Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[Hussar]

Huh. Your right. So if my character's conscience tells him to always behave in an honourable fashion, what distinguishes me from lawful good?

 

[jsaving]

Chaotic characters follow their consciences, resent being told what to do, favor new ideas over tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it.
Emphasis mine, this would imply that an individual aligned with chaos can in fact be honorable... if he feels like it or if his conscience demands it. So it doesn't seem that honor is intrinsically tied to one's alignment

I actually think it is saying something rather different. Lawful characters do what they promise because they promised it, and any given lawful character can be relied upon to keep promises once they are made. On the other hand, Chaotic characters don't care what they promised, though any given chaotic character might coincidentally do what was promised provided there are reasons other than the promise to do it.

The contrast being presented in the PH is between "following their consciences" (Chaos) and "acting as society directs" (Law) -- or put another way, what you do when your impulses diverge from others expect. It doesn't mean you can hold any set of beliefs and still be considered chaotic provided you are true to whatever those beliefs happen to be.

 

[pemerton]

an individual aligned with chaos can in fact be honorable... if he feels like it or if his conscience demands it.

That's not being honourable. Being honourable means doing it even if you don't feel like it or it is contrary to your personal conscience - eg keeping your promise to a prisoner to spare his life even when you find out that he's the one who murdered your family.

Also what [MENTION=16726]jsaving[/MENTION] said in the post above this one.

 

[Imaro]

I actually think it is saying something rather different. Lawful characters do what they promise because they promised it, and any given lawful character can be relied upon to keep promises once they are made. On the other hand, Chaotic characters don't care what they promised, though any given chaotic character might coincidentally do what was promised provided there are reasons other than the promise to do it.

The contrast being presented in the PH is between "following their consciences" (Chaos) and "acting as society directs" (Law) -- or put another way, what you do when your impulses diverge from others expect. It doesn't mean you can hold any set of beliefs and still be considered chaotic provided you are true to whatever those beliefs happen to be.

You're extrapolating alot from my post since I am not speaking to all the actions a character aligned with chaos can or can't take.... I am speaking to whether he can or cannot act honorably... are you saying he can't act honorably?

EDIT: A characters motivations for acting honorably are irrelevant to my point, I'm not answering why a chaotic would act honorably or not... only whether it is in his purview to act with honor or does his alignment make it impossible for him to act in an honorable way... I don't believe it does and you haven't shown me proof that a chaotic character can and will only act dishonorably

 

[Imaro]

That's not being honourable. Being honourable means doing it even if you don't feel like it or it is contrary to your personal conscience - eg keeping your promise to a prisoner to spare his life even when you find out that he's the one who murdered your family.

Is this the definition of an "honorable act"?? Does one have to lack the desire to want to enact an action it in order for an act to be honorable? I don't think that's correct at all. Let's take a look at the definition for honorable...

[h=2]hon·or·able[/h] adjective \ˈä-nər-(ə-)bəl, ˈän-rə-\: deserving honor and respect
: having or showing honesty and good moral character
: fair and proper : not deserving blame or criticism




[h=2]Full Definition of HONORABLE[/h]1
: deserving of honor

2
a : of great renown : illustrious
b : entitled to honor —used as a title for the children of certain British noblemen and for various government officials

3
: performed or accompanied with marks of honor or respect

4
a : attesting to creditable conduct
b : consistent with an untarnished reputation <an honorablewithdrawal>

5
: characterized by integrity : guided by a high sense of honor and duty


Only one of these definitions, number 5, actually requires that an honorable act be tied to duty but even that doesn't make a distinction about whether it is a duty one desires to do or doesn't... so where are you getting this requirement of honor from?

Also what @jsaving said in the post above this one.

Yeah, I addressed that above this post, I was speaking strictly to whether a chaotic aligned character could or couldn't act honorably, not making an argument for all the actions he could or couldn't do, so unless either of you can show me why a chaotic alignment would make all of the actions as defined above impossible for a character to act upon I stand by my assertion.

 

[Imaro]

Huh. Your right. So if my character's conscience tells him to always behave in an honourable fashion, what distinguishes me from lawful good?

Acting with honor does not (necessarily) equate to acting in a good manner thus why I earlier made the assertion that honor itself is not intrinsically linked to alignment... for an easy example of why, see Lawful Evil.

