Post/Author/DateTime	Post
DanjaNinja 02-22-06, 07:42 PM	I was writing this before class and I didn't have time to finish. I figured I would post it up and see what people have to say, and I'll edit in the Law-Chaos axis later. I'll start this off with saying that I don't really care for the D&D alignment system. Something about the assumption of an objective morality (that is, certain actions are always good, others always evil) really rubs me the wrong way (especially poison use). Then again, if you assume a purely subjective morality system then alignment as written becomes almost meaningless--everyone would have to have a different alignment depending on who's judging them. Another thing that ticks me off is the yardstick by which alignment is measured; namely, no two DMs can seem to agree whether alignment should be judged by intentions or actions (or both), or what specific thoughts and actions constitute an alignment shift. So, I'm going to present an alignment system that combines all of the above--that is, there's room for objectiveness and subjectiveness, judgement by actions and intentions, and the ability to adjust to taste. It still preserves the three alignments along two scales (Lawful-Chaotic, Good-Evil) so that there's a minimum of adjustment necessary for game mechanics relying on alignment (i.e., the Paladin class), but I think it redefines it so that each alignment can encompass a broader range of personalities. At least, I hope so. Before I start, I say "accepting morality" a lot, and I don't really define what "morality" is--this is where subjectivity comes in. I've intentionally left "morality" ambiguous so that it can be adjusted depending on the situation and the society. Good-Evil axis Good: Good means an acceptance of morality. Good people necessarily see things in terms of "black and white". "Shades of gray" are illusionary at best, and deceptive at worst. A good person can be benevolent, caring and generous, but he can also be judgemental, narrow-minded and selfish. Goodness is measured by intent--a person can commit an atrocious act and still be good if he honestly felt it was morally justified. Guilt is a very "good" emotion--an absence of guilt indicates neutrality or evilness. A person can judge himself as evil or unredeemable and still be good (though if he wasn't guilty he might be very close to neutral); the fact that he still judges things as "black and white" indicates that he's good. Evil: Evil is a rejection of morality. Evil people feel that their actions (or any action) can't be judged in terms of "black and white". Evil people necessarily judge themselves along the lines of self-interest. Evil people can be compassionate and generous, but only if they can justify it to themselves as ultimately self-serving. At their worst, evil people are dispassionately unmerciful. Evilness is measured by intent--a bureaucrat can establish a charity, but if he only does so to gain political clout then it is an evil act. Some evil people feel that they have transcended morality. Neutral: Neutral means uncertainty or indecisiveness about morality. It encompasses a middle-ground between good and evil. Good and evil people necessarily measure themselves in different ways, but neutral people are likely to view things as "shades of gray". Things are rarely clear-cut for a neutral person--if they are, then he's likely very close to goodness or evilness. They don't feel everything can be judged as "black and white", but they are also uncomfortable with the self-serving apathy of evilness. Neutrality is measured by intent--weak or absent intent indicates neutrality. Intent that is not clearly good or evil can also be neutral. P.S. Yes, this is incomplete--read above.
jpat93 02-22-06, 08:42 PM	Hmm. I'm no veteran of these alignment debates, but I had a couple thoughts. I, too, have sort of had it with the alignment system as written, but I'm not sure substituting another set of axes is really the solution. Anyway, that aside, I guess I'm not taken with the good-evil axis as written. Seems like it's more of an absolute-relativistic/situational axis. I mean, you can call these end points "good" and "evil," but I don't think your conception matches with either a philosophical or commonsense notion of what those words mean. I think I like the idea of an absolute/situational axis, which would sidestep some of the problems and ambiguity that the as-written law-chaos axis has, just not the idea of calling these dimenions "good" and "evil." I like the idea, though, of considering other dimensions of "alignment" beyond law-chaos (which strikes me as ambiguous) and good-evil (which is less problematic but too absolutist for my taste).
