Alignment thoughts (long piece of writing)

[The Evil DM]

To Moderators: If this breaks rules on politics let me know. I am trying to describe alignment from a perspective of cultural, social and political philosophy without delving into real world politics.

All:

I see lots of arguments over Alignment. Not only here on these forums but across many groups and individuals. Concepts of Good and Evil are generally agreed upon, for instance it is evil to commit cold blooded murder, but Law and Chaos are a little more murky.

Since this is a gaming forum with many players of D&D I will reference those material.

It is my opinion that Alignment suffers from poor labeling when first conceived and subsequently it was watered down removing philosophical details that supported the concept. With respect to poor labeling, when Gygax first created the labels Law and Chaos, he was really referring to Collectivism vs Individualism as part of the moral argument. With respect to being watered down, the terms Law and Chaos carry implications that Collectivism and Individualism do not.

One can look in the original Dungeon Masters Guide and find the following statement

Law and Chaos: The opposition here is between organized groups and individuals. That is, law dictates order and organization is necessary and desirable while chaos holds the opposite view. Law generally supports the group as more important than the individual while chaos promotes the individual over the group.

Further down on the same page Gygax expands upon Chaotic under Chaotic Good with

To the Chaotic Good Individual freedom and independence are as important to life and happiness. The ethos views this freedom as the only means by which each creature can achieve true satisfaction and happiness. Law, order, social forms and anything else which tends to restrict or abridge individual freedoms is wrong and each individual is capable of achieving self actualization and prosperity through himself, herself, or itself.

Fast forward to the end of TSR and WotC incarnation of D&D. In the 3.5 Players Handbook, the following is said of law and chaos.

Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties. Chaotic characters follow their conscious, resent being told what to do, favor new ideas over tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it.

Most of the troubles many players have with alignment, common arguments like Alignment is too restrictive or Alignment is meaningless are usually because of a lack of familiarity with the philosophical underpinnings. This inherent misunderstanding, couple with the attempt at redefinition by WotC in an effort to simplify the concept creates even more misunderstanding.

There are five underlying philosophical topics:

Collectivism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivism
Individualism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individualism
Natural and Legal Rights + Natural Freedoms: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights

Additional General Info on Rights: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights

No where in any of this material is there specific individual human behaviors or conditions such as creativity, or dishonesty. These systems are part of the social contract an individual has with other individuals around them. It may imply that one who believes in the value of the group over the individual would have a tendency to be more honest, but it is not a restriction. On the same token, someone who believes in social order may be creative and also value new ideas.

Keeping these philosophies in mind Law and Chaos can be defined by ones acceptance of Natural Rights, Legal Rights and Natural Freedoms, and their approach towards these systems with respect to collectivism and individualism, within the social contract of a culture. In order to fully explore the concepts of Law and Chaos in these terms natural and legal rights must be defined.

Natural Rights are those not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and are therefore universal. Legal Rights are those bestowed onto a person by a given legal system. Natural Freedom is the capacity to will and to make choices freely without restraint. And the social contract is the the degree to which members of a society trade their natural freedoms for protection under a political, legal and social system.

Natural rights are linked heavily to mortal rights to life without suffering, but they can also be twisted by those who follow evil to support the rights of rulers to subject the masses to rule. Tyrants use divine right to rule as a means to justify their sovereignty. Most, Neutral and Lawful alignments will accept natural rights as a basis for decision making.

Legal rights systems are linked to systems of crime and justice, and to systems of social regulation. Good legal systems seek to provide for the security of the masses and justice for those that would commit crimes against the masses, while evil legal systems oppress the masses and allow for systematic exploitation.

Collectivism is the tendency to believe in the interconnectedness of people within a society and the tendency to place the needs of the group above the individual.

Individualism is the inverse, where the individual liberties and the ability of the individual to govern oneself is held to be the ideal.

The following is from my own writing on Alignment in individuals.

Lawful Good Individuals
A Lawful Good individual will readily accept concepts of natural and legal rights, with the social implications and norms that follow. Lawful Good individuals seek justice through legal definition and believe that the social order is present to protect those that do not have the means to protect themselves. When weighing a moral dilemma a Lawful Good individual will lean towards the choice that helps others and which is also in alignment with the individuals social norms.

Lawful Neutral Individuals
A Lawful Neutral individual will readily accept natural and legal rights, but will hold maintenance of social order as supreme regardless of moral implications. When faced with a moral dilemma Lawful Neutral individuals will approach the decision from the perspective of maintaining the status quo regardless of impact on individuals or

Lawful Evil Individuals
A Lawful Evil individual will readily accept natural and legal rights, but will support social systems that subject the masses to exploitation. Lawful Evil individuals will subvert rules and laws for personal gain. When faced with a moral dilemma the Lawful Evil individual will seek the decision that maximizes personal gain, while simultaneously acting within the social norms.

Neutral Good Individuals
Neutral Good individuals are frequently described as idealistic. They act for the good others regardless of whether their actions comply with the social norms the social order or not. Neutral Good individuals tend to accept natural rights over legal rights, with the thinking that natural rights are natural to existence, while legal rights are unnecessary social structures created to oppress. When faced with a moral dilemma a Neutral Good individual will seek the decision that benefits the most individuals.

Neutral Individuals
Neutral Individuals are rare. Very few make active choices that balance all four forces of good, evil, law and chaos. In the rare case that an individual is actively Neutral they tend to favor natural rights and eschew legal rights but when debating the value of structure. Simultaneously they strive to balance good and evil, recognizing that sometimes it is better to promote individual welfare over that of the group. When a Neutral individual is faced with a moral dilemma, Neutral individuals will seek the decision that falls most in the middle of the spectrum.

A second type of Neutral individuals, are the ones who make a conscience choice not to make moral decisions. Individuals with behaviors apathetic to decision making end up on a neutral position on the alignment spectrum.

Neutral Evil Individuals
Often considered the most sinister of evil alignments, Neutral Evil is the epitome of selfishness. A Neutral Evil individual will support philosophies of natural rights, but these rights will be skewed towards the support of selfish aims, arguing that their natural rights are supreme over those of others. When faced with a moral dilemma, a Neutral Evil individual will seek out the decision that maximizes individual gain.

Chaotic Good Individuals
A Chaotic Good Individual will tend towards acting for the greater good regardless of what social norms would describe as the appropriate course of action. Chaotic Good individuals tend to reject concepts of legal rights, and embrace a philosophy of unlimited natural freedoms including the right to all things, thus a Chaotic Good individual might turn to vigilantism to deal with a criminal rather than a social contract of laws that proscribe apprehension and punishment. When faced with a moral dilemma a Chaotic Good individual will seek the decision that maximizes the benefit to the group without regard to social order.

Chaotic Neutral Individuals
A Chaotic Neutral individual can be described as an anarchist but it is not necessarily true. While they reject all forms of rights, natural and legal, and embrace a philosophy of unlimited natural freedoms including the right to all things, they do not necessarily act out of stupidity or without thought of self-preservation. They do what they feel like doing when they feel like doing it regardless of whether or not it is good, bad, or otherwise. Because of this, Chaotic Neutrals rarely face a moral dilemma and act on whims. Behaviors will tend towards acting towards whatever personal cause they feel at the moment, whether or not it helps or hurts others. Their tendency towards helpful or harmful behavior with respect to the social order can be arbitrary.

Chaotic Evil Individuals
A Chaotic Evil will tend towards acting for the greatest personal interest, whatever that may be at the moment, without any regard for the wellbeing of others or interest with the social order. Like other chaotic alignments they reject concepts of rights, natural or legal, and embrace a philosophy of unlimited natural freedoms including the right to all things and they reject concepts of mutual well-being. When faced with moral dilemma a Chaotic Evil will make the most selfish choice possible while simultaneously seeking to reject social norms in the process.

I have run into situations such as what follows.

A party of individuals including a paladin are forced into a situation of negotiation with a demon. The DM requires the Paladin to be completely honest in his dealings with the Demon because he is Lawful Good. The player now feels restricted by his alignment and behavior is being forced by it. However, I call BS on a scenario such as this because what reason within the context of the paladin and his views on social order would he ever be required to be honest with a Demon.

