Useful Morality Subsystems (Alignment Replacements)

[OldTrees1]

That doesn't answer nor obviate the question. Does the cleric succeed because they disagree on authority vs. liberty, or fail because they agree on sanctity and loyalty?

Bad answer: Well these spells / effects now scale based on how many areas are opposed. If you disagree in only 1 then you get a lesser effect than if you disagree in all.

Bad answer 2: Well these spells / effects now have a tolerance threshold. You have to disagree on at least N for it to trigger. N can be 1 for some effects or 3 for other effects.

Bad answer 3: The user of the spell / effect chooses to be harsh / tolerant on each affected target. Harsh means the effect triggers if there is even 1 disagreement. Tolerant means the effect only triggers if there are 3 disagreements.


These are labeled as bad because they were spontaneous thoughts with no quality filter. If they actually make sense, then sorry for presuming they were bad.

[Segev]

Bad answer: Well these spells / effects now scale based on how many areas are opposed. If you disagree in only 1 then you get a lesser effect than if you disagree in all.

Bad answer 2: Well these spells / effects now have a tolerance threshold. You have to disagree on at least N for it to trigger. N can be 1 for some effects or 3 for other effects.

Bad answer 3: The user of the spell / effect chooses to be harsh / tolerant on each affected target. Harsh means the effect triggers if there is even 1 disagreement. Tolerant means the effect only triggers if there are 3 disagreements.


These are labeled as bad because they were spontaneous thoughts with no quality filter. If they actually make sense, then sorry for presuming they were bad.

We could go back to the D&D 3e (and possibly earlier) approach, and have specific spells target specific alignments. Blasphemy in 3e specifically hits good and neutral creatures. Presumably in this paradigm, it would hit anything that values Sanctity. Holy word would hit things that opposed Sanctity.

Dictum would hit those who oppose Authority, while cry of freedom would hit anybody opposing Liberty. So on and so forth.

[Herbert_W]

We could go back to the D&D 3e (and possibly earlier) approach, and have specific spells target specific alignments.

Well these spells / effects now scale based on how many areas are opposed. . . . Well these spells / effects now have a tolerance threshold. . . . The user of the spell / effect chooses to be harsh / tolerant on each affected target.

There's a lot of good ideas here. Different spells and abilities could work in different ways. There's a lot of flexibility in this system.

My main point of caution is that we want to keep each spell simple. Each spell could reference up to six scales with three points each. So long as you only reference a few scales at a time there's no more crunch here than the old C-N-L/G-N-E system. However, there's a lot more room for complexity if you reference many values simultaneously and that's not a good thing.

So what happens if a cleric of one deity like Moradin tries to smite a cleric of another deity like Corellon? I presume both would value Sanctity, so they pick another value?

Yes, that's pretty much how I'd make the adapted version of holy word work: the cleric of Moradin would pick a value that Moradin supports, and zaps everyone opposed to it. People who are neutral with regard to that value suffer a reduced effect. If it turns out that they were wrong and the cleric of Corellon actually does support that value, then the spell has no effect.

However, in the specific case of Moradin and Corellion, I don't think there's enough difference of opinion for their clerics to make good use of spells like holy word against each other. These deities are opposed on the C/L axis, but aligned on the G/E axis, and in the case of these deities I think that this agreement represents a more significant part of their values than the disagreement. Alignment based spells would often have some effect, but not enough to be a good tactical option. In cases where these clerics fight (which I think they usually wouldn't), they'd use other spells.

Any campaign world that uses this alignment system would need to establish which values each deity supports and opposes. This is going to vary depending on the writer, so this is just my own interpretation for Moradin's alignment under the new system:

• Loyalty (S): Moradin created dwarfs who are famously loyal.
• Fairness (S): Moradin really doesn't like cheaters.
• Care (S): Moradin is described as LG and offers both the Protection and Good domains in 3e, so this is obvious. I'm not entirely sure that this shouldn't be even higher on the list.
• Authority (N): Moradin supports an orderly society, but an orderly society doesn't need to be hierarchical. Moradin respects authority - but he values loyalty, fairness, and care over it and is therefore not committed enough to count as supporting it.
• Sanctity (N) Moradin cares about sanctity, but it's far from the main thing that he cares about.
• Liberty (N): Moradin regards liberty as less important than other principles - but he doesn't have a complete disregard for it, either.

The cleric of Moradin could choose either care, loyalty, or fairness when casting holy word, since it's their deity's alignment that maters when casting rather than their own. This choice would be made at the time of casting. This cleric would not be able to cast blasphemy, because Moradin does not oppose any values.

This would be a tactical choice, made to suit their target. This raises a question: are there any values that a cleric of Corellon would oppose?

We haven't established rules yet for what alignment a cleric must have in order to worship a deity. However, I think that it would be a reasonable starting point to say that a cleric may only oppose a value if their deity does. (Some deities may be more picky.) The only value that Corellon might oppose is authority. They are CG in 3e, which means that they value liberty and care. Being good means that they probably have at least some regard for fairness and loyalty. As they are interested in the sanctity of nature, they have at least some interest in sanctity.

Authority is the only value that a cleric of Corellon might oppose, and even that's not a guarantee.

Authority is, unfortunately for the cleric of Moradin, just off the bottom of the list of values available to them for holy word. They have three options where the cleric of Corellon might be neutral, so the best that they can hope for is the reduced effect. This is just my interpretation of these two deities, so it's possible that this would be different if someone else were to write the sourcebooks, but the cleric of Moradin doesn't have any options that would be fully effective against a cleric of Corellon . . .

. . . unless they cast a different spell or simply clobber the other cleric over the head. Both of these are things that should be well within a cleric of Moradin's capabilities.

smite

Technically, that's an ability that a cleric of Moradin wouldn't have unless they multiclass into paladin . . . but now that you mention it, how should a paladin's smite ability work?

