Political Correctness - An end to alignment troubles

[Jürgen Hubert]

Alignment has always been one of the more bothersome ideas of d20. If it is possible to pidgeonhole everyone into categories of "Good" and "Evil" with the aid of a simple spell, then how do you avoid some rather extreme effects on human society? Why not simply lock up or exile anyone who registers as "Evil"?

Well, maybe I haven't found the answer to end all answers for this problem, but I do think I've hit on a workable solution for Urbis, my homebrew setting:

"A Note on Alignment

While alignments continue to exist in Urbis for the purposes of game mechanics, they are rarely referred to as such by people in the setting, especially among the educated classes of society. The reason for this is simple: Many of the wealthy and powerful of Rothea got that way by being absolutely ruthless in the pursuit in their goals - those who weren't ruthless quickly fell by the wayside. As a result, few members of the ruling classes are of good alignment, and all too many are outright evil. But few people like to be called evil, even if true, and fewer still actually think themselves as such. As a result, if a cleric calls a member of a city's ruling council evil, he will at the very least be sued for slander, even if he used a Detect Evil spell to verify this fact first. Likewise, followers of evil deities will rarely refer to their deities as evil, or even think of them as such - and they will often take steps to stop any claims to the contrary.
All this means that while terms like Good, Evil, Law and Chaos will still be used in these texts, they will in general only refer to the game mechanics. The people who live in Urbis will use any number of metaphors to refer to these concepts. Some examples:

Good: Community-minded, selfless.
Evil: Pragmatic, survival-oriented, competitive.
Lawful: Community-minded, just, orderly.
Chaotic: Free-spirited, anarchic, disruptive."

Your thoughts?

 

[PowerWordDumb]

how do you avoid some rather extreme effects on human society? Why not simply lock up or exile anyone who registers as "Evil"?

Easy - you reread the rules and discover that "Detect Evil" spells do not trigger on characters of evil alignment as you're interpreting.

(Unless of course they're an evil creature in disguise, or an evil cleric, or a special non-cleric class which does radiate evil, per the SRD definition of the Detect Evil spell)

Problem solved. In fact, I believe it was changed this way specifically to avoid the issues you're worrying about. Paladins walking around town detecting evil and performing summary executions didn't leave such a good taste in one's mouth back in the 1e/2e days.

 

[kenjib]

Given the goal of your world building project - taking the D&D tropes to their logical conclusions - I think that's an excellent way to handle the alignment problem.

In general, I think alignment is maybe the worst part of D&D and I'd just get rid of it altogether. There have been numerous threads in the past about how to modify spells and such to handle such a change.

 

[Voadam]

Easy - you reread the rules and discover that "Detect Evil" spells do not trigger on characters of evil alignment as you're interpreting.

(Unless of course they're an evil creature in disguise, or an evil cleric, or a special non-cleric class which does radiate evil, per the SRD definition of the Detect Evil spell)

Problem solved. In fact, I believe it was changed this way specifically to avoid the issues you're worrying about. Paladins walking around town detecting evil and performing summary executions didn't leave such a good taste in one's mouth back in the 1e/2e days.

Yes it does work this way.

Evil PCs can be evil creatures. Any evil creature whether it is an orc, a council member, or a fiendish tarasque will show up under detect evil if it has an evil alignment.

When I read the srd on detect evil the entry for evil creatures is the first one. Evil clerics, outsiders and all undead have a stronger aura of evil per hit die, but that is the only difference.

 

[Nifft]

IMC, Conduct and Alignment are different things.

IMC, Detect Evil detects the presence of the [Evil] descriptor. This is one interpretation of the 3.5e Core Detect Evil rules, and it's the interpretation that I favor.

IMC, you can be a lying, thieving, murdering Human without picking up the [Evil] descriptor. And you can have the [Evil] descriptor even if you haven't yet done anything wrong (well, unless you consider selling your soul to be "wrong").

PrCs (and the Paladin's CoC) require specific Conduct. Paladins also gain the [Good] and [Lawful] Alignment descriptors; Monks gain the [Lawful] Alignment descriptor.

-- N

 

[Umbran]

Why not simply lock up or exile anyone who registers as "Evil"?

Simple:

First, because 1st level magic spells are hardly foolproof. People can hid their auras, and make others take on auras they don't normally posess.

Second: Because the spell only gives information to the caster. The caster can then lie through his teeth about the results, if he feels like.

These two add up to disaster for any judicial or law-enforcement system that depends on these spells. One evil inquisitor who manages to hide his alignment can wreak untold havoc.

 

[Dispater]

I agree, I have never liked alignement. Evil is an act. It is the act that defines your alignement, and since people go around doing good and bad things they are effectively shifting alignement every day.

On the note of evil deities, IMC the gods are just mysterious enities, and all the religions are variations/conflicting interpretations on them. In that way there are no rules of mine saying they are evil or good. So a god could have worshippers of any alignement.

 

[Wombat]

Okay, my opinion on this topic is getting fairly well known on a variety of boards, but let me see if I can articulate it in terms of the original post.

Alignment, as written in the PHB, is still pretty darn ridiculous. Every character chooses and alignment; almost all monsters and NPCs have alignments attached to them. The problem is that alignment here is two entirely different things. In the case of monsters it is an Immutable Truth -- monsters are EVIL or GOOD (or whathaveyou) and will never vary from this. The same is true for most NPCs as they are played -- the alignment shapes the actions. With PCs, OTOH, alignment is something that provides broad outlines of actions you wish to adhere to; over time you may change your alignment based on your actions, thus the actions supposedly dictate the alignment.

Example: one player in a 3.0 version of my game wrote on his character sheet "Lawful Good" for alignment. All his actions during the course of the campaign would have labelled him as Chaotic Neutral. Why did he choose LG to begin with? "I thought that's what we needed for the party." So why act differently? "Because that's who I am." So game mechanics versus personal tastes. In any event he played a Wizard, so it made little difference, but with a Paladin, technically, it would have lost him all of his powers.

Alignment is the last truly silly leftover from the original D&D. It serves no real purpose, other than to artificially constrain Paladins and Monks. Beyond that, I see no real purpose to it other than to allow those using magic to quickly determine who the good guy/bad guy is, and even that is problematic. Actions and intentions are much more important to character development than a label.

The Urbis definitions are rather nice. This is much closer to how people are seen in the workaday world. No strong labels with rigid definitions, but broader categories. There are aspects of "Evil" as shown on Juergen's list that become downright admirable under the right circumstances.

Personally if there was one Sacred Cow of D&D I would do away with across the board, it would be alignment. It is not well-defined, the mechanics on it are, at best, problematic, and it causes more confusion and disagreement than it has ever solved.

So take the Urbis definitions. Or do as others have done and drop alignment altogether. If, after you drop alignment, someone uses Harm instead of Heal, people will know the character is evil without having to resort to artificial labels.

 

[Wombat]

grumblegrumblestupiddoublepost

 

[Dispater]

edit: (you dont want to read the same once and much less twice)