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  1. - Top - End - #61
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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Kane0 View Post
    I realize you’re probably being facetious but i’m legit interested in how that would look.
    I'm not. A "you were born under the star sign of X and therefore have A, B, C qualities" would be a better system than the alignment system. You can even tie it in with outsiders and magic.
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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Okay so a little bit like elder scrolls, but defining certain personality traits rather than mechanical benefits?
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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Kane0 View Post
    Okay so a little bit like elder scrolls, but defining certain personality traits rather than mechanical benefits?
    Yes exactly. Personality traits, goals, bonds, flaws, destinies. You could even get situational mechanical benefits from horoscopes like "today you will face an important relationship choice and make the right decision. Next charisma check with someone you know has advantage". This system I just stole from zodiac thing and elder scrolls is already more interesting and flexible than the dnd alignment system.
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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Mastikator View Post
    I'm not. A "you were born under the star sign of X and therefore have A, B, C qualities" would be a better system than the alignment system. You can even tie it in with outsiders and magic.
    Really isn't serving the same purpose as an alignment system. Evidence: you could have both present in the same game without them clashing or stepping on each others' toes.

    An alignment system as D&D uses it - even restricted to "behavior reveals alignment" style "descriptive alignment" - ties your personal desires and methods to cosmic forces. This Zodiac concept would tie something more akin to character race to cosmic forces. (A player would choose the sign under which his PC was born the same way he chooses the race he was born as.)

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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    So how about something like ‘faction’ or ‘afterlife’ rather than ‘alignment’ then?
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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Kane0 View Post
    So how about something like ‘faction’ or ‘afterlife’ rather than ‘alignment’ then?
    "Alignment" being related to morality or ethics is strictly due to it having been chosen by D&D's early creators as the word they used to state with which ethos you were aligned. If they had chosen 'faction,' this exact conversation could have ensued and we'd have somebody likely suggesting "how about something like 'alignment' instead of 'faction,' then?"

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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Really isn't serving the same purpose as an alignment system. Evidence: you could have both present in the same game without them clashing or stepping on each others' toes.

    An alignment system as D&D uses it - even restricted to "behavior reveals alignment" style "descriptive alignment" - ties your personal desires and methods to cosmic forces. This Zodiac concept would tie something more akin to character race to cosmic forces. (A player would choose the sign under which his PC was born the same way he chooses the race he was born as.)
    IMO the background personality/bond/flaw/ideal in 5e does a better job of "personal desires", and class does a better job of "methods to cosmic forces". Alignment can be removed from the character sheet entirely and nothing of value would be lost. Next step is to replace alignment based cosmology with zodiac cosmology and bob's your uncle.

    That's a ton of work though.

    I'm not saying that a Zodiac cosmology is the way to go, I'm picking it as an example of how easy it is to come up with something better than the alignment system. Because a zodiac system is kinda lame, alignment is lamer. Worse. Actively destructive
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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    "Alignment" being related to morality or ethics is strictly due to it having been chosen by D&D's early creators as the word they used to state with which ethos you were aligned. If they had chosen 'faction,' this exact conversation could have ensued and we'd have somebody likely suggesting "how about something like 'alignment' instead of 'faction,' then?"
    Yeah, but D&D has changed since those wargame days. Alignment doesnt so much describe which side you’re going to take in extraplanar warfare so much as a loose combined ethics/personality test.

    And at this point it’s pretty vestigial. We don’t need it except if you are specifically looking for a shorthand label for some key RP elements. And in that case many other methods of shorthand description will do, and ‘alignment’ ends up carrying unnecessary baggage.
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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Unfortunately, "useful" and "serving the same purpose as D&D's alignment system" are mutually exclusive. There are many better systems for ethics, morals, beliefs and motivations, but they don't take D&D's objective top-down moral judgment.
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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    So far, all I am getting from this is, "It is a terrible system because we say so. It is not useful because words for things are not necessary. We do not like it and thus nobody can have actual use for it." Maybe there is more to the rebuttals than that, but if so, I am having a hard time seeing them.

    This would not bother me except that this was the same kind of circular echo chamber that seemed to me to be responsible for 4e and the failure thereof. The notions were not inherently bad, but were very "for their own sake" and had a scoffing sense that anything that pointed out flawed premises was to be disregarded or dismissed as "powergamers" or "ignorance" or "sacred cows."
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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    So far, all I am getting from this is, "It is a terrible system because we say so. It is not useful because words for things are not necessary. We do not like it and thus nobody can have actual use for it." Maybe there is more to the rebuttals than that, but if so, I am having a hard time seeing them.