5e turned a paladin's smite into plain old extra damage, powered by a spell slot, with a rider that adds a little more damage depending on creature type. There's no reference to alignment here.

3e had a paladin's smite explicitly dependent on alignment. To me, that is the iconic defining feature of both this ability and of this class. Paladins don't just smite, they smite evil. One of the main ways that grey guards and blackguards are mechanically distinguished from paladins in 3e is that they have smite powers that work on different alignments - blackguards are anti-paladins, so they smite good, and grey guards are morally ambiguous pragmatists, so they can smite a wider range of alignments. Smiting targets of a specific alignment gives players a mechanical reason to care about the alignment of their enemies and to preferentially target evil foes, thus bringing a player and character's motivations closer together.

I'd have a paladin's smite effective against any targets that oppose either of the two values the paladin values most. (Two, just because one is too restrictive and three is not restrictive enough for the base class.) To keep things simple, I wouldn't bother with extra riders that trigger if the target opposes multiple applicable alignments - it'd just be a simple yes-or-no "do they oppose at least one of these?" question. Grey guards would get to smite a wider range of opponents. Eventually, a high-level grey guard could smite anyone who opposes any value.

Blackguards could become a very weird class in a game with a realistic alignment system. Almost nobody in the real world sees themselves as evil - those few that do embrace the label of "evil" do so out of rejection of the values of others but still have values of their own which they see as right. The fantasy trope of evil as being just like good except inverted doesn't have a basis in real human psychology. Perhaps blackguards should just gain the ability to smite people who support the values at the bottom of their list. For example, it makes sense that a blackguard who values authority highly and doesn't care about liberty would smite people who value liberty, because those people tend to act against authority.

Alternatively, we could embrace the fact that blackguards don't have a basis in normal human psychology and make them the product of magically-induced alignment inversion which causes them to seek to destroy the very same things that they once worked to protect. That would make blackguards a rather sympathetic tragic class - and perhaps also a more frightening one, if whatever cause this inversion is contagious.

There has been a trend in recent editions to fold paladin-like classes into the paladin class itself. If we are playing an edition that follows this trend then he ability to smite a wider range of alignments could be associated with any subclass that leans towards pragmatism, while smiting people based on the values they support as well as oppose could be associated with subclasses that tend towards extremism.

[Kane0]

A secondary concern; you have said that most people would be neutral on most aspects, supporting and opposing take more ‘effort’ and are pretty rare, at least among humanoids. So if this is the case wouldnt pinning mechanics to revolve around supporting/opposing aspects largely skim over the majority of PCs and NPCs?

[Herbert_W]

A secondary concern; you have said that most people would be neutral on most aspects, supporting and opposing take more ‘effort’ and are pretty rare, at least among humanoids. So if this is the case wouldnt pinning mechanics to revolve around supporting/opposing aspects largely skim over the majority of PCs and NPCs?

Good catch. That could be a problem, but it is a fixable one so long as it's understood that "most" means "most in the world," not "most that a PC encounters."

I'm working under the unstated assumption that the PCs are exceptional individuals, and that should be a stated assumption. I expect that most PCs will support at least one value, both because playing a hero can be fun and because there are mechanical advantages to supporting values. Recent editions have moved away from attaching hard mechanical advantages to maintaining the "right" alignment, but that's a response to the problems with the old alignment system as de-emphasizing the system mitigates the impact of its problems. Solving those problems by replacing the system means that those mechanical advantages can be safely added back to the game.

I'm also working under the assumption that most of the NPCs that the players meet in a context where alignment-specific abilities matter are going to be unusual individuals. The fact that alignment-specific abilities skim over the average NPC in a town doesn't matter, because those abilities aren't for the average guy in a town. They're for the cultists in the suspiciously-spacious sewers under the town, or the bandits living in caves outside of the town, or the monsters spawned into reality from the dreams of a young latent sorcerer lurking in the dark corners of the town.

It's also worth noting that there are some abilities that could potentially affect a large number of targets, with unexpected results occurring when there's one person who supports or opposes an alignment when the caster expects everyone to be neutral. Blasphemy and holy word are examples - you'd expect that casting either in the town square would affect a lot of people with the reduced effect of the spell. Say, for example, it'll stun and sicken neutral people but never kill them. I can easily imagine a situation where some young miscreant uses a scroll of some low-level version of blasphemy, targeting against authority, as a nonlethal stun-bomb in order to escape when they are caught. They might not even know that the spell can kill anyone, which'll make it all the more tragic when they use it in the wrong place and accidentally kill the captain of the town guard.

As you can tell from this example, there's a lot of potential for good stories to emerge from a system where most abilities skim over most people. On an adventure, neither side in a typical encounter is "most people." In town, the exceptions are notable precisely because there are exceptions, and are still likely to come up whenever area-effects are in play due to the sheer number of people around.

[Quertus]

Oh what about "Pose Trolley Dilemma"?
As you cast this spell speak aloud and concentrate on a trolley dilemma. Entities will glow green for option 1, orange for option 2.

Black for 'refuses to participate'
Purple for 'requires further context'
Red for 'out-of-bounds response'

"No glow" for they've realized the Trolley Problem doesn't indicate anything useful about morality.

Ah, so you’d glow purple then :P

I think that, if someone cast "Pose Trolley Dilemma", *I* wouldn't glow, but the *caster* would glow based on *why* they think that it is a useful dilemma to pose.

One of the nice trends ive seen happen with D&D is for magic to be less automatic. There are more chances of failure in the form of attack rolls and saving throws rather than relying on magic to counteract magic (spell resistance, miss chance, contingencie, etc). The fewer instances of ‘nope, it just happens’ the better for me, as TTRPGs for me derive a lot of their enjoyment from their uncertainty, that chance of success and failure. The roll of the dice is interesting, automatically reading someone’s morality takes a chunk of fun out of it.
Like, having no save leads to things like Belkar’s trusty sheet of lead.

