Post/Author/DateTime	Post
JulesCARV 12-14-05, 04:12 AM	Many criticize D&D's alignment system for its simplicity. I would say that it's simplicity has a lot going for it. Saying, "I'm a lawful good paladin" isn't only easier to grasp than saying "My nature is survivor, my demaenor is confidant, and I have 6 humanity points," it can even be better at predicting how a character will react. I'm not one of those people who categorically condemns D&D morality. That said, I'm drawn to things like Vampire's humanity/path system, and to GURPS' hodgepodge system of vows (like "Pacifist: self defense only"), because they offer more detail and "flesh" to moral codes. I don't think that they should replace classical "alignment" morality, but I do think they would make a good supplement. Anyway, I'd like this to be a general thread on "supplemental" moralities or sub-alignments. I realized that my alignment descriptions, particularly the "imperatives" sections, were getting longer and longer, but anyway, I hope I don't bore anyone to death: Here are some thoughts on mine: NOTE: The Paladin alignment is basically a direct rip from the Paladin class's Code of Conduct. If anyone would like to elaborate it, go ahead. I decided not to, since it's the most famous subalignment, and I'd like to see people's own descriptions of paladins. Paladin: Superalignment: Lawful Good Motivation: The Paladin is chivalrous, charitable, and honest. The basic motivation for someone of Paladin sub-alignment is to vanquish or reform all that is wrong with the world and alleviate suffering, without becoming tainted by the wrongs they attempt to destroy or alleviate by using questionable means. Imperatives: -respect legitimate authority -do not lie or cheat -do not use poison -help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends) -punish those who harm or threaten innocents. -never associate with evil characters or continue an association with someone who consistently offends her moral code. -may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good. Examples: All Paladins, some (but not all) other lawful good characters, the Harmonium1, Abraham Lincoln, Carrot Ironfounderson2. Flagellant: Superalignment: Lawful evil Motivation: The flagellant believes that life is a meaningless trial of suffering, and that all pleasures -- food and drink, the joys of friendship, etc -- are meaningless. There is nothing worth saving in this world: perhaps the next life is more promising. The only hope is to achieve numbness: numbness to one's own body's signals of pain or enjoyment, numbness to material possessions, wants, or desires, numbness to the appeals of others for help. Imperatives: -Do not enjoy physical pleasures, and mortify your bodily desires. For example: Wear hairshirts, ruin the taste of otherwise tasty food with ashes (Like St. Francis of Assisi), do not have sex, other pleasurable physical contact (kissing, caressing, etc), or masturbate. -Do not accumulate wealth, unless it is necessary to furthering the ends of numbness and oblivion. -Do not help others who are in pain. They must overcome and become numb to their desires, not have them sated, or the relief will only be temporary. -Have no vanity in your appearance: possibly shave your head, or possibly don't groom your hair (including not shaving facial hair) at all. Examples: many evil monks, the Dustmen1, John Calvin. Boddhisatva: Superalignment: Lawful or neutral good Motivation: The boddhisatva's guiding principle is detachment from worldly desires tempered by compassion for those still suffering from their attachment to worldly desires. While the flagellant is an ascetic, consciously denying herself physical comfort and inflicting bodily misery on herself, the boddhisatva is largely indifferent to material concerns, one way or the other. The boddhisatva does not splurge of silk clothing, but he doesn't wear hairshirts either. The main objective of a boddhisatva is to reduce the suffering of others. Some exceptionally mature people might be targets of evangelism, with the boddhisatva urging them to release their desires, but for most people, and all non-human animals, more mundane forms of compassion must suffice: charity, sympathy, and friendship. Imperatives: -Moderate and control your bodily desires, maintaining a detachment from them. Neither gratuitously satisfy nor senseless mortify them. -Do not fight, except in self-defense against a clear and present danger. -If you fight, either in self-defense or because you broke the previous rule, avoid killing. -Help others when they are in need. -Don't eat meat. -Guide others to happiness, ideally by switching them to boddhisatva sub-alignment. -Fight against social injustice, especially discrimination. Do not shy from helping the unpopular (if a human empire keeps Orcs as slaves, then vigorously campaign for their freedom. Green skin is no excuse for discrimination!) -Be a friend to those others hate or ignore as much as possible. -Don't get abortions (if the society has abortion, which many medeival and earlier societies did) Examples: Many good monks, the Bleak Cabal1, Mohandas Ghandi. Revolutionary: Superalignment: Any chaotic Motivation: Social injustice must be stopped, and the