Why would a Lawful Good wizard lack creativity simply because he is not chaotic?

By going back to the moral underpinnings of alignment it actually creates more opportunity for freedom, and the provides more tools to help with role playing decisions - Assuming the philosophy is understood, and this is where the DM's weakness comes into to play. When I play I use the following definitions of cultural alignment. By maintaining consistency throughout the campaign world the players begin to know what to expect from particular regions of the world simply by view of alignment.

Excerpt from my work on Cultural Alignment

The concepts of natural and legal rights directly leads into a discussion of cultural alignment. Cultural alignment is used to provide a general description of government and social contract in a region. While details can vary the same nine categories of individual alignments can be used to categorize cultural alignment.

Lawful Good Cultures
Lawful Good cultures embrace natural and legal rights, creating systems of laws to protect citizens, define criminal behaviors, proscribe punishments and regulate trade, commerce and other aspects of daily life. These systems of laws provide for social welfare, but not necessarily equity amongst social classes.

Lawful Neutral Cultures
Lawful Neutral cultures embrace natural and legal rights, creating systems of laws to protect citizens, define criminal behaviors, proscribe punishments and regulate trade, commerce and other aspects of daily life. In contrast to Lawful Good societies, the Lawful Neutral societies are more concerned with maintenance of the social order and status quo. Social welfare is not a priority. Power and structure is the priority.

Lawful Evil Cultures
Lawful Evil cultures embrace natural and legal rights, creating systems of laws to protect citizens, define criminal behaviors, proscribe punishments and regulate trade, commerce and other aspects of daily life. However, in Lawful Evil cultures these systems exploit the masses. The laws, crimes and punishments are designed to benefit individuals in power and exploit those beneath them.

Neutral Good Cultures
Neutral Good cultures can be best described as egalitarian, embracing natural rights of liberty and absolute equality for all citizens without undue legal interference in day to day lives. Legal systems are loose, trade is not regulated so long as it does not impact the rights of the people. Crime is managed ad hoc, without proscribed punishments. Social welfare is a priority amongst Neutral Good cultures. As long as everyone behaves with the interests of others in mind the Neutral Good society keeps moving forward.

Neutral Cultures
Like Neutral Individuals, Neutral Cultures are rare. Striking a balance between acceptance of legal and natural rights, and good and evil create unstable situations. Like a Neutral Good society, a Neutral culture can have an egalitarian approach to individual rights, but will rarely affect even minimal systems in order to provide for protection of these rights.

Neutral Evil Cultures
Neutral Evil cultures twist the concepts of natural rights towards that of the selfish individual over the welfare of others. They also avoid systems of laws that regulate trade or daily life. Neutral Evil cultures are based on the individual power of rulers.

Chaotic Good Cultures
Chaotic Good cultures place freedoms over rights. Government is minimal to non-existent but people are cooperative and support the common good. Organized social welfare is non-existent, but individual contributions to the welfare of others compensates for it. There is no code of criminal behavior but when such behavior occurs the most common response is vigilantism.

Chaotic Neutral Cultures
Like the Chaotic Good cultures, Chaotic Neutral cultures place freedoms over rights. Government is minimal to non-existent but there is no social contract that encourages behavior that supports others in the culture. There is no social welfare. There is no code of criminal behavior, offenses against the culture are arbitrary and punishments passed out in an arbitrary manner.

Chaotic Evil Cultures
Chaotic Evil cultures are defined by the complete absence of law, order and social contract defining behaviors towards others in the culture. Absolute natural freedom is considered the norm, including the freedom to murder and plunder.

Within all of these descriptions of Alignment there is vast room for individual variance of personality while simultaneously providing some tools for behavior decisions.

Some additional notes from my writing.

Views on Natural Rights, Legal Rights and Natural Freedom by Alignment

Lawful Good philosophies hold to the argument that all beings have natural rights to happiness and life free of suffering and those natural rights must be codified under a system of laws that enforce the rights in so far that the rights of the individual do not conflict with the greater rights to the society as a whole. These philosophies also argue that Natural Freedoms should be curtailed in order to provide social justice between the weak and powerful.

Lawful Neutral philosophies hold to the argument that all beings have a natural right to life, but legal order trumps any expectation of social welfare or guarantees of justice, or even the right to rule. Legal Rights are more important than Natural Rights. These philosophies make the strongest argument against Natural Freedoms. Lawful Neutral philosophies argue for the benefit of social order at extreme cost to freedom.

Lawful Evil philosophies hold to the argument that the powerful have the natural right to rule over the weak and those natural rights must be codified under a system of laws that enforce the rights of the powerful over the weak. These philosophies also argue that Natural Freedoms should be curtailed in order to keep the weak in their place and allow the ruling class to maintain its position over the masses.

Neutral Good philosophies hold to the argument that a beings Natural Rights are sacrosanct and that all should seek to uphold the rights to life without suffering for all, but the rights of the individual are not to be held higher than the rights of the group. These philosophies also argue that Legal Rights should be minimized to balance the trade of Natural Freedoms in the Social Contract.

Neutral philosophies hold to the argument that Natural rights are sacrosanct and neither individual nor group natural rights are more important than the other. These philosophies also argue that Legal Rights should be minimized to balance the trade of Natural Freedoms in the Social Contract.

Neutral Evil philosophies hold to the argument that individual natural rights are sacrosanct even above that of the group thus arguing that the powerful shall survive over the weak. - Survival of the strongest. These philosophies also argue that Legal Rights should be minimized to prevent one’s ability to exercise Natural Freedom that allows one to be more powerful than others.

Chaotic Good philosophies hold to the argument that Natural Freedom is more important than Natural Rights and that conscientious entities will exercise their Natural Freedom for the benefit of all. These philosophies also argue that Legal Rights are anathema to Natural Freedom and justice will be provided by social order as needed.

Chaotic Neutral philosophies hold to the argument that Natural Freedom is more important than Natural Rights and neither individual nor group benefit important. Only the arbitrary right to make one’s own choices is important. These philosophies make the strongest arguments against Legal Rights claiming that any legal system is anathema to Natural Freedom and social justice is meaningless.

Chaotic Evil philosophies hold to the argument that Natural Freedom is of supreme importance including the Right to All things, allowing for murder and plunder as philosophically viable. This philosophy also argues that Legal Rights are meaningless and completely eschews any semblance of compliance social contract with fellow beings.

I invite comment and argument.

[Gritmonger]

As far as lawful good and honesty - if they adhere to social norms, and some of those social norms include the idea that enemies of their deity and humanity will tempt you to corruption, and that it is to your benefit and society's benefit that you avoid corruption, then lying might fall into that realm. It would be more of an ultimate test of your mettle and adherence to what is not sinful to avoid the opportunity to be corrupt in dealing with an entity that thrives on it and seeks to drive you to corruption as well.

In the cases of lawful good, and especially those whose personality is more righteous, the concept of taboo and sin and corruption is more of an abstraction of doing actual damage to society and the body of the church than a concrete breaking of laws, so a stricture on personal behavior is a microcosm of the larger struggle between the forces that seek to destroy this body of the faithful and the ability of the faithful to adhere to the road set forth in their religion.

I don't think Lawful Good can exist as much as an abstract if there is a player/character desire to incorporate religion and doctrine and more stringent definitions of evil and good and taboo and absolution. Part of the struggle of a lawful good religious character is in trying to reconcile all of the forces that pull at them constantly, when they try and walk a narrow line not just for themselves but for the laity and others who need their protection as an example of adherence to what is right.

Some might construe this as an edict to correct others - but it doesn't have to include this. Ultimately it isn't so much about punishing wrongdoing as preventing the advancement of corruption within the faithful.

[The Evil DM]

In the hours since writing the OP. I have noticed a small detail that has just caught my attention.

When the alignment concept was originally written, alignment was framed as, "An [insert alignment] character believes

When it was transformed later it was subtly changed to "An [insert alignment] character is

The discussion changed from a philosophical belief system based on individualism vs collectivism and views on rights and freedoms to a collection of behavior instructions that begin to define a particular alignment box with less flexibility. I think this subtle redefinition, coupled with a large percentage of gamer population not understanding or not willing to invest the time into understanding some fundamentals of philosophy has created the potential for an argument.

