OOTS #1261 - The DIscussion Thread

[dancrilis]

There are no hard and fast rules on the alignment system.

DM: Everyone gets a level.
Player of CE Rogue who breaks into houses kills everyone sleeping inside before stealing the stuff: Hey I like my character/backstory etc but am kindof tired being the serial killer character, can I have an epiphany and become LG and take that level as a palatin?
DM: Eh ... yea you are an excellent player and I think you can pull this off, sure you can be Lawful Good now. Note I will be holding you to a high standard - I will be holding you to the code and expect serious remorse, restitution and all that stuff.

That is a perfectly fine rules wise interaction for a Player and DM - the DM could also say 'no'.

[brian 333]

This is insane.

I'm much better now.
I said there may be hypothetical Neutral acts which shift alignment toward Neutral, but in almost all other cases it requires actively Evil or actively Good acts to shift alignment on the G:E axis. Which part is insane? The fact that I could not find a good Neutral act to use as an example? In all my years of D&D it's just never come up.

Only inasmuch as you have changed since then. It's not everyday that you get an occasion to rescue a baby from a burning building.

This is how I see it.

Doing no Evil is not a Good act, and thus does not qualify for an alignment shift. One Evil act 20 years ago does define a character who has suffered no remorse, performed no penance, and made no restitution, (all of which are Good acts.)

Simply saving a baby does not necessarily qualify as a Good act if the only reason it was performed was to game the alignment system. On the other hand, there are multiple Good acts one can perform while imprisoned. Caring for a sick or injured cellmate, sharing gruel with a weaker prisoner, or defending fellow prisoners from abusive guards and prisoners are a start.

As Roy's Deva said, trying counts. If the very best you can do in your situation is a very small act, it counts as much as a philanthropist's funding of a hospital. More, perhaps, depending on how much risk was involved and how much effort was put forth.

But to shift either way on the alignment chart, acts must be performed which have Good, Evil, Chaotic, or Lawful aspects. Breathing only counts if your character stops doing it so another character can survive.

[Jason]

There are no hard and fast rules on the alignment system.

Well there used to be at least a few:

Change of alignment will have an adverse effect on any class of character if he or she is above the 2nd level.
Immediately upon alignment change actually occurring, the character concerned will lose one level of experience, dropping experience points to take him or her to the very beginning of the next lower level, losing the hit die and/or hit points, and all abilities which accrued to him or her with the lost level. If the alignment change is involuntary (such as that caused by a powerful magic, a curse, etc.), then the character can regain all of the losses (level, hit die, etc.) upon returning to his or her former alignment as soon as is possible and after making atonement through a cleric of the same alignment — and sacrificing treasure which has a value of not less than 10,000 g.p. per level of experience of the character...

...A glance at the alignment chart will show that radical alignment change is impossible without magical means. If one is chaotic good, it is possible to change to neutral good or chaotic neutral only, depending upon desire and/or actions. From the absolute neutral alignment one can only move to some neutral-based alignment. This represents the fact that the character must divorce himself or herself from certain precepts and views and wholeheartedly embrace another set of values, and human nature is such that without radical personality alteration (such as caused by insanity or magic in the case of this game) such transition must be gradual.

Yep, if you're first level you can change alignment at will (within class restrictions - paladins who aren't lawful good anymore are no longer paladins). After that you loose a level, even if it's from a magical effect. It's also expensive to come back.
And no switching directly from CE to LG unless it's magic or your character is insane!

[Fyraltari]

I'm much better now.
I said there may be hypothetical Neutral acts which shift alignment toward Neutral, but in almost all other cases it requires actively Evil or actively Good acts to shift alignment on the G:E axis. Which part is insane? The fact that I could not find a good Neutral act to use as an example? In all my years of D&D it's just never come up.

No, I mean, anyone who would do something because it is the wrong thing to do, because things are "too good"* is completely detached from normal human thinking.

*Itself a contradiction in terms.

[Ruck]

No, I mean, anyone who would do something because it is the wrong thing to do, because things are "too good"* is completely detached from normal human thinking.

