Alignment is supposed to encourage players to flesh out their characters, and it does, at least a little bit. As much as it's a tool to help people play more than a cardboard cut-out, it can limit your character if you take alignment seriously. It's a great tool to the new player because it gives them a starting point. But like all crutches, it can only take you so far, and to really flesh out your character in a unique way, you have to leave alignment behind. In the end, to make your character an individual, you have to be willing to see him/her outside of any categories they may fall into. Individuals rarely identify themselves as a member of a personality type for long before they go back to just being themselves. And being yourself often implies a host of nuances and contradictions that alignment can't account for.
You really only have nine different characters to play if you don't consider the differences that come from race and class. When you factor in those combinations, you get 693 possibilities (from the basic list in PHB). But is that kind of combination really how a person's character is developed? There are a lot of times I look at my character sheet and think "what would a chaotic neutral half-elf druid do in this situation?" But that's not how real decisions are made, even literary/theatrical decisions. It's sometimes helpful to remember these things when it's relevant: "Oh yeah, I wouldn't really like Orcs, now would I?" But just as often it leaves me removed from my character or stymied as what to do. Even worse, I'll resort to a typical action for my alignment/race/class. That will give the appearance of realism for a while, but it gets old fast, not to mention that it isn't an authentic way to experience immersion in your character. It's like studying your character from a distance, not role-playing.
Alignment inclines you to think about your character's loyalties, morality, and actions in very general terms. But in reality, most loyalties, moral decisions and actions are based on specifics. Instead of asking yourself how good or respectful of others you are as a general rule, you would usually consider your specific situations, or your specific moral beliefs, or your habits of action. The most natural answer to the question of alignment would be where your alignment lies - with your family, your nation, yourself. And secondly: what means do you use to achieve your goals. Re-interpreting and re-asking the questions that alignment glances over gives a fuller picture of a character. You can still answer those questions exactly how any particular alignment would; but now you have the option to answer them in a different way.
There's a pretty big problem with "good and evil," especially in how diverse the opinions have been on what constitutes the implementation of the moral or ethical principles (let alone what they are themselves). I'm not advocating moral relativity, but it would be blind to ignore the tensions that exist between even slight changes in the definition of a good action. Alignment assumes that everybody knows what's good and bad, and while that's generally true, why rob the gaming experience of the possibilities of moral growth and dilemmas? Such topics have been the staple of other literary genres and for role-playing to be taken seriously as an art form (as well as a pastime), it must be able to display the depth of moral issues that have made great books, films, speeches and fables.
Decisions that are based on specifics create more of a plot/character-driven game. These types of decisions are not only more realistic, they make for more dramatic tension. Sometimes, you're only looking for a smackdown on evil and thrilling encounters with the vile that yield up treasure. That's fine, of course. Then, the shortcut of alignment is a great way to briefly deal with the issues of characterization. But if you're looking for more story depth, ignoring alignment is your best bet.
To touch on the problem above about how decisions are made again, I would like to briefly state that choices are based strongly on personal history, past decisions, upbringing and childhood experiences. Of course no one is forcing you to think it through so deeply, but sometimes even a quick delve into the psychological side can flesh out your character and make role-playing more enjoyable. But, with the alignment sitting right there below your player name, it's easy to just give a pat response when a little effort could make for a better experience.
This next point isn't so strong, but I'll state it anyway: There aren't enough alignments. Again, it's a great way to briefly touch on where your character stands, but once you look at it longer than a glance, you realize that there a number of important qualities that have been left out. Some that quickly come to mind are the Briggs-Meyers personality distinctions. (Introvert-Extrovert, Intuitive-Sensing, Thinking-Feeling, and Judging-Perceiving) These questions seem to fill in some of the missing pieces of a complete picture of personality. I don't recommend you go this far, since, for most players, it is the same kind of artificial path to creating a character. All I'm trying to point out is that in addition to being stifling to character immersion, alignment is also an incomplete picture of your character's identity. It takes too little into account to be a good tool for character identity, especially if it's the only tool suggested by the PHB for personality.
These next few points are almost purely academic, but I feel compelled to include them. I assert that the chaos-law axis is nowhere near as fundamental as the good-evil axis. The two axes aren't even of the same type of being. The good-evil axis encompasses the move from being to non-being and the law-chaos axis is more like a function or subset of the other axis. Law is an attempt to formalize and structure good. The idea of law as utterly distinct from good is without philosophical, historical or cultural precedent. Law is at the service of the Good; it is an attempt to capture the Good and preserve/enforce it. Chaos is a term that ranges in the game from an excuse for randomness to a genuine attempt to preserve freedom. It should be noted that freedom is a good, and that law can actively support freedoms and liberty. This shows that law and chaos can be understood as functions of the Good, and that law and chaos are not quite the opposites that they are portrayed to be. Now, Chaos considered as an excuse for randomness is just poor psychology. If the character is to have any meaning beyond a context for adventure, some reason should be present behind actions. My last scholarly point is to assert that good and evil are misnamed in the game. "Good" should be called "altruistic" and "evil," "selfish." That is how the terms are used frequently (even though the game does often trade on the ambiguity of the terms). Besides, selfish/altruistic sound more like personality traits and are going to get you on the path of better character immersion.
Maybe right now, you're not in the mood to go and rescue someone- does that make you less lawful good? Yeah, probably. But the real question is: Does it take you out of what your character would do? Again, that's so much more important than making sure you match your alignment. There's a hidden idea that if you change your alignment too much or even at all, you're just being difficult and not sticking to your character. Perhaps people will think you made a mistake when you made your character in the beginning. But you should be able to express a fluidity of temperament if that matches your role-player's instincts or plans without worrying that you're betraying some rule.
I assert that alignment is largely a fictional construct that doesn't match even fictional standards of characterization. So let it go! It's easy to assert that (most of) these objections I have raised are based on abuses of the alignment system and not problems with it inherently. I would respond to that by saying: firstly, the system lends itself to these abuses; secondly, it doesn't match real psychology or good fictional character development/immersion; and, it's a superficial aid that ends up being a stumbling block to character-driven gaming. Yes, Wizards of the Coast has provided answers to many of these problems right off the bat (see the alignment section in the PHB). But that's because it tends to lead to these problems pretty easily. It's tough to believe that you have room to play with your alignment when you just might annoy the DM. And if real, story-driven character development is cool with your playgroup, why limit it to those few basic moves that you can make between the nine alignments? Is that as complicated as development gets? Aren't there many, many possibilities for significant character change? Yeah, I know it's easy to say that you don't have to be pinned down to those few that alignment allows, but when the system is there, it's going to swallow a lot of the creative possibilities into the standard structure of the nine alignments.
I know that there are benefits to the alignment system. But they are corrective and introductory benefits. New players are given a voice to speak for their first characters. Problem players are kept in line and have a standard of behavior that others can hold them to. But the benefits of dropping alignment entirely are substantial. You should find yourself discovering your character more deeply, enjoying a more natural interaction in the game world, and developing more complex characters. Besides, how many real people fit into alignment boxes? How many great fictional characters fall into only one square of the nine alignment possibilities? For each one that does, there are numerous examples of those that transcend the whole perspective of alignment. Great characters are not general; they are specific, and dynamic. They don't fit stereotypes; they break them. They cause us to question the ready-made answers about people that the alignment paradigm is so quick to provide. In short, gaming without alignment puts the character in the hands of the experienced player and the player in the perspective of a complex character.
Don't think I'm trying to say that Mechanics should choke-hold you into using alignment, moreso, I'm trying to figure what you would do in such a situation.
As far as it hinders character development, I really don't see that. It helps less experienced players focus and is more of a background trait for those with many years of play under their belts. In my wealth of experience I have yet to admonish a seasoned player for not portraying his alignment. This isn't to say that they always adhere to some fundamental reading of the description and never vary in response or temper. The great thing about alignment is that it isn't immutable. Just like any other belief system you don't change it on a whim but after reflection or great experience. A man doesn't grow up hating orcs and change his mind just because one joins the party. Something has to change his perception, and it can, to cause that hatred to disappear. Alignment shouldn't be seen as static or unchangeable but as a part of a whole that makes a character fuller for being there. I certainly know people that I would say "she is a good person" or "he does his own thing". That doesn't mean that the good person doesn't have a bad day once in a while or that Mr. Free-spirit doesn't follow the group from time to time. It is just a useful way to generalize things.
It sounds like it is merely for flavor though, right? Well, that is definitely not the case. Alignment helps out mechanically as well. Class abilities like Smite, weapon traits like Holy and spells like Dictum and Chaos Hammer all use alignment as a construct to determine whom they affect. Yes, in the "real world" such considerations would be much harder to determine but this is fantasy. Gods exist, they embody certain absolutes. The world may not be completely black and white but the shades of gray are certainly less stark by comparison. Without alignment things like the outer planes would be much hard to conceptualize, in there current incarnation anyway.
Don't look at alignment as it affects one being's possible growth or the lack thereof. Look at it from a universal perspective. I see it functioning fine and would think that only those too fettered with their own perceptions of the mechanism of persona would have any difficulty using it as a base from which the individual grows.
You should *NEVER* define how your character acts based off their alignment. You should define your alignment based off of how your character acts. It does not restrict you any more than a thermometer restricts the temperature. The thermometer says it is hot because of the air temperature, the air temperature does not change because the thermometer does.
To be perfectly honest, if you are in a game where alignment is an issue (and there isn't someone with an alignment based character, like a Paladin), the chances are you aren't using alignments correctly. You play your character however you want, then pick the alignment that comes closest to how the character acts, never the other way around.
I notice you point out a lot of problems, but as to providing solutions for the mechanical failures that taking alignment out the game will entail--there are none. Oh, well you did say it would be easier than removing classes. Mutants and masterminds removes classes and alignment, but there are no paladins and clerics. Maybe if you renamed the alignments you would feel better about using them?
Good = Dynamic/Generative/Life
Evil = Entropic/Destructive/Death
Lawful = Pattern/Predicable/Ethical
Chaotic = Spontaneous/Random/Situational
Neutral = Particular/Undeclared/Detached
The only part I have a problem with (though I'm probably not the best person to judge it) is the following portion, on the nature of Law:
I assert that the chaos-law axis is nowhere near as fundamental as the good-evil axis. The two axes aren't even of the same type of being. The good-evil axis encompasses the move from being to non-being and the law-chaos axis is more like a function or subset of the other axis. Law is an attempt to formalize and structure good. The idea of law as utterly distinct from good is without philosophical, historical or cultural precedent. Law is at the service of the Good; it is an attempt to capture the Good and preserve/enforce it.
Law is not an attempt to formalize and structure good so much as an attempt to formalize and structure, period. Law as distinct from good does indeed have precedent; witness any sort of militaristic dictatorship, where the laws are made not to enforce any sort of "good", but to keep in power those already in power and allow them the exercise of that power. (Orwell's 1984 is an excellent depiction of an extreme example of this situation.)
Chaos, incidentally, can also be the disruption of Law purely for its own sake.
I find that alignment works just fine, provided that the characters have absolutely no idea what their alignments are (save if they use the spells). I change their alignments at my whim, and don't tell them. I find this allows them to role-play naturally, and for the alignment dependant spells to work. Obviously it has some flaws, if one of my players were ever to overcome their horrible aversion to paladins, I would need to scrap that idea.
The main reason I like the alignment system, is that I find that it adds to the flavor of my game. Without it, you can't have the holy cleric raise his holy symbol and shout feel 's rath, and then smite his enemies. The only other way for this to work is to allow for subjective alignments. Which create I find are much more prone to abuse then the normal alignment system. The subjective system allows for abuses such as "I can smite them because they are sinners" even if the religion has a very strict definition of how NOT to sin.
Well that concludes my response to your excellent thread. If only I could work up the energy to do something comparable (though probably contradictory to) your work.
-The Hypocritical Silais
What would a chaotic neutral half-elf druid do in this situation?"
is a clear indication that you consider alignment to somehow be a static, never-changing status on your character sheet. And yet, there's nothing else for a character that never changes. Your stats can go up and down as you play, your race could change through magic, your age progresses (and sometimes even regresses), you might even change gender. So why would your alignment be static?
Your alignment as you define it when you create your character is a measure of how the character has acted up to that point. Create your character. Define his personality and past actions. And then tally up the karmic impact of that. Has the character been more altruistic or selfish? Is he organised, or spontaneous? That's his alignment. Alignment doesn’t dictate actions, actions dictate alignment.
Once you've done that, just keep playing. Your DM will take care of your alignment issues. Don't think "what would a chaotic neutral half-elf druid do in this situation?", think "what would my character do in this situation?". If it so happens that whatever you're doing is aligned with other forces than the ones you've been aligned with in the past, well, you might start changing alignment, then. There's nothing wrong with that. Alignment change can be a slow, gradual thing, instead of a violent, sudden epiphany. Maybe by the time you're level 10, you've acquired more structured habits, and you're not Chaotic Neutral anymore, you're True Neutral. Maybe eventually, you'll be given responsibilities, and you'll go all the way to Lawful Neutral, as life forces you to get organised. Why is that a problem?
The only time you have to think "what would a chaotic neutral half-elf druid do in this situation?" is when you're playing a character that would have to think that. If I'm playing a paladin, my paladin is the one thinking "What must I do to remain true to Goodness and Law?" not me as a player thinking "What would a lawful good person do?"
Play your character, and let the alignment sort itself out. That's your DM's job.
It's easy to assert that (most of) these objections I have raised are based on abuses of the alignment system and not problems with it inherently. I would respond to that by saying: firstly, the system lends itself to these abuses; secondly, it doesn't match real psychology or good fictional character development/immersion; and, it's a superficial aid that ends up being a stumbling block to character-driven gaming. Yes, Wizards of the Coast has provided answers to many of these problems right off the bat (see the alignment section in the PHB). But that's because it tends to lead to these problems pretty easily. It's tough to believe that you have room to play with your alignment when you just might annoy the DM.