    This would not bother me except that this was the same kind of circular echo chamber that seemed to me to be responsible for 4e and the failure thereof. The notions were not inherently bad, but were very "for their own sake" and had a scoffing sense that anything that pointed out flawed premises was to be disregarded or dismissed as "powergamers" or "ignorance" or "sacred cows."
    OK, what makes alignment necessary, good and/or not replicated by other means?
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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    So far, all I am getting from this is, "It is a terrible system because we say so. It is not useful because words for things are not necessary. We do not like it and thus nobody can have actual use for it." Maybe there is more to the rebuttals than that, but if so, I am having a hard time seeing them.
    I'm not a fan just because I've seen people arguing about for 30+ years simply for the lack of agreement on what is or is not lawful, good, chaotic, and evil, plus some people insisting on bludgeoning others for "not playing their alignment". I've even seen actual cultural differences over them too. I find them too undefined and carrying too much cultural & historic baggage to be useful.

    Seriously, at this point explicitly changing them to "nice", "not nice", "follows rules", ignores rules" would probably work better.

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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    I had an idea of replacing the alignment with ties and allegiances. A D&D paladin might have an allegiance to the concepts of law and good, but they would also have ties to their friends, their family, the priesthood they are part of, their god(s), and so on.
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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Kane0 View Post
    OK, what makes alignment necessary, good and/or not replicated by other means?
    Ah, anything - literally anything - can be "replicated by other means." Whether something is the best way to achieve an effect is always open to debate. So I won't bother, here, because of course it can be replicated by other means.

    What do they provide that is necessary? Nothing, I suppose; very little in any game system is "necessary;" heck, the very use of rules is unnecessary. Cops & Robbers and other freeform styles with no official rule set are perfectly viable ways to have a role-playing experience.

    What do they provide that's good? World-building, and a mechanical hook for certain spell effects. And other effects, too, whenever the designers of rules (or a DM) decides to use them. It is, of course, perfectly possible to have "team white, black, blue, and orange" instead of "good, evil, law, and chaos," and have them have nothing to do with good or evil or order or chaos as concepts, or to have them CLAIM to be related to these things even if they don't actually embody them. But I think that is actually the source of much of the problem people have with the alignment system as-written: it's treated as "team jerseys" that happen to have some coincidental correlation with the concepts named, but don't actually have to adhere to them. (Worse, people will write storylines to "prove contradictions" or somesuch and have "proclaimed good" actors behaving quite evilly but insisting they're doing it all in a "good" fashion.)

    Where they have value, applied straight-forwardly, is not as factions but as philosophies, and broad ones at that. Yes, "be nice, be mean, follow rules, ignore rules" is a good summation for the broad philosophies. It's not perfect, but it's a good starting point.

    They have value as means of establishing whether you can trust somebody to share a particular set of morals or ethics. Yes, you CAN trust that a Lawful Good person isn't going to backstab you, but will deal reasonably with you and tell you if there's a conflict of interest they perceive. Yes, you CAN legitimately worry that the Neutral Evil person might kill you in your sleep; it's certainly within his moral and ethical capacity. And as "team jerseys" that are not so much donned and doffed by applying the label, but rather are endemic parts of the creature's being based on the person they are, they work just fine.

    You can have your exceptions, if you want them, but they are just that: exceptions. And they're "the evil guy who works with good guys," not, "the good guy who proves that good doesn't actually mean good."

    Can you do much of it without them? Sure, but you'll wind up with labels anyway defining good guys vs. bad guys, and even if you ban "law" and "chaos," you'll have people trying to qualify the freedom vs. rules axis without having words to describe it. So, since we have the words, throwing them out doesn't help anything.

    And again, in D&D at least, they define part of the setting. Used properly, alignment tying to outer planes works just fine. It is quite useful for telling stories about philosophy and exploring what is and is not a part of them, by using the settings that are literally defined by philosophy to see how things do or do not fit them.

    It may cause arguments, but any story about philosophy will.

    There is use and value, and throwing them out entirely doesn't get rid of them. It just makes people have to dance around the language.

    Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
    I'm not a fan just because I've seen people arguing about for 30+ years simply for the lack of agreement on what is or is not lawful, good, chaotic, and evil, plus some people insisting on bludgeoning others for "not playing their alignment". I've even seen actual cultural differences over them too. I find them too undefined and carrying too much cultural & historic baggage to be useful.

    Seriously, at this point explicitly changing them to "nice", "not nice", "follows rules", ignores rules" would probably work better.
    People bludgeoning others for "not playing their alignment" is obnoxious. It'll be obnoxious without alignment, too: "You're not playing a Crane Clan member correctly!" is something that I have heard in L5R. And "Crane Clan" is a faction, and you can be aligned to it by birth or adoption. It has definite philosophical leanings. There is no "good/evil/law/chaos" axis, even though evil is a definite force with mechanical taint it can use to corrupt a character into being supernaturally evil. And L5R does a great job of never letting you play the "good guy tainted with evil power;" you WILL NOT be able to "stay good" while "using evil power." (I wouldn't care for that version in D&D, honestly; it's prescriptive, and literally removes control from the character as the taint takes over.)

