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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 2160145" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think the fundamental problem with the D&D alignment system is that it has been so poorly and so variously described by different writers who had different ideas about what alignments meant.   From that several extremely complex but in my opinion deeply flawed systematic approaches for determining alignment have developed in the fan community (one of the most popular being good/evil is the 'ends' and law/chaos is the 'means').   This intellectually simplifies the problem but invariably leads to difficulties because things like 'ends' and 'means' aren't as completely separate and distinct of things as people try to make them, nor are means always so value nuetral with respect to good and evil or ends so value neutral with respect to law and chaos.So in any discussion about alignment, you invariably get alot of contridicting answers and worst of all some of these contridicting answers are well thought out, complex, and compelling to some degree.Part of the problem is that a person's take on the alignment system will be biased by ones own alignment preferences.  As I understand it, the original alignment system was a single axis law vs. good.   This system was informed by Gary Gygax's reading, and I would presume own moral beliefs and sympathies for eastern ethical systems like Buddism and Confucian.   Naturally though, this did not satisfy your average western player who found law and chaos to not be nearly so black and white as a Confucian (who we could prelimenarily assign as LN) would tend to believe.   I believe Mind Flayers and Djinni are the classic examples.   One could even argue that this initial difficult was caused by a failure to properly define law and chaos in the first place, because it defined Mind Flayers as lawful relative to themselves, rather than relative to thier place in the cosmos.   To keep a single axis which was sufficiently black and white, it was necessary to assign Mind Flayers as Chaotic because they didn't belong in this universe.The two axis system worked better for Western players, but was immediately skewed by the original single axis system.  This is best seen by the fact that almost all D&D works hold the completely contridictory bias that 'lawful good' is more good than 'pure good'.   For example, paladins are invariably examples of 'most good'.   You even see this continue in writers that ought to know better like Aaron Loeb is the otherwise excellent 'The Book of the Righteous'  (In his defence, I think he was trying to create a cosmology that explained this D&Dism.)   Invariably though, this leads to confusion because it has effectively two axis of 'good' judged by two different and contridicting standards.   ALOT of the confusion over what good means comes from this.D&D literature and publications only confuses the problem.   Gygax's and RA Salvatore's description of Drow elves is (at least in his early novels) almost certainly a depiction of a Lawful Evil society rather than a chaotic evil society. Chaotism becomes invariably associated with criminality, which it isn't necessarily.   For example, Mel Gibson's character in Payback is one of the best examples of a Lawful Evil character in fiction IMO, but I would imagine that people's first instinct would be criminal = chaotic, and I'd bet some of them would assume that because he's a sympathetic character that he's also non-evil.   Sympathetic IMO does not imply non-evil.One of the most confusing statements in all of D&D alignment discussions comes at the end of the Chronicles of the Dragon Lance when the author has the Good god Paladine make the statement that the Pre-cataclysm priest king was the most good person ever (or something to that effect) and that's why his destruction was justified.   This is a statement from the perspective of TRUE NUETRALITY and basically has a good dietry arguing against the supremacy of goodness, and instead arguing that the most correct intellectual and moral position is nuetral.   I can only assume that Margaret Weiss is responcible for this insanity and slipped up because she herself believes in ideas like 'the golden mean' and 'ying-yang' and other balance/harmony ethical systems which affirm the necessity of evil and the evil of fanaticism.   Tracy Hickman is I happen to know himself a Mormon, which I bring up simply to point out that he would almost certainly bring a different set of ethical biases to the table and that he is himself probably after Gygax one of the most influential early shapers of D&D.what I think that this leads to is the fact that in any situation that is sufficiently complicated, the D&D system falls on its face for the average player (or even average designer)  simply because the 'rules' by are entirely incoherent and contridictory.  Faced with a moral system that doesn't fit into any of the rules as he understands them, or which doesn't fit the simplistic understanding he's been told to use, the average player or designer simply throws his hands in the air and assigns 'neutrality' not so much because it fits, but because it is an easy catch-all.</blockquote>

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