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  1. - Top - End - #1
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    WolfInSheepsClothing

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    Default What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    Ok, the thread title isn't really clear, but I don't see how to clarify in such a short space.

    alignments aren't much liked. their major problem is that they try to enforce a black-and-white morality typical of classic fantasy, while nowadays people accept that they live in a more nuanced world and prefer something less simplicistic. Another problem is that it basically enforces the dm to pass a moral judgment on your character. and finally, there's all the kind of nonsense about some spells being evil by default, even when they have perfectly good uses, or hammering the evil lord to paste with a mace is good but poisoning him is bad.
    many people, as a result, removed alignments, or stopped paying attention to them.
    I got a pet idea to revive them in a more grey context, and I'd like to see what the playground thinks.

    The idea is that you do not belong strictly to an alignment. you are not good, neutral, or evil. instead, you are both good and evil at the same time, though one of them may be prevalent.
    say that every time you make a good action, or you act with good intention, you gain a connection to the plane of good, and the same goes for the plane of evil. Detect alingment then measures how strong your connection to those planes is.
    That kleptomaniac character that the player insists is chaotic neutral and the dm insists is evil? well, he's definitely inconvenienced people, and he's been looking for nobody but himself and his closest friends, so he doesn't really ping as good. On the other hand, he hasn't done anything too bad either, so he'll only be mildly connected to the plane of evil. so a detect good would return nothing, and a detect evil would return a weak signal. the player and dm may disagree on whether to label this guy evil or neutral, but both would likely agree than he sits somewhere south of neutral.
    The well-intentioned extremist is chasing a good cause at great personal cost and has ultimately good intentions, this connects him to the plane of good. but his actions, and his willingness to cause collateral damage in the pursue of his goal, connect him to evil. so he would ping as both good and evil. It's not a bug, it's a feature. under the normal alignment system, both redcloak and tarquin are lawful evil; in this system, tarquin would still be strongly evil, while redcloak would also give a significant signal on good. they are very different characters, and it's nice that an alignment system can differentiate them.

    for most people nothing would really change. roy would still be good, xykon would still be evil. varsuuvius, before he cast familicide, would still register as neutral, by virtue of being very weak in both good and evil.
    but the option to be strongly evil or weakly evil, as well as the option to be both good and evil simultaneously, could help adding context to an alignment.

    the main issue is figuring out what a protection from evil spell does against those borderline cases...
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    Firbolg in the Playground
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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    You’ve still got the problem of the character who steals constantly, or who constantly owns slaves, or who constantly Animates the dead, or constantly does some other “minor” evil detecting as “less evil” than the person who did one single big evil thing, like genocide, or blasphemy, or inventing rap music.

    In other words, you’ve still got the fundamental issue of making value judgments that others might strongly disagree with.

    Personally, I want to make an “ecologically friendly” Alignment system, where using things well, and not being wasteful, is good, such that cannibalism, animating the dead and experimenting on prisoners is a good act, whereas leaving prisoners to rot useless in cells or cremating the dead is evil. A system that uses a clear, fundamental principle, where there’s little to no room for argument about what the system will call “good” or “evil”, or the extent of that Alignment.

    And, ideally, one which has nothing to do with the actual morality of the players involved, so that nobody mistakes one for the other, and there’s no hard feelings on the “ecological purity Alignment system” calling your refusal to eat your dead party member evil, and your leaving hundreds of goblin corpses behind unanimated a very evil act.
    Last edited by Quertus; 2023-01-28 at 03:38 PM.

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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    I mean, look at the Great Wheel.

    Your kleptomaniac character might be headed neither to the CN plane (Limbo) nor to the CE plane (Abyss) but to the CN/CE plane in-between those (Pandemonium).
    Homebrew planar maps for D&D 5e:
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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    I can see it having some upsides to the traditional system, but it seems like it might be clunkier to use, since you'd have to assign and keep track of the different values.

    As with traditional alignments, I'm also unsure what the intended purpose of it is.

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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by King of Nowhere View Post
    for most people nothing would really change. roy would still be good, xykon would still be evil. varsuuvius, before he cast familicide, would still register as neutral, by virtue of being very weak in both good and evil.
    but the option to be strongly evil or weakly evil, as well as the option to be both good and evil simultaneously, could help adding context to an alignment.
    This already matches my existing understanding of descriptive alignment.

