Mapping Buffy the Vampire Slayer to DnD Alignment

[Oofta]

I've always thought of alignment as motivations and world-view which will determine the actions someone takes, not what a person does.

So a CE person can do good things (i.e. save the orphanage) but the question is why did they choose to save the orphanage? Did they have an epiphany and felt empathy for the orphans? Did it somehow change their perspective on the world? Or did they just do it on a whim. Even if they just have a soft-spot for orphans, that doesn't necessarily mean their alignment changed, you have to look at the whole picture. Nobody fits their alignment 100% of the time.

Which brings me back to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You have most of the Scooby gang were good aligned, even if they didn't always adhere to it. Willow for example went all apocalyptic for a while. Faith on the other hand was more neutral, sometimes doing good but having little respect or empathy for others with shifts into evil. I'd say Spike shifted from evil to neutral as well because while he was trying to be "good" it was for selfish reasons.

We aren't privy to the inner voices guiding the characters on the show, so law and chaos are a bit more difficult. I'd say Gyles was lawful and believed in rules and law even if he decided the council was not a valid authority.

Whether or not Gyles thought the order had just rules that he had to follow, I see no indication that he gave up on his basic principles. When it comes to vampires, they seem to be pretty much chaotic evil. Yes they obeyed The Master, but that seemed to be more motivated by fear of consequences than a dogmatic devotion to a proper "order" to things.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think Ethan Rayne would disagree on your perception of 'Ripper's' alignment.

Ripper absolutely was Chaotic Neutral. Rupert, however, is Lawful Good at the beginning of the series and Neutral Good by the end of Season 4.

The Mayor, though a villain, seems to also have some shades of gray. He has a loving father-daughter relationship with Faith and is very well mannered. I think both characters (and most other characters in Buffy) defy the generic alignment system of D&D.

I mean, all well-rounded characters do, because the 9-alignment system is a vast oversimplification of human ethincs and morality. If you were to map Buffy characters to that system though, the mayor is about as Lawful Evil as it gets.

That really depends on the vampire. According to Buffy-lore, vampires are actually (lesser) demons who posses the soulless bodies of humans. Not all vampires are chaotic in their actions. Some are quite methotical and lawful. In season 1 several vampires are loyal to the Master for example.

Indeed, the Master and his followers were extremely Lawful Evil.

If we go through the Big Bads, The Master was Lawful Evil, Spike was Neutral Evil while Drusilla and Angelus were Chaotic Evil. The Mayor was Lawful Evil. The Initiative was Lawful Neutral until Adam hijacked it, and he was pretty Neutral Evil, maybe Lawful Evil. Glory was Chaotic Evil. The nerds were Chaotic Neutral and starting to drift towards evil until dark Willow showed up, and she’s harder to pin down... I guess Chaotic Evil, maybe Neutral Evol? The First was definitely Neutral Evil.

And remember when Buffy attacked a cop and lied to all her friends about Angel being back alive?

Again, ethics and morality are more nuanced than the 9-alignment system can account for. All characters go against their dominant tendencies occasionally, but on the whole, Buffy is Neutral Good.

 

[D1Tremere]

Depends on the decision.

If your LG paladin decidec to murder whole orphanage he goes directly to CE.

If he has had enough of evil cultist and "red tape" of laws and codes for dealing with them and just storms the secret shrine, he might get only to CN.

If he steals for being hungry, I would not change the alignment right away.

If he can go straight to CE for murdering a whole orphanage, does he go straight to LG if he saves one?
If he can shift alignment, he can shift back. If he can shift back, does it really mean anything to label him anything to begin with?

That's the problem with moral labels, they are always subjective and often rely on modernist unilateral evolutionary schemes to make contextual sense.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

A character isn't good if only help people with the same allegiance, but when he takes a serious risk or sacrifice to help other people, without selfish reasons.

Characters are evil when they cause serious injustices without extenuanting circumstances of guilt (for example blackmail or menace against hostages).

When good actions are enough to change to good aligment? The question should be about where his soul should go to, a celestial or an infernal plane, reward or eternal punishment? In my cosmology of my settins there is a purgatory for the sinners who aren't ready for the Heaven yet but have saved their souls.

* Groups os chaotic aligment need share a common allegiance and rules to work together or they couldn't survive a crysis like in the serie "the walking dead" or another post-apocalypse franchise.

 

[Oofta]

If he can go straight to CE for murdering a whole orphanage, does he go straight to LG if he saves one?
If he can shift alignment, he can shift back. If he can shift back, does it really mean anything to label him anything to begin with?

That's the problem with moral labels, they are always subjective and often rely on modernist unilateral evolutionary schemes to make contextual sense.

Then the question would be why are they doing what they do. Do they roll randomly to see what they do that day? Do they have multiple personalities? Do they save the orphanage if the orphans are [insert race, culture or some other criteria here] but burn down the orphanage with [insert race, culture or some other criteria here]?

People do change, but generally not overnight or for no reason whatsoever which is something certain TV shows sometimes ignore (not necessarily Buffy) for the sake of "drama". As Belkar from OOTS said - it's a slow gradual change that's hard to spot until one day you're over the edge and now you're different.

 

[Yunru]

Do they save the orphanage if the orphans are [insert race, culture or some other criteria here] but burn down the orphanage with [insert race, culture or some other criteria here]?

Are they Drow? Are they Paladins in training? BURN THEM!

I always just tell my players "You seem to be slipping towards [alignment], do you want it to be a character arc?"