Alignment: Fall 2022

[Witty Username]

That is another one to add to my list:
Lawful and Trustworthy
And it's cousin
Chaotic and Untrustworthy
Adhering to established societies and and believing in ordered groups over individuals has little to do with the honesty of the character. People saying and repeating lies to maintain the status quo as well as creating grand deceptions to establish societal order.

Take that trope in detective media where the police or detective lies to a suspect to deceive them into incriminating themselves. Most would describe these as Lawful characters, but being untrustworthy is arguably fundamental to their character at times. See also characters from spy movie and superhero media.

[KorvinStarmast]

That is another one to add to my list:
Lawful and Trustworthy
And it's cousin
Chaotic and Untrustworthy

Works well in some games and at some tables.

[Witty Username]

Works well in some games and at some tables.

I want to unpack a bit further, to make sure I am understood.

I find a lot of traits get used in alignment that aren't actually associated with the alignment but feel intuitive.
Say Lawful Good and anti-vice (gambling, drinking, etc.)
I personally get fascinated by this design space because it will cause characters to feel strange but not in a way that actually conflicts with their alignment.

Take for example a Lawful Good untrustworthy person, they can benefit society and benefit other people, but it feels weird, to the point where things like Lawful Good Thief were restricted in D&D in the beginning.

Also, insert moral quandary here, such as lying/concealing information to avoid panic or not to allow others to make informed decisions, that doesn't actually have a correct answer corresponding to the alignment system which is freeing on the DM and blood boiling for players when using DM adjudicated alignments.

[KorvinStarmast]

Also, insert moral quandary here,

I you want to impress me, lay a moral quandry on a Neutral Evil or Lawful Evil player. Playing Gotcha DM with LG players is lame to the tenth power.

[Witty Username]

I you want to impress me, lay a moral quandry on a Neutral Evil or Lawful Evil player. Playing Gotcha DM with LG players is lame to the tenth power.

I don't like playing gotcha DM at all, personally, hence the value of stuff that doesn't interact with alignment systems, at least when I played 3.5. As of 5e, I tend to just leave it to the players to figure it out.

As for the Evil alignments, the simplest one is put altruism between them and getting paid. Or a situation where pushing their own agenda would cause them to lose something else (like face, safety or stuff). Do you shakedown the person the party just rescued for a reward, or let it go for the moment to see if you can get it without damaging your appearances?

[Tanarii]

As for the Evil alignments, the simplest one is put altruism between them and getting paid.

One of the problems is most people think that Evil activities have more 'points' towards being Evil Alignment than Good ones towards being Good Alignment. So it's hard to put moral quandaries on Evil Alignment folks. They can do lots of Good stuff and just a few big ticket Evil things, and be considered Good characters by folks that think this way. Its often part and parcel of action-carries-Alignment systems, especially ones where actions have literally posts for tracking it. But more generally, it's Fall-From-Grace Alignment.

This doesn't apply when Alignment is overall but not constantly required typical behavior, with defined different typical behaviors for each type of Alignment. Especially when it's motivational instead of descriptive.

[gbaji]

I you want to impress me, lay a moral quandry on a Neutral Evil or Lawful Evil player. Playing Gotcha DM with LG players is lame to the tenth power.

Tanarii's response touches on this well. There is a tendency in many game systems to treat "good" as something that is difficult to achieve, difficult to maintain, and easy to lose, while "evil" is the fallback case if you "fail to be good". So yeah, it's trickier to create quandaries for evil alignments, but we might also ask "is that how things should be"? More to the point, in the D&D alignment grid, it's presented as though this is all a balanced scale, yet in actual game practices, it's not. Evil characters can pretty much do all the "good" things they want, but as long as they also do evil things, they are evil. That's clearly not the same for good characters though, is it?

If we were really going to present this graphically, it should not be a square representing a couple of axis, but a well with evil at the bottom and good at the top, where the natural inclination is to pull the character to the bottom, and some sort of gravitational force that requires far more effort to "cliimb" upwards to good, but merely slipping up on doing "ok" things can cause you to fall a bit. And yeah, I suppose we could give it some breadth by putting law and chaos off to each side. Don't get me wrong, that's a perfectly valid way of looking at alignments, but again, it's *not* how D&D presents things.

It should be though, based on the descriptions of how alignment should be played in game. So yeah, in that model, "evil" never runs into a quandary. They just "are". If we were actually using a balanced scale, then yes, GMs should be penalizing characters with "evil" on their sheet if they aren't consistently doing things that are "evil". Merely traveling with a mostly good aligned group helping villagers with Orc raids, stopping bandits, hunting down the evil necromancer, etc, should cause them to slip their alignment towards good. The GM would (arguably) require that the player attempt to thwart the PC party's activities, or at the very least, should be attempting to manipulate every act of "good" in some way that benefits themselves or their own "evil plan". If good characters can lose their alignment by doing evil acts, then evil characters should lose their alignment for doing good acts. Period.

So yeah. There should be equal quandaries for evil aligned characters. The fact that there rarely are, or they are minor at best, is a problem.

[MoiMagnus]

I you want to impress me, lay a moral quandry on a Neutral Evil or Lawful Evil player. Playing Gotcha DM with LG players is lame to the tenth power.

The usual moral quandry for Evil peoples is the "leap of faith".

One basic staple of fiction (and arguably real world too) is that doing good deeds and being part of "the good guys" is actually beneficial to you... as long as you don't get backstabbed by peoples you though were good guys.

So in the same way that moral challenge for good peoples have inherently a possibility for falling to evil, moral challenge for evil peoples have inherently a possibility for starting a path to redemption.

[OldTrees1]

I you want to impress me, lay a moral quandry on a Neutral Evil or Lawful Evil player. Playing Gotcha DM with LG players is lame to the tenth power.

Disclaimer/Agreement: Gotcha DMs can go away.


A good moral quandary requires knowledge about the character.

Type 1:
Consider the Evil character that, incorrectly, believes they are doing the right thing. Next consider a moral quandary that has them choose between how much they risk the limited good they are doing vs how much they risk someone they care about.

Evil character: I am doing this for the greater good. I needed to bring order to to cease the petty wars. My iron fist is a necessary evil to herald peace. I am doing this so my family can live in a peaceful world.

Quandary: You have a BBEG rival that also seeks world conquest but they do not desire peace (war is fun/profitable maybe). The rival double booked a coup and a death threat against your family on the same day. You have resources that can fan out to multiple places. How much do you send to your 2 houses and how many to the 2 government centers?

What? A moral quandary for an evil character is not about "which good to avoid?", it is still about "which evil to avoid?".

Type 2:
The Evil character has their own moral beliefs. They might be incorrect, but they do have them. Momentarily assume those beliefs are correct and write a quandary based on them.

Evil has no "quandary" about "falling" to what is actually moral. They have a quandary about avoiding what they consider immoral. When those are the same thing, then they will worry about it.

The usual moral quandry for Evil peoples is the "leap of faith".