    But the point is, the bad behavior you're not a fan of, Telok, happens with any factional system. It isn't a problem of alignment; it's a problem of players insisting that they have a say in how others play their characters. (And to be fair...there's room to argue this isn't 100% unreasonable. It'd hardly be fun to play in a game of "only heroes, the DM said so," and still have your guy be the only one who wants to help others and doesn't want to murder the orphans for the deed to the mine the orphanage sits on.)

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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Where they have value, applied straight-forwardly, is not as factions but as philosophies, and broad ones at that. Yes, "be nice, be mean, follow rules, ignore rules" is a good summation for the broad philosophies. It's not perfect, but it's a good starting point.

    They have value as means of establishing whether you can trust somebody to share a particular set of morals or ethics. Yes, you CAN trust that a Lawful Good person isn't going to backstab you, but will deal reasonably with you and tell you if there's a conflict of interest they perceive. Yes, you CAN legitimately worry that the Neutral Evil person might kill you in your sleep; it's certainly within his moral and ethical capacity. And as "team jerseys" that are not so much donned and doffed by applying the label, but rather are endemic parts of the creature's being based on the person they are, they work just fine.

    You can have your exceptions, if you want them, but they are just that: exceptions. And they're "the evil guy who works with good guys," not, "the good guy who proves that good doesn't actually mean good."
    With enough squinting that might work for good, but it certainly does not work for evil. Evil is not a philosophy. Evil is following selfish goals because you are selfish, not because you believe in some grand theory that promotes selfishness. Evil people would betray or abuse other evil people as readily as they would good people. And thus are probaly as vary of other evil people as good people are. Evil people seeking out the company of good ones would not be the exception, it would be the norm. Because they would expect good people to be good to them as well.

    Good vs. Evil as team jerseys is stupid.
    Last edited by Satinavian; 2021-02-16 at 03:17 AM.

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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Satinavian View Post
    With enough squinting that might work for good, but it certainly does not work for evil. Evil is not a philosophy. Evil is following selfish goals because you are selfish, not because you believe in some grand theory that promotes selfishness. Evil people would betray or abuse other evil people as readily as they would good people. And thus are probaly as vary of other evil people as good people are. Evil people seeking out the company of good ones would not be the exception, it would be the norm. Because they would expect good people to be good to them as well.

    Good vs. Evil as team jerseys is stupid.
    Evil is a broad swath of philosophies. Not everyone is a philosopher; some good folks just do what seems right and kind. Some evil characters just don't care about hurting others. But there are a great many stories where evil beings preach about the reasons why evil is the best path for a "worthy" person.

    There is plenty of philosophy in evil. I hesitate to give even abstract examples lest real world ideologies be read into them, however, and my post be interpreted as calling some real world ideology "evil" in a manner that might violate forum rules.
    Last edited by Segev; 2021-02-16 at 03:35 AM.

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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    So far, all I am getting from this is, "It is a terrible system because we say so. It is not useful because words for things are not necessary. We do not like it and thus nobody can have actual use for it." Maybe there is more to the rebuttals than that, but if so, I am having a hard time seeing them.
    If I were to try to summarize my dislike of alignment, it would probably be as follows:
    • I find the idea of objective morality absurd from a philosophical standpoint and boring from a dramatical standpoint.
    • As previously stated, I find that alignments tend to end up either confining or too vague to mean much. I'm sure there's a middle ground but a lot of people seem to have trouble finding it, which is an issue.
    • People seem to confuse a character's alignment with their personality. "What's your character like?" "He's Lawful Good."
    • I've played a lot of role-playing games without an alignment system or something similar and I don't think I've ever missed it.

    I'd probably come up with more if I thought long enough, but those are the important parts. Obviously it's all subjective but then again I haven't seen any objective arguments in support of alignment either so it's clearly down to taste.

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    They have value as means of establishing whether you can trust somebody to share a particular set of morals or ethics. Yes, you CAN trust that a Lawful Good person isn't going to backstab you, but will deal reasonably with you and tell you if there's a conflict of interest they perceive. Yes, you CAN legitimately worry that the Neutral Evil person might kill you in your sleep; it's certainly within his moral and ethical capacity. And as "team jerseys" that are not so much donned and doffed by applying the label, but rather are endemic parts of the creature's being based on the person they are, they work just fine.
    This is probably true to some degree, but I'm not sure it's a good thing in a game. Isn't it more interesting if you have to actually get to know characters and figure out whether to trust them or not rather than just go "Ding! He detects as Evil, clearly we can't trust him"?

