Piracy And Other Malfeasance

[Dannyalcatraz]

Did he? He remained a pirate and "explorer" (with all that implies for those being "explored").

Clearly, he changed it enough to engaging in the trade to fighting it.

It might not be a complete sea change, but it’s not insignificant.

 

[Reynard]

You haven't made that point yet though. There is nothing about the Frances Drake story that doesn't work within alignment. You can be evil without adhering to all evil things. Some evil folks can produce good outcomes. It doesn't alleviate them of their evil alignment if they continue to choose and apply evil actions. Nor is there anything in the alignment system that says good folks cant interact or work with evil folk. Its contextual and up to an individual.

*Yes, the paladin has a code, but thats based in its class and unique solely to them. Although, there is a clause that allows working with evil if no other option presents itself. Im also willing to admit the pally code was a mistake, and dont blame alignment for it.

It neither provides the benefit of being useful for categorizing behavior, as you just made the point of, nor does it do anything helpful mechanically. At best it occasionally Sparks wonderfully bananas threads as people argue over whether Batman is lawful or chaotic.

 

[Reynard]

Clearly, he changed it enough to engaging in the trade to fighting it.

It might not be a complete sea change, but it’s not insignificant.

That wasn't the question. The question was "is he still evil.since he is still.a murderous pirate"? The problem is alignment can't describe real people so ot is useless for any game that doesn't rely on two dimensional stock characters.

 

[Cadence]

That wasn't the question. The question was "is he still evil.since he is still.a murderous pirate"? The problem is alignment can't describe real people so ot is useless for any game that doesn't rely on two dimensional stock characters.

Is alignment only useless if one expects two words (chosen from three and three respectively) to completely describe a person. On the other hand it might be just fine for determining who is scorched by the touch of some extraplanar being, who can go into a holy/unholy site just fine, who - if powerful enough - glows when a certain spell is cast, or what claims their soul when they die.

 

[payn]

That wasn't the question. The question was "is he still evil.since he is still.a murderous pirate"? The problem is alignment can't describe real people so ot is useless for any game that doesn't rely on two dimensional stock characters.

We have covered this and the answer is yes. Alignment has no confusion on this.

 

[payn]

Is alignment only useless if one expects two words (chosen from three and three respectively) to completely describe a person. On the other hand it might be just fine for determining who is scorched by the touch of some extraplanar being, who can go into a holy/unholy site just fine, who - if powerful enough - glows when a certain spell is cast, or what claims their soul when they die.

Folks act like alignment is supposed to be some 50 shades of Meyer-Briggs or something. It’s not advanced psychology, it simply answers two questions. First, how one view society as best suited by orderly rules based on tradition or flexible to context of the situation. The second is what are you willing to do to achieve your goals. Sacrifice, harm, and kill to get what you want or a respect of life and willing to put yourself on the line for it. Neutral is no strong compunction either way.

 

[MGibster]

I don't believe alignment was ever intended to be a realistic chart one which we could map human behavior. It started out as a literary device in an obscure fantasy book (I kid, I kid, please don't hurt me) and ended up in a game. Anyone who expected to apply alignment to the real world, or even other fictional characters outside of their original context, was engaged in a fool's errand.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That wasn't the question. The question was "is he still evil.since he is still.a murderous pirate"? The problem is alignment can't describe real people so ot is useless for any game that doesn't rely on two dimensional stock characters.

There was an article in an old issue of Dragon where the author pointed out that it was entirely possible that 2 paladins could be facing each other in mortal combat on opposite sides of a crusade.

Drake’s piracy was (in part) an ingredient in England’s strategy to weaken Spanish domination of the seas. D&D characters have likewise been known to kill for king & country.

So, again, Drake’s alignment did change in D&D terms. He went from engaging in a practice that- while condoned by some- could be seen as inherently evil, to actively working against it.

The question is how much did his alignment change?

 

[payn]

There was an article in an old issue of Dragon where the author pointed out that it was entirely possible that 2 paladins could be facing each other in mortal combat on opposite sides of a crusade.

Drake’s piracy was (in part) an ingredient in England’s strategy to weaken Spanish domination of the seas. D&D characters have likewise been known to kill for king & country.

So, again, Drake’s alignment did change in D&D terms. He went from engaging in a practice that- while condoned by some- could be seen as inherently evil, to actively working against it.

The question is how much did his alignment change?

Thats the million dollar question and what alignment isnt built to do. It doesn't tell you that doing A, B, and C makes you level 3 evil and that stopping C makes you level 2. An alignment shift is a character arc of large proportion. Its not forgetting to tip the church once, or for stealing from a merchant the other day. It's a willingness to engage in regular activity of drastically different nature. In the case of Drake, its not that big a shift in his willingness to kill to take for himself. I wouldn't shift his alignment for this. Though, if my character was weighing whether to deal with him or not, its certainly a factor that would change the calculus of the decision. I (the character) chooses that though and alignment doesn't.

 

[billd91]

Thats the million dollar question and what alignment isnt built to do. It doesn't tell you that doing A, B, and C makes you level 3 evil and that stopping C makes you level 2.

Well, it doesn't in any regularized or granular way. However, when Gygax expounded on alignment back in the Strategic Review (vol 2, issue 1, February 1976), he did map the 4 alignment components (law/chaos, good/evil) as fields where a PC could drift around depending on how they behaved. Do more strongly lawful stuff, drift leftward toward there lawful edge, do more chaotic stuff, drift rightward, etc. So it was pretty much envisioned that a character's alignment would be shifting upward away from the evil edge at the bottom of the diagram by turning away from being a slaver to fighting it - from deeper evil toward a shallower one, as it were.