Concisely describe the 9 alignments in your campaign

[random user]

random user inspires me to add:

Alignment has nothing to do with what you THINK you are.
And self consistant or disciplined is not necessarily lawful.

No, I agree it doesn't. However, it is also a societal construct, IMO, and unless you only have a single society in your campaign or they all share the same values (which is fine if you want to run your campaign that way), alignment is still what the society makes of it.

In the United States (and please do not get this thread locked by going off topic) the following are legal:

Capital punishment (ie putting a person to death for a crime)
Medically removing an unbirthed fetus from a female
The confinement (often in close quarters) of cows and their slaughter for food
The keeping of dogs and cats as pets

The following are illegal:

The cutting off of hands/legs/etc for crimes
Killing a newborn who has a birth defect
The confinement and slavery of a human based on race
The keeping of other humans as pets

Now I know that good doesn't equal legal and illegal doesn't equal evil. However, they often serve as a guideline of what is considered good and evil.

All of the examples I have mentioned have been either legal or illegal in various societies throughout history (ok I'm not sure it's ever been illegal to keep cats and dogs as pets, but the rest stand).

To use some more specific examples:

Good vs Evil:

If one society considers elves as non-persons, with rights somewhere between a horse and a dog, if you put down an elf because he attacked a human, is that evil? Remember, this person has been inculcated to believe that elves have no rights, in the same way most of us would put down a bulldog or bobcat that attacked a person. Is this act an evil act?

In another society, elves are considered equal to humans. If an elf attacked a human would and a person automatically put him down, would that be an evil act?


Law vs Chaos:

If in one society, men and women act in a very complex but structured way. For example, a person robs a store. Based on the amount stolen, the location it took place in, what the person has on him when he robs the store, how old the person is, and a couple other factors, the person can either be killed or let off with a slap on the wrist or imprisoned for a very long time, imprisoned for a short time, or anything in between.

To an outsider, the outcomes may seem capricious. However, for someone that understands the laws (or at least the different criteria which are considered), the various outcomes are lawful. Given the same exact situation, each outcome will be approximately the same. However, someone outside of this society would not be able to deduce this.



If a person who was raised to believe that elves did not have equal rights as humans, and he then killed an elf for being annoying, is he evil? How about the elf that kills orcs? What if that elf went to a society which respected orcs as much as elves or humans?

If a person adheres to an internally consistent set of rules and laws and believes that they are useful, but to outsiders they seem chaotic and capricious, is he lawful or chaotic? What would he be when he dealt with others who shared his beliefs in his own society?

 

[Keoki]

I know, I know, there are no alignments in Star Wars. But since practically everyone's familiar with the movies, I use SW characters to illustrate alignments.

LG: Princess Leia
LN: Nute Gunray
LE: Darth Vader
NG: Chewbacca
N: Boba Fett
NE: Jabba the Hutt
CG: Han Solo
CN: Dash Rendar (not from the movies, but a lot of people know who he is)
CE: Sebulba

 

[Umbran]

I think Psion hit upon a decent note - it is better to not define the nine alignments, but instead to define the Law/Chaos and Good/Evil axes. In theory, these two axes are independent, so you don't have to define nine things to figure out where the character sits. You really only need six - where the character sits on each axis.

 

[The Grackle]

Only applied to supernatural beings.
Playable races have free-will and can have any beliefs, attitudes, and outlooks, and take any actions they want- even contradictory ones. Clerics, have the alignment of their diety (for spell purposes), but that doesn't determine how they act. Likewise for people who habitually consort with powerful outsiders or use powerfully aligned magic items.

 

[VirgilCaine]

I think Psion hit upon a decent note - it is better to not define the nine alignments, but instead to define the Law/Chaos and Good/Evil axes. In theory, these two axes are independent, so you don't have to define nine things to figure out where the character sits. You really only need six - where the character sits on each axis.

Good and Evil are MUCH easier to define than Law and Chaos, IMO.