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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Batcathat View Post
    This is probably true to some degree, but I'm not sure it's a good thing in a game. Isn't it more interesting if you have to actually get to know characters and figure out whether to trust them or not rather than just go "Ding! He detects as Evil, clearly we can't trust him"?
    Yes, the idea that you can slap one of nine labels on a person and that will give you an idea of how they'll act is silly at best, actively detrimental to role-playing at worst. It's not so bad if there's no magic to detect alignment, but even so it's worse than the players actually gauging a character's motives based on their actions or maybe social rolls.
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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Evil is a broad swath of philosophies. Not everyone is a philosopher; some good folks just do what seems right and kind. Some evil characters just don't care about hurting others. But there are a great many stories where evil beings preach about the reasons why evil is the best path for a "worthy" person.

    There is plenty of philosophy in evil. I hesitate to give even abstract examples lest real world ideologies be read into them, however, and my post be interpreted as calling some real world ideology "evil" in a manner that might violate forum rules.
    Yes, there are evil philosophies. But most evil people don't follow any of them. There will probably even be more evil people following good philosophies but actually lacking the discipline to properly do so.
    And even the people who do follow evil philosophies are not excactly natural allies unless they follow the exactly same one.

    And then there is the fact that pretty much every real world evil philosophy does not represent itself as evil and most of them have adherents that are not actually evil, just deluded and not particularly smart.

    In addition every instance of people preaching why EVIL is the right course for the worthy could well subsumed under "cartoonish nonsense". I don't want anything of that in any of my games. There is no way to avoid ruining any villain and turning them into a carricature while holding such a speech.
    You can however have great villains explaining how their evil philosophy is not actually evil in their opinion. But for that cosmic absolute alignments make stuff harder, not easier as you want to your villian be both smart and mistaken here.



    I stand by my observation that pretty much every evil person would prefer good allies over evil allies. Which is why the fight good vs evil is stupid.

    If you really want to include a faction in the game which actually follows an evil philosophy, use faction rules instead. Those work far better and can even properly adress having competing evil philosophies.
    Last edited by Satinavian; 2021-02-16 at 06:01 AM.

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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Satinavian View Post
    Yes, there are evil philosophies. But most evil people don't follow any of them. There will probably even be more evil people following good philosophies but actually lacking the discipline to properly do so.
    And even the people who do follow evil philosophies are not excactly natural allies unless they follow the exactly same one.

    And then there is the fact that pretty much every real world evil philosophy does not represent itself as evil and most of them have adherents that are not actually evil, just deluded and not particularly smart.

    You can however have great villains explaining how their evil philosophy is not actually evil in their opinion. But for that cosmic absolute alignments make stuff harder, not easier as you want to your villian be both smart and mistaken here.
    I believe Segev's use of the phrase "evil philosophies" contains examples you are excluding but otherwise found reasonable. I think the following list is relatively safe but I do have to lead with the complicated amoral one.

    1) Moral Error Theory is a philosophy that morality is an erroneous question. People that believe that philosophy, even if they don't know about it, will be driven by personal philosophies that are framed using amoral terms (ex Survival of the Fittest). If they are wrong and morality is not an erroneous question, then those personal philosophies using amoral motivations might be causing moral, amoral, or immoral behavior. This includes both the villain that says good and evil don't exist and the moral exemplar that does not believe in good or evil.

    2) Mistaken Moral Theory: Ever see an evil character think their actions are the right thing to do in the circumstances? This includes the self righteous villain following the greater good.

    3) Everyone draws the line right below what they do: In a moral grey area, people will rationalize excuses for whatever outcome they choose. If they are consistent about those rationalizations it will turn into a philosophic belief about why ____ is not immoral because XYZ.

    4) I am special: Normally ____ is immoral, but because I am XYZ it is okay for me to do it.

    5) Everyone is doing it:

    6) We need to do _______ to survive:

    7) What do you mean? No, _____ is not immoral:

    Quote Originally Posted by Satinavian View Post
    I stand by my observation that pretty much every evil person would prefer good allies over evil allies. Which is why the fight good vs evil is stupid.

    If you really want to include a faction in the game which actually follows an evil philosophy, use faction rules instead. Those work far better and can even properly address having competing evil philosophies.
    Why use faction rules when you have factions in the game? I never understood the point of faction/allegiance rules.

    I would amend your observation to pretty much every evil person would prefer allies they see as good (which might be more evil people) over people they see as evil (which might be good people) provided those allies don't get in the way of the evil person doing what they mistakenly think is right.
    Last edited by OldTrees1; 2021-02-16 at 08:03 AM.

