[i]This[/i] is my problem with alignment

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

What acts are chaotic and what acts are lawful?

Consult PHB for guidelines. Actual mileage will vary from campaign to campaign and setting to setting and this is by design.

EXAMPLE: the question of "is it Ok for a lawful good character to summarily kill a helpless goblin prisoner?" would likely have one answer in a campaign set in an area controlled by "good" with nearby cities run by "just and good folk" and a wholly different answer in a world setting overrun by evil where there were no such cities commonly available.

For the paladin, who is required to help people unless they use the help for evil or chaotic ends, what, exactly are chaotic ends? You can come up with a few--anyone can.

absolutely, and more to the point, in practice, within the context of a campaign, i have typically found it easy to identify one when it comes up. Listing every possible member of "the chaotic actions" with no campaign context is not a helpful thing, a doable thing, or worthwhile.

And again, i would put the focus more on the word choices, than actions... and emphasize that there are two components... MEANS and ENDS. A given ACTION or CHOICE such as "shoot the goblin" cannot be assigned an alignment withcout context (which helps give us means) and without knowing the ends it is being done for.

The question is whether or not the full list of chaotic ends is consistent.

That really depends on whether the GM in his game is consistent in how he approaches the GUIDELINES provided in the book, given the context of his campaign, its setting, its themes, and his characters.

The guidelines in the book are consistent. However, being guidelines, a Gm can certain choose (inadvertantly or ...errr... advertantly??) to apply them in an inconsistent manner.

1. Which acts from the following list, if consistently followed would jeophardize a paladin's alignment as lawful good?

Consult with your GM on this, for the specifics in context with his campaign and the setting he is using.

2. Which acts, if intended by another would remove a paladin's obligation to help that person?

see above.

Whether alignment is descriptive or prescriptive, it still needs to be definable, even if it isn't actually defined. Otherwise it's just nonsense. Good and evil don't have insurmountable difficulties in that regard. Law and Chaos appear to.

L/O have never "appeared" to have insurmountable difficulties to me or in any game i have run in. So far, in this thread, i haven't seen any either.

 

[fusangite]

technically, alignment is not proscriptive. the paladins CODE is proscriptive.

- PHB 44: "A paladin who ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commits an evil act or who grossly violates the code of conduct loses all paladin spells and abilities."
What I see here is that alignment functions more strictly to circumscribes paladin conduct than the code does.

Note "consistently". The barbarian class requires you not go lawful and going lawful would require consistently being more lawful than neutral or chaotic. Its not going to be a "ooops, one slip or two" whammy, but a repeated and significant series of actions/choices.

Yes. And this becomes problematic when being lawful is defined as:
- "honour, trustworthiness, obedience to authority and reliability."

Again, not proscriptive in any given case or instance.

So, you are arguing that because a single transgression of alignment is insufficient to change alignment in your model, alignment is not proscriptive. This is simply illogical. Clearly you must believe, according to your own model, that if some threshold in committing lawful acts is passed, a character's alignment becomes lawful. If the character has a class that is contingient on alignment, crossing that threshold affects them. That is proscriptive. I'm sorry. If no number of lawful acts causes the character to cross this threshold and become lawful, you don't have a system at all. As soon as you establish any kind of threshold, alignment will function proscriptively.

however, if the characters choices are consitently over time best represented by lawful, he won't fit that class requirements.

Right. That's what I mean. The above is a proscriptive statement.

It restricts your choice of CHARACTER. A bard can do lawful acts. A cleric of pelor can do evil acts. etc etc... What cannot happen is there cannot be an EVIL cleric of Pelor. There cannot be a lawful bard. etc. Thats a huge difference.

It may be a difference but the statement "there cannot be a lawful bard" is still proscriptive. Alignment still functions to prohibit conduct -- and by that, I mean transgressing alignment can causes severe in-game punishment.

The above is ignoring whether or not i agree with or use many of the class alignment restrictions in my games. i actually only use the ones which are religious in nature, the divine casters thingy.

This is another sign the alignment mechanic is broken. When even its most ardent supporters are unable or unwilling to enforce the letter of the rules because it is too problematic.

none of them appear in my DND games, so ... no.

If alignment is conduct (not ideology, according to you, despite all the indications in the rules directly contradicting this position), what more would need to know? You know what these people's conduct was.

if your problem stems from the premise, flawed premise, that alingments are going to dictate actions then the solution to your problem is to let that false premise go and let alingments derive from actions.

