How do you defend alignment in D&D

[fusangite]

But how much does that mean, really? Would someone who calls a certain emanation "evil" think of it as "wrong"? I think not. IMC, many evil priesthoods think of it as "strength", "canniness", etc. Just put a Thulsa Doom spin on it.

What do you mean here? Are you saying that evil has different connotations to self-identifying evil people? I suppose it does. They still believe themselves to be evil.

In D&D, evil is the result of actions that cause pain, suffering, oppression, and other forms of harm.

So, let us suppose that the inevitable Star Trek situation arises and once again the protagonist much choose between letting some people die and saving the majority and gambling everyone's life on a long-shot plan that will save everyone.

Now, when Captain Kirk or Jean-Luc Picard do this, the long shot plan always works. But let's suppose that ordinary probabilities apply and 9 times out of 10 these gambles fail and everyone dies. Do these resulting avoidable deaths make trying to save everyone an evil act?

Whether or not they self-identify as Good, a person who causes those things when he could do otherwise is committing evil acts, and will be evil.

So, do you mean that causing suffering is okay provided it is unavoidable? Let's suppose you decide to adventure in a long-abandoned dungeon, fully aware that there are evil spirits imprisoned within its depths. Contrary to your intentions, one of the spirits then escapes its prison and begins killing civilians in a nearby town. You know -- like the treasure-hunter in Beowulf. Clearly, this was avoidable -- if you didn't insist on going on adventures into unknown places, people would not be put needlessly at risk.

IN D&D, there is a point (determined by the individual DM) where the ends no longer justify the means, and the harm caused by actions outweighs good results.

So, in your campaign, when a character's alignment changes, do you tell him? Is alignment something you track or do you just change your characters' alignment when really egregious things happen?

Though, honestly, I don't know if it is true that in the real world evil people almost never self-identify as evil. While there may be the occasional leader who does evil things for what they believe to be agood cause, I suspect most evil these days in wrapped up with crime. Do you think the drug dealers, muggers, and pimps actually think they're helping anyone? I doubt it.

Most (not all -- don't freak out right-wingers) of these people, I would argue, fit into one of three ethical positions:
(a) They know what they are doing is wrong but believe themselves to be in such desperate straits that they have to do these things. E.g. a crack addict pimping out his girlfriend. Such people often experience a strong sense of self-hatred that they are driven deeper into their addictions. These people don't see themselves as evil and want, as soon as they have enough money or feel good enough, promise themselves that they will make it up to everyone.
(b) They have a sharp in/out or us/them distinction whereby they view their friends and associates to be people who deserve to be treated well but view the individuals whom they exploit as less worthy or wholly unworthy. Sometimes this manifests as racism; sometimes it is a classist view; most commonly it is comes from the view that the people whom they are exploiting are already drugged-out bums whose lives are already ruined (and who should be thankful that their pimp/boss/dealer is as nice as they are).
(c) Often these people situate themselves in a hierarchy of relative exploitiveness -- just as people, some of whom society today admires, were "the most generous industrialists of the 19th century" (only a 70 hour week -- and a minimum hiring age of 13!), people can be the fairest drug dealer, the gentlest pimp, etc. Someone might advance the view that as people are going to be buying crystal meth anyway, they are providing a public service by making sure that the stuff they sell is relatively pure and safe.
(d) Often people engaged in criminal or exploitive enterprises (remember employing child labour in the 3rd world is a legal practice) are only doing so to achieve some greater good -- like getting enough money for the down payment on their house, funding an important political movement, launching an independent bid for president to clean up US politics, making sure their kids can get out of "the business" by ensuring that they go to the best schools and colleges, etc.

Common misconception here - his chaos/evilness cannot force him to act. Alignment describes what you have done, not what you will do.

Do you get this from the rules? The rules seem to be all about people's internal state of mind, as opposed to their actions. Is this what D&D says or is this the adaptation you have made of D&D in order to make sense of a very peculiar mechanic?

So, what you're saying is that a person with anarchist or libertarian goals who pursues them in an organized, efficient, disciplined way cannot, himself, be chaotic. Have I misinterpreted you?

It seems to me, based on the way you have set this up, only people on the neutral part of the Law-Chaos axis can act rationally in their own interest. Chaos is transformed from an ethical position to a pathology -- being chaotic is suddenly about screwing-up your own plans because you lack the self-control or discipline to carry them out efficiently.

