D&D 5E A different take on Alignment

[pemerton]

@Aldarc, I had a tag problem here with your quote:

I don't know why moral philosophers and ethicists have bothered their scholarly works since the 1980s when apparently D&D has already solved and satisfactorily answered "what constitutes good?", as evidenced by players having been able to successfully (though inconsistently and controversially) apply it to fictional characters as circular, self-referential proof that the system works and is, indeed, not broken and, in fact, useful as a moral framework.

This is why I say that alignment is no good for dealing with scenarios or game play intended to lean on, bring out or generate moral ambiguity or moral disagreement among the participants. Because those disagreements will turn on questions the alignment system has no answer to - such as what sorts of interpersonal trade-offs are consistent with the requirements of justice; or whether it's ever acceptable to let a person die so as to save a unique and beautiful painting; etc.

if slavery was ever really okay, you'd not have had slave rebellions. If rape and murder were actually okay, you'd not have revenge vendettas for harms done to family members.... because if it were actually okay, it wouldn't be harmful.

This seems a weak argument.

You can't show that imprisonment as a mode of punishment is morally wrong simply because some prisoners try to break out; or that policing as a mode of enforcing public order is morally wrong simply because some people seek revenge against the police (either particular officers, or generically against members of the institution).

Slavery is undoubtedly a cause of suffering, and I imagine that most ancients could tell that. But property is also a cause of suffering, in the sense that my control over certain assets prevents others from enjoying them, and some of those others (eg homeless people who don't get to sleep in my living room) suffer as a result. That's not enough - at least according to many thinkers - to show that property is a wrong. Likewise for slavery.

None of the above is to defend @Helldritch. But to show that slavery is a wrong you probably have to more than show it causes suffering. You have to show that it does so unjustly.

 

[pemerton]

Assume a legitimate authority, for a moment.
a lawful person accepts their rules and orders unless they have a reason not to.
a chaotic person accepts their rules and orders only if they make sense, feel right, etc. Because authority is only legitimate so long as it acts legitimately.

The implication of this contrast is that lawful people believe that legitimate authorities remain legitimate even when acting illegitimately. There are probably theories of legitimacy that can make that belief plausible, but I don't think it's typical to see those as part of LG in the D&D context.

For instance, D&D traditionally characterises paladins - quintessential knights in shining armour - as LG, and it's quite consistent with being a knight in shining armour to hold that a king or other ruler who starts acting illegitimately has forfeited the right to rule.

Mutuality seems like an idea more central to the LG/CG distinction. A knight in shining armour thinks that an allocation of different responsibilities (and perhaps entitlements) is part of what will help make sure everyone lives well - the knight does knightly things and helps the peasants, the peasantry does its peasantish things and these give the knight food and horse fodder.

Whereas a CG type is more likely to take each person as s/he finds them, without placing much stock on their social role or station. Because the CG person doesn't see station and role as being central to how a person contributes to their own and others' wellbeing.

 

[pemerton]

it seems like you don't generally determine things ahead of time, and instead wait to see what will add to the scene the most. You didn't enter the scene knowing what kind of person Rose was, or even what the nature of the loan and the debtor relationship was, or who was the jerk and who was the victim. That isn't how DnD is generally played. If you play dnd that way, alignment might get in your way, I"m not sure. I'd have to try using alignment in such a game in order to know. But I do know that it isn't as useful to discuss alignment outside of it's intended useage, which is in a world where people exist outside of the perception and interaction of the player characters.

RE the bolded phrase:

No imaginary people exist, whether the game being played is trad D&D, or doctorbadwolf's D&D, or Dungeon World played as @Manbearcat does. That's inherent in them being imaginary.

On the other hand, just as in doctorbadwolf's D&D game the various participants imagine various character existing beyond the perception and interaction of the PCs, so do the participants in Manbearcat's DW game.

So the only relevant difference I can see in the neighbourhood of the bolded phrase is that Manbearcat decides what happens in the moment of play whereas doctorbadworld decides what happens in advance of the moment of play.

I don't see any particular reason to think that alignment is more helpful in the second rather than the first of those two approaches to play. I can decide in advance what a character will do without needing an alignment label.

The last time I GMed a game that uses alignment was 4e D&D. My approach to GMing was closer to Manbearcat's than doctorbadwolf's. I used the alignment labels to help me make decisions in the moment of play - eg if I though that a given moment of play would be enhanced by introducing a chaotic antagonist into the situation, I would use the alignment labels on the lists of candidate antagonists to help decide which one to use.

As Manbearcat has said, or at least implied, one consequence of this was that the game didn't focus much on interpersonal or character-focused drama of the sort he has described in his DW game. Rather, the focus tended to be on politics, history and cosmology. I think that's a natural direction for a game with D&D-type alignment to drift into. I would never think of using D&D-style alignment in a game that I wanted to be character-focused or "close" and personal in the way that Manbearcat's DW game seems to be.

