What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

[Quertus]

@Quertus:

If you're talking of your idea earlier in the thread, it amounts to just redefining alignment descriptors as something deliberately absurd.

Yes, it can be done. It works about the exact same as the original, just with some descriptors flipped around. Sane people can already accept game determinations are game determinations, so the actual content of those determinations is more about themes a game is trying for. So, your idea is best fit for a game that aims to either deliver or lampoon fringe green aesops.

@Anymage: you're now guilty of regurgitating the same bad arguments found in the "Unanimous Good" thread.

You cannot use "people will argue over anything and everything!" as a counter-argument to any specific ruleset. Yes, people argue over alignment, but they also argue about trifle things like meaning of hitpoints, whether psionics are any good and whether the game master was a jerk for destroying a wizard's spellbook. The sane reaction is to simply accept that some of the arguments are silly and then find players who can agree to play a game under given rules.

This isn't hard. It isn't hard for hit points, it isn't hard for psionics, it isn't hard for equipment destruction, it isn't hard for basic morals and alignment.

It’s not “people will argue over anything”. It’s not about the *existence* of the argument. It’s about the *quality* of the argument, about the *type* of argument serious statements of “this thing you believe in is evil -> you are evil” produces.

And dividing it into a spectrum of “how evil” an action is simply exacerbates the issue.

Which is why the only Alignment system worth having where one idiot declares what is “good” and what is “evil” is one in which the viewer will consider the criteria “deliberately absurd”.

EDIT: which is why I wouldn’t use an “ecologically friendly” moral system around anyone who took such seriously / highly correlated such things to good and evil - I would only use it with people who would consider it “deliberately absurd”. More generally, that’s the required criteria for an inoffensive Alignment system.

Real world holy books are filled with rules and examples. There are still countless examples of vicious sectarian disputes and even violence over how to interpret passages, as well as no small amount of searching for justifications for why the behavior you want is totally okay. (See the AD&D cleric reading a passage prohibiting the shedding of blood and taking away "so bludgeoning them to death is cool".) You're welcome to try making a rules system that's immune to lawyering, but given that only the simplest of models can maintain that good luck to you.

Which gets to the biggest flaw with KoN's idea. You could divide the alignment chart into as many subvalues as you like. Politics, religion, and message board arguments are chock full of disputes as to what acts are actually good and what goods are a higher priority when two are in conflict. If there's any mechanical effect to Good vs. Evil behavior beyond the most basic consequentialist "people won't like you if you behave like a jerk", people will act based on their ideas of good vs. evil which may disagree with your ideas of good vs. evil. If someone's alignment score takes a ding because their idea and yours disagree, you just opened the door for the sorts of discussions usually reserved for very tense thanksgiving dinners. And that's before you include the players looking for tortured justifications because they want both the super powerful good aligned sword, and to be able to point it at the king until he empties the treasury into their bags of holding.

Which is why I proposed not discussing “good” in a normal sense, but one in which I, The Creator (TM), will be there to take my trusty clue-by-four to any Clerics or Aiel who misinterpret “pacifism: touch no blade” thusly.

Note also how my example includes layered data. Not just “touch no blade” or “no shedding blood”, but placing that under a “pacifism” heading.

Or even the layers: “ecologically friendly: don’t be wasteful: eat their flesh”, “ecologically friendly: don’t be wasteful: wear their skin”, “ecologically friendly: don’t be wasteful: Animate their bones”, “ecologically friendly: don’t be wasteful: grind their bones to make your bread”. Those last two aren’t in conflict: they simply are examples of ways to implement the higher goal.

Now, I’m all for people misinterpreting things being a thing. But not so much when it’s both a testable science, and overseen by beings that actively care that you understand it.