Revolutionary is willing to tear down all of society to uproot the injustice! A revolutionary needn't be a violent terrorist (though some are). He could be a union organizer calling for a general strike, or a lawyer issuing writs of mandamus to the authorities when they fall short of their duties to protect the weak. What all revolutionaries have in common is that they favor radical social change, and are disgusted with authorities. A revolutionary, peaceful or violent, is not a reformer, like a Paladin, Boddhisatva, or Utilitarian. A Utilitarian might say, "let us add a popularly-elected parliament to the kingdom to check the king's unrestricted power." A revolutionary would respond: "cut off the king's head!" A Paladin might say, "we should reform the city guard so that they aren't so brutal toward gnomes and half-orcs." A revolutionary would reply, "No, we should disband the city guard altogether!" Imperatives: -Resist the attempts of authorities to prescribe your behavior. -Fight on behalf of at least one oppressed group. (Oppressed groups might include a race, ethnicity, gender, non-human animals, the lower economic classes, unborn fetuses (once again, if the society has abortion), or people with unusual disabilities or "marks." (e.g., lepers, tieflings). A revolutionary is frequently a member of the oppressed group on whose behalf he fights.) -Help others who are resisting authoritarian power structures, so long as they are not opposed to your cause, even if they are not really aligned with it. -Never hide your convictions unless they would result in your own destruction. Always tell people your views when the oppurtunity arises, even if (especially if) it offends them. People need to here about gross injustice, whether they want to or not. Examples: the Revolutionary League1, Malcolm X, Andrea Dworkin, Lord Asrael3. Utilitarian: Superalignment: Neutral, Neutral Good, or Chaotic Good. Motivation: What's good? Pleasure! What's bad? Pain! This is obvious, but really, a lot of people don't seem to get it. So, what should be the purpose of a morally upstanding agent? To maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Or, more simply, maximize pleasure minus pain: yours and everyone else's. No one is exempt from the grand calculation of pleasure maximization: you, your friends, your enemies, and non-human animals all must be considered. Imperatives: -Enjoy your own life as much as possible while still complying with imperatives below this: eat tasty food, wear comfortable clothing, have sex when it's safe. Avoid pain. -Also, don't try to conform to others' conception of which pleasures are acceptable and which aren't. Homosexuality, narcotics, pornography, art which doesn't conform to prevailing standards of good taste: whatever. -Give to charity/the poor as much as you can. (note: this doesn't mean Utilitarians are ascetic: to a Utilitarian, it is better to get a good job as a merchant making 1000 gp/year and give 250 gp of that to the poor than to work as a laborer getting 30 gp/year and giving 15 gp of it to the poor, whereas an ascetic thinks the reverse.). -Eating meat, dairy products, and eggs, and using leather products, is generally bad, because it often causes pain to the animals involved, but if a wild boar attacks you, and you kill it in self defense, or it's killed by lightning, then there's nothing wrong with eating its body. -Be rational, not superstitious, and use whatever means are necessary to accomplish your ends. If there's a flood that kills people, raising the bodies on the street as zombies with necromantic powers and having them help repair levies and dig in rubble for survivors is the right thing to do, no matter what any high-falutin' paladin says. -Try to make everyone's life more pleasant, even if they're evil. For example, punishment may be necessary as a deterrent, but a Utilitarian never thinks that anyone deserves to suffer. It may be necessary to inflict pain on a serial murderer and rapist, to deter others and to keep the criminal confined, but a Utilitarian only supports the criminal's imprisonment to prevent further pain, not because she believes that the criminal is "getting what he deserves." Examples: Jeremy Bentham, Peter Singer, many good Bards. 1. From Planescape: mainly Sigil factions. 2. From Terry Pratchett's Discworld. 3. From Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. Here's the template I used (if you want to use it, or not: whatever), if you want to make up your own subalignments. Superalignment: Motivation: Imperatives: Examples:
Pan_Ai_Khan 12-14-05, 08:26 AM	I found the nine stated alignments a little restrictive, but didn't have the time or the inclination to come up with a whole new system. So I suggested to my players the idea of 'Tendancy' alignments. These alignments always had an element of neutrality in them, and lay inbetween the other 'compass-point' aligments; LG - LN(G) - LN - LN(E) - LE - (L)NE - NE - (C)NE - CE - CN(E) - CN - CN(G) - CG - (C)NG - NG - (L)NG - Neutrality also had it's tendancies; N(G) - (L)N - N(E) - (C)N - Whenever a class had an alignment restriction, I allowed a player to have any alignment that qualified e.g. Paladins could be LG, LN(G) or (L)NG. Hope this helps a little.