Without this, I would have verbally ripped the post to a dozen pieces, while agreeing with you.
So, you are correct. Alignment is not a good tool for encouraging roleplay. It is a "kill this"-label at most. Mechanics such as White Wolf's nature and demeanor, TROS's spiritual attributes, etc. reward certain RP and do facilitate it (or else...). In TROS, they are mutable, which is a Good Thing.
I think that it's important to remember that those players who get bogged down in alignment, at least in regards to character development and roleplaying are those players for whom that aspect of DnD is less important than the tactical/gameplay aspects of the game.
Alignment is easy to vilify but it plays an important role in a game that is designed to be both an immersive and creative roleplaying experience or a hack-n-slash dungeon fest. As it is a core design element of the game, it is nearly impossible to just do away with it either, if only because all of the alignment based spells, class and racial abilities, ambient effects and interplanar relationships are built on the foundations of alignment. Removing the alignment element from the game makes the function of those abilities/forces arbitrary at best and hopelessly botched at worst.
I would applaud a role-play focused group that opted to play without alignment and had both the maturity and ability to make that experience exciting and fulfilling. I wish I could find a group like that sometimes but there are many people who either don't have the inclination or the time to play that way.
I assert that the chaos-law axis is nowhere near as fundamental as the good-evil axis. The two axes aren't even of the same type of being. The good-evil axis encompasses the move from being to non-being and the law-chaos axis is more like a function or subset of the other axis. Law is an attempt to formalize and structure good. The idea of law as utterly distinct from good is without philosophical, historical or cultural precedent. Law is at the service of the Good;
Perhaps you should read some of the Chronicles of Amber written by Zelazny, or you could read some of the many excellent books by Michael Moorcock (Elric, Corum, et cetera).
In those books, there is no conflict between good and evil, since all of the primary characters have both good and evil sides of their personality, but there is a great deal of conflict between law and chaos. (Or Order and Chaos.)
I'll also say that this post lacks any mechanical method for discarding alignment... for example, what spells can you use to hedge out outsiders or keep summoned creatures at bay? What happens to creatures with DR 10/holy? How do you explain outsiders?
The original post was certainly a well thought-out and explained treatise on the nature of human behavior... that people don't always act in a black/white manner... that there is plenty of murky grey area. However, none of that information is at all useful for my game.
I keep the alignment system, but almost everyone and everything in my game is neutral. The only humanoids that would be "evil" are the serial murderers. The only humanoids that would be "good" are on a par with Mother Theresa. Paladins and Clerics have an alignment (and detect as an alignment) based on their god. I reserve the alignments for outsiders and for especially good or heinous NPCs. I use the alignments provided in the Monster Manual to help me guage NPC behavior, but even a troll will rarely detect as chaotic or evil unless it has devoted is life to furthering its cause... if it is just a nasty creature that eats most people it encounters, I will not have it detectable as either Evil or Chaotic.
I think a major point is that the majority of DND players are old and wise enough to know this system is a massive simplification of real life ethics and morals and that bringing this simplified system into game mechanics has had a negative effect. Especially when there's no alternate system for more realistic characterisation and problems.
You have fallen into the same mistake that so many others have fallen into. Alignment is a thermometer, not a straightjacket. You should *NEVER* define how your character acts based off their alignment. You should define your alignment based off of how your character acts. You play your character however you want, then pick the alignment that comes closest to how the character acts, never the other way around.
Amen My Brother!! This is exactly right and the way I've been playing since first edition. As far as game mechanics and Spells effecting alignment it really Torques my players when the goblin they expect to smite turns out to be a father protecting his children or some other twist. They have come to understand that alignment is NOT absolute and can change almost daily, heck it can change on a dime. The point is to play in character, not in alignment.
On the other hand, the entire D&D cosmology is based around alignment. Heaven vs. Hell, Limbo vs. Mechanus, the four corners of the universe are defined by the cosmic principles of good, evil, law, and chaos...even though these are subjective and crude concepts.
In the campaign I've been preparing, the PCs are made to realize that the structure of reality is fundamentally flawed. During the Creation of the Universe, the gods decided that good, evil, law, and chaos should define everything, but it turns out that the gods made a very bad decision. Cultures with a different definition of "goodness" than the original gods' are considered morally invalid. Creatures such as mind flayers and psurlons, who are biologically incapable of understanding what right and wrong are, end up being unfairly lumped under "evil" and have their souls sent the the Abyss even though they had no choice to act any other way. Over the course of the game, the PCs realize what a messed up world it is they live in and by epic level, they must consider whether or not to launch a rebellion against the gods themselves and readjust the principles of existence to be more logical.
Does anyone else think that's a cool idea?
Subjective alignment takes the fundamental meaning away from alignments in general. Without the authority of objective alignments Classes, Spells, and Abilities in general do not function properly. Smite Evil turns into Smite the Sinner.
D&D is a really a black and white game. One can try to make D&D not a black and white game, but by doing so it takes something away from the intention and meaning in the game. 3.5 has done a lot to negate the value of alignments overall. Mostly because in today's society, Good and Evil are seen more and more as relativistic terms. The moral grey area has become the accepted and the norm. In comics it is what separates the Silver Age from the Bronze or Iron Ages (especially the Iron Age). People demand the freedom of action and choices that relativism brings to the table compared to the absolutism of yesteryear. It is just how our society is coming to pass, for good or ill.
On another note. Law and Chaos are more in the line with ethical choices. While good and evil are moral choices. If you want real life examples of cultures that dominate with the conflict between law and chaos as compared to good and evil, I suggest you look at the Asian cultures especially of China, Korea, and Japan. There intention is a lawful culture regardless of good or evil. Chaos is the biggest enemy over there, as evident in there history, laws, religion, and entertainment. The west has a bigger preoccupation with Good or Evil than does the Far East.
An example of subjective alignment could be seen in a Paladin. In a subjective alignment system, a chaotic good character could show up as evil under the tenets of the Paladin or god. For those class abilities and spells to function as they are written and intended the world has to be objective.
However this does not straight jacket the characters. The PLAYERS are straight jacketed. People today in this society beg for the freedom to act as they please in any situation. So, they hate being cramped or subject to something. This is a problem not with the system but with the relativism of our society.
Subjective morality is what our society wants and expects from our entertainment. the alignment system especially those of the Paladin are for people who can understand that not having the complete consequence free Freedom of Action is not always a bad thing.
The alignment system is there for a reason--use it, do not use it--it is fully up to you. But do not say the alignment system is worthless. It is there for a reason.
3.5 D&D, while having alignment in the game, has also crippled it by trying to bring in subjective morality into the equation. The key examples are the found with a monster. Most monsters in the previous editions where always evil or always good. But most monsters now are usually evil. By trying to make it closer to the Freedom of Action that people want they have robbed it of its meaning somewhat.
Even the though alignment is objective. Characters have the free will to act on there own. If a paladin CHOOSES to commit an evil act or repeatedly commits chaotic acts then it will lose its paladinhood. Reasonable for a holy warrior, but it is still a choice it can make. Clerics are the same way, if you violate your god and his alignment it is reasonable to expect that the god will pull up and leave. It is only a straightjacket if you want Freedom of Action in something that was not designed to do it. Basically, you want the niftiness of it without the consequences. Sorry that is not the way it works.
Amen My Brother!! This is exactly right and the way I've been playing since first edition. As far as game mechanics and Spells effecting alignment it really Torques my players when the goblin they expect to smite turns out to be a father protecting his children or some other twist. They have come to understand that alignment is NOT absolute and can change almost daily, heck it can change on a dime. The point is to play in character, not in alignment.
Well, it wouldn't change THAT fast. Alignment is supposed to be your total overview of life, and that doesn't change willy nilly. A Neutral Evil character that’s defending his family from other evil beings doesn't suddenly become Good for that encounter, for example.
That’s the other common mistake people make. Good characters can commit Evil without alignment shifts, and Evil characters can do Good deeds without shifting. Just so long as their overview of the world remains the same.
By greatly expounding on the current cosmology or creating your own, any DM can do away with alignment. You can write extensive descriptions for the gods including motivations and philosophical principles without assigning them alignments. In such a world, much like the historical Greek holy men, no cleric would be bound by some abstract alignment, but would be charged with doing the gods will (or at the very least, not opposing it). As for any alignment dependant spells, they would be subject to the gods will, from which all divine power is drawn. In a world without alignment it makes sense that if a servant of Pelor tries to cast circle of protection against evil, that things Pelor hates (or considers evil) would be affected. The outer planes are already mostly divided up by deity, which embodies the principles of the residing deity. The other outer planes can be based on principles such as hate.
I think it should be said that this is not a good idea for inexperienced players. Alignments is as it has been described, and you have to know when to take it away. Furthermore, this system is not going to do anything unless the players involved want to play complex and moral characters, such as the ones in great literature. If the fighter only wants to roll dice and kill stuff, taking alignment away from him and asking him to replace it with real philosophical and moral principles is only going to lead to an even more bland fighter. I will personally implement this system next section, and hope that by removing alignments I bring more attention to this aspect of the characters and unburden them with alignment.
I'm going to run with it. The best of luck to rest of you.
You have fallen into the same mistake that so many others have fallen into. Alignment is a thermometer, not a straightjacket.
You should *NEVER* define how your character acts based off their alignment. You should define your alignment based off of how your character acts. It does not restrict you any more than a thermometer restricts the temperature. The thermometer says it is hot because of the air temperature, the air temperature does not change because the thermometer does.
To be perfectly honest, if you are in a game where alignment is an issue (and there isn't someone with an alignment based character, like a Paladin), the chances are you aren't using alignments correctly. You play your character however you want, then pick the alignment that comes closest to how the character acts, never the other way around.
I have to completely disagree with this. Alignment IS a straightjacket, not a thermometer. A thermometer does not strip you of all your class abilities and leave the character you've been playing for months completely worthless for the rest of the game, or possibly forever, depending on how free the DM is with the Atonement spell. No one with alignment restrictions on their character and even the slightest care about the mechanics behind the game is going to sit back and relax and think "Ah, no need to worry about alignment, I'll just see what the thermometer says, and if it says my monk/paladin is Chaotic Neutral, then that's all good."
Furthermore, there is no "thermometer", there is the DM. There is no universal set of scientific rules to determine what is good and what is bad; this has been a question that has been debated by mankind for centuries, and it certainly isn't going to be answered in a dungeons and dragons book. There will inevitably be conflicts where a player thinks something is one alignment, but the DM thinks it is another, and in the end, if the player is actually arguing about alignment, it probably means the DM is about to utterly destroy his character because of the disagreement.
The only possible way I could see anyone really not caring at all what alignment the DM... er... thermometer... assigns to them, is if they will not be affected mechanics-wise by it at all. And if that's the case, it's basically the same thing as just not using alignment.
Well, it wouldn't change THAT fast. Alignment is supposed to be your total overview of life, and that doesn't change willy nilly. A Neutral Evil character that’s defending his family from other evil beings doesn't suddenly become Good for that encounter, for example.
Alignment is a thermometer, that also is your total overview of life. Not working.
I have to completely disagree with this. Alignment IS a straightjacket, not a thermometer. A thermometer does not strip you of all your class abilities and leave the character you've been playing for months completely worthless for the rest of the game, or possibly forever, depending on how free the DM is with the Atonement spell. No one with alignment restrictions on their character and even the slightest care about the mechanics behind the game is going to sit back and relax and think "Ah, no need to worry about alignment, I'll just see what the thermometer says, and if it says my monk/paladin is Chaotic Neutral, then that's all good."
That is the class restricting you, not your alignment. There is NOTHING in the alignment that says your Paladin cannot eat babies. Their god is not going to come down and physically prevent them from lifting the fork. They WILL lose their class abilities, yes. But that is because of the restrictions the CLASS places on them. A monk can act chaotic. A barbarian can be lawful. A paladin can become evil. Heck, there's an entire PrC based on the very idea that the Paladin changes alignment to evil, it’s called the Blackguard.
The class restricts the actions of the character that takes it, not their alignment.
Alignment is a thermometer, that also is your total overview of life. Not working.
Yes it does. If you have a thermometer outside that’s reading 70 degrees F, you turn up a hair dryer on Very Hot, and blast the thermometer with it for a few seconds, its not going to suddenly register as being 150 degrees. It might jiggle a bit, but the short exposure isn't enough to make it change it's reading. If you put that hair dryer on it and leave it there for a few minutes, then the thermometer will react and adjust to the new temperature.
Same with Alignment. You can be good, commit an evil action, and your alignment will not shift. But if you are good, and you start doing evil all the time, then your alignment will start shifting.
Alignment is a thermometer, that also is your total overview of life. Not working.
I am not sure what you mean here, but I like the 'alignment is a thermometer' idea, but stretched a bit. Your alignment isn't a thermometer, but is the recorded average, weighted with respect to your record highs and lows and recent trends, of all the temperatures you've had in your life.
Regions on the thermometer are the ranges of defined alignments. Although, really, a one-dimensional thermometer does not work. The compass-like alignment chart works ok, especially if you make it a vector, i.e., direction and distance.
As far as PC behaviour goes, your alignment comes from how you were raised [parents and culture] and what you learned that worked for you, and what you got away with, and how you learned to deal with friends and people. Its habits AND beliefs, so yes, alignment speaks STRONGLY to how you might act in any situation. Breaking habits and beliefs is hard. So is adventuring. Meaning those habits and beliefs CAN be broken by adventuring, but not necessarily easily. Moral relativism is easy, by comparison.
I have to completely disagree with this. Alignment IS a straightjacket, not a thermometer. A thermometer does not strip you of all your class abilities and leave the character you've been playing for months completely worthless for the rest of the game, or possibly forever, depending on how free the DM is with the Atonement spell. No one with alignment restrictions on their character and even the slightest care about the mechanics behind the game is going to sit back and relax and think "Ah, no need to worry about alignment, I'll just see what the thermometer says, and if it says my monk/paladin is Chaotic Neutral, then that's all good."
You're putting the cart before the horse again. Let's look at the Paladin example.