One basic staple of fiction (and arguably real world too) is that doing good deeds and being part of "the good guys" is actually beneficial to you... as long as you don't get backstabbed by peoples you though were good guys.

So in the same way that moral challenge for good peoples have inherently a possibility for falling to evil, moral challenge for evil peoples have inherently a possibility for starting a path to redemption.

I recognize that staple of fiction. I have an Illithid getting free meals while riding with a crew that is trying to save the universe.

Does this really count as a moral challenge though? Unless the character has a completely inverted moral compass with respect to the challenge (Altruism is evil because it is self destructive), then they have no challenge when presented with a tempting opportunity to do good.

[gbaji]

Evil has no "quandary" about "falling" to what is actually moral. They have a quandary about avoiding what they consider immoral. When those are the same thing, then they will worry about it.

Except I think that's exactly the "problem" that the question was designed to highlight (perhaps unintentionally, but there you have it). An evil character (in most alignment systems, and certainly in D&D) does not face any in-game consequences for not being "correctly/sufficiently evil". It's more or less impossible to "fall to goodness" for characters with an evil alignment in the way that good characters can fall and lose their alignment in the opposite direction.

Absent that potential punishment for failure to play their alignment, there really is no quandary (outside of pure RP). I suppose they have to deal with concealing their nature from the other PCs, but again, that puts it into the RP category. There's no real threat of a game mechanic coming down on them from on high if they don't play their character correctly. I suppose we could also argue that D&D's afterlife rules offer punishments for evil characters and rewards for good, but then that strongly suggests that players are *supposed* to be trying to be playing good characters, and that being evil is "wrong", and a "failure" in some way.

So the "quandary" case isn't scaled evenly, it's purely directional. Which, I suppose, is yet another aspect of alignment that limits roleplaying. It's *easier* to roleplay the character you want to play the farther you get away from the "good" side of the spectrum. Um... which ought to be a problem, right?

[OldTrees1]

Except I think that's exactly the "problem" that the question was designed to highlight (perhaps unintentionally, but there you have it). An evil character (in most alignment systems, and certainly in D&D) does not face any in-game consequences for not being "correctly/sufficiently evil". It's more or less impossible to "fall to goodness" for characters with an evil alignment in the way that good characters can fall and lose their alignment in the opposite direction.

Absent that potential punishment for failure to play their alignment, there really is no quandary (outside of pure RP). I suppose they have to deal with concealing their nature from the other PCs, but again, that puts it into the RP category. There's no real threat of a game mechanic coming down on them from on high if they don't play their character correctly. I suppose we could also argue that D&D's afterlife rules offer punishments for evil characters and rewards for good, but then that strongly suggests that players are *supposed* to be trying to be playing good characters, and that being evil is "wrong", and a "failure" in some way.

I see no reason to avoid symmetrical treatment here. The GM controls how NPCs respond to the PC's behavior. I think it makes sense for the Player to drive any mechanical consequences. Where the two areas overlap, the GM and Player can/should work together.

Consider a cleric is falling out of favor with their deity. The GM might start mentioning the changing opinion of the fellow clerics. The GM and Player might discuss the cleric & deity's relationship and what that drift might mean. The GM might ask the player, "if your cleric falls out of favor with Bane, are there mechanical effects that make sense?". Maybe the cleric becomes a heretical cleric powered by the blissful belief/conviction that they are still doing Bane's work. Maybe the cleric reconsiders their philosophy and seeks out another patron. Maybe the Player even suggests temporarily losing/hindering their divine magic during this time of turmoil. This is the model I apply to Paladins of all alignments (although they are a bit less likely to have deity patrons).

So the "quandary" case isn't scaled evenly, it's purely directional. Which, I suppose, is yet another aspect of alignment that limits roleplaying. It's *easier* to roleplay the character you want to play the farther you get away from the "good" side of the spectrum. Um... which ought to be a problem, right?

Given my above response, I would say the quandary is scaled evenly but is still mostly directional. (Sidenote: Although the further from good you go the more likely the character has a skewed moral compass and thus can face things they perceive as quandaries that are not quandaries to an accurate compass).

Is it easier to roleplay the character you want the father you get from moral? No, or at least not in general. Either there is some moral characterization you want the character to have, or you don't care about their good/evil alignment. Either way I don't see being evil as easier to play your character.

[HumanFighter]

I agree that Paladins should always be Lawful Good. That's the one drawback of the class. They have to be Lawful and Good, otherwise they lose their powers, cuz Paladin is an Overpowered Class, compared to others. Still, in my games, I ignore alignment almost entirely. Instead i use a "morality" meter which is 0-100, the higher the good, the lower the evil. Paladins have to be 70 or higher on the scale otherwise they are disqualified from the class. Morality shifts aren't common in the game, but I appreciate them being there. Now if ur planning on playing a complete Psychopath character who tortures and murders and rapes thru the universe (i'm looking at you, anonymous person A), there's no point in having the morality meter at all, but no system for gaming is perfect.
And it's hard to even use a morality meter such as this, cuz who decides what is good or bad? Sure, u murdered a drug dealer outside of the law, but he was selling to kids, so should u rly lose morality score for that? There's gotta be room for nuance here, and i just dont think an alignment system or morality meter system is appropriate for some campaigns.

[Mordante]

I believe that alignment is at worst actively harmful in one of several ways and at best completely useless. Either it's specific enough to be a straight-jacket or it's too vague to be helpful. I've yet to see any sort of useful middle ground and if people want a two word description of their character's behavior, I'd prefer if that just came up with them themselves. I suppose it's useful for effects that target specific groups (no Smite Evil if there's no Evil, etc.).

(I also find the idea of objective morality inherently absurd, but that's admittedly a subjective opinion that doesn't influence the game one way or the other).

Heh. This is very true.

I agree with you fully. That is why spells like detect evil and similar spells are bad design. I don't think anyone ever uses detect alignment. You are fully correct that there is no such thing as objective morality.

I use the alignment system more as a character concept idea, what kind of character do I want to play? But sometimes I don't write down an exact alignment, but more of a description.

I think World of Darkness did it better with nature and demeanor of a character.

[Batcathat]

My position is "It can work." Your position is, roughly, "It does not work." That it does work for some people invalidates your position; that it doesn't work for others doesn't invalidate mine.

Fair enough. It can clearly work for some people ("some people" being short for "people who belong to a group where everyone agrees on the definition of each alignment and manages to avoid all the potential pitfalls"). Still, I feel like a subsystem that is unusable for a decently sized portion of the player base can't really be called "working" in a general sense.

When each box contains roughly 1/9th the population of the multiverse it will, indeed, be quite big.

On that we agree. I just find that that makes it too big to be useful in this context.

That is absolutely not true. Saying "This house has four walls and a roof" says "This house is a building", not what sort of house it is; "This house has four walls and a roof" is "This character has an alignment". You want to describe alignment? How about "This house has two stories and an open floor plan?" "This house has narrow corridors and a disturbing basement."