*Itself a contradiction in terms.

The idea of the Neutral Druid who sometimes does Good and sometimes Evil "to keep the balance" is pretty nutty, I agree, but apparently it is a thing in D&D?

[Fyraltari]

The idea of the Neutral Druid who sometimes does Good and sometimes Evil "to keep the balance" is pretty nutty, I agree, but apparently it is a thing in D&D?

That's not an argument in favour of the hypothetical, that's an argument in defavor of D&D and its alignment system.

[dancrilis]

Well there used to be at least a few:



Yep, if you're first level you can change alignment at will (within class restrictions - paladins who aren't lawful good anymore are no longer paladins). After that you loose a level, even if it's from a magical effect. It's also expensive to come back.
And no switching directly from CE to LG unless it's magic or your character is insane!

Interesting, and also interesting that they seem to have scrapped this for DnD 3 and more recent (unless I have missed something).

They do have the following on changing alignment:

Note: Normally, changing alignment is up to the player. This use of atonement simply offers a believable way for a character to change his or her alignment drastically, suddenly, and definitively.

So if you want a believable way for your until this afternoon serial killer to become a paladin - you can perhaps find a cleric and pay for it (or buy a scroll), if you have a different method to change alignment believably that is drastically, suddenly, and definitively go with that, and if you don't care about the believable element you can change alignment as you like whenever you like.

I suspect most DMs would be more stringent then that but that is a choice.

No, I mean, anyone who would do something because it is the wrong thing to do, because things are "too good"* is completely detached from normal human thinking.

*Itself a contradiction in terms.

DnD universes somewhat exist in balance between cosmic forces (subject to story DM etc) - there are stories of Good trying to 'win' at times and they don't work out well (the Lathander's shenanigans spring to mind).

If a Druid helps evil creatures survive a forest fire it is likely that the druid and the evil creatures are on good terms with one another - even if they are not and the Druid is saving evil creatures solely because they are evil (and therefore leaving Good creatures to die) well this might be because the evil creatures are the reason that civilisation has not encroached onto the forest and turned it into farmland, if the evil creatures die then the forest itself might die shortly afterwards.

[Ruck]

That's not an argument in favour of the hypothetical, that's an argument in defavor of D&D and its alignment system.

Well, I'm not saying it's a sound idea or philosophy, just that it is one that already exists, apparently.

[Fyraltari]

DnD universes somewhat exist in balance between cosmic forces (subject to story DM etc) - there are stories of Good trying to 'win' at times and they don't work out well (the Lathander's shenanigans spring to mind).

This speaks to either a botched job on the part of the forces of Goodness or (I suspect from previous discussions on the subject) a fundamental misunderstanding of what "good" and "evil" means. Evil, defitionnally, is that which ought not to be. Evil actions are those that should not be committed, evil indivuduals (so far as that classification makes sense) are those who behave in ways they shouldn't and they should stop being evil.

Good and evil can only be balanced in the sense that the metaphysical forces embodying them (a dubious concept in itself, but whatever) are evenly matched. It should go without saying that the universe becoming a better place would be a good thing.

If a Druid helps evil creatures survive a forest fire it is likely that the druid and the evil creatures are on good terms with one another - even if they are not and the Druid is saving evil creatures solely because they are evil (and therefore leaving Good creatures to die) well this might be because the evil creatures are the reason that civilisation has not encroached onto the forest and turned it into farmland, if the evil creatures die then the forest itself might die shortly afterwards.

But then the Druid isn't acting to preserve "the Balance" or to "be Neutral", the Druid has made an assesment of the situation and chosen the greater good (or lesser evil, depending on your point of view). The Druid is trying to do good. The notion that saving "evil creatures" is an evil act in itself sounds dangerousely Miko-ish.

[Larsaan]

This speaks to either a botched job on the part of the forces of Goodness or (I suspect from previous discussions on the subject) a fundamental misunderstanding of what "good" and "evil" means. Evil, defitionnally, is that which ought not to be. Evil actions are those that should not be committed, evil indivuduals (so far as that classification makes sense) are those who behave in ways they shouldn't and they should stop being evil.

