D&D General Rethinking alignment yet again

[Celebrim]

So, I was watching an interview with Alexander Macris, a game developer promoting his Kickstarter (link) on dwarven civilizations. During the interview, a bit of a discussion on alignment came up, and he made an interesting point: the alignment system (and particularly the chaotic and evil axes) really only make sense from the perspective of Lawful Good. Creatures and races that are commonly described as evil (and all the problematic discussions such an idea devolves into) only make sense to think of that way if the person making the assessment is lawful good. They don't make sense from an internal perspective (for example, the Drow wouldn't think of themselves as evil).

So, to rain on the parade, from my perspective this doesn't represent a particularly interesting or revolutionary observation.

It has always been obvious that the adherents of each alignment generally believe that their own beliefs are right and correct. Otherwise, if they didn't believe that, most adherents would at least be trying to adhere to some other belief system.

It's not at all problematic to suggest that some beliefs are right or wrong. It's not at all problematic to suggest that some beliefs cause harm or are incorrect. Everyone believes that. Most people do not actually believe that all beliefs are equally valid or only circumstantial. (And if they did, and they lived in a D&D universe, we could classify those beliefs as a variety of true neutrality - all things in balance, nothing is right or wrong except that circumstances make it right or wrong, etc.)

So internally to the D&D universe, you can believe that you are Chaotic Evil and also that you are right and correct for adhering to the tenants of philosophy described as Chaotic Evil. That is to say that you can believe that in being Chaotic Evil you are doing what is right, and that those that are Lawful Good are doing what is wrong. And there is nothing contradictory about that. You can in fact think that being Evil is good.

Your model in other words changes nothing. If in the drow language the word for good means dishonorable and strong or whatever other virtues that the drow believe in, they still are Chaotic Evil. They merely believe that they are right to be so. It's doesn't harm the cosmological alignment system for its adherents to believe that they are right no matter what they believe. Nor does it harm it if different groups label the boxes differently. If two groups with different meanings of the word 'good' start talking, and they realize they define 'good' differently, it will still be possible for them to understand what the other ultimately means. The fact that they each have a different perspective on what correct action consists of, doesn't change the bucket that that belief system fits into. You haven't really divorced yourself from the cosmological model at all.

What you might be doing is trying to insist outside of the game on which of those buckets in the game is actually the correct one. In other words, are you actually just arguing, "Lawful Good is not the right and correct alignment. True Neutrality is the right and correct alignment because belief systems are artificial and everyone believes that they are right from their own perspective."? Because if you are, that's not really an interesting argument to me about the alignment system.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I wonder how much of that comes in because the clerics and paladins either channel positive energy or negative energy, and not, say fire. (Which they would certainly be able to do if I were writing the game).

Waaay back in 3x when I was doing the Alignment Removal Project, I had a system of Adherents (followers, faithful or people covered by the portfolio), Recusants (people who don't care about and aren't cared about by the god), and Heretics (... hertics). That replaced Good, Neutral and Evil in the aligned spells.

The system I'm building right now does what you're talking about instead. You channel faith and get a god effect (because my game doesn't make all religion undead centric). So you call on the god of civilization and you get Leadership type effects. You call on the goddess of darkness and get shadow powers, the god of luck and you reroll, etc, etc.

 

[Celebrim]

To continue on the above posts, these are some implications of the traditional D&D alignment system:

1) Almost everyone of every alignment tends to believe that they believe what is right and correct.
2) Almost everyone believes that the further you depart from their own beliefs the less right and correct that you are.
3) Fundamentally a rational enough argument exists to justify each alignment perspective. That is the adherents of every alignment, if they are intelligent enough, can advance an argument for why they are actually right.
4) And, some what less obviously, if we examine those arguments, you'll find that all tend to dismiss the ideology of the opposing side as to not reflect reality and to describe a world that doesn't exist. For example, Good is typified by the belief that Evil isn't really a thing, it's just the absence of goodness. Hence the metaphor of using light and darkness to talk about Good and Evil. Good doesn't believe Evil is a real thing in the same way it doesn't believe darkness is a real thing. Conversely, Evil typically doesn't believe Good exists. It believes that the universe is inherently Evil, and that all Good amounts to is rationalization of self-interest by the weak, the self-deceived, or persons whose real motives are exploitive motives and not dissimilar than their own (in other words, they are encouraging people to be cattle for their own profit). Likewise, Chaos doesn't believe law is real and Law believes chaos is merely the unfortunate absence of order. It's just something that is broken and needs fixing.

