Is alignment really that rigid?

[Midnight Dawns]

Having read the boards for sometime, much longer than I have been a members, I have repeatedly seen this idea that the alignment system is too rigid as highly proper. I have never seen this as true. I have always found plenty of room within hte alignment system to flesh out characters and to me the system provides a general frame of reference for a character just as labeling a character friendly, bostrous, proud, violent, or such do (albiet a bit more complx). Am I the only one who felt this way?

-M.D.

 

[hong]

I just ban alignment.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Too rigid? No...just hopelessly vague. I have never seen an alignment discussion of any significant length that didn't result in at least two people arguing over the definitions.

People generally agree what "friendly" or "violent" means. They rarely seem to agree what "evil" or "lawful" means.

 

[Trickstergod]

Alignment, too rigid? Not really, no.

It seems the problems are twofold:

1) People forget that alignment is a tendency, not an always, never deviate away from sort of thing. Except with the paladin and equivalent classes, of course. Otherwise, though, "Lawful Good" just means more lawful and more good than usual. Someone can do the occasional chaotic or even evil deed. Some people seem to think that one chaotic or evil deed is enough to call for an alignment change - and, really. Bull on that. It describes a general tendency.

Then,

2) People seem to have a problem with just being True Neutral. If they can't be Lawful Good or Neutral Good or whatever, they don't want alignment at all. Have a problem with alignment? Just put True Neutral andor Unaligned and be done with it.

Alignment could have used slightly better definitions but, otherwise, no. It wasn't really all that rigid.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Nobody could ever figure out what the alignments meant.
It was quite a regular affair for one person to call this fictional character from a book lawful good, and another interpret that character as chaotic evil. Not only amongst players, but amongst the game designers also.

For example, take Thomas Covenant. What alignment is Thomas Covenant?

* Don't answer that question! It's a trick question. *

If you actually tried to answer the question, you'd start an Alignment-War thread / Thomas Covenant-War thread, which would go on for hundreds of posts, involve vast amounts of philosophy and personal opinion, and if - incredibly - the thread wasn't shut down by the Admins, the matter would never be resolved.

Likewise, what alignment was King Arthur? Sounds pretty easy, right? A lot of people would quickly contradict you.

-

Just as players see fictional characters in different lights, they saw alignment in different lights.
The DM was, basically, the final arbiter of what alignment was, much to the dismay of some players, and sometimes the results were tragic (been there, saw that.)

In the very early days of gaming, a popular alignment was Neutral Evil, because it was widely interpreted as the Do Anything You Want And Get Away With It Alignment. Some even called it The Fun Alignment.

As far as I know, the first really strict definitions of Good and Evil were in the 3.0 Book of Exalted Deeds and the 3.0 Book of Vile Darkness, which spelled out in absolute terms what these were (and awarded your character In Game power if he or she adhered strongly to Good or Evil.)

The most popular alignments in the groups I played in were Neutral Good (the Get Along With The Other Characters Alignment), Neutral (the Live and Let Live Alignment), and Chaotic Neutral (The Let's-Squash-Em-Good! / Let's Have A Free-For-All! Alignment.)
Chaotic Good (The I'm A Nice Guy Out To Do Heroic Things Alignment) came up next.
Lawful Evil (The I'm Despicable But Also Amicable Alignment) occasionally cropped up.

 

[renatoram]

In 4E alignment is practically irrelevant, and most people/creatures are unaligned anyway, so... just don't sweat over it.

 

[Psion]

Having read the boards for sometime, much longer than I have been a members, I have repeatedly seen this idea that the alignment system is too rigid as highly proper. I have never seen this as true. I have always found plenty of room within hte alignment system to flesh out characters and to me the system provides a general frame of reference for a character just as labeling a character friendly, bostrous, proud, violent, or such do (albiet a bit more complx). Am I the only one who felt this way?

Not at all. Alignment is a very broad descriptor that boils down the character along a few ethical lines. Within those, there is huge room for variation.