A Paladin receives his powers due to the way he thinks and acts, his entire paradigm for both himself and the world around him. As long as his paradigm is a certain way, then he gets power. As soon as he starts thinking that putting babies on spikes might be a fun afternoon, that will change. It's not his alignment that is stripping his abilities from him; it is the fact that he no longer epitomizes chivalric ideals. This is reflected in his alignment.
To get back to the thermometer example, water doesn't freeze because of the thermometer. Water freezes because the temperature is zero degrees. The thermometer just shows us what we should already know by seeing the water freeze.
But here's the thing, and there's really no getting around it. For any given state, there are qualities associated with that state and qualities that prevent a thing from being in that state. If you want to be a paragon of justice, then behave in a manner consistent with that ideal. If you do not behave as a paragon of justice, then you are not a paragon of justice and do not deserve to be treated as one. Alignment simply tells you that you've stopped meeting that ideal. Since the paladin's features depend on the fact that he is that paragon of justice, don't be surprised that they disappear when the state on which they depend changes to an incompatible state.
That is the class restricting you, not your alignment. There is NOTHING in the alignment that says your Paladin cannot eat babies. Their god is not going to come down and physically prevent them from lifting the fork. They WILL lose their class abilities, yes. But that is because of the restrictions the CLASS places on them. A monk can act chaotic. A barbarian can be lawful. A paladin can become evil. Heck, there's an entire PrC based on the very idea that the Paladin changes alignment to evil, it’s called the Blackguard.
The class restricts the actions of the character that takes it, not their alignment.
You're putting the cart before the horse again. Let's look at the Paladin example.
A Paladin receives his powers due to the way he thinks and acts, his entire paradigm for both himself and the world around him. As long as his paradigm is a certain way, then he gets power. As soon as he starts thinking that putting babies on spikes might be a fun afternoon, that will change. It's not his alignment that is stripping his abilities from him; it is the fact that he no longer epitomizes chivalric ideals. This is reflected in his alignment.
I think you both failed to see what I was saying. The original poster wrote about how picking an alignment greatly restricts what you are allowed to do. Edyminion then said that this isn't true; that you can still do whatever you want, and just let your alignment change. Sure, this is more or less true. However, it is not that simple. For a large percentage of the characters, simply "letting your alignment change" means game over. It is often literally a state worse than death, since death is more easily cured. So this alleged freedom to do what you want regardless of your alignment is a misnomer. Sure, you have the freedom to do what you want, but it's like the freedom to walk away when someone is pointing a gun at your head and saying "Don't move."
D&D seems to make an assumption about good and evil having definition outside the purview of philosophy or values systems. Its a draconically Kantian interpretation of the world that some actions can be inherently good. It leads to shallow characters, motivations, and conflicts because good and evil just are. Motivations never enter into it. The bad guy must be unspeakably bad. He must kill children and **** women without reason. He must kick stray puppies because he's Evil. Why is he trying to take over the world? Well, isn't that what all evil people do?
On the other hand, good seems to be identified with self-sacrifice and giving of oneself without thought to the consequence, as if some actions can be inherently good. Anyone with a consequentialist theory of morality should already see the flaws in this reasoning, but we can upset this boat even more than that.
I will maintain that good and evil are necessarily judgments made by observers, subject to all the biases of those observers, and not validate-able by objective means. There is no scientific study of good and evil because its impossible. I can neither order good for my lab, nor study good under a microscope. How do we know what is good? Each one of us has a hierarchy of values (things one acts to gain and or keep) that includes all such possible values. All things material and esoteric are incorporated into this hierarchy. Good things rate highly on the hierarchy, they are things which we would expend the most effort to achieve or see achieved. Evil things are things so far down the hierarchy that we would actively act to prevent their achievement. Most people would surely answer that equality and liberty are both 'good', but if there was a forced tradeoff between the two, where more of one necessarily meant less of the other, each of us would have an opinion about which one was 'good'.
So consider an alternate moral system to the standard D&D system of self-sacrifice. Imagine a system where the act of self-sacrifice was considered evil, because it destroyed the giver (by definition of sacrifice) who received nothing of commensurate value in return. Assume this system is of a mercantile bent, and values the exchange of knowledge and goods in free trade, where it holds as good the advancement of the individual, and has as its ideal society a meritocracy where the most able rise to positions of power and influence. Where each person is expected to give so long as they get equal compensation for their giving. Where it expects people to act as merchants, trading value for value. Where it recognizes that acts done for friendship or love are not selfless, but actually given in trade for the value the giver gains from that friendship or love. (Anyone who doesn’t believe that being loved has value has never loved or been loved). This system/society emphatically rejects the D&D notion of good and evil, because it makes no sense. It’s off the existing continuum. It’s totally redefined the good-evil axis to the point that D&D good and evil make no sense to an adherent of this system. Such a system is unplayable in a world where D&D alignment exists in any real way. (I've just sketched Objectivism in a quick and perfunctory way).
Other such systems which totally overturn the D&D notion of good and evil are easy to find. Utilitarianism tears D&D morality to shreds, as does consequentialism. And forbid someone would ever try to play a character who believed in a neitzchean (sp?) ethic. The only notions of morality that work well within D&D are religious fundamentalism and Kantianism, because those are the only systems of morality that have monolithic good and evil. I guarantee most moderns have a system much closer to consequentialism than any other. Wouldn’t it be odd if your character, when faced with a choice that was effectively 'do action that is defined as evil (animate dead, use magic jar, etc...) to prevent some atrocity, or watch the atrocity happen' and chose the evil activity, finds their alignment shifted towards evil whereas if they abstained they would have done the good thing despite the atrocity that happened before their eyes?
I agree that the axis should be reformulated as self-community with no good or evil connotations applied. (Whether community or self based systems are superior or inferior is the longest running debate in ethics, going back to Plato and Aristotle, and hardly something to be decided by fiat from an RPG publisher).
The Paladin is the quintessential alignment problem. However, I believe this is a problem fundamentally with the players then the alignment system. Those who gripe about alignment are not in my opinion thinking about the characters. The characters are who they are bound to principles which relate to an alignment. Changing of an alignment is a radical shift of views or a shift to a more appropriate alignment that your character has been acting as.
Some person who is a paladin would not see the objective morality as a problem. Because they were called to do this and accepted, though would not see it as a straight jacket. They believe that they do have freedom of action. The PLAYERS might not, but the character would. They have the freedom to make any choice, however because they are paladins they are going to make paladin decisions.
I think this main debate is a Player Metagaming problem than an alignment problem. Either it is a player not getting what the class or alignment is, or it is the player wanting the cake and eating it too.
A counter argument.
The Paladin is the quintessential alignment problem. However, I believe this is a problem fundamentally with the players then the alignment system. Those who gripe about alignment are not in my opinion thinking about the characters. The characters are who they are bound to principles which relate to an alignment. Changing of an alignment is a radical shift of views or a shift to a more appropriate alignment that your character has been acting as.
Some person who is a paladin would not see the objective morality as a problem. Because they were called to do this and accepted, though would not see it as a straight jacket. They believe that they do have freedom of action. The PLAYERS might not, but the character would. They have the freedom to make any choice, however because they are paladins they are going to make paladin decisions.
I think this main debate is a Player Metagaming problem than an alignment problem. Either it is a player not getting what the class or alignment is, or it is the player wanting the cake and eating it too.
I totally agree. Alignment is only a straightjacket if you decide it can't be fun to have your character think and act in terms that are different from those you use in your real-life, everyday activities. Furthermore, Good and Evil, while absolute, don't have to be paragons of their respective ends of the axis. The Evil goblin is far less capable than the Evil dragon. The goblin is no less evil, but his capacity for evil is less (at least as an individual). So not every evil villain has to "kick puppies" or needlessly **** and murder. Though most would, given the chance.
If I had to complain about any aspect of alignment, it would have to be that Neutrality is nigh unplayable. Certainly Druids come to mind as possibilities, but that is really the only way to be neutral - to be devoted so completely to a *worldly* cause, that you neglect one or both of the other axis.
Think about the real world. Almost everyone, overwhelmingly, without the slightest doubt, is Lawful Good. Even people who whine endlessly about individualism or anarchy or whatnot are actually lawful. The litmus test I use is this: What alignment would you most prefer your neighbors to have? You said lawful good, huh? I bet you did. It's because everyone wants stability, and everyone would prefer their neighbors be good and kind. If you don't prefer that, you may suffer from sociopathy, and I mean that literally.
Now, Evil characters could care less what their neighbors are, that's what makes them Evil - they are as willing to kill and rob from other Evil as they are from Good.
So if you want to complain about alignment, it shouldn't be a matter of relativism, or everyone starting "at true neutral". Heck, anyone should be Lawful Good unless given durned good reason to be otherwise. Pioneers and adventurers might be Chaotic, hence their lifestyles, but to claim that the entire race of Elves is intrinsically Chaotic Good, yet has a high culture rich with art and magic...phooey. Elves want law and order as much as dwarves or humans or anyone else. Order is safe. Order preserves Good. Chaos is dangerous. Fun, yes, but dangerous.
Anyway, that's just my $.02, the long and short of it is that I think alignment definitely is a key part of the game
I would like to point out one thing, good and evil are tangible things in D&D. Gods govern them. There are absolutes.
Actually it is the Outer Planes, not the deities, that govern alignments and there are places where their influence is very weak. The problems with alignments comes in the ‘borders’; what behavior causes somebody to go between LG with strong LN tendencies and LN with strong LG tendencies?
Also if deities truly governed alignments there would be no need for the paladin to be LG - he would have what every alignment best suited his deity’s needs.
Removing the alignment element from the game makes the function of those abilities/forces arbitrary at best and hopelessly botched at worst.
I disagree. Trait systems work just as well and give you a better handle on what a character is going to do than alignment does. It allows you to have an elf who with the noted exception of Orc has a ‘code of honor’ to the other races. However show her an Orc and she is trying her best to kill it for what this people did to her and her village years ago. In short she has Intolerance and Bloodlust to the point that in her mind the only good orc is a dead orc. Alignment has problems addressing such rich and complex characters as this.
I would like to point out one thing, good and evil are tangible things in D&D. Gods govern them. There are absolutes.
But gods have their own idea on what is 'good' and what is 'evil'. Besides the planes rather than the deities drive the whole thing. Paladins are tied to their alignment not to a particular deity with a conduct code. Ideally they should be more answerable to the wishes of a deity rather than tapping into a plane.
1) What is good, what is bad? And further, who defined it? Did that one-eyed orc say "I'm sure what I do is bad. And anyway it's chaotic too..." or was he just left out at that point? Well, this thing has been discussed thoroughly here, so I won't bore everyone by going on.
2) How can a classic fantasy society exist with means to discern alignment readily available? The corrupt traitor who sells out his city and has to be found by the player characters by means of evidence and interrogation, this second-oldest detective plot? Hell, why don't we just get a Paladin to check the whole governmental body of the city twice per year? He's got detect evil at will anyway!
3) What about two alignments speaking against each other? That can mean the elf example: For sake of not being shouted down about an "inherently evil race" I shall say that said elf is a nice person who is helpful to absolutely everyone... except dwarfs, who killed his [insert relative]. If this hatred doesn't afflict his relationships to other people (and it doesn't have to, as we can see with soldiers who raped and plundered, yet remained peaceful family fathers at home), what would he be? Good? Evil?
4) Do the characters know what good and evil are? What if a Paladin existed who came from the mercantile system Squirrelloid sketched? Would he, when hearing his call say "Oh, right, we aren't good at all! I've got to change"? And how could this mercantile society exist when people can see every day in their live that it is obviously not "good"?
Thus, to me there seem to be exactly two possibilities:
Either the biggest part of the population is just plain neutral, since if being nice to people means you are good, being selfish has to mean you are evil. So the great and mighty Paladin has now the ability "Detect guys who are either the vile darkness in persona or would just like a bit more of the cake for themselves". Wait, that makes most children pretty much chaotic (doesn't like rules) evil (selfish), doesn't it?
This would mean that any characters who ARE indeed good have to be on the already mentioned rank of Theresa and evil characters are only to be found as devil-worshippers.
The other solution would be to abandon the concept of alignment utterly and just go for relative moralism, meaning that Smite Stuff smites that kind of stuff the deity doesn't like (depending on game style that can range from "Demons" over "that guy who sacrifices children" to "each and every orc you can see"). Anyone whose character is not overly concerned with the religious stuff just does as he thinks his character would react and the other ones have a certain code of honor, except that this way, it isn't that generic one "Thou shalt act Lawful Good" but one a bit more fleshed out.
Almost everyone, overwhelmingly, without the slightest doubt, is Lawful Good
Just by the way: I doubt that. We would certainly like everyone to be that way, since it would indicate benign stability. Well, maybe everyone except us. I absolutely go with you at the lawful part, yet I believe we are usually too much focused on ourselves to count as "good" in a way this game proclaims it.
Same with Alignment. You can be good, commit an evil action, and your alignment will not shift. But if you are good, and you start doing evil all the time, then your alignment will start shifting.
This is where you err.
Alignment colours thinking which determines actions. The character in your example already was evil, it was just starting to show itself.
Few actions have an alignment. Many alignments have actions that the aligned characters often do. They act because they have an alignment.
By this I do not mean that players are bound by the alignments. The players determine what the character's alignment is. And act on that. They can say that a char has been tainted by evil and do what the char would do. Or, they can opt not to say it, and the other players will notice it quite soon.
As far as why people don't just screen everyone? Now we are talking about rights and societal propriety which is different from alignment. Not having the right to detect evil on the minister of finance has nothing to do with the societies alignment so much as it would show disrespect to his position to do so.
And "shades of gray"? They are rightfully called the neutral alignments. not sure if an act was lawful or chaotic? It was probably Neutral. I really don't see the difficulty here.
This is where you err.
Alignment colours thinking which determines actions. The character in your example already was evil, it was just starting to show itself.