We probably shouldn't get bogged down by my metaphor that admittedly wasn't great to start. But the last example is kind of my point. The house has a disturbing basement – that's not really very helpful unless you explain to me how it's disturbing (Monsters? Creepy furniture? Sex dungeon?) and in a similar way, being told someone's alignment isn't really that helpful without the specifics (at which point, why bother with the alignment).

[MoiMagnus]

Does this really count as a moral challenge though? Unless the character has a completely inverted moral compass with respect to the challenge (Altruism is evil because it is self destructive), then they have no challenge when presented with a tempting opportunity to do good.

Realistically, the challenge is easier if the evil character consider that a redemption would be good for them (either good for their soul, or because they want to be part of a group that do good), and the moral challenge is on whether they should actually walk the path of redemption (difficult path, with high rate of failure, but with big reward) or continue to fall to the temptation of easy evil (for immediate rewards).

[OldTrees1]

We probably shouldn't get bogged down by my metaphor that admittedly wasn't great to start. But the last example is kind of my point. The house has a disturbing basement – that's not really very helpful unless you explain to me how it's disturbing (Monsters? Creepy furniture? Sex dungeon?) and in a similar way, being told someone's alignment isn't really that helpful without the specifics (at which point, why bother with the alignment).

The house having a disturbing basement is helpful, and a further explanation is more helpful. "The basement has a disturbing basement with creepy furniture" is helpful to a point, but if more detail is requested you can then elaborate on why the furniture is creepy in the same manner you asked for elaboration on why the basement was disturbing.

In a current campaign I am playing an Illithid. The characters know the common lore about the infamy of Mind Flayer. They also know in the setting there are Illithids that don't match the infamy. The players know my Illithid character is (orderly) evil. This is akin to a reader knowing the narrator is an unreliable narrator. As the campaign continues the description of my character's characterization is elaborated though word and deed. The other characters started off wary and with reservations. As time passed they remained wary but what they are wary about has shifted with the growing context. Still there are times when the benefits of the high level description (orderly evil) has helped contextualize recently revealed characterization.

Why do I bother with alignment for my non unaligned characters? Because summarization is useful for different reasons than elaboration is useful. Both are tools in my toolbox.

Realistically, the challenge is easier if the evil character consider that a redemption would be good for them (either good for their soul, or because they want to be part of a group that do good), and the moral challenge is on whether they should actually walk the path of redemption (difficult path, with high rate of failure, but with big reward) or continue to fall to the temptation of easy evil (for immediate rewards).

Yes, that kind of moral challenge works well.

[NovenFromTheSun]

Tanarii's response touches on this well. There is a tendency in many game systems to treat "good" as something that is difficult to achieve, difficult to maintain, and easy to lose, while "evil" is the fallback case if you "fail to be good". So yeah, it's trickier to create quandaries for evil alignments, but we might also ask "is that how things should be"? More to the point, in the D&D alignment grid, it's presented as though this is all a balanced scale, yet in actual game practices, it's not. Evil characters can pretty much do all the "good" things they want, but as long as they also do evil things, they are evil. That's clearly not the same for good characters though, is it?

If we were really going to present this graphically, it should not be a square representing a couple of axis, but a well with evil at the bottom and good at the top, where the natural inclination is to pull the character to the bottom, and some sort of gravitational force that requires far more effort to "cliimb" upwards to good, but merely slipping up on doing "ok" things can cause you to fall a bit. And yeah, I suppose we could give it some breadth by putting law and chaos off to each side. Don't get me wrong, that's a perfectly valid way of looking at alignments, but again, it's *not* how D&D presents things.

It should be though, based on the descriptions of how alignment should be played in game. So yeah, in that model, "evil" never runs into a quandary. They just "are". If we were actually using a balanced scale, then yes, GMs should be penalizing characters with "evil" on their sheet if they aren't consistently doing things that are "evil". Merely traveling with a mostly good aligned group helping villagers with Orc raids, stopping bandits, hunting down the evil necromancer, etc, should cause them to slip their alignment towards good. The GM would (arguably) require that the player attempt to thwart the PC party's activities, or at the very least, should be attempting to manipulate every act of "good" in some way that benefits themselves or their own "evil plan". If good characters can lose their alignment by doing evil acts, then evil characters should lose their alignment for doing good acts. Period.

So yeah. There should be equal quandaries for evil aligned characters. The fact that there rarely are, or they are minor at best, is a problem.

The balancing factor for Good in favor of Evil should be that good beings (including gods and spirits) are supposed to help each other carry the burden; while evil beings are basically on their own. I can’t say that’s what’s shown in most of the lore though, and definitely not the case of gotcha scenarios.

[gbaji]

I see no reason to avoid symmetrical treatment here. The GM controls how NPCs respond to the PC's behavior. I think it makes sense for the Player to drive any mechanical consequences. Where the two areas overlap, the GM and Player can/should work together.

Correct. If the only consequences are roleplayed, this is true. I'm specifically talking about the flaws of such an alignment system when there are in-game mechanical consequences as well (detect/protect spells, smite vulnerability, potential to lose class and/or class abilities, etc).

Consider a cleric is falling out of favor with their deity. The GM might start mentioning the changing opinion of the fellow clerics. The GM and Player might discuss the cleric & deity's relationship and what that drift might mean. The GM might ask the player, "if your cleric falls out of favor with Bane, are there mechanical effects that make sense?". Maybe the cleric becomes a heretical cleric powered by the blissful belief/conviction that they are still doing Bane's work. Maybe the cleric reconsiders their philosophy and seeks out another patron. Maybe the Player even suggests temporarily losing/hindering their divine magic during this time of turmoil. This is the model I apply to Paladins of all alignments (although they are a bit less likely to have deity patrons).

We're discussing the alignment system as a whole. Alignment in many systems (D&D in particular) affect everyone, not just clerics (or other characters who gain some powers from a deity). Every single thing you just talked about can be handled without having an alignment system in he game at all. Every deity can have a set of behavior that is expected from their followers, with consequences (just for their followers) for failure to follow those rules, and also directly related to how close that character's relationship to the deity is. So a lay worshipper may fail to follow their god's dictates and the worst that happens is maybe their priest has a talk with them or something (if it's even noticed). A cleric may suffer loss of spells/abilities from their deity for sufficient infractions. In fact, D&D (at least a couple editions) have specific additional requirements for clerics to remain in favor of their deities that is completely above and beyond the normal requirements of the alignment system.

This has nothing at all to do with what I was talking about.

Given my above response, I would say the quandary is scaled evenly but is still mostly directional. (Sidenote: Although the further from good you go the more likely the character has a skewed moral compass and thus can face things they perceive as quandaries that are not quandaries to an accurate compass).

Is it easier to roleplay the character you want the father you get from moral? No, or at least not in general. Either there is some moral characterization you want the character to have, or you don't care about their good/evil alignment. Either way I don't see being evil as easier to play your character.

I think you are still just talking about RP though. And I completely agree. I was, however, specifically talking about the fact that it's generally "hard" to maintain a good alignment, while it's very "easy" to maintain an evil one when we think about the mechanics of the alignment system itself. That's asymmetrical. The very fact that we speak regularly of characters "falling" in alignment (always towards evil), but that there's a "struggle for redemption" for a character to move in the direction of good shows how utterly ingrained this basic concept is within most alignment systems.

