Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

[Satinavian]

@hamishspence

Yes, evil can work with evil. Evil can also work with good. And nearly all reservations a particular good person can have to work with a particular evil person, might be shared by evil people as well.


Seriously, if a potential party member is someone who would be suspected to murder their future companions during sleep, no one would want to have him. And someone evil but more tolerable would be more tolerable to most others as well.

[Saint-Just]

@Segev

You seem to think that you have the proper understanding of alignment system; how to classify characters, actions, behaviours under that system. That some of the examples mentioned by others are only possible if you ignore the rules. Yet if it was so clear-cut I think that there would be a greater consensus. Outside of this thread there are many threads where people relay their actual experiences during the game; DMs and players ask others to give their opinion on situations which came in games; in many situations those who ask receive a plenty of contradictory opinions from people who have engaged in hobby for quite a while. In situations where everybody is presuming that alignment does work (not DM engineering situations to prove that it doesn't) a lot of people can't agree on how exactly it works. Official sources offer little help; intensional definitions are usually too vague; extensional definitions seems to end up being an unresolvable mess - yes you can argue for each separate example that it demonstrates the author's incompetence, but in the end if you need to analyze whether official sources are right instead of relying on them then maybe you are not actually using D&D alignment?

As far as trustworthiness goes there are a plenty of examples in the OotS. Miko comes really close to "will stab you in the back" while being LG.

I think that judging alignment using every published source talking about alignment ends up in contradictions; you need to pick and chose; resulting set of rules may end up good, but you don't get to say that everyone who disagrees is doing it wrong

[Nifft]

As far as trustworthiness goes there are a plenty of examples in the OotS. Miko comes really close to "will stab you in the back" while being LG.

Just as a point of order, Miko turned out to NOT be LG, and that was a bit of a plot-point.

Perhaps "will stab you in the back" is incompatible with LG.

[Morty]

Just as a point of order, Miko turned out to NOT be LG, and that was a bit of a plot-point.

Perhaps "will stab you in the back" is incompatible with LG.

She was Lawful Good until she killed Shojo, otherwise she wouldn't have been a paladin. Whether or not she stopped being LG or merely lost her paladin status is anyone's guess - though I don't think it's a question worth spending too much time on.

[OldTrees1]

Just as a point of order, Miko turned out to NOT be LG, and that was a bit of a plot-point.

Perhaps "will stab you in the back" is incompatible with LG.

1) Miko underwent character development. In one very long page Miko tried to solve a complicated ethical dilemma after her world was flipped upside down. She concluded she should do a dramatic change in behavior which makes sense, the revealed information suggested a revaluation that would likely lead to changed behavior. Her wisdom failed her when she tried to find the right response to the situation. The god's reaction to the change in behavior. I think most would describe early Miko as a moral individual. Not a moral exemplar, but still a moral individual. Honestly even at the end I think maybe Miko was still moral. Her final plot point was about not becoming a paladin again, I did not read that as necessarily saying Miko is not lawful good.
2) It is a large leap to go from "There is a non black non raven" to "Perhaps all ravens are black". If Miko was not LG and did backstab, that is very very weak evidence about whether LG is or is not compatible with backstabbing.

[Tanarii]

People bludgeoning others for "not playing their alignment" is obnoxious.

And yet this is literally what the DM is doing when they judge a PCs alignment based on in-game actions after the fact, and decide it is different from what the player wrote down on the character sheet.

Descriptive Alignment is indeed obnoxious.

[hamishspence]

That's not "bludgeoning" if the paladin and DM are on the same page about the written alignment - that it's where the player starts from, and that there is no requirement to stay there.

[Tanarii]

That's not "bludgeoning" if the paladin and DM are on the same page about the written alignment - that it's where the player starts from, and that there is no requirement to stay there.

Like I said, if the DM is changing the alignment because descriptive, it's bludgeoning,

[OldTrees1]

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 yet this is literally what the DM is doing when they judge a PCs alignment based on in-game actions after the fact, and decide it is different from what the player wrote down on the character sheet.

Descriptive Alignment is indeed obnoxious.

But that is not what the DM is doing. There is a key difference here, let me elaborate:

I once had a lich character that wanted to cull the population back down to what it was when they were alive. Let's say I thought that PC was morally neutral (for the record I didn't think that).

