Alignment litmus test

[Slife]

I'd fireball the cart.

 

[Merkuri]

I notice there are a number of people who refuse to accept the rules of the situation.

 

[Templetroll]

I notice there are a number of people who refuse to accept the rules of the situation.

I think you found your test for Chaos....

 

[Rystil Arden]

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.

I disagree--this is also the free alignment test on the Wizards website, and it is horrible due to the way they decide between Neutral or the two extremes by adding up a score for Neutral, Good, and Evil separately and giving you the alignment that gets highest while ignoring everything else. They have some questions where the options will only give you Neutral or Evil, and some where they will only give Good or Neutral. Thus, I have demonstrated how you can take a character who the test rates as True Neutral and become Neutral Good by picking some extreme vile and evil choices, thus lowering your Neutral score below your Good score (while not raising the Evil score by enough to matter)

 

[Goldmoon]

Save the other person, even at the cost of my own life.

 

[|)ar|{]

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.

The problem you're facing with this test is that many, myself included, would argue that there is no such thing as a selfless act and thus there is always a benefit. Even if that benefit is only that it makes you feel good about yourself you're still gaining something for doing the helpful action.
Conversely an evil character may choose not to harm someone for purely selfish reasons.
Besides even if you could decide if a single act was good or evil, one act of good or evil isn't enough to show a pattern.

And good and evil is the easy axis to judge. Me and my friends can't even decide on what constitues a lawful or chaotic act half the time.

If you do find an overarching test for alignment next you might want to stop by and visit stephen hawking. I hear he's working on a theory that you might be able to help with.