious because there are more arguments about DnD alignment than all other DnD arguments combined. Simply put, the system isn't good when a LOT of people are unclear even when talking about the most blatant or extreme examples. Consider all the "is Belkar really evil?", "Belkar's not CE", "Miko is evil", "Miko is neutral", "Miko can't be lawful because..." threads. Different WotC books present alignment in different light which creates even more confusion.

So in my view any thought-out alternative is better than the DnD system. This one seems pretty thought out and I like the way morality is tied to roles (though that in itself is a bit risky). What I disagree with is the link between morality and spirituality (i.e. in #1). Yes, in our modern reality gods are omnipotent, benevolent and generally LG. However in DnD that's not the case (much like in most ancient polytheistic cultures) and there are gods who endorse and encourage chaos, evil, etc. Thus saying things like "The Crusader is pretty spiritual" and/or implying that a person's moral code is directly linked to the gods does not benefit a usable alignment system.
who cares about realmism i do what i wanna do,kill who i wanna kill,brutally maul who i wanna maul.

[Alfryd]

I can shoehorn all the characters into one of the 12 zodiac signs. It just doesn't strike me as MEANINGFUL when it's supposed to be all ABOUT the nature of Good versus Evil.
Given that astrologers have no particularly consistent, testable definitions for zodiac signs' characteristics, this is hardly surprising.

If you can rank morality "objectively," as D&D claims, why not a totally linear scale?
Because D&D ranks behaviour along two seperate axes- morals, and ethics, or ends and means. Neither has any fundamental attachment to the other. There is no reason why your Crusader would be any more 'Good' than the Outsider, when it comes down to brass tacks. It's absurd to argue than Elan is more Good than Shojo, given that Elan, despite his naivety and innocence, has probably killed many innocents through his staggering incompetence and insistence on involving himself where his presence is neither required nor desired.

Is this the Stalin vs. Hitler debate again?
Not really.

And honestly, 13, 14, and 15 are all so far beyond the pale it may seem difficult to distinguish between them.
Then I would suggest you provide some objective criteria for doing so. You need to have a system that:
A. -can accomodate any character. And by this I do not mean 'you can find a category which most remembles that character', because you must also-
B. -avoid contradictions between that category and the character. There are several between "The adventurer" as you describe it, and both Roy and Haley.

The ninefold alignment graph can theoretically satisfy these requirements, since every action by the characters has either lawful or chaotic, good or evil as intended consequences. You take the sum/average of those intended consequences over a certain interval, and -*boom*- there's your alignment. There are problems with determining exactly how lawfu/chaotic/good/evil a given action should be considered, and exactly how you manage questions of 'intent', but it should be possible, at least in principle, to provide numerical guidelines on the subject.

Is racism or sexism a wholly Lawful trait?
Insofar as it is applied with consistency and predictability to an entire group of people, yes, it is. Chaotic individuals can certainly possess this trait, just as Good people can, on occasion, commit evil acts, provided the balance of their actions is for the greater chaos/good.

YMMV, but Belkar lacks the sheer sadism in my book to rank above 14.
You've got to be kidding me. Sadism is practically Belkar's defining character trait.


No offense David, but while I'm new I've read your posts. If by your standard it is not only acceptable but GOOD to slaughter defenseless goblin children, then I'm glad you think I'm wrong when it comes to defining morality.
Not relevant, as David's point is perfectly valid here. Pol Pot was apparently a nice, cheerful guy on a person-to-person basis. How about the Operative from Serenity? Batman? Marv from Sin City? None of these characters fit especially comfortably into any of your categories (though, Lords know Marv tends to make mince of almost any alignment mechanic...)

[Remirach]

Given that astrologers have no particularly consistent, testable definitions for zodiac signs' characteristics, this is hardly surprising.

My issue was with Myers-Briggs, which is a pseudoscience they actually teach to children.


Because D&D ranks behaviour along two seperate axes- morals, and ethics, or ends and means. Neither has any fundamental attachment to the other.
So what you are saying is good is good, evil is evil, and lawful means the end doesn't justify the means while chaos does? Wha? It's totally not ever considered evil by anyone to let the ends justify the means? May I point you in the direction of Shojo, who was declared here as "chaotic neutral at best"?


There is no reason why your Crusader would be any more 'Good' than the Outsider, when it comes down to brass tacks. It's absurd to argue than Elan is more Good than Shojo, given that Elan, despite his naivety and innocence, has probably killed many innocents through his staggering incompetence and insistence on involving himself where his presence is neither required nor desired.
So goodness comes down to the lesser body count? Even though Elan never compromised his principles in that regard, while Shojo allowed himself to go deeper and deeper into deceit?

I liked Shojo a whole lot. But he is more COMPROMISED than Elan, which is part of what the scale is about. If righteousness is a commodity to be traded just like any other, Shojo probably has done more good in his lifetime than Elan (even though that's slightly unfair since Elan is 21 and Shojo was 60+) but Elan in all his uselessness doesn't compromise. He's incompetent, without a doubt. But he has a level of purity to him that Shojo never had the luxury of keeping.


Then I would suggest you provide some objective criteria for doing so. You need to have a system that:
A. -can accomodate any character. And by this I do not mean 'you can find a category which most remembles that character', because you must also-
B. -avoid contradictions between that category and the character. There are several between "The adventurer" as you describe it, and both Roy and Haley.