A character is "evil" if they do evil things. Period. It does not matter if they also do good. A character is good only if they do good things *and* avoid doing evil things. Neutral is a bit trickier, but most will define it not so much as a balance of good/evil (although it could be, and certainly is if it's a transition one is going through between good and evil alignments), but someone who is either not intending specifically to cause positive or negative outcomes for others, but may do actions which have that effect from time to time *or* someone who is trying to achieve good outcomes but is ok with using means which could be considered "evil" (sort of an "ends justifies the means" approach). A character will not long maintain a neutral alignment if they are intentionally causing harm to others (the "end" is to do harm), no matter how many good things they may also do. Again, the "gravity" of alignment here is towards evil.

Realistically, the challenge is easier if the evil character consider that a redemption would be good for them (either good for their soul, or because they want to be part of a group that do good), and the moral challenge is on whether they should actually walk the path of redemption (difficult path, with high rate of failure, but with big reward) or continue to fall to the temptation of easy evil (for immediate rewards).

But that's somewhat the point. It takes conscious effort and time to work towards redemption (become good). It takes a just few really bad/careless decisions for a good character to lose that alignment. So evil and good are not balanced alignments in most systems. Evil is "down" (the direction you are pulled towards), and you must constantly struggle against it or fall. I'm not even saying that this is wrong, just that it makes symmetrical assessments of the alignment system incorrect. The rules for good are not the same as they are for evil, yet the game system (for the most part) treats them as though they are. Um... And you didn't actually state *why* "redemption would be good for them". There is literally nothing in the game system that makes that true (unless they are regaining a class the previously lost). It's purely a RP thing.

And certainly, from a RP perspective the introduction of game mechanics that punish characters for failing to follow their alignment automatically make that RP more difficult if you are playing a good character versus an evil (or arguably even neutral) one. A player playing an evil character has the freedom to RP the precise personality of that character with virtually zero fear or concern that they may lose their alignment as a consequence of their actions. We literally bake into our concept of alignment that unless an evil character is consciously trying to become good, they can't change (ok, or subconsciously perhaps in the case of Belkar), and even then it will take a very long time for a series of "good acts" to ever make up for all the evil they have done and result in an alignment change. And it's not enough to just do good things. They have to also avoid doing evil things while this whole process is going on.


The same player playing a good character must moderate what they may think is within their characters personality to do and limit the actual actions of the character based on what the game rules and GM will rule that action *is* within the context of the alignment system. It's not enough for a good character to just do good. They must also constantly avoid anything that is "evil" as well. This automatically creates constraints for the good aligned character in terms or roleplaying because they are more likely to be affected by the in-game mechanical rules inherent in the alignment system.

And we could even say that's ok. Maybe we want players to strive to play "good" characters within the game we've designed, right? Except that other than feeling good about ourselves as players perhaps, there is no in-game reward for playing a good character. The alignment system itself actually pushes players towards more neutral alignments as a result of this, with evil avoided only at tables where it's a problem either because of the other PCs or NPCs who may react negatively as a result.

Even this would all be ok, except that there have been many efforts over the decades to "balance" good and evil in terms of power/abilities/class/etc so that playing an evil character is just as valid an option as playing a good one. You can't have an alignment system that assumes "good==hard, evil==easy", without having some benefits to remaining good versus falling to evil (again, I'm speaking game mechanics here, not RP). If there are just as many fun and interesting classes to play on the evil side of things as the good, and just as many "anti-good" spells out there are "anti-evil", you have more problems with alignment inherent in the very game rules you are using.

You kinda can't throw a stick without hitting a problem in the D&D alignment system. And, unfortunately, many other games just use the same basic concepts and spackle them into their games as well.

[gbaji]

The balancing factor for Good in favor of Evil should be that good beings (including gods and spirits) are supposed to help each other carry the burden; while evil beings are basically on their own. I can’t say that’s what’s shown in most of the lore though, and definitely not the case of gotcha scenarios.

Yeah. That's heavily dependent on setting and GM though.

I think that this is a concept/bias that we get from reading fantasy novels and watching fantasy shows/films, and that works well in those genres because the author will make a point of showing how evil fails because of this. But in actual gameplay at an actual table in an actual RPG? Much much harder to make those factors very relevant. At the end of the day the PCs don't really care, nor are they directly affected, by the fact that that evil cabal, or orc tribe, or whole kingdom, has nasty internal politics that create constant strife and conflict and that they are constantly fighting/backstabbing each other when the PCs aren't there. They still are generally going to face a group of said evildoers who are balanced within the scenario to be a challenge for them, right? The rest is just color commentary.

Having the players show up at the bad guys lair only to discover that one of their evil plots against the other resulted in massive destruction and casualties, and they're all dead, isn't a terribly satisfying outcome for the players, right? About the only way to actually use this in a game setting is if the players are clever enough (and have just the right circumstances) to somehow manipulate the evil folks into turning on each other as part of their plan of attack. Doable. But extremely tricky. And not a lot of tables are going to be able to pull this sort of thing off.

And that's forgetting that there is an opposite factor. Evil can also result in a "survival of the fittest" scenario. So the fact that said Orc tribes constantly fight among each other externally, and even within the tribes, there is constant conflict and backstabbing used to advance in status, with the weak (both physically and mentally) being culled quickly as they succumb to a tougher/smarter Orc looking to move up, this means that any band of Orcs they encounter will be the toughest ones possible. Same can be said for the evil kingdom's politics. Only the most clever, best schemers, who utilize the best intelligence gathering techniques, have the most loyal followers (but know exactly when to *not* trust them) manage to worm their way to the highest positions of power and stay there for any length of time. So that evil guy at the top? He's going to have the kinds of layers of protections from everything you could think to throw at him that no "good king" would ever have.

So yeah. It's a great concept, and it can work. It's just a lot harder to put into practice, and IME very rarely is a significant enough factor. To be honest, from the PCs perspective, the biggest and only thing typically keeping them from evil from a pure game perspective is the concern about operating within and with "good" organizations/people. One detect evil spell can cause ruin. Again though, one can argue that this is the game mechanics of alignment actually imposing itself against what the players might otherwise wish. Take away the detect spells (and the inherent penalties for alignment), and players can play their characters as they wish. Which, IME, is not remotely to the kinds of extremes or cardboard cutouts that most alignment systems tend towards. You get nuance of behavior that is very situational, and absolutely considers factors like "who might find out about this" and "what would people think", and quite possibly "is this in accordance with my gods teachings", but never "is this going to cause my alignment to shift, and what are the consequences of that"?

[NovenFromTheSun]

Yeah. That's heavily dependent on setting and GM though.

