Alignment. In-World, is it subjective? Are Illithids truly evil?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

What argument? I was speaking from experience.

When I play games with alignment I find players are a lot more rigid in their "morality". When I play games without, I find people are a lot more fluid and accepting of "Well my morality differs from your morality but because there's no Cosmic Law saying which one of us is right, I'm gonna move along."

Ah, games with alignment vs. games without alignment is a very different context from D&D alignment vs. other alignment systems. In that case, yeah, any character aspect to which you attach mechanics is going to be incentivized to some extent, whether that's morality or background elements or social skills or whatever, so I can see why your parties have reacted that way.

However, to provide some opposing anecdotes, I'd posit that the tendency toward black-and-white morality you've observed isn't necessarily a consequence of alignment systems, but rather settings that have the kind of morality-centrism that leads to an alignment system being useful in the first place. To take Star Wars as an example, every Star Wars RPG out there has some sort of Dark Side-related alignment mechanics. In my experience, though, a campaign that centers around smugglers, bounty hunters, mercenaries, and such and their clandestine adventures in the Outer Rim, completely ignoring the Jedi/Sith conflict and having no Force-using characters in the party, generally involves a lot less moral conflict (either among the party or with their antagonists) because the characters aren't interacting with the Force much and the players have already bought into a morally shady premise...and a campaign that does center around Jedi and Sith and the conflict therebetween is going to have a lot of moral grandstanding and villainous monologues even if there were no Dark Side points or equivalent in the system, because in that case the players have bought into a morally-absolutist premise and are playing the characters appropriately.

Likewise, stapling some sort of alignment system onto, say, a Song of Ice and Fire RPG is probably going to have zero noticeable playstyle impact because everyone playing it is going to be familiar with the fairly grim-and-gritty moral landscape of Westeros, the whole R'hllor-vs.-the-Seven ideological conflict is a relatively small side plot in the series and is much more about political-usefulness-vs.-reality than good-vs.-evil, and labeling e.g. Ned Stark as "good" and the Others as "evil" isn't going to change how players react to them at all.

[OldTrees1]

What argument? I was speaking from experience.

When I play games with alignment I find players are a lot more rigid in their "morality". When I play games without, I find people are a lot more fluid and accepting of "Well my morality differs from your morality but because there's no Cosmic Law saying which one of us is right, I'm gonna move along."

Experiment: What if the PCs don't know what the objective morality of their reality is? I wonder if the same people you have observed would behave closer to the former or the latter in this experiment.

Follow up experiment: What if the GM is the only one that knows?


Obviously since your experience is based on specific players rather than players in general, I can't generalize from the anecdotes resulting from these experiments. But it might be fun regardless.

[Tanarii]

Experiment: What if the PCs don't know what the objective morality of their reality is? I wonder if the same people you have observed would behave closer to the former or the latter in this experiment.

That shouldn't make a difference, because regardless of if it's objective for the PCs in-universe (regardless of if they know), it's always subjective to how any player interprets the given definitions. (Edit: Well okay, it'll have a difference, because the player is aware the Pc isn't supposed to know. But it's not the same as if the player doesn't know.)

Now if the players don't know what the given definitions are, it's a different matter.

And if the players aren't given definitions but are given Alignment names that have real world but subjective meanings (lawful, chaotic, good, evil, principles, scrupulous, unprincipled, aberrant, diabolical, etc) that will have an affect on roleplaying that's different from both defined alignments and no alignments.

[Jason]

When I said "came between OD&D and AD&D" I was specifically thinking of the first release dates of each edition, so '74 for OD&D then '76 for the article then '79 for the complete AD&D. The later Mentzer/Moldvay/BECMI releases did have expanded writings on alignment, but they all used the same OD&D one-axis alignment and all fundamentally agreed on the flavor so it wasn't like they were influenced by that article at all.

Fair enough. You are quite correct that for some time there were really two parallel versions of D&D and one had the nine alignments while the other only had three.

[OldTrees1]

That shouldn't make a difference

Just like the other variable shouldn't make the observed difference (spontaneous black and white morality?). But False God observed a difference. So I suggested experimenting with related variables in the middle.


There are 4 actors (The game world, the GM, the Players, and the PCs)
1) The game world could know the answer but the GM, Players, and PCs not know.
2) The GM could know the answer but the Players, and PCs not know.
3) The GM and the Players could know the answer but the PCs not know.
4) Or every actor involved could know.
Somewhere between 1 and 4 False God observed a difference that I failed to replicate (although I have different players). However it does make me curious about what False God would observe with those specific players in 2 and 3.

[Tanarii]

There are 4 actors (The game world, the GM, the Players, and the PCs)

Yes agreed. My objection was that you seemed to be conflating PC and Player knowledge.

There is a difference between your 3 and 4, but many people think they can pretend they don't know what the PC doesn't know, and it is the same thing.

However I was entirely incorrect in what I said, because there is a big difference between your 2 and 3 as well. So it does make a difference.

However, I'm interesting in an example of your number 1. How would that work?

[OldTrees1]

Yes agreed. My objection was that you seemed to be conflating PC and Player knowledge.

There is a difference between your 3 and 4, but many people think they can pretend they don't know what the PC doesn't know, and it is the same thing.

However I was entirely incorrect in what I said, because there is a big difference between your 2 and 3 as well. So it does make a difference.

However, I'm interesting in an example of your number 1. How would that work?

I was not conflating PC and Player knowledge, so I am glad I clarified. You can see I called them out separately as 2 of the 4 actors. The 4 cases are different, but I don't think that difference between 1 and 4 is enough to explain False God's observation. I don't see why knowledge at any of these 4 levels (1-4 actors knowing it) would result in black and white morality (can? yes. would? no.). False God observed that outcome, and I have observed the outcome not happening. So I am wondering which layer causes False God's players snap from nuanced to black and white.

Case number 1:
Number 1 is when the game reality knows something but the GM doesn't. Initially this seems rather strange since the GM creates the game reality. However the act of creation is not the same as knowing what you created.

Trivial example:
GM creates a campaign with objective morality but does not decide what it is. Now the game reality knows, but nobody else does. This is useful if trying to parallel real life OR when trying to ignore alignment without tabooing moral beliefs.

[Tanarii]

I was not conflating PC and Player knowledge, so I am glad I clarified.

Me too, tyvm.

Case number 1:
Number 1 is when the game reality knows something but the GM doesn't. Initially this seems rather strange since the GM creates the game reality. However the act of creation is not the same as knowing what you created.

Trivial example:
GM creates a campaign with objective morality but does not decide what it is. Now the game reality knows, but nobody else does. This is useful if trying to parallel real life OR when trying to ignore alignment without tabooing moral beliefs.

Oh okay. So if I understand correctly: e.g. everyone chooses an alignment, but doesnt bother to dig into it beyond the basic definitions. But the DM (and possibly players) assume something like the great wheel cosmology where alignment can have an impact on your afterlife, but dont worry about details.

That makes sense.