I don't believe the RaW at all supports your assertion in any way or form. One evil action is not enough to change one's alignment. Only if a character already had a history of committing evil acts (or nearly committing evil acts, or plotting to do evil acts) previously will your point be true.
Good people might sometimes end up committing evil actions. A Good person might get so angry at an evil BBEG for example, and subject the BBEG to a cruel and painful death (which is an evil act). However, if the said Good person treated only the said BBEG in this manner, and was kind and caring to everyone else (and was merciful to other BBEGs), then the character's alignment should remain Good.
However, what you said about players is completely true: A character's true alignment is ultimately determined by how the character is played by the player.
An important point has to be made here though: Many people equate a Paladin losing his/her powers due to a single action as synonymous with alignment change. It is not necessarily the same. The SRD states that a Paladin can lose his/her powers if he/she willfully commits an evil act OR if the Paladin ceases to be Lawful Good. Since these two conditions are separate, it explicitly declares that, as per RAW, committing one evil action is NOT necessarily enough to constitute an alignment change.
I believe that the alignment system is an artificial way to instill your character with personality. [...] I intend to show that alignment is a weakness in D20, meant to formalize the one thing that should be beyond formulas: character. (For reference, page 103 of the PHB (v3.5) begins a discussion of alignment.)
Right. You've missed the point of alignment. It's not meant to formalise personality (which, I agree, is beyond formulae); it's meant to formalise a character's moral and ethical outlook. There are formulae for morality and ethics in the real world. Trust me.
Alignment inclines you to think about your character's loyalties, morality, and actions in very general terms. But in reality, most loyalties, moral decisions and actions are based on specifics. Instead of asking yourself how good or respectful of others you are as a general rule, you would usually consider your specific situations, or your specific moral beliefs, or your habits of action.
D&D appeals to a Deontological theory of morality, under which these specifics are not what's important. I suspect that your intuitions don't conform to this sort of morality - you appear to be arguing from Consequentialism. Without getting into a fight over who is in the right (the jury is still out on this one): the standard objection to Deontological theory is that we have no way of knowing whether the stipulated duties are the appropriate ones. In D&D, characters do not labour under such ignorance. There are creatures that are absolutely good, and can inform a person as to what is right, and what is wrong. For this reason alone, it seems like Deontological theories are more appropriate to most settings.
Alignment assumes that everybody knows what's good and bad, and while that's generally true, why rob the gaming experience of the possibilities of moral growth and dilemmas?
Decisions that are based on specifics create more of a plot/character-driven game. These types of decisions are not only more realistic, they make for more dramatic tension. Sometimes, you're only looking for a smack down on evil and thrilling encounters with the vile that yield up treasure. That's fine, of course. Then, the shortcut of alignment is a great way to briefly deal with the issues of characterization. [But in more complex situations] with the alignment sitting right there below your player name, it's easy to just give a pat response when a little effort could make for a better experience.
This objection is spurious. The Alignment system will inform a person in a moral dilemma that they're faced with two evil actions. Good characters will struggle with this, and most neutral ones will, too.
There aren't enough alignments. Again, it's a great way to briefly touch on where your character stands, but once you look at it longer than a glance, you realize that there a number of important qualities that have been left out. Some that quickly come to mind are the Briggs-Meyers personality distinctions. (Introvert-Extrovert, Intuitive-Sensing, Thinking-Feeling, and Judging-Perceiving) These questions seem to fill in some of the missing pieces of a complete picture of personality. I don't recommend you go this far, since, for most players, it is the same kind of artificial path to creating a character.
I don't think this is even a useful starting point or formalisation in the same way that alignment is. You were right when you insisted that personality couldn't be reduced to formulae; complaining that the alignment system does a bad job at something you'd rather it didn't do doesn't help your case.
These next few points are almost purely academic, but I feel compelled to include them. I assert that the chaos-law axis is nowhere near as fundamental as the good-evil axis. The two axes aren't even of the same type of being. The good-evil axis encompasses the move from being to non-being and the law-chaos axis is more like a function or subset of the other axis. Law is an attempt to formalize and structure good. The idea of law as utterly distinct from good is without philosophical, historical or cultural precedent.
Are you seriously suggesting that all historical laws have been sincere attempts by their framers to act in a way that benefit all others? That there has never been a law that treated individuals as means, rather than ends to themselves? (Off the top of my head, the prohibition of abortion seems like the perfect instance of an evil law.)
Law is at the service of the Good; it is an attempt to capture the Good and preserve/enforce it. Chaos is a term that ranges in the game from an excuse for randomness to a genuine attempt to preserve freedom. It should be noted that freedom is a good, and that law can actively support freedoms and liberty. This shows that law and chaos can be understood as functions of the Good, and that law and chaos are not quite the opposites that they are portrayed to be.
Or perhaps you're only presenting a straw man? Lawfullness and chaoticness have to do with how far a character will go to preserve their own autonomy. The lawful character subordinates their autonomy to that of the group; the chaotic character asserts their own freedom of action. You can't reduce those to functions of Good or Evil, unless you're refusing to use D&D's notions of Good and Evil.
My last scholarly point is to assert that good and evil are misnamed in the game. "Good" should be called "altruistic" and "evil," "selfish." That is how the terms are used frequently (even though the game does often trade on the ambiguity of the terms).
That's an oversimplification, and I'm fairly sure that you didn't need me to tell you that. D&D's Good alignment is consistent regard for others as ends unto themselves; Evil is a regard for others as means to ends. Neutral is vague, but that's because people can fall into it for all sorts of reasons - a Neutral merchant might really regard his customers as just a means to an ends (profit!) but draw the line at price-gouging; whereas a Neutral priest might regard his flock as ends to themselves but lack the courage to put their needs before his own.
Maybe right now, you're not in the mood to go and rescue someone- does that make you less lawful good? Yeah, probably. But the real question is: Does it take you out of what your character would do? Again, that's so much more important than making sure you match your alignment. There's a hidden idea that if you change your alignment too much or even at all, you're just being difficult and not sticking to your character. Perhaps people will think you made a mistake when you made your character in the beginning. But you should be able to express a fluidity of temperament if that matches your role-player's instincts or plans without worrying that you're betraying some rule.
This is another straw man. D&D's alignment system isn't nearly so rigid. If the alignment that you chose for your character doesn't fit the way they play, then it's the alignment that's changed, not the style of game play.
[T]he alignment system [...] doesn't match real psychology or good fictional character development/immersion;
It does, however, match up with real-world political philosophy, taking into account the special context of D&D worlds.
how many real people fit into alignment boxes? How many great fictional characters fall into only one square of the nine alignment possibilities? For each one that does, there are numerous examples of those that transcend the whole perspective of alignment.
Leave aside the rhetoric and lay out some of these examples, then.
Moving on to a poster who objects to the sort of morality chosen for D&D...
D&D seems to make an assumption about good and evil having definition outside the purview of philosophy or values systems. Its a draconically Kantian interpretation of the world that some actions can be inherently good. It leads to shallow characters, motivations, and conflicts because good and evil just are. Motivations never enter into it. The bad guy must be unspeakably bad. He must kill children and **** women without reason. He must kick stray puppies because he's Evil. Why is he trying to take over the world? Well, isn't that what all evil people do?
Neither D&D nor Kantianism assert this about the nature of Evil. According to D&D and Kant, Jack Black's character in King Kong is Evil, because he treats others as means to his own ends.
On the other hand, good seems to be identified with self-sacrifice and giving of oneself without thought to the consequence, as if some actions can be inherently good. Anyone with a consequentialist theory of morality should already see the flaws in this reasoning, but we can upset this boat even more than that.
The consequentialist doesn't see the flaws. They reject the premise.
I will maintain that good and evil are necessarily judgments made by observers, subject to all the biases of those observers, and not validate-able by objective means. There is no scientific study of good and evil because its impossible.
It's not impossible. It's simply that we're confronted with a monumental epistemic barrier, such that creatures of our faculties cannot productively engage in such a study. In D&D, there are creatures of much more impressive faculties than our own. They have informed the world(s) that there are objective moral values in the world.
So consider an alternate moral system to the standard D&D system of self-sacrifice. Imagine a system where the act of self-sacrifice was considered evil, because it destroyed the giver (by definition of sacrifice) who received nothing of commensurate value in return. Assume this system is of a mercantile bent, and values the exchange of knowledge and goods in free trade, where it holds as good the advancement of the individual, and has as its ideal society a meritocracy where the most able rise to positions of power and influence. Where each person is expected to give so long as they get equal compensation for their giving. Where it expects people to act as merchants, trading value for value. Where it recognizes that acts done for friendship or love are not selfless, but actually given in trade for the value the giver gains from that friendship or love. (Anyone who doesn’t believe that being loved has value has never loved or been loved). This system/society emphatically rejects the D&D notion of good and evil, because it makes no sense. It’s off the existing continuum. It’s totally redefined the good-evil axis to the point that D&D good and evil make no sense to an adherent of this system. Such a system is unplayable in a world where D&D alignment exists in any real way. (I've just sketched Objectivism in a quick and perfunctory way).
... is this an objection, or a joke?
Other such systems which totally overturn the D&D notion of good and evil are easy to find. Utilitarianism tears D&D morality to shreds, as does consequentialism.
No, it doesn't. It just denies it. D&D morality, by the way, thinks that the Utilitarian is Evil (if he's more like Jack Smart) or Neutral (if he doesn't have such conviction).
The only notions of morality that work well within D&D are religious fundamentalism and Kantianism, because those are the only systems of morality that have monolithic good and evil.
Well... yes. That's because D&D's world has objective moral absolutes in the Outer Planes.
I guarantee most moderns have a system much closer to consequentialism than any other.
And anyone who disagrees with US is WRONG! ;)
Wouldn’t it be odd if your character, when faced with a choice that was effectively 'do action that is defined as evil (animate dead, use magic jar, etc...) to prevent some atrocity, or watch the atrocity happen' and chose the evil activity, finds their alignment shifted towards evil whereas if they abstained they would have done the good thing despite the atrocity that happened before their eyes?
You're not phrasing the dilemma properly. The Kantian won't say that the character was right to allow horrible evil to come to pass. That would be a failure of their fundamental duties. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Personally, I don't find that odd at all - excuses are a sham.
The main problem I have right now is altruism. Core D&D puts altruism as a must for good. But somehow that seems unfair to a creature whose natural instinct is to fend for itself. What humans see as a good really stems from the fact that our survival depends on others, so if we help others they will feel kindly disposed toward us and help us. If a monster doesn't care about the well-being of others (excluding family), it shouldn't be automatically evil. That's just wrong.
Also, "respect for the dignity of sentient beings". Why only "sentient"? If it's okay to abuse an animal, then how is there any "good"? People who are cruel to animals are often cruel to other sentient beings anyway. What good is "respect for life" if an animal gets short-changed. Note that I am not saying that it is evil to eat animals or ask them to perform tasks for people, only that if either of these activities are done they should include respect for the animal doing them.
Lastly, "respect for life". This is fine so long as it means "respect for life in its natural cycle". "Respect for life" could be construed as "hate death", but the halting of death ultimately gives life nothing to grow on.
There is a way to have alignment in the game without requiring players to stick too closely to it. I call this Preferences; players choose what part of an alignment axis they prefer. That is what they are defined as for the purpose of game mechanics. But they can deviate from that as much as they wish, so long as in roleplaying they maintain that they prefer what alignment they stated. Essentially their character can deny their true inner nature, and no detect X spell can tell otherwise.
Example: A player chooses to play a Lawful-Good individual. The PC is part of the watch, and is always the one to say that the law is there to protect all people. Except that when he gets a perpetrator of a vicious crime alone, he sometimes allows himself to take the law into his own hands. He tells himself he is doing it for justice. This individual seems more LN or LE than LG, but no one can tell with magic. This system allows for detective-type adventures, while still keeping game mechanics mostly intact. It even encourages PCs to make use of alignment-based spells and special features they normally wouldn't consider, because sometimes that angel leading you to the "dark lord's fortress” might really have fallen.
My real issue with the system's alignment is that it is absolute. Some of the greatest works of fantasy fiction use fantasy as metaphors for real life -- this has been the purpose of many mythologies throughout the centuries. In real life, you don't have absolute moralities; it's subjective on many levels, though basic ethics is generally agreed on. The absolute morality is used to contrast and heighten certain concepts, like it is in LotR, for example. However, when you are actually exploring moral issues, instead of using fantasy to represent certain facets of your beliefs, absolute ethics don't work.
This crops up a lot with pure fantasy concepts, like undead and aberrations. If you "go with the flow" they are fine as the evil monsters that they are often used as, but if you think about it, there's really no reason to assume that undead are just evil monsters. Death itself is not evil, after all. The same applies to aberrations -- they are alien, but something being alien doesn’t mean that it's necessary evil or monstrous (people can be monsters just fine on their own).
That's really where the alignment system breaks down, at least on the good/evil axis.
Personally, I tend to think of good and evil in D&D along lines of the morality system in Vampire: the Requiem/Masquerade. Good characters would have a high humanity trait, and are concerned with the well fair of others. Evil characters are not concerned with what they have or who they have to hurt to achieve their goals, while neutral characters tend to have a basic respect for life, but aren't so concerned about property issues and the like. Thus, you can have an evil character who does good (simply because the character doesn't really care about the rights of others doesn't mean they always step on people, or that their goals aren't admirable), or a good character who ends up causing harm because he/she followed her ethics.
One evil action is not enough to change one's alignment.
Did I imply that? Not the intention. Actions don't change alignments, they illustrate that alignments have already changed. A single evil act (meaning, an act that evil things tend to do) illustrates an influence of evil, not necessarily lasting one. I agree about paladins.
Some of the greatest works of fantasy fiction use fantasy as metaphors for real life -- this has been the purpose of many mythologies throughout the centuries.
That has not been the purpose of mythologies. Purpose of myths is something completely different. Legends may do that, but not myths.
D&D is not a game that is focused on creating great works of fantasy. The focus is on tactical combat with lots of fantastic elements. This goes deeper than the nature of alignments.