I think that this is a concept/bias that we get from reading fantasy novels and watching fantasy shows/films, and that works well in those genres because the author will make a point of showing how evil fails because of this. But in actual gameplay at an actual table in an actual RPG? Much much harder to make those factors very relevant. At the end of the day the PCs don't really care, nor are they directly affected, by the fact that that evil cabal, or orc tribe, or whole kingdom, has nasty internal politics that create constant strife and conflict and that they are constantly fighting/backstabbing each other when the PCs aren't there. They still are generally going to face a group of said evildoers who are balanced within the scenario to be a challenge for them, right? The rest is just color commentary.

I didn’t mean in terms of completing a goal or beating the other side, though the comment of “evil beings are basically on their own” probably made it seem that way. In fact I probably shouldn’t have put it there in the first place, it just makes things less clear. I meant that they help each other achieve and maintain a good alignment, as what was being discussed in the text I quoted. Sometimes I get a sense in some works, D&D included, of an attitude of “if you need help doing the right thing and resisting temptations, you don’t deserve it.” That’s what I was referring to when I mentioned what’s told about alignment in the lore and DMing.

And that's forgetting that there is an opposite factor. Evil can also result in a "survival of the fittest" scenario. So the fact that said Orc tribes constantly fight among each other externally, and even within the tribes, there is constant conflict and backstabbing used to advance in status, with the weak (both physically and mentally) being culled quickly as they succumb to a tougher/smarter Orc looking to move up, this means that any band of Orcs they encounter will be the toughest ones possible. Same can be said for the evil kingdom's politics. Only the most clever, best schemers, who utilize the best intelligence gathering techniques, have the most loyal followers (but know exactly when to *not* trust them) manage to worm their way to the highest positions of power and stay there for any length of time. So that evil guy at the top? He's going to have the kinds of layers of protections from everything you could think to throw at him that no "good king" would ever have.

The band of orcs would be powerful in individual battles, but as a society their logistics and economics would suffer. Soldiers still need equipment, food, and shelter. Smiths, farmers, and architects killing each other to assert dominance won’t give much advancement in those fields.

Same deal with the king, the physical and mental resources to protect him will have to come out of somewhere.

So yeah. It's a great concept, and it can work. It's just a lot harder to put into practice, and IME very rarely is a significant enough factor. To be honest, from the PCs perspective, the biggest and only thing typically keeping them from evil from a pure game perspective is the concern about operating within and with "good" organizations/people. One detect evil spell can cause ruin. Again though, one can argue that this is the game mechanics of alignment actually imposing itself against what the players might otherwise wish. Take away the detect spells (and the inherent penalties for alignment), and players can play their characters as they wish. Which, IME, is not remotely to the kinds of extremes or cardboard cutouts that most alignment systems tend towards. You get nuance of behavior that is very situational, and absolutely considers factors like "who might find out about this" and "what would people think", and quite possibly "is this in accordance with my gods teachings", but never "is this going to cause my alignment to shift, and what are the consequences of that"?

I wasn’t a fan of detection spells either. If brought back I’d prefer if they only worked on the most extreme examples when it came to mortals, if at all.

[OldTrees1]

Correct. If the only consequences are roleplayed, this is true. I'm specifically talking about the flaws of such an alignment system when there are in-game mechanical consequences as well (detect/protect spells, smite vulnerability, potential to lose class and/or class abilities, etc).

All of those mechanical consequences seem fine as long as the player drives the ones they should be in control of. I gave an example of a good way to handle the player driving "lose class abilities" while using a cleric as the example.

The protection/smite effects are not a huge concern (they are just unreliable buffs), but I do appreciate when they are not based on alignment (see 5E).

I don't find the detect spells to be credible in universe. As a result, in universe, they boil down to "detect person the caster strongly disagrees with, but not enough to necessarily be an enemy". So they are best removed.

I think you are still just talking about RP though. And I completely agree. I was, however, specifically talking about the fact that it's generally "hard" to maintain a good alignment, while it's very "easy" to maintain an evil one when we think about the mechanics of the alignment system itself. That's asymmetrical.

Huh? How is it hard to maintain a good alignment? I know you are worried about "maintain" due to mechanical consequences (see above) however I don't see it as hard to maintain a good alignment. I would say it is trivial to maintain a good alignment and it is beyond trivial to maintain an evil alignment. The moral character of a character is useful for characters whose player cares about their character's moral character. There is no need to play gotcha with it.

A character is "evil" if they do evil things. Period. It does not matter if they also do good. A character is good only if they do good things *and* avoid doing evil things. Neutral is a bit trickier, but most will define it not so much as a balance of good/evil (although it could be, and certainly is if it's a transition one is going through between good and evil alignments), but someone who is either not intending specifically to cause positive or negative outcomes for others, but may do actions which have that effect from time to time *or* someone who is trying to achieve good outcomes but is ok with using means which could be considered "evil" (sort of an "ends justifies the means" approach). A character will not long maintain a neutral alignment if they are intentionally causing harm to others (the "end" is to do harm), no matter how many good things they may also do. Again, the "gravity" of alignment here is towards evil.

Based on how you are worried about it being hard to maintain a good alignment, I suspect you have a low rather than high threshold for "evil things". Combined with this perfectionist stance, this sounds like a gotcha GM. Characters can make mistakes, even mistakes of moral character, without it defining them entirely.

Have you considered not being so strict? Yes, there is asymmetry/gravity, but you don't need to be so perfectionist.

That's asymmetrical.

The very fact that we speak regularly of characters "falling" in alignment (always towards evil), but that there's a "struggle for redemption" for a character to move in the direction of good shows how utterly ingrained this basic concept is within most alignment systems.

The asymmetry is ingrained in the root topic, not in alignment systems. Ancient philosophers were not asking "what is the right wrong way to live?", the entire topic of morality/ethics (and thus good/evil) is about how to be better. So it is natural that improvement is viewed as harder than messing up.

If you want to avoid the asymmetry consider the celestial vs fiendish alignment axis (completely divorced from morality) instead of the good vs evil alignment axis. (Or maybe not use an alignment axis at all. It works for some, it does not work for all)

[Satinavian]

Hobgoblin society tends towards LE. Therefore, that society should be hierarchical and self-interested, if not malevolent. Individual hobgoblins might differ from the societal alignment, but that's because societal alignment is the aggregate of the alignment of individuals, as individual alignment is the aggregate of actions of the character.

Does lawful evil society really mean "hierarchical and self-centered" society ? I don't really think so.
As the LE box for individuals is pretty big, so is the box for societies. A society might be evil because it is really into slavery or practices a lot of necromancy or does regular sentient sacrifices or whatever without promoting or glorifying personal selfishness. And a society might be lawful because it heavily relies on tradition and the (supposed) wisdom of the ancestors. Or generally has a thing for following laws. Or is all about conformity, shunning everyone who does things differently, even if that is not actually illegal. All withaout being particularly hierarchical.

Combine that alone and you get so many very different possible lawful evil societies that "lawful evil society" stops being a very useful shorthand here as well.

[Tanarii]

As the LE box for individuals is pretty big, so is the box for societies. A society might be evil because it is really into slavery or practices a lot of necromancy or does regular sentient sacrifices or whatever without promoting or glorifying personal selfishness.

