D&D General Rethinking alignment yet again

[Jer]

I mean are you saying you cant be lawful and/or chaotic while being surly? That an optimist has to be good instead of evil?

No what I mean is that you can be trying to further the cause of Chaos in an organized and regimented fashion and you can further the influence of Law while being a lone wolf who doesn't think human laws apply to you. Alignment as a personality descriptor would put the first into a Lawful frame and the latter in a Chaotic frame despite their allegiances in the cosmic order (or at least that's how I've always understood the AD&D alignment rules)

 

[payn]

No what I mean is that you can be trying to further the cause of Chaos in an organized and regimented fashion and you can further the influence of Law while being a lone wolf who doesn't think human laws apply to you. Alignment as a personality descriptor would put the first into a Lawful frame and the latter in a Chaotic frame despite their allegiances in the cosmic order (or at least that's how I've always understood the AD&D alignment rules)

Oh that? See Yaarel's timely posting here;

We discussed this in detail in an other thread.

In brief, I view the description of Lawful as if including a "personal code" to be an error.

The fact that it is "personal", by definition, makes it Chaotic.

Chaotic people can be orderly − they just dont care if the way that oneself is being orderly conforms to the way a group is being orderly

 

[CreamCloud0]

We discussed this in detail in an other thread.

In brief, I view the description of Lawful as if including a "personal code" to be an error.

The fact that it is "personal", by definition, makes it Chaotic.

Chaotic people can be orderly − they just dont care if the way that oneself is being orderly conforms to the way a group is being orderly.

I don’t see why ‘personal’ must be antithetical to ‘lawful’, if lawful means you follow a set of rules of your own volition, seeing as all rules of people are inherently made up what makes the rules someone made up and decided to live by themselves any less lawful than the rules a different group of people made up and decided to live by a couple of hundred years ago, only that there are more people living by the latter option and they have been around longer?

 

[Maxperson]

We discussed this in detail in an other thread.

In brief, I view the description of Lawful as if including a "personal code" to be an error.

Which is fine for your personal game, but not as a statement of objectivity when concerning a general alignment discussion.

The fact that it is "personal", by definition, makes it Chaotic.

This is only a fact with your personal view of alignment. Personal =/= chaotic as written.

 

[Jer]

Oh that? See Yaarel's timely posting here;

I've got to admit - to me all that does is make the case that "alignment as personality descriptor is useless because it doesn't mean anything" far better than I could myself without posting a 9 point alignment grid with Batman in every spot. I don't think it helps me understand your position at all?

 

[Cadence]

I dont dig this moral relativism approach to alignment. Alignments are tangible forces you can call upon through Gods and magic. Folks have covered the point well enough in the thread already, but I also dislike the idea of divorcing the cosmic/celestial approach.

I have some campaigns where cosmology and the like are based on that... and others where they decidedly are not.

When doing it cosmologically, it feels like there is a difference between the GOOD (angels, paladins or whatnot) and the Good (generous helping folks) and the EVIL (demons, devils, and anti-paladins ) and the Evil (selfish hurtful folks) that are important if one wants to describe a characters motivation.

 

[Andvari]

As a DM I find alignment a useful tool for running throwaway monsters without detailed personality descriptions.

As for players, I generally don’t worry about alignment, save for characters having to follow certain rulesets, such as a paladin. But in my experience, such players tend to police themselves well enough.

I also typically do not allow evil PCs.

 

[Oofta]

I've got to admit - to me all that does is make the case that "alignment as personality descriptor is useless because it doesn't mean anything" far better than I could myself without posting a 9 point alignment grid with Batman in every spot. I don't think it helps me understand your position at all?

Considering how long Batman has been around, it's hardly surprising that he's not 100% consistent. But the fact that we have things like the Batman alignment chart also, to me, shows that it can be useful. After all, everyone glances at it has a general idea what it means which is the whole point of alignment to me. Not a straightjacket, not something that dictates every aspect of personality, just one aspect of the description.

Is it subjective? Of course. If I describe my NPC as tall with a thin face, pointy chin and lean frame I assume you get a general picture? Yet all of those descriptors are subjective. If you were born a thousand years ago, that description could describe someone that was 5'10" with features that made them look practically skeletal because most people back then were shorter and in general had far less body fat than we accept as normal.

Alignment is just a clue for the DM to decide how an NPC thinks and will react. For players it's just one idea to latch onto if they care.

 

[Maxperson]

No what I mean is that you can be trying to further the cause of Chaos in an organized and regimented fashion and you can further the influence of Law while being a lone wolf who doesn't think human laws apply to you. Alignment as a personality descriptor would put the first into a Lawful frame and the latter in a Chaotic frame despite their allegiances in the cosmic order (or at least that's how I've always understood the AD&D alignment rules)

Alignment is both personal AND cosmic team. You aren't really pledging yourself to the cosmic team consciously like you are envisioning. You are automatically on a cosmic team by virtue of your behavior(alignment) and you further it through those behaviors.

The CE fighter doesn't join team CE and then run around killing indiscriminately to further its goals. He's automatically on team CE, furthering its goals by virtue of his running around killing indiscriminately.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The whole 'the universe' (read: designers or DM) get to decide what objective morality is and implicitly judge you' deal is a huge turn off for me.