JulesCARV 12-14-05, 04:08 PM	Sounds like a reasonable system, if you find the distinctions insufficiently fine. I think the simplest way of expressing your system is in a 5x5 table, with a five-part good/evil axis and a five-part law/chaos axis: L (L)N N (C)N C G LG (L)NG NG (C)NG CG N(G) LN(G) (L)N(G) N(G) (C)N(G) CN(G) N LN (L)N NN/TN (C)N CN N(E) LN(E) (L)N(E) N(E) (C)N(E) CN(E) E LE (L)NE NE (C)NE CETo me, though, insufficient gradation in morality isn't really the problem. I think nine is sufficient, though I wouldn't mind playing with 25 either. My problem is that what specific duties or goals a morality entails isn't sufficiently clear from just, say, "Lawful Evil." For example, in Planescape: Torment, both Vhailor and Fall-from-Grace are considered to be "Lawful Neutral," (though really, Fall-from-Grace should have been Good from any reasonable perspective) but their philosophical outlooks are completely opposed to each others'. In fact, Grace is the only one to oppose Vhailor's merciless conception of justice in the conversations, with the others too cowed to challenge him. What I'd like to see is, for instance, with Sigil factions, specific codes of conduct. Or now that Planescape is obsolete, say, specific behaviors seen in a worshipper of the Undying Court that wouldn't be seen in someone else. In today's world, if you see someone pull a rug out of his backpack, put in on the floor, face eastward, and kneel down on it in prayer, you know that the guy's a Muslim, basically. From this, you will also infer, rightly or wrongly, that he does not drink alcohol or eat pork. What is the Lawful Good position on abortion, for example? To even ask the question is likely to incur flames and angry moralizing. Specifying that a charcatrer is Lawful with Good tendencies or Good with Lawful tendencies isn't very illuminating here. I think that GMs are unlikely to enjoy answering such questions, and if they do, they may even cause OOC conflicts with their players. On the other hand, if your character is a Lawful Good (Boddhisatva), then you can say, "ah, my character opposes abortion, because reverence for all life is part of how Boddhisatvas think." On the other hand, if your character is Lawful Good (Paladin), then you may say, "my character, as per medeival customs and jurisprudence, believes that abortion is acceptable prior to the quickening (when the fetus begins to move), and believes it's unaccceptable after the quickening, since that was the consensus view until the 19th century, and Paladins basically follow conventional notions of right and wrong." Both fall within the purview of "lawful good" morality. UPDATE: Is this the right forum for this sort of thread? It proposes new ideas for how characters might be formed, but it isn't really about specific characters. I couldn't think of a better place, besides "D&D General." Any suggestions?
JulesCARV 12-15-05, 02:20 PM	As of a few hours ago, I've decided to cross post this to D&D general. (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?p=8007368) Also, it occurs to me that there should be a one word motivating principle to all the alignments. Here they are for the ones I've come up with so far: Paladin: Justice Flagellant: Oblivion Bodhisattva: Peace Revolutionary: Change Utilitarian: Happiness
Fox Lee 12-15-05, 07:34 PM	I like the idea of keeping the Good/Evil axis, but replacing the Law/Chaos axis with the colour-pie method from Magic: The Gathering. The philosophies and methods associated with the colours have always been an interesting thing for me, and while I don't feel the need to go too in-depth with alignments, I like having a little more variety on the law/chaos axis because it's usually less clear (in the minds of the group) than good vs. evil. I'm considering expanding a little more on it mechanically - allowing colour associations to provide strengths and weaknesses to a character, so the idea of multi-coloured characters is even more fun (more perks, but more risks). POssibly associating elemntal damage with colours as well, but that would be a major setting thing...