… you are morally opposed… to PCs successfully knowing things?

So knowing full well it would reduce the depth/complexity, how about each character just prioritizes Care, Fairness and Loyalty from most to least important. Should be quick and easy for most players to get their heads around and get on with the game.
I think Sanctity wouldn't really translate well into something like D&D, though Loyalty to the group and Respect for authority could be split into their own separate values (but as noted i'm a sucker for the rule of 3's).

"Loyalty" is *really* tricky. Why would you assume that Loyalty applies to the group, rather than to family, community, country, etc?

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"The only value that Corellon might oppose is authority. They are CG in 3e, which means that they value liberty and care. Being good means that they probably have at least some regard for fairness and loyalty."

I think that it's fair to say that many believe Corellon actively *opposes* fairness

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"In most campaigns, player characters are expected to be at least neutral with regards to care, fairness, and loyalty. This is a pragmatic requirement that minimizes the likelihood and severity of conflict between players. It also minimizes the havoc that the party could wreak upon the DM's carefully-constructed campaign world. Campaigns where this restriction is relaxed are known as evil campaigns."

I don't see how any of that follows.

"Loyalty" isn't really a measure relative to classic "good vs evil".

Disloyalty to the *group* is usually an issue for "normal" campaigns… *and* for "evil" campaigns… and disloyalty to corrupt rulers is "part and parcel" to D&D.

Many heroes are *all* about cheating to win.

Just our 2 interpretations should demonstrate how rife with potential for different PoV can be.

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"Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, Sanctity/Degradation, and Liberty/Oppression"

Well, I would really enjoy seeing all of these reversed (like "able to think for one's own self" vs "blind obedience" and "community" vs "selfishness"), but I can't manage all 6.

Spoiler: wow, it's been since page 1?"

Show

Objective: exploration, knowledge, self-improvement… preserving reality if necessary.
Approach: exploration, study, research, experimentation, hypothesis, experimentation.

Objective: fun.
Approach: sex, drugs, rock and roll, and magic.

Objective: homeland for refugees; survival.
Approach: stealth, diplomacy, violent allies.

Objective: family, family, nation, world, religion, friends, those who have suffered, those who will suffer.
Approach: 5d chess information wars.

Care/Harm - neutral
Fairness/Cheating - fairness
Loyalty/Betrayal - loyalty
Authority/Subversion - neutral?
Sanctity/Degradation - neutral
Liberty/Oppression - neutral

Care/Harm - harm
Fairness/Cheating - cheating
Loyalty/Betrayal - to whom? Neutral?
Authority/Subversion - subversion
Sanctity/Degradation - neutral
Liberty/Oppression - liberty

Care/Harm - neutral
Fairness/Cheating - neutral
Loyalty/Betrayal - loyalty
Authority/Subversion - authority?
Sanctity/Degradation - neutral
Liberty/Oppression - oppression

Care/Harm - care
Fairness/Cheating - cheating
Loyalty/Betrayal - neutral
Authority/Subversion - neutral
Sanctity/Degradation - sanctity
Liberty/Oppression - liberty

Doesn't sound terribly informative to me. How about priority order for their non-neutrals? At a guess,

Fairness = Loyalty

Liberty > Harm > Cheating > Subversion

Loyalty >> Oppression

Care = Sanctity > Liberty > Cheating

Really, when trying to prioritize them, I feel back on "means and ends"; ie, this character would use Oppression as a means to Care, whereas that character would use Caring as a means to Oppress.

I'm not sure how much either list really communicate much, or helps direct role-playing / is able to "serve as a guide for your character's behavior", tbh.

[Kane0]

… you are morally opposed… to PCs successfully knowing things?

"Loyalty" is *really* tricky. Why would you assume that Loyalty applies to the group, rather than to family, community, country, etc?

Lol no it's a mechanical concern. Detect X is usually pretty accessible (like a cantrip, 1st level spell or ritual). Couple high accessibility with high accuracy and few countermeasures and you have a potent tool that may be quite disruptive or limiting for DMs depending on what sort of game they are running.
5e's Zone of Truth might be a good example. It's a low level spell available from level 3 but isn't spammable by being a cantrip or similar; it allows a save to avoid its effects (against a somewhat rare save type), and even if you fail the save you have the choice of saying nothing or getting creative with the truth as long as you do not outright lie. It's still a very useful spell for its intended purpose but not an automatic total success even when paired up with charming a target.

Those are groups aren't they? Though point taken, you can also be loyal to an individual or ideal (although that would probably double up with some other concepts).

[Segev]

Would this be an appropriate place to open up the can of worms that is the concept of "fair?"

Have you ever noticed that, when somebody yells at somebody else to "fight fair," they really mean "fight in the manner I am best at fighting, and not in this manner that is letting you win?"

A buff brawler insists that pulling a weapon is "cheating," or that using magic is "unfair" and "cowardly," but that grappling and punching are totally fair fighting. Even against the scrawny mage or the halfling knife-thrower. A master swordsman insists that he'll win a "fair duel" against the brawler, because he knows how to use the sword and the brawler hasn't held a weapon more complicated than a club in his life. But it's "fair" to the swordsman and the brawler throwing a table at him would be "cheating."

What constitutes "fair" and what is "cheating?" Obviously, "cheating" can be defined as going against agreed-upon rules, but do you go with the letter or spirit of them? What if the spirit still proves that the other side was trying to set you up? Was it cheating for them to obfuscate or let you make bad assumptions, or is it totally fair to outwit you that way? The schemer, after all, has a tendency to whine that "it's not fair" when the musclebound powerhouse just plows through his clever machinations with pure brute force. ("You punched through the walls to make your way through my maze? That's cheating!" "Says who? I never agreed to solve your maze.")