Two problems with this statement:
1. It is incomplete. My problems with alignment are as follows:
(a) the variable contains both conduct and ideology -- when these conflict or are opposites, the value stored in the variable becomes meaningless
(b) the way that ideology is described under alignment is self-contradictory. Belief in the rule of law is lawful and belief in individual rights is chaotic. How can you have individual rights without the rule of law?
(c) alignment does function proscriptively as you yourself admit (above). Your solution has been to alter the rules for over 50% of classes in order to prevent this being the case.

The alignment system is not self-contradictory. There is nothing within the alignment section that is contradictory.

You can say that because you refuse to look at the Thomas Paine argument on the grounds that he is not a D&D character. If all alignment does is measure conduct/choices and does not measure anything that is specific or unique to the D&D world, why can't you entertain discussion about the alignment of real world people?

the fact that a character can be who possesses both chaotic and lawful traits is not an indication that the alignment system is contradictory. it is a sign that the system does not require characters to be totally polarized.

Yes. But if the system requires that in order to achieve a chaotic goal, you must behave in a lawful way, that is an indication the system is broken.

One can pursue lawful goals using chaotic means... and if those are relatively evenly weighted in your character's choices, i would judge that neutral.

That's a sign the variable is broken; because it ceases telling you anything. What this says is: if I have no goals and do not purse any goals, I will end up with the same alignment as someone with chaotic goals who pursues them efficiently. Variables are useful because they are descriptive. What you indicate above is that while alignment can be calculated from actions, it is not reliably descriptive of anything.

the perception that i keep getting from this is that IF one makes the alignment system the driving element (as opposed to the character) and a controlling factor (instead of a reflective one) and/or if one wants characters to be totally polarized by their alignments, then the alignment system can be seen as a problem.

No. What I am saying is this: if you follow the letter of the rules on combat, combat works. If you follow the letter of the rules on skills, skills work. If you follow the letter of the rules on alignment, things stop working. That's a problem. A good rules mechanic becomes problematic when you don't follow it to the letter; alignment only becomes problematic when you do.

Essentially, you are defending the rule on the grounds that it is not supposed to be applied literally. That is not a defense of a rule -- it in fact discredits the rule.

 

[Henry]

Clearly you must believe, according to your own model, that if some threshold in committing lawful acts is passed, a character's alignment becomes lawful. If the character has a class that is contingient on alignment, crossing that threshold affects them. That is proscriptive. I'm sorry. If no number of lawful acts causes the character to cross this threshold and become lawful, you don't have a system at all. As soon as you establish any kind of threshold, alignment will function proscriptively.

Proscription implies being forbidden to do something, as in, there's NO WAY they can do it.

If I can indulge an oddball anecdote for a minute, to me this is like saying I am forced to brush my teeth, because if I don't I'll get cavities. There's nothing stopping me from letting every tooth I have to rot and fall out of my head, and have to undergo extensive surgery if I want to stop the pain - I simply understand the consequences for doing so. Just because something's forbidden, doesn't mean it can't be done.

To further the analogy:

If I have excellent tooth health, yet occasionally skip a brushing here or there, I don't have bad teeth. I couldn't be described as having bad teeth, even though the dentist might scold me if I told him the truth.

If I consistently skip brushing, my teeth eventually deteriorate, and I DO have bad teeth. I am described as having bad teeth.

Yet it's not proscriptive that I take care of my teeth.

 

[Elephant]

I simply don't use alignment in my game. One of my biggest problems is the immense importance of the good-evil axis and the minor influence of the law-chaos axis. After all, a paladin is often found in groups with CG characters, but would never travel with a (known) LE character.

I use a really simplified system. Pretty much everyone is Neutral, with some people who are Really Really Bad and some are Really Really Good.

After all, Paladins get Detect Evil at will. They don't get Detect Chaos at will.

 

[fusangite]

You want to know why? Because I'm not their player, and I'm certainly not their DM.

If, as you argue, alignment can be ascertained from behaviour, why can't you make any determinations about a person's alignment if you know as much or more about it than you do a D&D character's?

The problem you have is that philosophers, for the entirety of human history, have tried to define Good vs. Evil.

They couldn't (and can't) do it, and yet you expect a roleplaying game to achieve a similar if not more difficult philosophical feat.

If you read what I am saying, I don't think the good-evil axis of alignment is anything like as broken as the law-chaos axis. While the good-evil axis suffers from the same means-ends confusion the average Star Trek episode does (by attempting to abolish any distinction between them), it is a largely functional part of the mechanic.