    An alignment axis, much like the XY axes, is a one dimensional continuum that summarizes the complexities of the character relative to that axis. This summary is similar to the X coordinate from the sum of 14 vectors summarizes the left/right movement at the end of those 14 vectors. While this one dimensional description does omit some of the initial information, it does not delete that information. Looking at the x coordinate from the sum of N vectors does not tell you how many vectors existed, or how many pointed left/right, nor about the magnitude of any individual vectors. This means despite the x coordinate being a high level summary, there is more detail and nuance remaining if you want to look deeper. It is similar with alignments.

    The high level descriptive alignment summary neither reveals nor erases the nuance in the details. A rather boring character living a life of non-action and inconsequence might be summarized as mildly good but mostly amoral. A character struggling to do the right thing in a complex and dystopian world might live a life with few amoral choices, a some moral failures, and a some good accomplished. They might also be summarized at the high level as mildly good but mostly neutral. However despite both having the same high level summary, they are quite different characters when we look at the nuances.



    So, yes, alignment is a continuum and the characters are more nuanced than any high level summary. Water is also wet.

    However your ponderings about the detect spells is new. I don't see it making a big difference whether the Detect spells work on the high level summary or on one level deeper.
    Last edited by OldTrees1; 2023-01-28 at 06:46 PM.

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    Librarian in the Playground Moderator
     
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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by Millstone85 View Post
    I mean, look at the Great Wheel.

    Your kleptomaniac character might be headed neither to the CN plane (Limbo) nor to the CE plane (Abyss) but to the CN/CE plane in-between those (Pandemonium).
    To say nothing of the fact that a lot of older D&D stuff did just this... St. Cuthbert is LN, but with Good tendencies, and the like.
    Last edited by LibraryOgre; 2023-01-28 at 07:07 PM.
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    Firbolg in the Playground
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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    You’ve still got the problem of the character who steals constantly, or who constantly owns slaves, or who constantly Animates the dead, or constantly does some other “minor” evil detecting as “less evil” than the person who did one single big evil thing, like genocide, or blasphemy, or inventing rap music.

    In other words, you’ve still got the fundamental issue of making value judgments that others might strongly disagree with.

    Personally, I want to make an “ecologically friendly” Alignment system, where using things well, and not being wasteful, is good, such that cannibalism, animating the dead and experimenting on prisoners is a good act, whereas leaving prisoners to rot useless in cells or cremating the dead is evil. A system that uses a clear, fundamental principle, where there’s little to no room for argument about what the system will call “good” or “evil”, or the extent of that Alignment.

    And, ideally, one which has nothing to do with the actual morality of the players involved, so that nobody mistakes one for the other, and there’s no hard feelings on the “ecological purity Alignment system” calling your refusal to eat your dead party member evil, and your leaving hundreds of goblin corpses behind unanimated a very evil act.
    I've suggested it in the past, but I'll offer it again: handle alignments as relationship scores with different deities. Lolth and Bahamut can both be fond of you, and maybe you figured out how to simultaneously get on Mystra's and Cyric's good side at the same time, but Helm absolutely hates you as does Vecna for some reason.

    When a Paladin of Tyr uses their 'smite', it triggers on anyone Tyr is currently upset with. When a Cleric of Boccob uses Detect Evil it's really more like 'detect people who stand for things Boccob hates'. Paladins and Clerics of concepts get the same thing with regards to their specific concept, and if they pick something like 'Good' as the concept they have to define it, and that determines that their particular effects trigger on. So three Clerics of Good could cast Detect Evil on one target and get different results. But a particular Cleric of Good would consistently get the same result using it on a particular target (at least, on the short term).

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    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    This is a question you can only ask if you've never read the actual rules for biaxial alignment in 1st Edition AD&D. Alignment under default rule has always been a continuum, with there being room to move around in each category. Some of your finer-grained ideas, like detection spells returning variable results based on how strongly a person is aligned, have been actual parts of the rules for several editions, with multiple different variations!

    So, like many other takes and fixes on alignment, yours is based on a strawman built out of popular misconceptions, not any genuine rules. You want to talk alternate alignment rules, pick an edition and read through the actual rules first.

    ---

    @NichG:

    To implement your idea, the only change required to the existing 1st Edition system is literally just replacing the names for the axes with names of deities. The system already tracks standing with gods and afterlife.