So when I get into an alignment discussion and it starts devolving down to someone claiming an alignment 'isn't real' and there is 'no such thing as good', it feels a little comical to me. It starts to resemble talking to an NPC within the D&D world that is so grounded in their own viewpoint that they can't imagine anyone rationally disagreeing with them. They start going, "But all morality is subjective, there is no such thing as objective truth." and even assuming I don't question the sincerity of those beliefs, I just think to myself, "Oh, so you are probably Chaotic then." Like I can at some level understand why you think that all morality is subjective and that's part of a conversation about ethics humanity has been engaged in for a long time, but I can't see how you think that harms the alignment system except to think that you are demanding the D&D universe conform to your personal beliefs and it's just offensive that it doesn't.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I've dabbled in alignment debates before and arguments over how they should be defined, but at this point I think I'm more curious about what the original inspirations and intent for alignment were.

We have several quotations from a 2005 thread on Dragonsfoot where Gary Gygax made certain declarations about alignment (much of which have since become infamous):

...there is no rule of Lawful Good against killing enemies.

a paladin can freely dispatch prisoners of Evil alignment that have surrrendered and renounced that alignment in favor of Lawful Good. They are then sent on to their reward before thay can backslide

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is by no means anything but Lawful and Good. Prisoners guilty of murder or similar capital crimes can be executed without violating any precept of the alignment.

Pacifism in the fantasy milieu is for those who would be slaves. With regard to pacifism, that is apropos, also with regards to athesim in the FRPG where there are active deities. Only idocy or mental derangement could explain such absurd beliefs in such a milieu.

If the foes of these humanoids are so foolish as to accept surrender and allow their prisoners to eventually go free and perform further depredations, your "Good" forces are really "Stupid."

The non-combatants in a humanoid group might be judged as worthy of death by a LG opponent force and executed or taken as prisoners to be converted to the correct way of thinking and behaving. A NG opponent would likely admonish them to change their ways before freeing them. A CG force might enslave them so as to correct their ways or else do as the NG party did.

Note how in the last quote regarding noncombatants in a humanoid group that, while NG and CG characters (in the Gygaxian view of alignment) might let presumably evil noncombatants go free, LG characters (again, in Gygax's take on alignment) will either kill them or take them as prisoners.

Gygax's idea of Lawful Good is, I believe, inspired by certain historically popular moral traditions that even mass violence is Good when used against "Evil" societies and Evil when used against "Good" societies. While Gygaxian Neutral Good and Chaotic Good characters might take a chance and let Evil beings go, Gygaxian Lawful Good characters make certain that Evil beings will pose no future threat by utterly destroying them. Gygaxian Lawful Good and those moral traditions that inspired it say that destroying Evil is necessary to prevent the further spread of Evil's influence.

Why is this unique to Gygaxian Lawful Good, though, and not just Gygaxian Good in general? It could be because it is based on moral traditions that were very concerned with Law, both in terms of how society should behave and how the cosmos functions, where good was manifest in the order of the community and the cosmos and evil was manifest in the disorder of the community and cosmos. For example, one story from one of those traditions describes the stars as sentient beings that can either choose to follow the path through the heavens allotted to them by an intelligent designer or to rebel and be punished with imprisonment in a realm of chaos outside of the ordered cosmos. Similarly, those who would disrupt the order of the community (both within and from without) were declared as evil threats to the stability and wellbeing of the community and often punished with death.