That's not a misunderstanding, that's just you and the writers having different philosophies. Evil in D&D is cruelty and malice and selfishness and greed, but it is not inherently damaging to the setting itself. This isn't the Silmarillion, where Evil is an intrusive presence that wasn't part of the original plan, these are worlds where Evil was around from the start and had just as big a part in their creation as Good.

It should go without saying that the universe becoming a better place would be a good thing.

From the perspective of Good and a lot of Neutral people, sure. Evil would probably have something to say about it, though.

[Fyraltari]

That's not a misunderstanding, that's just you and the writers having different philosophies. Evil in D&D is cruelty and malice and selfishness and greed, but it is not inherently damaging to the setting itself. This isn't the Silmarillion, where Evil is an intrusive presence that wasn't part of the original plan, these are worlds where Evil was around from the start and had just as big a part in their creation as Good.

What in in anything I have written makes you think I care about plans or creations?

Also, no this isn't a question of philosophy, this is a question of semantics. Philosophy would be disagreeing on what actions do and do not qualify as evil.

If something is needed, it isn't evil. Evil is (knowingly) making the wrong choice.

From the perspective of Good and a lot of Neutral people, sure. Evil would probably have something to say about it, though.

Err, no? The world becoming better would be good because that what better means, "more good", that's not a question of perspective. If your position is that the world becoming better isn't good, then you're using the word good wrongly.

[dancrilis]

Err, no? The world becoming better would be good because that what better means, "more good", that's not a question of perspective. If your position is that the world becoming better isn't good, then you're using the word good wrongly.

Better isn't really a moral stance - 'this is a better table then that' does not imply any morality to the timber, in fact the better table may be made out of wood soaked in concentracted evil and still be a better a table.

A world where evil has been vanquished is not better for evil - it may not be better for Neutral (who may have had work with Evil) and it may not even be better for Good (who may have relied on Evil to act as a force to oppose).

[brian 333]

For what it's worth, 'concentracted' is my new word. I will find three opportunities to use it today.

I understand what Fyraltari is saying, and from a human perspective I agree. The trouble with many gamers and their interaction with the alignment system is that it always was a construct based on the human perspective.

Orcs aren't evil because they are warlike and incapable of love, they are evil because they are in opposition to what humans need. Farmers have cattle stolen, so orcs are evil. But orcs steal cattle because farmers have driven away their natural prey. If the alignment system had been constructed from the orc PoV, humans would be the evil ones.

When you rewrite the MM as pro-human and anti-human, the alignment system makes a lot more sense. But then D&D went and attached a metaphysical energy source to Evil and chaos ensued.

Fyraltari's point is valid, but it excludes the possibility that not-human species may have other drives that insure their survival but which, if copied by humans, would lead to misery. Some such stories include concepts such as, 'what if everyone is a vampire and non-vampires go extinct?'

(Black Destroyer by AE van Voght)

[Fyraltari]

Better isn't really a moral stance - 'this is a better table then that' does not imply any morality to the timber, in fact the better table may be made out of wood soaked in consentracted evil and still be a better a table.

A world where evil has been vanquished is not better for evil - it may not be better for Neutral (who may have had work with Evil) and it may not even be better for Good (who may have relied on Evil to act as a force to oppose).

I'm sorry but:

"Good isn't really a moral stance - 'this is a good table' does not imply any morality to the timber, in fact the good table may be made out of wood soaked in consentracted evil and still be a good table.

A world where evil has been vanquished is not good for evil - it may not be good for Neutral (who may have had work with Evil) and it may not even be good for Good (who may have relied on Evil to act as a force to oppose)."

Do you see why I have a hard time accepting this argument? "Better" is just the comparative form of the adjective good.

Of course the word good doesn't always refer to morality, but when people talk of alignment or cosmic good, they're not talking about skilled craftsmanship. It's all in the context.

The fact remains that evil is that which shouldn't happen. If the victory of good over evil is bad, then it wasn't actually good that won, it was something else.