I'm reminded of the Fire Plane Sartan in Wies's Death-gate cycle. They had learned how to raise zombie dead, and had an entire society based around it. Alfred, a Sartan from the times before the breaking into planes, was absolutely horrified, finding it an evil greater than anything their ancestral foes currently being punished in a prison plane had tried to do.

Mainly because every soul raised as a zombie in the fire plane killed a Sartan somewhere in one of the other planes. They didn't even realize what they'd done. They were a society of fairly good-hearted people (with a few power mongers in the courts) ... who had murdered countless millions of their own race. 😂

[LibraryOgre]

Does lawful evil society really mean "hierarchical and self-centered" society ? I don't really think so.
As the LE box for individuals is pretty big, so is the box for societies. A society might be evil because it is really into slavery or practices a lot of necromancy or does regular sentient sacrifices or whatever without promoting or glorifying personal selfishness. And a society might be lawful because it heavily relies on tradition and the (supposed) wisdom of the ancestors. Or generally has a thing for following laws. Or is all about conformity, shunning everyone who does things differently, even if that is not actually illegal. All withaout being particularly hierarchical.

Combine that alone and you get so many very different possible lawful evil societies that "lawful evil society" stops being a very useful shorthand here as well.

Slavery isn't a hierarchical practice?
Intentional blood sacrifice of others isn't putting the interests of the group ahead of individuals in a way that directly harms others?
Relying on tradition and the wisdom of the ancestors is a hierarchy, still... it places the ancestors, and the interpreters of their thoughts, ahead of personal concerns. "A thing for following laws" is lawful... and if the laws regularly promote evil (qv slavery, the killing of others, etc.), then, yeah, it's lawful evil.

"Self-centeredness" does not necessarily have to be only the individual self; the self is part of the group, and advancing the goals of the group at the expense of others (often, including members of the group) is self-centeredness... slightly more "enlightened", as it goes beyond the individual, but "I want what is best for me and my people, and screw everyone else" is just as evil as "I want what is best for me, and screw everyone else."

A Chaotic Evil person can be kind to his kids and love his wife... but if his response to his kids being hungry is to break the shopkeeper's arms until he gets money, it's still an evil.

[Wintermoot]

Slavery isn't a hierarchical practice?
Intentional blood sacrifice of others isn't putting the interests of the group ahead of individuals in a way that directly harms others?
Relying on tradition and the wisdom of the ancestors is a hierarchy, still... it places the ancestors, and the interpreters of their thoughts, ahead of personal concerns. "A thing for following laws" is lawful... and if the laws regularly promote evil (qv slavery, the killing of others, etc.), then, yeah, it's lawful evil.

"Self-centeredness" does not necessarily have to be only the individual self; the self is part of the group, and advancing the goals of the group at the expense of others (often, including members of the group) is self-centeredness... slightly more "enlightened", as it goes beyond the individual, but "I want what is best for me and my people, and screw everyone else" is just as evil as "I want what is best for me, and screw everyone else."

A Chaotic Evil person can be kind to his kids and love his wife... but if his response to his kids being hungry is to break the shopkeeper's arms until he gets money, it's still an evil.

I don't know. I kind of feel like if you look at the true motivation of that Chaotic Evil person for why they are being kind to their kids and "love" their wife, that the motivation is self-centered, self-interested reasoning rather than actual unselfish non-self-interested sort of love you are envisioning. I think once you've progressed to that end of the spectrum you aren't capable of loving someone for themselves and not for what you get out of the deal. Motivation is an important factor in how two people can appear to do the same thing but for fundamentally different reasons.

[Anymage]

I don't know. I kind of feel like if you look at the true motivation of that Chaotic Evil person for why they are being kind to their kids and "love" their wife, that the motivation is self-centered, self-interested reasoning rather than actual unselfish non-self-interested sort of love you are envisioning. I think once you've progressed to that end of the spectrum you aren't capable of loving someone for themselves and not for what you get out of the deal. Motivation is an important factor in how two people can appear to do the same thing but for fundamentally different reasons.

Nale and Sabine seemed to genuinely love each other, despite one being a very damaged person and the other being literally made out of evil.

If you have to be extreme in order to fall into any category but neutrality, that works but it produces very few nonneutral beings. And unless you have some reason for wanting to keep the great wheel around, you can replace it with any other cosmic allegiance mechanic you like.

If good-neutral-evil and law-neutral-chaos are set up such that 1/3 of the population falls into any of the camps, or even if you go for a 25/50/25 split, you'll still have a lot of people who can still have normal human experiences and interactions. The evil group won't be nice people by definition and won't tend to be healthy, but positive interactions are not totally beyond the pale.

[gbaji]

The band of orcs would be powerful in individual battles, but as a society their logistics and economics would suffer. Soldiers still need equipment, food, and shelter. Smiths, farmers, and architects killing each other to assert dominance won’t give much advancement in those fields.

Same deal with the king, the physical and mental resources to protect him will have to come out of somewhere.

Sure. And from a game world writing/maintaining pov, this is all important for a GM to consider (how big a threat are those Orc tribes living up in the hills really?). But from the pov of the players on an adventure, this rarely really matters. There will be X orcs defending the evil temple, of Y level, with Z clerics/shamans/whatever classes, and the rest being fighters/whatever. In actual practice, it's a cold consolation to the PCs to say "well, but they had to really struggle and are the exceptions who managed to survive their evil culture to be there for you to fight". Them being "evil" and coming from an evil culture/kingdom/whatever didn't really make any difference at the encounter level of the game.

Now yes, it absolutely does in the broader world building portions. So when playing a longer running campaign (or series of campaigns) in a persistent game world, it does matter and will affect decisions and changes to that world over time. I actually play/GM in such a game (been running since like 1983, and covered over 140 years of in-game time), so I do know what I'm talking about with this. And it absolutely affects decisions I make like "what resources would the evil king over there actually have?", and that in turn can affect some encounter specifics on any given scenario/adventure. And it does affect/create RP choices for players to make that can have impacts on the wider game world. But at the adventure encounter level, that's not really much of a balance issue.

All of those mechanical consequences seem fine as long as the player drives the ones they should be in control of. I gave an example of a good way to handle the player driving "lose class abilities" while using a cleric as the example.

Yes. And a cleric being punished by their god for failing to follow church dictates was one of the specific cases I said I was not talking about. That can happen without any alignment system in place at all. I'm talking about having an alignment system that affects everyone, not just folks who actively worship gods and gain some sort of powers/spells/whatever from them as a result.

Huh? How is it hard to maintain a good alignment? I know you are worried about "maintain" due to mechanical consequences (see above) however I don't see it as hard to maintain a good alignment. I would say it is trivial to maintain a good alignment and it is beyond trivial to maintain an evil alignment. The moral character of a character is useful for characters whose player cares about their character's moral character. There is no need to play gotcha with it.