One day the PC uses their draining touch combined with a healing touch to torture a captive for information.

Case 1: Someone says "You are not playing your alignment right, your PC would not do that. You are mistaken about what your character would do." If it is the DM they might even block the player's agency until a "valid" action is chosen.

Case 2: Someone says "Huh, I don't think that matches the description of neutral. They seem to be acting evil." If it is the DM they might even change the official description of the character from neutral to evil.

Notice the big difference? In one case the player is told they are playing the character wrong and might even be prevented from playing the character that way. In the other case the player is told that the description of the character seems off and the official description might change.

Now maybe you find both obnoxious. However I would not equate the two.

However from past threads it sounds like you take the DM's judgement of the PC's moral character pretty harshly. If a DM rules that eating cake is evil then it sounds like you view that as similar to but not precisely equivalent to the DM saying PCs can't eat cake. Am I understanding why you feel it is "bludgeoning"? I ask because I did not mind when the other Players thought my Lich was evil or when the DM ruled it was neutral with evil leanings.

Spoiler: Nuance about Lich for anyone wondering

Show

The lich did not understand morality as everyone else used it. They were following what could be best described as a blue/orange morality around a proper balance of the circle of life. Things like decreasing morality rates was breaking the cycle. They adopted the words "moral / immoral" to describe it to others but that is a mistranslation that neither the lich nor the party noticed.

It was fun playing an entity that could not comprehend morality but still did actions that we normally associate as moral/immoral. Is the ability to understand concepts of morality necessary for an entity to be a moral agent? That was fun to think about during play.

During the campaign they were doing a rough census to figure out how out of balance the cycle was rather than enacting the culling, which is why I used the torture instead of the inevitable culling as the example.

[Telok]

Since when is it evil to backstab the evil high priest of murder, genocide, and cannibalism, during a human sacrifice ritual trying to open a portal for an army of demons to come through?

That reminded me of an old discussion. Is fantasy racisim is a D&D setting evil? We had a setting where there was a goblin racial god, just one. It was a god of genocide, cannibalism, and evil demony stuff. In that setting all goblins were default described as evil, genocidal, cannibal, demon worshippers. Our party spent something like 6 levels and in game months fighting off an invasion from the evil goblin nation. Ambushing, being ambushed, hunting evil goblin spellcasters, a siege. Eventually we ended up in a 3-way battle between 2 goblin factions and some starving refugees. We killed all the goblins, as usual.

The DM was upset because there was supposed to be some plot thing about a LG goblin paladin leading one of the factions. Apparently we'd missed some knowledge check or clue about goblin religion having some sort of schism and simply gone with our usual "enemy caster = double dead ASAP". We were unrepentant, goblins were evil and we killed them to save people. A goblin with an axe casting divine spells wasn't someone we'd talk to, it was a demon worshipping, baby killing, cannibal priest that needed to die. The usual alignment arguments ensued, of course.

[Tanarii]

Case 1: Someone says "You are not playing your alignment right, your PC would not do that. You are mistaken about what your character would do." If it is the DM they might even block the player's agency until a "valid" action is chosen.

Case 2: Someone says "Huh, I don't think that matches the description of neutral. They seem to be acting evil." If it is the DM they might even change the official description of the character from neutral to evil.

Case 1: you're roleplaying wrong, neutral would do this.
Case 2: you're roleplaying wrong, start roleplaying evil instead.

They are the same thing, with minor variation. Either you're telling them they are roleplaying wrong because they aren't doing the written alignment described behavior correctly. Or they're doing it wrong and should start following this other alignment described behavior instead.

All that matters is:
- the player has something to use to help make in-character decisions.
- the in-universe reacts to the characters perceived behavior

DM-judged descriptive alignment & associated forced changes are not the latter, because they pre-empt the former.

[hamishspence]

They're not the same thing. A character that eventually changes alignment is not "being roleplayed wrong" - they're being played as having an unusual character arc.


The point of descriptive alignment, is that the character can be role-played any way the player wants - it's the DM's job, not the player's, to figure out what alignment the character's behaviour most closely corresponds to.

