Understanding Alignment

[Obryn]

I rest pretty confident in my belief that phrases like "debase sentient life" aren't unambiguous, and interpretation of them requires reference to beliefs and mores not found purely within the text.

That's my main point, and what I think separates alignment "rules" from other rules. The definitions of alignments themselves are composed of ambiguous terms that require further explanation. While someone can point to the text for "Lawful Neutral," the terms used to describe it further are only slightly more descriptive than "Lawful Neutral" itself is.

The alignment "rules" are nothing remotely like the rules for half-elves, longswords, and grappling. Those are all defined mechanically by their game terms, and have basically zero ambiguity in any reasonable sense.

-O

 

[Bullgrit]

Other than that, I think I can sit back and watch my basic thesis prove itself: that people who believe that morality is cut and dry and unambiguous, even though they disagree with other people who also believe that morality is cut and dry and ambiguous, are the real reason alignment fails as a set of rules.

So your thesis is that the game rule fails because people can’t come to agreement on real world rules? People can’t agree that D&D Good means X (the definition text in the book) because they can’t agree what real world Good means?

Ask some non-D&D gamers what an elf is, and how many different descriptions will you get? Some will describe what we D&D gamers call a gnome, a halfling, a pixie, a goblin, or goodness knows what else. But we D&D gamers have no problem discussing elves despite the real world different definitions.

Yet “Chaotic Good” gets all kinds of confused in conversation despite it is pretty much originally and still strictly a D&D term, defined in the D&D books – defined as well or better than “elf”.

the people who believe that written text is always cut and dry and unambiguous are having their say

No one has said this. You’re setting up a strawman.

phrases like "debase sentient life" aren't unambiguous

If you think that, fortunately for your understanding, those are not the only three words in the definition.

Bullgrit

 

[Celebrim]

It appears to be time for the monthly ever growing alignment thread.

Blast from the past so that I don't have to type it again.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...ead-what-alignment-rorschach.html#post4704541

 

[Mr. Patient]

I'd risk suggesting that this is because you want alignment to explicitly define a character for you, and that you think a character can and/or should BE defined explicitly by alignment. But alignment isn't supposed to be applied that way.

We might differ about how alignment is "supposed" to be applied. As I think you know, previous editions took it more seriously, not just as description, but as prescription. DMs were instructed to carefully monitor the PCs' compliance with alignment norms, and to penalize them when they strayed (loss of levels, increased training time, etc.). 3e loosened this considerably, while still retaining (and even enhancing) some of the rules effects of alignment. 4e has stripped nearly all of it away.

But my concern in the Baltar example is not so much that I want to reduce him simply to an alignment on a grid, and to be able to derive his personality and behavior from that alignment. It's more that the personality and behavior that we see onscreen can be plausibly assigned to several different alignments (and of course you can do this for practically any fictional character, not just Baltar). In other words, the nine alignments aren't capturing meaningful differences. They're too fine-grained for my taste, and are needlessly symmetrical. The differences between neutral good and chaotic good are utterly negligible, relative to the importance that the game assigns those differences in rules terms ("detect" spells, intelligent magic items, etc.) and in cosmological terms (different planes and outsiders and whatnot).

There's no doubt that aligment is problematic. It has never, EVER had it's purpose for being present in the game properly, clearly defined. Largely because of this it is an interpretational nightmare because people try to make it do things it really shouldn't do, or CAN'T do. Even at that, it is by necessity vague in many ways. It can neither fully define, nor fully describe a characters motivations, personality, religion or philosophy, and collapses utterly the closer you get to making it do just that.

What it CAN do, imo, is to provide some roleplaying guidance, or possibly even some roleplaying substitution, for players who cannot or will not do so otherwise. Obviously then, the better and more dedicated players are to roleplaying the less it is needed or even wanted. Then the problem still remains that alignment has so many tendrils reaching into the game (at least for older editions - I don't really know from 4E).

Your approach seems to be pretty consistent with 4e's approach: alignment as a rough guideline for roleplaying. I'm down with that. It's also coarser-grained, which I think leads to more meaningful and useful distinctions.

 

[Cadfan]

A fun challenge:

Provide the obvious, unambiguous, clearly correct application of the 3e alignment rules to the trolley problems.

Remember, your answer doesn't just need to be convincing to you! It must be so convincing to you that you are willing to claim that the 3e alignment system objectively and unambiguously morally condemns the responses of people who come up with different answers than yours.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I'm not sure I understand the difference between DM problems and alignment issues, at least for my example.

