What Did Alignments Ever Do For D&D?

[hamishspence]

I don't think that we can say of the Sadist character that he's solely motived by sadism. If self-gratification was his sole motivation, surely he would not be so picky about who he gratified his violent and sadistic urges on. You make it sound as if the decision to never do harm to the innocent either by word or deed was merely a quirk. Clearly there is some motivation their which is benevolent, so why on the basis of his personality are we judging him evil? And if indeed it is only a personal quirk, why in the world are we judging him lawful? For my part, the character sounds like a vaguely CG character with a rather extreme personality flaw that he is holding at least somewhat - and to the greater part that matters - in check. Now of course, there are as yet unrevealed aspects of his character and his relationship to the world that might alter that decision, but from what I've got to go on so far he sounds like a Vigillante of the more brutal 'pay evil according to its wages' mode. That on the neutral end of a broad CG spectrum.

Unless you're using BoVD and BoED- BoVD suggests that the truly sadistic- those who delight in inflicting suffering on others, are evil.

And BoED is of the "torture is always an evil act" type.

Fiendish Codex 2 also lists torture as always a corrupt act, and has "inflicting indescribable torture" as an act so evil as to be on a par with Murder For Pleasure.

CG isn't about being more willing to do Evil deeds than LG- it's about being more willing to go against authority than LG.

The character has two traits, both in immense strength- compassion toward the innocent (which is why he protects them and doesn't harm them) and hatred of the "not innocent"- defined by him as those who prey on the innocent.

To him, no atrocity is too vile to inflict on them.
And he knows that in the D&D world, torturing the evildoer as punishment is evil- his attitude is "then I'm evil and proud of it"
What makes him Lawful is his code.

Meanwhile your Crusader doesn't sound even remotely good to me. He doesn't seem to me to be much concerned with making war on evil, as he is utterly consumed with making war on his enemies. He seems to be cut entirely of the 'victory for my side at any cost mold', and that in my opinion is the defining trait of Lawful Evil. No doubt me maintains some sense of honor, and he believes (wrongly I think) that he's acting under the authority and commission of an external power (the aforementioned LG deity), but he seems to be rather less concerned about achieving good ends (the protection of the innocent) than he is about achieving victory. I therefore assert that from what I've been given to know, that he's LE.

What makes him possibly nonevil is that he has no sadism- he is concerned with protecting the innocent from "those who are evil". He never harms the innocent for profit, and never harms the innocent for fun.

What makes him nongood- is that he is very, very, pragmatic. He is all "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" and "to save innocents, sometimes other innocents must be sacrificed" and so on.

Not all "sacrifices of the innocent" count as murder- especially in war.

And yes, they are pretty opposite in a certain way.

Think of it as two principles "Do not harm the innocent- ever" and "Do not commit evil deeds and enjoy them- ever"

The LN guy has chucked out "Do not harm the innocent"

The LE guy has chucked out "Do not do evil deeds and enjoy them"

 

[Elf Witch]

I can agree with the attitude with wanting "good" players, but it sounds like:

1) You told the players to be "good" and they just wrote "good" on their character sheet without actually "being" good.
2) You didn't care much, and just took issue with the two letter combo they wrote on their character sheet.

If it's the first, alignment won't solve any issues. Talking will. They can read the "rules" about "good" just like you can.

If it's the second, it's so minor there's no point of engaging in a threat of this length about it.

It is neither. I don't tell my players what alignment to play. Well most of the time. I did once ask that everybody play some version of good because of the campaign I wanted to run. I let the players tell me what they want how they see their characters. I even allow evil alignments if they can show me that it will not become a major disruption to the party. Maybe I am not saying this right so that it is understandable but my issue is when a player says I am a heroic good type character puts down lawful good on the character sheet wants to get benefits that it brings like good aligned weapons and then proceeds to play in a way that a good character would not.

What I care about is good role playing. And having an alignment system imo can help as a guideline. Which is why I use some form of it in any system I run. Even in Shadowrun I ask my players to describe and put on their character sheets if they are good, neutral or evil.

Having it codified on the sheet helps prevent arguments that can crop off if I question a players choice of action. Arguments like I am just playing my character and their should be no consequences for my actions.

An example how this works in game is this. I had a player who choose to play a lawfully good cleric of Heironeus. He was given a holy lawful good aligned sword that did extra damage to evil and chaotic.