To me, alignment is a sort of long-term average of your actions and motivations - so it is a mixture of what you want to achieve, and how you live.

How does this square with the other parts of your post?

 

[fusangite]

I don't defend the concept, any more than I'd defend a hammer or a screwdriver. A tool doesn't need a defense. Occasionally, someone needs a tutorial on what the tool is, how it is used, and why it works. But use of a tool is not right or wrong, so it doesn't call for a defense.

Of course you need to justify a tool! If you're standing in a kitchen with a an empty pie plate, a bowl of pastry ingredients and a pile of chopped apples and cinamon, you need to defend hauling out a hammer, screwdriver or wrench.

For a lot of people, alignment is a weird thing to find in the D&D toolbox. Just as a pastry brush would be in a tool box between the hammer and chisel.

 

[mmadsen]

Some people view Robin Hood as good even though he robs from the rich to give to the poor.

It complicates things that he's stealing tax revenue. If the regime is evil, presumably Robin Hood is good. Whether or not the regime is evil, presumably Robin Hood is chaotic.

I'm not sure that chaotic descriptor helps us much though. I could just as easily see a law-and-order type fight against tyranny.

 

[conanb]

Good vs Evil? Players don't decide, it's in God's Hands.

I think the key thing I preach to my players about alignment is that it doesn't matter about what they think about their actions, but how the god's interpret their actions. This has led to problems where a cleric was unable to commit an act his god wanted (the death of a relative innocent) because that person was key to the plans of an evil deity. The person was wholly unaware of their heritage and part in the plan. With a chance to strike this innocent down, the cleric said "I can't." To which their god punished them by taking away their power.

The key aspect to remember about these fantasy worlds is that the God's exist. Player's intrpretations of Good and Evil are nice, but ultimately the power lies in the hands of the Gods. I almost always hand down rulings like this. Even on fighters who wonder why all of a sudden a protect evil spell is affecting them. "Well, perhaps your god has deemed you evil for some actions you've done." This has led to some interesting situations, as well as occasional trips to a cleric or someone else to figure out how to atone for past sins.

This is how I use alignment in my game, or at least try to. What I'm trying to avoid are endless discussions on what's good or evil. This used to happen all the time, with one player or another doing something that someone else thought was evil or good. Then endless discussions on the rights of prisoners, the innocent, killing sentient beings, etc. If you leave these things up to the players to define, that's fine but brew a pot of coffee and maybe pick up a book is my recommendation.

In reality, it's just a game mechanic, and as the DM one of your jobs is to keep the game going. Don't be afraid to wade in and hand down a ruling, even if it is wrong. If everyone was frozen about handing down judgements, our legal system would have collapsed a long time ago. Luckily, a lot of judges say "What the hell, I'm only human," and make a ruling. That's your job as a DM. Keep the game going, settle differneces of opinion, and generally make sure people are enjoying the game (yourself included). But at the end of the day, alignment is one of those things that pops up in everyone's game sometime. You have to figure out how to address it eventually.

 

[Saeviomagy]

It complicates things that he's stealing tax revenue. If the regime is evil, presumably Robin Hood is good. Whether or not the regime is evil, presumably Robin Hood is chaotic.

Actually I believe the original story of robin hood has him
1. targeting the rich, and more often than not those rich through tithes and taxes rather than those rich off their own backs.

2. Not just handing the lot off to the poor. He gave the poor 1/3rd, took 1/3rd for himself and returned 1/3rd to the owners.

3. Did it specifically to fight against the establishment
So my view on his good/evil/chaos/law thing
1. Broke the law. Repeatedly. Did it to defy the establishment. Chaotic.

2. Took from others to improve his own lot. Evil
2.a) Only took from others that it would not harm seriously - less evil.

3. Gave to others at the expense of his own lot. Good.

So - sum total of a little bit good and quite chaotic.

What do you mean here? Are you saying that evil has different connotations to self-identifying evil people? I suppose it does. They still believe themselves to be evil.

No, they believe themselves to be something which happens to correspond in the D&D alignment system with evil.

Most evildoers don't go out and think to themselves "I think I'll be evil today". They think "I'd like some money, so I'll grab it off that guy". Or "what does he matter, he's just a weakling".

They may think of themselves as lawbreakers (ie - chaotic), or honorable (ie - lawful), but while evil in terms of the D&D system is objective, ones own perceptions of it still remain subjective.

The evil overlord isn't keeping the peasants down and poor and uneducated because he enjoys being evil. He enjoys being in power.