Vaelan 02-22-06, 08:49 PM	Something about the assumption of an objective morality (that is, certain actions are always good, others always evil) really rubs me the wrong way (especially poison use). The only acts that are always Evil, as per the PHB, are... Debasing innocent life Hurting innocent life Destroying innocent life Oppressing (innocent) people (the innocent is implied) Killing without qualms if doing so is convenient Killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master Which of these do you object to?
Lina_Inverse 02-22-06, 09:42 PM	In the D&D cosmology Good and Evil are not concepts in the minds of mortals. They are forces of the universe. As integratel to its functioning as gravity is to ours.
BlaineTog 02-22-06, 09:53 PM	I agree with jpat93: those might be fine for some sort of alighnment system, but they ain't "Good" and "Evil."
Shotgun_badger 02-22-06, 10:09 PM	The only acts that are always Evil, as per the PHB, are... Debasing innocent life Hurting innocent life Destroying innocent life Oppressing (innocent) people (the innocent is implied) Killing without qualms if doing so is convenient Killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master Which of these do you object to? Well I object to them telling me that no matter what, doing those things will make me evil
SocialTool 02-22-06, 10:41 PM	I actually quite enjoy the alignment system (finding myself once again at odds with nearly every other poster on the site :D ) The changes suggested in the post seem very close to the original intent of the actual alignment, but I think DanjaNinja's approach helps remove some of the arbitrariness that sometimes gets thrown into the mix. If I could chuck in my two cents: If guilt is the telltale sign of "good" then jealousy is the telltale sign of "evil". Jealousy in terms of never being satisfied with your slice of the pie, always feeling like you're being screwed, always wanting more and not caring what it takes in order to get your way. Likewise I'd like to offer an additional flavor of neutrality. While there are those who are neutral because they are torn between good and evil-- indecisive neutrals, there is another type that's worth noting. Some neutrals are not torn, but are indifferent--acting entirely on the law/chaos axis. Some people will side with a set and consistant system even if the odd evil creeps through, because the system has to work equally for everyone for good or evil, or it doesn't work. Good example is the cop who doesn't wanna' hear your life story. Likewise there are those who hate being told what to do, and kick against any restrictions they encounter out of restless discomfort at having to live their lives by anyone elses standard. Neither or these types of person are indecisive with regards to good and evil, it's simply irrelevant. I guess in calling good and evil irrelevant sounds like what DanjaNinja calls evil--though neither of these mindsets seem extreme enough for me to feel comfortable labeling them "evil". Anyway that's my take.
weasel fierce 02-22-06, 11:37 PM	I remember a few of those discussions :) To be honest, I think the ideas of alignment should be tailored to the particular campaign. In Dark Sun, things that would be morally acceptable would not be the same as in the Realms, f.x. Of course, once we apply our romanticized 21st century ideals to it, it gets even stranger :) Ultimately, I'd say just leave the alignments in 1978 and reserve "good" and "evil" for things which are undeniably, and forcibly so (demons, angels that kinda stuff). The rest have goals, ambitions, motivations and desires as you see most appropriate.
jpat93 02-23-06, 10:05 AM	Ultimately, I'd say just leave the alignments in 1978 and reserve "good" and "evil" for things which are undeniably, and forcibly so (demons, angels that kinda stuff). The rest have goals, ambitions, motivations and desires as you see most appropriate. Now, this I like. It might avoid problems with disengaging the magic system from its alignment connection and still give PCs more freedom to be fully formed and nonstereotyped. However, assuming for the moment that some sort of formal alignment system has to exist for PCs and NPCs, what might the dimensions of that alignment system look like? I might retain something like the OP's "good/evil," but under the name of "absolute/situational" or suchlike, and keep the RAW good/evil pretty much the way it is. Law/chaos seems to me to be in need of the most work, as it tends to blur the issue of attitude toward external authority with the issue of internal orderliness/predictability/discipline. I think this ambiguity is what causes a lot of alignment-related problems.
