D&D (2024) One D&d and alignment: new approach

[Gorck]

All I can say is that when players actually played evil, it was not something I want to do as a social activity. Struggle with your dark side? Done evil in the past? You're likely neutral.

But truly evil? Nope. Been there, Done that, don't want the crappy t-shirt.

I forget where exactly on the interwebs I read it, but somebody was dissecting the concept of alignment. He said that, while Law vs. Chaos was alright, a better term would be Dogmatic vs. Pragmatic. But he then went on to say that Good vs. Evil was horrible, and that better terms would be Selfless vs. Selfish. That would alleviate the issue of the "party member that might kill the rest of the party overnight while on watch."

 

[CreamCloud0]

If I could sum up the core trait or value of each of the four alignment axis’ in one word id give them:
Good: benevolent
Evil: self-centred Edit: self-interested
Lawful: regulation
Chaotic: liberation
Of course, i think that those words don’t do true justice to the nuance of each of the alignments but i think that’d be true of any attempt to reduce them to one word.

 

[Oofta]

I forget where exactly on the interwebs I read it, but somebody was dissecting the concept of alignment. He said that, while Law vs. Chaos was alright, a better term would be Dogmatic vs. Pragmatic. But he then went on to say that Good vs. Evil was horrible, and that better terms would be Selfless vs. Selfish. That would alleviate the issue of the "party member that might kill the rest of the party overnight while on watch."

From a philosophical point of view that may make sense, although I'm not sure I agree.

D&D morality is oversimplified like everything else in the game. It's good enough for it's purpose.

I'm not interested in an advanced philosophy course or even The Good Place. There's a place for that, but I'm okay with simple descriptors that we have general agreement on at the table.

 

[Clint_L]

My problem with the D&D alignment system is that I teach creative writing, and it is so alien to think of characterization or even morality as being anything like alignment. I can't imagine that any writing teacher ever would ask students to think of a character in terms of their alignment. It's not just that D&D alignments are simplified, it's that they bear no relation to how individuals actually are, and so create a really odd story dynamic.

You could just as well choose nine different fruits and ask each player to define their character in terms of one of those fruits. Actually, now I think about it, that seems more fun and interesting than D&D alignments. I could get better stories from the fruit option.

 

[Charlaquin]

Alignment was basically enshrined as a sacred cow when D&D Next was still being playtested.

It's never going away. Maybe rendered completely meaningless, but ways going to be a line for it on the sheet.

I mean , hells, I accidentally started an alignment argument once by jokingly calling myself Lawful Chaotic. A complete nothing. And people still argued. I feel like people just want to fight over it.

I always like to say that Batman is Chaotic Lawful.

 

[Marandahir]

If I could sum up the core trait or value of each of the four alignment axis’ in one word id give them:
Good: benevolent
Evil: self-centred Edit: self-interested
Lawful: regulation
Chaotic: liberation
Of course, i think that those words don’t do true justice to the nuance of each of the alignments but i think that’d be true of any attempt to reduce them to one word.

Self-Interested is not evil. It's healthy.

Self-centered, to the point of putting your interests at odds with the basic innate rights of others, that's evil. But even self-centered could just be neutral or unaligned - and also an sparking snuffpit.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Self-Interested is not evil. It's healthy.

Self-centered, to the point of putting your interests at odds with the basic innate rights of others, that's evil. But even self-centered could just be neutral or unaligned - and also an sparking snuffpit.

Okay maybe self centred is the better of the two to describe Evil, but it’s still not great and i even made that point in my other post that only trying to use a single word to describe an entire alignment yields subpar results,

Also it’s about degrees, you say that ‘a little’ self centredness is neutral but do it justice and apply the same to the others, only ‘a little’ benevolence doesn’t make you Good, ‘a little’ support of regulation or liberation doesn’t make you Lawful or Chaotic, But when it’s a core piece in that person’s personality/values i think it’s a good enough descriptor

Self-centred, self-interested, selfish, unempathetic, all of them are fine to describe Evil but at the same time they all lack that certain something.

 

[MarkB]

Okay maybe self centred is the better of the two to describe Evil, but it’s still not great and i even made that point in my other post that only trying to use a single word to describe an entire alignment yields subpar results,

Also it’s about degrees, you say that ‘a little’ self centredness is neutral but do it justice and apply the same to the others, only ‘a little’ benevolence doesn’t make you Good, ‘a little’ support of regulation or liberation doesn’t make you Lawful or Chaotic, But when it’s a core piece in that person’s personality/values i think it’s a good enough descriptor

Self-centred, self-interested, selfish, unempathetic, all of them are fine to describe Evil but at the same time they all lack that certain something.

Some degree of self-interest is fairly standard for most people. The evil part is not having any consideration of others to go along with it.

I'm not sure there's a simple term for that - Inconsiderate seems insufficient, but Sociopathic seems too absolute.

 

[payn]

Sorry I lost track of the discussion; why are we trying to one word describe the alignments which are one word description themselves?

 

[Gorck]

Sorry I lost track of the discussion; why are we trying to one word describe the alignments which are one word description themselves?

I suppose because, for PC's sake, there's only really 6 alignments to play. It's difficult to truly play an "evil" character in a party (the black cowboy hat is a dead give away). Whereas, in my example of Selfless vs. Selfish, it would be perfectly fine to play a Selfish character and not be someone who might "kill the whole party in their sleep while on watch." Raistlin in Dragonlance is a good example of a character that would be considered "selfish," yet not completely "evil."

But, of course, Selfish and Selfless both begin with "S" so it would be hard to reduce them to convenient 2 letter acronyms.