The group had taken some prisoners from an enemy army. The cleric detected evil on them they were not. He offered to spare their lives if they gave information and did not try and to escape. They cooperated provide good intel. Did nothing to hinder the PCs in any way. After the mission was complete and it came time to release them the player playing the cleric announces he is going to slit their throats. To stop them from rejoining their army and giving any information to their leaders about the party.

I stopped play and asked him if he was sure he wanted to take this action because as the DM I felt this was a major break with his choice of alignment and how he had been playing his character up to now. He started to justify his actions as being the smart thing to do to protect the party because the other side didn't have any concrete information on them.

I simply asked him if he really thought that a lawful good character would give his word and swear on his holy symbol an oath to spare the prisoners and then turn around and kill them. That maybe killing them may have been tactically smart but was it honorable?

After a few minutes of thinking he agreed with me that it was not something that a lawful good character would do but he was going to do it anyway and he realized that he would have some major atonement to do and that while he was atoning he would be cut off from his god and his sword would not function as a holy sword.

The game moved on without bitter arguments of how dare you punish my character for his actions and led to some really good role playing as the cleric worked to remove the blood from his hands of the innocent men he had slayed.

 

[hamishspence]

I simply asked him if he really thought that a lawful good character would give his word and swear on his holy symbol an oath to spare the prisoners and then turn around and kill them. That maybe killing them may have been tactically smart but was it honorable?

After a few minutes of thinking he agreed with me that it was not something that a lawful good character would do but he was going to do it anyway and he realized that he would have some major atonement to do and that while he was atoning he would be cut off from his god and his sword would not function as a holy sword.

The game moved on without bitter arguments of how dare you punish my character for his actions and led to some really good role playing as the cleric worked to remove the blood from his hands of the innocent men he had slayed.

Sounds like a pretty good best-case scenario- where the player is willing to accept the mechanical penalty- and try and atone for the act.

The PHB does say that characters aren't completely consistant- they will act in ways that don't fit their alignment on rare occasions.

So it follows the general game guidelines pretty well.

Problem is, not all players are willing to accept penalties like that, even for a short time.
Conversely, not all DMs are very discriminating about when to apply such penalties.

With both the player and DM on board, Falling and atoning can work well.

 

[Elf Witch]

Elf Witch seems to think by making a character "good" they'll never do these things. Or so it seems, since I can't read his/her mind over the internet. That doesn't stop them from doing so, it just stops them from doing so while still being good. If you don't want characters to commit torture, tell them you don't tolerate that (censored) in your game.


.

Actually I don't think that at all. Even good people can sometimes slip and not do the good thing. As I have said before alignment should not be a straight jacket it should be a guideline.

Like the issue of torture imo good aligned people don't use true physical torture as a way to get information without at least trying other methods first. As a last resort I can see a good person feeling that he is left with no choice.

I think you have this impression because I use alignments in my game that I like to stifle role playing choices of my players and that I make them stick to what they wrote on their character sheet.

I don't, a player is free to take any action he wants he is free to change the way he plays his character. The thing is that their are always consequences both good and bad for the choices we make.

As I have said I expect my players to try and have some internal consistency in the way they choose to play their characters. This makes for a better game for everyone at the table not just for me as the DM but the other players as well.

 

[Elf Witch]

Sounds like a pretty good best-case scenario- where the player is willing to accept the mechanical penalty- and try and atone for the act.

The PHB does say that characters aren't completely consistant- they will act in ways that don't fit their alignment on rare occasions.

So it follows the general game guidelines pretty well.

Problem is, not all players are willing to accept penalties like that, even for a short time.
Conversely, not all DMs are very discriminating about when to apply such penalties.

With both the player and DM on board, Falling and atoning can work well.

I think this is true about more than just alignment. The DM and players need to be on the same page about a lot of aspects of the game. If they are not it just leads to unhappiness at the table.

I like to play in and run mature games with a lot of shades of gray. Where there are in game consequences for actions and where role playing your character's personality is as important as how well it is designed for combat.

For the most part I have had the pleasure to play with like minded people.

As a DM and a player I try to always remember that we are all there to have fun. And the goal is to leave the table saying wow that was a good session.

 

[Celebrim]

Unless you're using BoVD and BoED- BoVD suggests that the truly sadistic- those who delight in inflicting suffering on others, are evil.

