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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 7866749" data-attributes="member: 6779196">So it seems there are a number of objections to this system of analysis, but I went ahead and ran my approach to alignment through it on its own terms. Rather than going straight through in order though, I started with Definitions, and I analyzed the façade and transparency of each aspect separately instead of trying to do one lump analysis of each.Don’t be intimidated by the length of the Definitions portion, it’s by far the longest, mostly because I got carried away talking about the belief systems of my homebrew setting.0. Definitions:[spoiler]The Meta:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Good vs. Evil in my setting is a matter of altruism vs. egoism, or as [USER=70533]@Big J Money[/USER] puts it, selflessness vs. selfishness. Acting in the best interest of others at one’s own expense is Good, acting in one’s own interest at the expense of others is Evil.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Law vs. Chaos is probably best described as authority vs. liberty. Under @Big J Money’s analysis, this is probably closest to “society vs. anarchy,” though there is a definite aspect of servitude vs. freedom involved. Frankly, I see those two dialectics as ultimately the same dichotomy viewed from a pro-Law bias and a pro-Chaos bias respectively.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Neutrality is simply a lack of commitment on either axis. A person who neither makes sacrifices for the good of others nor actively harms others for their own benefit is Neutral with respect to Good and Evil. A person who tacitly abides by the status quo, neither acting in support of social hierarchy nor actively opposing such hierarchies is Neutral with respect to Law and Chaos.</li> </ul>The Façade:There are many systems of belief that exist within the world of my setting, each with their own stances on morality. Erathis, the mother of Thanotheism, preached the importance of personal responsibility in the absence of He Who Was. However, this lack of an objective moral standard is viewed by many as the root cause of the collapse of the nation of Bael Turath.The cults of the Celestial Gods teach that the Gods are more concerned with the struggle of Law vs. Chaos than Good vs. Evil. The Gods brought order and structure to a chaotic cosmos when they defeated the Primordials in the Dawn War. Whether they are “Good” or “Evil” is inconsequential, they all serve necessary roles in maintaining the proper order. Melora is perhaps Neutral, as she stood with the Gods against her fellow Primordials, and is therefore deserving of respect and homage, though a healthy dose of caution towards her is advised.In Arkhosia, Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos were all believed to be consequences of the imbalance created by the death of IO. Bahamut embodies Law and Good in his pursuit of apotheosis, while Tiamat embodies Chaos and Evil in her rejection of the Great Work.Those who maintain the Old Faith would say that Law is the natural state of the world of forms, and Chaos the natural state of spirit. This natural balance of form and formlessness is Good, and Evil is a disruption of the nature was brought into the world from somewhere else by the Elder One.Not much of the ancient elven religion survives into the modern day, but what is known is that they once followed a tetrad of deities, and at some point there was a schism in their society that lead to four distinct groups: the Eladrin, which seem to have held values that could be considered Lawful Good (although their laws seem quite alien to outsiders), the Shadar-Kai, who are thought to have been Lawful Neutral, the Drow, who are generally considered Lawful Evil, and the wood elves, who are Chaotic and don’t display a strong tendency towards Good or Evil. Elves who assimilate into human culture tend to keep their heads down and are probably best characterized as Neutral.Transparency: I make the meta definitions explicitly clear to players when they create their characters. I ask them to choose their character’s alignment based on that character’s values. If your character believes that one ought to make sacrifices for the good of others, your alignment is Good, even if the character doesn’t always walk the talk. If your character believes hierarchies are necessary or desirable for a functioning society, your alignment is Lawful, even if they break the law sometimes. PCs tend towards Lawful Good or Neutral Good, and that’s by design. Chaotic Good characters pop up from time to time, and they’re pretty fun. But characters who don’t take a stance on altruism vs. egoism aren’t generally the best adventurer material (though they are allowed), and characters who believe it’s ok to bring harm to others for their own benefit and are unwilling to take risks for the benefit of others are not suitable for the kinds of adventures I like to run.