It also doesn't make sense to talk about something being good "for Good/Neutral/Evil", those aren't people, they're concepts you cannot harm them anymore than you can harm yellow.

The point, anyway, was that no-one acts "for evil" or "for the balance between good and evil", people acts for what they believe to be good, for the world if teleologists*, in the moment if deontologists*, or for themselves if selfish (which would fall under the second view as if they think about it, they'll rationalize it as something they "deserve" meaning that it is morally right ("good") for them to enjoy).

They might be arguably, or even factually wrong, but the notion that someone would purposefully carry out evil because the world isn't bad enough speaks to an utterly alien mindset.

*I'm using those terms loosely, here.

[Larsaan]

When you rewrite the MM as pro-human and anti-human, the alignment system makes a lot more sense.

Eeh, that's not necessarily the case. Plenty of critters that are nothing but a danger to humans are still statted as Neutral. Orcs are labelled as "often Chaotic Evil" because of their brutal and cruel behaviour not just towards other races, but also each other.

That said, there is often a correlation between humans being unable to establish diplomatic relations with someone and them being Evil, yes.

[danielxcutter]

Honestly racial alignment sucks and needs to burn in a dumpster fire.

[Empiar93]

I have no stake in this argument, but alignment was better when it was just Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Introducing the words Good and Evil just invited people to inject subjectivity into an “objective” system. And then everyone gets surprised that the system sucks.

[hamishspence]

Law and Chaos are, if anything, even more full of "subjectivity".

[Jason]

The idea of the Neutral Druid who sometimes does Good and sometimes Evil "to keep the balance" is pretty nutty, I agree, but apparently it is a thing in D&D?

Yes, basically.

Absolute, or true, neutral creatures view everything which exists as an integral part or function of the entire cosmos. Each thing exists as a part of the whole, one as a check or balance to the other, with life necessary for death, happiness for suffering, good for evil, order for chaos, and vice versa. Nothing must ever become predominant or out of balance. Within this naturalistic ethos, humankind serves a role also, just as all other creatures do. They may be more or less important, but the neutral does not concern himself or herself with these considerations except where it is positively determined that the balance is threatened. Absolute neutrality is in the central or fulcrum position quite logically, as the neutral sees all other alignments as parts of a necessary whole. This alignment is the narrowest in scope.

Basically, the true neutral acts to maintain the status quo, and prevent any of the other alignments from winning too much.

This isn't the Silmarillion, where Evil is an intrusive presence that wasn't part of the original plan, these are worlds where Evil was around from the start and had just as big a part in their creation as Good.

And that, in a nutshell, is the whole problem with Stickworld. It is precisely because the Good gods who actually care about their creations and want them to be happy are outnumbered by the Neutral and Evil gods who have an equal vote in creation and everything that came after it. That is why we have deals like all the dwarves who die dishonorably going to Hel, the goblins being abandoned completely by their creator, and the majority of the gods being willing to allow the cycle of "create a world, let it run for a thousand years until the Snarl wakes up, destroy the world, wash, rinse, repeat," to continue into eternity rather than doing something to end it, as Thor wishes to do.

The trouble with many gamers and their interaction with the alignment system is that it always was a construct based on the human perspective.

Orcs aren't evil because they are warlike and incapable of love, they are evil because they are in opposition to what humans need.

Actually that's not the case. There is no in-universe author of the Monster Manual who decided that orcs should be classified as evil because orcs once raided his village. What is in the game manuals is an accurate description of how the D&D universe works, at least until a DM changes it for his or her campaign.

Orcs are evil because they are "bullies", they practice slavery, and "Orcs are cruel and hate living things in general". This isn't someone's in-universe perspective, it's an accurate description of how orcs behave (unless a DM decides otherwise).

The goblins in the original Monster Manual don't live in caves and wastelands even though they would really rather have the lands occupied by the humans and other races. No, they really do "enjoy dwelling in dismal surroundings, although they tend to inhabit caves and similar underground places in preference to any habitation above ground." And they are evil in part because "All goblins are slave takers and fond of torture."