I'm having some trouble parsing this, can you clarify? Roy and Miko are both Lawful Good and contradict one another. They emphasize different aspects of the "Lawful Good" alignment, as do Roy and Haley for the "Adventurer." How "specific" must a list be? I didn't have OOTS in mind when I wrote this, maybe it would look different if it were specific to this genre, but then it uses its usefulness elsewhere.


The ninefold alignment graph can theoretically satisfy these requirements, since every action by the characters has either lawful or chaotic, good or evil as intended consequences.

ISTM that most actions are actually neutral... what about posting here? Good, evil, lawful or chaotic?


You take the sum/average of those intended consequences over a certain interval, and -*boom*- there's your alignment. There are problems with determining exactly how lawfu/chaotic/good/evil a given action should be considered, and exactly how you manage questions of 'intent', but it should be possible, at least in principle, to provide numerical guidelines on the subject.
You're inundated with minutia. How much is everything weighed? What should be weighed at all? What really IS good/evil or lawful/chaotic? Look at all the debates on all the character's alignments. You DON'T wind up in a clear category, you wind up in a segment of categories and people are prone to referring to characters as "chaotic evil with lawful good tendencies."


Insofar as it is applied with consistency and predictability to an entire group of people, yes, it is. Chaotic individuals can certainly possess this trait, just as Good people can, on occasion, commit evil acts, provided the balance of their actions is for the greater chaos/good.
Good people doing evil things is people doing evil things. Chaotic people doing lawful things is people doing lawful things. Why is racism/sexism more inherently lawful than chaotic? Because it's been around a long time? Belkar was more than cool with the slavery in Azure City.


You've got to be kidding me. Sadism is practically Belkar's defining character trait.

He likes WINNING. He enjoys that moment of triumph when the enemy is dead. After that, he is bored. He failed to kill an unconscious Miko for this very reason. He likes to kill, certainly, but he's not the bamboo shoots under the fingernails type.


Not relevant, as David's point is perfectly valid here. Pol Pot was apparently a nice, cheerful guy on a person-to-person basis. How about the Operative from Serenity? Batman? Marv from Sin City? None of these characters fit especially comfortably into any of your categories (though, Lords know Marv tends to make mince of almost any alignment mechanic...)

Batman's a 5. Not sure of the others. Not all the evil alignments preclude a generally cheerful personality. Generally only the "misguided" evil folk are angsty, and the 12s, because they never come out on top...

[John Campbell]

He likes WINNING. He enjoys that moment of triumph when the enemy is dead. After that, he is bored. He failed to kill an unconscious Miko for this very reason. He likes to kill, certainly, but he's not the bamboo shoots under the fingernails type.

I think you've missed Belkar's actual motivation there. Flip ahead a few strips to after V's intervention, when he explains his cunning master plan. He'd already beaten Miko; it wasn't out of lack of sadism that he didn't finish her then. He didn't kill Miko because it wasn't sadistic enough. He didn't want to just kill her; he wanted to utterly destroy her. He wanted to do the absolute worst thing he could think of to do to a paladin, particularly a paladin as wrapped up in their own self-righteousness as Miko. He wanted to make her fall. And he was willing - in fact, planning - to let her kill him in order to do that.

(And keep in mind that, Roy's condition notwithstanding, death in D&D is pretty much a temporary affliction.)

[King of Nowhere]

Supplement. For discussion.
Yes, I never denied that your system can be a good supplement to better describe the attitude towards "good" axis. it was not my intention to give that idea. But to better describe a character beyond alignment, I prefer to just describe the personality.


If you can rank morality "objectively," as D&D claims, why not a totally linear scale?
In my opinion alignments are just a quick and easy description of a character's attitude, with no claims for objecticity. If DnD claims to rank morality "objectively", then it's wrong. When I use alignments, it's not my intent.


I find it slightly disappointing that one of the main buttresses of support for the 9-point alignment system is "it makes the magic work." What about actual morality?
No, I find alignments are also good for a quick description. They can also be applied to real world; I can easily classify myself and people I know with the alignment.


Where does he fit in the nine-alignment system that everyone agrees on?
What I'm saying is that if people don't agree on an alignment is not because alignment are flawed (well, they're flawed, but any rule is flawed. They're not that bad), but because ethic is not objective so we can't expect general consensus

Now, I admit I'm kinda new to that sort of problems (never went in any forum before) but from what I'm seeing here I think the only problem with alignments is that everyone has a different idea wheter a certain action should be classified under a certain alignment or another. So people try to get improved description and rules, and that generates confusion and contradictions.

In my opinion: GOOD= is willing to help other people even at a personal cost
EVIL= is willing to hurt other people for personal gain
LAWFUL= believes that people need to be guided by laws and
rules
CHAOTIC= believes that people should decide what to do on
their own
NEUTRAL= stands in the middle of the opposites.
AND NO OTHER RULES.
I think alignment defined that way works. I believe that any attempt to better clarify the alignments just ends up in messing it, and that players should decide on their own how to apply it; if there's no accordance on details, it doesn't matter. One can make all the detailed descriptions and supplement he wants, and they can be useful but only if we keep them at the level of "informal clarify", not "rules". Anyway, what kind of crappy thing is "that action is good because the book of exalted deed (or any other) says so?". And what kind of stupid world would this be if it were possible to objectively decide the moral value? This action is worth 3,51 standard good units, no discussion, no doubt?
I never read any rule book except the player manual for 3.0, and I fail to see inconsistence in the alignment system. Because I don't consider the fact that other people have different opinion as an inconsistence (this qualify as a chaotic behaviour, and don't affect the good-evil perspective; that's what lawful and chaotic are for).



