Rule of Three: 20/3/12

[Hussar]

CN is also not about being a jerk either. Anybody can be a jerk, especially LG people.

Well, LG would be jerkish in a slightly different way. LG wouldn't let you get away with stuff and would likely tell the authorities if you didn't do it yourself.

The CN guy doesn't care what you do, but, he also doesn't give a rat's petoot what you think either. Like I said, he's the guy that would crash a party, throw up in the punch bowl and pick a fight with someone, just because, and possibly not in that order.

The bottom line is, you can never actually trust the CN character because he's solely in it for himself. He won't go out of his way to hurt you, true, but, he's also not going to lift a finger to help you either unless there's something in it for him. He's unreliable and very, very much not a team player.

Which brings us back to why would you ever go into dangerous situations with this guy? He's going to get you killed.

The problem I have with the Neutral=Balance thing is how do you actually play a character that way? If the rest of the party is good aligned (not a terribly unusual thing), is he going to find ways to sabotage you to preserve "balance"? Just how balanced do things have to be? If the good aligned group overthrows the evil tyrant, and then institutes a golden age of peace and prosperity, does the Neutral character then have to work against them?

And, if he doesn't. If balance is somehow a long term, sort of Long Calendar thing, then why not just call it unaligned and be done with it?

 

[Mattachine]

Characters don't have to be exemplars of an alignment to have that alignment. Let's not fall into the "everyone is a paladin of his alignment" fallacy.

A LE character can have friends and a even a true love--and still be a ruthless dictator that kills perceived enemies without remorse (and perhaps with a little glee).

A CN character can care deeply for her children and a pet cause, but otherwise is an unpredictable, unreliable person.


In any case, we are getting the 9-alignment system back. At least there is the suggestion that alignment-based effects will be more limited than in 3e (or perhaps even more limited than in 1e).

 

[Mattachine]

The problem I have with the Neutral=Balance thing is how do you actually play a character that way? If the rest of the party is good aligned (not a terribly unusual thing), is he going to find ways to sabotage you to preserve "balance"? Just how balanced do things have to be? If the good aligned group overthrows the evil tyrant, and then institutes a golden age of peace and prosperity, does the Neutral character then have to work against them?

And, if he doesn't. If balance is somehow a long term, sort of Long Calendar thing, then why not just call it unaligned and be done with it?

In the long AD&D campaign I ran, there was a TN druid. I was running the game in an evil-dominate Greyhawk, wherein the Great Kingdom and its allies ruled the east with cruel tyranny, the Slave Lords ruled the central coast, humanoid armies and Iuz controlled the North, and the West was besieged by an allegiance of giants. In this world, the druid allied himself with the forces of good for two reasons: the evil nations tended to destroy forests and despoil other natural places AND the forces of evil were heavily in control. As the campaign moved forward, some of the evil nations fell apart (a couple times due to actions of the PCs). The druid adventured with the party much less, and finally, not at all. He felt that Good had had enough of his help.

That does make for a tough PC to play, and the TN character doesn't work well in many campaigns.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Well, LG would be jerkish in a slightly different way. LG wouldn't let you get away with stuff and would likely tell the authorities if you didn't do it yourself.

The CN guy doesn't care what you do, but, he also doesn't give a rat's petoot what you think either. Like I said, he's the guy that would crash a party, throw up in the punch bowl and pick a fight with someone, just because, and possibly not in that order.

The bottom line is, you can never actually trust the CN character because he's solely in it for himself. He won't go out of his way to hurt you, true, but, he's also not going to lift a finger to help you either unless there's something in it for him. He's unreliable and very, very much not a team player.

Which brings us back to why would you ever go into dangerous situations with this guy? He's going to get you killed.

The problem I have with the Neutral=Balance thing is how do you actually play a character that way? If the rest of the party is good aligned (not a terribly unusual thing), is he going to find ways to sabotage you to preserve "balance"? Just how balanced do things have to be? If the good aligned group overthrows the evil tyrant, and then institutes a golden age of peace and prosperity, does the Neutral character then have to work against them?

And, if he doesn't. If balance is somehow a long term, sort of Long Calendar thing, then why not just call it unaligned and be done with it?

There are some alignments, in particular CN and CE but also LN, TN, and NE, that aren't well suited to PCs. Some tend to be poor team players, while others are simply likelier than not to have priorities that don't align well with the party's (which tends to lead to conflict).

That isn't to say that it's impossible to play such characters in a party, but it is more difficult, and as a result such alignments are likely to see more use by NPCs than PCs.

EDIT: Moreover, in a multiverse where alignments are manifest (in the form of aligned planes and the beings that inhabit them) rather than mere philosophy, it makes sense to have those who believe that balance between those forces must be maintained. Having the Prime overrun by CE demons would be nightmarish but a world overrun by LG angels, where you effectively have no freedom to even choose to be evil, is almost as bad. Hence watchdogs who make certain no aligned group ever gains an unreasonable advantage over the others.

It certainly is possible to remove TN as a preserver of the balance, but then we remove D&D from some of its oldest roots. Those stemming from writers like Moorcock and Zelazny, and the Great Wheel itself. It's feasible, but the implications should definitely considered, as alignment seems to be being kept for the sake of tradition, but removing the preserver of balance means throwing out an aspect of that tradition.

 

[Hussar]

True Fanaelialae, but, while I'm a HUGE fan of Moorcock, the whole Eternal Champion and balance thing was mostly his schtick. I'm not really sure that we have to keep this tradition when most of fantasy doesn't. You don't see it in writers like Robert Jordan or Steven Erikson. And there are a whole slew of golden age fantasy writers that certainly didn't include the concept either.