This also goes into an interesting layer of authority and its application. If some bullies half again the size of a kid pick on him and beat him up, they might get in trouble for it if they're caught or his allegations are proven. But if he picks up a bat or knife to defend himself, he'll be in far, far more trouble than the bullies, because he threatened them with a weapon. This has some basis in reason, but the concept of acceptable levels of escalation and where it's a "fair fight" that gets only a little punished vs. an unacceptable response where it is punished harshly exists. If some idiot bullies take away Scott Summers's ruby-lensed glasses, and he doesn't close/cover his eyes fast enough, he's the one in trouble for having caused damage/hurt people. If they kick, punch, and shove him around, he is expected to keep his eyes closed and let them do it because it's not fair (or an acceptable escalation) to unleash his eye blasts.

Note: I am not saying these things should be allowed. I am simply pointing out that this plays into the concept of "fair" and how it is malleable and flexible and seems based largely, to many people, on the notion that "it's fair if it's in my favor. It's cheating if you have an advantage that doesn't let me use my strengths, even if it's obvious I'm grossly outmatching you if we stick only to my strengths."

[Quertus]

Have you ever noticed that, when somebody yells at somebody else to "fight fair," they really mean "fight in the manner I am best at fighting, and not in this manner that is letting you win?"

Not necessarily.

"Balance to the table"

At one table, it was something of a spectator sport to watch me asking people to "fight fair".

We could all play to our strength, at which point, as I've just demonstrated, I will completely crush everyone and everything. Or we could play a more balanced game. Your choice.

Yes, *most* calls for fair play are quite selfish, just as your describe. But it is not inherent to fair play to exclusively be used to stack the deck to one's own advantage.

[Segev]

Not necessarily.

"Balance to the table"

At one table, it was something of a spectator sport to watch me asking people to "fight fair".

We could all play to our strength, at which point, as I've just demonstrated, I will completely crush everyone and everything. Or we could play a more balanced game. Your choice.

Yes, *most* calls for fair play are quite selfish, just as your describe. But it is not inherent to fair play to exclusively be used to stack the deck to one's own advantage.

"Balance to the table" is good for discussing tabletop RPG gameplay. But less so for discussing "fair," especially as a "moral alignment" concept.

I don't think anybody, prior to you bringing it up, was discussing game balance at the table in an RPG in this thread. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you and the point you're making? If so, I apologize.

[OldTrees1]

"Balance to the table" is good for discussing tabletop RPG gameplay. But less so for discussing "fair," especially as a "moral alignment" concept.

I don't think anybody, prior to you bringing it up, was discussing game balance at the table in an RPG in this thread. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you and the point you're making? If so, I apologize.

Perhaps it was unwise to open up the can of worms that is "fair". Your initial comment about "fair fights" was as far off topic as Quertus' comment about balance is.

Or maybe they are both on topic and the axis is "Do your best vs Sportsmanship"

[Segev]

Perhaps it was unwise to open up the can of worms that is "fair". Your initial comment about "fair fights" was as far off topic as Quertus' comment about balance is.

Or maybe they are both on topic and the axis is "Do your best vs Sportsmanship"

I'm not sure what "fair" in the on-topic proposal means, then.

[Kane0]

I'm not sure what "fair" in the on-topic proposal means, then.

Light of color, often blonde.

[Herbert_W]

Would this be an appropriate place to open up the can of worms that is the concept of "fair?"

Fairness means that everyone gets the same overall lot in life. Everyone plays by the same rules, with neither special exemptions which give someone an undeserved advantage nor special exemptions which result in someone being undeservedly screwed over. While interpretations of the principle of fairness vary, in general an advantage or disadvantage is considered to be undeserved if it results from something other than a person's choices. It would be fair to hunt down a murderer because they chose to commit murder, while it would not be fair to do that same for a goblin just for being a goblin.

When boatbuilders refer to a surface as "fair," they mean "smooth" - there are no features whereby any specific point has dramatically different elevation or curvature than the points around it. This means nothing sticking out, nothing sticking in, and not sharp corners. This serves as an analogy for what the principle of fairness would have hold true for people. (It's not a perfect analogy, because boatbuilders want this shape of hull in order to promote laminar flow of water whereas moral fairness is a principle that stands on its own rather than being a means to some other end, but it is a good analogy nonetheless.)

People who value fairness tend to:

• Advocate for a high social mobility on the basis that people's place in society should be determined by their own merits, not the circumstances of their birth.
• Praise people for hard work and dedication, not for innate ability. Someone who values fairness is less likely to think of someone as admirable simply for being intelligent or strong - it's what people choose to do with their abilities that defines their moral character.
• Believe that people who are born with advantages, or society as a whole, has a moral duty to help people born with disadvantages so as to mitigate the impact of said disadvantages on their life.
• Stridently oppose racial (or gender etc.) prejudice. That doesn't necessarily mean that someone who values fairness is incapable of acknowledging that differences between demographic categories can, as a matter of averages, exist. Rather it means that they stridently oppose using those facts about averages to form judgements of individuals.

Of course, not everyone who values fairness will consistently advocate for all of these things. People pick up specific values from their society as well as deriving them from their own foundational values. Someone who values fairness might still believe that orcs are merely dangerous animals, for example.

Have you ever noticed that, when somebody yells at somebody else to "fight fair," they really mean "fight in the manner I am best at fighting, and not in this manner that is letting you win?"

In practice, applying the principle that everyone should play by the same rules always ends up getting involved with the question of what those rules should be, and with the related question of what rules everyone else is actually following. (The question of whether those rules are rules of spirit or rules that are intended to be followed by the letter is a subset of the question of what the rules are. There are both rules of spirit and rules of letter in society; anyone who disagrees on which are which has a subtle disagreement on what the rules are.) That's a convoluted and multifaceted set of issues. The short and simple version is that the default assumptions that a person is likely to have for what the rules in question are is largely dependent on their culture.

