All About Alignment, Part II

[LadyRhian]

This was getting a bit long, so... in a new post... The other system this article reminded me of was the Paul Jacquays Central Casting books. In it, alignment was split into three general sections. You had the good alignments of Ethical (Equates to LG), Conscientious (CG) and Chivalrous (Explicitly defined as Lawful neutral with good tendencies). The Evil alignments were the three D's: Depraved (Neutral Evil), Deviant (Lawful Evil) and Diabolical (Chaotic Evil).

In between were: Self-Centered (Neutral Good, believe it or not), Apathetic (straight Neutral), Materialistic and Anarchic (both N with Evil tendencies) and Egalitarian (Neutral with both tendencies to Lawful and Good).

In a way, I sort of liked this system, but... there was something that held me back from using it. And that was the personality trait section. This was a character background generator and everytime something happened to your character, it could have a good effect on his personality, a neutral one, or a dark one. Even strange events could make you develop what was called "Exotic personality traits", and they gave lists of all of them, from stuff like insanity to exotic sexual behaviors including Too Prude, Hermaphrodite (which is less a behavior than a medical condition, but given this is generally about games with magic, I was able to swallow that one with difficulty), Complete Disinterest and homosexuality. The problem for me was that each of these was considered to be a darkside trait, and more likely to turn your character evil. Now I can understand that there were some things on that table that would definitely be repulsive and maybe even evil by society at large, like Necrophilia. I failed to understand how someone liking people of the same sex would be more likely to make them evil.

And that was where the alignment system fell down for me, so I never ended up using it, because I vehemently disagreed with that part of it. That was from the first book, Heroes of Legend, and the same system came into play in the next two books, Heroes of Tomorrow and Heroes Now, but they removed the table and just reiterated that anyone developing one of these traits also developed a Darkside trait, except the books came across as even more moralizing and preachy. It gave me a bad taste in my mouth.

I still have and keep the books because of the plenty neat backgrounds you can roll up for your characters. But I don't use the trait system or the alignment system. I feel it is fatally flawed. (You determine alignment by counting the number of traits for each and picking one alignment from the section where you have the most traits.)

 

[LadyRhian]

Ignore this post. Accidental double post.

 

[Fenixius]

I don't have enough time to explain it for people who aren't familiar right now, but I love the Colours of Magic: The Gathering. They follow a person's motives, which makes more sense to me than anything else.

 

[Crimson_Dragoon]

Honestly, I've found that in a party that takes roleplaying seriously, an alignment system is unnecessary (unless there are some in-game mechanics to it, which there rarely are outside D&D). An experienced roleplayer will do things that make sense for their character simply because that's what that character would do, not because some pre-picked alignment says that is what the character would do.

Mind you, alignment systems can be very useful for newer players who aren't sure how their character would react in a given situation, but I really don't think every system needs it.

 

[Ernil Menegil]

I really enjoyed the discussion of alignment as philosophy, but I think the only way Dungeons and Dragons would be playable is as "alignment as allegiance." Basically, you are going around killing and looting "monsters" who have committed no discernable crime against you. Even someone whose philosophical alignment was squarely neutral (objectivism, as an example you gave) would have a lot of problems with that. The rationale in D&D is that they are categorically evil as a race which gives you license to treat them that way as if the parties were opposing combattants in an ongoing war. I don't see how any philosophically good or neutral alignment could justify routine D&D gameplay, at least without a complex backstory that might account for behaving in this way toward creatures which are otherwise innocent.

That said, the philosophical system is the deepest to use, so probably that would be the one I would attempt. But for short quick campaigns I think we have to go with allegiance.

Philosophically good alignments are easier in games like Call of Cthulhu where the goal of gameplay is not self-empowerment at the core, but rather to beat the campaign and stop the cultists.

You are not far from the truth there.

I have little experience with the lore of the original Dungeons and Dragons Greyhawk setting, but in the Forgotten Realms, which seems to have taken precedence of late as one of, if not the most famous of settings for DnD, Good, Evil, Law and Chaos are actually factions in their own right. The War of Light and Darkness lore pretty much designates that at every waking moment in the world, the cosmic forces that comprise those four concepts are ever struggling against and changing one another in the hearts of mortals and even Gods. The alignment of a god or a mortal becomes more than a simple tag to become the very expression of that soul's nature, putting it as a metaphorical 'soldier' in that eternal struggle. It is one that is not, at any length, paid heed to on a normal basis, but every time that paladin makes a Good decision or that wizard chooses to bomb that house filled with innocents with a fireball, it is a victory for either Good or Evil, as factions in their own right of a perpetual war that began before Time.