Regarding paladins here is an excerpt about a paladin in my campaign. But first a few data points.

1) Paladins in my campaign are significantly more powerful than in most campaigns.
2) Paladin is a prestige class that one must actively quest to become a member of
3) Once a paladin is selected the paladin gains a small piece of the gods divinity.

Joesoph - Devilslayer of Shaarn

If one imagines a sliding scale between Lawful and Good, Joesoph is a little right of center favoring Good over Law. Joesoph will turn a blind eye to disobedience and behaviors that do not comply with the laws so long as the actions are Good and moral.

If one imagines a sliding scale between Cynicism and Idealism, once again Joesoph falls a right of center. Even after a decade of dealing with devils and the destruction they leave in their wake, Joesoph maintains faith in his belief that in all things goodness can be found and that each person only needs strive to goodness within the limits of their abilities.

Key beliefs of Joesoph

A paladin is kind, humble and understanding. And usually has a functioning sense of humor.

It's not the level of faith or amount worship that grants a paladin his or her powers. They are granted the powers because they are humble, kind and understanding.

Paladins don't blame people or ridicule them for weakness and fear, for not facing demonic horrors or otherworldly monsters. For the monsters and demons, that's why the paladin is there. He or she is the bulwark that protects the ordinary people so that they can fight the ordinary foes. A Paladin would never demand someone to 'man up and fight' a foe they have no chance against.

A Paladin's power is explicitly designed and granted to the paladin for use fighting the foes that an ordinary man and woman cannot. From monsters to curses to demons to magical plagues.

A Paladin would never berate a grieving widow or a father who's lost a child over them blaming god, or the paladin if they tried to heal the sick/wounded and failed. They understand the pain that makes people cast the blame on them or the god and they accept that without judging the person. They understand that the person needs time, and likely help, to come to terms with their grief.

A Paladin understands that there is evil in the world and that most men commit evil acts out of desperation or ignorance. These men should be forgiven not punished, redeemed not destroyed.

Arrogance has no place in a paladin's personality. It's a key element that a paladin doesn't think his or her powers make them better than others.

Part of being a paladin is doing what is right. And that's one of the points where many Paladins have failed. It is hard to the wisdom to know what is right. An arrogant Paladin might take the stance, "My faith declares X to be right and proper so you must do it that way, or I will make you do it that way.” This arrogance is incorrect.

Paladins should adhere to the spirit of the tenets they follow, not the letter. A paladin should never be so dogmatic that it interferes with what is right.

Paladins do not seek vengeance. They are protectors, not executioners or assassins. Through vengeance it is all too easy to eat away at your morals and turn you into what you fight. Paladins don’t strike back for revenge. They strike back to protect and prevent more damage. Thus, they strike back to prevent the bloodshed that would come by leaving the aggressor unvanquished. And the next key part comes into play - a Paladin knows when they should stop fighting.

Total annihilation of an enemy force is never an option, except in very special cases like when facing fiends from the hells. A Paladin is keenly aware that the only ones who win in battles are the ravens and other carrion eaters.

A Paladin is not simply a boring goody-two-shoes. A Paladin has the same emotions and human frailties as the next man. A Paladin can and will experience anger and the urge to strike when someone hurt them or their kin. A Paladin may find his need to place blame is just as strong as in a normal person. The difference is that they (to a greater degree than others) don't act on those emotions, at least not without carefully considering the consequences first.

Paladins that falter in this regard should be forgiven just as the commoner should be forgiven.

In agreement with gritmonger, people who play their paladins as arrogant demanding jerks are forgetting about humility and its fit into the paladin role.

That said, I have intended this to be a more general set of thoughts on alignment as a whole, but paladins always make an entrance when talking about alignment.

[Yora]

Alignment has no purpose, does not provide any benefit, and almost all of the people who explain alignment in the rulebooks don't have any real understanding of what it is supposed to be either. Gygax might have had an actual system in mind that did have a purpose, but unfortunately he was totally terrible at explaining things and sharing his thought processes.

I just wouldn't bother with it. There doesn't seem to be any advantage you could gain from trying to make alignment work. And people have been confused for 40 years, we're not going to come up with an actually working explanation now.

[The Evil DM]

Alignment has no purpose, does not provide any benefit, and almost all of the people who explain alignment in the rulebooks don't have any real understanding of what it is supposed to be either. Gygax might have had an actual system in mind that did have a purpose, but unfortunately he was totally terrible at explaining things and sharing his thought processes.

I just wouldn't bother with it. There doesn't seem to be any advantage you could gain from trying to make alignment work. And people have been confused for 40 years, we're not going to come up with an actually working explanation now.

I appreciate the opinion and disagree completely. If you eliminate alignment what then is the purpose of alignment based abilities, spells and so on. Something must be identified as Evil in order for Detect Evil to have any real meaning. Same with Protection From Evil.

Obviously one could generalize such things to detect foes, or protection from foes (insert any fluff specific word for foes) but a lot of heroic flavor is lost.

[Yora]

I would throw those out as well. If you absolute have to keep all of those, they can still be salvaged by making it so that only outsiders and certain magical creatures like undead can have alignment. Normal, mortal people and creatures would all be Neutral.

[veti]

I think the difference between law and chaos is essentially one of approach.

Law is consistent, methodical and, partly as a result, often indirect. You can't simply "do what you want": instead, the skilful practitioner will do something apparently orthogonal to what they want, that will set in motion a chain of events to produce a particular effect. This is inherently an uncertain and error-prone methodology, but the upside is that it gives you a huge effective force multiplier: you can use this "chain of events" to accomplish things you could never have done on your own.

Lawful characters consider every action a precedent. (And that, incidentally, is why lying to a demon may be considered bad. It's still lying. Regardless of the effect on the demon, the act of lying has an effect on the paladin. That's not to say that it's forbidden or impossible - merely wrong.)

Chaos is direct. It draws a line from where it is to where it wants to be, and considers the obstacles on that line as - well, obstacles. If it's possible to simply steam through them - e.g. a law that no-one will be motivated to enforce - it will (probably) do so. Otherwise it may destroy or move the obstacle, or plot the quickest route around it, or lose interest and go somewhere else instead.

Chaotics care little for precedent or consistency: what matters is the goal here and now, and the hypothetical side effects of others misguidedly adopting our actions as a pattern - are not our responsibility.

There is no reason why chaotics should lack subtlety, or lawfuls imagination. A chaotic might try to achieve their goal indirectly, in order to serve other goals at the same time, or to lower the cost of the achievement. A lawful may decide to forego a short-term win in exchange for a longer-term gain. For instance, punishing a thief is well and good if it will cause her or others to reform (LG) or submit (LE); but if it will cost you a potential ally against a greater foe, you might reasonably decide to exercise discretion.

One of my favourite (erstwhile) bloggers has a take on "law" that I think is relevant to this discussion, although it comes from a very different context:

When you go into a restaurant and you see a sign that says "No Dogs Allowed," you might think that sign is purely proscriptive: Mr. Restaurant doesn't like dogs around, so when he built the restaurant he put up that sign.

If that was all that was going on, there would also be a "No Snakes" sign; after all, nobody likes snakes. And a "No Elephants" sign, because they break the chairs when they sit down.

The real reason that sign is there is historical: it is a historical marker that indicates that people used to try to bring their dogs into the restaurant.

In this light, the study of laws can be seen as a sort of social archaeology. Every law is evidence that somebody, somewhere, sometime, did something that "society" (whatever that meant, at that time) considered harmful, and didn't want done again. Long after the original offence is lost to history, and even the logic behind the law is no longer apparent, the law itself stands as testament to the fact that "competent authorities, who have seen what follows from X, believe X to be a sufficiently Bad Idea that it's worth Society expending effort to prevent it from happening again".