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    Firbolg in the Playground
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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    I've suggested it in the past, but I'll offer it again: handle alignments as relationship scores with different deities. Lolth and Bahamut can both be fond of you, and maybe you figured out how to simultaneously get on Mystra's and Cyric's good side at the same time, but Helm absolutely hates you as does Vecna for some reason.

    When a Paladin of Tyr uses their 'smite', it triggers on anyone Tyr is currently upset with. When a Cleric of Boccob uses Detect Evil it's really more like 'detect people who stand for things Boccob hates'. Paladins and Clerics of concepts get the same thing with regards to their specific concept, and if they pick something like 'Good' as the concept they have to define it, and that determines that their particular effects trigger on. So three Clerics of Good could cast Detect Evil on one target and get different results. But a particular Cleric of Good would consistently get the same result using it on a particular target (at least, on the short term).
    I’ve done that before. And while it has more value than Alignment, it still never was worth the effort. I’m actually curious whether my current idea of a variant Alignment would be worth my effort to track.

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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    @Quertus:

    If you're talking of your idea earlier in the thread, it amounts to just redefining alignment descriptors as something deliberately absurd.

    Yes, it can be done. It works about the exact same as the original, just with some descriptors flipped around. Sane people can already accept game determinations are game determinations, so the actual content of those determinations is more about themes a game is trying for. So, your idea is best fit for a game that aims to either deliver or lampoon fringe green aesops.
    Last edited by Vahnavoi; 2023-01-29 at 12:51 AM.

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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    Personally, I want to make an “ecologically friendly” Alignment system, where using things well, and not being wasteful, is good, such that cannibalism, animating the dead and experimenting on prisoners is a good act, whereas leaving prisoners to rot useless in cells or cremating the dead is evil. A system that uses a clear, fundamental principle, where there’s little to no room for argument about what the system will call “good” or “evil”, or the extent of that Alignment.

    And, ideally, one which has nothing to do with the actual morality of the players involved, so that nobody mistakes one for the other, and there’s no hard feelings on the “ecological purity Alignment system” calling your refusal to eat your dead party member evil, and your leaving hundreds of goblin corpses behind unanimated a very evil act.
    Real world holy books are filled with rules and examples. There are still countless examples of vicious sectarian disputes and even violence over how to interpret passages, as well as no small amount of searching for justifications for why the behavior you want is totally okay. (See the AD&D cleric reading a passage prohibiting the shedding of blood and taking away "so bludgeoning them to death is cool".) You're welcome to try making a rules system that's immune to lawyering, but given that only the simplest of models can maintain that good luck to you.

    Which gets to the biggest flaw with KoN's idea. You could divide the alignment chart into as many subvalues as you like. Politics, religion, and message board arguments are chock full of disputes as to what acts are actually good and what goods are a higher priority when two are in conflict. If there's any mechanical effect to Good vs. Evil behavior beyond the most basic consequentialist "people won't like you if you behave like a jerk", people will act based on their ideas of good vs. evil which may disagree with your ideas of good vs. evil. If someone's alignment score takes a ding because their idea and yours disagree, you just opened the door for the sorts of discussions usually reserved for very tense thanksgiving dinners. And that's before you include the players looking for tortured justifications because they want both the super powerful good aligned sword, and to be able to point it at the king until he empties the treasury into their bags of holding.

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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    @Anymage: you're now guilty of regurgitating the same bad arguments found in the "Unanimous Good" thread.

    You cannot use "people will argue over anything and everything!" as a counter-argument to any specific ruleset. Yes, people argue over alignment, but they also argue about trifle things like meaning of hitpoints, whether psionics are any good and whether the game master was a jerk for destroying a wizard's spellbook. The sane reaction is to simply accept that some of the arguments are silly and then find players who can agree to play a game under given rules.

    This isn't hard. It isn't hard for hit points, it isn't hard for psionics, it isn't hard for equipment destruction, it isn't hard for basic morals and alignment.
    Last edited by Vahnavoi; 2023-01-29 at 02:26 AM.

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    Firbolg in the Playground
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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    @Quertus:

    If you're talking of your idea earlier in the thread, it amounts to just redefining alignment descriptors as something deliberately absurd.

    Yes, it can be done. It works about the exact same as the original, just with some descriptors flipped around. Sane people can already accept game determinations are game determinations, so the actual content of those determinations is more about themes a game is trying for. So, your idea is best fit for a game that aims to either deliver or lampoon fringe green aesops.
    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    @Anymage: you're now guilty of regurgitating the same bad arguments found in the "Unanimous Good" thread.