It makes for a very clear-cut way of defining human actions and deriving an alignment from them, as based on the DnD scaling. As far as I can tell from most of my readings, it is the character that makes the alignment and becomes the alignment, not the other way around, with the character sort of falling into the right slot for him or her. This way of looking into alignment does not completely clear the faults in the DnD alignment system, and it certainly does not help explain what Good, Evil, Law and Chaos are (which barely is explained, save for Good and Evil in the books of Exalted Deeds and Vile Darkness, and even so not completely satisfactorily), but still, I believe it provides enough insight into how to use the alignment system without philosophical herniae.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

While I use the traditional D&D alignment system, it generally works out to be the last one you mentioned in practice.

 

[Albino Boo]

Personally I think its helpful to remove the moral continuations of the word hero. If you look at the Greek heroes, most of them are brutal psychopaths who come to violent end. Theseus is murdered in revenge for the rape of the 12 year old Helen of troy, Agamemnon is killed by his wife for sacrificing their daughter and Hercules kills his wife and children. A quick perusal of Viking and Saxon literature reveals much the same thing. I think if you define hero as someone capable of great and famous deeds the whole thinks makes more sense, especially in a fantasy setting.

I have little experience with the lore of the original Dungeons and Dragons Greyhawk setting, but in the Forgotten Realms, which seems to have taken precedence of late as one of, if not the most famous of settings for DnD, Good, Evil, Law and Chaos are actually factions in their own right. The War of Light and Darkness lore pretty much designates that at every waking moment in the world, the cosmic forces that comprise those four concepts are ever struggling against and changing one another in the hearts of mortals and even Gods. The alignment of a god or a mortal becomes more than a simple tag to become the very expression of that soul's nature, putting it as a metaphorical 'soldier' in that eternal struggle. It is one that is not, at any length, paid heed to on a normal basis, but every time that paladin makes a Good decision or that wizard chooses to bomb that house filled with innocents with a fireball, it is a victory for either Good or Evil, as factions in their own right of a perpetual war that began before Time.

It makes for a very clear-cut way of defining human actions and deriving an alignment from them, as based on the DnD scaling. As far as I can tell from most of my readings, it is the character that makes the alignment and becomes the alignment, not the other way around, with the character sort of falling into the right slot for him or her. This way of looking into alignment does not completely clear the faults in the DnD alignment system, and it certainly does not help explain what Good, Evil, Law and Chaos are (which barely is explained, save for Good and Evil in the books of Exalted Deeds and Vile Darkness, and even so not completely satisfactorily), but still, I believe it provides enough insight into how to use the alignment system without philosophical herniae.

There is nothing new under the sun, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism . In other words they stole the idea from a 2500 year old religious philosophy.

 

[greyghost81]

I've never had a problem with alignments as far as their actual philosophical and character behavior goes. I'm currently running a D&D 4th ed. campaign, and while I feel alignments a a bit truncated in this edition, I'm not at all sad to see the more cumbersome mechanics (certain classes can only have certain alignments, clerics within "one step" of their deity, all those alignment based planes, and so on) associated with it.

In practice I've found that traditional D&D alignments work fine in conjunction with an "alignment as allegiance approach." PCs who are invested in the game world tend to join guilds, support governments, have clan or family ties, belong to religious traditions, and all such organizations are comprised of other individuals that may share the same goals or general outlook but not necessarily the same alignment. As a DM I use this inherent friction to push the PCs to make choices such as breaking ties with a church the PC follows but is being pulled in a different moral direction by a charismatic preacher, or make the PCs debate whether to overthrow a local autocrat who is grafting the populace but knowing that doing so will create a power vacuum that will likely be exploited by another villainous entity.

 

[Archon]

Personally I think its helpful to remove the moral continuations of the word hero. If you look at the Greek heroes, most of them are brutal psychopaths who come to violent end. Theseus is murdered in revenge for the rape of the 12 year old Helen of troy, Agamemnon is killed by his wife for sacrificing their daughter and Hercules kills his wife and children. A quick perusal of Viking and Saxon literature reveals much the same thing. I think if you define hero as someone capable of great and famous deeds the whole thinks makes more sense, especially in a fantasy setting.

Albino, that's a really brilliant point. Thanks for sharing that. It's entirely true that to the ancient and medieval bards and storytellers, "hero" meant something totally different. Nietzsche speaks about this when he refers to "good" as in strong, proud, and powerful as compared to "good" as compassionate and humble.