sherretz 02-23-06, 11:30 AM	You guys are missing what I think is a major point. The ideas of Good-Evil and Law-Chaos had to be quantified for the sake of game mechanics. Otherwise, a player with a paladin or good-aligned cleric would not know whether they had strayed from their alignment or not (or the DM for that matter). They also needed to be quantified for the sake of the "Protection From...." spells in the spell list. Hence, it may not be great, but it's a necessary evil. When I play with my group, we generally do what we want, and use alignment as a guide versus be-all, end-all. Perhaps instead of redefining alignment, just use it as a guideline instead of a set of rules regarding character play. If your PC or NPC strays a bit away from their alignment in a few situations, just let it go. Due to the nature of the subject, you'll never be able to find a universally-accepted approach to alignment, so really it's all for naught.
DanjaNinja 02-23-06, 01:05 PM	Anyway, that aside, I guess I'm not taken with the good-evil axis as written. Seems like it's more of an absolute-relativistic/situational axis. I mean, you can call these end points "good" and "evil," but I don't think your conception matches with either a philosophical or commonsense notion of what those words mean. I think I like the idea of an absolute/situational axis, which would sidestep some of the problems and ambiguity that the as-written law-chaos axis has, just not the idea of calling these dimenions "good" and "evil." Well, in retrospect I think that's what I was aiming for. I want to challenge my players' common-sense notions of good and evil. That, and I've been reading a lot of Nietzsche lately. I won't get into the details, but what you call absolute and situational is what (as I understand) Nietzsche calls good and evil. I still haven't written Law-Chaos yet, but I suspect it will be a less radical departure from the RAW. [list of evil things] Which of these do you object to? No one thing in specific (well, poison use)--like I said, something about completely objective morality just really rubs me the wrong way. Sure, those things are reprehensible, but I don't think "reprehensible" is the sole purview of evil. I guess what it comes down to is that I want intent to factor into alignment more than it does. In the D&D cosmology Good and Evil are not concepts in the minds of mortals. They are forces of the universe. As integratel to its functioning as gravity is to ours. I'll agree in that they are tangible forces, and that what a mortal thinks and does in D&D allows these forces access to his soul. In that regard, morality does have a "place in the minds of mortals". I don't think alignment as I've written it is contrary to that notion. I agree with jpat93: those might be fine for some sort of alighnment system, but they ain't "Good" and "Evil." Again, that's sort of the point. See my response to jpat93. I actually quite enjoy the alignment system (finding myself once again at odds with nearly every other poster on the site ) Thank you. :) I guess in calling good and evil irrelevant sounds like what DanjaNinja calls evil--though neither of these mindsets seem extreme enough for me to feel comfortable labeling them "evil". Anyway that's my take. I think you're really hitting upon it here; I wasn't very clear in my OP, but the hallmark of evil is that "good and evil" don't matter to them--they have no regard for the consequences of their actions beyond how it affects their own self-interest. In that sense, I think any alignment can feel jealousy; if evil has an emotion associated to it, it's apathy. And while I feel there's room for "indifferent neutrals", if they were indifferent to everything but themselves, they'd be evil. For clarification, I do talk about "uncertain" and "indecisive neutrals", but that could also mean people who just haven't thought about morality. While people could subconsciously be "good" and "evil" (most Outsiders), for most it should be a conscious decision. Neutrality is the "ground state". The rest have goals, ambitions, motivations and desires as you see most appropriate. I could leave morality up to the players, but I guess part of the reason for this system is to force the players to think about it (at least a little). It's not as if they won't do it on their own, but a little prompting never hurts. You guys are missing what I think is a major point. The ideas of Good-Evil and Law-Chaos had to be quantified for the sake of game mechanics. Otherwise, a player with a paladin or good-aligned cleric would not know whether they had strayed from their alignment or not (or the DM for that matter). They also needed to be quantified for the sake of the "Protection From...." spells in the spell list. No, I don't think so--I think the game mechanics were built around alignment, not vice-versa. They didn't say, "Hey we need a spell that protects you from something... hmm, how about we add in this alignment system!" That said, I recognize that certain mechanics do make heavy use of alignment. Rather than retooling those mechanics and ditching alignment, I decided to retool alignment and keep those mechanics relatively intact.