[Altheus]

Is there room in DnD for something like the traits system from Pendragon? You get a set of virtues and vices that work as a pair and have numerical values that add up to 20, as one of the pair goes up the other goes down.

For example a character might have

13 Generous - Selfish 7 The character is more generous than selfish.
4 Just - Arbritrary 16 The character will make judgements without thought of fairness
13 Forgiving - Vengeful 7 The character is more likely to forgive a slight than take revenge
16 Indulgent - Temperate 4 The character likes his ale, and food a lot

If you can amass the a certain number on the virtue side of the column (an arbritrary 40 in my example) you can call yourself a paladin.

These can guide pc behaviour but don't have to govern it, however, significant actions in line with one of the traits increase the trait and decrease the opposing trait.

[OldTrees1]

Case 1: you're roleplaying wrong, neutral would do this.
Case 2: you're roleplaying wrong, start roleplaying evil instead.

They are the same thing, with minor variation. Either you're telling them they are roleplaying wrong because they aren't doing the written alignment described behavior correctly. Or they're doing it wrong and should start following this other alignment described behavior instead.

All that matters is:
- the player has something to use to help make in-character decisions.
- the in-universe reacts to the characters perceived behavior

DM-judged descriptive alignment & associated forced changes are not the latter, because they pre-empt the former.

But that is not what happened in case 2.
Case 2: you're roleplaying correctly, but we would describe that as ___ instead of ___. Continue having full agency over what your character is choosing to do.

Under descriptive alignment Case 2 has no prescriptive elements. There is no command to "start doing ___ instead" because that only makes sense if alignment were prescriptive. That phrase would be commanding the player to treat the ___ as prescribing what they can do. Descriptive alignment does not do that.

Consider the follow: I have a fearless barbarian that runs away in terror from every fight, if the other players start to describe the barbarian as a coward, that is not saying "You must roleplay them as a coward now" it is saying "The roleplaying you are choosing to do is described as "cowardly" rather than "fearless" in our vocabulary. So we will describe it as cowardly while that word fits what you are choosing to portray." Nowhere does it say "start roleplaying as X".

[Tanarii]

But that is not what happened in case 2.
Case 2: you're roleplaying correctly, but we would describe that as ___ instead of ___. Continue having full agency over what your character is choosing to do.

Under descriptive alignment Case 2 has no prescriptive elements. There is no command to "start doing ___ instead" because that only makes sense if alignment were prescriptive. That phrase would be commanding the player to treat the ___ as prescribing what they can do. Descriptive alignment does not do that.

Consider the follow: I have a fearless barbarian that runs away in terror from every fight, if the other players start to describe the barbarian as a coward, that is not saying "You must roleplay them as a coward now" it is saying "The roleplaying you are choosing to do is described as "cowardly" rather than "fearless" in our vocabulary. So we will describe it as cowardly while that word fits what you are choosing to portray." Nowhere does it say "start roleplaying as X".

Except Alignment does contain aspects of a roleplaying tool for the player to use. So if you as a DM force change it based on description, it is inherently telling the player something about how they need to roleplay moving forward.

[hamishspence]

Not really. It's up the the player how to roleplay the character, not the DM. "Alignment change" doesn't change that fact.

Though there is a DMG recommendation that if alignment keeps changing back and forth (from the point of view of the DM) then Neutral alignment may be best - so the DM might eventually just change the character's alignment to Neutral and leave it there.

[OldTrees1]

Except Alignment does contain aspects of a roleplaying tool for the player to use. So if you as a DM force change it based on description, it is inherently telling the player something about how they need to roleplay moving forward.

What is it telling them? It really sounds like you are conflating descriptive and prescriptive.

Let's say there was a character that was revaluated as being better described by evil than by neutral, does this mean the DM is saying "you must go kick puppies" or is the DM saying "continue roleplaying as you were, we are just recognizing the label evil is more accurate than the label neutral".

That is the main point to get across. Descriptive Alignment never tells you how you must play your character, it only describes how you have been playing your character. Under Descriptive Alignment if the DM changes the alignment label describing your character, that tells you nothing about how they should roleplay going forward. It merely describes how they have been roleplaying.

This is the big difference between prescriptive and descriptive. Prescriptive tells you something about how you need to roleplay. Descriptive describes how you have been roleplaying.