To a lawful person, that fact in itself is a weight of consideration. "Breaking the law", no matter how harmless, means setting your own judgment above that of others who may have known something you don't. Conversely, to a chaotic person, the chances of Someone, viewing a slightly-parallel situation at some time in the unknown past, having more insight than they do into their situation here and now, is so slight that it's not really worth considering.

Obviously one could generalize such things to detect foes, or protection from foes (insert any fluff specific word for foes) but a lot of heroic flavor is lost.

Accept that alignment is subjective. As far as you're concerned, your foes are evil and will show up on a Detect Evil. When they cast the same spell, you'll be the one flashing, but that doesn't matter because you're not them, so you don't see it.

People viewed the world very much like this for nearly all of recorded history, including the entire period in which what we now think of as "heroic fantasy" was invented and is now based.

[Tengu_temp]

I never liked the "NG is the most good alignment because it's dedicated to good alone, unburdened by law or chaos" stance, and from the way you describe the alignments, it shows up here as well. No good alignment is inherently more good than the others, just like no evil alignment is inherently more evil.

[Ashtagon]

I especially like the way you've re-stated that law/chaos is collectivism vs. individualism. It re-states what I said in an older thread.

Unfortunately, there is so much misunderstanding about what D&D alignment represents, that for my games, I just scrap it utterly.

Instead, I allow PCs to declare loyalty to particular deities. The various spells that interact with alignment instead now interact with the subtle aura that surrounds people who sincerely follow a deity, along with certain other markers. This has occasional odd results. The detect enemy spell cast by a priest of Corellon, for example, will ping on a dwarf, regardless of their alignment.

[Yora]

Misinterpretation implies that there is one correct interpretation. But since alignment is intrinsically conflicting with itself, there isn't any, which causes all those endless debates.

[Morty]

Alignment has no purpose, does not provide any benefit, and almost all of the people who explain alignment in the rulebooks don't have any real understanding of what it is supposed to be either. Gygax might have had an actual system in mind that did have a purpose, but unfortunately he was totally terrible at explaining things and sharing his thought processes.

I just wouldn't bother with it. There doesn't seem to be any advantage you could gain from trying to make alignment work. And people have been confused for 40 years, we're not going to come up with an actually working explanation now.

I see he has already made the point I'd make.

As an addendum: alignment is worse than useless. It causes arguments, restricts concepts and bogs things down. What does it give us in return? Nothing, that's what. It's not, as some claim, a distinction between a story with a clear-cut, black-and-white morality and shades of grey. In fact, if you run a campaign where clear bad guys fight clear bad guys, alignment is at its most useless. After all, do you really need labels in that case?

The only possible benefit for alignment is as a roleplaying aid for new players. Which can be, and has been, achieved in far less contentious, divisive and annoying ways. Therefore, my approach to alignment is to nuke it from orbit and forget it ever existed.

[Amphetryon]

Lawful/Chaotic, Good/Evil behavioral traits have not been consistently defined, either across different editions of D&D, or even within a given edition. This is in no small part due to a truism in one of the earlier edition PHbs, which I'll paraphrase here:

If you asked a CE Thief what her alignment was (and got a non-confrontational answer), she might very well say "Lawful Good." More than that, she might honestly believe that her behavior qualified as Lawful Good.

People have enough difficulty qualifying their own actions along moral and ethical grounds. Ask them to qualify another person's behavior, without giving them full access to the thought process going into that behavior, and the difficulty is exponentially harder. Couple that with different opinions on whether a given act can even qualify as Lawful, or Good, or Chaotic, or Evil, and trying to establish anything broader than "this is what the alignments mean at our gaming table" becomes all but impossible, and all but futile.

[goto124]

Maybe that's why people are questioning the point of paladins? :P

[Yora]

While the old mantra goes "alignment is not a straightjacket", in practice I see characters get more complex and varied in games that don't have it. There are not only nine personalties, but people automatically try to make their character line up with one of the nine ideals.
The worst thing is, that alignment tells players not only that it is okay to interfere with the way other people play their characters, but it tells then that they should do just that. As a lawful character you are supposed to whip other people into line and as a chaotic character you are supposed to be disruptive. Some edition even outright say it, while the others still strongly imply it.

[Morty]

In order to prevent alignment from actively disrupting gameplay, you need to water it down so much it might as well not be there, basically.

[Maglubiyet]

Alignment has no purpose, does not provide any benefit, and almost all of the people who explain alignment in the rulebooks don't have any real understanding of what it is supposed to be either. Gygax might have had an actual system in mind that did have a purpose, but unfortunately he was totally terrible at explaining things and sharing his thought processes.

I just wouldn't bother with it. There doesn't seem to be any advantage you could gain from trying to make alignment work. And people have been confused for 40 years, we're not going to come up with an actually working explanation now.

I absolutely agree. Real behavior and motivations are far more nuanced than two dimensions of polarity, Law/Chaos and Good/Evil.

Each individual acts in his or her own self interest -- Period. How that self interest is defined and manifests varies by environment/upbringing, relationships, culture, personal experiences, biology, skills and abilities, and personal goals.

Trying to shoehorn the entirety of a person's actions into one of nine neat boxes is futile. Debates about alignment are endless and circular and don't add anything to the RP experience. I tend to chuck most of it out the window.

[Red Fel]

I appreciate the opinion and disagree completely. If you eliminate alignment what then is the purpose of alignment based abilities, spells and so on. Something must be identified as Evil in order for Detect Evil to have any real meaning. Same with Protection From Evil.

Obviously one could generalize such things to detect foes, or protection from foes (insert any fluff specific word for foes) but a lot of heroic flavor is lost.

A bit late to this conversation, but I'll throw in my two bits.

Alignment, in a vacuum, need not exist. It is an unnecessary and occasionally detrimental appendage to a TTRPG. There are plenty of TTRPGs that do not use an alignment system, or use something other than G-E/C-L (such as Ironclaw's "motto" system or oWoD's Humanity scale). Any argument about the function and definition of alignment, therefore, must presume the pre-existence of an alignment system. That is, in order to debate how to analyze alignment, we must be dealing with a system such as D&D which employs that particular alignment metric; otherwise, it is a totally needless argument, as the metric itself is both unnecessary and obtrusive.

Assuming, therefore, that we are operating in a system that both uses and requires a G-E/C-L metric, (which I have decided to call Geckle, because I happen to think it's funny) we next deal with the very real problem of different perspectives. Any debate on alignment inevitably runs into one very serious road block: We all have different views. We have different terminology and experiences. Yes, in a perfectly rationalist world where everyone possessed sufficient communication skills, it would be a fairly painless process to come to a consensus on what the terms meant and how to address them. We don't live in that world and we don't have those skills. I have seen countless debates sidelined over the definitions of individual terminologies.

The problem is compounded when you start to bring real and complex philosophies to bear, such as collectivism, individualism, and so forth. These are schools of thought which are themselves debated. To bring them to the table when discussing alignment would first require the parties to be possessed of a sufficient knowledge of these philosophies (which in turn would require us to define "sufficient") to be able to use them effectively in discourse. Even assuming that they had sufficient knowledge, the parties might still disagree on the meaning or importance of certain foundational doctrines or concepts. Even assuming that they agreed on the meaning and importance of all relevant concepts, they might still disagree on how to apply them to an alignment debate. And even assuming they agreed on how to apply them to the debate, they might nonetheless reach different results on alignment, because we are not perfectly rational creatures.

Ultimately, attempting to label alignment is a futile effort, for two reasons. One, as mentioned, people and their views are simply too different to agree on what does or doesn't constitute an alignment. True, complete, comprehensive definition is virtually impossible. Two, irrespective of agreement, alignment in such systems is arbitrary. In the case of D&D, for example, it is arbitrarily defined by RAW, and further arbitrarily refined by the DM, whose position on the matter, while sometimes negotiable, will ultimately be final.

Geckle.

[The Evil DM]

As a forward I want to thank people who take the time to read and comment. This problem is like my Tinker Gnome Life Quest.

There doesn't seem to be any advantage you could gain from trying to make alignment work.

IRL - I study decision making and development of models for morality and behavior as part of my research job. In my off time I play role playing games. As a result these ideas are in the forefront of my mind almost continuously.