[/spoiler]I. Objectivity:[spoiler]The Meta: Alignment in my setting is fairly objective. In theory, it would be fully objective, but as a DM I’m not realistically able to judge every single scenario and action that occurs in the game according to the objective alignment standards, so in practice, it is scalar. The threshold tends to be high for Good actions and low for Evil actions – being evil is easy. Being Good takes work.The Façade: As with definitions of the alignments, opinions on the objectivity of these forces vary greatly across the various faiths of the world. Generally speaking, most religions preach objective morality, although they may disagree on what the objective standard is or ought to be. Thanotheists, in contrast, generally take a morally relativistic stance, and many devout Erathians would argue that the amorality attributed to Bael Turath was a corruption of Erathis’ actual teachings. Modern Erathians would say that she meant for her people not to reject morality, but to act out of a system of strong values, rather than blind adherence to the will of some external deity.Transparency: The Alignment you write down on your character sheet based on your character’s values does not change based on your character’s actions. Short of magic, you can’t know the weight of your own actions on your soul. However, I will quietly keep track of actions that cross the threshold. The magic sword that can only be attuned to a Lawful Good character doesn’t care what your character values, it cares about what they’ve done. In much the same way that the alignment you write on your character sheet tends toward Lawful Good or Neutral Good, the situations adventurers are often put into tend to push them towards Evil. This is again by design, as I like Evil being easy to fall into and Good being something one must strive to maintain.[/spoiler]II. Mythicality:[spoiler]The Meta: For sapient creatures in my worlds, alignment is largely mundane. The blessing and the curse of free will is responsibility for your own actions. However, for certain creatures (namely, Aberrations, Celestials, Elementals, Fae, Fiends, and Undead), alignment is mythical. These beings’ wills are not free, and they act according to their natures. As I put it, sapient creatures’ actions determine their alignments, cosmic creatures’ alignments determine their actions. Creatures that act more on instinct than higher order thinking or cosmic directive (Beasts, for example) are Unaligned.The Façade: This is actually pretty much a known fact in my world.Transparency: Since the meta and the façade are in concert here, there’s really no need for any opacity. Characters and players alike know that intelligent beings’ alignments are descriptive, and cosmic beings alignments are prescriptive.[/spoiler]III. Exclusivity:[spoiler]The Meta: This is an aspect of alignment I haven’t given much conscious thought to, so I’m glad @Big J Money’s analysis exposed it to me so I can give it some serious consideration. Currently, I believe alignment is fairly inclusive in my games. For example, organizing a rebellion against an authoritarian government is in some ways Lawful (unless the rebel group is entirely decentralized), but as it is a form of direct action in opposition to authority, it is inarguably Chaotic. Rather than try to assess whether actions like this that have aspects of opposing alignment poles to determine which side the net effect favors, I would tend to acknowledge that the action is a bit of both and make note accordingly.The Façade: As with most aspects of morality and policy, in-character views on the exclusivity of alignment vary greatly. Some might say the good a man does in his life does not erase the bad, nor the bad the good, while others might say if half an onion is rotten, it’s a rotten onion.Transparency: I suppose, as I haven’t consciously thought about how inclusive alignment is or ought to be in my campaigns, it must necessarily be pretty opaque - to me as well as my players. This is something I would like to rectify, as I generally favor a high degree of transparency in my games.[/spoiler]IV. Dynamism:[spoiler]The Meta: Alignment is fully dynamic for sapient creatures, and fairly static but partially dynamic for cosmic creatures. A player is free to change the alignment on their character sheet at any time to reflect their character’s changing views. If your character started out believing that just hierarchies are necessary for the good of social order, but later came to believe that all hierarchies are inherently unjust, it would be appropriate to change the alignment written on your sheet from Lawful to Chaotic, either immediately to reflect a sudden epiphany, or going through a transitionary period of Neutrality if you wanted your character’s shift in ideology to be more gradual. A character who has historically acted egoistically, acting I their own self-interest with little regard for others’ wellbeing, but turns over a new leaf and starts making a conscious effort to make sacrifices for the betterment of others, I will make note of their actions, and they may well shift to Neutral and eventually to Good (although as mentioned earlier, I prefer shifting towards Good to be much harder than shifting towards Evil.)For cosmic beings, for whom alignment is a mythical rather than mundane force, they do not generally change alignment because their actions are bound by their alignments. But due to the corrupting nature of Evil in my world, exposure to cosmic Evil can taint cosmically Good or Neutral beings and cause their alignments to shift towards Evil.The Façade: Since it is a known fact that sapient beings actions determine their alignment and cosmic beings alignments determine their actions, the mutability of mortal alignment is also known of in character. What is not as known or agreed upon is the mutability of cosmic alignment. The Old Faith says that the Elder One was not always Evil, and that the corruption that poisoned him and so many other spirits and turned them into demons came from somewhere beyond creation. Thanotheists (those who believe in objective morality at all) believe that Asmodeus and his rebel angels betrayed He Who Was and in so doing became evil, though how they were able to act against the will of their creator is not clear, and an open question among the faithful (especially those with connections to or sympathies for Bael Turath) is that if angels can fall, can devils rise?Transparency: As with mythicality, the meta is largely known in-character, so it is almost entirely transparent. The one thing I keep a secret is the answer to whether or not the corrupting force of cosmic Evil is reversable. That’s one mystery I want to keep the answer to myself.