Though Gygax describes Neutral Good and Chaotic Good, I personally would hazard a guess that Lawful Good was Gygax's own personal opinion of the "ideal" form of Good, though he did not define it simply as Good because of a desire to have Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic alignments. For evidence of this, refer back to the quotes I provided where he characterized characters who let Evil creatures go free as "Stupid" instead of "Good" and where he states that pacificism is as absurd as atheism within a typical fantasy setting.

This post shouldn't be interpreted as a defense of Gygaxian Lawful Good. I personally am glad that we live in a society where such an intepretation of what it means to be Good is no longer popular. This was merely an attempt on my part of trying to guess what Lawful Good was originally intended to mean, which might prove useful in trying to define a more palatable, alternative take on Lawful Good.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Welp, you heard it from Gary himself: war crimes are Lawful and Good.

And it would be ridiculous to have a problem with that because that's what D&D says.

 

[Celebrim]

@Hexmage-EN: It's an interesting topic I just think that by framing it primarily in terms of real world religion, however useful that may be, you are killing it as a topic of debate on EnWorld because ultimately we'd end up arguing about religion rather than game mechanics.

 

[OB1]

OP description is pretty close to how I see/play alignment. And I definitely think that Chaotic is a term that was thought up by a Lawful person. The way I break it down is.

Good - I will sacrifice myself for others.
Neutral - I will help others if it also benefits me.
Evil - I will sacrifice others to help myself.

Lawful - Society>Individual
Neutral - Society=Individual
Free (Chaotic) - Individual>Society

 

[Hexmage-EN]

@Hexmage-EN: It's an interesting topic I just think that by framing it primarily in terms of real world religion, however useful that may be, you are killing it as a topic of debate on EnWorld because ultimately we'd end up arguing about religion rather than game mechanics.

I'll go back and try to make my post as non-specific as possible, then, while still trying to get across that I think Gygax was influenced by a point of view that regards violence as good (and conducive to order) when it is applied to "the wicked" so that "evil" (which is conducive to disorder) cannot take root and spread.

 

[Celebrim]

@Hexmage-EN: I want to engage with the topics you bring up without treading on the problematic analogies you make as much as possible. I think it's impossible to avoid it entirely, but I don't want that to become what we are discussing. So, yes, I think you are right that Gygax introduced into the alignment system biases based on his own beliefs and backgrounds that have skewed the system for the longest time to Lawful Good meaning 'Most Good' and 'Chaotic Evil' meaning 'Most Evil'. And I think that is really unfortunate in a lot of ways, but I don't want to bring Mr. Gygax's backgrounds and beliefs to much into the conversation except to note that they exist.

Secondly, even though Gygax is the creator of the system to a large extent, I don't think you can necessarily take everything he says about the system as if it were perfectly coherent. I mean we don't treat his writings on other system topics like initiative, surprise, weapon speed, unarmed combat, etc. as being perfectly coherent and in some cases we know that he abandoned the rules he published and in some cases never really even used them. So while Gygax is definitely an authority on the alignment system, I don't think being an authority necessarily means that everything he says makes sense.

That said the quotes that he makes while incendiary are I think more defensible than you might think, and rather than reaching directly for religion I'm going to go half-way there by looking at Gygax's comments in the light of Tolkien-esk morality. The Lord of the Rings is a huge influence on early D&D fantasy and I think is relevant to this discussion.

What Gygax is addressing is the idea that Good and Law are stupid. That is, he's addressing the criticism that Chaotic Evil is the best alignment because you can always decide to do what is best, where as Law and Good are weak and self-defeating because they are too naive and hidebound to recognize or respond to real threats to their safety. A real world example of this might be Batman's supposedly good and honorable code of ethics where he refuses to kill mass murdering psychopaths. Gygax is arguing that at some point, probably very early on, Batman should have killed The Joker for the greater good. And I think this argument is in fact a reasonable one. Regardless of whether you think Batman is CG or LG (an argument I don't want to yet get into), his prohibition against killing (a form of pacifism) does seem to become insane and unjustifiable after a while. Gygax is saying that Paladins don't have to be as stupid as Silver Age Batman.