Every single one of my criticisms has been about the law-chaos axis. The rules are perfectly clear about good and evil; their definition does accord with my definition of good and evil but it is an internally consistent definition that only runs into problems when conduct and ideology diverge quite substantially. Which means it can be applied to the game.

The definition of the law-chaos axis is not internally consistent.

You're just continuing the "Ooh, my characters are so complex, they can't be so simply categorized as to be one of nine categories" whining-type viewpoint.

If you think that is what I am arguing, you obviously are not actually reading my posts.

Currently, the axes of Good vs. Evil and Law vs. Chaos are defined well-enough for a competent DM to use them, and no further.

If you think the two axes are equally well-defined, I am frankly perplexed.

Should D&D ever decide to come out with "The Complete Law" and "The Complete Chaos" sourcebooks, you'll only change your argument. Instead of "Law and Chaos are incomprehensible," you (and others like you) will argue, "But on page 32 of CL, it says Lawful people do X; I disagree, therefore Law and Chaos don't make sense."

No. That's not what I am saying. What I am saying is that there is a specific problem when the following pairing is made:
(a) chaotics believe in personal government and oppose the rule of law and believe in individual rights and oppose arbitrary despotic action; when
(b) lawfuls believe in government by the rule of law and oppose personal government and believe in unfettered collective action over individual rights
when in the real world, the pairings are always opposite.

The only difference? Today, you can only argue with and about generalities.

I am arguing about generalities. What you are doing is hiding behind generalities. You are saying: alignment is not broken because it doesn't really affect anything. That's not arguing generalities; it is attempting to defend a variable on the grounds that it is meaningless.

So here's the final point. Alignment in D&D is absolute. I know this next bit is a hard concept for the relativistically besotted world we live in to grasp, but I'll try anyway. Alignment is absolute.

So how can a think whose implementation you cannot describe function as an absolute? I agree with you, by the way, alignment in D&D functions as an absolute -- I am therefore concerned that this "absolute" is so incoherently defined that you cannot explain how or if it affects either behaviour or ideology.

Therefore, you can be wrong. You can say, "But I think X and Y are examples of Lawful behaviour, not Chaotic." And when you say that, you're wrong; you can try and argue, but it doesn't matter, because you're still wrong.

Right. And that's a real problem if alignment's most ardent defenders are incapable of explaining what "right" and "wrong" are.

Now, D&D is nice in that, unlike most objectivist philosophies, it doesn't actually try and present the reader with a complete moral code.

I'm not asking for one; but I would like a definition coherent enough to build one. Have you noticed: the people on this thread who like and use alignment are split nearly 50/50 over whether it is a measure of ideology or conduct. If intelligent supporters of alignment, reading the text the of the PHB cannot even determine that, then we don't even know what an alignment-derived code would even look like.

It leaves itself vague so that individual DMs and gaming groups can decide amongst themselves exactly where the lines between black, white, and grey are drawn.

But the rules don't say that, do they? The rules force it, however, because they are so self-contradictory that everyone who uses the alignment mechanic ends up choosing not to enforce some part of it in order to make the thing fly (see swrushing above).

Again, just because your own moral math doesn't mesh with the D&D system of alignment doesn't mean the D&D system is incoherent. Rather, it probably means you're just bad at math.

So, let's suppose I'm too dumb to understand alignment. I'm in graduate school. I got in with a 4.0 GPA. I was the top graduating history student in my year at the university from which I receive my undergraduate degree. Excepting alignment, I understand how every rules mechanic in the core books functions. What does it say if I lack the intellectual capacity to comprehend alignment. Might this also be a sign the mechanic is broken?

 

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

- PHB 44: "A paladin who ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commits an evil act or who grossly violates the code of conduct loses all paladin spells and abilities."
What I see here is that alignment functions more strictly to circumscribes paladin conduct than the code does.

I don't get that, not at all. By the code, a single transgression of evil or gross break with code will revoke his status, but an alignment shift, ala the lawful good clause, which will require a series of transgressions over time will also cause the change. Thats not "more strictly" in my book, but clearly our books are not the same.

Yes. And this becomes problematic when being lawful is defined as:
- "honour, trustworthiness, obedience to authority and reliability."

If there is a problem with the BARBARIAN CLASS having an alignment restriction, then i would argue that that shows a problem with the barbarian class and would not be evidence of there being aproblem with alignment. (Hence, in my game, i changed the CLASS.)