[Batcathat]

This reminds me of another argument against alignments: without them there's no discussion about whether you're playing "wrong" or if some label need to be changed. The player just plays their character however they wish and the GM can focus on in-universe consequences rather than what's on the player's sheet.

[OldTrees1]

This reminds me of another argument against alignments: without them there's no discussion about whether you're playing "wrong" or if some label need to be changed. The player just plays their character however they wish and the GM can focus on in-universe consequences rather than what's on the player's sheet.

Interesting argument. However, despite using alignment, my group has not had any of these arguments. So I wonder if those prescriptive arguments would merely shift to a new topic (see "You're not playing a Crane Clan member correctly!" above). Likewise I wonder if the descriptive arguments would also shift to another topic.

My conclusion is, only use tools when those tools are useful. Alignment is not always useful despite sometimes being useful. Only use it when it is useful?

Oh, and it is time for me to remember that the thread has a main topic:
So if you were using alignment as descriptive for a moral axis, it is likely to resurface even if replaced. It is just hard to talk about morality if moral, amoral, and immoral become taboo words. However if you want to keep it gone, have the GM not know the moral truth of the campaign world. If every player is equally in the dark then no descriptive moral axis will resurface due to a lack of information. You still will have people talk about the moral axis, but you won't have the labels.

If you were using alignment as prescriptive for the moral axis, then it is easy to replace it with example moral theories. Even something like 5E's flaws/ideals could work. However be warned, prescriptive anything can easily result in the same kinds of arguments. You might still deal with "You are not playing X right". Be prepared with ways to intercede in arguments and calm things down.

If you are using alignment as some celestial vs fiend faction system, it might be better to create a more detailed faction system (ranks, perks, social mechanics). While you do it will either look less like alignment or you might find new factions to focus on as a replacement.

[Batcathat]

My conclusion is, only use tools when those tools are useful. Alignment is not always useful despite sometimes being useful. Only use it when it is useful?

I agree. That's why I never use alignments when I have the option not to.

[OldTrees1]

I agree. That's why I never use alignments when I have the option not to.

And you almost always have the option to ignore it.

Despite frequently using alignment, I think only 1 of my characters absolutely needed a descriptive alignment system. That was the lich. I needed the players and the DM to judge how they would describe that character because 1) I was focused on the causes for their behavior and 2) I wanted to know the other players' opinions on whether the conceptualization of morality was a necessary condition for an entity to be a moral agent. I have had plenty of characters that I was invested in questions about their morality, but I think only that 1 time was alignment required.

[Tanarii]

What is it telling them? It really sounds like you are conflating descriptive and prescriptive.

No, both of those are harmful.

What's useful is motivational, as a player roleplaying tool, one (broad) moral/social personality trait of several to be considered when it might impact decision making.

Prescriptive assumes Alignment is the sole motivation and must be followed slavishly.

Descriptive assumes the DM gets to judge based on past actions taken, which ruins Alignments use forward-facing motivational RP tool, since it becomes the DM telling the players how to roleplay.

[OldTrees1]

No, both of those are harmful.

What's useful is motivational, as a player roleplaying tool, one (broad) moral/social personality trait of several to be considered when it might impact decision making.

Prescriptive assumes Alignment is the sole motivation and must be followed slavishly.

Descriptive assumes the DM gets to judge based on past actions taken, which ruins Alignments use forward-facing motivational RP tool, since it becomes the DM telling the players how to roleplay.

It sounds like you only see prescriptive utility in alignment and thus are casting both prescriptive and descriptive alignment as if they were both prescriptive, and then judging them to both be harmful due to the prescriptive elements.

Consider my lich example, I did not go "hmm, they are evil and that informs how they might make certain decisions" instead I went "hmm, they believe they ought to cull the population, I think they are wrong about that.".
1) The lich still used their beliefs as forward facing motivational RP tool.
2) I was still motivated to see the lich follow that philosophy.
3) But alignment only was used in the descriptive context as a judgement / description of the characterization.
Now I did note how they have been behaving as that is a general indicator of how they will likely continue to behave, however that is still just descriptive rather than actually having prescriptive force.

[Batcathat]

And you almost always have the option to ignore it.

