Critique my alignment handout!

[doctorhook]

That is a VERY good-looking alignment guide. And it provides good guidance in useful areas.

Thanks!

BUT

I think it could gain from some clarifying adjustments. The alignment axes are very ethereal - so making statements about money (doing things "for free") and laws is perhaps too specific.

Also, you should use specific definitions of each term before going into the example-writing process. Case in point: I wouldn't include willingness to "harm" anyone in the definition of a "good" person - personal gain or otherwise.

Actually, the specificity is completely by design. I want the descriptions to be crystal clear about my expectations of my players, and I want to encourage a heroic game, so I gave specific examples of appropriate behaviour for each alignment, and I phrased things to make evil seem as unpalatable to social-play as possible.

As for good characters and willingness to cause harm, I definitely don't want my players to think that being good-aligned limits them to being cowardly or pacifist (read: boring). I included the caveat "(if anyone at all)" as a nod to the possibilities of pacifism, but when it comes to villains, I am completely okay with Lawful Good paladins kicking butt and taking names. I want my players to read the way I described the good alignments and feel empowered, not limited.

You might get more mileage out of two scales: a goodness scale, and a lawfulness scale. Sort of like this:

[TABLE="class: grid, width: 500"] [TR] [TD]
[/TD] [TD]Min[/TD] [TD]Mid[/TD] [TD]Max[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Lawful[/TD] [TD]Unpredictable, can't be trusted[/TD] [TD]Somewhat trustworthy, follows certain rules[/TD] [TD]Predictable, follows a code[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Good[/TD] [TD]No regard for living things, max regard for self.[/TD] [TD]Cares for some living things, even more than self.[/TD] [TD]Holds all life forms as equal, some more than self.[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] So these are more abstract, so with a little thinking your PCs can apply them to more situations. And you can plant concepts like money and laws in there, by interpreting them as "rules" or part of a "code," OR caring for some living things - on the goodness scale - might mean respecting their rights to property.

Edit: Chaotic Neutral, in terms of this table, becomes a character who is unpredictable and cares for some creatures more than himself, and doesn't care for others. So, not someone you would want on guard duty, but if you know you're one of the people he cares about, then the CN character might still be useful in the party.

I like your chart, and I definitely designed mine with axes like these in mind. My chart has four criteria, two each for the good-evil and law-chaos spectrums. That said, like I mentioned above, I designed it to be specific on purpose, and I think speaking in abstractions would seriously undermine the effect I'm aiming for.

I'd reduce NE to: " sometimes willing to harm friends .." Rather than often ...

I used the word "often" for all of the evil alignments to emphasize that evil characters are intensely selfish and typically anti-social in the long run. I want to frame evil (especially chaotic evil) as anathema to cooperation generally and to long-term participation in an adventuring group specifically.

Have you thought of using the alignment definitions from Palladium? I don't like most things about that game but I did like their alignment much better. There is no neutral alignments. There are various selfish alignments and examples from popular culture.

Thanks, I'll look into that.

 

[Celebrim]

I used the word "often" for all of the evil alignments to emphasize that evil characters are intensely selfish and typically anti-social in the long run. I want to frame evil (especially chaotic evil) as anathema to cooperation generally and to long-term participation in an adventuring group specifically.

Oh, you ruined it. Those statements are far less perfect than the table itself. You introduce several of the major fallacies in describing alignment:

a) Conflating anti-sociality with evil. Keep in mind that Lawful Evil is intrinsically cooperative evil. Lawful Evil is not at all backstabbing. It very much admires the notion of a 'band of brothers', loyalty, and duty. It just believes that the collective expression of loyalty and duty, and the best means of ruling, and the proper application of law is utterly brutal and unforgiving. It's not at all interested in the contentedness, happiness, and ease of the people. All of that in the eyes of lawful evil leads to slothfulness, disobedience, rebellion, strife, and weakness. But lawful evil really does believe it is acting for 'the greater good', its just that it defines that 'good' entirely in terms of power and security. The ultimate good will be established when there is no Other, and the whole of reality is assimilated by force into The Group. So long as there is an other though, The Group must act with total ruthlessness. Any other ideology would be the ultimate evil - allowing the extermination or subjugation of The Group to The Other or its dissolution into Chaos.