One might also argue that, if the arguement hinges of there being a contradiction between barbarian CULTURES (when they are described as lawful societies) and the barbarian CLASS having a chaotic restriction, one can argue this is also an issue of mis-equating the CULTURE and the CLASS, and by simply calling them BERSERKERS and realizing they are a small percentage of those cultures we are describing and not the norm, then the problem is no more.

IE, the issues are not with alignment, but with mixing culture/class and with class definitions, where it exists.

So, you are arguing that because a single transgression of alignment is insufficient to change alignment in your model, alignment is not proscriptive. This is simply illogical.

No, i am arguing that since alignment never restricts your choices it is not proscriptive. You can do what you want. Your alignment will change to follow suit, but be based on your character's overall choices over time, not "this next choice" or "this one choice."

that seems obvious. But we seem to have different books.

Clearly you must believe, according to your own model, that if some threshold in committing lawful acts is passed, a character's alignment becomes lawful.

an alignment change will occur once the characters choices over time indicate that the old alignment is no longer an adequate representation. Its not a case of "just one more time and bang" but "on the whole, which fits better?"

If the character has a class that is contingient on alignment, crossing that threshold affects them.

Which,if one buys that, may be an argument against building classes with alignment restrictions, but doesn't indicate a problem with alignments or a contradiction in alignments system.

That is proscriptive. I'm sorry. If no number of lawful acts causes the character to cross this threshold and become lawful, you don't have a system at all. As soon as you establish any kind of threshold, alignment will function proscriptively.

Actuallyt, no. At the best you get that MAYBE some classes have proscriptive elemtns within their design... and you can argue whether or not that is right.

It may be a difference but the statement "there cannot be a lawful bard" is still proscriptive. Alignment still functions to prohibit conduct -- and by that, I mean transgressing alignment can causes severe in-game punishment.

A bard can do lawful things. At any given moment, his alignment will not prevent him from chosing a lawful course of action. his class restriction will not either. The fear of repercussions in class won't either. This is not a "one more time" thing but rather "if the character overall is lawful" then his alignment will change to reflect that.

It really tho is starting more and more like you don't have an issue with the alignment system but instead have a problem with some classes definitions. But amazingly, thats handled within the rules by the GMs ability to tweak classes.

This is another sign the alignment mechanic is broken. When even its most ardent supporters are unable or unwilling to enforce the letter of the rules because it is too problematic.

Unless one realizes the changes i made were NOT TO THE ALIGNMENT SYSTEM but rather instead was TO THE CLASS DEFINITIONS. I did not change chaotic, i did not change lawful. I changed the bard class definitions. i changed the barbarian class definitions.

I thought that was obvious.

Alignment system not broken. TRUE IMO
Some classes not right for my game. TRUE IMO

If alignment is conduct (not ideology, according to you, despite all the indications in the rules directly contradicting this position), what more would need to know? You know what these people's conduct was.

As i have stated several times already, alignment is both means and ends, goal and methods and is related to context of the setting and the campaign.

As for "knowing what their conduct was", sorry if i dont take a couple paragraphs on an internet chat as sufficient to say i do know that.

And, as i am pretty sure i never said alignment wasn't ideaology, i guess we have gotten to the "rephrase you arguement to suit my needs" portion of the debate... which means i will be gone soon.

Two problems with this statement:
1. It is incomplete.

it wasn't meant to be a complete retelling of all your problems, merely a point. if for every point i was required to restate all your problems, this would get to be more work than fun.

(a) the variable contains both conduct and ideology -- when these conflict or are opposites, the value stored in the variable becomes meaningless

i disagree. I think that if one breaks alignment down and tries to create a system where a character is black or white one or the other, one gets a much worse system than the one we have. I do not have a problem with the MEANS being different from the ENDS in terms of qualitative appraisals. i don't find it too complex or cumbersome or contradictory in practice.

(b) the way that ideology is described under alignment is self-contradictory. Belief in the rule of law is lawful and belief in individual rights is chaotic. How can you have individual rights without the rule of law?

Easy, i believe that people have rights and i act in such a manner, and i do so regardless of whether or not law and custom say I have to, ought to, or even should. When the rule of law gave minorities less rights, INDIVIDUALS still existed who afforded them those rights by their actions.

(c) alignment does function proscriptively as you yourself admit (above).

and now we are even reversing my conclusions. cool. Well, nothing more to be gained here.

Your solution has been to alter the rules for over 50% of classes in order to prevent this being the case.

Actually, by the time i was done changing classes for my game, i had changed IIRC every one but the fighter, cleric and wizard IIRC. I found most of the core classes to be "close but not quite what i wanted" in a number of ways. So if looked at as "how many did i change" it was a lot, but most changes were for "non-alignment" reasons.