There is a major complicating factor that's worth considering here, and that's that the rhetoric of fairness extends beyond the scope of the honest application of the principle of fairness. There are two distinct ways for something to be unfair:

• Certain people are explicitly gain special treatment. E.g. in a society made up of primarily monkeys and sentient fish, the fish are forced to pay extra taxes.
• The same rules apply to everyone, but those rules are chosen in such a way that they have disproportionate impact on certain people. E.g. in another society composed primarily of monkeys and fish, everyone follows the same rules where how much you have to pay in taxes depends on how well you can climb a tree.

(I've deliberately chosen a slightly silly example here, because I can't think of a realistic example that doesn't come close to a real-world political issue.)

People who value fairness as a moral principle tend to consistently oppose both types of unfairness. However, people who abuse the rhetoric of fairness tend to selectively oppose the first type of unfairness in order to promote the second.

Your example of someone yelling at somebody else to "fight fair" might be an example of someone abusing the rhetoric of fairness in order to create a fight where, technically the same rules apply to everyone, but realistically those rules were chosen in a way that favors them.

On the other hand, your example of someone yelling at someone else to "fight fair" might be a person who comes from a culture with a specific set of ideas about how a fight is supposed to proceed. (These ideas could be linked to expectations about what winning a fight is supposed to prove. For example, if you win a fight with no subterfuge, no luck, and no tricks - just through sheer brute strength - then that proves that you're strong and will therefore likely win the next fight. So, the next fight might not need to actually happen. A threat of violence serves as a preferable substitute for actual violence. This benefit would not have been obtained if you had won that fight through the use of a dirty trick.) The yeller in this example simply sees that the other person is violating those expectations and be attempting to shame them into conforming with them, perhaps not realizing that the other person may have different cultural expectations for what a "fair fight" entails (or even whether a "fair fight" is a desirable thing.)

Fairness is a simple principle in the abstract, but in practice the results of its application depend on a host of other assumptions.

[Tanarii]

I do not agree with your definitions of fairness. But unfortunately your definitions of fairness are a discussion of real world politics, so we can't pursue it, and I'll have to leave it at that.

[Quertus]

Wow, I so love the Playground.

So, it's not a "fair / cheating" axis, or a "do your best / sportsmanship" axis, but… a… what? (Also, love that "do your best / sportsmanship" both sound positive)

Also (assuming this fictional example is sufficiently removed from politics), in Star Trek, Georgi is born blind. The Federation expended massive resources to develop and give him a visor to let him see. One culture they met was appalled, and said that they would have killed him at birth. A third fictional faction could easily have done nothing.

Do *any* of those 3 stances register on the "fairness" scale, whatever its endpoints are labeled? Or is that unrelated to fairness, too?

[Segev]

"...based on their own choices" is a nice-sounding way of putting it, but so is "...based on their own deeds" or "...based on their own talents." The last of which is explicitly called out as being an unfairness in the second numbered sort. Deeds and choices leads to some rather squicky cases, though, too: "Yes, by my choices to betray people and destroy my enemies, I have achieved personal wealth and power. This is totally fair; I have made the best, smartest, most ruthless choices to maximize my gains no matter what the cost to others nor others' expectations of what I would do for them."

Is that a person who is Fair or a Cheater?

I think, instinctively, presented with such a character in fiction, people would view him as "unfair," but if you turn the lens around and are writing a Great Man story or a story about Hard Men Making Hard Choices (both of which tend to be denigrated in most circles I've seen online; I could be mistaken in assuming they would be seen as generally a bad genre around here, though), the will and determination to Make The Hard Choices is what earns one greatness. Possibly wealth, power, influence, etc. as well. It's fair that the Hard Man is Great because his choices and deeds made him so, when others would have quailed at the things he had to do. In the most noble-painting of these narratives, the things he had to do were to achieve success and survival/happiness for a greater number of people than suffered at his deeds, and he may, himself, lament the harm that had to come to the eggs in making his omlettes. Or maybe he just was harsher against Deserving Targets than others would be, or there was some minor collateral damage, or....

Regardless, even saying it's based on "choices" leads to questions of what kinds of choices are "fair" to make. At what point does it stop being about "fairness" for somebody to demand that the terms of an engagement include things he's good at, or disinclude things he's bad at?

Even the example about "winning without trickery, in a straight-forward match of brawn" falls apart if the battle is a battle of champions to prove who could win a protracted fight/war: the level 20 wizard vs. the level 20 fighter in a fight that is only allowed to use nonmagical weapons in nonmagical armor with no spellcasting allowed is not very likely to win (and also more likely to just magic his way out of even having it, no matter how "unfair"). But if the wizard played along and lost, did that really prove that the nation full of level 20 wizards would have lost against the nation full of level 20 fighters if they'd had real wars?

If the big muscle-bound orcs can trounce the clever goblins in physical fights but the goblins are winning the war through trickery and sabotage tactics, does having the wrestling match of champions really prove that the orcs would win every fight and thus the war?

Is even basing it on lack of deceit valid? Does that mean that a chess player who baits his opponent into foolish captures to enable him to gain better board position and win the game is playing unfairly, since he's using deception to fool his opponent into making poor tactical/strategic decisions?

"Fairness" is a vague concept that most, if not all, people have a vague grasp of, and they think they know it when they see it. And, yes, if you have previously agreed upon rules, "fair play" is easily defined. But are the rules themselves fair? That's very much a matter of perspective.

It seems to me that the closest we can get to a "Fair/Cheating" axis is actually "Lawful/Chaotic."

[Tanarii]

It seems to me that the closest we can get to a "Fair/Cheating" axis is actually "Lawful/Chaotic."

Maybe: Combat-as-Sport vs Combat-as-War?
order is deliberate for enhanced sarcasm.

[GreatWyrmGold]

How do you all change or replace Alignment to make morality useful in the game?

I don't, I just ignore it. And in 5e, I think that leaving out alignment would be the best solution, because 5e already has a good replacement for alignment—Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws. This fulfils what I see as alignment's primary useful role—defining who characters are—in a much less ambiguous form than alignment.