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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by OldTrees1 View Post
    I believe Segev's use of the phrase "evil philosophies" contains examples you are excluding but otherwise found reasonable. I think the following list is relatively safe but I do have to lead with the complicated amoral one.

    1) Moral Error Theory is a philosophy that morality is an erroneous question. People that believe that philosophy, even if they don't know about it, will be driven by personal philosophies that are framed using amoral terms (ex Survival of the Fittest). If they are wrong and morality is not an erroneous question, then those personal philosophies using amoral motivations might be causing moral, amoral, or immoral behavior. This includes both the villain that says good and evil don't exist and the moral exemplar that does not believe in good or evil.

    2) Mistaken Moral Theory: Ever see an evil character think their actions are the right thing to do in the circumstances? This includes the self righteous villain following the greater good.

    3) Everyone draws the line right below what they do: In a moral grey area, people will rationalize excuses for whatever outcome they choose. If they are consistent about those rationalizations it will turn into a philosophic belief about why ____ is not immoral because XYZ.

    4) I am special: Normally ____ is immoral, but because I am XYZ it is okay for me to do it.

    5) Everyone is doing it:

    6) We need to do _______ to survive:

    7) What do you mean? No, _____ is not immoral:
    I once played a supervillain who was so self-centeredly egomaniacal, he was both 2) and 4) at the same time, believing himself the world's eternal savior for all time so of course he thinks he is the most special person in the world and at the same time all his actions are justified in his mind because he is most special person ever to exist. He claimed himself to be above selflessness and selfishness because by being selfish he thought he WAS being selfless because to help himself was to help the universe because he thought all of reality revolved around him and thus his own excellence would somehow radiate out by example to everyone else so they would be like him. Which could lead to examples of 7) or 6) because he believed that whatever he said was true and right, so he thought he was the one who decided whether all actions were right or wrong at his whim, and whether any action was necessary could be only be decided by himself, the perfect being.

    Basically he thought he was truly the absolute most perfect ever to exist or ever will and had the morality to match, it was just he was completely wrong about being perfect. If your creative enough, you can have combinations of these kinds of villain philosophies.

    But 1) is the one I've seen most often in fiction though. Particularly the Survival of the Fittest idea, as its a convenient philosophy for a villain to have to make them do something pointlessly cruel in a short amount of time to establish how evil they are.
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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    They have value as means of establishing whether you can trust somebody to share a particular set of morals or ethics. Yes, you CAN trust that a Lawful Good person isn't going to backstab you, but will deal reasonably with you and tell you if there's a conflict of interest they perceive. Yes, you CAN legitimately worry that the Neutral Evil person might kill you in your sleep; it's certainly within his moral and ethical capacity. And as "team jerseys" that are not so much donned and doffed by applying the label, but rather are endemic parts of the creature's being based on the person they are, they work just fine.

    You can have your exceptions, if you want them, but they are just that: exceptions. And they're "the evil guy who works with good guys," not, "the good guy who proves that good doesn't actually mean good."
    See, thing is, I've occasionally taken a character concept or personality from fiction (or history in a couple cases) that just seems to contravene all D&D style alignment.

    I've had the selfish evil dude who was totally honorable and trustworthy, legit improving the world and saving people. Everyone thought he was LG except that he wallowed in glory & fame, plus his enjoyment of slaughtering team monster was a bit creepy. It caused a huge argument when he took an action that was unquestionably evil. Everyone agreed it was in character, but they all thought "LG" meant different things and started arguing about it. I ran a LG character once who committed terrible acts of evil simply by being a clueless twit who believed he could do no wrong. The character was a great person but never thought ahead, never questioned stuff, and always assumed they were in the right. Ticked all the classic LG checkboxes, believed and tried to do good all the time, never felt guilt because he believed liars and thought his absolute intention to do good absolved all mistakes. That game had more mature players, it wasn't a argument but several people couldn't agree on the character's alignment.

    My personal experience has been that D&D style alignment is too broad, too vague, and too loaded with cultural baggage to be workable for anything but the most stereotyped characters. Even your "evil -> kill you in your sleep" and "good -> no backstabbing" is a reflection of a cultural assumption.

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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
    See, thing is, I've occasionally taken a character concept or personality from fiction (or history in a couple cases) that just seems to contravene all D&D style alignment.

    I've had the selfish evil dude who was totally honorable and trustworthy, legit improving the world and saving people. Everyone thought he was LG except that he wallowed in glory & fame, plus his enjoyment of slaughtering team monster was a bit creepy. It caused a huge argument when he took an action that was unquestionably evil. Everyone agreed it was in character, but they all thought "LG" meant different things and started arguing about it. I ran a LG character once who committed terrible acts of evil simply by being a clueless twit who believed he could do no wrong. The character was a great person but never thought ahead, never questioned stuff, and always assumed they were in the right. Ticked all the classic LG checkboxes, believed and tried to do good all the time, never felt guilt because he believed liars and thought his absolute intention to do good absolved all mistakes. That game had more mature players, it wasn't a argument but several people couldn't agree on the character's alignment.