Now, when Captain Kirk or Jean-Luc Picard do this, the long shot plan always works. But let's suppose that ordinary probabilities apply and 9 times out of 10 these gambles fail and everyone dies. Do these resulting avoidable deaths make trying to save everyone an evil act?

You're missing the point. It's not about avoidable deaths. It's about who profits, and on what grounds the decision is made.

If you make the decision to kill the whole crew because then you're spared, you're evil.

If you make the decision to risk the whole crew because then you'll be spared, you're probably not evil.

If you make the decision to risk the whole crew because then some of them will be spared, you're not evil.

If you make the decision to save the whole crew and sacrifice yourself, you're good.

And what alignment you assign to yourself internally doesn't matter a damn thing if your actions don't reflect it.

Try to save someone and end up killing them instead? Your action wasn't "kill the guy" it was "try to save the guy".

Your action matters, not the outcome.

Go dungeoneering and release a spirit? Unless someone told you "if you go dungeoneering, you'll release a spirit that will kill us all" and you had reason to believe him, your action was "go dungeoneering". The consequences don't change the morality of that.

 

[Umbran]

Do these resulting avoidable deaths make trying to save everyone an evil act?

No, because you've presented a Kobayashi Maru scenario. No matter what the character does, he's going to lose, morally speaking. Either he lets a few die or he lets many die. Neither is really an acceptable result.

Creatures incapable of moral action are neutral. Those people left in a position where there is no moral choice cannot really do Good or Evil.

So, do you mean that causing suffering is okay provided it is unavoidable?

If it is truely unavoidable, there is no choice being made, and so no moral character to the event.

Let's suppose you decide to adventure in a long-abandoned dungeon, fully aware that there are evil spirits imprisoned within its depths. Contrary to your intentions, one of the spirits then escapes its prison and begins killing civilians in a nearby town.

Fully aware of the spirits there? Then the character is certainly on questionable moral ground. Sounds like "Let's say there's a dam, behind which is a huge amount of water. The character digs at the base of the dam,looking for treasure." Of course the character is responsible when the dam breaks and floods the village!

So, in your campaign, when a character's alignment changes, do you tell him? Is alignment something you track or do you just change your characters' alignment when really egregious things happen?

Typically, no, I don't tell them. For the vast majority of characters, it makes no real difference. Characters who have alignment restrictions on their class abilities get some warning to change their ways or face the consequences.

Do you get this from the rules? The rules seem to be all about people's internal state of mind, as opposed to their actions. Is this what D&D says or is this the adaptation you have made of D&D in order to make sense of a very peculiar mechanic?

3.5e PHB, pg 104, top of left hand column:
"Choosing an alignment for your character means stating your intent to play that character a certain way. If your character acts in a way more appropriate to another alignment, theDM may decide that his alignment has changed"

3.5e DMG, pg 134, left column "Changing Alignment":
"A character can have a change of heart that leads to the adoption of a different alignment. Aligments are nto commitments, except in specific cases (such as paladins and clerics). Player characters have free will, and their actions often dictate a change of alignment."

Both of which indicate that the actions make the alignment, not the other way around. Characters have free will, whatever teh two letters on the character sheet say the alignment is.

So, what you're saying is that a person with anarchist or libertarian goals who pursues them in an organized, efficient, disciplined way cannot, himself, be chaotic. Have I misinterpreted you?

The devil lies in the details. If the character is shown to put the organized, disciplined behavior ahead of the goal, then there has surely been an alignment change. Short of that, the DM has to make a call, looking at the end sand the means, and see which, if either, is in dominance.

It seems to me, based on the way you have set this up, only people on the neutral part of the Law-Chaos axis can act rationally in their own interest.

In a way, yes. Note that, according to the rules, most folks are neutral. Being Good, Evil, Lawful, or Chaotic indicates dedication to an ideal or pattern above and beyond that seen in the run of the mill person. To an aligned character, how they behave is more important than their own interests.

Chaos is transformed from an ethical position to a pathology -- being chaotic is suddenly about screwing-up your own plans because you lack the self-control or discipline to carry them out efficiently.

No, not a pathology. Merely a goal unto itself. A chaotic person really and truely loves personal freedom of action, and would not have that curtailed if at all possible. A lawful person really and truely feels that an organized society is the best way to go, and will put himself out to reach that end.