b) Conflating selfishness with evil. Keep in mind that Chaotic Good is intrinsically self-centered good. Chaotic Good believes that the individual consciousness is the ultimate test of what is good and evil, and that evil arises most particularly out of failure to see persons as individuals, to treat with them as individuals, and to demand of individuals that they sacrifice themselves for others. The demand to be self-sacrificing after all has at its counterpart, someone on the other end being selfish. So any rule that prioritizes others over your own interest is almost inherently a scam. The Chaotic Good expresses himself with maxims like, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." There isn't selfishness here in the sense of not thinking on the interests of others, but there is a self-centeredness here in that its left up to the individual to decide what that means - the phrase is stated relative to the self.

c) Identifying evil principally with a single fault: Selfishness isn't necessarily the be all end all of evil. It's just one vice. You can be self-sacrificing and evil. Plenty of people are willing to die for an evil cause. Plenty of people who aren't virtuous are at least self-sacrificing and love something or somebody more than they love themselves. While this might make them less that 'True Evil' by way of amalgamation and mixture, it doesn't make them good. It might be sympathetic if a guy robs a bank and kills someone so that his kids will have a better life, but we wouldn't uphold doing that as an example of goodness. There is a larger value we expect good to uphold beyond simply loyalty to ones own and willingness to sacrifice self-interest. Beyond that, selfish is a problematic word because it can indicate both a mode of behavior and a personality.

d) Calling out and defining 'chaotic evil' as 'evil, but more so'. If evil's defining trait is selfishness and antisociality, then chaotic evil becomes just evil++. Conversely, lawful evil tends to become 'a bit less evil' and lawful good tends to be defined as 'more good than good'. This ends up creating a bias toward 'lawful' as good, and that in turn will cause you all sorts of problems at the average table where the authoritarian nature of 'law' being conflated with 'good' will tend to push tables toward 'chaos is good' and 'evil is good'. This is I think exactly the opposite of the push you want to make on your tables habits.

 

[BigVanVader]

I think your alignment descriptions are good and well thought out as far as they go, and are in fact probably better thought out than the descriptions TSR/WotC have typically provided. The are useful as minimal, practical guides to how your character should generally behave, and they avoid all the common fallacies you see in descriptions of alignment (alignment as personality, alignment as a stricture for 'good' but freedom for 'evil', lawful good as more good than good, chaotic evil as more evil than evil, evil defined by a lack of a single virtue, or good defined by the presence of a single virtue, etc.)

That said, while I like the table, I'd prefer it to be supplemented with a bit more depth and a bit more specifics.

In play, I find that Chaotic Neutral is the most common alignment of characters played by Americans with a mainstream cultural background. Banning it seems impossible, since no matter what a player puts on a character sheet, they'll gravitate to Chaotic Neutral in probably 2/3rds of the cases - and those that don't group strongly around CN (N, CG, CE). You might as well have on the character sheet what the player is actually animating, otherwise, you might as well have 'red team', 'purple team', etc.