I'm responding to a number of posts (just in this thread, but it's a common theme whenever alignment is brought up anywhere), in which good people becoming evil is referred to as "falling", while evil people becoming good is a "path to redemption". Just in OoTS, we see the Deva telling Roy that she could chuck his file into the neutral file simply because of a couple acts (and some personality bits) that he did. Roy didn't decide to be "evil" that day, it just happened. He lied to his party members to get them to help him get some star metal. And he left Elan to the bandits in the forest. That was enough to put his "good" alignment in jeopardy. So a lifetime of being good, actively identifying as good, and doing good things can be offset by basically a couple of off days. On the flip side, we have Belkar, who has been chaotic evil his whole life, with a long list of evil things he's done. He's been as consistently evil in his past as Roy has been good. Yet, no one blinks at the argument that he can't "fall to good" just by having a couple of good days, and mistakenly deciding to help people and do nice things for them, right? Oh no. He has to do lots of good. Refrain from any evil, and work very very hard, and maybe if he strictly adheres to this for a few years or more, he might just get himself out of being evil.

That's an absolutely massive difficulty difference.

Based on how you are worried about it being hard to maintain a good alignment, I suspect you have a low rather than high threshold for "evil things". Combined with this perfectionist stance, this sounds like a gotcha GM. Characters can make mistakes, even mistakes of moral character, without it defining them entirely.

Have you considered not being so strict? Yes, there is asymmetry/gravity, but you don't need to be so perfectionist.

Huh? I don't play this way at all. I'm just pointing out the effects of the alignment system on play. it doesn't take a strict or perfectionist GM for this to happen. Just one following the rules as written. Unless you avoid putting anything into the path of the players other than incredibly simplistic "we're good. they're bad. we kill them while they are doing bad things" scenarios, there will be situations where good players will have to make difficult choices.

I'm just responding to how other people describe alignments and what is required to be "good" versus what is required to be "evil". Again: Falling vs redemption. The very words being used tell us which most people consider more difficult and that there is an assumed possibility of going in one direction unintentionally, while it's almost impossible to go in the other without deliberate conscious effort.

The asymmetry is ingrained in the root topic, not in alignment systems. Ancient philosophers were not asking "what is the right wrong way to live?", the entire topic of morality/ethics (and thus good/evil) is about how to be better. So it is natural that improvement is viewed as harder than messing up.

Sure. But those philosophers did not live in a world with alignment detection spells, protection spells, etc. And they certainly were not creating a game system where both good and evil "sides" in a conflict were intended to be balanced in some cosmic way. And they certainly were not considering entire races with "mostly evil" alignments in their stat blocks.

The concepts work just fine. But the moment you try to codify them into a set of rules where alignment is written on the character sheet, and the character is expected to play a specific way so as to stay within that alignment's boundaries, with potential punishments for failure, there are a host of problems which can arise.

If you want to avoid the asymmetry consider the celestial vs fiendish alignment axis (completely divorced from morality) instead of the good vs evil alignment axis. (Or maybe not use an alignment axis at all. It works for some, it does not work for all)

Er. I play primarily in RuneQuest. Which does have "sides" identified as law/chaos, where for the most part worship of a god on one side aligns you in some way with that side (which can include detection abilities even). There are no other alignment considerations at all. I'm not telling you the problems I run into in my game, I'm explaining why I made the choice to avoid games with alignment systems like D&D over 30 years ago. And yeah, when I do play a D&D game (or one with alignments), I'm always a bit shocked at how constraining it is.

I've seen this topic from both sides, and have drawn conclusions as a result. And I've concluded that alignments systems work when they represent "sides" *or* if they are guides to RP. They tend to fall apart when they try to do both, especially if they have some in-game mechanical reward/punishment system involved to enforce alignment requirements on the characters.

[OldTrees1]

Yes. And a cleric being punished by their god for failing to follow church dictates was one of the specific cases I said I was not talking about. That can happen without any alignment system in place at all. I'm talking about having an alignment system that affects everyone, not just folks who actively worship gods and gain some sort of powers/spells/whatever from them as a result.

Are you aware that the reason I keep pointing back to that example, is NOT because it is a cleric. I point back to that example to highlight the example relationship between GM and Player. Notice what parts the Player drives in my example. Notice what parts the GM drives in my example. Notice which parts both work together on in my example. That example is not about clerics. Continuing to tell me you are not talking about Clerics is missing the point.

You are talking about an alignment system that affects everyone. I gave you an example showing the player driving the parts the player should be in control of.

I'm responding to a number of posts (just in this thread, but it's a common theme whenever alignment is brought up anywhere), in which good people becoming evil is referred to as "falling", while evil people becoming good is a "path to redemption".

That's an absolutely massive difficulty difference.

Yes, but that does not mean it is hard to maintain a good alignment. Describing self improvement as harder than becoming worse does not imply maintaining is hard. I challenge your premise that "maintaining" is "hard". The moral axis is based on an asymmetric topic (improvement is harder than becoming worse) but that does not imply maintaining is hard. In contrast, I find maintaining to be trivial.

Huh? I don't play this way at all. I'm just pointing out the effects of the alignment system on play. it doesn't take a strict or perfectionist GM for this to happen. Just one following the rules as written. Unless you avoid putting anything into the path of the players other than incredibly simplistic "we're good. they're bad. we kill them while they are doing bad things" scenarios, there will be situations where good players will have to make difficult choices.

I'm just responding to how other people describe alignments and what is required to be "good" versus what is required to be "evil". Again: Falling vs redemption. The very words being used tell us which most people consider more difficult and that there is an assumed possibility of going in one direction unintentionally, while it's almost impossible to go in the other without deliberate conscious effort.

Your interpretation is very strict and perfectionist. Characters can face difficult choices but a single moral failure does not redefine their moral character. Additionally you are constantly focusing on how improving is harder than getting worse but then assuming that maintaining is hard. It would be equally valid to assume maintain was easy or assume maintaining was easier than falling.

Your argument summarized:
Premise: A > B
Conclusion: C is large

Actual possibility space (your conclusion is true in only 50% of the possibility space):
Large{} > Not Large {A > B > C}
Large{} > Not Large {A > B = C}
Large{} > Not Large {A > C > B}
Large{} > Not Large {A = C > B}
Large{} > Not Large {C > A > B}
Large{A} > Not Large {B > C}
Large{A} > Not Large {B = C}
Large{A} > Not Large {C > B}
Large{A = C} > Not Large {B}
Large{C > A} > Not Large {B}
Large{A > B} > Not Large {C}
Large{A > B = C} > Not Large {}
Large{A > C} > Not Large {B}
Large{A = C > B} > Not Large {}
Large{C > A} > Not Large {B}
Large{A > B > C} > Not Large {}
Large{A > C > B} > Not Large {}
Large{C > A > B} > Not Large {}

Sure. But those philosophers did not live in a world with alignment detection spells, protection spells, etc. And they certainly were not creating a game system where both good and evil "sides" in a conflict were intended to be balanced in some cosmic way. And they certainly were not considering entire races with "mostly evil" alignments in their stat blocks.

Oh you and I are not talking about the same alignment axis. You meant to be talking about the balanced symmetric celestial vs fiendish axis. I was talking about the asymmetric axis with origins in the philosophic branch Ethics. They are not the same thing and don't have the same intent nor utility.