No offense David, but while I'm new I've read your posts. If by your standard it is not only acceptable but GOOD to slaughter defenseless goblin children, then I'm glad you think I'm wrong when it comes to defining morality.
I never tought I would have to stand fo David, but the fact that someone is wrong about something is not a proof that he's wrong about something else.


He [Edit: Belkar] likes WINNING. He enjoys that moment of triumph when the enemy is dead.
No, he really enjoys the pain of others: it's fun to make him that uncomfortable (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0244.html), an extra 50 gp to the one that makes him scream the loudest (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0357.html) zombies aren't satisfying to eviscerate: they don't even scream for mercy (I could'nt find this one).

[ref]

Elan - Libra
Redcloak - Virgo

Well, I was born on or near the cusp between Elan and Redcloak... I don't know how to take this. :smalleek:

[Remirach]

Well, I was born on or near the cusp between Elan and Redcloak... I don't know how to take this. :smalleek:

It'll take me much longer to reply to the other responses, but let me just say that that the Virgo/Libra cusp often creates an enlightened, sociable-but-never-braggardly individual who brings people together, has an appreciation for art and the ability to laugh at oneself.

I have a niece with those two signs strongly represented. She's a gem, truly.

And if Redcloak had been raised alongside Elan....? Just imagine! I'd actually love to see those two interact.

[Alfryd]

So what you are saying is good is good, evil is evil, and lawful means the end doesn't justify the means while chaos does? Wha? It's totally not ever considered evil by anyone to let the ends justify the means? May I point you in the direction of Shojo, who was declared here as "chaotic neutral at best"?
Actually, I consider Shojo to have been somewhere between NG and CG.

So goodness comes down to the lesser body count?
I certainly think it's a pretty significant consideration.

Even though Elan never compromised his principles in that regard, while Shojo allowed himself to go deeper and deeper into deceit?
Honesty was never one of Shojo's 'principles', so it's absurd to argue that he violated them- principles are a feature of Lawful alignments. His only major 'principle' was 'ensuring minimum damage, as a whole, to the people of Azure City', and I don't think he violated that of his own volition. Your moral metric implictly assumes that arbitrary codes of conduct are an integral part of Goodness, and there's no particular reason for that.

But all this is beside the point. The question isn't whether D&D conforms to your ideas of linear morality, the question is whether it's own terms and definitions are mutually consistent, and bear at least a reasonable resemblance to most people's understandings of the terms used. It's a very far cry from perfect in that regard, but your efforts, quite frankly, are worse.

Roy and Miko are both Lawful Good and contradict one another.
Yes, but they don't contradict the definition of Lawful Good. But both Roy and Haley contradict your defintion of "Adventurer".

How "specific" must a list be?
'A design is perfected, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.' Your definitions should be as brief, concise, and minimalist as possible whilst remaining comprehensive and consistent.

ISTM that most actions are actually neutral... what about posting here? Good, evil, lawful or chaotic?
Well, insofar as you are aiming to introduce a new alignment mechanic superior to that currently in play, which would, in turn, help to reduce player frictions and thus make play more enjoyable for all concerned, then if your reasoning were valid, I would say the act would be nominally Lawful Good. Since I don't consider your reasoning valid, and since it's already generated a fair amount of friction right here, I'll have to say nominally Chaotic Evil. Frankly, however, the magnitude of the act is so small either way that I wouldn't worry much about it. This is the diet coke of evil. Just 1 calorie. Not quite enough evil.


You're inundated with minutia. How much is everything weighed? What should be weighed at all? What really IS good/evil or lawful/chaotic?
That is a question of definitions. People may not be entirely happy with such rules and definitions, just as they are not entirely happy with rules about grapple checks, monk BAB, or feats from the BoED, but at least the rules are consistent and provided up-front as a standard part of the game. You can take them or leave them before you begin, and everyone can agree on what would happen in situation X, rather than bitching endlessly about whether slaughtering goblin babies is really Lawful Good. The rules can also be tested in play for effectiveness and revised over time. Flawed rules may be much better than no rules at all.

Good people doing evil things is people doing evil things. Chaotic people doing lawful things is people doing lawful things.
Yes, but not the same thing as an Evil or Lawful alignment, because a person is defined by more than a single act. Racism is a lawful quality, but not all racists are lawful, because they can and will have plenty of defining qualities apart from their racism.

Belkar was more than cool with the slavery in Azure City.
Yes, but it's not like he's working to establish slavery as a basic institution. He wanted slaves solely for his personal convenience, and if he found that he was a slave, he'd feel no obligation to remain one.

He likes WINNING. He enjoys that moment of triumph when the enemy is dead. After that, he is bored. He failed to kill an unconscious Miko for this very reason.
He failed to kill an unconscious Miko precisely because he knew he could inflict more pain by keeping her alive- that is psychological torture of the highest degree. He's been quite explicit that he gains no satisfaction from fighting opponents when he can't hear them scream for mercy or howl in agony. Belkar is indifferent to winning- what he likes is others' pain.


Batman's a 5...
I checked your description of Vigilante, and it doesn't fit. Batman is extremely- almost pathologically- merciful, and has no stomach for the concept of revenge. Batman is highly rational and in no way prejudiced.

Not sure of the others...
Yeah, that's kind of the problem. You should be able to determine exactly where they stand with relative ease, rather than sorting through your mishmash of archetypes looking for a plausible fit.