That has not been the purpose of mythologies. Purpose of myths is something completely different. Legends may do that, but not myths.
Untrue. Greek mythology, Native American mythology (though I find the term mythology distasteful when applied to extant religions) -- they all explain the world and how it works. The stories that form mythology are the attempts of the people who made them to understand the world around them as best they could, from a purely socio/anthropological point of view.
D&D is not a game that is focused on creating great works of fantasy. The focus is on tactical combat with lots of fantastic elements. This goes deeper than the nature of alignments.
This is coming from someone who hasn't played Planescape: Torment.
No, D&D wasn't designed for creating great works of fantasy. The focus is on tactical combat. I like tactical combat. However, if that's all it is, it really gets boring fast. 20 levels of tactical combat just gets tedious, especially when I have so many other strategy or action RPG games that give me the same hit without all the dice rolling and book keeping.
What makes D&D interesting is the roleplaying, developing a character and watching her/his/it grow and change over time, interacting with the environment and facing challenges. The enjoyment of this aspect of the game, at least for me (and I imagine many other players) makes the game worth playing. Simple tactical combat is ok, but it’s not nearly enough.
The main problem I have right now is altruism. Core D&D puts altruism as a must for good. But somehow that seems unfair to a creature whose natural instinct is to fend for itself. What humans see as a good really stems from the fact that our survival depends on others, so if we help others they will feel kindly disposed toward us and help us. If a monster doesn't care about the well-being of others (excluding family), it shouldn't be automatically evil. That's just wrong.
What's your analysis of good and evil, then? Moreover, what's your analysis of "just wrong" in this situation - is that a moral judgment, in so far as our ascribing evil to the monster mentioned fails to take into account its dignity? ;)
Also, "respect for the dignity of sentient beings". Why only "sentient"? If it's okay to abuse an animal, then how is there any "good"? People who are cruel to animals are often cruel to other sentient beings anyway. What good is "respect for life" if an animal gets short-changed. Note that I am not saying that it is evil to eat animals or ask them to perform tasks for people, only that if either of these activities are done they should include respect for the animal doing them.
Sentience just means awareness. Sheep are sentient, fish are sentient, spiders are arguably sentient. (For what it's worth, Kant doesn't regard merely sentient beings as having an innate value, but makes the same move you do: the sort of person who would abuse an animal is the sort of person who might abuse a child, etc. D&D's alignment system is a bit more thorough-going.)
That said, I'd regard killing a creature to eat its flesh as a fundamental violation of its dignity. There might be reasons that make that act tolerable (i.e. biological necessity), but the act itself shouldn't be regarded as having no moral weight.
These next few points are almost purely academic, but I feel compelled to include them. I assert that the chaos-law axis is nowhere near as fundamental as the good-evil axis. The two axes aren't even of the same type of being. The good-evil axis encompasses the move from being to non-being and the law-chaos axis is more like a function or subset of the other axis. Law is an attempt to formalize and structure good. The idea of law as utterly distinct from good is without philosophical, historical or cultural precedent. Law is at the service of the Good; it is an attempt to capture the Good and preserve/enforce it. Chaos is a term that ranges in the game from an excuse for randomness to a genuine attempt to preserve freedom. It should be noted that freedom is a good, and that law can actively support freedoms and liberty. This shows that law and chaos can be understood as functions of the Good, and that law and chaos are not quite the opposites that they are portrayed to be. Now, Chaos considered as an excuse for randomness is just poor psychology. If the character is to have any meaning beyond a context for adventure, some reason should be present behind actions. My last scholarly point is to assert that good and evil are misnamed in the game. "Good" should be called "altruistic" and "evil," "selfish." That is how the terms are used frequently (even though the game does often trade on the ambiguity of the terms). Besides, selfish/altruistic sound more like personality traits and are going to get you on the path of better character immersion.
Now, Everything in this paragraph is true and well thought out. I feel however that it suffers from a small lack of perspective. The alignments are often referred to (appropriately and succinctly enough) as axes: one good-evil and one law-chaos. However, conceptualizing these continua only by their limits harms how (IMO) the alignments can be used to model philosophy in the game.
I find it useful to think of the good-evil axis as the "ENDS" axis and the law-chaos axis as the "MEANS" axis. When looked at this way, there isn't any conflict with law being primarily in the service of good or any of the other perceived shortcomings in this paragraph. (I'm not convinced this is true. Perhaps we can start another thread where there's room for me to list all the laws and systems that have existed in the history of the world that served evil ends.)
The two axes describe different concepts. From this point of view, the good-evil axis (most broadly) describes whether the character is more interested in promoting the general welfare and working for the betterment of (demi-)humanity or whether the character thinks only of herself first and puts everything else after. Neutrality on this axis would be more amorality than a search for balance. A (Whatever)-Neutral character pursues their "means" alignment without consideration of the consequences. With law-chaos as a description of the means that the character finds acceptable, a lawful character will put social order ahead of the pursuit of her "ends" alignment except in situations of extreme duress, and a chaotic character places the pursuit of her "ends" alignment above the social order--achieving it by any means necessary. Characters with neutral "means" either strive for a balance between the law and personal freedom or attempt to alter the law of the land to reflect their "ends" alignment.
Viewing the alignments this way provides with a lot of leeway as to how you interpret them allowing you to breathe a lot of life into your character without violating your alignment.
Seen the movie Shrek? Using my paradigm, he's Neutral Evil. And he's the hero. And he never deviates from his alignment. For the full length of two features. And he undergoes two fully satisfying story arcs (maybe one more than the other, depending on your opinion).
How would 'Smite Evil' work here? Technically they are both the same alignment, but their views clash so much that they might potentially argue the other is 'evil'. I prefer the idea that perception is more the thing with alignment. There have been lots of posts about BBEGs that believe themselves to be 'good' even though they are deluded. If such characters are 'Evil' by the traditional alignment system, then 'intentions' would appear to have little bearing, and it all ends up getting very messy very quickly. Most of the time 'alignment' will be determined by all kinds of factors that vary depending on perspective. I don't wish to imply there is no such thing as morality, and in my games individual acts (when circumstances are considered) can be pointed to as 'good' or 'bad', but in a game where I strive for a realistic and engaging world that doesn't succumb to simplistic stereotypes of fantasy (i.e. the Shining Paladin/the vile Sorcerer) it really doesn't fit comfortably.
Bottom line: I don't think Alignment is all bad, and I wouldn't want to see it removed. In a conventional D&D universe with planes and definable 'powers' that are either 'Good' or 'Evil' (whether or not a player/character agrees) it's a fantastic tool. In epic games (by which I mean epic style, not epic level) the idea of the forces of good vs. the forces of evil is a staple one that has provided endless hours of fun game play. Personally, I find the law-chaos axis makes slightly better sense from a real world perspective (although almost always concepts of 'law' or 'chaos' would equate to a political/social agenda rather than just a general belief in an abstract force), as people are much more likely to agree on definitions of order/tyranny or freedom/anarchy than they are on what is 'good'. I guess it depends on what you want from a game, and in the end I don't want the clearly defined black/white world of D&D in the games I DM. The strength of the game is that I can easily achieve that.
In real life, you don't have absolute moralities;
That’s . . . an opinion.
However, when you are actually exploring moral issues instead of using fantasy to represent certain facets of your beliefs, absolute ethics don't work.
I disagree. Moral issues are meaningless in an entirely relative system, and it robs the background of much of its power if you bring them in. Planescape: Torment was a great game because of the absolute moral fact that your very existence was evil. Would the conclusion "well, I don't believe that it’s evil to kill all these people when I die. My personal morality says its fine, and that’s as good as anyone else's" have had the same power?
There's really no reason to assume that undead are just evil monsters. Death itself is not evil, after all.
But Undead aren't dead. There are reasons why they are evil in the text. And as for aberrations, well, not all of them are evil, and the ones that are evil because they are mind controlling tyrants trying to take over the world (or some similar reason), not because they are aberrations.
Cifer:
What is good, what is bad?
See the definitions in the book.
And further, who defined it?
No one. Its a fundamental fact about the universe. I suppose you could say the creator of the universe who/what ever that was/is.
How can a classic fantasy society exist with means to discern alignment readily available? The corrupt traitor who sells out his city and has to be found by the player characters by means of evidence and interrogation, this second-oldest detective plot? Hell, why don't we just get a Paladin to check the whole governmental body of the city twice per year? He's got detect evil at will anyway!
Now here I am in complete agreement. However, this isn't a problem with alignment but with the ability to detect it, and there are some fairly easy fixes.
If this hatred doesn't afflict his relationships to other people (and it doesn't have to, as we can see with soldiers who raped and plundered, yet remained peaceful family fathers at home), what would he be? Good? Evil?
Neutral. Not inherently malicious, but no adherence to goodness when he has a specific reason not to.
Wait, that makes most children pretty much chaotic (doesn't like rules) evil (selfish), doesn't it?
Yup! :D
That’s . . . an opinion.
Yes and no. While we can never know if we live in an objectively moral universe or not, the fact that we can not objectively verify whether or not we do means that we functionally live in a subjective ethical system.
I disagree. Moral issues are meaningless in an entirely relative system, and it robs the background of much of its power if you bring them in. Planescape: Torment was a great game because of the absolute moral fact that your very existence was evil. Would the conclusion "well, I don't believe that it’s evil to kill all these people when I die. My personal morality says its fine, and that’s as good as anyone else's" have had the same power?
Not at all, because the players bring their own morality to the table, as do the characters. The major religions of the world have basic ethical standards, but things start to diverge when you apply both life and death situations, which most people's moral compasses aren't prepared for, and get into less clear issues, such as abortion, a person's right do die, etc.
As for Planescape, whenever you died, your immortality killed someone else. However, this was added for more of a sense of horror and to reinforce the wrongness of your current existance as an immortal than to come out and say "your immortality is evil" per se. After all, there are many immortals in Planescape, they just don't have the same condition you do. The point was that you were separated from something critical to you, and that was causing pain to the entire universe.
As for "absolute morality", it had the general good/evil scale of helping people = good and hurting people = evil. It also featured a civil society of undead where only one branch (the ghouls) were evil, it had a fallen angel, a repentant fiend, and a member of a totally regimented society trying to find independence. It strayed very far afield from the D&D's "absolute morality", as Planescape, a setting where anything is possible, was meant to do.
But Undead aren't dead. There are reasons why they are evil in the text. And as for aberrations, well, not all of them are evil, and the ones that are evil because they are mind controlling tyrants trying to take over the world (or some similar reason), not because they are aberrations.
Undead are dead. They just happen to be conscious and can move. In all clinical ways, they are fully and completely dead -- no metabolism, etc. They are evil because they conflict with the "natural order", which is ludicrous, because given both the nature of the planes and the way that the "natural order" is thrown around by anyone who doesn't like something for emotional reasons, undead away from the negative energy plane are no more apart from the natural order than a polar bear in the rain forest is "unnatural."
All other reasons are basically attempts to make all undead evil in the setting, and, IMO, are basically cop-outs. "We can't think of anything better, so all undead are...infested with evil spirits! But remember they are lives anyway!" Excuse me?
As for Aberrations, they are the "it’s alien and weird so it’s evil" in D&D. The simple fact is that people fear what they don't understand, and that's what aberrations generally exemplify in D&D, as opposed to being simply alien. For example, mind flayers are portrayed as sadistic monsters, when this doesn’t need to be the case. All we need here is a bit of logical consistency. 1 + 1 = 2, even for an aberration, so having a mind flayer who can consistently apply their massive mental powers, instead of being on a constant ego trip, is certainly possible. For example, have a group of mind flayers who exist in a symbiotic relationship with another society, using their massive mental abilities to aid that society, while receiving the brains and warm bodies they need form it as well.
It is very hard to call the mind flayers evil simply because they must eat the brains of intelligent beings -- they didn't ask to be made that way, after all, and it's a bit much to ask them all to commit suicide. While they probably can't be made good, it isn't hard to imagine a LN mind flayer who feeds off of the worst criminals of society, as well as those who attack it.
No one. It’s a fundamental fact about the universe. I suppose you could say the creator of the universe who/what ever that was/is.
i.e., the authors.
Neutral. Not inherently malicious, but no adherence to goodness when he has a specific reason not to.
Actually, according to the PHB, this character would be evil. Having categories of people who can be abused in any fashion is an evil trait.
Undead are dead. They just happen to be conscious and can move. In all clinical ways, they are fully and completely dead -- no metabolism, etc. They are evil because they conflict with the "natural order", which is ludicrous, because given both the nature of the planes and the way that the "natural order" is thrown around by anyone who doesn't like something for emotional reasons, undead away from the negative energy plane are no more apart from the natural order than a polar bear in the rain forest is "unnatural."
All other reasons are basically attempts to make all undead evil in the setting, and, IMO, are basically cop-outs. "We can't think of anything better, so all undead are...infested with evil spirits! But remember they are lives anyway!" Excuse me?
Hold on, you're conflating two distinct ways in which undead can be thought of as evil.
Firstly, there's the evil in their origin. It's hard to think of a more obvious way to treat someone as a means than to reanimate (as opposed to resurrect) their body. This is the reason that undead detect as evil. (The Lich is an interesting counter-example to this case; it does, however, seem reasonable to claim that the sacrifice of sapient beings would be required in the creation of a Lich. I don't think that the act has ever been described in great detail.)
Then there's their actual moral status. If an undead creature were to really consider other beings to be important as ends unto themselves, then that creature would be good in a real sense. (Though they'd still detect as evil, and perhaps be vulnerable to anti-evil effects at the DM's discretion, because of the essentially evil nature of their origin.)
As for Aberrations, they are the "it’s alien and weird so it’s evil" in D&D. The simple fact is that people fear what they don't understand, and that's what aberrations generally exemplify in D&D, as opposed to being simply alien.
There are obvious counter-examples to the claim that aberrations are always evil. There's also extraordinarily weird aberrations that aren't evil, such as the Ethereal Filcher. This isn't a relevant point against alignment.