The Neutral Balancer makes perfect sense in a Moorcock universe. But, Moorcock's universe ignored morality by and large. Most of those devoted to balance were outright evil. This view works fine if you want to have a Moorcock style 'verse, but, I'm not sure if D&D is the right place for that at its base. At least, not anymore, if it ever really was. Moorcock's politics in his writing are particularly suited to having a Neutral Balance alignment, but, I don't think most settings actually follow those tendencies.

 

[Fanaelialae]

True Fanaelialae, but, while I'm a HUGE fan of Moorcock, the whole Eternal Champion and balance thing was mostly his schtick. I'm not really sure that we have to keep this tradition when most of fantasy doesn't. You don't see it in writers like Robert Jordan or Steven Erikson. And there are a whole slew of golden age fantasy writers that certainly didn't include the concept either.

The Neutral Balancer makes perfect sense in a Moorcock universe. But, Moorcock's universe ignored morality by and large. Most of those devoted to balance were outright evil. This view works fine if you want to have a Moorcock style 'verse, but, I'm not sure if D&D is the right place for that at its base. At least, not anymore, if it ever really was. Moorcock's politics in his writing are particularly suited to having a Neutral Balance alignment, but, I don't think most settings actually follow those tendencies.

I'm unfamiliar with Erikson, so I can't comment on his work, but I definitely think you see this in Jordan's Wheel of Time. It's just that there, instead of Moorcock's Law vs. Chaos, you have Good vs. Evil. The purportedly cyclical struggle between the The Dark One and The Dragon, Champion of the Light.

There's even definitely something to be said about balance in Jordan's world. Should the Dark One be victorious, the wheel of time would be broken and the world would end. But allowing the Children of the Light to take over wouldn't be much better.


That said, I can see where you're coming from. There's definitely fantasy (such as Greg Keyes' Waterborn) where there is no cosmic struggle between philosophies. However, if we are to distance D&D from the fiction that the alignment system is based on, I'd much rather see the alignment system replaced (maybe with something more resembling what the Palladium system has).

IMO, the 9-point system simply carries too much baggage from what it's based upon, coloring everything else it touches (and inviting a myriad of disagreements). Even if we replace the traditional meaning of TN (balance) with the meaning of Unaligned, there are still a number of alignments unlikely to see much use by players. LN, for example. How often does anyone have a character whose goal is order above all things? I think it's much more likely that you'd see someone who's either doing so for the good of others (LG) or out for themselves (LE). LN is really a very abstract sort of ideal.

I think that the alignment system makes reasonable sense when viewed through the lens of a cosmic struggle of ideologies. Assuming that they keep beings that are essentially embodied alignments (demons, angels, inevitables) I think it makes sense to have an alignment for those who try to maintain a balance between such ideologies. Because regardless of whether they have good intentions, being ruled by a bunch of fanatics is definitely not a good thing.

What I'm saying is that I think if you remove Moorcock from alignment, a lot of other things in D&D (such as the Great Wheel) begin to fall apart as well. In fact, those aspects are so entrenched in D&D tradition, I'm don't even know how you'd do it while still maintaining that tradition. It's one thing to effectively do a complete reworking (as in 4e), but the Great Wheel is based upon Good vs. Evil (angels vs. demons) as well as Law vs. Chaos (devils vs. demons).

 

[Andor]

The current trend in gaming seems to be not so much the old law vs chaos or even good vs evil but more about the "normal" vs alien corruption.

In Eberron this was present more than once with the dream world invaders and the abberrant forces of Khyber.

In Dark Sun it's the central conflict except that the corrupting forces of defiler magic won long ago.

In 5 rings the corruption of the shadowlands is an ever present threat.

Zombies, 'nuff said.

Call of Cuthulu. Aboleths, Illithids.

Half of gaming is a long litany of a xenophobes nightmare fuel.

While it would be really interesting to try to set up a game world where the primary axis of conflict would be Xenophobes - Normals - Xenophiles it's not exactly the traditional D&D alignment system. In fact depending on how you set up the aliens it can be perpendicular to both law/chaos and good/evil.

 

[Andor]

LN, for example. How often does anyone have a character whose goal is order above all things? I think it's much more likely that you'd see someone who's either doing so for the good of others (LG) or out for themselves (LE). LN is really a very abstract sort of ideal.

Here in the West that's true, but in Asian cultures order is often considered the highest goal. In China and Japan orderliness and constancy were often much more highly valued than good vs evil or kindness vs cruelty. Mind you this sort of mindset is usually something that emerges after some nasty civil wars or rival warlord periods. Stability seems much more valuable than mere niceness after a thing like that.

 

[Bluenose]

The current trend in gaming seems to be not so much the old law vs chaos or even good vs evil but more about the "normal" vs alien corruption.

Hardly a new trend. It was part of Runequest - everything vs Chaos - from the 1970s; and a theme in Mystara - Law, Neutral, Chaos vs Entropy - in the 1980s. And that's just the most obvious examples from that time.

 

[I'm A Banana]

LN, for example. How often does anyone have a character whose goal is order above all things? I think it's much more likely that you'd see someone who's either doing so for the good of others (LG) or out for themselves (LE). LN is really a very abstract sort of ideal.

My most recent character was someone I described as LN. It's not that she thought it was for everyone's good (though she did think that), it was more that she saw the world as a fundamentally ordered place, and saw that the best way to accomplish things was to work through order that had been established. She wasn't particularly altruistic about it -- which is why I didn't describe her as LG. She's certainly capable of doing awful things to people (imprisonment, torture, death, magical coercion) in the name of upholding that ideal.