I also believe there is significant advantage and value to have a model of morality that is both useful and simplified enough to be understood by most.

And therein lies my quest. How do I create a piece of writing that explores this concept with the right combination of depth and simplicity that the concept is modeled and simultaneously accessible to a 15 year-old new gamer that is not amongst the 40 year veterans I play with now.

By the way

Alignment has no purpose, does not provide any benefit, and almost all of the people who explain alignment in the rulebooks don't have any real understanding of what it is supposed to be either.

So I ask again why give up? Why throw out an idea simply because it is difficult to understand or hard to implement? How can it be made easier to use and understand?

First off

Real behavior and motivations are far more nuanced than two dimensions of polarity, Law/Chaos and Good/Evil.

So we eliminate the idea that there are only nine alignments. Even with that there are nine alignment extremes but in practice there are infinite variations on the spectrum that exist between the extremes.

Then, to fix problems with labeling we explicitly divorce the concepts of Law and Chaos from actual laws.

Lawful: Conforming to, permitted by, or recognized by law or rules.

By that what veti stated

To a lawful person, that fact in itself is a weight of consideration. "Breaking the law", no matter how harmless, means setting your own judgment above that of others who may have known something you don't.

would be a reasonable interpretation but rather use the following definitions

Note: I use the term strength below from a survival strategy perspective. Meaning a strong survival strategy is one that maximizes probability of success for the society or species.

Lawful: Believe in Collectivist Social Systems and groups are stronger when they cooperate.

Chaotic: Believe in Individualist Social Systems and groups are stronger when the individuals within that group have maximum freedom to achieve individual strength.

Good: The lives and wellbeing of others to have inherent value.

Evil: The lives and wellbeing of others to have no inherent value.

Combining these four end points to get the extremes one has

LG = I serve the Collective for the greater Good of all
LE = The Collective serves me for my benefit
CG = Only through individual freedom can I maximize my benefit to the greater Good
CE = Only I have value and I have the freedom to take advantage at will.

I still agree that there is a huge spectrum of possibilities between these four extremes. That spectrum is why I differentiate alignment from a set of underlying moral beliefs to rather than instructions for behavior.

When this change is made this statement is invalidated.

Accept that alignment is subjective.

These extremes are fairly clear cut. You either believe that life other than your own has value or not and whether or not you support the collective or individual freedom.

I still agree that there can be middle ground in these examples. Such as the ideal good is the individual who holds all life sacred. In an extreme example would be monks who sweep bugs away as they walk so that they do not accidentally step on and kill one. While on the opposite end the sociopath who values no one’s life but his own is evil.

Even so the distinctions are obvious.

As far as you're concerned, your foes are evil and will show up on a Detect Evil.

Someone who consistently displays disregard for life - a murderhobo - would be evil and shows up as evil. Even if that individual only disregards, for instance goblins and goblin life, while having respect for his fellow species and holding them in high regard would eventually feel the tug of evil.

There are many quotes in the responses regarding alignment as a limiter.

As an addendum: alignment is worse than useless. It causes arguments, restricts concepts and bogs things down

While the old mantra goes "alignment is not a straightjacket", in practice I see characters get more complex and varied in games that don't have it. There are not only nine personalties, but people automatically try to make their character line up with one of the nine ideals.

The worst thing is, that alignment tells players not only that it is okay to interfere with the way other people play their characters, but it tells then that they should do just that.

Trying to shoehorn the entirety of a person's actions into one of nine neat boxes is futile.

I think alignment as a limiter is the fault of the GM. Bad GMs with a poor understanding of moral concepts and whom apply moral concepts of alignment arbitrarily and without reason perpetuate the idea that Alignment cannot be useful. A GM who has a clear understanding of his own moral system and who can communicate that moral system to his players lacks these issues.

In response to these, alignment is not a personality. No GM should ever restrict a player’s actions based on alignment. Alignment is an approach to morality. A character’s approach to morality need not be constant, it need not be an extreme of any of the moral axes and it can change over time. A character might learn that a series of actions is leading that character down a moral path which they do not want to be on. This could spur that character to alter their decision making in order to choose a different path.

In regards to player vs player moral interaction there is should be no requirement that one player be required to interfere with a way another player play’s his character. Certainly if a LG is paired with CE and the player’s role play these world views correctly there will be conflict. I don’t fault the players for this, I fault GMs for not setting ground rules at the start of the game to help party building with some minimal degree of cohesion.

Some edition even outright say it, while the others still strongly imply it.

If you can supply the quotes where game systems require players to interfere with other players please do. Otherwise I reject most of that comment as experience with poor GMs.

Alignment and Legal Systems

Veti claims that laws are generated through prohibitionist approaches.

In this light, the study of laws can be seen as a sort of social archaeology. Every law is evidence that somebody, somewhere, sometime, did something that "society" (whatever that meant, at that time) considered harmful, and didn't want done again. Long after the original offence is lost to history, and even the logic behind the law is no longer apparent, the law itself stands as testament to the fact that "competent authorities, who have seen what follows from X, believe X to be a sufficiently Bad Idea that it's worth Society expending effort to prevent it from happening again"

This approach to laws is only one of many. Laws are put in place by people in power to keep certain individuals in power. Laws can also be made to protect higher social classes from lower social classes or to protect those that cannot protect themselves.

The existence of Laws in a society is not predicated on a Lawful Alignment and a Chaotic Alignment does not predicate lawlessness. However, the content of legal systems will reflect the overall social alignment.

A kingdom that is predominantly lawful good will have legal systems that define rights, and provide for social welfare.

A kingdom that is predominantly lawful evil will have legal systems that use the collective to keep the nobility in power.

A kingdom that is predominantly chaotic good will have a legal system that stresses individual freedoms and places social welfare onto the responsibility of individual charity.

A kingdom that is predominantly chaotic evil is unlikely to have a legal system but it could be possible to have a strong individual or group in power that makes laws or edict to suit their current needs and which change arbitrarily.

A character of one alignment visiting a society of a different alignment would likely be uncomfortable. No lawful good individual should be required to agree with or follow any laws that exist in a chaotic evil society. Nor should that character be restricted not to follow the local ways, even if there are consequences.

I once had a player state “Since I am lawful good and I am visiting a kingdom where murder of homeless people is legal and considered beneficial for the town, I am going to murder some homeless people.” - minor paraphrasing due to failing memory of exact quote in my old age.

How do I apply this in practice now?

In my campaign universe alignment is a real thing. It is a part of your character and it is a measurement of all the decisions the character has ever made. Your alignment is a piece of your soul if you willfully commit acts of murder it is reflected in your soul, if you strive to achieve good you it is reflected in your soul.

All Mortals are born neutral and completely devoid of any moral attachment.

When a player creates a character they may declare an alignment. This declaration represents the sum total of all the decisions made by the character prior to beginning of the campaign. It only sets a starting point on the spectrum.

No player is ever required to behave in any particular fashion based on their alignment selection.

As a game progresses, I observe decisions and actions of the players. Players that call themselves good and behave in evil manner will begin to feel the tug on their alignment. This is also true for the law and chaos axis. I use alignment as a measurement tool and metric, not a restriction.

In regards to how players are making their decisions there is a degree of judgement on my part in determination if something is good, evil, lawful or chaotic but my views on these matters are very well documented, applied consistently and made freely available to all players.

If a character begins to behave consistently with a different alignment it is not a negative. Old versions of D&D placed penalties on characters for alignment change - I say BS to that. Behavior naturally changes and world views of characters can shift dramatically over time.

However, this does not mean that there are not consequences to alignment shift. Alignment in my universe plays a key role with immortals and deities. If you happen to be a divine caster of some sort, or a holy warrior of some sort and abandon the ideals of your religion you might be branded an apostate or heretic. Players at risk of changing alignment who fall into these categories will get two types of warnings from me. They will receive an OOC explanation of what and why on the moral mechanics and they may find that their peers in the church are speaking to them about the errors of their ways.

However, at no point is a player required to maintain their character’s original alignment, and I even have a heretic prestige class for priests/clerics that abandon the alignment of their religion.