    You cannot use "people will argue over anything and everything!" as a counter-argument to any specific ruleset. Yes, people argue over alignment, but they also argue about trifle things like meaning of hitpoints, whether psionics are any good and whether the game master was a jerk for destroying a wizard's spellbook. The sane reaction is to simply accept that some of the arguments are silly and then find players who can agree to play a game under given rules.

    This isn't hard. It isn't hard for hit points, it isn't hard for psionics, it isn't hard for equipment destruction, it isn't hard for basic morals and alignment.
    It’s not “people will argue over anything”. It’s not about the *existence* of the argument. It’s about the *quality* of the argument, about the *type* of argument serious statements of “this thing you believe in is evil -> you are evil” produces.

    And dividing it into a spectrum of “how evil” an action is simply exacerbates the issue.

    Which is why the only Alignment system worth having where one idiot declares what is “good” and what is “evil” is one in which the viewer will consider the criteria “deliberately absurd”.

    EDIT: which is why I wouldn’t use an “ecologically friendly” moral system around anyone who took such seriously / highly correlated such things to good and evil - I would only use it with people who would consider it “deliberately absurd”. More generally, that’s the required criteria for an inoffensive Alignment system.

    Quote Originally Posted by Anymage View Post
    Real world holy books are filled with rules and examples. There are still countless examples of vicious sectarian disputes and even violence over how to interpret passages, as well as no small amount of searching for justifications for why the behavior you want is totally okay. (See the AD&D cleric reading a passage prohibiting the shedding of blood and taking away "so bludgeoning them to death is cool".) You're welcome to try making a rules system that's immune to lawyering, but given that only the simplest of models can maintain that good luck to you.

    Which gets to the biggest flaw with KoN's idea. You could divide the alignment chart into as many subvalues as you like. Politics, religion, and message board arguments are chock full of disputes as to what acts are actually good and what goods are a higher priority when two are in conflict. If there's any mechanical effect to Good vs. Evil behavior beyond the most basic consequentialist "people won't like you if you behave like a jerk", people will act based on their ideas of good vs. evil which may disagree with your ideas of good vs. evil. If someone's alignment score takes a ding because their idea and yours disagree, you just opened the door for the sorts of discussions usually reserved for very tense thanksgiving dinners. And that's before you include the players looking for tortured justifications because they want both the super powerful good aligned sword, and to be able to point it at the king until he empties the treasury into their bags of holding.
    Which is why I proposed not discussing “good” in a normal sense, but one in which I, The Creator (TM), will be there to take my trusty clue-by-four to any Clerics or Aiel who misinterpret “pacifism: touch no blade” thusly.

    Note also how my example includes layered data. Not just “touch no blade” or “no shedding blood”, but placing that under a “pacifism” heading.

    Or even the layers: “ecologically friendly: don’t be wasteful: eat their flesh”, “ecologically friendly: don’t be wasteful: wear their skin”, “ecologically friendly: don’t be wasteful: Animate their bones”, “ecologically friendly: don’t be wasteful: grind their bones to make your bread”. Those last two aren’t in conflict: they simply are examples of ways to implement the higher goal.

    Now, I’m all for people misinterpreting things being a thing. But not so much when it’s both a testable science, and overseen by beings that actively care that you understand it.
    Last edited by Quertus; 2023-01-29 at 09:15 AM.

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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    Wouldn't it be easier to just have personality traits, bonds, flaws and ideals?

    You could have alignment derived from that, and from the character's actions, which may be all over the place as far as alignment is concerned. Whether you call it good+evil or neutral is immaterial IMO
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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    This is a question you can only ask if you've never read the actual rules for biaxial alignment in 1st Edition AD&D. Alignment under default rule has always been a continuum, with there being room to move around in each category. Some of your finer-grained ideas, like detection spells returning variable results based on how strongly a person is aligned, have been actual parts of the rules for several editions, with multiple different variations!

    So, like many other takes and fixes on alignment, yours is based on a strawman built out of popular misconceptions, not any genuine rules. You want to talk alternate alignment rules, pick an edition and read through the actual rules first.
    errr.... why would you expect anyone to read 1st edition ad&d rules? why would you consider that as a prerequisite for talking about alignments?
    I have read the 3.x rules, and that's all I did care to read. I didn't like them, I certainly have no intention of looking through other editions too. At my table we barely use them anyway.
    I had an idea sparked by other threads and I wanted to have a discussion on it. So you say that somebody else, a few decades ago, already came up with the same idea? Quite unsurprising.