Yes, that's kind of my point. Using it frequently (though not always) comes with a number of different issues and ignoring it usually isn't much of a loss. Which I why I don't really see a point to it (for me personally, that is. As with most things in life, I'm fine with others doing their own thing as long as they don't try and force it on me).

[OldTrees1]

Yes, that's kind of my point. Using it frequently (though not always) comes with a number of different issues and ignoring it usually isn't much of a loss. Which I why I don't really see a point to it (for me personally, that is. As with most things in life, I'm fine with others doing their own thing as long as they don't try and force it on me).

You had a good point. There is a lot we agree on.

We both value the ability to ignore it (we prefer it not be forced on anyone). We both see it can cause arguments (but does not have to). We both know that different people will see it as having different amounts of value. We both see that even when valued, it is a tool and thus can be ideal or ill adapted to the situation.

I think we only really differ in how much value we see for ourselves personally.

I kinda wonder if maybe alignment should be moved to an "off by default" optional rule in the official books. I don't expect they would remove it, but maybe it is time for "off by default"?

----
Main topic tax:
Other replacements for alignment:

Someone mentioned zodiac as an character creation effect. I had done something similar with the 6/26 inner planes influencing the material plane.

[Tanarii]

It sounds like you only see prescriptive utility in alignment and thus are casting both prescriptive and descriptive alignment as if they were both prescriptive, and then judging them to both be harmful due to the prescriptive elements.

No. That's not what I am doing.

[OldTrees1]

No. That's not what I am doing.

Then would you elaborate on when is the "DM telling the players how to roleplay." if the system is descriptive rather than prescriptive? If the DM is not telling the players how to roleplay, how are they telling the players how to roleplay. That is the contradiction I am not understanding.

You mentioned the DM using alignment as a "forward-facing motivational RP tool" to bludgeon the players, but unless I am missing something, that is prescriptive alignment. The process of of "My character is X, and the DM decided X acts like Y, so my character acts like Y" is an example of prescriptive alignment. Or "The DM decided my character is X, and the DM decided X acts like Y, so my character acts like Y" is another example of prescriptive. These are not exhaustive examples. Or "My character acts like Z, and the DM decided my character is X, and X also acts like Y, so my character also acts like Y" as another example. This is just prescriptive so I don't see why descriptive would be blamed for the problems of prescriptive.

[Morty]

If alignment is, as people keep claiming, a measure of allegiance to objective cosmic moral forces, isn't it entirely appropriate for a GM to enforce a particular vision of alignment? Since there are actual forces of Law and Good who decide if someone qualifies to be labelled as such.

[Mastikator]

If alignment is, as people keep claiming, a measure of allegiance to objective cosmic moral forces, isn't it entirely appropriate for a GM to enforce a particular vision of alignment? Since there are actual forces of Law and Good who decide if someone qualifies to be labelled as such.

If that is what alignment is for then you'd be better off with the real thing: religions, pantheons, deities and the rules that followers must obey. Most official D&D settings already have reasonably detailed stuff for that already. In Eberron for example you could simply write down "vassal of the sovereign host (Dol Dorn)" and that would more accurately describe your characters allegiance to cosmic forces, your characters rules of conduct, their values, etc than "chaotic good" ever could.

[Saint-Just]

2) It is a large leap to go from "There is a non black non raven" to "Perhaps all ravens are black". If Miko was not LG and did backstab, that is very very weak evidence about whether LG is or is not compatible with backstabbing.

Sorry. I was indeed confused.

The point is: Miko was LG in the Giant's judgement, decided to, eh, frontstab a helpless individual, while still being LG at the moment of making the decision and initiating the action. It was an Evil act of unknown magnitude (not guaranteed to be enough to shift her alignment down; again people have spent so many, many hours discussing whether it was enough to guarantee the shift in alignment and in the end nobody was convinced about anything).

Segev's point was "you CAN trust that a Lawful Good person isn't going to backstab you". I say it's not true. I would say that LG person is extremely less likely to backstab you than any Evil or any Chaotic person (LN may outperform LG in non-backstabbing depending on what they consider a law for them).

And there were no leap there. Original argument was about how all ravens are black (LG is a defined category, not a negation like "non-raven"). I presented one white raven.