As for alignment specifically... i removed the alignment restrictions from MONK, BARD and BARBARIAN classes. I ADDED alignment restrictions to the DRUID and RANGER, imposing the old "within one of god" the cleric got and required them to take a god, of course (which applied to the paladin.) So, if removing alignment restrictions from three classea and adding alignment restriction to two is see by you as a condemnation of the alignment system, and not a indication of a issue with the CLASS DEFINITIONS, then i really cannot relate.

Again, to be blunt, if someone told me they had changed the CLASSES, i would think that might indicate they had issues with the classes. I did not change the alignment system, i changed classes.

You can say that because you refuse to look at the Thomas Paine argument on the grounds that he is not a D&D character. If all alignment does is measure conduct/choices and does not measure anything that is specific or unique to the D&D world, why can't you entertain discussion about the alignment of real world people?

because to entertain such a discussion about a historical figure brings into the discussion a whole lot of "about the historical people" stuff. I am not going to take the time to do the research, which would include actual reports from the time as well as multiple comtradictory references on more general "after the fact" and finally a thorough grounding in th society, culture and religious nature of the times.

Thats way too much work for a fictional mechanic set for a totally different societal framework.

it really seems a rather silly waste of time.

Yes. But if the system requires that in order to achieve a chaotic goal, you must behave in a lawful way, that is an indication the system is broken.

But, it doesn't require that.

That's a sign the variable is broken; because it ceases telling you anything. What this says is: if I have no goals and do not purse any goals, I will end up with the same alignment as someone with chaotic goals who pursues them efficiently. Variables are useful because they are descriptive. What you indicate above is that while alignment can be calculated from actions, it is not reliably descriptive of anything.

first off, i don't think neutral = null, so i dont accept that getting a result of neutral means you got nothing. Secondly, yes, two very different characters can share the same general alignment. I think the term "quite different" was used in the actual text. this is a strength IMO, not a flaw.

No. What I am saying is this: if you follow the letter of the rules on combat, combat works. If you follow the letter of the rules on skills, skills work. If you follow the letter of the rules on alignment, things stop working. That's a problem. A good rules mechanic becomes problematic when you don't follow it to the letter; alignment only becomes problematic when you do.

AFAIK, and IMX following the letter of the rule on alignment, which puts it as a non-proscriptive thing, a thing reflecting your actions, "not a straightjacket", etc... it works fine.

Its when you try and ignore all those, when you try and turn it into a solid black and white irrespective of its intended flexibility, that there becomes a problem.

Its like saying, "Once i make them proscriptive, i find nine isn't enough" and that brings us back to the "don't do that!" part of my earlier post.

Essentially, you are defending the rule on the grounds that it is not supposed to be applied literally. That is not a defense of a rule -- it in fact discredits the rule.

no, i am defeding it based on giving it the very fluidity and flexibility it was written specifically to have, on its very derived and not driving nature.


Lets look again at LITERALLY what it says...

"It is not a straitjacket for restricting your character. Each alignment represents a broad range of personality types or personal philosophies, so two characters of the same alignment can still be quite different from each other. In addition, few people are completely consistent."

LITERALLY, the rul establisheds it is not proscriptive in that it is NOT, literally!!! a tool "for restricting your character."

If one follows this rule literally... thats what you get. Its trying to mprh it into a proscriptive tool that is being, in this case, "not applied literally."

Now, on the other hand, some classes do have proscriptive elements, so maybe this thread should be titled "This is what i really dont like about classes" or some such.

 

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

If, as you argue, alignment can be ascertained from behaviour, why can't you make any determinations about a person's alignment if you know as much or more about it than you do a D&D character's?

but, he doesn't. With a DND character, he knows the setting and context, he has access to not only the character "as played" but also to the mind of the character thru the player.

With a historical figure, we have perhaps some of his writings and some other accounts.

But the rules don't say that, do they?

From the SRD on alignments and specifically the listing of the nine and their traits.

"Use these descriptions as guidelines, not as scripts."

So, in fact, the rules do say that.

What does it say if I lack the intellectual capacity to comprehend alignment. Might this also be a sign the mechanic is broken?

There can be plenty of reasons why you won't understand this particular mechanic, many of which won't involved your educational status or intellectual capacity. Indeed, it might not be an issue of lack of comprehension but more one of lack of acceptance. It could be that you are simply opposed to a non-definite, non-itemized set of guidelines and won't believe that it CAN work.