For instance, and bear with me for a moment, think of the Punisher. What alignment would he be? It would be hard to argue that he's Lawful Good, but you could make a decent argument for either Chaotic Good (he's vigilante-ing outside the rules of conventional superheroes) or Lawful Evil (he does evil acts, but he has a code he lives by). As a member of the Punisher-is-to-murderous-to-be-an-antihero club, I find the latter position more convincing, but there are people who would argue that since he only kills "evil" people he can qualify as Good.
But it's much less ambiguous to see what his Ideal, Bond, and Flaw would be—"No crime should go unpunished," "I love my family more than anything, even in death," and "No measure should be spared in pursuit of justice". You can argue about how I phrase or frame each of those, but the essence of the Punisher's character is clearly conveyed by them.

Of course, while this does a good job of defining who characters individually are, it doesn't do a great job of grouping characters together. (It's arguable how good a job alignment does at that, considering the strange bedfellows it often makes—Frank Castle wouldn't fit comfortably with either the Robin Hoods of CG or the machiavellian schemers of LE—but it does do it.) If you want that aspect of alignment, though, it's better to have a specific system for the specific conflict you want to write about rather than a monolithic alignment system that fits all conflicts equally poorly. Do you want a conflict between a tyrannical state and spunky freedom-fighters? Power versus Freedom. How about between an alliance of all the world's races versus a singularly powerful Big Bad? Collectivism versus self-interest. A shining beacon of purity against the unwashed savage hordes? Maybe pick a less problematically clichéd premise.

Anyways, I'm promoting the Trait/Ideal/Bond/Flaw system not because it's the best for every situation and need, or even because it's the best at what it does (the categories are a bit ambiguous and lack specificity), but because it does something useful for every story, no matter the plot, tone, or context. (Also, because everyone here should be at least vaguely familiar with it.)

[Satinavian]

It seems to me that the closest we can get to a "Fair/Cheating" axis is actually "Lawful/Chaotic."

Not really. Fair is also much about "everyone gets the same share", so egalitarism. Fair people would object to stratified societies and probably abhor slavery, no matter how structured and orderly it is. They would probably also like ideas that sound a bit like proto-communism. They would also not want to reward a protagonist of a Great Man story with special privileges and power. They don't like special privileges.

Also keep in mind that this ideal is only called "fairness", originally it is not paired up with "cheating". Fairness in the sense of "playing by the rules" might have more overlap with authority or loyalty unless you like the rules because they provide everyone with the equal opportunity.

[Segev]

Not really. Fair is also much about "everyone gets the same share", so egalitarism. Fair people would object to stratified societies and probably abhor slavery, no matter how structured and orderly it is. They would probably also like ideas that sound a bit like proto-communism. They would also not want to reward a protagonist of a Great Man story with special privileges and power. They don't like special privileges.

Also keep in mind that this ideal is only called "fairness", originally it is not paired up with "cheating". Fairness in the sense of "playing by the rules" might have more overlap with authority or loyalty unless you like the rules because they provide everyone with the equal opportunity.

To argue the opposite, and I feel the need to point out that I am not framing an argument about what is "fair," but making one as an example of why the notion of "fairness" is not as easily-agreed-upon as indicated in Satinavian's post, fair people believe that everyone should be rewarded fairly. If somebody works 80 hours a week to make his farm a success, and somebody else slacks off and puts in only a few hours a day and barely gets any crops or milk or anything produced because of it, the fair person would not believe that the two people should pool their farms' outputs and then split the results evenly. A fair person would not see somebody who invested money while scrimping and saving and living frugally standing next to somebody who spent every spare dime on lavish living and expensive vacations, and say, "It's fair to ensure that both of them have the same amount of money now." He would not say that the athlete who worked his whole life to make it to the olympics is being treated fairly when somebody who has been a couch potato is allowed into the same race, and allowed to start closer to the end of the hundred-meter dash so that both have comparable times.

A fair person would be drawn to ideas that promote rewards commensurate with effort/risk. He would see it as fair that the student who put hours into his project gets an A while the student who threw it together at the last minute gets a C, D, or F, and would not approve of a "group project" where all but one student push the work onto that one and make him do all of it, but all of them get the same grade.

In short: I can argue the exact opposite positions as the "fair" ones, and both of us sound convincing. This goes back to the question of "what is fair?"

To the guy getting an equal share of the final results, that seems fair, as long as he doesn't feel like he's getting less out of it than he put in. To the guy getting a bigger share of the final results, that feels fair, as long as he believes he put in more effort/work/quality to generate it. To the guy getting an equal share of the final results, it doesn't feel fair if he believes the others didn't contribute as much. To the guy getting a lesser share of the final results, it doesn't seem fair if he believes the others who got more just got lucky (or worse, somehow sabotaged his efforts or stole from him).

Once again, "fair" seems to be entirely subjective.

[Satinavian]

In short: I can argue the exact opposite positions as the "fair" ones, and both of us sound convincing. This goes back to the question of "what is fair?"

You could make those arguments and there is certainly no easy way to solve them as those exact arguments arise in the real world all the time.

But in that particular model, fairness is about egalitarism and equality, not about liberalism. There is not really much reason to argue about it.

The model does not say that those valueing fairness as it understands it are right. It is just a description of possible moral stances.


You maybe could argue that the word "fair" is not a good name for that because it might be misunderstood. But the remedy to that would be to call it something else, not to insist that some different mindset should be summed up under fair in the context of this model.


The people making that model tried to observe common principles in the morals of people and then put names to those they found. They did not first decide the names and then argued about the meaning.

[Quertus]

But it's much less ambiguous to see what his Ideal, Bond, and Flaw would be—"No crime should go unpunished," "I love my family more than anything, even in death," and "No measure should be spared in pursuit of justice". You can argue about how I phrase or frame each of those, but the essence of the Punisher's character is clearly conveyed by them.