 

[jsaving]

For the two-dimensional alignment system to make sense, Good/Evil and Law/Chaos have to be reflecting fundamentally different things (if it were not so then one may as well boil it down to a single dimension). So you are absolutely right that being honorable doesn't make a character Good within the context of the game.

It does, however, make him Lawful (which I think is the point Hussar was trying to make).

Can a Chaotic character take honorable actions from time to time? Sure. Just as he doesn't have to automatically and reflexively oppose everything an authority figure says, or automatically and reflexively flout every tradition he can find, he doesn't have to maximize the number of lies he tells or the amount of poison he uses. But having one's actions sometimes coincide with what an honorable person would do is a far cry from actually being honorable, i.e. living by a code that says you won't lie/cheat/poison even when it would be convenient for you to do so.

 

[Imaro]

For the two-dimensional alignment system to make sense, Good/Evil and Law/Chaos have to be reflecting fundamentally different things (if it were not so then one may as well boil it down to a single dimension). So you are absolutely right that being honorable doesn't make a character Good within the context of the game.

Yes but I do not agree that honor is one of those fundamental things, that is why being honorable in and of itself doesn't make one a particular alignment... But I am glad you at least see why it isn't good...

It does, however, make him Lawful (which I think is the point Hussar was trying to make).

No [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] made the assertion it made him lawful good... not just lawful. And no I don't agree it makes him lawwful.

Can a Chaotic character take honorable actions from time to time? Sure. Just as he doesn't have to automatically and reflexively oppose everything an authority figure says, or automatically and reflexively flout every tradition he can find, he doesn't have to maximize the number of lies he tells or the amount of poison he uses. But having one's actions sometimes coincide with what an honorable person would do is a far cry from actually being honorable, i.e. living by a code that says you won't lie/cheat/poison even when it would be convenient for you to do so.

Emphasis mine: Okay, first off that does not encompass all definitions of honor, since again what is honorable is dependent upon various factors, what you seem to be espousing is the paladin's code of honor which is all fine and good but kind of self-fulfilling since the code was created for a character class that is supposed to be LAWFUL good. How about we instead turn to a raider or barbarians code of honor say one that espouses...

Great honor is accorded whoever...
Takes from those who are not our people whatever they are strong enough to claim.
Leaves nothing of the weakling civilizations in our wake but fire and ash.
Attacks their enemy with wild abandon and reckless rage.


Does this "code" make the reaver/barbarian/whatever lawful... does it promote the aims and goals of the cosmic force of law in the world? I would say no to both of these questions... In fact it seems to actively serve and create chaos... and yet a warrior who did these things would follow a code and would be considered honorable in his particular society.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Great honor is accorded whoever...
Takes from those who are not our people whatever they are strong enough to claim.
Leaves nothing of the weakling civilizations in our wake but fire and ash.
Attacks their enemy with wild abandon and reckless rage.


Does this "code" make the reaver/barbarian/whatever lawful... does it promote the aims and goals of the cosmic force of law in the world? I would say no to both of these questions... In fact it seems to actively serve and create chaos... and yet a warrior who did these things would follow a code and would be considered honorable in his particular society.

In his particular society, yes. But then there are those people most would agree are evil who certainly thought they were good people.

Being honorable within your own code is chaos, IMO, but is not being honorable in the greater sense of the term.

 

[jsaving]

It's certainly true that different people might affix the label of "honor" to different things, but there is only one definition of honor provided in the PH -- "not lying, not cheating, not using poison, etc". It makes no difference whether barbarians in certain parts of the world use the word honor in a different way, or whether an English dictionary has more than one definition on honor. The only thing that matters for slotting somebody into Law or Chaos is whether they fit the objectively knowable definition provided in the PH. Indeed, the 3e team likely chose to define "honor" in the D&D context precisely because there are so many alternative definitions that could be used if they hadn't.

I am also having trouble understanding the argument that Lawfulness doesn't imply honor, mainly because the PH definition of Law says that "Law implies honor." To be sure, this doesn't mean a less-than-honorable individual would automatically be non-Lawful overall, as he might satisfy the other components of Lawfulness well enough to have an overall placement inside a Lawful alignment square. But it does mean at a minimum that a less-than-honorable person won't be as lawful as an otherwise identical person who does act with honor whenever possible.