    On a specific point
    Some of your finer-grained ideas, like detection spells returning variable results based on how strongly a person is aligned, have been actual parts of the rules for several editions, with multiple different variations!
    Wrong. Just because they were published somewhere in the 1st edition, it does not make them part of the rules. Just in the same way that class/race restrictions are not part of the rules even though they were printed at some point.
    Not that I ever really cared what the rules say on alignments. I care what the table decides to make with them.

    Now, I can't help thinking we could have a better discussion without you acting snob and trying to talk down each participant
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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus
    It’s not “people will argue over anything”. It’s not about the *existence* of the argument. It’s about the *quality* of the argument, about the *type* of argument serious statements of “this thing you believe in is evil -> you are evil” produces.
    See the other thread for the argument why this is not a problem you need to warp in-game morality for.

    Also, sane people have frank moral dicussions with each other all the time, even in context of hobbies. For example, scouting competitions involve things like quizzes on ethical outdoorsmanship, scored contests on applied first aid, and of course, discussion on law and virtues of scouts. Olympic sports will have discussions on what is or isn't good sportsmanship, what is or isn't considered doping, etc.. Virtually any martial art will include that plus discussion on ethics of use of force and self-defense.

    All of these much more directy put people in the spotlight for how accurate and ethical their beliefs are, than any use of alignment in a fantasy game.

    So, why the bloody Hell do you think fantasy roleplaying games are the one hobby where these discussions are an insurmountable problem?

    ---

    @Mastikator: D&D characters have always had personality traits, bonds, flaws and ideals beyond alignment, even when not codified to a system. They are not a substitute for any alignment system, D&D alignment system is an expansion of moral-philosophical aspects of those things. A player character's position on the alignment graph is already derived from their actions.

    For contrast, you could look at Call of Cthulhu's and ask "Why a sanity score? Why not just describe individual symptoms of mental disorders?" You can do that, but it would miss the point: the sanity score is not simply about whether a person is mentally disturbed, it's about their alienation from what human society considers "sane" as result of learning and experiencing the fictional horrors of Lovecraftian mythos.

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    Firbolg in the Playground
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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    So, ignoring the elephant in the room that many people already view Alignment as a spectrum, and the even bigger elephant that moving from black and white to a spectrum not only doesn’t solve but exacerbates what is arguably the biggest problem with Alignment, what else can I say about such a change?

    Hmmm… I’m not sure.

    Does it make it more or less likely that when I write “evil” on my sheet to try and ignore the whole “Alignment” argument that the GM will track every good deed I do, and threaten to change my Alignment? Does it make it more or less likely that they’ll ask me *why* my character is performing a seemingly good deed, what my actual motivations are? Does it make it more or less likely that the campaign will focus on asking interesting questions and providing interesting tools and scenarios, or that it will devolve into a waste of time?

    Acknowledging that “good people do bad things” makes it less likely that we’ll see a repeat of one of my many horror stories, of seeing *multiple* GM’s with tables of “in scenario X with Alignment Y” (and one “advanced” GM whose table was “in scenario X with Alignment Y, race Z, and gender Q”), this is the opinion you should have / the action you should take, otherwise, you’re doing roleplaying wrong. So… that’s a good thing, I guess.

    EDIT:
    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    Also, sane people have frank moral dicussions with each other all the time,
    Sure. But even with as much as my player clearly considered Charisma to be a dump stat, and as much as I feel Bakugo could have been modeled off said lack of Charisma, even I recognize that opening such conversations with “you are evil” isn’t the best way to start such a conversation.
    Last edited by Quertus; 2023-01-29 at 11:55 AM.

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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    This is always how I've run alignments.

    Most people are neutral. Neutral people act in their self interest, most of the time, but without stealing from/killing/etc. others. Sometimes they act selflessly (usually around their friends, but not always). Sometimes they are willing to steal/etc. (but often will try to make up for it after the fact).

    Good people act in their own interests a lot, but are selfless more frequently, and are probably less likely to attack/steal/etc.

    Evil people also act in their own interests, and can occasionally act selflessly, but are more willing to steal/etc., and when they do so they feel little guilt or need to make amends after the fact.

    The real issue with alignments is when people treat them as absolutes, and play them as personality disorders rather than general tendencies.

