Alignment System

[GreatLemur]

D&D requires an absolute morality for it's magic system to work. Spells like detect evil, protection from good, etc... need an independant arbiter of what is good, lawful, chaotic, or evil to determine their effect.

See, I'd call that a problem with the game, rather than a justification for systemized morality.

 

[Aaron L]

I hate it with a passion.

My problem with alignment usually occurs when there is complexity in the game. I don't see how to design N/PCs that are one alignment except for X in the system. I don't think there would be a problem except for the various detect spells. If it wasn't for those, I don't think people would care....as an example of what I get annoyed with...

take a Roman centurion who is LG at home in Rome, but rapes, kills, and pillages the Gauls. I can probably leave the Lawful alone...but the good would have to become neutral at best.

Lets flip it...a barbarian Gual who is CG at home, but rapes, kills, and pillages the Romans...I can probably leave the Chaotic alone, but the good would have to become neutral leaving CN the most hated alignment in the system...

I feel like I should have the N/PC's alignment change depending on their current 'allegiance'....LG/CG in their village and LE/CE in war...which seems silly to me to have to do that...

I'd rather have an allegiances type system, but I frequently do not run them that way because my players would revolt.

I'm afraid you're complaint arises from a lack of understanding of 3E alignment. Both of those people you described are Neutral, Lawful Neutral and Chaotic Neutral respectively. Most people are Neutral. Neutrals respond to people based on personal relationships, while Good people care for and try to help everyone regardless of who they are or where they come from, and Evil take advantage of, abuse, and and hurt everyone. You aren't LG to your family and friends and LE to everyone else, you're just LN.

A lot of people misunderstand alignment and thats what causes problems. Most people out there are Neutral. Being truly Good or Evil is an extreme. I'd say that being Lawful or Chaotic has less impact and more people tend to one side or an other along that axis, but that could just be my personal bias. But I really think it's a universal bias, as most conflicts in fantasy are Good vs Evil where Law and Chaos band together and ignore their differences to fight Evil.


It's a descriptor for people of extreme conviction. If you don't like it because you don't like having to label every NPC in your game, well... most of them should probably be Neutral anyway, so its not that big a deal. Neutral people are kind and caring to their families, give to charity, help little lost children they find on the street... and at the same time can be ruthless in business, cheat at their taxes, and in extreme cases commit murder in the throes of passion. Neutrals actions depend on the situation, like most people in real life. People with Good alignments are saintly. People with Evil alignments are vile.

Those bandits waylaying people on the road to town? Probably Neutral people in desperate circumstances, with maybe an Evil guy or two who bring out the worst in the rest of them. The thief who steals your coin purse is probably some Neutral guy who fell into the career of criminal. If he was Evil he'd probably mug you and go out of his way to make you suffer.

 

[Psion]

See, I'd call that a problem with the game, rather than a justification for systemized morality.

I'd call it a setting feature. Y'know, like Traveller has FTL drives but no FTL radio, World of Darkness has vampires and werewolves, etc.

 

[GreatLemur]

I'd call it a setting feature. Y'know, like Traveller has FTL drives but no FTL radio, World of Darkness has vampires and werewolves, etc.

That works, too. But I prefer to look at D&D as a game built for a general genre, rather than for a specific setting.

Sure, the core books assume Greyhawk as a kinda-sorta default setting, but that's only really visible in the PHB deities section. And those deities--just like races, classes, feats, and a whole lot of other rules--are modular enough to be easily removed if desired.

The trouble with alignment, though, is that it's not quite as modular as it ought to be. It's strongly wedded to a whole slew of class features, spells, magic items, monster rules, etc. You can pry it out of there, of course, but it's gonna take a little more work than, say, just ditching halflings.

 

[Psion]

That works, too. But I prefer to look at D&D as a game built for a general genre, rather than for a specific setting.

I think along with things like races, default creature sets, default adventuring model and class availability, D&D has a strong set of underlying "metasetting" assumptions.

 

[GreatLemur]

I think along with things like races, default creature sets, default adventuring model and class availability, D&D has a strong set of underlying "metasetting" assumptions.

We're totally splitting hairs, now, but that's stuff that I'd call genre material, or setting-ish material that's easily removable when it doesn't fit the specific setting. It's the lack of easy removability that bugs me about alignment.

 

[gizmo33]

while Good people care for and try to help everyone regardless of who they are or where they come from, and Evil take advantage of, abuse, and and hurt everyone. You aren't LG to your family and friends and LE to everyone else, you're just LN.

Well apparently I don't understand the 3E alignment system either (nor the 1E or 2E system by extension).

First of all, Good people don't try to help everyone. If they did they wouldn't be walking out of dungeons with bags full of treasure. And if Neutral people do some of the things that you said they did, then Good people would kill neutral people from time to time as well. Unless sitting around and watching people do evil stuff is good, which I don't think you mean.