The Giant has decided that his goblins really are "just green people" and deserve to be treated with respect because they are not all automatically (or necessarily) evil. That can certainly be the case in Stickworld, as it's his world. It's not how all D&D worlds work, however, and it's certainly not how it worked in earlier editions.

There has been a movement in D&D away from alignment as it was first set up in the AD&D game products. In the 5th edition alignment is mostly an artifact of the system, like having attributes that range from 3-18, and doesn't really matter much. The 5E Ravenloft book didn't even include alignment entries for its monsters.
I like the Oldschool stuff, but it's mostly a matter of personal taste, not really "the right or wrong way to play".

[dancrilis]

For what it's worth, 'concentracted' is my new word.

My spelling and grammer do leave a lot to be desired - hopefully not enough to detract from points being made normally (even if people don't agree with any particular point).

The point, anyway, was that no-one acts "for evil" or "for the balance between good and evil", people acts for what they believe to be good, for the world if teleologists*, in the moment if deontologists*, or for themselves if selfish (which would fall under the second view as if they think about it, they'll rationalize it as something they "deserve" meaning that it is morally right ("good") for them to enjoy).

They might be arguably, or even factually wrong, but the notion that someone would purposefully carry out evil because the world isn't bad enough speaks to an utterly alien mindset.

This may be the point of contention - there are people in DnD who do evil and fully know that it is evil (Xykon and Belkar as immediate examples, the IFCC might be another), but there are also people who devote themselve to Evil, there are clerics of a cause with the Evil domain and they effectively worship the concept of evil in its pure form and get magic powers from it.

Or to take the neutral evil reading from the srd:

Some neutral evil villains hold up evil as an ideal, committing evil for its own sake. Most often, such villains are devoted to evil deities or secret societies.

And those some of these people may in fact need to exist from a cosmic prespective and occassionally need to win - and it is likely that at some point some DM somewhere has ran that very campaign.

[bunsen_h]

Belkar's stopped digging, but I am unconvinced he's actually started to climb out of his hole.

I can imagine his post-mortem review. "For the most part, your actions and intentions over your life would send you straight to the CE file, do not pass 'Go', do not collect 200gp. But there are a few items of concern here, late in the game..."

Inaction can be seen as the same as taking multiple Neutral-aligned actions, pulling a character towards the center of the alignment graph along either of the good/evil or chaotic/lawful axes.

"All that is necessary for Evil to triumph is for Good people to do nothing."

Doing no Evil is not a Good act, and thus does not qualify for an alignment shift. One Evil act 20 years ago does define a character who has suffered no remorse, performed no penance, and made no restitution, (all of which are Good acts.)

I think that a crucial factor is that of choice. Is the person choosing inaction over action, when the person is aware that action is possible and would be beneficial? EDIT: "Yeah, I could try to do something to make up for what I did, but I can't be bothered" vs. "I wish I could do something to make up for what I did, but anything I can think of would just make things worse" vs. not thinking about the matter at all.

Orcs aren't evil because they are warlike and incapable of love, they are evil because they are in opposition to what humans need. Farmers have cattle stolen, so orcs are evil. But orcs steal cattle because farmers have driven away their natural prey. If the alignment system had been constructed from the orc PoV, humans would be the evil ones.

My understanding is that Good and Evil, in the D&D cosmic sense, come down to what categories of beings one is well-disposed to and willing to help, possibly at one's own expense, vs. inflicting harm to. If one is well-intentioned only to one's closest in-group -- one's own family, one's own tribe -- and willing to cause harm to others, that's a sign of Evil. If one tries to benefit others indiscriminately, that's a sign of Good.

[Thermophille]

I think that a crucial factor is that of choice. Is the person choosing inaction over action, when the person is aware that action is possible and would be beneficial?

I'd argue that an attempt to do good is more important to one's alingment than to the actual action; if you kill a demon out of self-centered revenge, despite killing demons generally being a good act, the fact that you didn't really care about how it affected others makes the action quite neutral.

Whereas an attempt, even a useless one, to make up for past mistakes means a lot more than incidental good done by selfish action (such as how money-seeking behavior from companies benefits peoples daily lives).