I'm… not sure I understand what those are supposed to convey.

But let's try. Traits (rather foolishly, IMO) says to focus on your outlier attributes.

Traits: will respond to being drunk-dialed and invited to a party with, "sorry, I'm in the middle of research".
Ideal: Knowledge is Power.
Bond: Reality is worth preserving.
Flaw: Any who would preserve Reality are allies.

Traits: play boy.
Ideal: fun.
Bond: fun.
Flaw: It's not a "flaw" if you're having fun. No matter who gets hurt.

Traits: will respond to physical confrontations by trying to talk people down.
Ideal: Loyalty is the currency of the realm.
Bond: Blood is thicker than water.
Flaw: If you aren't one of us, you are expendable.

Traits: plucky (should be "hey! Over here! I've drawn a sword! Whatcha gonna do? Never mind the 5d chess board, whatcha gonna do about this obvious sword right here?")
Ideal: No one should suffer so.
Bond: It is not for land or wealth, but for the hearts and souls of men that we fight.
Flaw: Keeping secrets is a form of protection.

[Segev]

You could make those arguments and there is certainly no easy way to solve them as those exact arguments arise in the real world all the time.

But in that particular model, fairness is about egalitarism and equality, not about liberalism. There is not really much reason to argue about it.

The model does not say that those valueing fairness as it understands it are right. It is just a description of possible moral stances.


You maybe could argue that the word "fair" is not a good name for that because it might be misunderstood. But the remedy to that would be to call it something else, not to insist that some different mindset should be summed up under fair in the context of this model.


The people making that model tried to observe common principles in the morals of people and then put names to those they found. They did not first decide the names and then argued about the meaning.

This tells me "fair" is a bad thing to try to define an objective morality around. With "good" and "evil," even if there is a lot of real-world disagreement over specifics, the broad strokes tend to be held in common. We can see this by examining how people are convinced that what they believed was good was, in fact, not good, in cases where this happens: contradictions between the broad, instinctual feelings and the specific requirements of their belief structure's tennets cause them to recognize that the structural requirements can't be good because they lead to evil.

And people, again, tend to agree on those vague, broad notions of good and evil, even if we can't define them precisely in words. Most moral philosophical systems all sound equally good until you drill down to their nuances.

While we have a similar vague agreement on what is "fair," we also find ourselves unable to even agree on what that looks like. We have literal opposite philosophies on the definition of it. With "good and evil," we at least can all agree that something is more likely to be good if it leads to long-term happiness (ignoring all nuance and corner cases, just a very broad, vague, general statement). With "fairness," we can't even agree if fairness is an equality of outcome, equality of opportunity, risk/effort/reward-based outcomes, or even what constitutes "a fair challenge."

It's a useful word, but it isn't easily agreed-upon in even a broad sense, other than it's a good thing to be "fair."

It's a terrible concept on which to build an objective moral/ethical axis into your setting, because it will not be able to have even broad agreement from most people that it's represented well.

Contrast with the good/evil axis, wherein people have to dig for specific (and oft-agreed-to-be-badly-written) rules on SPECIFIC things that are good and evil to say, "this is clearly bunk and proves Good is not good." If you say "the good celestials" and "the evil fiends," you get a very similar idea of broad, general behaviors they'll exhibit. Kindness is (generally) good; cruelty is (almost always) evil. Generosity is a good impulse (even if there's argument over specific implementations). Selfishness is an evil impulse (even if argument can be made over the difference between selfishness and self-interest). Even if there is debate over value-weights, it is generally accepted that it is evil to cause harm to others who don't deserve it (again, with vagueness accepted over the concept of "deserving," and over what constitutes "causing" vs. "allowing" and all).

It's agreed, generally, that a boy scout helping a little old lady across the street is performing a good act, and a thief who knocks her down to steal her purse is performing an evil act. Sure, you can argue over specifics as to why, or under what contrived circumstances each of those might be acceptable or wicked, but presented as a broad example, just about everybody would agree on the morality of the two acts.

You can get a similar broad agreement regarding "fairness," but it takes a lot more specific assumed context. "Is it fair that Alice should win the contest vs. Bob?" is a question with no answer, because it requires all sorts of context. How you frame the question to include more specifics and exclude other context will shape a lot about what the instinctive, broad-strokes answers will be. In some cases, the valid question is, "Can this contest ever be made fair?" Is it possible to have a "fair" race between an Olympic sprinter and blade runner, without removing the physical differences between their legs entirely (maybe by making it a wheelchair race, or a motorcycle race, or a round of Mario Kart)? You could argue "yes" if you think that measuring the differences between their legs is a valid part of the race, just as measuring the differences between the Olympic runner's body and the couch potato's body is a fair race. You could answer "no" if you think there's no real way to have a fair race between the Olympic runner and the couch potato, as well, since their physical abilities are so different. It all comes down to what is "fair" in a contest, and until we nail it down to a specific, agreed-upon rule set (which, itself, might be deemed "unfair" if it favors one side too much over the other), we just can't give a concrete answer.

Hence why, if you're going to get it down to an objective ethical axis, "fair" more or less equates to our existing Lawful alignment in D&D. A fair fight, a fair contest, a fair outcome is one that results from the agreed-upon rules being followed. And even that is an unsatisfactory definition, since "the rules were unfair!" is something that might come up.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I'm… not sure I understand what those are supposed to convey.

And I'm not sure what you're trying to convey with your post.

But let's try.

Nor what you're trying. At first I thought you were trying to point out how you could make any character trait into any of the four categories (which, yes, but that's not really relevant to my point, nor is it 100% true, some of those are really stretching), but then I came across this:

Traits: plucky (should be "hey! Over here! I've drawn a sword! Whatcha gonna do? Never mind the 5d chess board, whatcha gonna do about this obvious sword right here?")
Ideal: No one should suffer so.
Bond: It is not for land or wealth, but for the hearts and souls of men that we fight.
Flaw: Keeping secrets is a form of protection.

and thought "Hey, this is the outline of an actual character." Obnoxious and secretive, but good-hearted and selfless.