Well, first I'd like to say that if you are using BoVD and BoED as your sources of moral authority and ethical philosophy then you are already digging yourself a hole that will be difficult to climb out of.

Secondly, I would generally agree with the assessment that the truly sadistic are evil. But, you've created what I think is a card board cut out of a sadist who possesses a redeeming virtue that I think real sadists generally (and maybe even universally) lack. That virtue being, he never inflicts pain on the innocent. And moreover, he apparantly is so careful that he avoids doing this even unknowingly. Now, maybe I'm interpretting this very broadly, and in fact he enjoys tortoring to death people who spit on the side walk accidently while aiming for a tuft of grass and children who suck their thumbs after being told not to, but generally to me 'innocent' means they are not deserving of death or other severe punishment.

To my mind, this 'redeeming feature' is very redeeming indeed. If he only delights in torturing those that have committed heinous deeds, then we are dealing with not merely someone gratifying themselves with others pain and not merely an agent of blind vengeance but an agent of a very harsh form of justice.

CG isn't about being more willing to do Evil deeds than LG- it's about being more willing to go against authority than LG.

Well, that I agree with. But we are dealing with someone who does in fact have a great reluctance to do evil. You have as you said imagined this character combining a phenomenal level of compassion with a phenomenal level of hatred for those that do harm to the innocent. Those are both attributes that are almost exclusive to good! Evil is never marked with either great compassion or with great concern for justice. That this character is markedly lacking in mercy and engages in a level of retribution which most good characters would find overwhelmingly repulsive only suggests he is not perfect in his goodness. It doesn't to me suggest someone of evil character or motives.

To him, no atrocity is too vile to inflict on them.

That there is no punishment to vile to inflict on the vile is not a notion normally associated with evil. That the child molester or the abuser of women should recieve as a just reward some horrible end is not normally seen as an evil impulse and when such a villain in a story recieves just such a reward we tend to find it a just ending. When we say of that person, "They deserve to burn in hell." or call out for similar damnation, even if we are not a believer in such a place, we are not normally condemned as vile sadists but rather, the venom of this comment is generally seen as mitigated if the crime committed by the target of our outrage is sufficiently vile. The character in question appears to exist to serve that impulse, and if he truly harms no innocent, then the targets of his impulse in fact deserve their vile punishment.

And he knows that in the D&D world, torturing the evildoer as punishment is evil- his attitude is "then I'm evil and proud of it"

Which makes us wonder then whether or not, as I alluded to earlier, the labels have gotten mixed up.

What makes him Lawful is his code.

Having a code in no way gaurantees one is lawful. Not all codes are lawful codes. A sense of personal honor unbeholden to any master other than your own conscious is almost always Chaotic in nature. If you have your own code, and you are the creator and judge of it, then it is you the person who is at the center of the moral universe and not the larger society or external source of authority. That's what Chaos is.

What makes him possibly nonevil is that he has no sadism- he is concerned with protecting the innocent from "those who are evil". He never harms the innocent for profit, and never harms the innocent for fun.

Again, then I think you are deprecating the outcome far too much in this assessment. If you enjoy evil but never actually do it, then you have a personality quirk - a weakness. I think it matters little how much you revel in your depravity. A great many sociopaths recieve no joy and pleasure in the murder that they commit. It is simply an impulse which grips them and from which many of them wish they could escape.

Not all "sacrifices of the innocent" count as murder- especially in war.

I agree. But even in war, some blame falls on you for the deaths of the innocents and some burden is on you - indeed a quite great burden - to demonstate that you did everything possible to avoid such outcomes. And even when such outcomes occur despite your every precaution, you still bear some responcibility for the outcome. The impression I get from your description is that the Crusader feels very little burden to avoid the death of innocents should it interfere with his desired outcome. I get the impression indeed that he could hardly hold them in less regard however his 'feelings' may be, which to be frank, I count as worth very little.

Think of it as two principles "Do not harm the innocent- ever" and "Do not commit evil deeds and enjoy them- ever"

But that isn't the two principles you've outlined. You have the two principles:

"Do not torture - ever."

And

"Do not harm the innocent - ever"

The crusader has tossed out one and the vigilante the other. Now I'm left to judge the relative value of harming the innocent to torture, and frankly, its the torture principle (however important) that still seems the lesser of the two. The vigilante has tossed the means, while the crusader has tossed the ends. Normally, we expect to find means and ends together in the same person, as we wouldn't expect bad means to lead to good ends or bad ends to come from good means. But if we must judge between the two, I think I'll take the ends over the means.

