Alignment Traits

[hong]

I really like this, because it shows that there's no reason to have - or to try to have - all of the qualities of your alignment.

Or to make sense of it, even.


=== RESPOT ===

He threw the thread into the killfile. I was alarmed at this, because after many posts the thread had become precious to me, and I did not want anyone plonking it. I immediately went to remove it from the killfile, but he stopped me. I would have flamed him, but as I watched, the thread mutated and _changed_ before my very eyes, escaping the killfile with ease. It sat in the newsgroup, glowing softly on the screen.

"There is no craft that we possess that is powerful enough to plonk this thread,", he said. He picked up a pair of tongs and removed the thread from the newsgroup.

"Look at it," he said. "What do you see?"

"I see nothing", I said; but even as I said those words, I saw fiery lines appear on the thread, etching out letters in 10-point Courier text (72 characters per line)*. They flickered and shone piercingly bright, as might great flames roaring from a distance.


Bar guernq gb ehyr gurz nyy, Bar guernq gb ovaq gurz,
Bar guernq gb oevat gurz nyy, Naq va gur qnexarff synzr gurz.


"I cannot read the fiery letters," I said.

"No," he said, "but I can. The letters are ROT13, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Dungeons and Dragons, which I will not utter here. But this in the common tongue is what is said, close enough:

One thread to rule them all,
One thread to bind them,
One thread to bring them all,
And with big words confuse them,
In the land of UNsenet where the trolls abide."

He paused, and then said in a low voice: "This is undoubtedly the One Thread, the Alignment Thread to flame them all. This is the One Thread that was spawned in the dim past of rec.games.frp.dnd, and has come once again to haunt us."

=== END RESOTP ===


* It is said that in the elder days, all computer displays used 80 columns of monospaced text, hard though this may be to imagine.

 

[mmadsen]

Instead, I use alignment to describe what "team" a person is on....I find that protection spells, holy weapons, etc. (the only reasons I have alignment in my campaign at all) work just fine with this attitude towards alignment.

I've suggested that in the past -- along with the idea that both sides cast Detect Evil, Protection from Evil, etc. -- and Evil is simply the other team.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I've suggested that in the past -- along with the idea that both sides cast Detect Evil, Protection from Evil, etc. -- and Evil is simply the other team.

That simply does not work in a cosmology that has Celestials and various forms of Infernals. In the standard D&D cosmology, there is defined GOOD and EVIL. To make your idea work, you would have to remove such Outsiders from the game (along with anything resembling the Great Wheel cosmology). It would need to be a universe with good and evil. In short, even more morally ambiguous than the real world.

 

[maddman75]

Hong, you are the UNsenet ninja .

I think you'll do better not to look at alignment as a translation of real world morality. Look at it as a way to describe the traits of fantasy fiction characters. This might be easier for me than others, as my beliefs don't have a concept of good versus evil, only suffering and compassion.

I think these traits are a fine idea. I think a finer idea is to not have the players in control of their alignment. That is, they write what they want on their sheets and try to play appropriately. The DM decides their alignment, only revealed when they face spell effects. Thus, one can never be 100% certain where they stand.

Though with characters who stand to lose class abilities, its good form to warn them if they are getting to close to shifting alignments.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I think you'll do better not to look at alignment as a translation of real world morality.

It doesn't even come close to real world morality. Real world morality is much simpler

 

[mmadsen]

That simply does not work in a cosmology that has Celestials and various forms of Infernals.

Of course it works! Team A is the Celestials. Team B is the Infernals. Each side considers itself right and the other wrong. If you're Infernal, Detect "Evil" detects Celestials.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Of course it works! Team A is the Celestials. Team B is the Infernals. Each side considers itself right and the other wrong. If you're Infernal, Detect "Evil" detects Celestials.

Fine. But unless you completely redefine how Celestials and Infernals interact with mortals, the jig is up. At some point, someone would notice that Celestials, if somewhat aloof, are generally helpful and kind whereas Infernals are either trying to get ahold of your soul, order you around, or kill you. At that point, mortals are going to redefine good and evil. Besides, even if you make changes that cause Infernals and Celestials to seem more similar, saying that thinking people can't determine what's good and what's evil in other mortals without a spell is like saying it's possible to think Hannibal Lecter is a really nice guy but that Mother Teresa woman is just too creepy.

 

[mmadsen]

But unless you completely redefine how Celestials and Infernals interact with mortals, the jig is up.

It seems pretty natural to run the infernals as "great deceivers" or to run the Outsiders as factions that aren't all Good or Evil in any objective sense.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

...to run the Outsiders as factions that aren't all Good or Evil in any objective sense.

If even the outsiders tend to cross moral boundaries, then I suppose there's no mechanistic reason you couldn't run a world like that.

I guess it's just the very idea makes my flesh crawl. One of the things I like about fantasy role playing is that there are absolutes that you can point to for good and evil (Outsiders, the paladin's Detect Evil, etc.) Probably because I am very, very much against moral relativity, and in the real world, people like to tell me I'm full of it, and that "morality is inherently relative."

That phrase makes my head hurt. Especially because it's so often used as an excuse to take disgustingly selfish actions.

At any rate, I don't think even the real world is so relative as all that, but I guess it is indeed possible to construct the game that way.

EDITED spelling error

 

[LoneWolf23]

If even the outsiders tend to cross moral boundaries, then I suppose there's no mechanistic reason you couldn't run a world like that.

I guess it's just the very idea makes my flesh crawl. One of the things I like about fantasy role playing is that there are absolutes that you can point to for good and evil (Outsiders, the paladin's Detect Evil, etc.) Probably because I am very, very much against moral relativity, and in the real world, people like to tell me I'm full of it, and that "morality is inherently relative."

That phrase makes my head hurt. Especially because it's so often used as an excuse to take disgustingly selfish actions.

At any rate, I don't think even the real world is so relative as all that, but I guess it is indeed possible to construct the game that way.

EDITED spelling error

Agreed. This is one of the reasons why I originally started my "Attribute Traits" concept. Some traits are Good and Evil, no matter how "relative" you try to make them.

Besides, this is Fantasy here... We're allowed (even encouraged) to have truly Vile villains and Noble heroes.