For example, mind flayers are portrayed as sadistic monsters, when this doesn’t need to be the case. All we need here is a bit of logical consistency. 1 + 1 = 2, even for an aberration, so having a mind flayer who can consistently apply their massive mental powers, instead of being on a constant ego trip, is certainly possible. For example, have a group of mind flayers who exist in a symbiotic relationship with another society, using their massive mental abilities to aid that society, while receiving the brains and warm bodies they need form it as well.
I'm very skeptical about this. It's easy to see how the "hosts" are not using the mind flayers as a means to an end: the mind flayers certainly benefit from the arrangement. But just how the individual whose brain is devoured can be said to benefit from the mind flayer who devours their flesh is beyond me.
It is very hard to call the mind flayers evil simply because they must eat the brains of intelligent beings -- they didn't ask to be made that way, after all, and it's a bit much to ask them all to commit suicide.
That's consequentialism you're preaching: D&D alignment is not consequentialist.
While they probably can't be made good, it isn't hard to imagine a LN mind flayer who feeds off of the worst criminals of society, as well as those who attack it.
Well, I currently can't recall as to whether mind flayers have to eat live brain or not. If they do, then their odds of being anything but evil are fairly slim. If a mind flayer can draw sustenance from dead brain, however, then I can imagine a bona fide good illithid, complete with Paladin levels. But the RAW do not prohibit this, so I fail to see how the example cuts against them.
Actually, according to the PHB, [a misanthropic character who never actually did anything 'wrong'] would be evil. Having categories of people who can be abused in any fashion is an evil trait.
I tend to think that the example under discussion here is inconceivable. You're more or less claiming that someone who regards others as means could go about treating them as ends consistently. It might be the case that the evil character here wouldn't engage in evil acts "just because"; however, it strains belief to think that they really would be lucky enough to avoid petty evils all the time.
On the other hand, I suspect that you're still refusing to 'play ball' with the alignment system, and defining good acts as those that produce valuable outcomes, while evil acts are those that... actually, to be honest, consequentialism can't give you an analysis of evil.
We can pretend that it's something along the lines of reducing the likelihood of valuable outcomes, but inaction (when one could have acted) does that, too.(Aside: This leads on to my main problem with the consequentialist. I tend to think that when I'm sitting in my armchair reading philosophy, I am doing something neither good nor bad, but their ideology tells me that I really ought to be helping elderly greengrocers cross the road. Which is true in a sense; it would be good for me to help them, but it doesn't seem simple inaction should be filed under the same "suboptimal" category alongside actively throwing someone in front of oncoming traffic.)
I started from the proposition that mortals are simply too complex and too changeable to register as aligned in the game-mechanical sense. In that sense, I have not "removed" alignment from the game; I simply reduced its importance by declaring that alignment, like elemental energy, is a natural force of the game world. Let me list some of the solutions I have come up with and problems I have identified with these changes.
No mortal registers as anything but neutral with regard to magic and other supernatural effects. Humans do not register to Detect Good, are unaffected by Protection From Evil, and so on. [Note: In this listing, I'll use the term "detects" as shorthand for being affected by any magical or supernatural effect that depends on alignment.]
There are exceptions. A cleric is a divine channel of his deity; clerics always detect as their Aura class ability states (that is, the same as their deity). Similarly, Paladins detect as Lawful and Good due to their connection to the outer planes.
Creatures with alignment subtypes detect as such. For example, a demon has [Evil] and [Chaos], so it detects as evil and chaotic.
Creatures descended of creatures with a subtype also detect as such. For example, half-celestials detect as Good, tieflings detect as evil, and so forth. This does not mean that all tieflings are evil; they detect because they have a little bit of the stuff of evil resonating in their bodies, they have a predisposition to act in evil ways, and they detect as evil. Which leads to my next point...
Undead detect as evil. There might be exceptions for certain ghosts, but that's up to the DM. I think it would be interesting to have ghosts detect as evil even though their actions may be those of a good creature, just like a half-fiend who is at odds with his natural inclination.
Certain other creatures might detect, depending on setting and DM preference. For example, in Eberron, the Daelkyr and all their Aberration minions should detect as Evil, while Coatls and their kin should detect as Good. Some DMs may wish to declare that evil dragons, or perhaps only Red dragons, detect as evil. A DM who is very liberal (within the context of a low-alignment system) might declare that any creature with an "always" alignment will detect as such. Personally, I wouldn't do that, but that's me.
So, now that we have a base coat of what sorts of creatures detect and are affected by spells, what problems and solutions are there? Well, for example, a Paladin's smite and detect abilities are obviously nerfed. A quick fix on the smite is to simply remove the 'evil' part. More generally, any creature with a "smite alignment" ability is changed to simply "smite", which is mechanically identical, but affects any creature targeted, identical to the Shadowbane Inquisitor's smite ability (Complete Adventurer). Smiting an undeserving creature still deals damage, but may be a violation of the Paladin Code or similar problem. The fact that Detect becomes somewhat weaker is probably fine, because the smite has become more powerful at the same time. If it becomes an issue, an extra 1/day spell-like might be appropriate.
Obviously, many spells will change:
- Detect spells are far less useful in general. I would change them from level 1 to level 0 spells where possible.
- Protection and Magic Circle are a different matter; their mind-protection powers are unaffected, and there are no (or few) summoned creatures that are differently affected, as the only aligned summons are still considered aligned creatures (such as Celestial or Fiendish). The AC/save bonus is going to be the main change, much reduced in usefulness. I wouldn't change Protection, but I might consider changing Magic Circle from 3rd to 2nd -- I'm not sure yet.
- Holy Smite and its related spells (Chaos Hammer, Order's Wrath, and Unholy Blight) should probably remain at 4th level. It will be effective on more creatures, but fully affect fewer. The spells are probably not a great pick after this modification, though, so it might need a complete rewrite.
- Holy Word and its relatives (Dictum, Word of Chaos, and Blasphemy) will change significantly. On one hand, they affect more creatures now, but on the other hand, you can't use it with impunity in the midst of your allies. Your party is probably high enough level to be unaffected by any but the least of the spell's penalties (deafened for 1d4 rounds, or similar), but it's worth mentioning.
- Holy Aura and its relatives are massively affected. It has the same effects as a larger Magic Circle, but has much greater protective effects against aligned enemies. With the relative dearth of aligned enemies, this spell's benefits are greatly reduced, enough to reduce it by one or even two spell levels. However, that affects a quartet of domains, which could be a big issue. May call for another total rewrite.
- Bless Weapon probably needs no changes. While it technically only affects attacks against evil creatures, most of the effects only apply to creatures who would be considered evil anyway: incorporeal creatures are almost always undead (considered evil), and creatures with DR/good are almost always lower-planes creatures with the Evil subtype. The ability to bypass DR/magic is not that great by the time a Paladin can cast this spell; he'll almost always have a magic weapon by that time anyway, or soon after. The main weakness is the auto-confirm crits, which is greatly reduced in the number of possible targets. This weakness may be countered by slightly changing the spell to give the weapon an actual +1 enhancement bonus (as Magic Weapon).
Another major issue is the weapon enhancements that target alignments: Holy, Unholy, and so forth. My first impulse is simply to reduce the price from +2 bonus to +1 -- it's similar to a Bane that has a broader impact, but doesn't grant the additional +2 enhancement bonus. If this change is made, all the specific weapons with similar effects (such as a Holy Avenger) and spell that duplicate such effects (such as Holy Sword) will need to be altered as well. With Holy Sword, I would suggest adding an additional +1 ability to it -- probably Keen or Defending.
For classes that have alignment restrictions, simply remove the restriction. Monk and Paladin still have the multiclassing restriction, but a Monk-Barbarian would be allowable, so long as you don't try to come back to Monk after leaving. (This is a benefit in my eyes, because I find the barbarian=chaos relationship somewhat irritating anyway, on the grounds that it's stupid -- but that's another topic.)
For a long time I have used a very similar concept, I think that alignment is like a signature of the planes, etc. You just took what was an idea in my head and crystallized it almost perfectly. Here's hoping that Wizards reads this post and thinks about this when they make 4th edition.... ;)
How many times does this come up as an issue during play? Certainly when an alignment "issue" does arise it is not really an issue about alignment but about character persona. A valiant fighter that defends the weak and shows mercy to all sentient creatures would most definitely be good. If he goes off and slaughters a whole orc village simply for their loot then this isn't a matter of alignment but of his stepping "out of character" and acting against his normal persona.
Likewise, a ruthless killer that takes pleasure in the pain of others charging into a burning wreck to save a puppy that reminds him of a dog that he himself had as a child is not a problem as he has an "in character" reason for acting as he does. Again, this should not be an alignment issue.
Now, when party members argue and fight is the most often times I have ever heard of people saying "you can't do that! You’re (alignment)!" Now what really needs to be done is the motivation behind the argument needs to be discerned. Nine times out of ten it is an issue of player personas not character personas causing the problem. In all seriousness, alignment should never be problematic.
Obviously, many spells will change:
I think what I'd do is collapse some of the four-of spells into individual ones. For example, just have Protection and Magic Circle. They operate for whatever creatures in range that the caster selects, and function against "enemies", whatever their alignment may be. This would make them slightly stronger, but since PCs tend to fight good-vs-evil anyway, it shouldn't be that big of a problem.
I think the idea of objective good and evil is useless, because no one CHOOSES to be good or bad. Your background, the way you were raised, the situations you've been put in-even your body chemistry-all control your moral status. It is unfair to call anyone "good" or "evil," and in this light alignment is a silly idea.
On the other hand, the entire D&D cosmology is based around alignment. Heaven vs. Hell, Limbo vs. Mechanus, the four corners of the universe are defined by the cosmic principles of good, evil, law, and chaos...even though these are subjective and crude concepts.
In the campaign I've been preparing, the PCs are made to realize that the structure of reality is fundamentally flawed. During the Creation of the Universe, the gods decided that good, evil, law, and chaos should define everything, but it turns out that the gods made a very bad decision. Cultures with a different definition of "goodness" than the original gods' are considered morally invalid. Creatures such as mind flayers and psurlons, who are biologically incapable of understanding what right and wrong are, end up being unfairly lumped under "evil" and have their souls sent the Abyss even though they had no choice to act any other way. Over the course of the game, the PCs realize what a messed up world it is they live in and by epic level, they must consider whether or not to launch a rebellion against the gods themselves and readjust the principles of existence to be more logical.
Does anyone else think that's a cool idea?
It would be a cooler idea if it hadn't been done in 1500 "rebellious", "edgy" comic books and movies already. What's more logical than absolute good and evil? A relativistic idea that says everyone's culture gets to determine good and evil in equally valid ways? Should there be *no* supernatural consequences to the mind flayers' way of life that involves mind-raping and killing billions of other sentients and turning them into twisted, broken slaves against their will because "that's just their way"? Is it "unfair" that mind flayers don't have a choice but to be evil so we oppose them and try to get rid of their souls? (The good question is why do mind flayers exist, not why are mind flayers evil. But it's well established that the gods often do consider the existence of things like mind flayers to be a "mistake" or aberration.)
And forget the freaking mind flayers. If some human culture decides that beating women and keeping them as chained domestic servants is the right thing to do and not doing that is wrong, I see no reason why I should accept that because it's their culture; I refuse to accept that there's no universal, objective standard of right and wrong that applies across cultures in any sense.
Yeah, this is a big huge argument in the world today right now, but pushing it too hard in the other direction bugs the hell out of me -- saying that the gods, for whatever reason, deviated from a true idea of good and evil when setting up the universe, fine (even though it grates against my conception of what the gods are and why they exist), but saying that there *is* no such true idea and campaigning to make the universe a democratic republic where everyone votes on the matter, including mind-controlling monsters -- bleah.
I think the core races should be viewed as too complex to be described by 9 alignments. There are some races (think about the alien from “Alien”) who can be described as evil by nature and thus could have an alignment descriptor of 'evil.' Orcs, kobolds, and goblins tend to fit this description in my mind. They are constantly and almost without exception, a menace to civilization. They are born the way they are and have little or no choice in the matter. Also, angels and devils and the like would be so universal and one-sided in their attitudes that they would warrant a good or evil alignment descriptor. I would advocate that some creatures would have a good or evil alignment descriptor, but many would not, and certainly PCs shouldn't. This would make spells that were dependent on alignment less useful, but in my opinion, they would be much more flavorful. For example, a Holy Smite just feels like it wants to be used on a demon, not on the bartender with the bad attitude. Ditto for a "Holy" weapon.
This puts the nix on many hotly debated abuses, such as a paladin detecting/smiting. A paladin in my proposed scheme could detect the evil demon polymorphed into a beggar (which is great flavor for a game!) but would not be able to label the human assassin 'evil' so easily (which is also great flavor; not every "assassin" is positively diabolical in his worldview and attitude, maybe he's actually a 'good guy' who is out for revenge).
There are some races (think about the alien from “Alien”) who can be described as evil by nature and thus could have an alignment descriptor of 'evil.'
You realize that the Alien is a metaphor for humanity's living as an ever expanding hive-collective toxic parasite? A kind of "explicitly evil socialism" compared to the "screw each other over for a percentage" explicitly evil capitalism of the Alien setting?
My problem with alignments is that it is objective: there is a defined meaning for good and evil, as described by the authors. Wait, isn't that what humanity was trying to understand since its creation? A correct definition of good and evil? For some reason, it seems to me that a subject discussed by numerous wise philosophers can not be solved by a modern company. Good and evil should be subjective. Maybe not to each person and his own belief, but a bit subjective, at least.
So, we have these beings who are undoubtedly intelligent as hell, but are also utterly driven by biological imperatives. Human beings as a race would certainly be as easily definable as evil if this is all it takes.
If it's evil you want, it's the Predator race. The hunting of sapient beings to keep their skulls as trophies. That's nice and Evil. Hunting them when you're a few hours old because you feel an overwhelming need to obey Queen Mum and bring back food and/or host bodies for the next generation. On the other hand, the Aliens with their ways and we with our tuna nets...