JulesCARV 12-16-05, 01:13 AM	Interesting thoughts, Fox Lee. So, if a player took more than one "color" alignment, could they only take "allied" colors? For example, would they only be allowed to take white and blue or white and green, but never white and black or white and red? Or are opposed alignments allowed? Does having opposed color alignments provide any special situations or dilemmas for characters? It's interesting stuff. I am tempted to draw analogies between the subalignments I've listed and the color codes from Magic: the Gathering that I just looked up. It would probably go: White: Paladin Blue: Utilitarian Black: Flagellant Red: Revolutionary Green: Bodhisattva Overall, though, that wouldn't really work, for two reasons. 1) Bodhisattva should be between Flagellant and Utilitarian, with Buddhist ethics often presented as a "middle path" between the Flagellant's self-mortification and the Utilitarian's self-indulgence (from my shaky understanding of Buddhism, that is). This would force Paladins and Revolutionaries to be allies, which is frankly ludicrous. 2) I initially listed five, but they aren't supposed to be a coherent system. On could add new moralities or cross out old ones without effecting the others, whereas one can't add, say, brown to the color pie without screwing things up. (To clarify, I'm not criticizing your post: I'm the one who made the analogy between the subalignments and the colors, though I don't think it really makes sense, and I don't blame you for the fact that I felt compelled to draw a silly anology between two very different alignment variants:cool:.) That said, some new subalignments I came up with! Übermensch: power Superalignment: Neutral evil Motivation: The übermensch is first a destroyer, then a creator. If successful, the übermensch's vision and will to power permanently alter the course of history. He seeks to destroy the old order -- institutionally, physically, and morally -- and step into the gap with his own values, vision, and will, creating a new moral order. The destruction of the old reveals a chaotic aspect in the übermensch, but the creation of the new reveals a lawful aspect. The übermensch seeks to rise above the sheeplike herd of mere mortals and become something beyond humanity -- a force of history and will. Humanity is a work in progress, a bridge between mere animals and übermenschen, and he believes that he is at the end of that bridge, the next phase of progress and evolution. Imperatives: -Seek power -Disregard conventional morality: it no more applies to you than the rules a kindergarten teacher lays down in governing her class apply to a grown man. -Do not worship any gods. You fight for your own glory, not to glorify past idols. -Destroy the old order: the morality of the old ruling class, who are no more than the degenerate descendents of the dead übermenschen of the past. -Create a new foundation, based on your own rules, law, and morality. -Do not waste your time serving others or idling away your time with pleasure or comfort: serve yourself, and change the world with your will. Examples: Julius Caeasar, Napoleon Bonaparte, The Mule4, many villains of the "misguided megalomaniacal idealist" mold. Preserver: Stability Superalignment: True neutral Background: The basic view of the preserver can be summed up as: "the world as it is is the world as it should be." That does not mean, however, that the preserver is satisfied with any situation. The world as it is is as it should be, but that does not mean that the world to come is as it should be. As such, the preserver opposes any change, and wants the future to be as much like the present (or perhaps some past, real or idealized). Many preservers seek to prevent changes, whether "change" means cutting down an ancient forest and replacing it with a town surrounded by farmlands or altering marriage so that two men or two women can marry each other rather than solely allowing men to marry women. Preservers have no more admiration for the creation of new things than the destruction of old things. Imperatives: -Eschew new technologies or arts -Preserve old things, whether abandoned ruined buildings or natural environments facing human development or ancient monarchies facing popular rebellion. -Oppose new things, whether new developments on formerly wild lands or new institutions. -Preserve the natural order, and oppose the unnatural. What is considered natural and what is considered unnatural can vary, since if "natural" means "taking place outside of any cultural context," then everything humans do is unnatural, while if "natural" means "occuring in the natural world, including humanity," then everything humans do is natural. Generally popular examples of "unnatural" things in the view of preservers include sophisticated technologies (i.e., those beyond basic metalworking, curing, agriculture, and weaving), sexual behavior other than monogamous heterosexuality, using some means to live beyond the end of "venerable" age for one's race, or the destruction of the natural environment itself. To the preserver, nature is not just a morally neutral fact of existence: it is an embodied form of moral code. Examples: Many (most?) druids, Leon Kass, Pope Benedict XVI 4. Isaac Asimov's Foundation series: Second Foundation.