So, the most people, the fastest? So a paladin's code of conduct is consequence based? Would you call Ozymandius from Watchmen lawful good, or better, if he was a paladin would he fall for doing what he did no spoilers? Would everyone agree with you?

I'm sorry, the two aren't even comparable. Ozymandius slaughtered countless innocent people for the sake of his pride more then any desire to help mankind.

[qoute]What if, and I think this would be more common, the DM is unsure of what to do, and tries to rely on the alignment system to guide him? What should he do when the paladin kills the corrupt official? If nothing, when _should_ the DM force the paladin to fall? If it's the DM's call always anyway, what's the point of the alignment system?[/quote]

Look, this problem exists outside of the alignment problem. If you have a DM who never talks to his players, you're going to have a crappy game, alignment involved or not.

Who said the courts were corrupt? What if the characters didn't know? Are they justified to take the guy prisoner until they find out?

In which case I'd have an in game note made to tell the paladin he could've held back.

Paladins should not simply fall because of one small mistake. If they do something adamantly evil such as killing an innocent person purposefully, then yes, down the stairs they go. But this wasn't such a case.

RE: Detect Evil:

This is, again, a player problem. Why is alignment at fault when the player shouts "DETECT EVIL!" at everyone they meet, but it's not the skill system's fault when the player shouts "SENSE MOTIVE" at everyone just the same?

 

[Nightson]

Here's an alignment puzzle. A group working out of the wilderness sends secret agents into the city with a magical device to detect vampires. The vampires are then captured, transported instantly to the wilderness and locked up. The vampires are freed and returned to the city of their choice if they pay a very large sum of money. The people who run the center are motivated primarily by profit but are convinced they are helping keep the streets safe.


Now, what alignment is the organization in general? And what alignment would a hero shutting the place down move towards?

 

[ProfessorCirno]

A fun challenge:

Provide the obvious, unambiguous, clearly correct application of the 3e alignment rules to the trolley problems.

Remember, your answer doesn't just need to be convincing to you! It must be so convincing to you that you are willing to claim that the 3e alignment system objectively and unambiguously morally condemns the responses of people who come up with different answers than yours.

No.

Because this is the mark of a bad DM. "WHICH EVIL DO YOU CHOOSE!"

When a DM does this, they aren't being witty or cool or edgy, they're just being a douchebag.

You are attempting to apply things outside of alignment in order to show the "flaws" of the alignment issue. There is no unambiguous, always correct answer to the trolly problem. With or without alignment.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Here's an alignment puzzle. A group working out of the wilderness sends secret agents into the city with a magical device to detect vampires. The vampires are then captured, transported instantly to the wilderness and locked up. The vampires are freed and returned to the city of their choice if they pay a very large sum of money. The people who run the center are motivated primarily by profit but are convinced they are helping keep the streets safe.


Now, what alignment is the organization in general? And what alignment would a hero shutting the place down move towards?

Gee, a group that takes vampires and then sets them free in cities.

What alignment should they be?

 

[Bullgrit]

Provide the obvious, unambiguous, clearly correct application of the 3e alignment rules to the trolley problems.

Trolley Problem
A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are 5 people who have been tied to the track by the mad philosopher. Fortunately, you can flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch?

LG = Would be highly upset and distraught over the situation.

NG = Would be highly upset and distraught over the situation.

CG = Would be highly upset and distraught over the situation.

LN = Would be bothered by the situation.

NN = Would be bothered by the situation.

CN = Would be bothered by the situation.

LE = Yay, someone will die!

NE = Yay, someone will die!

CE = Yay, someone will die!


The alignment descriptions/definitions do not tell you how to solve philosophical questions. Just like the class rules do not tell you how to cut down a tree. (Although I’m sure someone will come along and describe, in a humorous fashion, how each class might cut down a tree.)

Most of these hypothetical alignment tests are like:

Statement: “Steel is a strong material.”

Argument: “No it’s not. Watch as this huge machine easily bends that steel bar. And watch how easily I can bend this steel wire. See? Steel is weak, and we should not build anything out of steel.”

As all the rules threads through the years has proven, all the rules in the D&D books can be bent, broken, and blasted to pieces with the right situation. Just because you can come up with difficult moral quandaries doesn’t mean the definition of alignment in the D&D books are bad. I can come up with impossible combat scenarios, but that doesn’t make the D&D combat system bad.

Bullgrit