Squaring the Circle (old alignment to new)

I think we need to see how these alignments are actually defined.

There is actually a chance that LG and CE are actually less good or evil, because they aren't pure good or evil- they're distracted by their own particular brand of crazy.

It's my opinion that WotC (or at least the 4e design team) have come to the conclusion that Chaotic = Bad and Lawful = Good.

Therefore Chaotic cannot be aligned with good in any way, nor can Lawful be aligned with Evil. That simplifies the old system tremendously, and even neutral would no longer be a valid position as it incorporates elements of both the chaotic and the lawful. Hence the use of unaligned now in place of neutrality. That draws the lines far more firmly and places Lawful hard on the good side and Chaotic clearly with the evil one.

Political analogy removed by Moderator - no politics!

Celebrim said:

Unfortunately, things don't map so easily in my opinion.

Let's do the easy ones.
LG = LG
NG = G
NE = E
CE = CE

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I think you already failed here. You're going to have a lot of things that aren't good or evil enough to escape Unaligned any more, and a lot of creatures that are 'just' Evil or Good instead of Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil.

The reverse is also true - many characters that were neutral for balance or order reasons or because of a strange or complex code of conduct might be good or evil now.

The Nirvana problem: I have also thought about this. Is detachment the ultimate unalignment, or, since you are trying for right this and right that (or doing those things to "detach"), is it good, or even lawful good!?

The last fits with, well, the D&D monk...

TerraDave said:

The Nirvana problem: I have also thought about this. Is detachment the ultimate unalignment, or, since you are trying for right this and right that (or doing those things to "detach"), is it good, or even lawful good!?

The last fits with, well, the D&D monk...

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Yes, it does. But it makes sense that if you are going to claim that 'lawful' or 'orderliness' is normative 'Goodness', that all the sudden we see highly lawful ethics promoted up to highest 'Goodness' regardless of other claims.

Where this starts breaking down is any philosophy with a 'Golden Mean' outlook, where that philosophy would say something like, "The ideal life is one that participates in a little evil, just not an immoderate amount". Now we have a highly lawful philosophy - apparantly good under this conception - which we cannot distinguish particularly from a philosophy which says, "The ideal life is the righteous life which commits no evil."

One is not less lawful than the other, but one is however a much stronger rejection of evil than the other. Which qualifies as Good and which as Lawful Good? Isn't it interesting how when the rejection of good drops out but not the rejection of lawfulness, you end up with 'Good' rather than 'Law'?

that if you are going to claim that 'lawful' or 'orderliness' is normative 'Goodness'

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We don't know that. We know there is Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil, but we don't know that Lawful = Good and Chaotic = Evil, necessarily.

I think alignment has changed from two axis to one. See diagram below

The first one is a 3.5 style diagram. Each color (blue, purple, red) shows how much far on the law/chaos axis the character is, while the hue (light, normal, dark) shows how good/evil the character is. However, the alignments are rigid: some things are dark purple (neutral evil) and some are dark red (chaotic evil) but each is its own thing.

4e I think is using a shifting scale: in the center is Unaligned (blue), but the farther left you go, the more "good you are" (Good) until you hit the summit: Lawful Good (white). The same is true going right through darkening blue (Evil) and Black (Chaotic Evil). However, there is lots of "wiggle room" for your PC now, doing more evil acts will move you darker and eviler, but doing good things can reverse the trend. (Kinda like Knights of the Old Republic, if you will).

I might be wrong, but that's my theory.

TerraDave said:

Chaotic evil is probably the greyest. What keeps them from just being evil? Are they all insane cultist? Thoughts?

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My take... (new/old)

LG = LG, LN
G = NG, CG
U = N, CN, LN
E = LE, NE
CE = CE, NE

A CE guy would seek anything from destruction to get their way or goal, to a guy who wants total entropy.

Realms example:

Shar is CE, she wants to destroy the lawful Weave, a thing that collects and keeps in order all magic. Shar believes destroying it will cause some havoc but magic will remain under the control of the Shadow Weave. She will be proven wrong. She comes across as a goddess who wishes to control the current world.

Cyric is NE, he wants to kill gods so he can be more powerful. He doesn't care about the chaotic mess you create in not only the mortal but the immortal realms, when an actual god is killed. He comes across as a god who would destroy anything, even the world, to control it or rebuild in his image.

Darth Sleepy is an ancient god who is always in pain. He only wants to sleep. Most gods would hate to be condemned to 'death" floating in the Astral sea, but Sleepy wants this. His pain prevents him from falling "dead". Life is noisy to him, and much like you can't sleep if your neighbors are loud. He can't sleep when there is life all around him. He wants to end all life. He doesn't want to re-create the world in his image, since that would mean life, and even undeath is noisy, so none of that too. He wants pure entropy and death.

Remathilis: The single axis is one possibility. I don't love it, but it is a possiblity.

It would be more interesting if there was at least a twist with LG and CE, Like that each has gone over the edge somehow, moving away from just G or E to something more extreme. (is this the same as the WHFRPG?)

Ok, now we know that they basically just dropped LN, LE, CG, and CN.

Hmm.