Alignment myths?

[Engilbrand]

I only read through a bit of this. I'm not sure if anyone brought up Eberron.
I like the way that alignment is viewed in Eberron. It leaves things open. Bar owners and head Clerics of Good Gods can be Evil. It makes sense. Silver Dragons can be Evil and a Ghaele can be Neutral. While it says that most things are LIKELY to be what it says in the MM, that's not entirely the case. I actually tried a game once where I just said, "We don't have any alignments. You decide how your guy acts in a situation." You can get an idea for how someone is pretty quickly. Someone can be hit by a Smite and they may not be expecting it. Definitely a strange game.
I think that Lawful Anything is the hardest to play. Here's an example from a game I'm in.
Party makeup: CN Binder, TN Rogue, CG Cleric (Pelor), CN Swordsage, CN Barbarian, LN Cleric (Heironeous). We've been sent on a quest from a Marrillith in the service of Pelor. Strange, I know. We definitely have a Chaotic group. It even leans towards Neutral. Duh. The other day, we found a campsite. When we tried to enter, we were warned away. The enemy let slip that he was the one who had attacked us before and taken some ridiculously precious things from us. We were going to kill him. The LN Cleric decides that this would be a Chaotic act and leaves to sit in the road. We spend the next 2 hours hunting this damn Kenku Rogue in the area around the campsite. We finally kill him as the Cleric is coming back to join us and heal some people. He turns down the treasure because he didn't take part and he doesn't get any XP. Afterwards, he sends an email to the DM about being pissed that he didn't get anything except a little roleplay XP for playing his alignment. The player has since backed out of the game. This wasn't the first such even that we have gotten involved in where we killed people. The DM called this one Lawful Stupid. Why, in a party like you see at the top, would someone attempt to be Lawful?

 

[Celebrim]

I think that Lawful Anything is the hardest to play.

I think that this is in part because in America are cultural more tend toward the chaotic - libertarianism, individualism, civil rights, free markets, free expression, free speach, rebellion, and so forth. There is a strain of puritanism and rule of law (constitutionality) that tends to keep it in check, but we definately tend more chaotic than lawful. So, we naturally have a hard time relating to the lawful mindset.

I'd imagine traditional Japanese, Koreans, and Swiss would have a harder time relating to the chaotic than the lawful.

But even then lawful is harder to do well than chaotic, because with chaotic you can just make something up and as your free expression, you are fine. With lawful, you need to have a set of rules that is more universal (or at least universal to the cultural group you are identifying with) and that implies you have to understand something and have to have studied it.

Party makeup: CN Binder, TN Rogue, CG Cleric (Pelor), CN Swordsage, CN Barbarian, LN Cleric (Heironeous).

This party make up is about as likely as CE assasin in the middle of a party of Paladins, but continue.

When we tried to enter, we were warned away. The enemy let slip that he was the one who had attacked us before and taken some ridiculously precious things from us. We were going to kill him. The LN Cleric decides that this would be a Chaotic act and leaves to sit in the road.

Why? LN's have no problem with killing. They tend to believe that most things deserve killing - harsh, swift, fair, justice with none of this 'namby' 'pampy' mercy nonsense coloring it and letting law breakers make a mockery of the law. They just insist that the killing be done according to the rules that govern killing - whatever they may be within the ethical system that the character has. Presumably, as a Cleric of Heironious he has some inherent magisterial authority. He not only has a right to kill, but a duty to seek out lawbreakers and do so. He wasn't trained to wear all that metal for nothing.

The player has since backed out of the game.

I'm not surprised. It sounds like you have a group of players with a natural chaotic bent, either in reality or at least in thier fantasy life as an escape mechanism, and the player in question doesn't. You are going to want very different things from a game session.

The DM called this one Lawful Stupid. Why, in a party like you see at the top, would someone attempt to be Lawful?

The natural disposition of the player combined with a lack of experience.

 

[Rothe]

(1) That alignment solves more problems as a game mechanic than it causes.
(2) Alignment is useless to have in a game.
That is, alignment threads get people to talk about the age old (or at least 5,000 year old) philosophical questions about what is good and what is evil. Is it the act, is it intent, is it both, does context matter, is it ever right to kill, is it right to sacrifice one innocent to save many, etc. I think these are very good things to think on, I've seen more active discussions of such things than in a whole semester of Philosophy 101 (no really it was called that) on ethics.

 

[Merkuri]

I think that this is in part because in America are cultural more tend toward the chaotic - libertarianism, individualism, civil rights, free markets, free expression, free speach, rebellion, and so forth. There is a strain of puritanism and rule of law (constitutionality) that tends to keep it in check, but we definately tend more chaotic than lawful. So, we naturally have a hard time relating to the lawful mindset.

You know, I feel like the American society values law more than chaos. Most people want steady jobs with constant hours, bosses want employees who come in on time, honesty and loyalty are considered good qualities in a person. And have you SEEN our lawbooks? You need to spend years at school to fully understand them. While the average American may have a soft spot for chaotic ideas, like free speech, rebells, individuality, we're a very lawful society by and large, and I feel like we're slowly moving away from those chaotic ideals.

 

[Psion]

I think that Lawful Anything is the hardest to play.

I think that's misleading. I think Lawful Anything is easier to play, because your character motivation is implicit in your alignment. You likely have a duty to someone and thus it makes it easier to get the game rolling.