And if Evil people abused and hurt everyone, they would live in dungeons by themselves. All evil dungeons would consist of one encounter area. Seems obvious to me from pretty much every dungeon ever designed that Evil people are willing to get along with each other under certain circumstances. Or they're all really just neutral. But the people that wrote the rules and made hobgoblins evil weren't under that impression. In some campaigns, hobgoblins have children too - think about the implications of that before concluding that evil people kill everything they can.

And don't forget about Law and Chaos. A Lawful Good and Chaotic Good person have plenty to disagree over. I don't expect either one to be helping the other in all situations regardless.

The definitions of the alignments are circular and vague, and that's to be expected. Anyone who thinks that terms like "Good" are well-defined should write a book explaining the last 2,000 years of philosophy.

DnD characters have an advantage though. They could set up a laboratory and just measure people's "goodness" using spells. Forget about philosophical debates, figuring out what's good and what's not could be as simple as casting some divination spells.

 

[The Human Target]

DnD characters have an advantage though. They could set up a laboratory and just measure people's "goodness" using spells. Forget about philosophical debates, figuring out what's good and what's not could be as simple as casting some divination spells.

Which is why I hate it.

Its boring, and undramatic.

 

[Sejs]

Which is why I hate it.

Its boring, and undramatic.

Well to be fair, those same divinations are -really- not a good yardstick.

Check it out ~

Aura Strength (Faint):
* Undead: up to 2 HD (regardless of creature's actual alignment, you'll note).
* Evil Outsider: up to 1 HD.
* Cleric of an evil deity, or Blackguard: up to 1 HD.
* Evil Spell or Magic Item: up to caster level 2.
* Evil Creature: up to 10 HD.

Aura Strength (Moderate):
* Undead: 3-8 HD.
* Evil Outsider: 2-4 HD.
* Cleric of an evil deity, or Blackguard: 2-4 HD.
* Evil Spell or Magic Item: caster level 3-8.
* Evil Creature: 11-25 HD.

Etc, etc.

The blackest-hearted assassin, foulest, most murderous tainted soul on earth pings as evil as the lowest Altar Boy of Vecna, unless he's got more than 10 levels under his belt. And then, he'll ping somewhere on the same level as an accolyte or a lemure all the way up to his forays into epic levels.

And, moreso, Blacksoul the Scourge of Innocence shows at the same level of evil as, say.. Bill the Greedy Moneylender (Scourge of Exchange Rates).

Plenty of room to work with.

However, if that's not your bag, you can always do what I used to: Detect X Alignment spells only work on supernatural examples of said alignment. So you can tell if Johnny the Homicidal Maniac is possessed by a demon, or if that dretch isn't just some kind of really fat midget with a funny hat on, but you can't tell if Brother Suldim is a corrupt priest or if that man in the corner is thinking mean thoughts about kicking puppies.

 

[Zogmo]

A lot of people misunderstand alignment and thats what causes problems. Most people out there are Neutral. Being truly Good or Evil is an extreme. I'd say that being Lawful or Chaotic has less impact and more people tend to one side or an other along that axis, but that could just be my personal bias. But I really think it's a universal bias, as most conflicts in fantasy are Good vs Evil where Law and Chaos band together and ignore their differences to fight Evil.


It's a descriptor for people of extreme conviction. If you don't like it because you don't like having to label every NPC in your game, well... most of them should probably be Neutral anyway, so its not that big a deal. Neutral people are kind and caring to their families, give to charity, help little lost children they find on the street... and at the same time can be ruthless in business, cheat at their taxes, and in extreme cases commit murder in the throes of passion. Neutrals actions depend on the situation, like most people in real life. People with Good alignments are saintly. People with Evil alignments are vile.

This is very true and the biggest problem with people not liking it.

It seems that most people don't have a clue (they really think they do though) on what alignment really means and are totally lost on how to run a game using an alignment system.


Remember, Evil is not the same as Stupid.

Just because your evil doesn't me you can't live in the heart of a lawful good society and go to work and pay your bills and see some friends and fall in love.

(from wikipedia, my edits)

Jeffery Dahmer.
Dahmer attended Ohio State University, was in the Army for two years and then lived with his grandma for six years after that.

The story of Dahmer's arrest and the gruesome inventory in his apartment quickly gained notoriety: several corpses were stored in acid-filled vats, severed heads were found in his refrigerator, and implements for the construction of an altar of candles and human skulls were found in his closet. Accusations soon surfaced that Dahmer had practiced necrophilia, cannibalism and possibly a perverse form of trepanation in order to create so called "zombies".

Ted Bundy
Ted Bundy is believed to have been a sociopath. He is usually described as an educated, handsome and charming young man despite the brutality of his crimes. Typically, he raped then murdered young women and girls by bludgeoning them, and sometimes by strangulation.

Evil people seem totally normal and some have great charisma and most of us have probably encountered someone truly evil in real life but unless there were extenuating circumstances, you wouldn't ever know their dark hearts and minds.