Without this alignment system, being a heretic would get watered down. Someone who is a heretic made conscious and willful choices to leave behind his church.

Some Final Notes

Once again I agree with Red Fel almost 100%

A bit late to this conversation, but I'll throw in my two bits.

Alignment, in a vacuum, need not exist. It is an unnecessary and occasionally detrimental appendage to a TTRPG. There are plenty of TTRPGs that do not use an alignment system, or use something other than G-E/C-L (such as Ironclaw's "motto" system or oWoD's Humanity scale). Any argument about the function and definition of alignment, therefore, must presume the pre-existence of an alignment system.

I agree with this statement

Assuming, therefore, that we are operating in a system that both uses and requires a G-E/C-L metric, (which I have decided to call Geckle, because I happen to think it's funny) we next deal with the very real problem of different perspectives. Any debate on alignment inevitably runs into one very serious road block: We all have different views. We have different terminology and experiences. Yes, in a perfectly rationalist world where everyone possessed sufficient communication skills, it would be a fairly painless process to come to a consensus on what the terms meant and how to address them. We don't live in that world and we don't have those skills. I have seen countless debates sidelined over the definitions of individual terminologies.

Which brings me to my reasoning behind this discussion, I have a solution that has been successful with a small group of veterans. How then do we break this barrier and communicate that solution to others. Not all will care or desire the solution but for those that do let’s make it accessible.

The problem is compounded when you start to bring real and complex philosophies to bear, such as collectivism, individualism, and so forth. These are schools of thought which are themselves debated. To bring them to the table when discussing alignment would first require the parties to be possessed of a sufficient knowledge of these philosophies (which in turn would require us to define "sufficient") to be able to use them effectively in discourse. Even assuming that they had sufficient knowledge, the parties might still disagree on the meaning or importance of certain foundational doctrines or concepts. Even assuming that they agreed on the meaning and importance of all relevant concepts, they might still disagree on how to apply them to an alignment debate. And even assuming they agreed on how to apply them to the debate, they might nonetheless reach different results on alignment, because we are not perfectly rational creatures.

So once again, agree but how do we fix this. I do believe the debate itself has merit merely from the perspective of creating the language base necessary to define and discuss the topics to the point where everyone involved shares a common understanding. This is why the system works well for my groups because I have players that have been around for a very long time.

Ultimately, attempting to label alignment is a futile effort, for two reasons. One, as mentioned, people and their views are simply too different to agree on what does or doesn't constitute an alignment.

I disagree simply because I do not think it is futile. A particular approach to a moral model may not ever reach 100% acceptance, but that does not invalidate it as futile.

Each individual acts in his or her own self interest -- Period

This is a highly cynical view point and like most absolute statements of this nature it is untrue by definition of being absolute. In the juvenile ranks of young gamers this tendency is more apparent but I don’t necessarily blame that on bad role playing, I blame that on youth and the natural tendencies of youth to explore behavior and social mores.

In that regard, gaming is a valuable outlet that allows teens to participate in a “Virtual” activity and get away with things in fantasy that they cannot in real life. Is there any harm in injecting moral lessons into gaming that can transcend the game itself?

Instead, I allow PCs to declare loyalty to particular deities. The various spells that interact with alignment instead now interact with the subtle aura that surrounds people who sincerely follow a deity, along with certain other markers. This has occasional odd results. The detect enemy spell cast by a priest of Corellon, for example, will ping on a dwarf, regardless of their alignment.

I would throw those out as well. If you absolute have to keep all of those, they can still be salvaged by making it so that only outsiders and certain magical creatures like undead can have alignment. Normal, mortal people and creatures would all be Neutral.

It is interesting, to note that in the interpretation as I use it, the alignment extremes are focused around religion and immortals. The vast majority of beings in the world are neutral. Even ones that have committed small acts of good, evil, law or chaos really are overall neutral. Most creatures behave out of need for survival and they are in a situation where survival is becoming desperate they may act out in a manner contrary to their overall neutrality.

But, I have a mechanistic view of magic. Magic requires something to function against. As a result I need a metric and I present what works for me.

I especially like the way you've re-stated that law/chaos is collectivism vs. individualism. It re-states what I said in an older thread.

Your comment in the other thread where you outline each action and assign L, C, E, G to each one is essentially how alignment functions in my game. I observe players over time and let them know where they are trending.

I never liked the "NG is the most good alignment because it's dedicated to good alone, unburdened by law or chaos" stance, and from the way you describe the alignments, it shows up here as well. No good alignment is inherently more good than the others, just like no evil alignment is inherently more evil.

How it was described NG isn’t more good, nor is NE more evil. These just tend towards the values of good and evil as primary with collectivism or individualism as secondary concerns. A NG would choose between collectivist and individualist behavior as needed to achieve a good result and a NE would do the same to achieve an evil result. This implies that these two alignments are more flexible, and to that I say they are. But so are LN and CN. Those alignments can choose between good or evil to either enforce the collective or maximize individual freedom respectively.

But, individuals can be more evil than one another. The lowly thug robber who ambushes the unwary in the park and who has committed one or two murders in his lifetime but generally tries to avoid killing - even if out of self-interest - is far less evil than the high priest of doom who is sacrificing children, puppies and kittens to the dark gods on a daily basis.

[veti]

And therein lies my quest. How do I create a piece of writing that explores this concept with the right combination of depth and simplicity that the concept is modeled and simultaneously accessible to a 15 year-old new gamer that is not amongst the 40 year veterans I play with now.

If that is your aim, then - with due respect - I think you've got a very long way to go. The writings you quote from in your original post are an excellent illustration of just why this is a difficult subject. They make sense as far as they go, and I'm sure you think their meaning is as clear and unambiguous as it can be, but I would say that they are every bit as ambiguous, and susceptible to just as many interpretations, as Gygax's original formulations.

So I ask again why give up? Why throw out an idea simply because it is difficult to understand or hard to implement?

Because the purpose of the idea is to add clarity and objectivity to an otherwise complex and nuanced subject. If the idea itself turns out to be so complex and impenetrable that it's no easier to understand than the thing it's trying to explain, then it has no value. It's entirely possible to deliver moral lessons without wrapping them up in this particular terminology.

These extremes are fairly clear cut. You either believe that life other than your own has value or not and whether or not you support the collective or individual freedom.

Sure, but - without getting into RL historical examples here, because that way lies Bad Trouble - it is not uncommon for people to weight others' lives differently. To this day, an overwhelming majority of people firmly believe (even though they may try to deny it when expressed this baldly) that "the lives of foreigners are worth less than those of their own fellow citizens". In days before there was so much global intermingling, it was not unusual for an entire country to view the people of another country as qualitatively less than human, able to be killed without a smattering of remorse.

It's possible to be, simultaneously, a mighty and selfless champion of your own people, ready at the drop of a hat to lay down your life for the meanest peasant in your own army - and a merciless butcher of the enemy. That's both a fantasy archetype, and a historical one. The extremes are "fairly clear-cut" - but only "fairly", there is lots of murk still lying around them no matter how "either-or" you try to state them.

Someone who consistently displays disregard for life - a murderhobo - would be evil and shows up as evil. Even if that individual only disregards, for instance goblins and goblin life, while having respect for his fellow species and holding them in high regard would eventually feel the tug of evil.

Ah, see, there it is! "... would eventually feel the tug of evil" - what kind of weasel wording is that? Everyone "feels the tug of evil", that's called "temptation" and it's just about the oldest and most basic trope in the world. Is your goblin-butcher evil, or isn't she?

This approach to laws is only one of many. Laws are put in place by people in power to keep certain individuals in power. Laws can also be made to protect higher social classes from lower social classes or to protect those that cannot protect themselves.

That may, or may not, be the private agenda of those who make the laws. In practice I would argue it's likely to be considerably more nuanced than that. From Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan:

What will the world be like when The Church's accumulated wisdom and knowledge and experience, its councils of learned, venerable pious men, are thrust into the kennel by every ignorant laborer or dairymaid whom the devil can puff up with the monstrous self-conceit of being directly inspired from heaven? It will be a world of blood, of fury, of devastation, of each man striving for his own hand: in the end a world wrecked back into barbarism. [...] I shudder to the very marrow of my bones when I think of it. I have fought it all my life; and I will fight it to the end. Let all this woman's sins be forgiven her except only this sin; for it is the sin against the Holy Ghost; and if she does not recant in the dust before the world, and submit herself to the last inch of her soul to her Church, to the fire she shall go if she once falls into my hand.

