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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6732793" data-attributes="member: 42582">Do you have the 1st ed AD&D books? By putting together the text from the PHB and DMG I think I've got something less impenetrable than Gygax's original!I agree the first of the two paragraphs is basically nonsense. It is the second that I think conveys something about NE - like LE the NE is concerned with domination; like LE the NE believes that "good" (ie principled respect for and pursuit of the wellbeingof others) is just a charade for holding back the "deserving); but unlike the LE the NE don't believe that social order is the tool for imposing their yoke upon the world.Sure, but then I don't think the AD&D alignments would be very helpful - at least, not the ones set out by Gygax in his PHB and DMG.I think a lot of headaches come out of the view that the 9-point alignment system is a universal scheme for classification. Whereas, as  actually presented by Gygax in those books, it focuses on a particular conflict: is it social order, or is it individual freedom and self-realisation, that is the path to universal wellbeing?To give another example of an interesting conflict that Gygax's 9-point alignment doesn't help frame: rights vs welfare. Gygax treats these both as good without distinction, so his alignment labels don't capture that point of disagreement. If you wanted a campaign or a story that was (say) Bentham vs Rawls, you would need a different set of labels from the ones that Gygax provides.I think that once you start (i) trying to apply alignment labels to organisations, rather than to individuals, and (ii) take the view that everyone who belongs to or serves that organisation is of that alignment, you are going beyond what alignment can usefully do.In the Star Wars context, for instance, what makes all Imperial officers LE rather than LN? Where is the evidence that they scorn truth, beauty and human wellbeing? Where is the evidence that they are trying to impose their yoke upon the world? That might be true for some of them but the personalities and beliefs of most are just not explored in enough detail to tell one way or the other.</blockquote>

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