PS: Even if detection spells existed, it would not impact the philosophers. They would discount the detection spells as not being credible. Detect Blue does not help a philosopher answer "what is the right way to live? what ought one do? etc"

The concepts work just fine. But the moment you try to codify them into a set of rules where alignment is written on the character sheet, and the character is expected to play a specific way so as to stay within that alignment's boundaries, with potential punishments for failure, there are a host of problems which can arise.

Remember my Cleric example?

I'm always a bit shocked at how constraining it is.

Friendly observation: Your depiction of an alignment system you don't use is more constraining than the alignment system I do use. Maybe that is significant.

I've seen this topic from both sides, and have drawn conclusions as a result. And I've concluded that alignments systems work when they represent "sides" *or* if they are guides to RP. They tend to fall apart when they try to do both, especially if they have some in-game mechanical reward/punishment system involved to enforce alignment requirements on the characters.

Well, yes. If you try to pretend 2 different axes are the same axis then you are going to have problems. Take Law vs Chaos as an example. It is actually 2 different axes that are conflated with each other. Conflating Lawful and Orderly will cause issues, just like conflating a moral axis and an allegiance axis.

[Tanarii]

Fall from grace is exactly single or few actions causing an otherwise overall good character to change alignment to neutral or evil. And it's a common way to think about good and evil, so lots of people bring it in to Alignments. Even when they're explicitly defined otherwise.

[gbaji]

Are you aware that the reason I keep pointing back to that example, is NOT because it is a cleric. I point back to that example to highlight the example relationship between GM and Player. Notice what parts the Player drives in my example. Notice what parts the GM drives in my example. Notice which parts both work together on in my example. That example is not about clerics. Continuing to tell me you are not talking about Clerics is missing the point.

Then why do you keep using an example of a cleric? You're going off on a strange tangent about different ways to mechanically play out the alignment effects, but the point I made and to which you were responding was about how good and evil alignments are not balanced. I don't care *how* the mechanics are enforced. I'm talking about the fact that in many games with alignments (and specifically having a good/evil axis), it's much harder to obtain and maintain a "good" alignment than an "evil" one.

Talking about clerics being punished by gods for not following their rules is completely outside the entire point I was raising.

You are talking about an alignment system that affects everyone. I gave you an example showing the player driving the parts the player should be in control of.

No. You gave me an example of a cleric being punished by their god (and then went off about how the players could participate in deciding how the god should punish the cleric, which is nice but also irrelevant). How about you provide an example of someone who isn't a cleric or any class that directly worships any deity and/or gains any powers/spells/abilities as a result of aligning with any deity, but is just "regular people" who exist in a game in which every single person has an alignment listed on their character sheeet.

Give me an example of Roy the fighter and show that it's not more difficult for him to retain "good" alignment than "Rob the goblin" to retain his "evil" alignment. Cause that's the point I was making.

Yes, but that does not mean it is hard to maintain a good alignment. Describing self improvement as harder than becoming worse does not imply maintaining is hard. I challenge your premise that "maintaining" is "hard". The moral axis is based on an asymmetric topic (improvement is harder than becoming worse) but that does not imply maintaining is hard. In contrast, I find maintaining to be trivial.

The very fact that you label them directionally as "self improvement" versus "becoming worse" shows a bias towards "good is what you should be, and evil is what happens when you fail". Which is exactly the sort of attitude towards alignment that I was saying existed, and that is incompatible with any alignment system that also purports to have alignment represent "sides" in some sort of presumably balanced cosmic conflict. I've literally been trying to get across that any attempt to have a single alignment system represent both of those concepts at the same time is pretty much doomed to fail.

I've also said (repeatedly) that this is exactly how D&D's alignment system works. That's why it has so many problems.

Your interpretation is very strict and perfectionist. Characters can face difficult choices but a single moral failure does not redefine their moral character. Additionally you are constantly focusing on how improving is harder than getting worse but then assuming that maintaining is hard. It would be equally valid to assume maintain was easy or assume maintaining was easier than falling.

And follows more of you not understanding that I completely get the difference between symmetric and asymmetric alignment systems, but that I'm saying D&D (and other games with similar alignment rules) try to do both with the same measuring stick. And that's why they fail.

Oh you and I are not talking about the same alignment axis. You meant to be talking about the balanced symmetric celestial vs fiendish axis. I was talking about the asymmetric axis with origins in the philosophic branch Ethics. They are not the same thing and don't have the same intent nor utility.

Sigh. Maybe a light at the end of the tunnel, but understanding is still not happening.

I'm saying that D&D presents good vs evil as an asymmetric concept in practice (like the philosophical branch Ethics you speak of). But it *also* attempts to present those alignments as representations of larger balanced forces in the cosmos, complete with outer planes representing each one, and deities that fall within the realm (more or less) of each of those alignments, and people who also fall within them as well.

You can't have both. That's what I've been saying all along. Pick one. Trying to do both *and* having a system that enforces rewards or punishments for failing to follow the alignment rules is a problem. It's the reason why 40+ years later we still have massive arguments about what exactly is required to play a lawful good character in scenario A, or chaotic evil in scenario B, or (in OoTS discussions) whether Hilgya is evil or neutral, or <insert a billion other arguments over time on this subject>.

Friendly observation: Your depiction of an alignment system you don't use is more constraining than the alignment system I do use. Maybe that is significant.

I have used it. Do occasionally still use it. And run into the same problems with it every time. I'm also responding directly to statements made in this thread, in which the very problems I'm talking about have been reflected in the posts of many of those responding to the subject of discussion. So yeah, if people keep arguing "alignment should be this way" and other's go "No, it should be interpreted this way", and so on, it's not wrong for me to point out that the reason they are having so many arguments is precisely because they are arguing over something that is inherently inconsistent and frankly, by design, can never be consistently reconciled.

Well, yes. If you try to pretend 2 different axes are the same axis then you are going to have problems. Take Law vs Chaos as an example. It is actually 2 different axes that are conflated with each other. Conflating Lawful and Orderly will cause issues, just like conflating a moral axis and an allegiance axis.

And OMG! we've reached consensus. This has been my point all along. The law/chaos axis in D&D (and others that use the same concepts) are trying to use it both as meaning "I follow the rules" vs "I ignore rules" (external view of actions) and "I use order/logic when making decisions" vs "I roll a die roll every time I decide to do something" (internal personality traits). The good/evil axis in D&D, similarly, is trying to use it both as the "I follow the side of good" vs "I follow the side of evil" (sides/factions in this case) and also "I am moral" and "I am immoral" (internal personality traits again).

There are even more divergencies involved, but just those are enough to cause massive problems in the system, and have caused massive confusion among players. And again, at the risk of repeating myself, if there are no significant in-game consequences for any of this, then it kinda doesn't matter. And if we want, we can put those punishments/rewards in for followers of deities/powers/whatever who are closely aligned with the "side/faction" alignment bits if we want and it still works. But if we enforce both, we get into serious trouble.