D&D 5E A different take on Alignment

[Chaosmancer]

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"he later admitted to modeling Scrooge on the 18th century Member of Parliament and moneylender John Elwes. Though Scrooge's physical appearance and concern for personal economy were modeled after Elwes, he was different in many ways. Elwes would do absolutely anything to cut costs in his own life, but was generous enough in lending to friends."

The first real world miser, the one Scrooge was modeled after, was generous to his friends. A few other misers there also gave out money to charities.

Famous Misers and How They Lived

Most people have met at least one miser in their lifetime. You know the type: no matter how rich they may be, they hoard their money and spend as little of it as possible, delighting in their savings. Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol is perhaps the most famous miser (albeit a fictional...

www.ranker.com

Same guy up there makes this list as well, also this guy...

"Despite having more money than God, H.L. Hunt still pinched pennies by cutting his own hair, driving himself to work in an old car, bringing his lunch to work, and parking down the street from his office so he didn't have to pay the 50-cent parking fee. Worst of all, he was also known as a crappy tipper."

But he did tip, just like my miser above who gives a few coppers to the poor.

You're once again engaging in an overly narrow definition of something. Miser this time, rather than alignment.

I wonder if there is any reason that a member of parliament and a moneylender might be generous to his rich and influential friends. And how that might be different than giving money to the poor.

Oh, and reading the rest of the articles, Ephraim Lópes Pereira d'Aguilar, 2nd Baron d'Aguilar, Morgan "Blewbury" Jones, Daniel Dancer (a guy who never bathed or change clothes and kicked out his own dog's teeth to avoid the possibility of being sued), Homer and Langley Collyer, Hetty Green, John P. Davidson (who stiffed the Church Collection plate), J. Paul Getty, Leona Helmsley, Thomas Cooke, Daniel K. Ludwig, John Camden Neild, James "Jemmy" Wood, Ingvar Kamprad

That is fourteen people, with no reference to giving to the poor or even tipping. Lots of "went to visit people to get free food" or "ate food covered in maggots to save money"


Yossele is an interesting case. Someone who was perceived as a miser, and yet was secretly generous. I wouldn't say they count as actually being a miser though, since the entire point of the tale is that you shouldn't judge generosity based on public acts.


So, again, "giving money to the poor" is seen as a specifically anti-miserly act. To the point that there is an entire moral legend about a miser who wasn't really a miser due to his generosity to the poor.

You didn't prove it a all. You made a statement that not even alignment backs up. Alignment backs me up on this. Read alignment man. Chaotic Neutral(only chaos) specifically mentions acting on whim. No mention of desires anywhere.

Because they don't need to. Again, this is fairly well understood. "Following your desires" is in exact opposition to "conforming to societies expectations".

Then you must understand that chaotic is whim and impulse, not desires.

Whims are desires. Following your desires is in exact opposition to conforming to societies expectations. By your definition, there seems to only be a difference in the type of desires people have, so there is little to no difference between neutral, chaotic or lawful other than how many people agree with their desires and how often they change.

No, it doesn't. Nothing in there prevents the evil serial killer doctor I described earlier in the thread.

I've made my arguments. If you think you could act in a manner that is warm, sympathetic and caring towards all people, and yet still go out and murder people in cold blood for being of the same class of people whom you hate, then you have a severe disconnect between what ideals mean, or what those words mean.

Um, no. That's YOU trying to separate everything. I'm incorporating everything together, which is how you get an evil serial killer doctor who follows the oath.

No, you are seperating their core ideals from this idea of being "evil murderer" and then saying that it makes sense because they have two different pieces. But, you are ignoring that ideals ARE the moral and ethical compass of a person. And if you have an ideal that tells you to treat people with compassion and warmth, you don't go and murder them based on their profession.

You cannot have your core driving ideal being to care for others and also have no disconnect with going out and killing every chimmneysweeper in the city.

You guys have certainly argued. That's for sure. None of you has "shown" your claims to be true, though. It's clear that the sentence that follows the ideal is just one example of how the ideal can be interpreted.

And the single word is not the ideal. As we have shown, repeatedly.