But regardless of their underlying motives, the proximate reason for each individual law is to prevent a specific action. Laws against libel, for instance, were introduced because people printed scurrilous rumours about others. Laws against fraud were invented because people learned to use misrepresentation, rather than violence or stealth, to take what wasn't theirs.

If a character begins to behave consistently with a different alignment it is not a negative. Old versions of D&D placed penalties on characters for alignment change - I say BS to that. Behavior naturally changes and world views of characters can shift dramatically over time.

However, it is normal for those experiencing a shift in worldview to experience a period of uncertainty, hesitancy, self-doubt. Isn't it fair enough to have a game-mechanical representation of that?

However, at no point is a player required to maintain their character’s original alignment, and I even have a heretic prestige class for priests/clerics that abandon the alignment of their religion.

Without this alignment system, being a heretic would get watered down. Someone who is a heretic made conscious and willful choices to leave behind his church.

Not at all. I strongly recommend you read the above-linked play, which will give you a very clear description of what a "heretic" is: it's someone who denies the authority of their own church. There is absolutely no need for any mention of "alignment", absolutely-adjudicated or otherwise.

[SiuiS]

How far back did you go? Because when there was only law and chaos, law was "good For the existence of civilization and biogenesis" and chaos was "inimical to sentient mortal life and without the trappings of linear time or rational progression".

Politics, collectivism, none of that factored into it. Ever. It was always about a mythic conflict, any conflation to real world level of abstraction missed the point. No individualist would ever declare they were in favor of entropic decay ruining their corporeal form and stripping them of will, legitimacy or sovereignty, for example. It's just ridiculous to think any human would rationally support that.

And from there, alignment only got weird when it stopped being about how you aligned with cosmic forces.

[Maglubiyet]

This is a highly cynical view point and like most absolute statements of this nature it is untrue by definition of being absolute. In the juvenile ranks of young gamers this tendency is more apparent but I don’t necessarily blame that on bad role playing, I blame that on youth and the natural tendencies of youth to explore behavior and social mores.

In that regard, gaming is a valuable outlet that allows teens to participate in a “Virtual” activity and get away with things in fantasy that they cannot in real life. Is there any harm in injecting moral lessons into gaming that can transcend the game itself?

Well, you can't just dismiss this merely as a youthful viewpoint -- you and I are probably about the same age. I'm talking about things like sociobiology and ego psychology. Many people who don't understand the way evolution works find it cynical.

For example, in the the field of animal behavior, all actions can be modeled as purely selfish from an evolutionary perspective -- the selfish goal being to transmit one's genes to the next generation. Danger signaling, child rearing, soldiering, and courtship gifts are all examples of altruistic behaviors. They may not favor the survival of an individual, but they contribute to the survival of close relatives of these altruistic individuals. This ensures the survival of the genes that code for these behaviors even though it may mean the death of the individual.

Human behavior adds complexity in its self awareness, but ultimately distills to the same motivations with the added layer of protecting the ego. Even self-defeating behaviors -- charity, emergency care, soldiering, suicide, etc. -- provide something to the individual. No one acts for nothing, all actions have a selfish basis to satisfy some present or future need.

[The Evil DM]

Thank you again for continuing the debate.

If that is your aim, then - with due respect - I think you've got a very long way to go.

I do not disagree.

Note I am not trying to please all people with a system that is completely universal rather I am trying to take what works for my 40 something players and make it more accessible to a younger audience. In no way do I think what I am presenting is 100% universal to all games and play styles. But can the existing concept be done better?

Because the purpose of the idea is to add clarity and objectivity to an otherwise complex and nuanced subject. If the idea itself turns out to be so complex and impenetrable that it's no easier to understand than the thing it's trying to explain, then it has no value. It's entirely possible to deliver moral lessons without wrapping them up in this particular terminology.

You don’t actually state whether or not you think the material I have presented is complex and impenetrable. The statements made thus far only talk about how this is impossible and from cultural relativist perspectives it can never be done. Do you disagree with that?

Sure, but - without getting into RL historical examples here, because that way lies Bad Trouble - it is not uncommon for people to weight others' lives differently. To this day, an overwhelming majority of people firmly believe (even though they may try to deny it when expressed this baldly) that "the lives of foreigners are worth less than those of their own fellow citizens". In days before there was so much global intermingling, it was not unusual for an entire country to view the people of another country as qualitatively less than human, able to be killed without a smattering of remorse.

It's possible to be, simultaneously, a mighty and selfless champion of your own people, ready at the drop of a hat to lay down your life for the meanest peasant in your own army - and a merciless butcher of the enemy. That's both a fantasy archetype, and a historical one. The extremes are "fairly clear-cut" - but only "fairly", there is lots of murk still lying around them no matter how "either-or" you try to state them.

Cultural relativism of this sort does not absolve one of evil. If you set out to wipe out all the goblins in the land and systematically engage in that genocide you are committing an evil act whether or not you think of yourself as evil and whether or not you treat your own culture differently.

Ah, see, there it is! "... would eventually feel the tug of evil" - what kind of weasel wording is that? Everyone "feels the tug of evil", that's called "temptation" and it's just about the oldest and most basic trope in the world. Is your goblin-butcher evil, or isn't she?

You have taken this singular line completely out of context. I clearly state within the system that there is an infinite spectrum between absolute good and absolute evil. And to look for the one line that can be used to invalidate the rest of a statement is weak debate tactics.

If the goblin butcher defends oneself from an attack, then the action taken by the butcher is not evil. If the goblin butcher then tracks down the women and children of this goblin tribes and wipes them out. That is evil. Is there room for forgiveness? Certainly. But the more this butcher travels down this path the more the butcher slaughters the more evil begins to leave its mark upon her soul.

I agree this is a trope, but it is not temptation, it is corruption. Your choices and decisions that lead you down the path towards absolute evil is a corruptive influence on your soul.

To claim anything a trope is pointless because at this time in human history virtually everything is based on something that came before it and can be claimed as a trope.

That may, or may not, be the private agenda of those who make the laws. In practice I would argue it's likely to be considerably more nuanced than that. From Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan:

But regardless of their underlying motives, the proximate reason for each individual law is to prevent a specific action. Laws against libel, for instance, were introduced because people printed scurrilous rumours about others. Laws against fraud were invented because people learned to use misrepresentation, rather than violence or stealth, to take what wasn't theirs.

I agree with this to a point where I disagree is motive is as important as the effect.

However, it is normal for those experiencing a shift in worldview to experience a period of uncertainty, hesitancy, self-doubt. Isn't it fair enough to have a game-mechanical representation of that?

In general the shifts I was discussing in the previous post were shifts that take place over time, such as when a character ages and the worldview naturally shifts as a function of age and experience. In the even there are rapid and sudden changes, either through curse or some other effect I do have a mechanism that is used to describe some of the uncertainty, hesitancy, self-doubt.

Not at all. I strongly recommend you read the above-linked play, which will give you a very clear description of what a "heretic" is: it's someone who denies the authority of their own church. There is absolutely no need for any mention of "alignment", absolutely-adjudicated or otherwise.

See response to Siuis below, I will include this with what I have there.

How far back did you go? Because when there was only law and chaos, law was "good For the existence of civilization and biogenesis" and chaos was "inimical to sentient mortal life and without the trappings of linear time or rational progression".

Politics, collectivism, none of that factored into it. Ever. It was always about a mythic conflict, any conflation to real world level of abstraction missed the point. No individualist would ever declare they were in favor of entropic decay ruining their corporeal form and stripping them of will, legitimacy or sovereignty, for example. It's just ridiculous to think any human would rationally support that.

And from there, alignment only got weird when it stopped being about how you aligned with cosmic forces.