[/spoiler]V. Reliability[spoiler]The Meta: For sapient beings, the potential discordance between a person’s ideals and their actions means alignment is almost entirely unreliable for them. Although, due to the mundanity and dynamism of alignment for such beings, it could be argued that alignment for them is completely reliable, and simply unrelated to their ideals. For cosmic beings, alignment is fairly, though not entirely, reliable. Due to the scalar objectivity of alignment via thresholds, cosmically aligned beings can go against their alignments in small ways.The Façade: Once again, this is more or less known in character.Transparency: Pretty much completely transparent.[/spoiler]VI. Categoricity[spoiler]The Meta: Alignment is moderately individual for sapient beings, strongly categorical for cosmic beings, and strongly categorical for instinct-driven creatures. Any member of an intelligent species may be of any alignment. There are some observable trends (dwarves tend to be Lawful, elves tend to be Chaotic, goblins tend to be Evil, etc.) but the truth is that these trends have nothing to do with species and everything to do with culture, and there are always exceptions to the trend. Cosmic beings alignments are strictly determined by category; all demons are Chaotic Evil, all devils are Lawful Evil, all elementals are Chaotic Neutral, all Fae are Lawful Neutral, etc. There are some exceptions, but these tend to lead to the creation of new categories. Beasts and other non-sapient, non-cosmic beings are almost always Unaligned. Exceptions are the result of an individual gaining sapience, usually through magic.The Façade: Now this is a matter that is much more debated in-character, especially the question of sapient beings’ categoricity. There are many people who (incorrectly) believe that, for example, all goblins are inherently evil, and that a goblin who seems to behave in a Good fashion is merely being deceptive. Those with more religious knowledge understand that, as sapient beings, individuals have the power to act against their nature, but it is still a common misconception that trends are a matter of nature rather than nurture. Cosmic beings and beasts’ categorical alignments are pretty well-known, and exceptions (to those who believe there are any) are a source of much mystery and debate.Transparency: I make it quite clear to the players how this really works, and that the misconceptions about the categoricity of other sapient beings’ alignments are largely the result of ignorance and prejudice. This is a major theme of my setting – the familiar fantasy tropes are in-character stereotypes, and the reality is more complex and nuanced.[/spoiler]VII. Consequence[spoiler]The Meta: For all the thought I’ve put into alignment and how it works, the unfortunate reality is that it is ultimately not terribly consequential. This has a lot to do with the way 5e is designed to keep consequence out of alignment. However, I do what I can to interject some consequence into alignment in my own games. Most of the time, your character’s alignment will have little to no consequence, but there will be times when it does. One way I like to do this is through magic items that only attune to people with certain alignments. I will never take away a PC’s class features due to their alignment, but if your ostensibly Lawful Good Cleric consistently behaves in a Chaotic Evil manner, she is likely to face roleplaying consequences – her church is probably not going to be very happy with her when they find out, for example.The Façade: The jury is out on the consequences of alignment. A fairly common belief is that your alignment determines your soul’s destination in the afterlife, but no one knows for certain if this is true, or if there even is an afterlife. There are certainly many people who doubt morality or policy have any real consequence beyond social pressures.Transparency: I’m pretty straightforward about this: for the purposes of any mechanical effects that care about your alignment, your character’s actions are what matter, not their ideals. Mechanical effects that care about alignment are few and far between in 5e, but I do a lot of custom design, so it is possible you will run into some such effects from time to time. However, the primary consequences of your alignment will be social/roleplay based.[/spoiler]VIII. Dimensionality[spoiler]The Meta: This is another aspect I have not given a lot of conscious thought to. My definitions for Law, Chaos, Good, Evil, and Neutrality are fairly narrow, so that might suggest a low degree of dimensionality to alignment in my game. However, I would say there are many ways to be altruistic or egoistic, and many ways to act towards or against authority. Neutrality is largely a matter of noncommitment, though one can end up there by a mix of actions on opposite ends of the two spectra.The Façade: Oh, there is no consensus on the dimensionality of morality and policy in-character. There are definitely plenty of people who preach a one-true-way to comport one’s self, and plenty of others who would say there are many ways to be Good, Evil, Lawful, or Chaotic.Transparency: Once again, without having consciously thought about this, there’s really no ability for me to be transparent about it, but that’s something I would like to fix.[/spoiler]</blockquote>

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