JulesCARV 02-23-06, 02:05 PM	I don't like it. So, you can be good and torture people to death in your exorcisms, so long as you honestly think it's the right thing to do because you think these people are demon-possessed? Your system doesn't measure alignment: it just measures commitment to a given philosophy, whether that alignment is itself good or evil. I think that usually, alignment works out okay. If it doesn't, though (for example, you have a Dustman cleric from Planescape who you (not just your character) think is neutral good, but who animates undead as servants, and your DM disagrees and says she's evil), I think that the thing to do is explain your character's philosophy briefly and explain what alignment you think best encompasses your character's philosophy. If your DM disagrees with you, and thinks that your character's philosophy falls under a different paradigm than the one that you claim he falls under, then it's the DM's call, although it could still be a topic of discussion. I think that John Stuart Mill and Edmund Burke could both fall under the "lawful good" alignment paradigm, but they were philosophically opposed to each other in many ways (of course, since Burke died nine years before Mill was born, they weren't opposed to each other during their respective lives, but, y'know, philosophically). However, I don't think that Ayn Rand could be called "lawful good," even though she sincerely believed that she was good, and saw the world in black and white terms. Or, what about Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn? He considered himself amoral for rescuing Jim from slavery. He made a decision to abandon what he considered moral for the sake of his friend. He wasn't evil, though, although he thought he was: he was good. How does your system account for this? I recommend Nomy Arpaly's Unprincipled Virtue (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195179765/sr=8-1/qid=1140721759/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-4066535-1458462?%5Fencoding=UTF8) for some good moral philosophy on such matters. It has a lot of fun examples to work through, as well as some talk of issues like varieties of autonomy, praiseworthiness and blameworthiness, inverse akrasia, and the like.
DanjaNinja 02-23-06, 02:33 PM	I don't like it. So, you can be good and torture people to death in your exorcisms, so long as you honestly think it's the right thing to do because you think these people are demon-possessed? Quite simply, yes. A good person in such a situation would feel remorse, guilt, sympathy--but they still know in their heart of hearts that they're doing the right thing, even if doing the right thing exacts a terrible price. They might feel that they're evil because of this (by normal D&D alignment, they would be), but the fact that they care about good and evil means they're good. If they were doing it for personal gain or their own sick pleasure, they would probably be evil. They could also be neutral--all in all, it depends upon the context and the person. I guess what I'm aiming for is not "he's evil because he does this", but "he's evil because he does this for these reasons". It's about intent. I think that usually, alignment works out okay. Usually, yes. Again, it just irks me--I just want to try something different. Or, what about Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn? He considered himself amoral for rescuing Jim from slavery. He made a decision to abandon what he considered moral for the sake of his friend. He wasn't evil, though, although he thought he was: he was good. How does your system account for this? At first he's good, but later he becomes neutral. He used to think of things in terms of good and evil (he felt he was a low-down criminal for running off with Jim), but he later realizes that it's not all that clear-cut; he finds a balance between self-interest and interest for his friends. He's not evil because he still cares about the consequences of his actions (even if he's immature and doesn't predict the consequences very well). That said, I do need to work on my definitions a little--it's not exactly clear when a person is or isn't neutral.