Just like Good and Evil, really. Good people will sacrifice their own well-being for the greater good. A Chaotic being will do things that aren't in their own best interest for the greater freedom.

How does this square with the other parts of your post?

The moral and ethical implicatiosn of events are not based solely on the events themselves, but also on the context, and the characters motivations and intentions are part of that context.

The Chaotic person being orderly to bring about a greater chaos is a good example. Surely, committing minor orderliness is allowed, if the intended result is great chaos. The end justify the means. But as the orderliness required to bring about the end grows, the less the ends justify the means, and the less chaotic the character is, in total balance.

One can imagine a chaotic character who gets so wrapped up in achieving the goal, that he kind of forgets the goal, and in fact winds up inflicting more order on the world than his plan will ultimately undo. Such a character is perhaps more lawful than he originally intended to be.

The road to Law may be paved with Chaotic intentions

 

[D+1]

How do you defend the concept of alignment in D&D?

Well the very question implies that it NEEDS to be defended, either because it's so unpopular or just unused. I don't think either is the case. It just sort of SEEMS like it's this massive hot potato because when people don't like it they REALLY don't like it, and people do still have some rather severe misconceptions about it.

But, that being said alignment is NOT broken. It works just fine when it's used for what it's supposed to be used for - as a guideline for determining the actions and reactions of characters and monsters, and not as a statistic that forces any such choice whatsoever on a player or DM. It's a tool for roleplaying, not a rule to beat up yourself or your players with. If, however, you don't like it for some reason, the very best thing to do is not to "fix" it, but to simply not use it. Not everybody needs or wants the tool that alignment provides.

 

[Felix]

Defense of Alignment:

DnD is a game, and meant to be fun.

Morality is based on Right and Wrong moored in faith.

In the real world, millions of people have been killed arguing over what is the proper way to define Right and Wrong.

This game circumvents any problems there might be in Right and Wrong ambiguity by providing an absolute and non-relative definition of Right and Wrong. The details may be haggled about (as evidenced by the multitidue of "Is this Evil" threads) but there is general agreement over the established framework of Good/Evil and Chaos/Law.

The alignment system provides an absolutist morality that is Truth in the game world. From there, DMs and players can decide what PCs/NPCs believe to be true, although the character might be mistaken. It is helpful that the game provides a Truth for DMs (and DMs are certainly encouraged to tinker with the system to their satsifaction) because once you have a Truth, the DM and the players now have a starting point they all understand. A lack of an objective alignment Truth, or moral relativism, in a game world does not provide a starting point, and therefore can lead to problems with the DM and the players having assumed different things about the game's morality.

I was playing a good cleric in one game. The party ran into a member of a tribe that routinely raped, pillaged, raided, and slew members of my nation. I believe that he was accepted without reservation into the party because he was a new PC, and I felt chided when others didn't understand my character's reluctance to have this guy traveling with us. My cleric then began to say how his people are evil and not to be trusted, what with the raping, raiding, etc. The DM took me aside and said that "no, they weren't evil, because what they do are seen as virtues to their people. They're doing good in their eyes."

I was flabbergasted. Raiding + raping + pillaging = Good. The alignment system was not the Truth, because he didn't really use it. He didn't believe in an objective Truth in his game world, and I had no idea about it.

My problem with that DM was that the Alignment issue was not well defined; we hand no starting point from witch to go. And that is why it's a useful tool, as Umbran so eloquently puts it, and something that should only be discarded with careful consideration.

 

[kigmatzomat]

"Yes, but those clerics and so-called 'paladins' are the TRUE evil because they enforce their own views and 'self-righteousness' on others.

LOL! IMC years ago I had a paladin wearing a sentient suit of armor grown from an infant blue dragon. Every evening the armor made the paladin read a chapter out of the book "Why Good is Evil and other lies Paladins tell" that they found on a dark priest.

He couldn't destroy the armor, it being a mostly-helpless setient being, and couldn't let others wear it since they might be swayed by it's "evilist" propaganda so he had to try and convert it. Ahhh, such sweet memories.

 

[Lodow MoBo]

In a fantasy world it defines many character world interactions. Character behavior should be monitored only for those classes which have those kind of alignments.
It can be used quite well and it can be abused.

Examples:
neutral wizard who summons fiendish creatures on occasion is chastised by a celestail that he stands before a precipice.

Lawful good Paladin suggests to raise money we sell tickets to people so they can come a view his celestial lion mount. The DM suggested that he may lose his powers if he does this.