Answering this goes into talking more about the setting. The setting has a backdrop of a conflict between immortal factions, but it is a war so vast and expansive mortals can barely comprehend a single strategic move within a life time.

The campaign universe has a very detailed creation myth and cosmogony. Within this two creative forces now back various factions in this immortal conflict. The big bad evil thing in the universe which can have many names depending on the world does not seek evil worshipers to follow.

So I agree that no individualist would ever declare they were in favor of entropic decay.... etc, unless that individualist was also completely irrational and sociopathic or psychotic. But things are not that simple. The big bad in the universe wins when mortals unwittingly support the evil cause.

The evil in the universe wants cultural relativism to flourish. More people that think we can slaughter all the goblins because, well they are just a bunch of goblins, the more mortals get twisted over and join the ranks of hell. Within this context heresy is another tool in this and it is where the trope of temptation enters. Mortals are tempted, and then corrupted.

[The Evil DM]

Well, you can't just dismiss this merely as a youthful viewpoint -- you and I are probably about the same age. I'm talking about things like sociobiology and ego psychology. Many people who don't understand the way evolution works find it cynical.

For example, in the the field of animal behavior, all actions can be modeled as purely selfish from an evolutionary perspective -- the selfish goal being to transmit one's genes to the next generation. Danger signaling, child rearing, soldiering, and courtship gifts are all examples of altruistic behaviors. They may not favor the survival of an individual, but they contribute to the survival of close relatives of these altruistic individuals. This ensures the survival of the genes that code for these behaviors even though it may mean the death of the individual.

Human behavior adds complexity in its self awareness, but ultimately distills to the same motivations with the added layer of protecting the ego. Even self-defeating behaviors -- charity, emergency care, soldiering, suicide, etc. -- provide something to the individual. No one acts for nothing, all actions have a selfish basis to satisfy some present or future need.

Maglubiyet posted while I was working on the last one.

I agree with all of this from an evolutionary perspective. This is also why I define that Alignment is part of a creatures soul - what the ancient greeks connected to the mind or higher soul, while evolutionary drivers function at a more primal level and upon the base anima or spirit. Very definition of mortality - within the campaign I run - is that the soul is what carries your alignment it is what connects you to the afterlife, and ultimately the alignment concept deals with your final disposition after death.

This is why above I talk about whether or not you value life being the basis for good or evil. Not selfishness or selflessness. do you as a mortal being make conscious decisions with your ego to value the lives of others. If the answer is yes you are somewhere on the good side of the spectrum, if the answer is no then you are somewhere on the evil side.

[Maglubiyet]

This is why above I talk about whether or not you value life being the basis for good or evil. Not selfishness or selflessness. do you as a mortal being make conscious decisions with your ego to value the lives of others. If the answer is yes you are somewhere on the good side of the spectrum, if the answer is no then you are somewhere on the evil side.

In your campaign is the afterlife a reward/punishment or merely different places that match the temperament that the the souls had in life?

[The Evil DM]

In your campaign is the afterlife a reward/punishment or merely different places that match the temperament that the the souls had in life?

A little bit of both and it affects how resurrection functions because the lord of the immortal realm where you end up after death must be willing to release your soul. A player that finds himself diving deep down the evil path, or the good path for that matter, may not be resurrected because the immortal wishes to employ that soul elsewhere.

This effect is not arbitrary, it depends on a number of factors in the game. There is also a druidic sect in the campaign that maintains the cycle of life death rebirth (spirits are separate from souls and reincarnate) and these druids actively oppose use of resurrection as a break in the cycle. These druids treat those who are resurrected with the same kind of contempt they feel for undead such as vampires.

Death and the process that follows is important and it is not a revolving door like many campaigns.

[Maglubiyet]

This is why above I talk about whether or not you value life being the basis for good or evil. Not selfishness or selflessness. do you as a mortal being make conscious decisions with your ego to value the lives of others. If the answer is yes you are somewhere on the good side of the spectrum, if the answer is no then you are somewhere on the evil side.

What constitutes "valuing the lives of others" -- does that mean simply not killing them or actually taking a personal stake in their day-to-day concerns?

Death and the process that follows is important and it is not a revolving door like many campaigns.

Given that death is not true Death, that there's definitely something after and the potential for many more lives, why does the value you place on life matter at all in the overall scheme? It seems that it's not the life that matters, but the eternal soul behind it -- it's like valuing the ephemeral, reset-able videogame character instead of the player who's playing the videogame. Is it some kind of karma thing?

[The Evil DM]

What constitutes "valuing the lives of others" -- does that mean simply not killing them or actually taking a personal stake in their day-to-day concerns?

Yes, not killing, yes personal stake to some degree and it also includes valuing their soul. I will expand below.

Given that death is not true Death, that there's definitely something after and the potential for many more lives, why does the value you place on life matter at all in the overall scheme? It seems that it's not the life that matters, but the eternal soul behind it -- it's like valuing the ephemeral, reset-able videogame character instead of the player who's playing the videogame. Is it some kind of karma thing?

This is exactly correct. It is a long story to post but I mention in reply to Siuis above that the cosmogony of the universe is highly defined. In terms of a few bullet points.

two creator beings are vying for control of the universe, I call them drakyn they are ancestors of dragons. One is absolute good, the other absolute evil. Both lean towards law.

The evil of these two wishes to undo creation and rebuild a universe ruled by the concept of evil. - trope I know but this is intended as the backdrop against which the mortals exist.

Gods are a separate race of immortals that oppose this process. Mortals are created by the gods.

Long story short, the mortal soul is a piece of the divinity. When you join the Deity in the afterlife your soul is returning to the divine and you become part of the collective consciousness that is your Deity. Many of the divine spells (such as divination) function in my campaigns because the spell accesses this pool of souls.

The big bad evil - lets just call him Baalzebub for ease corrupts and disrupts the lives of mortals in order to twist them towards evil and godlessness. It is these souls that he harvests. Each one he harvest is sent to oblivion and on a tiny tiny scale weakens the gods.

Thus religion is the gods teaching their followers about morality and decisions such that this can be avoided. Heretics are subverted by Baalzebub to twist the religions away from divinity. Priests in this campaign world are very important, have very interesting roles and are not heal bots.

All the while the vast majority of mortal beings are unaware of their place as pawns in this immortal game. Most campaign days have nothing to do with alignment, but it is integrated everywhere in the campaign. Which is what I think, and my players think, makes it work. Alignment is festering below the surface always present but mostly transparent to their weekly play.

In this campaign environment a cleric is more than a caster with a paper god that gives them domains. A cleric frequently has a mission to instruct, prostletyze and teach the NPCs of the world. This is why the Paladin Joesoph I mentioned above says

Total annihilation of an enemy force is never an option, except in very special cases like when facing fiends from the hells. A Paladin is keenly aware that the only ones who win in battles are the ravens and other carrion eaters.

[Maglubiyet]

In this campaign environment a cleric is more than a caster with a paper god that gives them domains. A cleric frequently has a mission to instruct, prostletyze and teach the NPCs of the world.

A campaign where alignment plays a pivotal role -- very cool.

I'll put my money on the Baalzebub/Corruptor guy slowly siphoning away the gods til there's nothing left or until they're so weak that he can make his power play. The only ways I can see that not happening is if souls can somehow reproduce and create more divinity or if there's a hard stop built into the life cycle of the universe, a date that everything will end, be tallied, and decided. On an infinite timeline, entropy always wins.

[goto124]

Are there stuff like 'poison and sex are evil because the cosmic forces say so'?

[The Evil DM]

Are there stuff like 'poison and sex are evil because the cosmic forces say so'?

The act of sex and the object poison no. However, intent is as important as the act. Thus sex could be used as a weapon at which point it crosses a line, and poison has potential applications where the decision to use it could be evil.

Use a little poison to assist while hunting - not evil. Use a toxin (drug) to incapacitate a guard so you can sneak past without killing the guard, shady, but not overtly evil. Poison the water supply of a nation and kill thousands - Yes.

On a chemistry side of thing I have many issues with poison. Many common foods and medicines are poisons if taken in the wrong dosage. You can drink enough water to poison you through what is essentially water intoxication.