Contrast with the good/evil axis, wherein people have to dig for specific (and oft-agreed-to-be-badly-written) rules on SPECIFIC things that are good and evil to say, "this is clearly bunk and proves Good is not good." If you say "the good celestials" and "the evil fiends," you get a very similar idea of broad, general behaviors they'll exhibit.

I'd argue that this is less because the good/evil axis is actually a better basis for an objective standard of morality, and more that attempts have been made to define good and evil as something that sounds like objective morality.

I'll agree that the resulting circular morality is sturdier than one built on as vague yet distinct a concept as "fairness". Fairness is unclear enough that you can make an argument for just about any direction, but clear enough that you can't really just argue that the allegedly fair thing is unfair.
I feel like this sounds like nonsense, so let me try a specific example. Snidely Whiplash wants to tear down the community orphanage. He could make two possible arguments:

• "It's good to tear down the orphanage." It's hard to see how he could follow up on this; "good" isn't well-defined enough for a complex argument, and most people understand that forcing orphans to live in the street is not that on a gut level.
• "It's fair to tear down the orphanage." It would be possible—even simple—to follow this up with an explanation of how the members of the community are forced to give up the sweat of their brow to support these orphans who do nothing except slowly grow up. Once this standard of fairness is established, you have to either bypass it ("It doesn't matter how fair it is, it's cartoonishly evil"), somehow explain how making people pay for something is "fair," or overturn the definition of fairness. This last one is tougher than it sounds—any attempt to focus on, say, the plight of the orphans and asking how it's fair for them can be branded as "avoiding the question".

TL;DR: It's easier to subvert a concept at the level of vagueness of "fair" than it is to subvert one a bit vaguer (like "good") or a bit more clear (...I can't think of any example that I think would actually make a good basis of morality, but some people have tried "obedience to X," and it's hard to twist that).

[Segev]

It's easier to subvert a concept at the level of vagueness of "fair" than it is to subvert one a bit vaguer (like "good") or a bit more clear (...I can't think of any example that I think would actually make a good basis of morality, but some people have tried "obedience to X," and it's hard to twist that).

I would argue that "good" is less vague than "fair," and that's precisely why it is something you can design something with agreement on the broad strokes around.

It isn't circular to use common ground for the basis of your definition.

[OldTrees1]

I would argue that "good" is less vague than "fair," and that's precisely why it is something you can design something with agreement on the broad strokes around.

It isn't circular to use common ground for the basis of your definition.

1) Is Good less vague than Fair? Yes and no, but in practice more yes than no.
Just like there are conflicting views on what fair is, there are conflicting views on what is good. Fair is less vague because the disagreement is about which fairness is being talked about (equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome as one example) rather than about which definitions are valid in the first place. On the other hand good is less vague because there is some common ground on the broad strokes (aka the easy questions).

2) Fairness is like Law/Order in that it has a split personality. Law/Order could easily be divided into Law (accepting authority) or Order (structured patterns). Segev, you did a decent job of demonstrating this on the fairness side.

3) That said, can we fix "fairness" to fit a single axis? Perhaps. What if we have the axis measure how much they care about "fairness" rather than a particular position on what is fair? People that ping strongly might not agree with one another, but they we agree that they all care deeply about the topic. People that anti-ping strongly would be seeking to gain advantages, to make it unfair in their favor.

[Kane0]

What i’m gathering over the course of this thread is that we cant use any existing moral concepts because we dont have an objective one to start with.
So we probably need to invent an objective morality that we can use for whatever game the morality system is inserted into.
Which ironically is something like how the alignment system is presented.

[Segev]

On the other hand good is less vague because there is some common ground on the broad strokes (aka the easy questions).

I think the best way to put my position, in reference to this framing, is that I say "good" is less vague because it has "the easy questions" to ask which require extensive nuance to twist up. Whereas "fair" has "easy questions" that require unspoken assumptions in order to hold, and require very little nuance to throw out of kilter. Though I'll allow/acknowledge that "amount of nuance" might, itself, be subjective.

[Morphic tide]

Personally, I just want Cosmic Alignment to not be prescriptive morality, but run into the problem of figuring out an alternative second axis that still pattern-matches to the Great Wheel cosmology. The nearest I've worked out is something I can't quite figure out fitting words for, both in terms of not ascribing moral valuation and in terms of fitting nicely with the Law/Chaos "feel": Selfishness vs. Altruism, where Lawful "Good" is about the society at large, Lawful "Evil" is about the interests of the ruler, Chaotic "Evil" is about pure self interest, and Chaotic "Good" is about doing whatever you can to help others.

This would involve a massive amount of reworking particulars (Mind Rape and other such pure domination being [Law]-tagged, for example, as the objectionable thing of it isn't about personal benefit but stripping of freedoms), but the broad structure would remain the same, and the general Protagonist and Antagonist categories are unchanged. But if your players have issues with hardened social structures, then Celestia's going to be pushing buttons hard with coming down with a bag of hammers on any of them trying for pure shameless freedom-fighting. No, you don't get to be a Paladin just tearing down Evil Empires, you have to have a hand in putting together a replacement authority structure that is an actual authority, and not in the de jure hands off modern sense, but in the sense where promotion of some manner of in-group is on the books law, even if it's a form of civic nationalism. Though usually it's going to be a theocracy for the Paladin's patron deity.

It also means that the temptress archetype can actually work because they're not bound to be sadistic rapists who are lying to your face and need to mind control the PC. Particularly with Erinyes being fallen angels, so they understand the Celestial-bothering Paladin mindset excellently and can give genuinely solid deals, usually only presenting the rather limited set that don't result in Falling, generally being to do with granting Law-associated things and working against Demons.