[dancrilis]

I'd argue that an attempt to do good is more important to one's alingment than to the actual action

I disagree.

If Bob thinks they are lawful good but also seeks to do as much harm as possible and therefore engages in the following
- pull drowning children from a river - to burden their parents with their upkeep.
- allows there house to be used as a shelter in the winter for orphans - so that they grew up to be a problem for society instead of dying.
- pays/provides education of the poor - so that they can see how badly off they have it and hopefully seek vengence.
etc

Then Bob is likely flying past Roy's Deva without any issue - there are no blips on the alignment chart.

Similiarly if Mary cuts down an evil creature because they think it is the right thing to do - but the creature was defenceless, not posing a threat to anyone at the time and had given no indication that it was actually evil, well Mary might have some very serious questions to answer.

[Thermophille]

If Bob thinks they are lawful good but also seeks to do as much harm as possible and therefore engages in the following
- pull drowning children from a river - to burden their parents with their upkeep.
- allows there house to be used as a shelter in the winter for orphans - so that they grew up to be a problem for society instead of dying.
- pays/provides education of the poor - so that they can see how badly off they have it and hopefully seek vengence.
etc

Bob sounds like a very confused evil person to me, as per my original point. Are you arguing that bob is actually good?

[Jason]

I'd argue that an attempt to do good is more important to one's alingment than to the actual action; if you kill a demon out of self-centered revenge, despite killing demons generally being a good act, the fact that you didn't really care about how it affected others makes the action quite neutral.

Whereas an attempt, even a useless one, to make up for past mistakes means a lot more than incidental good done by selfish action (such as how money-seeking behavior from companies benefits peoples daily lives).

I agree. Motivations matter. Roy's deva clearly believes that too.
I would put in that there are some companies that honestly want to benefit daily lives and seek money at the same time, and there's nothing wrong with that. Win-win!

"All that is necessary for Evil to triumph is for Good people to do nothing."

And the converse is also true.

[KorvinStarmast]

The idea of the Neutral Druid who sometimes does Good and sometimes Evil "to keep the balance" is pretty nutty, I agree, but apparently it is a thing in D&D?

Druids as neutral only made sense in the Law/Neutral/Chaos set up. The True N on the Two Axis system was an odd hill for Gygax to die on. IIRC, it was either in the Strat Review article or an Early Dragon article that Gygax laid out a five alignment system:
Lawful Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Evil, Chaotic Evil, and Neutral. In that system, druids as neutral made sense if we understand what he implied with Law versus Chaos as existential systems of order versus disorder, civilization versus wilderness, and so on for a campaign.

But things got out of hand and we now have alignment discussions that don't go anywhere but around in circles ... or so it seems.

[Larsaan]

But things got out of hand and we now have alignment discussions that don't go anywhere but around in circles ... or so it seems.

Just the way the druids like it.

[Dame_Mechanus]

Just the way the druids like it.

The druids only like it if you're planting a tree or caring for an animal in the process.

Fortunately my two small idiot cats get me in good with the Druid Consortium.

[Jason]

Druids as neutral only made sense in the Law/Neutral/Chaos set up. The True N on the Two Axis system was an odd hill for Gygax to die on. IIRC, it was either in the Strat Review article or an Early Dragon article that Gygax laid out a five alignment system:
Lawful Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Evil, Chaotic Evil, and Neutral.

It was a Strategic Review - Volume 2 #1, the penultimate issue of Strategic Review in February of '76. Dragon Magazine didn't come along until June of '76.
The Strategic Review article has an alignment graph in it too, but it's just a square divided in four quadrants with another smaller square for Neutral in the middle.

Fun fact: The AD&D Monster Manual from 1977 only has those five alignments in it. There are no Neutral Good, Neutral Evil, Chaotic Neutral, or Lawful Neutral monsters in the book. The full nine-alignment system didn't debut until the Players Handbook was released the next year, 1978.

[Thermophille]

Fortunately my two small idiot cats get me in good with the Druid Consortium.

Unless the druid in question is Poison Ivy.