Alignment and real world examples...

[diaglo]

Yes another oft had discussion - and remember many of us don't use alignment in the game because of its essential meaninglessness

anyway Husseins ben mentioned so anyone want to do a guess on the Alignment of Mr Bush? (see politics always gets involved in this kind of thing!)

i can give you my opinion, but you'll have to wait until after November to find the results....

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

So perhaps expand it a bit. How can we limit a player to an alignment, when the 9 alignments really have no real world meaning? Perhaps that is for a different discussion though...

I've often pondered the same thing...

The alignment system never sits quite right with me in theory. However, in practice I find it quite good. IMO, it puts everything into quite distinct categories and can give some players an extra push to 'play nice' or 'play nasty' depending on the campaign.

I'd say it can be an aid to a very 'heroic' game?

 

[Silvanos]

anyone want to do a guess on the Alignment of Mr Bush?

No.

Perhaps we should make it people that are DEAD.

Henry the 8th (I am I am) - NE? Changed the laws/national religion to get out of a marrage?

 

[Calico_Jack73]

This is directed at the folks who no longer use alignment.

How do you then fix alignment dependent abilities and spells?

Smite Evil no longer works in an environment where Good & Evil are no longer taken into the equation unless you view that anything fighting a Paladin is considered evil for purposes of the ability.
Damage Reduction also presents a problem in the case of creatures being able to to be hit normally with weapons representing a particular alignment.

Alignment is pretty much integral to D&D. Personally I prefer to use the Palladium alignment system since the behaviors for each alignment seem to make more sense and you still have the Good/Neutral (Selfish)/Evil division.

How about the rest of you?

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

This is directed at the folks who no longer use alignment.

How do you then fix alignment dependent abilities and spells?

I'm 'flirting' with no alignment. Though that's more a side effect of the system we're playing... Giving Arcana Unearthed a trial run.

In one previous game players had an alignment for spell effects only. Every 3-4 sessions the players would vote what the other players alignments had been playing... then use them for effects.

Worked out OK, but in the end we just let people describe themselves as any sort of good, but they didn't have to play to it.

 

[Tonguez]

This is directed at the folks who no longer use alignment.

How do you then fix alignment dependent abilities and spells?

Smite Evil no longer works in an environment where Good & Evil are no longer taken into the equation unless you view that anything fighting a Paladin is considered evil for purposes of the ability.
Damage Reduction also presents a problem in the case of creatures being able to to be hit normally with weapons representing a particular alignment.

Creature Type Descriptors eg Night Hag - Medium Outsider (Evil, Extraplanar)

Smite Evil works on a Night Hag but not on an Annis (Large Monstrous Humanoid) who may well be CN IMC anyway

and those listed under the Detect Evil spell (eg Undead, Evil Elementals etc)

Also take a look at the Detect Evil spell it does NOT say it detects alignment (a Neutral priest of an evil good will detect despite his actual alignment)

But this conversations been had many times - search the boards your bound to find something

 

[Qualir]

This is directed at the folks who no longer use alignment.

How do you then fix alignment dependent abilities and spells?

Smite Evil no longer works in an environment where Good & Evil are no longer taken into the equation unless you view that anything fighting a Paladin is considered evil for purposes of the ability.
Damage Reduction also presents a problem in the case of creatures being able to to be hit normally with weapons representing a particular alignment.

Alignment is pretty much integral to D&D. Personally I prefer to use the Palladium alignment system since the behaviors for each alignment seem to make more sense and you still have the Good/Neutral (Selfish)/Evil division.

How about the rest of you?

My campaign revolves around a fight between the gods and demons. There is also a group of titans that remain above the whole battle thing. Any character that calls upon divine aid is considered sacred which equates to good for alignment effects. Any character that calls upon demonic aid or happens to be undead is tainted which is evil for alignment effects. Everyone else is considered neutral for alignment effects. In gameplay, characters are encouraged to follow an established code of conduct or religious dogma.

This does not seem much different than D&D minus law and chaos, but it actually is much different. Many things outlined in religious dogma are considered evil by members of opposing religions (example=Aztec practice of human sacrifice to Christians, cannabalism of one's beloved dead to preserve their power and knowledge, killing all those people who don't believe in your particular god, destroying beautiful cultures that have stood for thousands of years on "pagan" beliefs).

Back on track with the original question, I believe that Douglas McArthy deserves a label of LE. He utilized the nation's fear and ignorance to remove people of opposing beliefs by labeling those people as "Reds" and "Commies."

 

[apsuman]

I keep meaning to post a lenghtly discussion about alignment, but I keep getting too busy. Basically it goes like this: Alignment only works in d&D because the character have an external control, namely the players, that know what they think is lawful, or evil, or good, etc.

I think a D&D game can be set up where the LG types still slaughter the orphaned kobold chidren and still be LG.

Further, imho, people will act differently based upon different situations, a person that is normally LG might to a very evil act in the correct situation. Given that I think it would be very very hard to find nine people to fill the slots.

But, here goes anyway:

LG - boy scouts, well, ideal boy scouts. George Washington.

LN - Any competent career enlisted (non-officer) soldier in a modern Western army. IDEAL judges.

LE - Ambulance chasing lawyers

NG - The Amish

NN - ???

NE - Stalin, Saddam Hussein

CG - Johnny Appleseed.

CN - Hell's Angels

CE - Jeffery Dahmer

 

[schporto]

I'm going to add in a few

LE: Mobsters (movie version)
CE: Drug Lords (movie version)
C (various): Hackers (movie version)
N: Ideally - Reporters
CG: Hippies

-cpd

 

[Wombat]

This is directed at the folks who no longer use alignment.

How do you then fix alignment dependent abilities and spells?

Smite Evil no longer works in an environment where Good & Evil are no longer taken into the equation unless you view that anything fighting a Paladin is considered evil for purposes of the ability.
Damage Reduction also presents a problem in the case of creatures being able to to be hit normally with weapons representing a particular alignment.

Alignment is pretty much integral to D&D. Personally I prefer to use the Palladium alignment system since the behaviors for each alignment seem to make more sense and you still have the Good/Neutral (Selfish)/Evil division.

How about the rest of you?

Good set of questions which have, for me, pretty easy answers.

We don't use alignment. So things like "Detect Evil" don't exist in the campaign. We also have dropped the Paladin from the campaign (as well as Monks, but that was for different reasons).

Monsters that are only affected by "alignment effects" were either dropped (they didn't fit the milieu anyway) or are now effected by something different, such as Pure Gold, Mithral or somesuch.

Alignment is not nearly as integral to D&D as many people think. It is actually very easy to expunge it, as long as one just accepts the notion that if characters don't have alignment, then nothing else does either.

Personally since alignment with characters runs back and forth between tendencies and absolutes, while with creatures alignment alignment is and absolute, I find the system confusing. Better just to drop it and let the story develop rather than worry about the mechanics.