 

[hamishspence]

"Well, first I'd like to say that if you are using BoVD and BoED as your sources of moral authority and ethical philosophy then you are already digging yourself a hole that will be difficult to climb out of."

They're being applied to the D&D world- they might not apply in the real world.

"To my mind, this 'redeeming feature' is very redeeming indeed. If he only delights in torturing those that have committed heinous deeds, then we are dealing with not merely someone gratifying themselves with others pain and not merely an agent of blind vengeance but an agent of a very harsh form of justice."

There is "harsh" and there is "absurdly disproportionate"- this character's actions end up in the latter. If a person deserves to die- then killing them quickly and relatively painlessly is justice. Torturing them to death slowly over several hours- and enjoying it, is a bit more than justice.

"But that isn't the two principles you've outlined."

The crusader (or inquisitor, as the original sketch phrased it) won't just Not Torture- they won't do any of the acts defined on the BoVD list as typically Evil. They're a bit more willing to sacrifice the innocent than the average Good character is. Yet there's a D&D splatbook (Complete Adventurer) that outlines a LG order with an alarming willingness to sacrifice the innocent- the Order of Illumination- served by Shadowbane Inquisitors.

Page 68

Along with their comrades, (as members of the order call themselves) the shadowbane stalkers, inquisitors find and confront evil wherever it hides. Unlike shadowbane stalkers, however, inquisitors purge evil rather than finding it. Their relentless zeal and their overwhelming belief in their own righteousness allow shadowbane inquisitors to root out evil cleanly, even if it costs the lives of a few good creatures, without the moral doubt that other knights might feel. The Order of Illumination expounds that it is better to sacrifice a village that hides a powerful demon than it is to risk letting the demon escape or the evil spread. Although inquisitors remain devoted to the cause of good, this conviction allows them to use their abilities against enemies regardless of their alignment.

Think of this inquisitor as having fallen a little from LG, but not all the way- they are still LN. Inquisitors retain their powers if they change alignment, even if they cannot advance.

 

[Celebrim]

They're being applied to the D&D world- they might not apply in the real world.

I get that. In the real world, evil might not be a force with substance in and of itself. Or, in the real world, all the concepts like evil, good, law, chaos, right and wrong might be man made constructs that have no actual existance outside our own imaginations. So, yes, I get that the real world maybe is different than the D&D world.

However, even the D&D world requires some internally consistant description of the universe. One thing that we have to keep very strongly in mind then is whether in to this description we have injected features that more strongly reflect our own biases than they reflect the basic features of the D&D universe. For example, if we are in real life we hold some philosophy that could be deemed 'chaotic neutral' in D&D, then it stands to reason that we will be strongly tempted to describe 'law' as evil. Conversely, if in real life we believe law is good, then we will be strongly tempted to describe 'lawful good' as more good than 'pure good'. But of course, this last case brings about an obvious contridiction, as we've said that the blend of 'law' with 'good' has more goodness than the pure thing. Note that it might be the case that the blend of 'law' with 'good' is the most morally correct philosophy or the most pragmatic philosophy (which is the same thing depending on how you value 'morally correct'), but it can't be the case that lawful good is more good than good.

So its these contridictions we ought to be on the look out for.

There is "harsh" and there is "absurdly disproportionate"- this character's actions end up in the latter. If a person deserves to die- then killing them quickly and relatively painlessly is justice. Torturing them to death slowly over several hours- and enjoying it, is a bit more than justice.

Maybe. We should have to define justice. The claim that if a person deserves to die, then they should be killed quickly and as painlessly as possible is one I, the real life person, happen to agree with, but it is only an opinion and not one which proves easy to defend. For example, suppose we agree that a person who commits murder deserves to die. Now, we execute a man who killed his victim quickly and relatively painlessly. Then we execute a man who tortured to death his victim over several hours. Is it just that we execute the second man in the same fashion as the first? And if we don't, if we suggest that the second crime is no worse than the first, then by what right do we suggest that executing someone by torture is worse than killing them quickly? What justice demands is not always clear. If for example, a person tortured another person to death, and then, by some freak accident involving a miscalculation on his part, found himself trapped in the device and subject to the same torture he had intended for others, wouldn't we tend to say that this death was just? If so, exactly how is the justice lessoned if we have some agent inflict this punishment on him? Is not justice in fact strengthened when the punishment fits the crime? In fact, isn't that how we define justice?