First, I wish to thank everyone so far who has posted in this thread. The posts have been, so far, all well written and thought-out. This is quite a rare thing to find on the web.
My problem with alignments is that it is objective: there is a defined meaning for good and evil, as described by the authors. Wait, isn't that what humanity was trying to understand since its creation? A correct definition of good and evil? For some reason, it seems to me that a subject discussed by numerous wise philosophers can not be solved by a modern company. Good and evil should be subjective. Maybe not to each person and his own belief, but a bit subjective, at least.
Or rather, it's easy to be good if your "shoulder devil" wears horns and a tail. I would say good and evil are objective even in the real world; what makes them tricky is that they're abstract. In D&D, good and evil are not merely ideals, but concrete concepts with exemplars and a physical effect on the world.
My problem with alignments is that it is objective: there is a defined meaning for good and evil, as described by the authors. Wait, isn't that what humanity was trying to understand since its creation? A correct definition of good and evil? For some reason, it seems to me that a subject discussed by numerous wise philosophers can not be solved by a modern company. Good and evil should be subjective. Maybe not to each person and his own belief, but a bit subjective, at least.
I don't think this quite follows. According to D&D, the questions "what is good?" and "what is evil?" have been pondered by gods, not mere creatures. (As wise as I believe Socrates to have been, I am sure that he was just a man, and therefore inferior in faculties to the sort of beings that exist in D&D.) Moreover, contemporary philosophy is in fairly broad agreement over what is "good" and what is "evil". Controversy arises when attempting to sort acts such that they are "good and evil" into what ought to and what ought not to be done. D&D doesn't put forward an objective solution to this problem, though it does claim that there are creatures such that they know the answer to the problem.
So, if your concern is that characters will know the answer to their moral quandaries, fear not! They will still have to struggle with their decisions. On the other hand, if you're arguing that the fiction is incorrect because it doesn't represent reality, I think you might want to reconsider your expectations from a fiction.
Moreover, contemporary philosophy is in fairly broad agreement over what is "good" and what is "evil".
Ummm, no. Further, a fair number don't even believe in good and evil.
Or rather, it's easy to be good if your "shoulder devil" wears horns and a tail. I would say good and evil are objective even in the real world; what makes them tricky is that they're abstract. In D&D, good and evil are not merely ideals, but concrete concepts with exemplars and a physical effect on the world.
Which is still irrelevant. Even if we assume that there is a system of objective morality in the real world, the fact that D&D depicts good and evil as concrete physical forces doesn’t mean that the way it is applied makes sense, which is what the main issue boils down to. Good and evil are so heavily dependant on circumstances that trying to catagorize acts, especially ones that "toe the line", with this sort of reasoning is simply lame; you might as well just say "because the DM says so" and be done with it.
You should *NEVER* define how your character acts based off their alignment
I totally agree with you. Everyone can choose how they play the game, and the choice of the character's alignment does no affect that.
I'm just summing up what Edymnion told us. That's all.Games like Shadowrun, Lejendary Adventure and even Monte Cook’s Arcana stuff have removed the concept with no setbacks. I know in my Castles and Crusades games as well as my older AD&D games alignment removal was one of my first houserules. The only thing removing it does is negate a few spells like 'Know Alignment ' that can be game busters anyway.
Removing alignment doesn't allow for PCs to do what they wish but it does allow for better play when not having to worry is a certain act is evil. Repercussions for savage acts should exist but not ruled by an outdated mechanic.
Seriously, 'morality play'? The only reason it's there in the first place is to make bad guys fair game without REQUIRING moral judgments. He's an orc, so he's evil, so we kill him. It comes out of the wargaming roots of the game, if anything! If you're not playing a straight hack'n'slash, then yes, you should moderate the effect of alignment. If you ARE, it's no more a moral compass than the red circles around your enemies in Warcraft.
I have to completely disagree with this. Alignment IS a straightjacket, not a thermometer. A thermometer does not strip you of all your class abilities and leave the character you've been playing for months completely worthless for the rest of the game, or possibly forever, depending on how free the DM is with the Atonement spell. No one with alignment restrictions on their character and even the slightest care about the mechanics behind the game is going to sit back and relax and think "Ah, no need to worry about alignment, I'll just see what the thermometer says, and if it says my monk/paladin is Chaotic Neutral, then that's all good."
I agree with you there. Alignment may not mean to be a straightjacket but it is because of the reasons you list.
Now how can we remove alignment but keep its mechanics in the game? Make your alignment settings based off of your deity’s opinion or make them based off extraplaner types. Different gods will have different opinions of what is good. When using detect evil it will now be detect evil (silver flame), or only effect the evil type. I like the deities’ opinion because one god will see conflict as good because it sparks competition and innovation, while another god will see peace as good because it fosters growth. This isn’t hard to slip into a game because most deities alignment can be adapted to show what it views as good and evil. Either way you keep detect evil and smite in the game but remove a general objective alignment that really is a straightjacket.
Ummm, no [philosophers do not agree about what good and evil are]. Further, a fair number don't even believe in good and evil.
I suspect that you read something different into what I wrote than what I had in mind. To make it more clear:
There's still controversy over how to construct theories of what constitutes good and evil (or morally right and wrong, if you prefer), but the instances up for grabs are generally agreed on. Even the anti-realist is going to say, "Yes, I agree that people would generally say that suchandsuch is evil."
I definitely support the OP, for a number of reasons:
1) What is good, what is bad? And further, who defined it? Did that one-eyed orc say "I'm sure what I do is bad. And anyway it's chaotic too..." or was he just left out at that point? Well, this thing has been discussed thoroughly here, so I won't bore everyone by going on.
2) How can a classic fantasy society exist with means to discern alignment readily available? The corrupt traitor who sells out his city and has to be found by the player characters by means of evidence and interrogation, this second-oldest detective plot? Hell, why don't we just get a Paladin to check the whole governmental body of the city twice per year? He's got detect evil at will anyway!
3) What about two alignments speaking against each other? That can mean the elf example: For sake of not being shouted down about an "inherently evil race" I shall say that said elf is a nice person who is helpful to absolutely everyone... except dwarfs, who killed his [insert relative]. If this hatred doesn't afflict his relationships to other people (and it doesn't have to, as we can see with soldiers who raped and plundered, yet remained peaceful family fathers at home), what would he be? Good? Evil?
4) Do the characters know what good and evil are? What if a Paladin existed who came from the mercantile system Squirrelloid sketched? Would he, when hearing his call say "Oh, right, we aren't good at all! I've got to change"? And how could this mercantile society exist when people can see every day in their live that it is obviously not "good"?
Arcana Evolved, a system very similar to D&D, uses no alignments for those reasons. Good and evil have just too little meaning for well-developed NPC's. Is the elf priest who wants to summon a pit fiend to wipe out all inhabitants of a particular castle evil? And what if he summoned the fiend to finally achieve peace in his land after 20 years of war?
To give him the title 'evil' is very limiting, and stereotypes him as a feeling-less maniac.
And what good is alignment to those new to D&D? I think it's a neon sign reading "There are 9 types of characters you can play". And I can know.
A while ago, a good friend of mine was a DM in an online campaign which involved 1 seasoned player and 3 newbies. I had been given permission to watch the game so I could see the awful responses to questions why they acted the way they did: "Well, that's what a lawful neutral character does, right?"
I had to point out for the gazillioneth time that alignment was a tool made for spells like Detect Good/Evil and Magic Circles. And from that point on, roleplaying decisions were actually based on a whole bio instead of 2 capitalized words...
Oh, and
Breaking into someone’s house and taking their stuff is always evil.
Again, not if a broader reason is behind the act. The burglar may need to steal a magical axe made to slay devils to slay an erinyes terrorizing his home town. Chaotic maybe, but certainly not evil.
We end up wasting time, as everyone is asking if there if the creatures are evil, like we weren't going to kick in the door and kill them anyway, after all, we're on a dungeon crawl.
And, often times, the DM says 'no evil alignments'
Lawful Evil is my favorite alignment, the only one worth being, in my opinion. And usually, the 'no evil' campaign inevitably has the unholy blight spell tossed out at an ever-increasing rate. Just once, I want to do the Belkar thing. *unholy blight* *stab* Now, what did I do with my lead sheet...
In all honesty though I have come to see alignment as more and more of an obstacle and it seems that more and more it is used less and less especially since Monte Cook had a very successful product that removes it. I'd rather see alignment taken back to the three alignment system or done away with altogether. IMNSHO after three editions it has proven time and time again to not be that good of a mechanic.
I suspect that you read something different into what I wrote than what I had in mind. To make it more clear:
There's still controversy over how to construct theories of what constitutes good and evil (or morally right and wrong, if you prefer), but the instances up for grabs are generally agreed on. Even the anti-realist is going to say, "Yes, I agree that people would generally say that suchandsuch is evil."
Once again I'd have to say that I disagree with this. Even two anti-realists are going to have LARGE areas of debate over what is and isn't right, who is too blame, and so on. Further if you are discussing what the general public thinks that is a whole different matter with even less agreement.
Hold on, you're conflating two distinct ways in which undead can be thought of as evil.
Firstly, there's the evil in their origin. It's hard to think of a more obvious way to treat someone as a means than to reanimate (as opposed to resurrect) their body. This is the reason that undead detect as evil. (The Lich is an interesting counter-example to this case; it does, however, seem reasonable to claim that the sacrifice of sapient beings would be required in the creation of a Lich. I don't think that the act has ever been described in great detail.)
That all depends on the undead in question and why it was reanimated. Mindless undead certainly don't suffer this problem, since they are just cheaper golems. However, for intelligent undead, we generally run into the issue of evil undead or evil necromancer, not both. Since we can agree that enslaving others is wrong, raising someone back from the dead (i.e. their soul is brought back, intact, in their dead shell) would be slavery, and thus evil. If intelligent undead are just animated by evil spirits with access to the memories of their former lives, then there's no real issue.
As for the fluff, there are good liches in D&D. Check out Monsters of Faerun. As for the MM, the Lich ritual is just described as "incredibly evil" with no detail.
Then we also reach the inescapable fact: undead are evil in origin only if the setting makes it so, not because of anything inherent to undead. A simple look at Deathless (i.e. D&D's "good undead") just goes to show this fact. One can also look at White Wolf's Wraith: the Oblivion, and Vampire: the Masquerade. In Wraith, while you have to struggle with your dark side (which gains a life of its own inside your mind, the setting's internal struggle, which all WW games have) you have free will, and can be as good or evil as you want. Even vampires, who are cursed by God, and generally end up as callous monsters over time, are not so black-and-white either; they can be good, if they have the courage to do so (though it often means destruction), or at least neutral, depending on outlook.
Then there's their actual moral status. If an undead creature were to really consider other beings to be important as ends unto themselves, then that creature would be good in a real sense. (Though they'd still detect as evil, and perhaps be vulnerable to anti-evil effects at the DM's discretion, because of the essentially evil nature of their origin.)
But then undead aren't evil. Undead are filled with negative energy, and many good clerics use positive energy, so it could easily work this way. However, undead = evil is generally just used for the monster machine.
There are obvious counter-examples to the claim that aberrations are always evil. There's also extraordinarily weird aberrations that aren't evil, such as the Ethereal Filcher. This isn't a relevant point against alignment.
The few neutral/good aberrations are very few in number compared to the evil ones, and many of the neutral ones are still presented as adversaries to be overcome, such as the aforementioned Ethereal Filcher. The only Aberration I've seen that isn't used in such a way is the Silthilar.
I'm very skeptical about this. It's easy to see how the "hosts" are not using the mind flayers as a means to an end: the mind flayers certainly benefit from the arrangement. But just how the individual whose brain is devoured can be said to benefit from the mind flayer who devours their flesh is beyond me.
The individual in question does not benefit at that time, but it's all a question of circumstances. The average mindflayer is far more powerful and intelligent than the average PHB race. A small community would provide immense benefit to any PHB race kingdom by applying their skills to that kingdoms benefit. This would likely benefit the individual during her/his life.
As for the consuming of brains, the general D&D setting has quite a few monsters assailing the PHB kingdoms, which can provide corpses to feed on (especially with Gentle Repose). Further, those who are going to die, especially in a painful and/or lingering fasion, can give their lives to sustain an illithid without any real loss to themselves (and perhaps gain, if their end would be especially traumatic), as long as the extraction is done in a way that minimizes pain and anxiety (such as the use of spells to sedate someone while asleep.
Then there are executions. If you're going to kill someone, extracting their brain in their sleep (as reinforced by spells, if necessary) is just as good as hanging them at a gallows or decapitation.
That's consequentialism you're preaching: D&D alignment is not consequentialist.
No, it's absolute, basically so people don't have to think about good and evil, i.e., the dungeon crawl mentality. Given that we are talking about the flaws of the system, mentioning that the system is flawed (at least as far as many posting here are concerned) by quoting the RAW isn't really a valid thing to say.
Well, I currently can't recall as to whether mind flayers have to eat live brain or not. If they do, then their odds of being anything but evil are fairly slim. If a mind flayer can draw sustenance from dead brain, however, then I can imagine a bona fide good illithid, complete with Paladin levels. But the RAW do not prohibit this, so I fail to see how the example cuts against them.
They have to eat live brains, mostly. However, they have receptacles to store brains for later, and the aforementioned Gentle Repose spell. There are also the general facts of D&D. While it would take effort, a small community of mind flayers could coexist with a large human community while being LN at the very least by the game's standards.
I tend to think that the example under discussion here is inconceivable. You're more or less claiming that someone who regards others as means could go about treating them as ends consistently. It might be the case that the evil character here wouldn't engage in evil acts "just because"; however, it strains belief to think that they really would be lucky enough to avoid petty evils all the time.
That's not in reference to what I actually said. I was referring to a specific type of person, such as a racist, who feels that it is ok to harm certain groups of others, while treating others within acceptable groups kindly and generously. This is defined as LE behavior in the PHB.