Fox Lee 12-16-05, 03:17 AM	Interesting thoughts, Fox Lee. So, if a player took more than one "color" alignment, could they only take "allied" colors? For example, would they only be allowed to take white and blue or white and green, but never white and black or white and red? Or are opposed alignments allowed? Does having opposed color alignments provide any special situations or dilemmas for characters? It's interesting stuff. Naw, opposing colours make some of the most interesting characters ever. I can't imagine a better villain colour than White/Black. I am tempted to draw analogies between the subalignments I've listed and the color codes from Magic: the Gathering that I just looked up. It would probably go: White: Paladin Blue: Utilitarian Black: Flagellant Red: Revolutionary Green: Bodhisattva Overall, though, that wouldn't really work, for two reasons. 1) Bodhisattva should be between Flagellant and Utilitarian, with Buddhist ethics often presented as a "middle path" between the Flagellant's self-mortification and the Utilitarian's self-indulgence (from my shaky understanding of Buddhism, that is). This would force Paladins and Revolutionaries to be allies, which is frankly ludicrous. 2) I initially listed five, but they aren't supposed to be a coherent system. On could add new moralities or cross out old ones without effecting the others, whereas one can't add, say, brown to the color pie without screwing things up. (To clarify, I'm not criticizing your post: I'm the one who made the analogy between the subalignments and the colors, though I don't think it really makes sense, and I don't blame you for the fact that I felt compelled to draw a silly anology between two very different alignment variants:cool:.) That's basically the case, yeah :p They don't match up very closely to individual colours. I'd peg them as follows: Paladin: White, obviously :p Green/White if it was an open-minded or nature-focused character, possibly Red/White if it was righteously passionate and not anti-pleasure. Flagellant: Not pure Black - Black is way too interested in furthering its own ends to take such a self-depreciating stance, even if the ultimate goal is selfish. If I had to pick one, I would probably say Green/Black - there is a sort of adherence to natural law there, and a nihilistic philosophy whch is probably good for the darker side of Green, which could combine with Black's utter selfishness to make a good Flagellant (unless I misunderstand the subalignment, of course ^^;). Boddhisatva: Perfect Green/White. They would be pure green, but the imposition of non-natural things (like deliberately controlling (even if not denying) one's wants), and the aim of turning others to join their suballignment, speak of White's desire for all-encompassing order and peace. I might throw Red in there too, but only in the case of an individual who was particularly fixed on the "help mistreated/minorities" part. Revolutionary: Yep, this is classic Red :p Not the only permeatation thereof, of course, but definitely the classic. Utilitarian: This is also very Red - Red's primary concern is with enjoying itself and following its emotions. It would also work well for Red/White (because of the ideal of helping others, and the presence of a moral code, even if it is more relaxed than most). It definitely wouldn't be Blue, though - blue is primarily concerned with advancement and the seeking of knowledge, and its methods are subtle and manipulative, none or which seem very fitting for the Utilitarian (especially the parts about considering whether or not animals suffer to provide food - even an altruistic Blue would be unlikely to spare any thought for an non-intelligent being). Übermensch: A magnificant White/Black, the pervertedly altruistic villain who is supremely confident that the world will be better off conforming to his ideals - and is willing to force said ideals upon them "for their own good". All of White's rigidity and facism combined with all of Black's ruthlessness and power-lust. The most evil of all evil types, to me :p Preserver: Basically the exact opposite of Blue, which suggests it should be Green or Red - however, Red loves change, so it's definitely out. As much as I love green, it is incredibly reactive - or, more accurately, frequently inactive - and likes to see things stable and unchanging. Green/White would probably be an even better match - Green's unchanging nature coupled with White's frequently-facist obsession with law and order, could produce a very good match. Now you've done it. I'm going to go and write up a subalignment for every colour combination, just to see if I can :p If you can, check out recent articles on the latest MtG block, Ravnica - the concept of the set is to present one Guild of every two-colour combination (both allied and opposing), and I think the've done great work representing the combined traits of the colours. I recommend it for anybody looking to expand D&D alignments ^^
braindead345 12-16-05, 04:38 AM	I personally use the alignment chart from 1st Edition D&D. It was more of square divided into 9 sections with Good at the top, Evil on bottom, Law on the left and chaos on the right. Neutral was in the center. With this you found degrees within each alignment; a lawful good character could be so chaotic that he bounded the Neutral Good or Neutral borders or so law & order driven that he approached the Law side. Describing the alignments was a bit of a problem; but for the most part, it was only a guideline anyway.
Pan_Ai_Khan 12-16-05, 08:25 AM	Palladium have an interesting alignment system. All their alignments are concepts, and have a do/don't list (like the Paladin Code). I'm not goint to post any real details, just in case I invoke a witch-hunt :( Another source of ideas for 'Codes Of Conduct' are the various Roads and/or Paths presented in the Vampire games. Vampire also delights in seperating the 'visible' and 'invisible' motivations of a character.
aleshandre 12-16-05, 02:11 PM	I like the Modern take, using Allegiances. It includes the L,N,C/G,N,C alignment concept, then adds allegiances to concepts, organizations, people, etc. Any non-conflicting allegiances can be added on top of eachother to create a fully fleshed out character with all of the intricacies that you would want in a role-playing character. The allegiances are listed in order of personal precidence, so a character with allegiances to country,law,good would be loyal first to his country then to law, then to good, so ultimately, if the good of his country required him to break the law, then so-be-it. If following the law required him to commit an evil act, then oh well, it was necessary, etc.