As a minor critique, I think you should make the statement of Neutral Evil stronger and more symmetrical with Neutral Good. Evil doesn't merely tolerate laws or rules that favor the strong over the weak, it is intolerant of laws when they favor the weak over the strong. Likewise, Evil doesn't merely avoid helping others for free, but is compelled to hurt others even when it does so at a cost or risk. Neutral evil in particular is less interested in whether harming others results in personal gain (Chaotic), but in doing harm for its own sake. It is not only, "Often willing to harm friends for personal gain.", "Often willing to harm others even at personal cost and personal risk." Granted, the first implies the former (since losing the friend involves a cost and a risk), but its even more than that - the actual pain caused by the betrayal is weighed as a benefit to be enjoyed. The fact that they successfully abused a friend - someone that trusted them and depended on them - is a form of self-validation greatly to be savored. That the pain of betrayal was more acute for the friend because they thought that the person was their friend is itself something that will be delighted in and gloated over. One typical problem I see with statements of 'neutral evil' is that they typically end up being 'less evil' than either 'lawful evil' or 'chaotic evil' because they give 'neutral evil' a wishy-washier motivation. This is failure to understand that self-interest (doing evil to advance the good cause of ones own happiness) or self-sacrifice (doing evil to advance the good cause of one's own tribal security and prosperity) are mitigating factors in a person's degree of depravity and render evil more understandable and more palatable. A person who is 'neutral evil' is literally doing evil for its own sake, and holding up evil itself as the highest good.

The best example of this I can think of parallels the 'What Alignment is the Batman' meme, where the real answer is, "Which Batman?" The question of "What alignment is the Joker?", has a similar problem. The Joker is traditionally presented in the form of the Clown Prince of Crime, with an explicitly Chaotic Evil motivation - he's doing this all because of the depraved delight he takes in it but he's got basically the normal motivations associated with depravity. He wouldn't sacrifice his own interests and when Batman has the advantage he legitimately begs for mercy because the only thing he really cares for is himself.

But the Keith Ledger Joker is presented with a different set of motivations. The Keith Ledger Joker is neutral evil and has the classic neutral evil motivation - he wants to prove Good doesn't actually exist and that a fundamental level there really is no such thing as goodness. His schemes aren't done to advance his own interest, but instead to advance evil as a general principle. He doesn't want to steal things to have them. He wants to watch the world burn. And ultimately, when faced with death, he doesn't beg for mercy because he would rather die than see mercy or justice exist and be validated. Evil is more important to him than even himself in a way that Chaotic Evil would never agree to.

Ahh yes, Keith Ledger. The younger and unassuming third cousin of ultra-famous deceased actor Heath Ledger, of Dark Knight fame. Who could ever forget Keith?

Anyway, ribbing aside, this is a very interesting post, thank you for making it. And it's making me think. Namely, about slasher movies.

(I'm about to talk about horror films, just giving fair warning because I know a few really, really, really won't care, and I completely respect that.)

See, everyone always equates Michael Myers(from the Halloween films) as being the same as Jason Voorhees(of Friday the 13th fame.), but I always saw Jason as Chaotic Evil, and Michael as Neutral Evil. Jason (before the Reboot) just kills people because he's an undead zombie child who's doing what his mom said, and doing it really literally.

But Michael(before the Reboot), in all the films prior was always described as being the personification of evil. I mean, his 'name' in the first film was just 'The Shape', because he was barely human anymore.

But now, I'm wondering if Jason is more Lawful Evil, and Freddy Krueger is more Chaotic Evil. Jason, after all, never really cared about himself in all the movies, he just walked into bullets and weapons and didn't give a damn. Freddy, the moment he was ever in a position of weakness, became cowardly and pathetic. And of course, Michael wants to slaughter you if it's the last thing he does. He knows what will kill him and what won't(unlike Jason), he just doesn't care as long as he can strangle or stab the life right out of you.

Man, this is all a mindtrip, I've gotta rethink absolutely everything. Thank you for this, dude.

 

[doctorhook]

Apologies for missing your first post; I think you posted it as I was already writing my response to the others.

Oh, you ruined it. Those statements are far less perfect than the table itself.