On the other hand, I suspect that you're still refusing to 'play ball' with the alignment system, and defining good acts as those that produce valuable outcomes, while evil acts are those that... actually, to be honest, consequentialism can't give you an analysis of evil.
Not at all. The question is not simply that which produces valuable outcomes, but that which produces the best outcome with the least human cost. However, given that we are dealing with more than just humans, it is not fair to restrict this to PHB races; all sentient beings should be included. Hence my reference to the Mind Flayers. They must feed to survive, and why should they expected to embrace extinction because they are forced by biology to prey on others? If all the animals and plants on the earth suddenly became sentient beings, do you think that people would just lay down and die, or would they justify their actions, as the Illithid have done (which makes them far more human than their creators may have intended) It is far more reasonable to create a situation where the Mind Flayers can survive while enhancing the civilizations of PHB/other races around them, which can be done in several ways, as mentioned above. The Illithid limit their numbers to the needs of the surrounding communities, and aid those communities with their power, technology, and experience.
And yes, inaction can be evil, as well as action. But is it right to murder one person to save a thousand others? Then again, wisdom is not knowing the difference between good and evil, but being able to pick the lesser of two evils when the situation presents itself.
(Aside: This leads on to my main problem with the consequentialist. I tend to think that when I'm sitting in my armchair reading philosophy, I am doing something neither good nor bad, but their ideology tells me that I really ought to be helping elderly greengrocers cross the road. Which is true in a sense; it would be good for me to help them, but it doesn't seem simple inaction should be filed under the same "suboptimal" category alongside actively throwing someone in front of oncoming traffic.)
The issue here is ideology vs. practicality. Ideally everyone would work together for the common good to build a society that have perfect equality, justice, etc. Practically, communism doesn't work, and won't for centuries, because, as Nietzsche put it, "Man is a rope between beast and overman, a rope over an Abyss". Hence why these issues come up in D&D; life and death situations create circumstances where following ideals can be detrimental to you, your loved ones and friends, and even the kingdom at large. Sure, you can put the scheming lvl 12 wizard raising and summoning hordes of monsters on trial with a good likelihood of escape, or you can kill her/him to end the threat. What should you do? On the other hand, if you take this too far, if you abandon your ideals for pure pragmatism, you slip into an evil where you can justify almost any sacrifice for "the greater good". This is why I favor philosophies like virtue theory; in my experience, good often lies in balance, not any extreme.
From my experience with D&D so far, every player I've talked to that has campaigned for the removal of the alignment system from D&D has been one of two types of people: those who "want their cake and eat it too," and those easily swayed by the last good argument they've heard. Granted this is a relatively small group of people.
Due to the fact that most of needs to be said has been brought up, I'm just going to list a few points, counter points and musings:
The is a difference between capacity for evil and capacity for action. An evil dragon doesn't necessarily have any more capacity for evil than an evil goblin. The dragon does have more power and therefore a greater capacity to commit the evil on a grander and more noticeable scale. The quantity of evil may be greater but that doesn't take into account the severity of the evil being committed. Of course, the severity of evil acts depends on the observer.
I do wonder why almost every example of alignment in the thread seems to be from the perspective of a good person committing an evil act. Many different questions need to be asked to gain a better understanding of the system and perhaps even our own view of alignment in general. This leads me to my problem with consequentialism, and any of the "thermometer" views of alignment. Suppose an evil person intends to betray and murder someone when the time is right all the while doing only good acts while getting into position to make his move. Then the person dies an untimely death before being able to carry out his betrayal. Does this mean that this person was a good person? These good acts were done with an ulterior motive and the intentions were never good to begin with. Are the good acts in themselves enough to make the thermometer dip into the good range? The same goes with the question of moral dilemma. If a good person faced with a choice of an evil act or greater evil consequences commits the evil act for what he believes is the greater good, does that make him evil for choosing to commit the act?
I think the current alignment system is fine for D&D. The issues I see with it are more part of the players and DMs. Everyone has their own definitions on what each alignment is, consists of, whether they can change, whether there are border areas between the alignments, and whether outlook leads to acts or acts defines outlook.
As a player, it is important to let the DM know where you are coming from when a morally ambiguous decision is made or needs to be made. Hopefully the player and the DM can understand each other and roleplay it as the opportunity it is.
Are you seriously suggesting that all historical laws have been sincere attempts by their framers to act in a way that benefit all others? That there has never been a law that treated individuals as means, rather than ends to themselves? (Off the top of my head, the prohibition of abortion seems like the perfect instance of an evil law.)
Derrick, you are possibly the most well spoken, educated, and generally objective person to have posted on this topic. While you got a little arrogant with this knowledge in some cases, you post was a nice unbiased look at the topic. However, I find it very peculiar that, to make your point, you would choose as an example what is possibly the most fiercely contested moral issue of our time: abortion. I would cite this as the "perfect instance" of a modern moral dilemma.
I also feel that some important points that would outline my argument have already been made:
You have fallen into the same mistake that so many others have fallen into. Alignment is a thermometer, not a straightjacket.
That is the class restricting you, not your alignment. There is NOTHING in the alignment that says your Paladin cannot eat babies. Their god is not going to come down and physically prevent them from lifting the fork. They WILL lose their class abilities, yes. But that is because of the restrictions the CLASS places on them. A monk can act chaotic. A barbarian can be lawful. A paladin can become evil. Heck, there's an entire PrC based on the very idea that the Paladin changes alignment to evil, it’s called the Blackguard.
The class restricts the actions of the character that takes it, not their alignment.
A Paladin receives his powers due to the way he thinks and acts, his entire paradigm for both himself and the world around him. As long as his paradigm is a certain way, then he gets power. As soon as he starts thinking that putting babies on spikes might be a fun afternoon, that will change. It's not his alignment that is stripping his abilities from him; it is the fact that he no longer epitomizes chivalric ideals. This is reflected in his alignment.
I totally agree. Alignment is only a straightjacket if you decide it can't be fun to have your character think and act in terms that are different from those you use in your real-life, everyday activities. Furthermore, Good and Evil, while absolute, don't have to be paragons of their respective ends of the axis. The Evil goblin is far less capable than the Evil dragon. The goblin is no less evil, but his capacity for evil is less (at least as an individual).
The two axes describe different concepts. From this point of view, the good-evil axis (most broadly) describes whether the character is more interested in promoting the general welfare and working for the betterment of (demi-)humanity or whether the character thinks only of herself first and puts everything else after. Neutrality on this axis would be more amorality than a search for balance. A (Whatever)-Neutral character pursues their "means" alignment without consideration of the consequences. With law-chaos as a description of the means that the character finds acceptable, a lawful character will put social order ahead of the pursuit of her "ends" alignment except in situations of extreme duress, and a chaotic character places the pursuit of her "ends" alignment above the social order--achieving it by any means necessary. Characters with neutral "means" either strive for a balance between the law and personal freedom or attempt to alter the law of the land to reflect their "ends" alignment.
How many times does this come up as an issue during play? Certainly when an alignment "issue" does arise it is not really an issue about alignment but about character persona. A valiant fighter that defends the weak and shows mercy to all sentient creatures would most definitely be good. If he goes off and slaughters a whole orc village simply for their loot then this isn't a matter of alignment but of his stepping "out of character" and acting against his normal persona.
The original post basically says that alignments inhibit good role-playing and character choices. There are only 9 possible "characters" if you ignore race/class. It is a flawed argument. There are 9 alignments and hundreds of way that those alignments show themselves.
Not every evil character kicks stray puppies. Not every lawful good character jumps at a chance to save a damsel in distress. I find that alignment is based on the motivation of the character and that there are much more that 9 "alignments". You have to be willing to take into account how good and how evil (or how chaotic or how lawful) a character or creature is. A lot of the population in the D&D world are not purely good/evil/lawful/chaotic, they are washed out. You can see angels and demons as a vibrant watercolor, while Bill the commoner who is nice to his neighbors and Tom the tailor who purposely kicks stray puppies for fun are washed out watercolors. They probably can never be as evil or as good as planer beings, however, a lot of characters treat evil as evil. They assume that every evil creature will kill, ****, & plunder when given the opportunity.
Characters are the same way. Some characters are mildly good, more neutral than good. Some characters, like most clerics, are more good, than neutral, and exalted characters are purely good like certain outsiders. The extent of your characters good/evil/lawful/chaotic-ness will be a facet of their personality that is an extension of what they believe in.
A typical monk for example is Lawful and will not fall into an "unlawful" rage. If they continue to leave the "balance" of their lawfulness, they will no longer be able to maintain the focus they need to level. Barbarians on the other hand cannot be lawful since they willingly lose control, often; a lawful character will not willingly lose control. If a player wants to play a monk, barbarian, or paladin but not adhere to the alignment that each embraces, they do not understand the class enough to play one.
As for the fluff, there are good liches in D&D. Check out Monsters of Faerun. As for the MM, the Lich ritual is just described as "incredibly evil" with no detail.
No, there are good liches in Faerun.
But then undead aren't evil. Undead are filled with negative energy, and many good clerics use positive energy, so it could easily work this way. However, undead = evil is generally just used for the monster machine.
All good clerics, not most.
A typical monk for example is Lawful and will not fall into an "unlawful" rage. If they continue to leave the "balance" of their lawfulness, they will no longer be able to maintain the focus they need to level. Barbarians on the other hand cannot be lawful since they willingly lose control, often; a lawful character will not willingly lose control. If a player wants to play a monk, barbarian, or paladin but not adhere to the alignment that each embraces, they do not understand the class enough to play one.
Or they disagree with the flavor of the class and want to play something that is best represented by the class in question. Why couldn't a lawful character have an anger problem that causes him to sometimes 'unwillingly' loose control? Or someone who studies martial arts have several other very chaotic traits? And why can't a bard find a nice patron and settle down and be lawful? There simply isn't a good reason besides the fact that alignment bleeds over to other parts of the game.
Eberron, the latest incarnation of D&D, further conspires to phase out alignment. In particular, it has become more or less irrelevant to clerics and monsters. You no longer have a license to kill because magic says so.
The problem here is that 'alignment' allows metagaming more or less by the rules. What sense is there trying to determine someone's motives when you can use magic and the book guidelines to pigeon hole someone's mentality into a 9-way axis? You can be sure you'll get complaints if the Lawful Good Paladin mistreats the party, or the Chaotic Evil Bartender doesn't actually do something, and your players are silly enough to kill him because that's the way things are expected to work as per the book.
Alignment 'stupidity' as it were results from people interpreting the alignments the wrong way, and different philosophies on how to interpret things. We've all had arguments about whether to play exactly by the rules, the spirit of the rules or by the virtue of game balance and setting. All points of view are valid within the context of playing a game, and cause for alignment conflict. Alignment causes problems it shouldn't by making a causeway for players and DM to butt heads over the ugliest of topics, ethics. It makes it worse by providing mechanical stakes for the winner of the argument in addition to the 'I'm right' factor. Often the winner of an alignment argument winds up screwing over the loser. It's one thing to argue over rules that can be referenced and that are relatively solid. It's another to debate the virtues of ethics.
Many people feel that the D&D system of ethics are flawed, and the fact that everyone has experience with ethics gives everyone a baseline to argue against the rules, in addition to their intentional vaguery.
Alignment is one of those things that actually ruins games. There are many cases where players have quit because they couldn't agree with their DM over the nature of good and felt frustrated. Its natural--someone's personal principles takes precedence over fun, even in something as symbolic as a game. Take out alignment, and there will be a lot less people quitting D&D out of spite. Might be their own problem, But that's a personal problem, not a game one. D&D shouldn't be causing personal problems at all.
I think D&D would be best served by a slow death for alignment. It needs to go the way of racial classes. It's one of the few things that will not be missed- people certainly don't need a vague system of mechanics telling them how to act and think. Ethics and morality should be determined according to by the setting and the players/DM in question, not the folks at the HQ.
Motives in all of D&D are based upon alignment (or should be, because if a character follows some motive which is contrary to alignment, it must change), and therefore the game cannot survive without it. Sure, you can play without calling your Paladin lawful good, but if you are playing a Paladin he will act like a lawful good character anyways. The system holds together all of divine magic and qualifies all motives.
Now as far as being limiting to roleplaying and whatnot, I don't think that's a problem inherent to the system. When your character meets any situation, you must say to yourself, "Self, what does my mental idea of my character--present, past, and future--suggest that I should do?" Not "What does my alignment force me to do?"
No, there are good liches in Faerun.
Which is a D&D world. Hence, there are good liches in D&D.
All good clerics, not most.
Actually, I said many. Since "all" includes "many", it is technically correct.
Alignment is frankly an unnecessary artifact from early editions. Because Tolkein and other writers were simply content with seeing the world in black and white, good an evil, Gary Gygax thought, "Gee, it's really open minded of us to provide NINE alignments for people to be!" As you can see, every other game under the sun abandoned this approach. Even games dwelling within the D20 system tend to cringe and shy away from the alignment factor.
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Ethics and morality should be determined according to by the setting and the players/DM in question, not the folks at the HQ.
I agree and long ago dumped alignment in favor of a trait system as described by Suttie way back in Dragon #101's "For King and Country" but it was not until GURPS there was an actual mechanic to help both GMs and players to resolve issues. Traits with gradatiosn are followed by a number which tell you how often the person can resist that trait. For example a Sadist (12) would rarely indulge in torture while Sadist (6) would be doing things than even his King would find questionable.
It also allows you to do thumbnails of character where you have traits that com into conflict. Take Daffy Duck in 'Ducking the Devil' (1957) is a prime example this. After bringing in the Tasmanian Devil in (and admitting "I am a coward. A craven scared to death coward" in the process) one of the bills falls into the cage and Daffy goes berserk saying "Its mine, mine, mine." and beats the snot out of the Tasmanian Devil. "I may be a coward but I am a greedy little coward."
Cowardice (12) and Greed (6) fit this quite nicely and also with Daffy's behavior in other WB cartoons.