Fox Lee 12-18-05, 04:43 AM	Yes, alliegances is another good option for an alignment alternative. It has the obvious strong point of showing the character's priorities right from the get-go - one of the drawbacks of the normal alignment system is that there's no (mechanical) different between being a Lawful Good who favours Law over Good, Good over Law, and both equally. The idea of a modular alignment system - as in, creating your own "alignment" by combining several options into a basic philosophy - is certainly one that appeals to me (and many other players, in my experience). Plus, I really enjoy speculating about how each part of the philosophy combines with the other(s) ^_^ Also, you could implement it fairly easily, without needing to change alignment-related spells much (if at all). That's an important thing IMO. In any case, I'm getting a bit too far off-track from the sub-alignments topic, so I shall cease to digress for now ^^; Sorry JulesCARV!
JulesCARV 12-21-05, 02:22 AM	Fox Lee, I think that it's actually cool that this thread has generated discussion on completely different ways of conceptualizing alignments beyond my "subalignment" ideas, such as your color pie instead of law/chaos system, or aleshandre's modern-based hierarchy of allegiances system. No need for apologies. In fact, I e-mailed a correspondent who's into ethics on a serious, philosophical level regarding this thread. He saw it, and he noted that Fox Lee's color pie post actually reminded him of thoughts he had had about the correspondence between the M:tG color pie and contemporary meta-ethical views. He was too busy to answer some of the questions I asked, but anyway... some thoughts: The reason I wanted to say Utilitarianism is a "blue" philosophy is because I wanted to express that it is, for better or for worse, an attempt to turn morality into a scientific, logical, rational discipline: no more was morality to be determined by social conventions or emotional intuitions, any more than physical laws. It was now to be determined by logical calculations of how to maximize total net happiness, with everything else following logically, deductively, from that. That said, the list of imperatives that I have for Utilitarianism doesn't make it seem that way: perhaps I over-emphasized the personally hedonistic aspects of it. I'm having difficulty expressing how it works: part of the problem is that Utilitarianism is a philosophy notably ill-suited for imperatives. All ethics is situational for the utilitarian. Nothing is truly off-limits: killing unarmed people, lying, torture: it all depends on the situation. What matters to a utilitarian isn't actions, but the consequences of those actions, in terms of the pleasure or pain they ultimately cause. (I'm having similar issues with the Übermensch: how do you explain the moral imperatives of a person who believes that he is above morality?) That said, expressing utilitarianism in directly consequentialist terms seemed too risky to me, because if you express things in directly consequentialist terms ("do whatever maximizes total pleasure minus total pain"), then it becomes easy for a player or DM to rationalize that anything is in step with Utilitarian subalignment, or that anything is out of step with it. ("Why yes, I robbed those commoners and left their mangled corpses lying on the street, but ultimately that will force the authorities of this burgh to improve policing and security, and since this burgh has a fair amount of less flamboyantly violent crime that was being ignored previously, this crackdown will ultimately prevent more crime, misery, and suffering than I caused with my robberies and murders!") ("What? You gave money to the beggar? That is just preventing him from having the incentives to reform his life, kick the alcohol habit, and develop marketable skills! You lose your utilitarian alignment!") Utilitarianism can actually be a very demanding moral philosophy. It goes against our first-impression moral intuitions in many cases (such as demanding that we never wish ill of anyone, no matter how evil), and there are no limits to the efforts that it asks us to take on behalf of others' welfare. Utilitarianism makes no distinction between the basic duties of everyone and morally heroic actions above and beyond the call of duty: it only asks that one be rational and use whatever means are most effective in bettering the lives of others. I probably sound like a proponent of utilitarianism here. I agree with utilitarians on a several things, but I'm not really a utilitarian: I just think it would be a fascinating alignment to roleplay, and want to clarify what it means to be a utilitarian. On thinking about the flagellant, I think that it actually doesn't fit into the color pie at all. You're right that it isn't pure black: in fact, it's in some ways the very opposite of black (in terms of being totally unselfish and self-depreciating), but it surely isn't white or green. As for the hierarchy of allegiances system that aleshandre proposes from the Modern system, I like it. My own system of subalignments could certainly be incorporated into it. I would say that subalignments would always come after the "alignment" allegiances (i.e., law, good). It could, however, come before organizational allegiances (country, corporation, etc).