It's only in modern Western civilization that we have developed the concept of the hero as the selfless altruist who does great deeds for no reward. To the classical civilizations, a hero was a noble warrior who did great deeds for the reward of glory.

In both my D&D campaigns all characters of all alignments earn gold for XP. Some of the players early on wondered why a hero would care about treasure, and I harkened back to heroes like Beowulf and Achilles, who absolutely did care about treasure, as it was the physical manifestation of their glorious wins.

 

[CaptainCrunch]

In an effort to eliminate the philosophical overtones that come up with alignment, I think you can break down character behavior into 4 "Loyalties":

Self
Party
Nation
Ideology

Any character can describe their alignment in terms of the priority each of these 4 loyalties takes in how they behave. For example, the order used above could very easily describe a Neutral character - self preservation and ensuring a steady cash flow by adventuring with a party are more important than any king or god. If the party is getting completely annihilated, this character would switch sides, take the loot and run, or any other act that ensures survival.

Ideology
Party
Nation
Self

This order could describe a zealot of any kind, but is especially suited for Paladins. Whether they align with good or evil, law or chaos, there is only belief and the benefit of those the character has sworn to protect.

Self
Ideology
Party
Nation

This is the order I would use for my cowardly cleric, Balbus. He'll do anything to stay alive, but believes in the power of his deity (or any deity willing to protect him, for that matter). Even though he's a Lawful character, the people that directly affect his survival (the party) will be protected from laws that limit their ability to adventure with him.

This could be applied to game-world consequences as well. You could map spells, feats, and other abilities to the 4 "Loyalties", and how the character prioritizes them will determine how well they can use the ability. For example, turning undead is a function of Ideology. The example Paladin from above would have a better chance to turn a Vampire than the cleric Balbus.

Similarly, a character that spontaneously shifts priorities would suffer penalties on abilities. A magic-user that casts Invisibility 10ft radius (Party loyalty) to escape, but leaves some party members behind might not be able to use the spell as easily anymore. Perhaps a chance to fizzle that increases every time something like this happens.

It's certainly not without drawbacks, and it's not a flawless replacement for the classic Law/Chaos/Good/Evil system, but I think it would help us keep our distance from the ingrained Judeo-Christian ideology we often see applied to alignment.

 

[Archon]

That's a really cool system, Nick.

So for Erik's thief we'd have: Self, Self, Self, Self...

 

[Mersadeon]

Well, right now I never had a D&D campaign. I always wanted to, but I'm in the most stressful time of my life, and D&D players are rare within my circle of friends. One of them asked me if I could be the dungeon master in a campaign, but since I never even played, I don't know if I can make it. IF I do it, I know I am going to use the philosophical approach - my group of friends is quite into discussing morality, so that would be fitting. I also like that you can flesh out what your particular alignment means - as long as you can justify it, you are as right as anyone else at the table. Also, I can really already see who would take which alignment... I know them quite well, so I am confident that I could predict their next move. But I really don't know how to start with a campaign. Hm.

 

[CaptainCrunch]

That's a really cool system, Nick.

So for Erik's thief we'd have: Self, Self, Self, Self...

I forgot to say that every character has all 4 Loyalties.

Joking aside, Viktor would be: Self, Ideology, Party, Nation. Ideology is higher because of his tendency to act upon his personal code of thiefy ethics. (Like killing a rescued wizard for not helping us in a fight.)

 

[Kross]

That's a really cool system, Nick.

So for Erik's thief we'd have: Self, Self, Self, Self...

I forgot to say that every character has all 4 Loyalties.

Joking aside, Viktor would be: Self, Ideology, Party, Nation. Ideology is higher because of his tendency to act upon his personal code of thiefy ethics. (Like killing a rescued wizard for not helping us in a fight.)

Man, I regret saving that guy from his stony hell more every day.

 

[370999]

Lawful Good- thinks laws are good because they protect people from bad things happening to them (generally). Hates unjust laws, will work within the system to see them changed. Obeys the law.

Lawful Neutral- The Law is the Law and is meant to be followed, good, bad or indifferent. If anyone knows Les Misérables, this is Inspector Javert to a T. You will be held to the standard of following the law, and if you break a law, woe to you. The law is all.

Lawful Evil- The law is very useful, but will use the laws to benefit him or herself. Never breaks their word, but getting it can be difficult. Likes the law insofar as it makes society easier to control. Unjust laws are just too bad for the people they discriminate against. Likes laws that favor himself.

