Alignments... the Ultimate Sacred Cow

[Calico_Jack73]

I just want to see how many people think that the whole Alignment thing ought to be thrown out the window. Law & Chaos, Good & Evil, rarely is anything ever that cut & dried. Most people in our society consider themselves Lawful Good but how many people would look around for the proper owner if they found a $20 bill lying on the sidewalk? The bill isn't yours, you didn't earn it, so the lawful thing would be to find out who the rightful owner is. The person that it belongs to might be in dire financial straights and really need it so the good thing to do would also be to find the owner. The Chaotic thing to do wouldn't be to keep it but to give it to someone else because everyone would expect you to keep it. The Evil thing to do would be to find the person who dropped it, mug them, and take everything else they have. Pretty much everyone falls into the True Neutral category because nobody is that black and white. Nobody does the right thing all the time, every time. Most people fall into the selfish category (one of the reasons I like the Palladium alignment system). They don't mind being good to other people as long as their needs and wants are covered first.

Thoughts?

 

[hong]

Nothing good can come of this thread, you know.

 

[Flyspeck23]

I just want to see how many people think that the whole Alignment thing ought to be thrown out the window. Law & Chaos, Good & Evil, rarely is anything ever that cut & dried. Most people in our society consider themselves Lawful Good but how many people would look around for the proper owner if they found a $20 bill lying on the sidewalk? The bill isn't yours, you didn't earn it, so the lawful thing would be to find out who the rightful owner is. The person that it belongs to might be in dire financial straights and really need it so the good thing to do would also be to find the owner. The Chaotic thing to do wouldn't be to keep it but to give it to someone else because everyone would expect you to keep it. The Evil thing to do would be to find the person who dropped it, mug them, and take everything else they have. Pretty much everyone falls into the True Neutral category because nobody is that black and white. Nobody does the right thing all the time, every time. Most people fall into the selfish category (one of the reasons I like the Palladium alignment system). They don't mind being good to other people as long as their needs and wants are covered first.

Thoughts?

You can't cast Detect Evil IRL.

Maybe most people would consider themselves LG... but IMC there's a fighter who considers himself NG. In truth, he's neutral or even chaotic neutral (and slowly making that change, although the player doesn't realise this yet). It's not important what someone thinks his alignment is, it's more important how they behave.

Anyway, don't compare alignments to the real world, as good and evil aren't absolut IRL, while in D&D they are.
Depending on the style of your campaign you might get rid of alignments... but beware any repercussion...

 

[CRGreathouse]

Why do you say most people see themselves as LG? That confuses me.

The Chaotic thing to do wouldn't be to keep it but to give it to someone else because everyone would expect you to keep it. The Evil thing to do would be to find the person who dropped it, mug them, and take everything else they have. Pretty much everyone falls into the True Neutral category because nobody is that black and white.

These are extremes, much more extreme than D&D games are hold to. I certainly don't see the characters finding loot in a dungeon and treating it like your $20 bill.

Also, Chaotic doesn't mean defying expectations; it means doing your own thing. An evil character wouldn't mug someone for their money unless they thought it was worth their while -- if the person with the $20 has $80 more in his pocket and the evil person has $10M in the bank, then surely he'd pass him by... no?

Just because characters don't fall into the most extreme portion of the alignment spectrum doesn't mean that alignments have no meaning or purpose, and just because it doesn't work in RL doesn't mean it can't in D&D... though frankly, you haven't yet convinced me that it can't work IRL.

 

[Crothian]

Alignments works fine, but there is a misconception that players get to choose their alignments. They don't. They might write one down, but the alignment they have is the one they role play. So, they might be thinking they are lawful good, but in reality they are not. Alignment is something that the DM has and should be making use of.

 

[diaglo]

the only way to remove alignments is to remove religion.

get rid of the cleric class and the paladin.

emphasis placed on nature or elements instead.

 

[Li Shenron]

Nothing good can come of this thread, you know.

...but lots of chaos, yes!

My brief opinions:

1) alignment is a great point to start roleplaying: the first thing you probably have to decide for your character is "is he good or evil?"; it is simple, probably way too simple, but it has helped me & my friends a lot when we started RPGing, and is still useful. Once you become a RP expert, you probably don't bother about it anymore and instead differentiate your characters from the details of their personalities

2) alignment is not to be taken too seriously: no problem in saying "my PC is Good", but of course it should be obvious there are many ways of being good and many degrees of being good. What I don't like is the opinion that if you play e.g. Lawful you must always make the lawful choice at EVERYTHING you do, which is wrong... for example you could be an outlaw because you live in a dictatorship which you oppose, but you are very honest and loyal. If using alignment to give characters an identifiable generic trait is ok, pretending that to be monolitical is not ok IMHO

3) alignment in D&D does not correspond well to RL. In a RPG it is normal to assume e.g. that good characters can kill whoever poses the slightest threat to them, hopefully not so IRL

 

[Desdichado]

The problems with alignment are two, as near as I can tell: 1) they are played as proscriptive rather than descriptive (even though the PHB specifically states otherwise) and 2) people don't really understand what they mean. Your own example of the chaotic person defying expectations just to be "chaotic" is a good example of this.

I don't really use alignment much. Depending on the campaign, I either take it out completely (which requires the removal or change of several character classes and several spells, although it's not as hard as it sounds) or just downplay it tremendously. Where alignment can be useful is to give a player a shortcut to how his character will react to a given situation. That's particularly useful when you first start playing and don't really have a good handle on your character's personality yet.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

3) alignment in D&D does not correspond well to RL. In a RPG it is normal to assume e.g. that good characters can kill whoever poses the slightest threat to them, hopefully not so IRL

Okay, in D&D the Assassin PRC must be evil. IMHO the closest modern day RL example would be a Marine Sniper. IRL is the Marine Sniper who kills a dictator evil? He probably doesn't feel that he is. He is getting a paycheck to learn how to shoot people and doesn't do it for pleasure. In most cases an Assassin also does it for the pay. Isn't it possible to play a good Assassin? What is it about the Assassin that makes it inherently evil?

 

[Li Shenron]

Okay, in D&D the Assassin PRC must be evil. IMHO the closest modern day RL example would be a Marine Sniper. IRL is the Marine Sniper who kills a dictator evil? He probably doesn't feel that he is. He is getting a paycheck to learn how to shoot people and doesn't do it for pleasure. In most cases an Assassin also does it for the pay. Isn't it possible to play a good Assassin? What is it about the Assassin that makes it inherently evil?

If you are talking about the DMG prestige class, it is Evil because it is tied to an organization which executes murders for money. The specifics to the organization are left to the DM, however this is the idea behind Monte's PrCl, and I believe that at that time he was still writing examples for the DMs, not a class who has to be the same in everyone's game. Also, Monte's Assassin has to perform a specific murder to nothing else than qualify for the class, without questioning, even if the organization asks him to kill his own mum.