In practice, i dont have issues with identifying "chaotic" vs "lawful" vs "neutral" in terms of looking at a character, seeing him in play, and so forth within the expected context of the game and the setting being run. Thats what the system needs to do, and so far, it seems to do it. The fact that in doing so it doesn't have a hard and fast laundry list of "every chaotic action" or what have you is not relevent, to me, as its a set of guidelines.

an absolute list of do's/don'ts would be a script.

SRD again...

"Use these descriptions as guidelines, not as scripts."

 

[Trickstergod]

because to entertain such a discussion about a historical figure brings into the discussion a whole lot of "about the historical people" stuff. I am not going to take the time to do the research, which would include actual reports from the time as well as multiple comtradictory references on more general "after the fact" and finally a thorough grounding in th society, culture and religious nature of the times.

Thats way too much work for a fictional mechanic set for a totally different societal framework.

And keeping up with this thread doesn't require some work?

Because, really, in general, a quick search through Wikipedia will yield you, if not a complete picture, than at least an overview of the individual in question. It usually takes me quicker to browse through the entry than it does to get through writing some of these posts.

A look at historical figures, while it is treading close to Godwin's Law, is also probably one of the better ways to apply alignment in a three-dimensional, meaningful way. Fictional characters get invoked all the time, like with Superman. But you know something? Writer's whimsy pretty much trashes most fictional characters capacity to be categorized alignment-wise. Sure, we get into issues of bias and, if we're not careful, politics. Still, even if only a few examples are offered up, we can at least get an idea of what others believe to be ethical or moral and see the sort of labels we'd plug onto those figures to see how our own thoughts mesh up.

It also helps people swiftly realize some of the futility they might have in trying to discuss alignment with certain people.

 

[swrushing]

Because, really, in general, a quick search through Wikipedia will yield you, if not a complete picture, than at least an overview of the individual in question. It usually takes me quicker to browse through the entry than it does to get through writing some of these posts.

If my experience with historical figures and RPGing told me that i got as much from a quick encyclopedia article as i know about my characters, my players characters, the setting and context their actions are framed with and so forth, then i would be inclined to agree with you.

But, it doesn't tell me that.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Fusangite said:

If, as you argue, alignment can be ascertained from behaviour, why can't you make any determinations about a person's alignment if you know as much or more about it than you do a D&D character's?

I have never said that. In fact, I have said exactly the opposite - that you cannot look at an action (or, to use your terminology, a "behaviour") and say, "This is a Chaotic behaviour."

It's still, and will always be, the wrong question, and a bass-ackwards approach.

The question should be, "Why would a Chaotic person exhibit such behaviour? What would motivate a Lawful person to do X?"

Or, to skirt a modern political line which shall not be crossed, Bob - a hardcore Republican, Suzy - a hardcore Communist, and Stacy - a hardcore Green, all voted 'Yes' on Proposition 42.*

"But don't they all have differing ethical values?," you ask. "Shouldn't their alignments change because they all acted in a 42-ish manner? How many times must they vote 'Yes' before their alignments are effected?"

Of course not, I say. Stop being silly. Instead, ask, "What was it about Proposition 42 that caused three radically different mindsets (as in, three different alignments) to exhibit the same behaviour (voting 'Yes')?"

Until you grasp this relatively simple concept, the "mysteries" of alignment will remain forever beyond your no-doubt formidable academic reach.

* Any resemblance to any Proposition, living, dead, or improper, is strictly coincidental.

Congrats on grad school, BTW.

For the rest of it, swrushing's doing a pretty good job of arguing my point of view. I tend to place more emphasis on character intent than he might, but that's about it.

So, imagine your Chaotic individual has decided to behave, for awhile, in a Lawful manner in order to achieve some greater Chaotic aim. Doesn't the fact that he's forcing himself to tie his shoes the same way every day, eat his meals one food at a time, act like a part of the group, accept common consensus, etc., grate on him, day after day? Doesn't it make him feel uncomfortable?

So long as the above remains true, his soul is still Chaotic. As soon as he accepts conformity as being desirable in and of itself, he's likely begun the slide to Lawful.

Until then, he's just uncomfortable.

Would you "force" a character to change from Good or Neutral to Evil because, as an undercover "operative," he was forced to harm innocents? Even though afterwards he always arranged for some form of compensation? And spent the solitude of each night silently weeping his prayers to his God for forgiveness? Even though his voice of reason was usually enough to restrain those among whom he was hiding? And argued so, knowing that it might give him away?

Maybe you would.

I wouldn't.