Chaotic Good- Freedom is better than any laws. Laws can hurt people as well as help them and more often hurt. Will ignore unjust laws and even break them to prove how unjust they are. Wants good for people, but laws don't generally help in this regard. The person with the most freedom can do the most good. Has a personal code of morality that may conform to some laws in society, but not all of them.

Chaotic Neutral- I have the freedom to do what I want, when I want. Is contemptuous of laws and doesn't give a flying leap. Personal freedom is all, and if that causes someone else grief, so be it.

Chaotic Evil- Not only will I do what I want, when I want, but I will tread over everyone else to get my way. I have mine, now root, hog, or die! If you're not strong enough to defend your stuff from me, I should be able to take it, and you can cry about it until you dessicate, I don't care. I am the only one who matters.

True Neutral- Either a fence sitter, or someone who truly doesn't care about morals or laws or lack of either. Druids only respect the laws of nature and nothing else. At times, they can seem benevolent or malevolent depending on what they are doing (from the view of others), but they are only following the uncaring law of mother nature. For example a druid may kill a rabid bear because of the damage it is doing to the ecosystem. To a community suffering the attacks of said bear, he's doing a good deed. Two years later, there is a blight on the crops and the druid does nothing because that's how nature is- and now the same community sees him as evil for not fighting the blight.

Neutral Good- Good is the aim. Laws are fine if they promote it, likewise Chaos. All that matters is that Good is done.

Neutral Evil- Here is the same, but mainly for evil. If I can work within the law and use the law to steal your farm from you, that's what I'll do. If showing up with 20 of my best buds on horseback with swords and killing everyone works better, I can do that, too.

Essentially, evil alignment is all about "me", whereas good is all about others and doing for other people.

Neat system, I however differ. For me the whole crux between lawful and chaotic was similar to the difference between collectivism and individualism.

So to me a LG character would value group harmony and want to see people working together and getting along. A CG character woudl value individual liberties and freedoms and as such would want to ensure that party members were able to engage in self expression and voice dissent.

The LG's main desire was that of liberty, the CG that of liberty.

If the part wanted ot embark ona course of action that the LG character didn't agree with he would be much more likely to bute his tongune. The CG player would be much more likely to understand that players have different opinions and not want to force his.

The difference between evil though is harder. To me, LE is essentialy the Soviet Union, where the evildoer believes that he does what he has to do to benefit the group. If ten has to die so that a hundred survive then that is a good decision. If someone is publishing art that is deemed inappropiate then they must be stopped.


CE is, to me at least, anarcho-capitalism. It is the belief that people should stand solely by their own efforts and if they die then tough. It won't make judegments on things like sexual orientation but it won't be likely to protect it's weak either. Rapture from BioShock is roughly what it is.

I thinkt he best thing about an alignment system is discussing what the alignment means to your character and how you are going to roleplay it. While mine and your definition of Lawful Good may differ, that is good as many would differ in how they interpret Justice or Liberty.

 

[Falseprophet]

All this talk of Myers-Briggs makes me want to experiment with Kohlberg's stages of moral development [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development] as an alignment system.

Honestly, I've found that in a party that takes roleplaying seriously, an alignment system is unnecessary (unless there are some in-game mechanics to it, which there rarely are outside D&D). An experienced roleplayer will do things that make sense for their character simply because that's what that character would do, not because some pre-picked alignment says that is what the character would do.

Exactly this. I've been lucky with tabletop games in finding a good group of players--usually friends--where we can just say "don't be complete bastards" and run with it. (LARP is a whole different story.) For D&D, I try to minimize the mechanical effects of alignment as much as possible.

I have little experience with the lore of the original Dungeons and Dragons Greyhawk setting, but in the Forgotten Realms, which seems to have taken precedence of late as one of, if not the most famous of settings for DnD, Good, Evil, Law and Chaos are actually factions in their own right...

I think you hit the nail on the head, and also hit on why the Forgotten Realms setting always left a bad taste in my mouth. Good and Evil always felt like baseball teams in the Realms, since their methods didn't come across as especially divergent. I remember reading the Icewind Dale trilogy, where the protagonists engage in fraud, theft, manipulation and sneak attacks. I like shades of grey and am a big noir fan, so I don't mind my heroes engaging in questionable behaviour, but the antagonists are condemned for engaging in the exact same antics just because (according to their character sheet) the second letter in their alignment is "E".