The first claim that a Paladin can freely execute a prisoner that has renounced evil and repented seems shocking at first light, but let's be clear. Present society does exactly the same thing and no one seems to bat an eye about it. If someone brutally murders five people, we have no problem with a judge sentencing that person to death or to incarceration with no possibility of parole (the same thing but slower) even if the murderer repents and declares he'll never do it again. So it's not that shocking that a Paladin, who is probably legally a judge and jury in his own right, endowed by society, the good cult he serves, and deity of righteousness to dispense justice is able to adhere to the same standards. Yes, it's great you say you recognize now how awful your crime was, but that doesn't get you out of the punishment for that crime.

Secondly, yes, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" is not in and of itself contrary to lawful good. What that axiom does is set an absolute maxim punishment that can be inflicted on someone for a crime. I've always tried to explain this as LG says, "Never more than an eye for an eye", LN says, "Always an eye for an eye", and LE says, "Never less than an eye for an eye". In other words, while LG allows for the possibility of offensive mercy where the evil doer is punished less than he deserves, it doesn't require it. Mercy can be withheld by LG if in the judgment of the judge mercy is not warranted. Likewise, LE disallows the possibility of mercy as mercy is a sign of weakness and an exploit that will be used by wrong doers and encourage disobedience. LE believes that the punishment ought to be as harsh as possible, far exceeding the crime. And I think that is both obvious and suggests proof that the contrary opinion is good.

I am going to skip his third point for now, because I think it's the one he's most wrong about, but also because it is the most subtle point and is I think the one I want to most discuss after I get the rest out of the way.

His fourth point I'm going to appeal to Tolkien over. After the battles of both Helm's Deep and Pelennor Fields and the Scourging of the Shire, we see a marked contrast in how the good guys treat human foes and how they treat orc foes. Human foes in all three cases are dispensed surprising mercy that often explicitly shocks both the human foes receiving the mercy and their victims. Basically, the surviving human foes that served Sauron or Saruman are just told, "Take your stuff and go back to your homes. Don't do this again." They are treated with the same sort of graciousness that General Grant gives to the defeated Confederate rebel army. But the orcs are hunted down and destroyed without mercy. And to understand that you have to understand that in Tolkien universe, orcs aren't people. Orcs are demons and the entomology of the word is very much similar to D&D's Orcus. Orcs in Tolkien aren't redeemable and aren't capable of good. And when Tolkien starts feeling uncomfortable with that, his solution is not to make them more like people and to think maybe Aragorn is wrong to hunt them down, but to think that he did too poor of a job communicating that orcs really are demons and he needs to make that portrayal of them as demonic even more clear. Gygax is saying the same thing. In Gygaxian D&D, it's very clear that something like Orcs or even more Gnolls are little demons which are inherently evil and don't reform. And as such he's saying it's ridiculous to capture demons and then treat with them like they are people. That would be Stupid. The right thing to do is destroy them. If they can't be reformed and if they are inherently evil then the admonishment that Aragorn or Theoden gives to their human foes to just go home and don't make war anymore would be dumb.

And I think his fifth point is mostly of the same sort, although I quibble with his characterization of NG or CG over this point.

But this gets us around back to something I was discussing earlier, which is that people bring their own biases to the table, and in a GM those biases can very profoundly influence whether it is even possible to play a good character. It's often jokingly said that the "GM is God", but in my experience about as often that the GM is God, the "GM is the Devil". That is to say that Evil argument against Goodness is that Good doesn't work for the world as it is exists. One of the precepts that underlies belief in Goodness is at least the possibility of a world without decay. And Evil argues that essentially this is a stupid belief because the real world we live in is not such a world but rather is provably a world of death and decay and meaninglessness and as such anyone that believes in Good and acts on it is self-deceived, stupid or insane. What I find is that there are DM's out there that unconsciously or not want to show that the D&D world is such a world and that anyone that is good is stupid and punish players for playing good characters because they think the player is being stupid to do that. So it would be morally consistent to have orcs be people because you believe that they have a capacity for good, but then if you believe that then showing mercy to orcs ought to have decent chance of convicting the heart of the orc and causing the orc to realize you aren't his enemy, you are good, and that he has been in the wrong. Or it would be morally consistent to have orcs be little demons that valiant and good persons must destroy. What I find though is in games where "the GM is Satan" no matter what the good player does he's wrong. If he treats the orcs as demons, then he'll be punished for violating his moral precepts and slaying innocents. And if he treats the orcs as people, then he'll be punished for not doing so because invariably anyone he shows mercy to will prove him wrong by acting demonically and perversely - even to the extent of working against their own best interests. And this later approach to GMing drives me nuts, and the proper and rational response to finding your "GM is Satan" is either not play with him or if you must just don't play a good guy and so provoke them to punish you for violating their moral code. Be ruthless the way the GM thinks you ought to be because that's what the GM believes is right and good.