    I ain't saying it's perfect. I don't use it in most games. But it's not horribly broken as long as you view it with a modicum of nuance.

    If anything, the problem originates with paladins, which do act as an extreme version of their alignment - and since they've always had the most clear instructions on how to be an alignment, I think people have extrapolated that out inappropriately.
    Last edited by kyoryu; 2023-01-29 at 11:55 AM.
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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    Sure. But even with as much as my player clearly considered Charisma to be a dump stat, and as much as I feel Bakugo could have been modeled off said lack of Charisma, even I recognize that opening such conversations with “you are evil” isn’t the best way to start such a conversation.
    That borders on a complete non-sequitur to what I just said, as whether Charisma is or isn't a dump stat is not a question of alignment and nothing in or out the game demands a discussion on morality of such belief.

    ---

    Quote Originally Posted by King of Nowhere View Post
    errr.... why would you expect anyone to read 1st edition ad&d rules?
    For the same reason I'd expect people to read Moorcock, Poulson or Tolkien, or play original Super Mario Bros., or read a history book: because they are interesting and answer questions of why some things are the way they are today.

    Old editions of D&D will stop being relevant once new editions stop recycling their trash.

    Quote Originally Posted by King of Nowhere View Post
    why would you consider that as a prerequisite for talking about alignments?
    I don't, but if you want to pitch a fix, it pays to know if that "fix" is already part of the basic rules of an existing version of the game.

    Quote Originally Posted by King of Nowhere View Post
    I have read the 3.x rules, and that's all I did care to read. I didn't like them, I certainly have no intention of looking through other editions too. At my table we barely use them anyway.
    "I didn't like one instruction manual, therefore, I have no intention of reading a different instruction manual to see if it explains something better. Like, I don't even use the instructions I did read."

    That's equivalent to what you said. Do you see where you went wrong?

    Quote Originally Posted by King of Nowhere View Post
    Wrong. Just because they were published somewhere in the 1st edition, it does not make them part of the rules. Just in the same way that class/race restrictions are not part of the rules even though they were printed at some point.
    "Wrong. Being part of published rules of an existing edition of a game that you can buy, does not make something part of the rules. A rule that is disliked and changed by some player somewhere means that rule is forever revoked for all tables everywhere."

    That's the equivalent of what you just said. Do you see where you went wrong?

    Quote Originally Posted by King of Nowhere View Post
    Not that I ever really cared what the rules say on alignments. I care what the table decides to make with them.

    Now, I can't help thinking we could have a better discussion without you acting snob and trying to talk down each participant
    If you don't care about the rules, to the point that you've clearly ignored what the rules actually say, what makes you think you can improve on them?

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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    Sounds to me like alignment-as-radar-chart adds a whole lot of bookkeeping for not a lot of value.

    (And you'd still have arguments about alignment, is TN 0s across the board or anyone who has an exact balance on their chart?)

    The problems with D&D alignment are that it hangs on out-of-game understandings of concepts that philosophers have been arguing about without settlement for as long as they have existed and that paying attention to it is either mandatory or irrelevant depending on your class. Not that it doesn't have enough decimal places.

    A "functional" alignment system is one that's deeply bedded into the themes and fiction like Humanity in V:TM or Dark Side points in Star Wars. There's no ambiguity about what they represent and it's usually pretty obvious when you would gain or lose points on the scale.

    But I don't think you can universally bolt a mechanic like that on to D&D in general. (You could use it in Ravenloft though, because Ravenloft is a setting with opinions about that sort of thing).

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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by GloatingSwine View Post
    Sounds to me like alignment-as-radar-chart adds a whole lot of bookkeeping for not a lot of value.
    Why? There's enough wiggle room that someone that's just slightly out of whack doesn't need to worry about it. It's only when you see significant shifts in behavior that you'd bother adjusting.

    "You're neutral, but you've been pretty quick to go to <evil actions> recently. Keep it up, you're going to shift to evil."

    "Oh, okay, you've kept it up, switch that N to an E."

    You don't need bookkeeping.

    The difference between "CN with an E bent" and "CE with an N" bent is pretty small, and there's enough overlap that you can just leave the alignment alone until it gets extreme.
    Last edited by kyoryu; 2023-01-29 at 04:47 PM.
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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
    Why? There's enough wiggle room that someone that's just slightly out of whack doesn't need to worry about it. It's only when you see significant shifts in behavior that you'd bother adjusting.

