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<blockquote data-quote="Patryn of Elvenshae" data-source="post: 5586476" data-attributes="member: 23094">This is, to me, a meaningless distinction.&nbsp; Given that we are presupposing the assignment of game alignments to real people (e.g., asserting a fairly simplistic objective moral reality), it doesn't matter whether or not you, personally, know what anyone else's actual alignment is.&nbsp; The objective judge - God, the rules of the universe, whatever you want to call it - does.Yes, well - here's the thing.&nbsp; They aren't.&nbsp; &quot;Good&quot; in the sense of &quot;Desirable&quot; is completely different from &quot;Good&quot; in the sense of &quot;Aligning with the ideals espoused by the D&amp;D alignment called 'Good',&quot; and similarly for &quot;bad = undersirable&quot; and &quot;bad = Evil.&quot;As a simple example, consider a stereotypical evil warlord - he is LE and he believes in LE ideals.&nbsp; In his frame of view, it is &quot;desirable&quot; (i.e., &quot;good&quot;) to have supreme power vested in the position of Warlord, with enforcement of that power enabled by a highly-disciplined team of jackbooted thugs with a strict hierarchy of legal and geographic responsibilities.A LG character might see some aspects of that warlord's rule as &quot;good&quot; (i.e., &quot;desirable&quot;) - he probably likes the vesting of power in a position, rather than a person (continuity!) and the discipline and hierarchy of the enforcers (clear lines of responsibility!).&nbsp; On the whole, however, he views the thing as wrong or incorrect - it misuses some desirable tools for undesirable ends.A CN character or a CG character sees little desirable at all - the whole shooting match is bad.&nbsp; (Note, the whole thing is not Evil.)In short, succinctly, I think the key to really thinking about alignments and characterization and what they mean is to realize that most people - and, most especially, the guys on the each side of the keyboard - are not Lawful Good.Rather, they probably have a philosophy* that lays out what they believe is morally right - what they see as &quot;good = desirable.&quot;&nbsp; This doesn't, necessarily, make them &quot;good = D&amp;D Good.&quot;&nbsp; That which their philosophy does not value is possibly called &quot;evil&quot; - and will often be, in rhetoric! - but that no more makes it &quot;evil = D&amp;D Evil&quot; than they are inherently D&amp;D Good.&nbsp; Rather, those things are &quot;evil = undesirable.&quot;So, in summation, I think that &quot;I may not be Lawful Good&quot; is a great first step to take in these matters, if you ever want to apply D&amp;D-based alignment thinking (or, really, any objectivist moral philosophical thinking) to the real world.Also also wik, applying D&amp;D alignments to the real world never really works out that well. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin&nbsp; &nbsp; :D"&nbsp; data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />&nbsp; So, I'll drop the tangent after this.* One of, you know, thousands out there that exist.&nbsp; Maybe they don't have any particular codified philosophy, but I'm pretty sure everyone, at least, has developed a personal understanding of what is right and wrong to them.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Patryn of Elvenshae, post: 5586476, member: 23094"] This is, to me, a meaningless distinction. Given that we are presupposing the assignment of game alignments to real people (e.g., asserting a fairly simplistic objective moral reality), it doesn't matter whether or not you, personally, know what anyone else's actual alignment is. The objective judge - God, the rules of the universe, whatever you want to call it - does. Yes, well - here's the thing. They aren't. "Good" in the sense of "Desirable" is completely different from "Good" in the sense of "Aligning with the ideals espoused by the D&D alignment called 'Good'," and similarly for "bad = undersirable" and "bad = Evil." As a simple example, consider a stereotypical evil warlord - he is LE and he believes in LE ideals. In his frame of view, it is "desirable" (i.e., "good") to have supreme power vested in the position of Warlord, with enforcement of that power enabled by a highly-disciplined team of jackbooted thugs with a strict hierarchy of legal and geographic responsibilities. A LG character might see some aspects of that warlord's rule as "good" (i.e., "desirable") - he probably likes the vesting of power in a position, rather than a person (continuity!) and the discipline and hierarchy of the enforcers (clear lines of responsibility!). On the whole, however, he views the thing as wrong or incorrect - it misuses some desirable tools for undesirable ends. A CN character or a CG character sees little desirable at all - the whole shooting match is bad. (Note, the whole thing is [I]not[/I] Evil.) In short, succinctly, I think the key to really thinking about alignments and characterization and what they mean is to realize that most people - and, most especially, the guys on the each side of the keyboard - are [I]not Lawful Good[/I]. Rather, they probably have a philosophy* that lays out what they believe is morally right - what they see as "good = desirable." This doesn't, necessarily, make them "good = D&D Good." That which their philosophy does not value is possibly called "evil" - and will often be, in rhetoric! - but that no more makes it "evil = D&D Evil" than they are inherently D&D Good. Rather, those things are "evil = undesirable." So, in summation, I think that "I may not be Lawful Good" is a great first step to take in these matters, if you ever want to apply D&D-based alignment thinking (or, really, [I]any[/I] objectivist moral philosophical thinking) to the real world. Also also wik, applying D&D alignments to the real world never really works out that well. :D So, I'll drop the tangent after this. * One of, you know, thousands out there that exist. Maybe they don't have any particular codified philosophy, but I'm pretty sure everyone, at least, has developed a personal understanding of what is right and wrong to them. [/QUOTE]

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