JulesCARV 02-23-06, 03:18 PM	If you want to have a "commitment" system, then that's fine, I think. For example, maybe someone who's very committed to being lawful evil would have a bonus to will saves to avoid doing something opposed to his alignment, but he would also suffer the consequence of having a tough time violating his alignment (for example, he might have to make a will save to overcome his inhibitions and do something incompatible with lawful evil, such as breaking a contract). However, I don't think that a commitment system is a substitute for an alignment system. Being committed to a given ideal isn't the same is being good, nor is lack of strong commitment equivalent to evil. (I'm reminded of Vampire: The Masquerade's old humanity/path system, with many moral outlooks, and a degree of commitment from 1 to 10 on each of these outlooks) I do think you're right that being totally selfish is evil, but it isn't the only way to be evil. For example, someone who hates gays, and beats up a gay person, even though it's clearly an unselfish act, that gets him thrown in prison and in many respects ruins his life, still committed an evil act, even though it wasn't a selfish act. In short, selfish implies evil, but evil does not imply selfish. Anyway, though, if you're going to have this system, you're not talking about a morality-based alignment system anymore. That's not to say that it's a bad thing. If you want to get rid of morality and alignment in your games, and replace it with commitment and conviction, then go ahead. If you want to combine the two, having both an alignment and a depth of commitment to that alignment, then that's another possibility. I don't think it's accurate to say that a system which measures commitment is based on morality, though: it's based on something else. Don't use a scale to measure someone's height: use it to measure her weight. Use a yardstick to measure someone's height.
sherretz 02-23-06, 03:30 PM	No, I don't think so--I think the game mechanics were built around alignment, not vice-versa. They didn't say, "Hey we need a spell that protects you from something... hmm, how about we add in this alignment system!" That said, I recognize that certain mechanics do make heavy use of alignment. Rather than retooling those mechanics and ditching alignment, I decided to retool alignment and keep those mechanics relatively intact. I don't think that either. I think they said, "we need to tackle general character motivation and traits." After that, they said, "Hey while we're making spells, let's make use of the alignments we created." When developing rules, you can't have too many gray areas because then you're promoting debates at the gaming table when people should be playing through their encounters or adventures. Hence, the quantification of alignments.
DanjaNinja 02-23-06, 03:58 PM	If you want to have a "commitment" system, then that's fine, I think. For example, maybe someone who's very committed to being lawful evil would have a bonus to will saves to avoid doing something opposed to his alignment, but he would also suffer the consequence of having a tough time violating his alignment (for example, he might have to make a will save to overcome his inhibitions and do something incompatible with lawful evil, such as breaking a contract). Well, you're only hitting on part of it. First off, I guess you could call it "commitment", but in my mind what I've written is just an alternate "version" of good and evil (inspired by Nietzsche--if you're not familiar with him, maybe take a look on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nietzsche)). For example, maybe someone who's very committed to being lawful evil would have a bonus to will saves to avoid doing something opposed to his alignment... The point is though, I've thrown out the old alignment system, so it doesn't mean anything to say he's "commited to lawful evil". Lawful evil as you're using it doesn't mean the same thing in this system. Again, the point is to institute an alternate alignment system, not muddy it up with a new axis. Is it different from "common sense" notions of good and evil? Yes, and I wanted it to be. I want a system where adjectives like "nice", "caring", "malicious", "violent", etc., are not the sole purview of good or evil. I do think you're right that being totally selfish is evil, but it isn't the only way to be evil. For example, someone who hates gays, and beats up a gay person, even though it's clearly an unselfish act, that gets him thrown in prison and in many respects ruins his life, still committed an evil act, even though it wasn't a selfish act. In short, selfish implies evil, but evil does not imply selfish. The point of the system, if there is one, is that the act in and of itself isn't evil or good (it's lawful or chaotic, though I haven't finished writing those), but rather the intent behind the act is good or evil. When developing rules, you can't have too many gray areas because then you're promoting debates at the gaming table when people should be playing through their encounters or adventures. Hence, the quantification of alignments. I can agree to that. I guess I just want to insert some debates over morality. Ultimately it will be up to my players, though--when I finish writing this I'll give it to them and see what they think. And thank you, everybody who has posted, for the feedback. It's really helping me to solidify the concepts.
Vaalingrade Ashland 02-23-06, 04:18 PM	Under this system, I'm so evil... It almost *almost* seems like an offhanded slight to the people that don't like the objective alignment system in the first place...