I think you've missed Belkar's actual motivation there. Flip ahead a few strips to after V's intervention, when he explains his cunning master plan. He'd already beaten Miko; it wasn't out of lack of sadism that he didn't finish her then. He didn't kill Miko because it wasn't sadistic enough. He didn't want to just kill her; he wanted to utterly destroy her. He wanted to do the absolute worst thing he could think of to do to a paladin, particularly a paladin as wrapped up in their own self-righteousness as Miko. He wanted to make her fall. And he was willing - in fact, planning - to let her kill him in order to do that.
Quite correct.

[Remirach]

Well, insofar as you are aiming to introduce a new alignment mechanic superior to that currently in play, which would, in turn, help to reduce player frictions and thus make play more enjoyable for all concerned, then if your reasoning were valid, I would say the act would be nominally Lawful Good. Since I don't consider your reasoning valid, and since it's already generated a fair amount of friction right here, I'll have to say nominally Chaotic Evil. Frankly, however, the magnitude of the act is so small either way that I wouldn't worry much about it. This is the diet coke of evil. Just 1 calorie. Not quite enough evil.

You consider debate friction, so my actions are chaotic evil?

I didn't know the other characters because I had not seen or read the relative material. I can't rate them.

As for Batman, depends who is writing him.

[chrono]

who cares about realmism i do what i wanna do,kill who i wanna kill,brutally maul who i wanna maul.

I have to admit you're right - not many people care about realmism at all.

I have, however, seen many people who think that adding skills for mental attributes (INT, WIS, CHA) as well as morality was a bad idea to begin with: there could have been stats/rules for problem-solving, world awareness and spellcasting that would not require people to disassociate their own thoughts/beliefs from their characters' (which is a hard thing for most people to pull off). This way you would avoid the whole problem of people arguing about plausibility of alignment and bringing in Stalin vs Hitler (like above): the game rules would be abstract and would not relate to real world. It would be much like the combat in DnD - it's not how it works in the real world at all, however it is a system that works and can accommodate a LOT of variety unambiguously.

Disclaimer:

If it wasn't for the atrocious spelling I would think that you were kidding, but sadly it seems you were serious.

[chrono]

A lot of work put into a wrong-headed idea.

The problem is that these types spread over several numbers. Indeed, to some extent, they spread over all of them.

The Crusader is bright and cheerful? That can be true of the mass murderer.

The Evil Emperor won't keep his promises? Actually he will, when it suits him, and it will suit him in a surprising numbe of cases.
He's cold? This is a negative way of describing realistic. We have the very common case of the emotional fool denouncing the one suggesting a sensible idea as cold.

Properly, alignment centers on one's attitude towards others. We are hear to serve others? - Good. We are more or less indifferent to others - Neutral. We actively like the pain of others - Evil.

I touched on a similar topic a few posts above (alignment should not be associated with faith) and it does apply for the issues you mentioned - alignment should not be a definition or product of mood and other such factors.

Example (of why you're both right and wrong)
A crusader (being a paragon of law and goodness) can not be petty, spiteful, mean, etc, but he has to be benevolent, "nice", helpful, etc. This means that he will in fact be perceived by others as more cheerful than your average #14 necromancer. It does not, however, mean that the necromancer will never be cheerful or that the crusader will always be cheerful.

Organization suggestion
Because of the argument above, I would suggest breaking down each alignment a bit - you can define "mandatory traits" and "common traits" to avoid confusion. For a #15 it is mandatory not to show compassion, much like for a #1 it is mandatory to show more benevolence, selflessness and compassion than most people. For #15 it's common to be gloomy/mean/spiteful while for #1 it's common to be cheerful, etc.

This would mean more precise thought needs to be put into the design, however it will further remove ambiguity and if done well would decrease the number of objections/arguments.

[Alfryd]

You consider debate friction, so my actions are chaotic evil?
Relax. On an exponential scale of 1 to 100- where 98 is genocide, 20 is driving an SUV and 5 is leaving crumbs in the butter, this is about a 0.4.

This would mean more precise thought needs to be put into the design, however it will further remove ambiguity and if done well would decrease the number of objections/arguments.
I agree. It certainly wouldn't hurt to go through a similar process for D&D's traditional alignment setup. Just about the only feature of the RIFTS alignment system that I liked was it was unambiguous.

[Remirach]

I think you've missed Belkar's actual motivation there. Flip ahead a few strips to after V's intervention, when he explains his cunning master plan. He'd already beaten Miko; it wasn't out of lack of sadism that he didn't finish her then. He didn't kill Miko because it wasn't sadistic enough. He didn't want to just kill her; he wanted to utterly destroy her. He wanted to do the absolute worst thing he could think of to do to a paladin, particularly a paladin as wrapped up in their own self-righteousness as Miko. He wanted to make her fall. And he was willing - in fact, planning - to let her kill him in order to do that.

(And keep in mind that, Roy's condition notwithstanding, death in D&D is pretty much a temporary affliction.)

I did indeed overlook that. But, Belkar did not originally intend for Miko to kill him at all, he just wanted to get away with misdeeds under her nose.

"Utterly destroy her"? He wanted to make her fall. He thought it would be funny. I can think of so many things worse than that that Belkar just looks like a petulant child in comparison. There's an Atonement spell for cases like this, and his commitment to seeing her suffer is suspect when he doesn't intend to actually perish eternally himself. It frankly comes off as a sick prank.