    My personal experience has been that D&D style alignment is too broad, too vague, and too loaded with cultural baggage to be workable for anything but the most stereotyped characters. Even your "evil -> kill you in your sleep" and "good -> no backstabbing" is a reflection of a cultural assumption.
    Those only fly in the face of alignment because you deliberately ignore the rules. Alignment is descriptive, and if you know the full truth, you can describe it more accurately. The LG twit is actually Neutral if he is so innocent and naive that he cannot be said to ever act with agency. If he refused to learn when confronted with his harmful acts, he wasn't LG no matter what he tells himself. Agency is critical to alignment.

    The other guy is LN or LE due to his sadism. Vainglory on its own probably is not enough to ding his morality unless he lets it lead him to other acts of wickedness in its service. There is room to debate, here, but the difference between a man who is working ain't his base urges and sometimes fails due to his urges unfortunaaligning with what has to be done is likely good if he really is trying and mostly succeeding (to the point that he takes active steps to prevent temptation and opportunity to slip up), and likely Neutral or Evil if he seeks excuses to revel in his wicked urges.

    But for a DM, it is pretty easy if he is trying to use the alignment system for its purpose, rather than trying to "prove" it doesn't work: should the party think well of these characters as people to emulate and "have a good feeling" about? Or should they feel a bit off-put and uneasy, like there is something wrong with them and they may need to be watched rather than trusted to do the right thing?

    If you can see a cut away to the character on his own in a movie about the game's plot wherein the character gives the audience an indication that maybe he is not as upright and noble as the PCs are led to believe, he is probably not Good. (Unless that cut away is, itself, a red herring).

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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by OldTrees1 View Post
    I believe Segev's use of the phrase "evil philosophies" contains examples you are excluding but otherwise found reasonable. I think the following list is relatively safe but I do have to lead with the complicated amoral one.
    I wouldn't call simple rationalisations philosophies. That aside, how does that make evil people prone to working with each other ? Or alignment useful as a tool ?
    Why use faction rules when you have factions in the game? I never understood the point of faction/allegiance rules.
    They can be nice if you either have a proper social rulesystem that uses them or a rulesystem for careers in organisations. Otherwise you don't really need them, but superflous is still better than actually detrimental as alignment rules
    I would amend your observation to pretty much every evil person would prefer allies they see as good (which might be more evil people) over people they see as evil (which might be good people) provided those allies don't get in the way of the evil person doing what they mistakenly think is right.
    That might be true as well, but I meant it the way I said. The general evil person probably is evil in one specific way and finds all other ways to be evil as abhorrent as everyone else and just would greatly prefer someone good to someone evil as ally. The only exception would be if the other evil person has the exactly same thing going, but that is usually not the case.

    Evil team ups is something for comic-books.
    Last edited by Satinavian; 2021-02-16 at 12:58 PM.

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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Batcathat View Post
    If I were to try to summarize my dislike of alignment, it would probably be as follows:
    • I find the idea of objective morality absurd from a philosophical standpoint and boring from a dramatical standpoint.
    • As previously stated, I find that alignments tend to end up either confining or too vague to mean much. I'm sure there's a middle ground but a lot of people seem to have trouble finding it, which is an issue.
    • People seem to confuse a character's alignment with their personality. "What's your character like?" "He's Lawful Good."
    • I've played a lot of role-playing games without an alignment system or something similar and I don't think I've ever missed it.

    I'd probably come up with more if I thought long enough, but those are the important parts. Obviously it's all subjective but then again I haven't seen any objective arguments in support of alignment either so it's clearly down to taste.
    Most of that seems to me to be because you're used to people using it wrong. It's no more accurate than any other personality test in "getting to know" a character. What it is is telling you their general relationship to morals and ethics. Do they even CARE about rules as anything other than advice? How willing are they to hurt others for personal benefit? That kind of thing.

    Quote Originally Posted by Batcathat View Post
    This is probably true to some degree, but I'm not sure it's a good thing in a game. Isn't it more interesting if you have to actually get to know characters and figure out whether to trust them or not rather than just go "Ding! He detects as Evil, clearly we can't trust him"?
    Sure. Though that also depends on the scenario and game. In D&D, you're archetypally taking on quests to delve into dangerous places and accomplish specific goals (or just acquire loot). Being able to tell that this creature you just ran into in the dungeon is "one of the good guys" quickly rather than having to RP out hours of interaction or having to guess and worry about double-crossings is a feature, not a bug, in that sort of game.