    "You're neutral, but you've been pretty quick to go to <evil actions> recently. Keep it up, you're going to shift to evil."

    "Oh, okay, you've kept it up, switch that N to an E."

    You don't need bookkeeping.

    The difference between "CN with an E bent" and "CE with an N" bent is pretty small, and there's enough overlap that you can just leave the alignment alone until it gets extreme.
    How is that different from alignment as described in the rules though, and therefore not what the OP was talking about?

    OP is talking about a system where you have a value for all of the alignments, all the time.

    You don't "switch that N to an E", you gain +1E and if you already had 2G that doesn't change you're just 2G1E3C1L now. N has to have perpetual arguments about its own existance still (Balance or disconnection, the war will never be settled). Too bad if you were born with a heart full of neutrality I guess.

    And the only things it affects are certain mechanics like spells which you have to change to fit the new scheme (and by change I mean "make fiddlier so they aren't useless" since eg. detect good/evil will probably detect everyone all the time if any amount is enough to ping).

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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by GloatingSwine View Post
    How is that different from alignment as described in the rules though, and therefore not what the OP was talking about?
    Bold of you to assume alignment is not already a continuum. The OP can be thinking of something that already exists.

    Your concern about bookkeeping melts away the more accurately you represent the model being discussed. (See your bookkeeping vs kyoryu's)

    kyoryu's summary is spot on for how it works and how easy it is to use.


    Also the answer to your question "Is TN 0s across the board or anyone who has an exact balance on their chart?" is "Yes, and more around that too".
    Last edited by OldTrees1; 2023-01-29 at 06:58 PM.

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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    “Tracking” isn’t the hard part.

    Suppose the party stops for the night, gets attacked by goblins, and kills them.

    Ok, but… why did they do what they did? Did they intentionally light a fire and cook aromatic food to make themselves easier to find? Intentionally choose goblin territory and make themselves look weak in order to bully the goblins to death? Choose goblins because it’s socially acceptable to murder them? Does it matter what they plan to do with the corpses, or with the children? Does any of that matter wrt their Alignment?

    Figuring out what details to track in the first place (and how to value those details) is far trickier than simply tracking some numbers.

    Once those numbers are tracked, then things get hard again.

    Does almost everyone ping to both Detect Good and Detect Evil? Are the totality of one’s life choices detected by such spells? Do they function almost as “detect being with moral agency”, or even “detect how old you are / how boring your life has been”? Or do they function by “doing enough bad deeds that your friends won’t catch on that you’re secretly skimming money from the BBEG to fund the orphanage” logic?

    All in all, tracking the numbers is the easy part. Determining the numbers, and evaluating their meaning is where the difficulty lies.
    Last edited by Quertus; 2023-01-29 at 08:14 PM.

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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    “Tracking” isn’t the hard part.
    Edit: Nvm. I see upthread you are ignoring the system I was talking about (you call out ignoring 2 elephants) and thus are critiquing a version that is artificially harder. Thus my reply to your post is a non sequiter.
    Last edited by OldTrees1; 2023-01-29 at 11:31 PM.

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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    See World of Darkness and Star Wars for good examples of these systems from a mechanics side.
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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    yeah, star wars games tend to do the "sliding scale" thing in terms of mechanics quite often.
    As for the "patron gods" idea, iirc this is how alignments work in Pillars of Eternity (video game).
    There are various supreme beings of varying shades of "morality" and their own added personal quirks.
    In Pillars of Eternity, there are no mechanical implications of alignment, but I can see how that can be added., e.g. X-patron's holy weapons/spells, etc...

    Now, the other problem is how do you get the players to subscribe to an unorthodox idea of ethics, before you end up with a party made up entirely of the setting's equivalent of "true neutral".

    "Descriptive alignments" guarantee that everyone has at least some alignment, but imho it's much harder to make them useful mechanically.
    I think descriptive alignments also have the (un)intended effect of making everyone "extreme" right from the get-go. Kinda like how a common adventuring party might be a wild mix of races and backgrounds outside the setting's "norm".
    I mean, who will want to be a boring, normal adventurer, when checkboxes like "pathological puppy-kicker", "habitual orphan-adopter" or "werewolf genocide participant" are staring at you from the character sheet?