Woe, how many times in life must I learn the hard way to quit while I'm ahead? lol

You introduce several of the major fallacies in describing alignment:

a) Conflating anti-sociality with evil. Keep in mind that Lawful Evil is intrinsically cooperative evil. Lawful Evil is not at all backstabbing. It very much admires the notion of a 'band of brothers', loyalty, and duty. It just believes that the collective expression of loyalty and duty, and the best means of ruling, and the proper application of law is utterly brutal and unforgiving. It's not at all interested in the contentedness, happiness, and ease of the people. All of that in the eyes of lawful evil leads to slothfulness, disobedience, rebellion, strife, and weakness. But lawful evil really does believe it is acting for 'the greater good', its just that it defines that 'good' entirely in terms of power and security. The ultimate good will be established when there is no Other, and the whole of reality is assimilated by force into The Group. So long as there is an other though, The Group must act with total ruthlessness. Any other ideology would be the ultimate evil - allowing the extermination or subjugation of The Group to The Other or its dissolution into Chaos.

b) Conflating selfishness with evil. Keep in mind that Chaotic Good is intrinsically self-centered good. Chaotic Good believes that the individual consciousness is the ultimate test of what is good and evil, and that evil arises most particularly out of failure to see persons as individuals, to treat with them as individuals, and to demand of individuals that they sacrifice themselves for others. The demand to be self-sacrificing after all has at its counterpart, someone on the other end being selfish. So any rule that prioritizes others over your own interest is almost inherently a scam. The Chaotic Good expresses himself with maxims like, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." There isn't selfishness here in the sense of not thinking on the interests of others, but there is a self-centeredness here in that its left up to the individual to decide what that means - the phrase is stated relative to the self.

c) Identifying evil principally with a single fault: Selfishness isn't necessarily the be all end all of evil. It's just one vice. You can be self-sacrificing and evil. Plenty of people are willing to die for an evil cause. Plenty of people who aren't virtuous are at least self-sacrificing and love something or somebody more than they love themselves. While this might make them less that 'True Evil' by way of amalgamation and mixture, it doesn't make them good. It might be sympathetic if a guy robs a bank and kills someone so that his kids will have a better life, but we wouldn't uphold doing that as an example of goodness. There is a larger value we expect good to uphold beyond simply loyalty to ones own and willingness to sacrifice self-interest. Beyond that, selfish is a problematic word because it can indicate both a mode of behavior and a personality.

d) Calling out and defining 'chaotic evil' as 'evil, but more so'. If evil's defining trait is selfishness and antisociality, then chaotic evil becomes just evil++. Conversely, lawful evil tends to become 'a bit less evil' and lawful good tends to be defined as 'more good than good'. This ends up creating a bias toward 'lawful' as good, and that in turn will cause you all sorts of problems at the average table where the authoritarian nature of 'law' being conflated with 'good' will tend to push tables toward 'chaos is good' and 'evil is good'. This is I think exactly the opposite of the push you want to make on your tables habits.

I really do appreciate your your specific critiques. I won't deny that it's incredibly fallacious to try to simplify complex philosophical questions down to few lines on a three-by-three grid. That said, I'm inclined to stand by what I initially wrote on the grid, precisely because it allows us to gloss-over deeper issues. My intention is to keep my party mostly heroic, and my alignment expectations clear to my players; I hope to avoid any in-play discussions about, "How chaotic is too chaotic?"

Then again, you liked my grid better without my own commentary on it. May it be useful to anyone, however they interpret it!

 

[Celebrim]

Ahh yes, Keith Ledger. The younger and unassuming third cousin of ultra-famous deceased actor Heath Ledger, of Dark Knight fame. Who could ever forget Keith?

Ha! Well, I've revealed how much I actually pay attention to Hollywood and actors and such. It's rare that I can actually make a popular culture reference, and I screwed this one up.

Anyway, ribbing aside, this is a very interesting post, thank you for making it. And it's making me think. Namely, about slasher movies.

Ahh... well, you lost me now. I know these characters by name, but nothing else about them.

But from what I know of the genera tropes, I doubt any typical slasher movie monster is lawful evil.

 

[BigVanVader]

I'm not gonna derail this sucker, but I will say that you'd be very, very surprised.