Yes, I never denied that your system can be a good supplement to better describe the attitude towards "good" axis. it was not my intention to give that idea. But to better describe a character beyond alignment, I prefer to just describe the personality.
'K, glad that came across. I just thought my system worked okay for that, but I wasn't trying to "replace" anything.


In my opinion alignments are just a quick and easy description of a character's attitude, with no claims for objecticity. If DnD claims to rank morality "objectively", then it's wrong. When I use alignments, it's not my intent.

But... it DOES rank morality "objectively." "Objectively as defined by the DM," really, but it is supposed to be clear-cut. As Elan's devil even says, "Evil is objective, I should know!"


No, I find alignments are also good for a quick description. They can also be applied to real world; I can easily classify myself and people I know with the alignment.

Britney Spears has been a raging out-of-control Chaotic Neutral for far too long now.


What I'm saying is that if people don't agree on an alignment is not because alignment are flawed (well, they're flawed, but any rule is flawed. They're not that bad), but because ethic is not objective so we can't expect general consensus
Good and Evil are human concepts, that's the problem. We have nothing to fall back on but our religious and/or gaming sourcebooks.


Now, I admit I'm kinda new to that sort of problems (never went in any forum before) but from what I'm seeing here I think the only problem with alignments is that everyone has a different idea wheter a certain action should be classified under a certain alignment or another. So people try to get improved description and rules, and that generates confusion and contradictions.

In my opinion: GOOD= is willing to help other people even at a personal cost
EVIL= is willing to hurt other people for personal gain
LAWFUL= believes that people need to be guided by laws and
rules
CHAOTIC= believes that people should decide what to do on
their own
NEUTRAL= stands in the middle of the opposites.
AND NO OTHER RULES.

People do so much more than what you lay out here. People hurt others for a cause they consider righteous. Is that good or evil, or neutral? People may overthrow a government they consider unjust. Is that lawful or chaotic? That's why it's hard.


I think alignment defined that way works. I believe that any attempt to better clarify the alignments just ends up in messing it, and that players should decide on their own how to apply it; if there's no accordance on details, it doesn't matter. One can make all the detailed descriptions and supplement he wants, and they can be useful but only if we keep them at the level of "informal clarify", not "rules". Anyway, what kind of crappy thing is "that action is good because the book of exalted deed (or any other) says so?". And what kind of stupid world would this be if it were possible to objectively decide the moral value? This action is worth 3,51 standard good units, no discussion, no doubt?

Do what makes the session most fun, really. I was just trying to have fun discussing things with people before it got all personal.


I never read any rule book except the player manual for 3.0, and I fail to see inconsistence in the alignment system. Because I don't consider the fact that other people have different opinion as an inconsistence (this qualify as a chaotic behaviour, and don't affect the good-evil perspective; that's what lawful and chaotic are for).

It comes down to Lawful having intrinsic Good traits which are especially noticiable in Evil types. They have PRINCIPLES. But they aren't considered GOOD just because they don't want to sacrifice children. Maybe they shouldn't be, if they've done numerad other awful things, but it's this definition of nobility as "lawful" and not "Good" that rankles. Why's that an appreciable difference? If I risk my life to save my kids from a fire because, they're my kids, am I only lawful but not "Good" because Lawful can have concerns about their heritage?


I never tought I would have to stand fo David, but the fact that someone is wrong about something is not a proof that he's wrong about something else.

Well, you're right, so good for you for standing up for an unpopular opinion. That's always hard. And David, if you're reading this, I'm sorry for being so flippant. It's been a LOUSY week, to put it mildly.


No, he really enjoys the pain of others: it's fun to make him that uncomfortable (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0244.html), an extra 50 gp to the one that makes him scream the loudest (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0357.html) zombies aren't satisfying to eviscerate: they don't even scream for mercy (I could'nt find this one).
I think it's possible a large part of the amusement was the knowledge that 'the Good Guys' did it. But maybe I was too hasty. YOu want to call Belkar a Sadist on my scale, I think you've convinced me. He's a ****. I could never tell if Xykon was 13 or 15, mostly he became 13 because he's so... easily distracted that it's hard to take him seriously at times. And he's no mastermind, to be frank.

So maybe I'd nudge Belkar up a few ranks on the evil-o-meter. Maybe he IS a 14. I just feel weird calling him "more evil" than Xykon, who I don't want to call a 15 because that is so cliche. I love Xykon for being so remorselessly over-the-top evil but with no panache. He's like a Heel Wrestler bent on world conquest. Like HELL his stunts aren't real!


Actually, I consider Shojo to have been somewhere between NG and CG.
And see, we even agree on some things. Shojo got a bad rap from some people here on the forums, but I always thought he was awesome. But the "CN at BEST" remark most definitely did come up.


I certainly think it's [the body count] a pretty significant consideration.
Redcloak's village was wiped out while Shojo was in charge. It remains to be seen how much of a role he played in that affair, but that was no dungeon purge. That was deity-sanctioned genocide.

Meanwhile other people died because Elan made an honest MISTAKE.


Honesty was never one of Shojo's 'principles', so it's absurd to argue that he violated them- principles are a feature of Lawful alignments. His only major 'principle' was 'ensuring minimum damage, as a whole, to the people of Azure City', and I don't think he violated that of his own volition. Your moral metric implictly assumes that arbitrary codes of conduct are an integral part of Goodness, and there's no particular reason for that.
(Bolding mine.) ONLY LAWFUL PEOPLE HAVE PRINCIPLES?! "Codes of conduct" are for the lawful only? HONESTY is for the lawful only?