But I won't slag on the Realms too much. I'm not sure I like how any official D&D setting handled alignment (or its cousin, religion), which might be why I've never used one. I've always been more of a Conan/Elric/Fafhrd & Grey Mouser fan anyway. I prefer the story of how a passionate person or small group of friends struggle to way their way in a largely impersonal, apathetic world than epic struggles of good and evil.

 

[Scow2]

My favorite D&D campaign is Eberron, because of the way it handles alignment. Not all Evil is your enemy, not all Good are your allies. The Lawful Good Queen wants Global Domination. The Evil Vampire Lord wants World Peace. (This is also the setting where Orcs are the ancient protectors of nature, and Elves form hordes hell-bent on Conquest in the name of Glory, but that's beside the point.)

I like the philisophical system of alignment mixed with Attitude. I have four characters that each correspond to the four "True" alignments.

The Chaotic one is an Eberron-based Catfolk Barbarian that grew up on the plains. He's pragmatic, disregarding the lives of those who stand against him when he's protecting those that matter to him. He is a very free spirit, and though he might slaughter members of team Lawful Good, it's almost always a defensive action. He fears the law, so he's not one to leave witnesses. But he otherwise tries to be a decent person.

My Good character is actually Exalted, a Catfolk that's taken the Vow of Poverty. He is the type to engage in "Stupid Good" actions like saving villians, and opposing the party vehemently against committing evil acts. He does this because he takes pride in demonstrating to Evil creatures (who generally only respect Strength) that Good is the stronger force. Of course, he's a Favored Soul of Pelor. He'll smite demons and burn the Undead with holy light and fire, but otherwise, he wants to see all redeemed from evil. I made him because I like the idea of "Jesus is a Lion! And he's channeling Moses as well!"

I also have a Neutral Evil Gnoll (Who's actually struggling to become Lawful Good, but too often gives into her racial nature). She tries to be honorable, but lacks the patience to stay bound to vow. She eats intelligent creatures (And if asked about it, she asks, in gnoll, something along the lines of "How do you define intelligent?") Babies taste particularly good, because their meat is still tender and they have the best processing/hanging weight ratio. She's also inherently sadistic, inflicting as much pain as possible into her enemies. While she restrains her destructive impulses, she doesn't care for society's niceties. She was made as an exploration of D&D's gnoll's "Usually Chaotic Evil" nature.

My Lawful Neutral is an Eberron Warforged, who hardly even thinks for himself, and uses higher authorities to determine how to act.

I also have a Lawful Evil Kobold, made as an exploration of Kobold society and mentality.
And too many Lawful Good Paladins to count.

I find myself easily conforming to the Lawful alignment IRL>

 

[Simriel]

The campaign I am currently involved in uses the Alignment as Philosophy idea, however our DM allows for this to be modified by a situation. e.g my current character is Lawful Good, however he is in a position where he is above many strictures of law allowing him to stick to his more important Good alignment. If you state which of the characters axis alignments they adhere to more (e.g good over law) this leads to more variation in the system.

 

[ArekExcelsior]

I use Ethical Archetypes. I grew up with Palladium, but I wanted a system distinct from personality that was also far more specific. Unlike D&D or Palladium, I don't limit the number of Ethical Archetypes. Consider a Neutral character. Classically, people have considered Neutral as any number of things: A completely selfish person only out for their own good, a hedonist, someone just oriented at survival with no broader desires, someone philosophically for neutrality, someone oriented at maintaining a system, and someone oriented at peace. These are ALL different Ethical Archetypes (which is probably the closest to World of Darkness). A Hedonist may be violently so, such that they believe in hedonism and argue for its merits, or just lazily so, oriented at getting what they want but not being particularly insistent or mean about it. A Peacekeeper is someone who just believes in peace and order: Legal systems and governments can cause war and they oppose them in that instance, but so can individuals. A Naturalist just tries to protect the flow and ebb of the universe. A Neutralist is someone who seeks to defend some kind of neutrality or go "beyond" good and evil: In Charmed, the Avatars were like this AND Peacekeepers (so they'd be Neutralist Peacekeeper as their Archetype), seeking to stop conflict between good and evil. An Ethical Archetype is distinct from a personality: A Rebel could be like Luke Skywalker, adventurous and kind and seeking to build something new and free (capable of leading a group but always wanting to be on his own), or more violent and impatient. And it's distinct from faction: A Hedonist may be a Nazi because it lets him get food and survive.