Chaotic, sure, you can just roll with whatever, but your motivation is not implicit. You have to come up with one that you and the GM can work with. That's more work, I think, unless you are the sort who comes up with those sorts of motivations easily. And then, you have to effectively communicate it to the GM, which IME most players don't.

I think that people think chaotic is great because they think it makes them free of uncomfortable obligations. That sounds great until you realize that adventuring is pretty much about doing hazardous things nobody else wants to do.

 

[Celebrim]

You know, I feel like the American society values law more than chaos

America, and to be fair the whole British culture of which America is just the most exceptional (in the since of different than the norm not necessarily better than the norm), has this really interesting and complex aspect to it, in that it prizes individuality and freedom above just about anything, but the way that it chooses to express this is by enshrining those freedoms in the law. Thus you have this tension created by the inclination of society to protect the individual rather than demand of the individual that it protect the society (which is what you'd normally expect of lawfulness). It just goes to show how complex things can get when you get away from sterotypes.

Most people want steady jobs with constant hours, bosses want employees who come in on time, honesty and loyalty are considered good qualities in a person.

That's that strain of puritanism that I mentioned. And the Puritans are interesting (and distinctly British) too in that they are a radically lawful culture with this distinctive brand of rebelliousness.

And have you SEEN our lawbooks? You need to spend years at school to fully understand them.

And that to my list of 'alignment myths'. It is a myth that lawfuls tend to create labrintine and obscure laws.

Interestingly, I think on the whole that this is a tendancy of chaotic societies, not lawful ones. Lawful societies tend to want very clear, very simple, very consise guidelines on behavior. As societies become more complex, more diverse, and less respectful of the law they tend to proliferate laws enormously (for one thing, they tend to have to because people are looking for loopholes). You can see this is in religions too. The more lawful minded the religion, the more that they tend to focus on a single text and make the assumption that the text is simple, concise and comprehensive. On the other hand, legal proliferation in a religion is usually (not always) a sign that its becoming more flexible in application and more subject to individual interpretation. I'd bring some real world religions into this as examples, but its getting so that you can't bring up anything because someone is still believing it and doesn't take my casual observation kindly.

While the average American may have a soft spot for chaotic ideas, like free speech, rebells, individuality, we're a very lawful society by and large, and I feel like we're slowly moving away from those chaotic ideals.

I personally feel the opposite, that in our respect for chaotic ideals we are moving away from the lawfulness that kept them in check (constitutionality, puritanism, culturalism) in favor of more chaotic ideas (living documents, post-modernism, multi-culturalism). I could go further that way, but as with religion, much further that way and I'm sure to offend someone.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

America, and to be fair the whole British culture of which America is just the most exceptional (in the since of different than the norm not necessarily better than the norm), has this really interesting and complex aspect to it, in that it prizes individuality and freedom above just about anything, but the way that it chooses to express this is by enshrining those freedoms in the law.

... Or, in other words, we have some great examples of Active Neutral (on the Law-Chaos axis) societies.

 

[Celebrim]

... Or, in other words, we have some great examples of Active Neutral (on the Law-Chaos axis) societies.

Or mixed societies, where the overall culture of the society is held together by and even defined by the interaction between and comprimises shared by two opposing cultural groups (for the purposes of this example, one that is chaotic and the other that is lawful), usually because the groups have a common goal but disagree over methods. There might be in the society relatively few neutrals at any time, but the overall society averages out.

 

[Hussar]

Is hiring someone to kill someone else evil? Is creating a weapon with the magical ability to pierce the protections of the Good King Jones (made by spells unique to him) and selling it to a group of people who refuse to identify themselves evil? Both of those include future possibilities (and hired killers aren't known for their trustworthiness), but at least the first one is commonly agreed to be evil.

The act of hiring someone to kill someone else is commonly agreed to be evil? That would make pretty much every patron of every adventuring group evil then. After all, "Go off and deal with those orcs" is a pretty stock adventure.

None of these acts, in and of themselves are evil. Granted, the ACTORS likely are. Like I said, I'm not concerning myself here with the alignment of the characters, only the actions. Take the weapons selling for example because its come up a few times here.

Any weaponsmith knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that at the very least, one of the weapons he makes will be used for an evil act. To think anything else is naive. Now, knowing that someone, at some time will use his weapons to commit evil, is the weaponsmith guilty of evil acts every time he sells a weapon?

I brought this up before with the two knights. At what point does selling that magic weapon become evil? When the weapon is sold? When the weapon is used to kill the king? But, the weapon seller didn't actually kill anyone. His part of the action was over long before.

As I said, narrowing focus, or unnecessarily widening it, doesn't work. To determine the alignment of an action, look only at the action and the immediete results of that action. The weapon seller sells the sword to the evil dude. Evil dude then puts his plan into action. Then evil is commited by the evil dude with the weapon that the seller sold him. Has the weapon seller committed an evil act? I don't think so. Alignment cannot be determined by the actions of others.

Conversely, if the weapon seller sells the weapon to the exact same person who then kills a vampire with it, does that make it a good act? How can the actions of the weapon seller be judged by someone else's actions? The only immediate result of selling a weapon is an exchange of money.

 

[Li Shenron]

I really think that the biggest alignment myth and misconception is that alignments must be symmetrical.