 

[Helldritch]

None of the above is to defend @Helldritch. But to show that slavery is a wrong you probably have to more than show it causes suffering. You have to show that it does so unjustly.

Woah... stop right there. Never said that murder, rape or slavery were good things. Never ever. Some Misquotes from one user and I get tagged with such stupidity????? Do not spread the fake news please.

 

[pemerton]

Woah... stop right there. Never said that murder, rape or slavery were good things. Never ever. Some Misquotes from one user and I get tagged with such stupidity????? Do not spread the fake news please.

You have posts that appear to argue that morality is relative to time and social situation.

I'm not expressing any view one way or another on that. I'm not defending your claims to that effect. I'm criticising a particular argument that was put forward. (By another poster.)

 

[Aldarc]

As Manbearcat has said, or at least implied, one consequence of this was that the game didn't focus much on interpersonal or character-focused drama of the sort he has described in his DW game. Rather, the focus tended to be on politics, history and cosmology. I think that's a natural direction for a game with D&D-type alignment to drift into. I would never think of using D&D-style alignment in a game that I wanted to be character-focused or "close" and personal in the way that Manbearcat's DW game seems to be.

Given how rooted the aesthetic of Order vs. Chaos was in the PoL World Axis setting at all levels of play, it's hardly a surprise that this was your general focus.

 

[Helldritch]

You have posts that appear to argue that morality is relative to time and social situation.

I'm not expressing any view one way or another on that. I'm not defending your claims to that effect. I'm criticising a particular argument that was put forward. (By another poster.)

That I have. I do not defend these actions. Not even one iota. Murder, rape and slavery have always been evil. But executions were not always viewed in a bad light, torture either. None of these are good either. But at some point, they were viewed as necessary and not doing them was consider a weakness (if not downright evil to allow a proven killer to simply live.)

I am all for our prison system where social reinsertion can be done. But could it be possible that in a far future, emprisonment of convicts might be seen as an utterly evil thing? Yet, today, it is the "good" thing do.

 

[pemerton]

Alignments are a basic tool. To help you quickly size up what basic assumptions you can make about a creature/NPC. With experience, you can even play without the stat block and improvise on the go, only the two letters are needed.

Blabla of woes. CE.
My players could encounter such a creature and how I play it will give them a clear idea of what the creature's disposition is about. I will even make up the stats on the go and adapt it to my players and their current situation. It is not in any MM so they will not know its stats. Heck, I will not even know the stats myself until the encounters is played out. If it was fun, I might add it to my list of nice monsters to have.

The idea that alignment is a particularly strong tool for giving a shorthand description of personalities or dispositions is just not plausible.

Dwarves are clannish, gruff but ultimately soft-hearted. LG adds nothing to that.
Elves are flighty but not malicious. CG adds nothing to that.
Orcs are rude, crude, crass, generally obnoxious and prone to violence on top of that. CE adds nothing to that.
Devils are deceitful manipulators that win trust by making promises which they keep only by twisting theirs and others' words. LE adds nothing to that.

Alignment was invented by Gygax to establish "sides" in a wargame (Chainmail) and to connect those sides to a grander cosmological struggle. In post-Chainmail D&D play the idea of "sides" continues and alignment also itself becomes a focus for skilled play: the more lawful and/or good you are the more constrained your permitted suite of action declarations but the better your access to helpful NPCs (including healing magic). And while I doubt the coherence of Gygax's Outer Planes (as per Appendix IV of his PHB) there's no disputing that they are evocative and colourful.

But this idea that alignment is useful primarily as a characterisation tool, and that's why we should keep it and use it, looks like an attempt to retrofit an ill-fitting rationale onto a legacy element. If you've dropped the idea of cosmological "sides", and the Gygaxian Outer Planes, and aren't particularly interested thematically in order vs chaos (and the idea that the playing out of this on earth is a mirror of its playing out in the heavens), then why the hell stick with the alignment conceit?

 

[pemerton]

Given how rooted the aesthetic of Order vs. Chaos was in the PoL World Axis setting at all levels of play, it's hardly a surprise that this was your general focus.

Sure. Yet more evidence of the coherence of 4e's design.

 

[pemerton]

I am all for our prison system where social reinsertion can be done. But could it be possible that in a far future, emprisonment of convicts might be seen as an utterly evil thing? Yet, today, it is the "good" thing do.

Given thread rules, it's probably enough to point out that there are people alive, today, who do not agree that imprisonment as a (putative) mode of punishment, or of rehabilitation, or of social protection, is good. I imagine they're a minority of the total human population, and perhaps even a minority of those who have thought about the issue.

It's not at all clear what these facts about the distribution - through time, through space, across various individuals - of moral judgements tells us about moral truth.