 

[Psion]

If you actually tried to answer the question, you'd start an Alignment-War thread / Thomas Covenant-War thread, which would go on for hundreds of posts, involve vast amounts of philosophy and personal opinion, and if - incredibly - the thread wasn't shut down by the Admins, the matter would never be resolved.

That's because on the internet, there is no DM.

 

[Celebrim]

No, it's not too rigid. Some DM's are too rigid. Some players are too rigid. But alignment isn't.

The biggest single problem I've had with it is that its presence can reduce intrige and mystery. There are only so many times you can dangle an evil aligned character who is innocent because the real killer is neutral, or hide the real villain behind an expensive magic item that conceals alignment.

I think most of the problems can be solved by making alignment detecting or motivation revealing divinations less certain, or by making mortals have so weak and uncertain of an aura that 'detect evil/good' spells don't work with them.

As far as the alignments being vague, I've never really had that problem and it seems to exist mostly on the internet. I can imagine the sort of player that would get in an argument with the DM that his chaotic evil character was lawful good, but I've never encountered one. I'm sure its happened to someone, but never me. Yes, alignment is vaguely described in official rulebooks, and yes the problem is made worse by the fact different designers and writers disagreed over what alignment meant or else didn't think very deeply about it when creating characters or societies. Yes, authors have made matters that much worse by promoting in various fashions contridicting claims about alignment. But all that confusion means is that any given DM has the freedom to define it how he likes, and also generally accept any players internally coherent definition of the alignment as well.

People generally agree what "friendly" or "violent" means.

Do they? I would think that if they could generally agree to what 'friendly' meant, then they could generally agree to what 'good' meant. In my experience, there is relatively little debate over what 'good' and 'evil' mean except when it comes down to specific moral prohibitions. Most of the debate seems to be over the more specialized fantasy terms 'chaos' and 'lawful' which have been portrayed in the broadest variaty and with the most contridictions.

Likewise, what alignment was King Arthur? Sounds pretty easy, right? A lot of people would quickly contradict you.

I'm not sure that that proves anything about alignment. It may just prove that people have different information about King Arthur and different images of him in their head. There is no real reason to suppose that the King Arthur in my head is the same as the King Arthur in your head. In order to even have a hope of any sort of agreement, we'd have to ask alot more specific questions like, "What was the alignment of King Arthur in the third section of 'Once and Future King'?" And my opinion wouldn't count, because I got bored with the book about then, skipped a hundred pages or so and read the end. Before I could give you a valid opinion about a specific King Arthur, I'd have to be an expert in the text that establishes his character. Alot of the problem with alignment threads where we argue the alignment of various fictional characters is that we often just have vague impressions based on a few half remembered things, or that we are using different sources or what not. Asking the alignment of King Arthur is like asking the alignment of Batman. The first question you have to answer is, "Which one?"

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

No, it's not too rigid. Some DM's are too rigid. Some players are too rigid. But alignment isn't.

The biggest single problem I've had with it is that its presence can reduce intrige and mystery. There are only so many times you can dangle an evil aligned character who is innocent because the real killer is neutral, or hide the real villain behind an expensive magic item that conceals alignment.

I think most of the problems can be solved by making alignment detecting or motivation revealing divinations less certain, or by making mortals have so weak and uncertain of an aura that 'detect evil/good' spells don't work with them.

Agreed. The "plot-disruption" is the most problematic part in practice.

As far as the alignments being vague, I've never really had that problem and it seems to exist mostly on the internet. I can imagine the sort of player that would get in an argument with the DM that his chaotic evil character was lawful good, but I've never encountered one. I'm sure its happened to someone, but never me. Yes, alignment is vaguely described in official rulebooks, and yes the problem is made worse by the fact different designers and writers disagreed over what alignment meant or else didn't think very deeply about it when creating characters or societies. Yes, authors have made matters that much worse by promoting in various fashions contridicting claims about alignment. But all that confusion means is that any given DM has the freedom to define it how he likes, and also generally accept any players internally coherent definition of the alignment as well.

Agree. Problems on the internet are often not problems in game, because people in game have a stronger common ground. They share play styles, likes and dislikes, and they might have informal or formal conventions on how to rule "problematic" aspects.