Five Alignments?

[Wormwood]

Thing is, I was being sarcastic. Cause if that is what it is, I think it is crap.

Oh that's totally cool.

I've always thought that authorial intent is irrelevent when examining their work.

 

[Mort_Q]

LG: Friend that you can trust to have your back
G: Friend
U: Stranger who can be friend or enemy, depending on what you pay the DM
E: Enemy
CE: Enemy that you can't get out of fighting

This will go well right next to nute's principals of cake-based timing .

Thanks.

 

[Mercule]

In contrast, a 5 point nutrition system distinguishes between Drink, Food, Inedibles, Dairy and Veggies. It just begs questions right out of the gate...like why do Dairy and Veggies get special attention? Did they somehow deserve it? And why don't Meats rate their own special designation? Why not Meats and Grains instead of Dairy and Veggies.

This.

Is "Good" Chaotic Good, Neutral Good or both under one umbrella. I expect the official answer is "both". One of the staffers posed the question whether anyone could tell a difference between CG and NG. Um... at least as much as between LG and NG. Sure, CG may have to shy away from pure, unadulterated freedom to avoid unintended harm from people who would only use their freedom for ill, but LG would have as much restriction on enforcing order, lest people become dull-witted and unthinking. Sure, it's a ludicrously extreme argument, but no more so than the one that could be applied to CG.

As I've said before, I kinda dig that they went with CE being the elemental sort of chaos and the destruction of everything. So far, though, the information about splitting Good makes absolutely no sense. Why do those seeking Good through Order deserve a breakout while those seeking Good through Freedom or Good through Balance don't? What's so bloody special about them?

In typing this, though, I have thought of one way in which this could all work out. We essentially have two types of evil that differ by virtue of one kind (Evil) recognizing that the multiverse is where they keep their stuff, so it might be inconvenient to end it. If we define the difference between the two kinds of good based on what kind of evil they find most threatening, it makes some sense. Both recognize that any evil is bad (gosh, that sounds dumb), but LG looks at Evil and says, "Well, at least the universe will continue to exist if they win. It'd suck, but we could recover, eventually." Meanwhile, Good says, "CE has such a huge task, they're unlikely to ever actually win, or we'll get notice. Let's concentrate on making the universe a better place. We might actually make some headway, there."

So, a functional definition of the alignments that I actually like:

CE: The universe sucks and violates our sensibilities. It needs to be destroyed. We'll figure out what happens later, later.

Evil: I kinda like being here. In fact, I like it so much, I want to own it all.

LG: There are some beings crazy enough to nuke us all. Why don't we do something about it? Yeah, yeah. Freedom, liberty, prosperity, happiness. Those are nice and we support them, but they really don't mean squat if you ain't here to enjoy them.

Good: We have to ensure that what we're fighting to protect remains something worth protecting. Let us know when you find that cache of weapons of mass destruction. Until then, we're going to work on the economy and civil rights.

Unaligned: You say there's a trans-planar, philosophic war for our survival and free will, huh? Have fun with that. Myself, I think I'm going to go out and loot some dead guys (or loot some orcs I make dead). But, while you're up, I think Bob the smith cheated me on the horse shoes he sold me. Could you look into that, oh moral compass?

If that is the new alignment system in a nutshell, sign me up. I likee. If they just couldn't tell the difference between NG and CG or LE and NE, so they axed 'em, well... I'm unimpressed (and not saying anything else, since I couldn't say anything nice -- or even not mean).

 

[Tervin]

Oh that's totally cool.

I've always thought that authorial intent is irrelevent when examining their work.

Off Topic: And that I totally agree with. When I taught high school literature courses that used to confuse students (and some colleagues) to no end.

 

[Family]

Off Topic: And that I totally agree with. When I taught high school literature courses that used to confuse students (and some colleagues) to no end.

So what I'm getting out of this reply is that you deeply care about authorial intent. If you get my meaning

 

[Tervin]

So what I'm getting out of this reply is that you deeply care about authorial intent. If you get my meaning

Exactly!

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Well, from what I read it seems this is the basis of the five alignments, now that I have seenseveral sources and had a bit of time to think:

LG: Friend that you can trust to have your back
G: Friend
U: Stranger who can be friend or enemy, depending on what you pay the DM
E: Enemy
CE: Enemy that you can't get out of fighting

Very easy to play. Perhaps not very imaginative, but still...

The old alignment system could've been just as easily simplified

Good: Nice
Evil: Jerk
Law: Plays by the rules
Chaos: Doesn't play by the rules.

 

[Tervin]

The old alignment system could've been just as easily simplified

Good: Nice
Evil: Jerk
Law: Plays by the rules
Chaos: Doesn't play by the rules.

True. But the point of my sarky suggestion was that it was all from a good hero's perspective and all basically about who you will fight and who will help you.

In other words dumbed down to basically be a game about fighting.

 

[keterys]

I said it elsewhere, so may as well say it here:

I suspect they only kept the difference so you could distinguish:
'Evil for no redeeming reason' and 'Good confined by rules' from the rest.

and

'On a plus note, since alignment doesn't actually affect anything, how the alignment works is sorta like the color of garnish on your plate. Maybe it makes it look better or not, but it doesn't actually change how you enjoy the meal.'

I otherwise reiterate Hong's second law. Carry on

 

[pemerton]

I never quite understood the difference between morals and ethics, to be honest.

I was taught moral philosophy by lecturers who denied the distinction, so my grasp of it is a little shaky. But what I gather from one of my colleagues is that "morality" is generally used to describe the rules that ought to govern one's behaviour insofar as it affects others, whereas "ethics" is used to describe the rules that ought to govern one's behaviour if one is to lead an examplary life (which most people would regard as including the rules of morality as a subset).

The notion that G/E is morality and L/C is ethics was introduced into D&D by Unearthed Arcana 1st edition (as far as I know) and this is a usage that bears no connection to the technical philosophical usage I have tried to sketch above.