The crusader (or inquisitor, as the original sketch phrased it) won't just Not Torture- they won't do any of the acts defined on the BoVD list as typically Evil. They're a bit more willing to sacrifice the innocent than the average Good character is. Yet there's a D&D splatbook (Complete Adventurer) that outlines a LG order with an alarming willingness to sacrifice the innocent- the Order of Illumination- served by Shadowbane Inquisitors.

Once again, I find little cause to believe that the writers of D&D have historically given nearly as much thought to this as it deserves.

 

[hamishspence]

The point to be made is that both the LE blackguard and the LN inquisitor fit the alignment system- if splatbooks are taken into account.

As to why LE and not some other strain of Evil:

PHB page 105:

Some lawful evil villains have particular taboos, such as not killing in cold blood (but letting their underlings do it) or not letting children come to harm (if it can be helped). They imagine that these compunctions put them above unprincipled villains.

This guy's compunction is a little bigger than "not letting children come to harm, if it can be helped", admittedly.

Other reasons why Lawful:

Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties.

"Law" implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include close-mindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgementalness, and a lack of adaptability.

This character has judgementalness, combined with honesty, in spades.

 

[Celebrim]

hamishspence: I'm not going to try to address all the difficulties I have with the many disparate and contridictory claims about alignment made in the splatbooks. The basic problem I have is that if you go with all the splatbooks collectively, you typically end up with a self-contridictory mess where alignment is so ambigious as to be meaningless except as a 'team' designation.

For example:

Along with their comrades, (as members of the order call themselves) the shadowbane stalkers, inquisitors find and confront evil wherever it hides. Unlike shadowbane stalkers, however, inquisitors purge evil rather than finding it. Their relentless zeal and their overwhelming belief in their own righteousness allow shadowbane inquisitors to root out evil cleanly, even if it costs the lives of a few good creatures, without the moral doubt that other knights might feel. The Order of Illumination expounds that it is better to sacrifice a village that hides a powerful demon than it is to risk letting the demon escape or the evil spread. Although inquisitors remain devoted to the cause of good, this conviction allows them to use their abilities against enemies regardless of their alignment.

How then do we know that this is good group? From the description they kill innocents without moral doubt, so how does this separate them from any other alignment and evil in particular? Is it because they are warring on 'evil' that they get a free pass to do evil? Leaving aside that your Vigilante oddly doesn't get this free pass, well, what does this 'evil' that they are warring on mean? By the own above account, their convictions allow them to use their abilities against enemies regardless of their alignment! They are therefore according to the above description zealous in killing innocents in order to root out their enemies... that are good! And this makes them zealously good? When the above is boiled down to plain language, it amounts only to that there is little or nothing that they will not do to defeat their enemies. This is 'good' only as a team designation, and having nothing to do with philosopy. They oppose demons, not because the demon threatens a village and they wish to save it, but because they are not on the same team. We know this because the above description implies that they'd oppose angels and saints on the same grounds, as the 'cause of good' appears to mean nothing more than 'our cause'. This is indeed 'ones man's terrorist is another man's hero', for what can we say about this organization that we couldn't say about a LE one except for perhaps that one had a different taste in interior decoration than the other?

I'm going to attempt to explain probably more than I should, but I think probably the biggest problem that the various contributers on alignment in official D&D sources had is that they confused character with personality. As such, they tended to think of each alignment as having a consistant personality, and in order to introduce nuance and complexity into the system they described each alignment as having an inconsistant character! So we have descriptions of LG for example, where everyone has the same personality traits - neat, judgmental, uncreative, conservative, prudish, reliable, whatever - but where everyone has wildly different actual character so that some LG characters are going around acting in a way that we'd describe as evil or even chaotic if it wasn't for the 'white hat' that tells us what we are supposed to think about them. Everything is flexible in this account of alignment except the personality and mode of dress.

I find that to be an incredibly shallow account, and taken together I am absolutely not surprised that if you tried to integrate all the official material into a single view of alignment you'd end up with a muddled mess that only made for argument. Not that this fault is the only fault in the infamous history of attempts to explain alignment to the laity in official D&D tomes, but its among the most damaging.