Do you re-read what you write before you post it? An "Impulse to follow the rules." Why do you always have to come up with some ridiculously absurd example in order to try and be right? You should re-read your posts and if you see something that absurd, perhaps change it to something that makes sense.

It was your argument.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You know, dear @Chaosmancer, the more I see your arguments against alignment and your explanations of what is lawful and what is chaotic, the more I believe that your problem with alignment is not alignment, but how you view them. And that maybe the reason why you have so much trouble with the views of your various DMs.

You have a very strange views of alignments that does not .... align with the views of others. And thus, you get frustrated and that is understandable. Maybe you should stop going to deep into what is and what is not and just stay on the surface. Things would work out a lot better. As strange as it may seems in this era of non conformity, maybe trying to conform to the views of your DMs about alignments would help you appreciate them for the good tool that they are.

If someone actually bothered to give a definition that made sense, I might be tempted to play along. But, as I said, alignment seems to only answer two questions. And it does that poorly

 

[Chaosmancer]

If you write "I'm an antisocial jackass" or "I'm blinded by my devotion" or any other of other flaws, you would still end up with behavior that people object to because of alignment. If I tell someone they can't have that flaw, they'll accuse me of controlling their character, just as if I told them they can't justify being insane because they put CN on their character sheet.

So, we have moved from "people can use flaws to cause the same problems" unto "people can use these specific flaws to cause problems"

And, you know, again, there is really no denying that a character is planning on being an antisocial individual who will cause issues in a group setting... if that is what they literally wrote on their sheet. But, if you cut off all CN characters, you may be cutting off groups that aren't planning in acting out to that degree.

Actions are not defined by alignment, that's not what it's for. General world view, moral compass yes. Actions? No. Actions specific to an ideal? Sure. But how many ideals do you have? If your actions don't affect innocent people one way or another, there's no general guideline, it's just a void. A void that alignment can help fill in if you want.

If you aren't hurting innocent people, is it okay to murder rich people in their sleep because you don't think they're innocent? Who gets to decide what innocent is?

A general world view, but not actions.

So, what about being Good prevents you from murdering evil people in their sleep? Who gets to decide if they are evil?

What about Neutral fills the void of not hurting people one way or the other? What kind of general guideline is neutral giving you except that... you don't really care one way or the other, which is exactly where you already were.

 

[Maxperson]

Bachelor's degree in literature with a minor in teaching. Powerengineer as a career now because I was tired of waiting for a permanency in schools. And I use the direct approach as much as possible because it avoids (generally speaking) a lot of confusions and misunderstanding.

If I want to see 2nd and 3rd degree I certainly can but I prefer not too. I read a lot, both in French and in English and again, I have no trouble following Max. He is very straight forward. I find this very refreshing and appreciate his style. Just like I appreciate some of the views that @Chaosmancer shares with us. It is not because I disagree with someone that I do not respect or like him. This would be far from the truth.

What we have to realize is that this is a conversation in a written medium. We can not see the face and intonations of our fellow debaters so trying to see 2nd and 3rd degree meaning is .... meaningless. I feel it is way better to take things at face value. And if someone says something while meaning something else, it will be lost on me because I will always try not to go there (unless I specifically call it).

Thank you.

I've told many people here, @Chaosmancer at least 20 times(literally) alone, don't try to interpret what I say as anything other than what it says. I don't do ulterior motive and word games where I try to fool people by writing one thing when I mean another. It took my wife almost 2 years to learn that about me. She kept looking for hidden meanings as well. I've also noticed that it seems to only be the other side that is "confused" by what I am saying.

 

[Oofta]

So, we have moved from "people can use flaws to cause the same problems" unto "people can use these specific flaws to cause problems"

And, you know, again, there is really no denying that a character is planning on being an antisocial individual who will cause issues in a group setting... if that is what they literally wrote on their sheet. But, if you cut off all CN characters, you may be cutting off groups that aren't planning in acting out to that degree.



A general world view, but not actions.

So, what about being Good prevents you from murdering evil people in their sleep? Who gets to decide if they are evil?