Your version of "Chaotic" looks like pure nihilism.


But all this is beside the point. The question isn't whether D&D conforms to your ideas of linear morality, the question is whether it's own terms and definitions are mutually consistent, and bear at least a reasonable resemblance to most people's understandings of the terms used. It's a very far cry from perfect in that regard, but your efforts, quite frankly, are worse.
Once again: I don't play D&D. I react to this as the elements that make up the story, not the game. I think this lawful/chaotic overlap with good/evil is poor storytelling that the author is handicapped with but uses to clever affect. I'm sorry if what I say or suggest wouldn't make a good game, but until the day I code one, I don't give a flying moose about that aspect.


Yes, but they don't contradict the definition of Lawful Good. But both Roy and Haley contradict your defintion of "Adventurer".

How so? Because they don't fill every stipulation? They don't like authority figures, especially self-imposed ones. They occasionally lie to achieve their aims, yet they're good hearted. They're smart-alecs with high self-esteem. They often blame themselves when things go sour. You want links?


'A design is perfected, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.' Your definitions should be as brief, concise, and minimalist as possible whilst remaining comprehensive and consistent.

...which says NOTHING about "specificity," which was what you mentioned and I asked you to clarify. First it wasn't specific enough, and now it's too wordy.


Well, insofar as you are aiming to introduce a new alignment mechanic superior to that currently in play,

NO NO NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO THAT WAS NEVER THE INTENTION. I'LL SAY IT AGAIN. I DON'T PLAY THIS GAME. I wanted a debate topic, not to be declared the new Goddess of D&D.


which would, in turn, help to reduce player frictions and thus make play more enjoyable for all concerned, then if your reasoning were valid, I would say the act would be nominally Lawful Good. Since I don't consider your reasoning valid, and since it's already generated a fair amount of friction right here, I'll have to say nominally Chaotic Evil. Frankly, however, the magnitude of the act is so small either way that I wouldn't worry much about it. This is the diet coke of evil. Just 1 calorie. Not quite enough evil.

Gosh, at least I'm not the decaffeinated version of evil. That would be REALLY embarrassing.


That is a question of definitions. People may not be entirely happy with such rules and definitions, just as they are not entirely happy with rules about grapple checks, monk BAB, or feats from the BoED, but at least the rules are consistent and provided up-front as a standard part of the game. You can take them or leave them before you begin, and everyone can agree on what would happen in situation X, rather than bitching endlessly about whether slaughtering goblin babies is really Lawful Good. The rules can also be tested in play for effectiveness and revised over time. Flawed rules may be much better than no rules at all.

Basically the DM is the arbiter of all that is good and for all intents and purposes is allowed to DEFINE what is good and what is meaningful... and while I could be wrong I kind of sort of had the impression that was one of the things being parodied. Objective morality IS real in D&D -- it's what the DM says is moral.


Yes, but not the same thing as an Evil or Lawful alignment, because a person is defined by more than a single act. Racism is a lawful quality, but not all racists are lawful, because they can and will have plenty of defining qualities apart from their racism.
Why is racism inherently lawful again? Oh wait, you never said. You just assumed it, and now that I've asked you for clarification you give me this.


Yes, but it's not like he's working to establish slavery as a basic institution. He wanted slaves solely for his personal convenience, and if he found that he was a slave, he'd feel no obligation to remain one.
He has no objection to it as long as he isn't a slave himself. How does this make him Chaotic as opposed to just plain Evil?


He failed to kill an unconscious Miko precisely because he knew he could inflict more pain by keeping her alive- that is psychological torture of the highest degree. He's been quite explicit that he gains no satisfaction from fighting opponents when he can't hear them scream for mercy or howl in agony. Belkar is indifferent to winning- what he likes is others' pain.
He honestly did just look bored. Both he and Xykon seem to like a fighting opponent. But I'll give you this. Belkar's a bastard and I underestimated him originally.


I checked your description of Vigilante, and it doesn't fit. Batman is extremely- almost pathologically- merciful, and has no stomach for the concept of revenge. Batman is highly rational and in no way prejudiced.
ISTM that this depends on who writes him, but I don't read the comic anyway, my main exposure was the 90s cartoon. He seemed pretty prejudiced towards so-called "reformed" criminals (even if they had reformed) and RATIONAL??

Pardon me for a minute but I just can't.... ::SNERK::

BWAAHAHAHAHAHA THE MAN IN TIGHTS AND A CODPEICE IS RATIONAL?

And he always gives "reformed evildoers" a chance, and would never strike back at those who hurt his loved ones. Of course.


Yeah, that's kind of the problem. You should be able to determine exactly where they stand with relative ease, rather than sorting through your mishmash of archetypes looking for a plausible fit.

I can't rank people I don't KNOW ABOUT.

I'm sorry if this comes off as snarky. It's been a real bad week. But I have no ill-will toward anyone here and I hope no one who reads this feels any toward me.

[chrono]

In my opinion: GOOD= is willing to help other people even at a personal cost
EVIL= is willing to hurt other people for personal gain
LAWFUL= believes that people need to be guided by laws and
rules
CHAOTIC= believes that people should decide what to do on
their own
NEUTRAL= stands in the middle of the opposites.
AND NO OTHER RULES.


