D&D General "True Neutral": Bunk or Hogwash

[Piperken]

I think a genuine sticking point with the D&D alignment system is at its base it's reactive. Like, people have commented above in different ways that whether running a game or playing a game, unless the table runner or the game's setting makes it immediately engaging and consequential, it's vestigial?

In my present game, I've only brought up alignment when PCs have committed several acts that didn't fall easily within the spectrum of their stated alignment. ie If you continue on this path, your alignment will shift. Is that how you see envision your character as being?

It's why I think other games reoriented their focus on things like character aspirations, goals, destinies etc. rather than an alignment framework.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

For me, this is a far more interesting take on Law and Chaos than is the morality gloop that typically gets mixed into it.

Stephen Hawking and Neal DeGrasse Tyson got me thinking about this some years back, when they explained why some of the chaotic elements of quantum physics are probably necessary for the universe as we know it to exist.

 

[Umbran]

Hyperbolic, of course, but my point stands. Unless there is some supernatural fabric of reality reasoning

In the reality (and game edition) in which Mordenkainen's alignment was established, morality was a literal cosmic force that interacted with magic, and magic was his raison d'etre - so there was always a supernatural reasoning to his position.

So Yeah. True Neutral? It's nonsense.

Only in as much as the alignment system itself was nonsense.

 

[Umbran]

For me, this is a far more interesting take on Law and Chaos than is the morality gloop that typically gets mixed into it.

Villains by Necessity, by Eve Forward, is a solid referent for this.

In the novel, Good won the apparently-not-quite-eternal conflict between Good and Evil, and that meant that the world was going to sublimate under the unchecked growing amount of positive energy. So, a Druid (taking the True Neutral position) gathers together a few of the last villains in the world, to bring back badness.

Remember, folks, this whole idea grew out of a cosmology that included a Positive and Negative Material plane, either of which is deadly if you get too much of it. It never was about real-world morality.

For those who were talking about physics, Eve Forward is the daughter of physicist and novelist Robert L. Forward...

 

[Professor Murder]

In the reality (and game edition) in which Mordenkainen's alignment was established, morality was a literal cosmic force that interacted with magic, and magic was his raison d'etre - so there was always a supernatural reasoning to his position.



Only in as much as the alignment system itself was nonsense.

So I guess my question to the hardcore D&D loreheads is, "Is this actually demonstrated anywhere?"

 

[Gradine]

Yeah the second point is the huge issue.

The whole thing is very firmly Gygax and Arneson's own stupid fault. They're both worthy of significant criticism for creating the whole situation.

True Neutral made sense when the Cosmic Forces were Chaos and Law, neither of which was inherently "good" or "evil" in a relative human sense, and some of which are required for a society to function, for freedom to exist meaningfully, for people to live their lives.

Whereas in any even vaguely conventional-adjacent definition of Good/Evil doesn't work remotely the same way. You have to start coming up with truly demented visions of what Good/Evil mean to try and argue opposing anyone doing "too much" Good is sane in the sane way too much Law might kind of obviously be. Gygax and Arneson also totally failed to provide a vision of what an all-Good or all-Evil universe would look like (particularly where both were negative and to be avoided), whereas Moorcock did provide ones for Chaos and Law.

According to Gary Gygax literally everyone in this picture could be Lawful Good except the bearded guy holding Stabby back, who would have to be NG or CG. I'm not kidding or exaggerating, note, he was very clear that killing defenceless prisoners was A-ok for LG, even women and children (he was pretty specific, and used a phrase associated with genocidal ultra-racism, "nits make lice" to justify it), and he said it this century too, not in the 1970s or something.

I was about to say, we have some pretty direct examples of the types of actions that Gygax at least would've considered "Good", and we could stand to do with a whole lot less of that kind of "Good"

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So I guess my question to the hardcore D&D loreheads is, "Is this actually demonstrated anywhere?"

Both 1E and 2E had planar effects on magic and had weapons that could do more damage to someone based on their alignment. As I recall, there were also some non-core spells that specifically harmed people based on their alignment as well.

So, in the TSR era, alignment was a measurable thing, even if the measurement was "does that guy catch fire when we cast this specific spell?"

That's as far as we can go, as I recall.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I was about to say, we have some pretty direct examples of the types of actions that Gygax at least would've considered "Good", and we could stand to do with a whole lot less of that kind of "Good"

That also speaks to Good and Evil being teams for him, more than morality as we'd view them, something which everyone who's written PHB sections on alignment since Gygax has run away from ever since, with varying degrees of success.

 

[CreamCloud0]

i love the idea of alignment i think it has some good potential and really wish more was done with it, the principles of each axis IMO really aren't as complicated as some people try to make them out to be,

however my biggest criticism of it is that it exists in a game where players hate being told how their characters are meant to act and are absolutely dogwater at objectively considering the morality of their actions, especially in a game system which has primarily devoted most of it's mechanics to killing and the the game was originally based around looting anything you could get your grubby little mitts on.

 

[Alzrius]

Both 1E and 2E had planar effects on magic and had weapons that could do more damage to someone based on their alignment. As I recall, there were also some non-core spells that specifically harmed people based on their alignment as well.

So, in the TSR era, alignment was a measurable thing, even if the measurement was "does that guy catch fire when we cast this specific spell?"

That's as far as we can go, as I recall.

No, even 3.5 had holy weapons and unholy blight spells, among other such effects.