Alignment litmus test

[Merkuri]

In an effort to simplify alignment as much as I can, I've been trying to think up a hypothetical situation that would identify the alignment of an individual in most cases. I've only come up with one for the good-evil scale, but here it is.

The situation: You and another person are in the middle of a street when all of a sudden a cart (or some other large unstoppable object) goes out of control and starts barreling towards you. Whoever the cart hits will die. There is no one else close enough to take any action. In the heat of the moment you do not have time to identify the other person with you. They could be any age, race, gender, alignment, religion, etc. You do not have time to think and can only act on gut instinct.

Edit: Assume that you have the physical ability to do any and all of the actions described below.

Part 1: You are not in the way of the cart and would be safe if you did not move. The other person is standing right in the cart's path. For the sake of argument, assume there are no other options.

Do you risk your life by trying to push the person out of the way?

Part 2: You are in the way of the cart. The other person is safe where he/she is. If you jump away from the other person you do not know if that will take you completely out of the way of the cart, and you may still die. If you jump towards the person you will have to pull them out of the way, putting them in the path of the cart, but guaranteeing that you will live. For the sake of argument, assume there are no other options.

Do you put the other person in danger to save yourself, or do you leave them alone and risk your own life?

Results:
A good character will risk their life to push another person out of the way of the cart, and will not pull another person in the way to save their own life.

An evil character will not risk their lives for the person in the way, and will put another person in danger to saves themselves.

A neutral character is someone who does any other combination of actions. For example, a neutral person may throw themselves in front of the cart to save another, but they'd also pull that person into the path of the cart to save themselves.


So, can you think of any people in history or literature that would fail this test? Is this too contrived, or a good basic test of morality? Can you think of a similar test for the law-chaos scale?

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Were I in this position, I think no matter what the conditions I would end up doing nothing because I typically don't react quickly in situations like these.

So chalk my alignment up to Negative Initiative Modifier.

 

[Raloc]

The problem with this that I see is that the first test definitely can't be conclusive. A good character might not react with enough reflexes to push the other away, and similarly an evil character might instinctively react (such as when something falls, and you attempt to catch it reflexively), committing a good act. In this case, such an act doesn't make the character good (the intention to do good wasn't there, for one thing) although it might shift the alignment slightly. Similarly, would you say any good character stuck in that situation that did NOT save the other is evil? Or could be considered to commit an evil act? IMO, no. If the character had willfully not acted to save the other when they could have, it would be an evil act. However, if you attributed every evil act to any character solely due to ignorance or inaction, everyone would be "evil" by default solely by not being able to be omnipresent to take good action in every case.

Edit: Although, for some campaigns, this might be a good test (those that consider law/chaos evil/good to be absolutes, with no grey area overlapping). But in those cases, usually the call is fairly easy to make (if not necessarily logical). In my own games, I stress the greyness of actions much of the time, so this definitely wouldn't work for me.

 

[DaveyJones]

for part I where is the option to break out your camcorder and make a profit from the accident?

 

[Merkuri]

Perhaps I should specify, "Assume that you have the physical ability to do all of the actions described."

I'll edit my post above.

 

[Merkuri]

for part I where is the option to break out your camcorder and make a profit from the accident?

By the time you pulled out the camcorder you satisfied the "do nothing" part of the equation and have just walked one step closer to evil.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

For what it is worth, the Hero Builder's Guidebook has an excellent alignment test. You can probably get it cheap on eBay or Amazon.

 

[Merkuri]

For what it is worth, the Hero Builder's Guidebook has an excellent alignment test. You can probably get it cheap on eBay or Amazon.

That's on my wish list already.

 

[Clueless]

My questions are generally:

Given an opportunity to harm someone, at no benefit or harm to yourself, would you?

Given an opportunity to help someone, at no benefit or harm to yourself, would you?

The key phrase there is the at no harm or benefit - nuetral characters (and folks who aren't sure *what* they are) tend to try to qualify the situation - 'Well I might if...' - Of course, the second you qualify it you prove yourself nuetral. The point is that it's an idealized 'blank' so there's no outside influence on the base action.

For chaos to law it's a little harder, but my question for that one is usually along the lines of...

What is your response to a proposal to drop work for the day and take a trip: "Roadtrip! Let's go! I've got my towel!" or "Let me check my day planner."

It's a measurement of spontinaty vs. planning in how you deal with life. A type vs B type personality.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

For #1, if I had the reaction time (ha!) I'd pull the other person to me and save us both.

As for your assumption that I couldn't know anything about the other person, that would pretty much mean that I couldn't see them, and thus wouldn't do anything about them anyway.