 

[Kinematics]

So, it seems most people disagree with the basic premise I wrote up. I've been having hard time organizing my thoughts on it, which is why I haven't posted any replies til now.

Your model in other words changes nothing. If in the drow language the word for good means dishonorable and strong or whatever other virtues that the drow believe in, they still are Chaotic Evil. They merely believe that they are right to be so. It's doesn't harm the cosmological alignment system for its adherents to believe that they are right no matter what they believe. Nor does it harm it if different groups label the boxes differently.

This, for example, lays out the idea that I'm just relabeling the alignments, but that that doesn't change the underlying system. It is largely based on the principal that alignment is necessarily cosmological. Some in the thread have advocated for that, while others point out the issues with using it as a personality descriptor.

And it's the personality descriptor part that I think I have the most issue with. The cosmological side of alignment has faded from relevance with each successive edition, to the point where many question the value of having alignment in the game at all.

Many arguments over alignment revolve around the problem that it is internally inconsistent when you try to get too deep into the weeds. There are a dozen different ways to define "lawful"; which of those definitions do you use when trying to apply that label to someone? There are tons of Trolley Problem-like examples of confusion over what is good vs what is evil. Even just the word "good" has taken on at least 4 different definitions in just this thread, not even counting the Gary Gygax quotes a few posts up.

So I guess what I'm really working on is the aspect of using alignment as a personality marker, rather than alignment as a cosmological side taken. I even noted that I wasn't dealing with the cosmological side of things at the end of the OP, as I have different ideas of how to approach alignment at the cosmological level.

Instead I'm looking at how various societies which are given standard alignment labels see the world. Not even just how they see themselves, but what principals they use to evaluate the world and other societies. A Drow society with a Strong-Weak perspective might be analogous to Good-Evil, but it's not actually the same thing. Strong doesn't mean 'good' in the same sense as the Good alignment corresponds to either good behavior or the GOOD cosmological entities, like angels. Rather, it is "the good" as understood by ancient ethics systems (Aristotle, in this case), which is a quality/virtue, not a moral judgement.

Or the model for orcs: Bravery/Cowardice and Loyalty/Infidelity. Bravery and Loyalty are terms that we'd describe as 'good', yet orcs are considered evil. The question is not about the virtues themselves, but about what that bravery is put into service to, and who they are loyal to. If they serve an evil god, then that loyalty is to those who represent that god, and bravery is put into service accomplishing the goals of that evil god. They side with Evil in the cosmological sense, but that doesn't really describe how they view the world.


~~

So I guess what I'm getting at is that, while the cosmological alignment system can remain as it's currently described, it's not very useful for understanding the world as seen by these various societies that are labeled according to which cosmological side they sit on. I'm not saying there isn't an objective good and evil, only that that's not a very useful descriptor for behavior.

At the same time, because I want a clearer separation of cosmological vs personality, I'm less likely to agree with the basic descriptors that people use for what law/chaos/good/evil mean. They are generally derived from human moral systems, which means they don't feel like they're appropriate when describing cosmological scale separation.

So, I guess the model is less about alignment itself, and more about how to describe a society's virtue compass.

On the other hand, @Celebrim and @Hexmage-EN do an excellent job bringing out the raw components of what makes alignment work in a cosmological sense — that it's more closely analogous to the opposite alignments being at war with each other. They're more team names than moralities.