Alignment - Action As Intent

[buzz]

I'm not trying to say no reference to acts are made, I am saying that intents and motivations are all over the place in the alignment descriptions, not just in that one first sentence.

I gotcha. However, I think that even the examples you've given point to actions taken by the PC and not their hypothetical conscience. E.g., "lack the commitment to make sacrifices" means that those PCs don't make sacrifices, not that they simply don't believe in making sacrifices. Ditto "honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability." Those are all aspects that require action. Obedience comes from being obedient, etc.

And, remember, "attitude" is somewhat distinct from "intent." It's use in this context, as I read it, points more to the PC's habitual actions. The real key are the individual alignment descriptions, all of which focus on the typical things that characters of said alignment do.

 

[buzz]

I see. You're coming from a purely metagame perspective. If you separate a character from his or her player, you get a very different perspective. *In the game*, characters have motivations and intents.

Note that the rules refer to what a character does and thinks, not what a player gets his character to do. The rules assume you consider a character to be a separate person from the player.

Ah, see, my very contention is that the rules don't make the assumption that the player has assigned any imagined motivations, because they may not even exist. A character is just a sheet of paper with a set of stats. It has no feelings or motivations. As a DM, the only tangible, reliable thing you can base adjudication on is what happened in the game. Ergo, the rules focus on just that, telling us what characters of the various alignments do that exemplify their alignment stat.

How does this jibe with your assertion that only players can have intent? If my character has a motivation in the game, is that not something that happened in the game?

Well, not the way I see it, exactly. It's certainly something that you, the player, ascribed to your PC. But was it after the fact? Is the motivation being rationalized to fit with the meta-motivation (e.g., "I was bored and wanted some combat")? It's just too nebulous, and makes too many assumptions about the groups style of play.

As for grounding in actual play, I'm just trying to convey the idea that theorizing needs to be kept in the same context as the mechanic, i.e., that of people sitting around a table playing D&D. Leading off an argument with real-world morality or talking about real people (and even some fictional people) just confuses things, IMO, because we're not talking about morality; we're talking about a D&D mechanic.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Alright.

[snip analysis]

I'm not trying to say no reference to acts are made, I am saying that intents and motivations are all over the place in the alignment descriptions, not just in that one first sentence.

Yeah, the RAW allignment rules are definitly about actions and attitudes. I personally wouldn't use Nifft's idea, but if I was dealng with a lot of after the fact justifying, I could see being more interested in them.

 

[Fifth Element]

As for grounding in actual play, I'm just trying to convey the idea that theorizing needs to be kept in the same context as the mechanic, i.e., that of people sitting around a table playing D&D. Leading off an argument with real-world morality or talking about real people (and even some fictional people) just confuses things, IMO, because we're not talking about morality; we're talking about a D&D mechanic.

I certainly can't argue with that. When using hypothetical examples they should certainly reflect D&D characters in D&D situations, not real-world ones.

If it was unclear I was talking about D&D game situations only, not real-world morality, I apologize. That was not my intent.

See how important intent is

 

[gizmo33]

If it was unclear I was talking about D&D game situations only, not real-world morality, I apologize. That was not my intent.

This, unfortunately, IMO, is the position that the rules easily put you in by using terms like "good" and "evil" which have a real-world moral basis - and subject to seeminly unending debates. Real-world people have debated issues for thousands of years regarding "what is good" - take any typical alignment thread and it's usually just a rehash of these classic conundrums ("is it good to kill one innocent person in order to save two others").

The problem is that DMs are expected to have all of this figured out in order to judge alignment, which they are expected to do. Many people can reasonably take exception to any other person, DM or not, telling them what is "good" and what isn't, even if you really make an effort to say "well, I just mean good in terms of DnD good" - at some point, because of the strong connotations of the word to real-world morality, those qualifiers are forgotten and IME real-world animosities can be exacerbated. It's a position that I don't like being in as a DM, which is why I follow the "Gizmo Alignment System" which I will post on another thread.

 

[gizmo33]

Looking forward to seeing this.

It's here: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=199952 (I'm getting a null javascript error when I try to use the URL formatting - and I don't recall what the tag is.)
(Edit: Oh look - it worked anyway. Who says there's no such thing as arcane magic?)

 

[buzz]

If it was unclear I was talking about D&D game situations only, not real-world morality, I apologize. That was not my intent.

Oh, I didn't mean to specifically take you to task. I just have noticed over the years that it's the most common mis-step I see in alignment discussions. And, honestly, it takes effort not to fall into the habit.

See how important intent is

Zing!

 

[buzz]

This, unfortunately, IMO, is the position that the rules easily put you in by using terms like "good" and "evil" which have a real-world moral basis - and subject to seeminly unending debates. Real-world people have debated issues for thousands of years regarding "what is good" - take any typical alignment thread and it's usually just a rehash of these classic conundrums ("is it good to kill one innocent person in order to save two others").

OFT. That's exactly why I force myself to capitalize the descriptors, hopefully reminding people (and myself!) that these are reserved terms we're talking about, and not what's in the dictionary.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

This is an interesting thread.

I think one of the things causing problems here are the issues of agency and causation.

The reasoning and internal emotion behind an act is being mixed with the agency of the act and its purpose. They really shouldn't be mixed because that way lies a morass. I generally consider the act itself, its agency(who is responsible for the act), and its purpose(but not any internal belief purely the external purpose the act was to achieve).

I view Alignment as a descriptor that is an average of the accumulated acts of the individual. Whether the acts they perform are more likely to be Good, Evil, Lawful, etc. It's like a form of game physics independent of deity measured by creation at large, but used by deities to determine who they should accept as followers how they should respond toward various things.

 

[buzz]

HeavenShallBurn, I'm totally in agreement with you.

Oh, and I just had to post this:

Actions dictate alignment, not statements of intent by players.

The actual PHB entry (as opposed to the SRD) and DMG2 also corroborate this.

Anyway, Nifft, I'm sorry I so derailed your thread.