The problem here is that it's way too vague and way to extreme. In other words, all realistic characters would be TN by this system.
Take Robin Hood, the usual example of CG.
-he brings much harm (both physical and financial) arbitrarily to rich people
-he gives to the poor and risks his own neck in the process
Since those are strong examples for both good and evil by your definition, on the GE scale he's N.

-he does what he wants in open rebellion of authority
-he is perfectly happy to obey king Richard's authority and would never be chaotic under Richard's rule
By your definition on the LC scale this should be N again.

So the ultimate CG example from DnD is TN in your "system" and as far as I can see so is everybody else.

What's worse is that you base things on "willing" and "believes" with no mention of actions. So a thief who believes there should be law and order is lawful by your system and a person who is willing to hurt people for fun (not for personal gain) but is selfless when it comes to his own family is good by your definition.

@Remirach: don't get worked up - people argue about this issue and chances are that you can't sway another person's opinion on this particular topic.

[King of Nowhere]

People do so much more than what you lay out here. People hurt others for a cause they consider righteous. Is that good or evil, or neutral? People may overthrow a government they consider unjust. Is that lawful or chaotic? That's why it's hard.
Of course it's hard to decide the controversial cases. They are controversial even in real life - especially in real life. That's why that can't be rule about that. Killing people for a good cause can be good, neutral or evil depending of the very specific situation, or wheter it was strictly necessary, and especially by what those who did it wanted to do.
For example, thinking "I'm very sorry to hurt these innocents, but if I don't do it many other wiill suffer, and there are no other chances; I'd sacrifice even my very life if needed" generally is good (maybe misguided or mistaking), while thinking "That's for a good cause, so I can kill them without problem; they're not important" generally qualifies as evil.
Anyway, in that there can be no general agreement because there can be no objective good and evil. It's not something that can be fixed with rules. Instead, the fact that alignments are not clear on such things means that they work: those are controversial themes in real life, those are controversial even in alignment.


I was just trying to have fun discussing things with people before it got all personal.
I too was trying to having fun and never intended anything to be personal


It comes down to Lawful having intrinsic Good traits which are especially noticiable in Evil types. They have PRINCIPLES. But they aren't considered GOOD just because they don't want to sacrifice children.
In most countries of actual world, laws are mainly good intended. So it looks like law have intrinsic good traits. But law can even be not well intended. In middle age europe law stated that most of the people were to be oppressed, treated like slaves. In that case law meant intrinsic evil traits.
Or, consider the example of a lawful evil lawyer who uses flaws in the law to help guilty people evade justice: following the letter of law don't have inherent goodness to him, because he do it to better oppress people.
Lawfulness has both good and evil traits.


Why is racism inherently lawful again?
Because racism is a law or rule: "everyone with black/red/yellow/violet skin or of a certain religion/nationality/ethnic group is bad/stupid/worse" is a well defined rule and a code of conduct. A chaotic person is more likely to value every single case and not generalize. Of course even a chaotic person can be racist, and of course there are flaws who are most likely to be found in lawful people and flaws who are most likely in chaotic people.



Yes, but it's not like he's working to establish slavery as a basic institution. He wanted slaves solely for his personal convenience, and if he found that he was a slave, he'd feel no obligation to remain one.
He has no objection to it as long as he isn't a slave himself. How does this make him Chaotic as opposed to just plain Evil?
Slavery as LE institution: "certain people are slaves: they may became slaves under precise circumstances. They are bound to follow their owner's order, and if they rebel they are to be punished applying the law (the law may also state that they are to be summarily punished by they're owner). They can be sold - killed - abused - follow a long list of what can be done with them".
Slavery for CE Belkar: "Do what I say or I'll stab you."


which would, in turn, help to reduce player frictions and thus make play more enjoyable for all concerned, then if your reasoning were valid, I would say the act would be nominally Lawful Good. Since I don't consider your reasoning valid, and since it's already generated a fair amount of friction right here, I'll have to say nominally Chaotic Evil.
I'd say, what she wanted was to create supplement to fix bad rules, and this qualifies as LG intent. If she wanted to substitute rules with something homebrewed to make them work better, it would have been CG. If she wanted to generate more rules to create more confusion and oppress players more, she would have been LE. And if she wanted to created friction among forumites, this would have been CE. :smallbiggrin:


The problem here is that it's way too vague and way to extreme. In other words, all realistic characters would be TN by this system.
Take Robin Hood, the usual example of CG.
-he brings much harm (both physical and financial) arbitrarily to rich people
-he gives to the poor and risks his own neck in the process
Since those are strong examples for both good and evil by your definition, on the GE scale he's N.
It needs to be vague, but it's not extreme. I specifically said that the only way to make alignments work is not take them to the letter. And I willingly focused on goals rather than single actions: a good person who mistakenly commit an evil act believing it good is not evil, he just made a mistake. Nobody is perfect.
Robin Hood is absolutely good, because he do what he think is good even at personal risk. He brings harm to evil oppressors to defend other people, but his intent are good. I think you stretched the interpretation of what I said. About lawfulness, is more difficult to assign him; I don't know enough of him to say if it is rebellion against an evil autority (chaotic) or rebellion against an usurper who trumped the real king (lawful or neutral).
Anyway, I said that it is and should be open to interpretations.

