Squaring the Circle (old alignment to new)

[TerraDave]

Lets try to fit things from the old alignment system into the new one.

Start with the basic nine alignments:

Old=New

NG=G
LG=LG
CG=G or UA
LN=LG or UA
N=UA
CN=UA or CE
LE=E
NE=E
CE=CE (or E)

Or lets take divine servants (for whom this would be most relevant)

Cleric of a (mostly) chaotic god=Now unaligned. They have divine goals, but are not too hung up on how you get them, or bigger ideological battles.

Cleric of a (mostly) good god=Good. Simple.

Cleric of a (mostly) lawful god=Lawful good? Works if we define LG to pull it away from G, and not just in a G way. Some could be UA, but we are pushing them with the CNs. Some LE go to just E. I can think of examples where this works, and ones where it doesn’t.

Clerics of a (mostly) evil god=Evil.

Cleric of Chaotic Evil? This is left over for the real nuts. Cultist of Orcus that do (truly) unspeakable things, those that seek to free Cthulu, that sort of thing. But does this include Orc clerics of ol one eye? Not 100% sure.

Overall, unaligned is really picking up neutrals and many chaotics. Lawful good probably works for lawful, but it needs to be something other then “more good”. Evil is power and greed on steroids, and picks up both tyrants and crime lords (and their servants).

Chaotic evil is probably the greyest. What keeps them from just being evil? Are they all insane cultist?

Thoughts?

 

[Revinor]

Chaotic evil is probably the greyest. What keeps them from just being evil? Are they all insane cultist?

For me, evil is about gods (Astral), CE is about primordials (worst parts of Elemental Chaos). Yes, probably human following primordial 'religion' counts as insane cultist.

Additionally, Call of Ctulhu is dealing just with insane cultists, it is quite broad category...

 

[keterys]

I don't think you can map things so easily.

You can probably do it more like:
NG = G, LG, or UA
LG = LG, G, or UA

etc - but that's probably vague enough not to help you.

 

[Family]

Saffron: "You gonna kill me?"
Mal: "Can you conjure up a terribly compelling reason for me not to?"
Saffron: "I didn't kill you."
Mal: "You handed me and my crew over to those that would kill us. That buys you nothing."
Saffron: (smiles) "I made you dinner."

NE to E cha based human rogue.

 

[keterys]

I miss that show

 

[Celebrim]

Lets try to fit things from the old alignment system into the new one.

Old=New

NG=G
LG=LG
CG=G or UA
LN=LG or UA
N=UA
CN=UA or CE
LE=E
NE=E
CE=CE (or E)

Unfortunately, things don't map so easily in my opinion.

Let's do the easy ones.
LG = LG
NG = G
NE = E
CE = CE

After that it gets hard.

The two easiest remaining are...
CG: Mostly G, perhaps a few UA for the most chaotic since that is defined as 'non-good'.
LE: Mostly E, perhaps a few UA for the most lawful since that is defined as 'good'.

The next two easiest...
LN: Mostly UA, but a few demoted to E(!!) on the grounds that you apparantly can't passively serve a cause anymore and so we have to judge whether or on the whole a cause is evil or good, and a few promoted to LG(!!!) for the same reason.
CN: Mostly E (!!) because chaotic is now a 'non-good', with a few UA and a smattering of G (for the ones not extremely chaotic) and a few CE (!!!) for those that are chaotic and also insane.

The single hardest one...
N: The problem here is that the former alignment 'Nuetral' covered two distinct groups. Those that were unaligned for various reasons (apathy, lack of intelligence, rational self-interest, pragmatism, etc.) and those that believed in neutrality, harmony, and balance as the normative Good (IRL, Greek pagan philosophy, Stoicism, some branches of Hinduism, Taoism, some branches of Confucianism, etc.) I don't think you can say that the intellectual choice of neutrality is strictly speaking the same as being unaligned. Philosophical neutrality is either an alignment with both or an alignment with objective neutrality as if it was a thing of as real of substance as good or evil. That isn't the same as alignment with nothing. UA is the easiest place to stuff philosophical nuetrality, but its not fair to that doctrine in as much as it doesn't - as previous editions did - treat it as being on an equal and level playing field with all the other choices.
Exactly what you do with these I'm not sure. My guess is that most of them get promoted up to G (!!) simply by virtue of being organized thought and having the intention of creating 'good'.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

For me, evil is about gods (Astral), CE is about primordials (worst parts of Elemental Chaos). Yes, probably human following primordial 'religion' counts as insane cultist.

Additionally, Call of Ctulhu is dealing just with insane cultists, it is quite broad category...

This! Mostly.

I think what is missing is the implied cosmology and mythology. We got a hint of it in Worlds and Monsters, but I supsect (hope) there is more to it in DMG and/or MM.

G vs. E
This is not fairy tale, watered-down good vs. evil. Someone who is Good (notice the capital G) is an agent for good in the world. Promoting peace, goodwill, well-being of sentient beings, etc. is important to Good beings, and that's what they do.

Evil creatures aren't selfish bad guys. They're not sadistic murderers. They are agents of the forces of evil that actively promote war, suffering and enslaving sentient beings. An Evil (again with the capital E) creature does evil for the sake of evil, not because it serves its own ends.

LG vs. CE
Lawful Good is the more good and Chaotic Evil is the more evil. In this cosmology/mythology Lawful Good beings are not just Good, but they honor the good gods, promote the "natural" order imposed by the gods, and specifically oppose the evil destructive forces of the Elmental Chaos. After the war between the gods and the Primordials, the Elemental Chaos, titans, giants and elementals are the last remaining bastion of the nihilistic forces of the Primordials that tried to destroy all of the World. The goals of Chaotic Evil beings are absolute destruction of intelligent life including the gods. Lawful Good beings stand specifically against these forces of elemental and ancient evil.

Unaligned
Any creature that is not an actual agent of Good, Evil, Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil is unaligned. You can be a good person without being Good. You can be a malicious, selfish, murderous bastard without being evil. The application of an alignment to a being implies that it is actively seeking to promote an agenda related to its alignment.

 

[Celebrim]

I miss that show

One of the greatest artistic tragedies of our generation was the failure of that show to be renewed.

It's roughly the equivalent of what the world would have been like if Vincent Van Gogh would have burned all his later works so that the world never knew of him and he remained in obscurity. It's that level of tragedy.

 

[Vikingkingq]

Regarding Chaotic Evil, I would say that in terms of philosophy, while all Evil PCs/NPCs are inherently selfish and desire to satisfy normally forbidden desires, most Evil PCs/NPCs recognize that there are some limits to this - a formerly LE would recognize that order and structure are necessary for maintaining power and strength, a formerly NE would recognize that sometimes you have to work within the system to extract the greatest benefit to yourself. A CE goes further, believing that anything that restricts their ability to satisfy the most depraved desires is inherently limiting, even a system of your own authority, because you get bounded up by the rules. Likewise, any recognition of the superior power of some society or organization whose rules you might need to obey by the letter or in public is limiting. A CE believes that all such things have to be ignored/destroyed/surpassed, no matter the difficulty.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

If you don't stop brining Firefly into alingment threads I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.