    I get it: for the political intrigue game, you want more ambiguity. The alginment system can support that, too, but the more nuanced reasons why you can't be sure that just because someone is Good they'll agree with your side of things tend to also only come up in less split-second situations.

    Alignment tied to cosmic forces can also have use for explaining WHY evil can prosper: when being evil gives you actual magical powers that support your evil, suddenly otherwise really stupid acts of villainy become logical.

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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Those only fly in the face of alignment because you deliberately ignore the rules....
    That's all a nice after action analysis, but the point is that my playing a character personality caused issues because the people at the table trying to use the alignment system couldn't agree on what the alignments meant. And my experience is this has been going on for 30 years. I don't set out to break the alignment system, I come up with a personality and goals for a character. Generally I ignore alignment until it comes up mechanically, then I ask the table what alignment they think the character is.

    Does it personally work for you by fitting everyone into your definitions of the words? Fine. I've seen it being a problem for almost every group where someone's gone beyond "alignment = personality" because they can't perfectly agree on "good" or "law" or if it's supposed to be intent based or action based or what.

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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Satinavian View Post
    I wouldn't call simple rationalisations philosophies. That aside, how does that make evil people prone to working with each other ? Or alignment useful as a tool ?
    If you are dealing with philosophic issues concerning ethics, characters will have beliefs and behaviors related to those topics. Even if the beliefs are Moral Error theory. Depending on how much the play touches on that subject, avoiding using words for the subject will grow frustrating and tiresome. Eventually one would start using words to describe the beliefs, the behaviors, and how those beliefs / behaviors deviate from or emulate moral truth.

    Notice this is not the language of a faction system, the usefulness of the tool is having a common language and multiple depths of summary so the right amount of detail can be used at the right time. In some cases I would describe O-chul as a moral individual. In other cases I would dive into more detail to differentiate them from Roy or Elan. Or I might go into even more detail about a particular choice O-chul made. It is not saying Elan and Roy are on the same side, it is comparing and contrasting their roles as moral agents.

    So alignment does not presume evil people would be prone to work with each other. Nor does it presume _____ people are prone to work with each other.

    Quote Originally Posted by Satinavian View Post
    That might be true as well, but I meant it the way I said. The general evil person probably is evil in one specific way and finds all other ways to be evil as abhorrent as everyone else and just would greatly prefer someone good to someone evil as ally. The only exception would be if the other evil person has the exactly same thing going, but that is usually not the case.

    Evil team ups is something for comic-books.
    I don't think it is as difficult as you lay out. So I recognize the underlying tendencies but I come to a less strict conclusion. Organizations or movements can form around a particular immoral behavior. Furthermore depending on the rationalization for their own actions, they might be desensitized to another type of action.

    For example a self righteous mistaken individual might be out to purge all ___. Someone that likes general slaughter would be willing to work with them until the victims dwindled. Someone out to acquire wealth might tag along to seize the assets of the victims, they are going to die regardless so why not profit? Etc. Three individuals all willing to kill for completely different reasons. The greedy opportunity might even find the other two abhorrent, but their victims are doomed so the opportunist considers their blood soaked hands to be clean.

    Evil will not team up merely for the sake of evil, but evil individuals understand the concept of cooperation (also exploitation, betrayal, and love).

    I guess I should also mention that people vary in how morally tolerant they are. A common thug might want to work with some saints, but the saints might not want to work with the thug. In search of allies the thug might lower their standards. Segev went into more detail here, so feel free to only reply to their section.

    Quote Originally Posted by Satinavian View Post
    They can be nice if you either have a proper social rulesystem that uses them or a rulesystem for careers in organisations. Otherwise you don't really need them, but superflous is still better than actually detrimental as alignment rules
    I don't see alignment as a faction rule system which is part of why I asked, so I will ignore the final sentence.

    I see, so with a decent social rule system framework, a faction system helps codify career mechanics in a way that helps set useful expectations between the players. Sort of like how an example of a skill usage with a DC could set useful expectations. Thanks for elaborating, that helps.
    Last edited by OldTrees1; 2021-02-16 at 01:43 PM.

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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Satinavian View Post
    I wouldn't call simple rationalisations philosophies.
    They absolutely are, especially as they grow and metastasize due to having to deal with cognitive dissonance and a sense of hypocrisy. Alternatively, they become philosophies by cutting through the rationalizations and saying you don't need them. At which point you're building a philosophy on a wholly different premise.