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    Default Re:

    Quote Originally Posted by King of Nowhere View Post
    What if alignments were a continuum ...
    Originally, they were. The mutually exclusive problem comes with dark light being, roughly, an oxymoron, as is a good evil. See also law versus chaos (or order versus entropy). It wasn't nine boxes, it was a circle or a plane around two axes.
    You could fall anywhere on the circle, although Paladins were way up in the upper left hand corner.
    (See illustration II, page 4, Strategic Review Feb 1976. (The last one before Dragon got published)).
    Quote Originally Posted by Mastikator View Post
    Wouldn't it be easier to just have personality traits, bonds, flaws and ideals?
    You could have alignment derived from that, and from the character's actions, which may be all over the place as far as alignment is concerned. Whether you call it good+evil or neutral is immaterial IMO
    You have RP motivations derived from that. It's a great little tool, but it is a complement to alignment, not a replacement for it.

    Quote Originally Posted by King of Nowhere View Post
    errr.... why would you expect anyone to read 1st edition ad&d rules? why would you consider that as a prerequisite for talking about alignments?
    Because it is where the two axis system originated. If you want to understand something, know where it came from.
    Wrong. Just because they were published somewhere in the 1st edition, it does not make them part of the rules.
    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    For the same reason I'd expect people to read Moorcock, Poulson or Tolkien, or play original Super Mario Bros., or read a history book: because they are interesting and answer questions of why some things are the way they are today.

    Old editions of D&D will stop being relevant once new editions stop recycling their trash.
    This too.
    "I didn't like one instruction manual, therefore, I have no intention of reading a different instruction manual to see if it explains something better. Like, I don't even use the instructions I did read."

    That's equivalent to what you said. Do you see where you went wrong?
    I usually read the whole procedure from the car repair manual before I try the repair.
    If you don't care about the rules, to the point that you've clearly ignored what the rules actually say, what makes you think you can improve on them?
    There are a lot of folks who want to homebrew D&D 5e when they really don't understand the system very well.
    As but one example:
    We are almost done play testing a dragon rider PC class. It has been in the party for about a year. That homebrew class had been through 8 revisions before we got our hands on it, and then two of us, DM and me, tweaked it a bit more to get the more egregiouly OP bits out of it. It is still very strong after our trimming and I am not sure I'd allow it at my table as a DM ... but it's provided a little bit of fun, to include two of the PCs flying around drunk over the capital city on the back of a flying drake.
    Last edited by KorvinStarmast; 2023-01-30 at 09:42 AM.
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    SwashbucklerGuy

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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    TLDR: I tried it, it was complicated.

    "Detect" spells would instead give you basically, mental whispers of good or bad deeds the target had done (non specific, just stuff like "thief, murderer" etc...). With the worse the deed the louder the "whisper".

    Spells that only affected people based on alignment were a lot more fluid, gaining minor buffs or penalties instead of simply not working.

    It was a lot of work on my end, I mean, is Grog the Goblin really evil? He was raised in a cave, the only life he ever knew was raiding human villages, and humans in turn raiding his village. He wasn't taught morals or ethics, just "kill or be killed". He never went out of his way to be particularly cruel to anyone, but he's certainly killed a couple of kids (hey a 3' tall human is almost taller than Grog!).

    But Grog is fighting the party for what, 1 minute? Was it really worth to effort to determine if he was truly an evil person or not?
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    Default Re: What if alignments were a continuum and not mutually exclusive?

    Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
    This is always how I've run alignments.

    Most people are neutral. Neutral people act in their self interest, most of the time, but without stealing from/killing/etc. others. Sometimes they act selflessly (usually around their friends, but not always). Sometimes they are willing to steal/etc. (but often will try to make up for it after the fact).

    Good people act in their own interests a lot, but are selfless more frequently, and are probably less likely to attack/steal/etc.

    Evil people also act in their own interests, and can occasionally act selflessly, but are more willing to steal/etc., and when they do so they feel little guilt or need to make amends after the fact.

    The real issue with alignments is when people treat them as absolutes, and play them as personality disorders rather than general tendencies.

    I ain't saying it's perfect. I don't use it in most games. But it's not horribly broken as long as you view it with a modicum of nuance.

    If anything, the problem originates with paladins, which do act as an extreme version of their alignment - and since they've always had the most clear instructions on how to be an alignment, I think people have extrapolated that out inappropriately.
    If someone does not know or declare an alignment, I usually plot them as "neutral" and see how they move during play.
    Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Works
    a. Malifice (paraphrased):
    Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
    b. greenstone (paraphrased):
    Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
    Gosh, 2D8HP, you are so very correct!
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