What about Neutral fills the void of not hurting people one way or the other? What kind of general guideline is neutral giving you except that... you don't really care one way or the other, which is exactly where you already were.

There's nothing in the game, neither alignment, ideals, bonds nor flaws that are going to define what is right or wrong. Which has been one of my points all along.

But "do no harm to innocents" tells me absolutely nothing about a person's moral compass outside of that one specific statement. Do they have the morality of The Punisher? Superman? Batman? Gentleman John Marcone*? No clue.

TBIF works well as an adjunct to alignment. As a stand-alone? It only gives you a clue in very narrow slice of the PC's overall view of the world.

*Evil crime boss who has a soft spot for kids.

 

[Maxperson]

But "do no harm to innocents" tells me absolutely nothing about a person's moral compass outside of that one specific statement. Do they have the morality of The Punisher? Superman? Batman? Gentleman John Marcone*? No clue.

Exactly. All four of those harm no innocents. Two are evil, one is good, and one is arguably good, neutral or goofy, depending on the incarnation.

 

[pemerton]

@Oofta, @Helldritch

My objection to alignment isn't "problem players". My objection to alignment, as a system, is that (i) it is not a useful framework for meaningful moral categorisation and yet (ii) when it is in use there is one participant in the game - the GM - who is obliged to use the framework to morally categorise the actions the other participants declare for their PCs. Which is pointless at best and anti-social at worst.

Alignment has some other functions in particular contexts: it can serve as a limited utility descriptor for NPCs and creatures, in a 4-colour sort of way. (This is a big chunk of how I see it working in 4e.)

It can relate characters to cosmological conflicts which are themselves of a fairly 4-colour nature. (Again, see 4e and also perhaps pre-AD&D and B/X.)

 

[Maxperson]

@Oofta, @Helldritch

My objection to alignment isn't "problem players". My objection to alignment, as a system, is that (i) it is not a useful framework for meaningful moral categorisation and yet (ii) when it is in use there is one participant in the game - the GM - who is obliged to use the framework to morally categorise the actions the other participants declare for their PCs. Which is pointless at best and anti-social at worst.

This hasn't been true since 3e, though. I'm not obliged to use alignment about anything the players declare for their PCs, because alignment isn't used like that anymore.

 

[Chaosmancer]

There's nothing in the game, neither alignment, ideals, bonds nor flaws that are going to define what is right or wrong. Which has been one of my points all along.

If "Good" and "Evil" don't mean "Right" and "Wrong" then why did we use those words? If what is good isn't right and what is evil isn't wrong, then what is the point of the labels?

But "do no harm to innocents" tells me absolutely nothing about a person's moral compass outside of that one specific statement. Do they have the morality of The Punisher? Superman? Batman? Gentleman John Marcone*? No clue.

TBIF works well as an adjunct to alignment. As a stand-alone? It only gives you a clue in very narrow slice of the PC's overall view of the world.

*Evil crime boss who has a soft spot for kids.

And what does "Good" tell you? Especially since it doesn't tell you right from wrong?

Edit: And I just realized that you never answered my question of how "Neutral" fills in the blanks outside of the Ideal.

 

[FrozenNorth]

In addition, if we take away alignment, people will just use TBIF as "I'm just doing what my Ideals say" or "I can't help it if I'm playing to my flaw".

What people? Is there any basis whatsoever for this claim?

You know there are tables that do not play with TIBF don't you? Just like there are table that do not play with alignment or play with neither or play with both.

You see countless posts about alignments because they have been abused for so long. Given time enough, you might start see such posts about TIBF but I doubt it. The errors of the past have shown what not to do and TIBF are also an optional rule. Sometimes, a thing is disliked not because it is bad, but because of the errors of the past.

The PHB came out in 2014. It’s been 6 and a half years. Like I said, I haven’t seen a single thread on ENWorld about people having problems with PIBFs.

By way of contrast, 4e lasted from 2007 to 2013. Lots of complaints about a lot of different aspects of 4e.

But who knows? Maybe there will be a flood of threads in 2021 of people having issues with PIBF.