    Quote Originally Posted by Satinavian View Post
    That aside, how does that make evil people prone to working with each other ? Or alignment useful as a tool ?
    They can be nice if you either have a proper social rulesystem that uses them or a rulesystem for careers in organisations. Otherwise you don't really need them, but superflous is still better than actually detrimental as alignment rules
    That might be true as well, but I meant it the way I said. The general evil person probably is evil in one specific way and finds all other ways to be evil as abhorrent as everyone else and just would greatly prefer someone good to someone evil as ally. The only exception would be if the other evil person has the exactly same thing going, but that is usually not the case.

    Evil team ups is something for comic-books.
    Evil people aren't "more prone to working together," but evil people ARE more prone to tolerating other evil people's evil. And if they're okay with one form of evil, and can be told they're allowed to indulge their preferences as long as they put up with others indulging theirs, you'll find evil people working together because working together is better than being alone, and they don't have to constantly hide their nefarious deeds. Being told "it's okay" is actually very heady. The troubled character with an urge towards something wicked (perhaps a sadistic enjoyment of pulling legs off of crabs that...could grow to something worse if he didn't feel so guilty about it) being told that, hey, he's actually just fine for doing that, and in fact his new buddies will help him get some crabs to torture if he hangs out with them rather than with those stuffy people who tell him he's a monster for doing it is pretty tempting. People don't like feeling guilty, and they like indulging their interests. If they can be told their interests are fine to indulge without guilt, they'll be sorely tempted to join up with those who will let them do so.

    Sure, there are reasons not to: you don't want to wind up being the crab whose legs are being pulled off, for one thing. But evil is about using other people, so as long as you're more useful than the crab, you're not getting your legs pulled off. And the threat probably doesn't arise until you're in much deeper than merely hanging out occasionally.

    Evil CAN work together. This doesn't require an alignment system, but an alignment system helps label it when it's happening. And can explain why the concentration of it is having supernatural effects.

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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Or, as the D&D splatbooks put it:

    Savage Species:

    Evil is not stupid. Evil creatures and characters can work together just as well as good characters can. It should be no more difficult to maintain party cohesion with a group that includes LE, NE and CE characters, than a typical adventurer mix of LG, NG and CG. Certainly evil characters attempt to manipulate events to their personal advantage- a phenomenon not limited to evil parties- but not to the extent of sabotaging their own chances of survival.

    BoVD:

    Two evil PCs do not have to come to blows just because they are both evil. Evil characters with similar goals or common foes can certainly work together. And there's no reason to believe that evil characters can't respect something like friendship. Intelligent evil characters realize, just as nonevil characters do, that they can accomplish more by working together rather than working at cross-purposes.

    Champions of Ruin:

    No-one is going to question whether the priest of Cyric is really a good guy at heart; he isn't- if he were, Cyric wouldn't grant him any spells. But just because he is evil doesn't mean he is going to slaughter his companions and steal their treasure at the first opportunity. If evil were really that self-destructive, good wouldn't have nearly as hard a time combating it.
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    Default Re: Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Most of that seems to me to be because you're used to people using it wrong. It's no more accurate than any other personality test in "getting to know" a character. What it is is telling you their general relationship to morals and ethics. Do they even CARE about rules as anything other than advice? How willing are they to hurt others for personal benefit? That kind of thing.
    Sure, that's part of it. But even besides the fact that a system that a lot of people (I want to say a majority but I can't claim to have any numbers on it) misinterpret and use incorrectly probably isn't a great system to use, some of my issues remain even if people use it exactly as you say.

    But I could tolerate a system being flawed and occasionally misused if I saw enough upside to it but even when used "perfectly", I just don't see any advantages to using it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Sure. Though that also depends on the scenario and game. In D&D, you're archetypally taking on quests to delve into dangerous places and accomplish specific goals (or just acquire loot). Being able to tell that this creature you just ran into in the dungeon is "one of the good guys" quickly rather than having to RP out hours of interaction or having to guess and worry about double-crossings is a feature, not a bug, in that sort of game.

    I get it: for the political intrigue game, you want more ambiguity. The alginment system can support that, too, but the more nuanced reasons why you can't be sure that just because someone is Good they'll agree with your side of things tend to also only come up in less split-second situations.
    Personally, I prefer moral ambiguity no matter the game type. Worrying about a newfound friend(?) double-crossing is a feature, at least if the alternative is being told by the universe that he's an Objectively Good Guy.

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Alignment tied to cosmic forces can also have use for explaining WHY evil can prosper: when being evil gives you actual magical powers that support your evil, suddenly otherwise really stupid acts of villainy become logical.
    Maybe. But you could just as well argue the other way around, it's more understandable that someone sold their soul (metaphorically or literally) if they didn't objectively know that the buyer is unquestionably Evil. It's hard to argue that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions when there are clear road signs saying "EVIL!" along the way.

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