So a thief who believes there should be law and order is lawful by your system[QUOTE/]
if he's the first to trump this order, really not. And if he thinks that order is "he is the king of the world and can d what he wants, other people must obey him", no, it's not what I'm talking about.
[QUOTE]and a person who is willing to hurt people for fun (not for personal gain) but is selfless when it comes to his own family is good by your definition.
1) having fun IS personal gain
2) hurting people for personal gain is bad, hurting people for no reason is even worse. I tought there were no need to openly assert it.
3) mine is not a "system". I just said that all the extra rules about alignment are crap, and that simpler is better. I didn't created rules, I just tryed to catch the spirit of each alignment. Mine are loose guidelines at best, not rules. They are to be applied with common sense, not by stretching it.

[GoC]

OOTS example: Elan. Is there anyone more good-hearted than Elan, seriously?
Good hearted?
Really? (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0038.html)
I'd say a better example is Carrot Ironfoundersson.

[Zenos]

Good hearted?
Really? (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0038.html)
I'd say a better example is Carrot Ironfoundersson.

Ah yes, the sevn foot dwarf who killed a guy by misinterpretting an order literaly.

[Fiery Diamond]

The alignment system works if you accept it being flawed. You don't need books over books of rules, just use your common sense. Of course there will be doubt about the alignment of a certain character, or how a certain action should be judged: in real life you may discuss whether a certain person is kind or hypocrite, or if an action is right or wrong. That don't means that our ways of judging people in real life are wrong, it just means that they're not objective, and not objective means no clear way of applying them. There is no objective morality, so there can be no objective moral alignment system. Just cope with it.

(emphasis mine)

I'd like to recommend a book to this poster. NOTE: I'm not recommending this for religious reasons, but rather for a part near the beginning of the book where the author discusses the concept of absolute(objective) morality. Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis.

That said, I don't understand why people always feel the need to argue about alignment. As one poster said - Morality in D&D is objective: it's what your DM says it is. Theoretical discussion on alignment that will not be used or applied to an actual game does no one any good, and it often gets people angry. An actual attempt to better the alignment system? Maybe ok, except for the fact that people have, you know, been RUNNING D&D with the current alignment system for a quite a while without actually having issues in game that weren't related to OOC problems. At least, I"VE never heard from anyone who had any more problem than "we disagree on alignment" (if people in real life disagree with what is good and evil, no alignment system will fix it) "I don't think it is accurate" (but you can still make it work, so why are you complaining? if you want it changed, houserule for your own group) "I have a person who claims he is CN and slaughters...etc." (purely and out of game problem, not truly related to the alignment system, but rather the screwed up mentality of that player).

-Fiery Diamond

[hamishspence]

Exemplars of Evil has a big list of personality traits, and the alignments they are commonly associated with. While I would take issue with the excessive use of "always" lawful (or chaotic, or evil) they make a good way to expand the existing alignments.

Remember its a tool, not a straitjacket. FR deities are specifically stated as occasionally deviating from specified alignments: why should PCs and NPCs be any different? Rather than going for tight definitions, look at the behaviour of novel characters that exist in rulebooks, and you have samples to work with. Complete Scoundrel has a list of non-D&D characters with alignments, though said list has been debated a lot.

sample: Carl Denham, 2004 King Kong movie. said to be CE. I saw the movie, and said, yes, mildly Chaotic, mildly Evil. A character does not have to be super malevolent to be Evil and does not have to be super crazy to be Chaotic.

I personally like the alignment system, but see them as "not so much a rule, more of a guideline"

[chrono]

That said, I don't understand why people always feel the need to argue about alignment. As one poster said - Morality in D&D is objective: it's what your DM says it is.

I agree this far, in my games there's NO alignment and the few issues where it matters (i.e. paladins falling) are called by GM (after of course making sure the paladin player knows what's expected).



Maybe ok, except for the fact that people have, you know, been RUNNING D&D with the current alignment system for a quite a while without actually having issues in game that weren't related to OOC problems. At least, I"VE never heard from anyone who had any more problem than "we disagree on alignment" (if people in real life disagree with what is good and evil, no alignment system will fix it) "I don't think it is accurate" (but you can still make it work, so why are you complaining? if you want it changed, houserule for your own group) "I have a person who claims he is CN and slaughters...etc." (purely and out of game problem, not truly related to the alignment system, but rather the screwed up mentality of that player).


Well let me serve as your counter example. Over 50% of the games I've played/GM-ed/seen that feature a paladin had SERIOUS alignment issues sooner or later. It is by far not clear how much evil/chaos/neutrality a paladin would suffer before beating his companions into submission. Violence against Evil (actual or assumed) creatures has always been moot. A lot of issues that come up all the time are unclear, such as if using violence (non-lethal force) is evil when you can potentially settle the verbal argument by shrugging it off or arguing your case better. Serious game-breaking issues.

In other games we had problems where the GM understood alignment differently than a few players - most of the new players think getting XP justifies mostly everything (i.e. killing sleeping/tied orcs which are otherwise hostile) and the game broke down soon afterward.

In another case a player tried to convince us that a CN female halfling rogue was totally justified in attacking team mates (because, as the argument went CN females are borderline evil overlords anyway). Game broke after party in-fighting and loss of a few players.

(So in effect I think alignment problems are more common/serious than you previously thought.)

@King of Nowhere: You gave a 4-liner guideline + "AND NO OTHER RULES. ", but then said that a lot of things are implied? Guess what, different people would argue for different implications and even though admittedly I was pushing it a bit using general rules for the extreme cases doesn't help anybody, because if you use that guideline alone, mostly every personality (outside of satire comics) falls in the TN scale.