Understanding Alignments?

[Hand of Evil]

I think everyone knows my soapbox DMs need to define good and evil in their games, as Tom Cashel said players imprint their views onto the alignment system, by defining good and evil the DM builds cultural taboos, manifest destiny, noblesse oblige, etc into their game, giving the players the benchmark of how to act.

 

[Torm]

Lawful Good is the key, and the biggest problem, IMO, is people who misunderstand what 'Lawful' is supposed to mean. I discussed this in another thread, and pardon the repost here, but I couldn't figure out how to link straight to that post instead of the entire thread - and I figure some of you might not want to read through 9 or 10 pages to see what I said:

There is a common misconception about the Lawful descriptor - so common, in fact, that I've even seen the paid authors of RPG books screw it up from time to time.

"Lawful" doesn't have doesn't have a lot to do with following the laws of men or gods! (There is a connection, but it is less direct, and I'll touch on it in a moment.) It is an internal, behavioral descriptor - it refers to whether or not a person has an internal set of rules and organizational ideas for themselves that are relatively immutable. As opposed to someone who either does not have such rules, or for whom those rules frequently change or are ignored - someone with a "Chaotic" behavior, in other words.

The Rogue that steals whatever, whenever, as the mood hits them, with NO regard for anyone (not even bad regard, as in wanting to hurt people) and no particular rules for himself is Chaotic Something, probably Neutral. The Rogue that never steals from children, the elderly, the crippled, or anyone who has his own militia , who never steals from another Rogue unless that Rogue stole from him first, who always leaves his victims with enough silver for their next meal - the Rogue that has a general Code inside himself that he is dedicated to, in other words - is probably Lawful Neutral.

(Twisted as it may seem, the Rogue who is dedicated to an internal general Code that includes things like never allowing someone to insult him without taking something they value away from them, who only commits his crimes on evenly numbered dates, and who always makes certain he knows someone's name before he kills them to take their stuff - well, he's Lawful Evil.)

The reason it frequently seems that Lawful characters will identify with the laws of men or of a particular church is because it usually (but not always) takes a Lawful minded character to come up with a general Code of laws, and since the Lawful mind follows a logic system, other Lawful characters are likely to understand and incorporate that logic - especially in situations where they may have been raised having that logic laid on top of their Lawful nature before they developed their own logics, or where (as in the case of many Paladin/Cleric characters) their own internal Code indicates taking up Duty to a greater cause, including taking up aspects of that Duty that might have never developed within themselves. Also because of the logical nature of Law, a Lawful character with no preconceptions on a particular subject who is entering a land with laws regarding that subject (say, a LN Ranger entering lands with slavery when he has never heard of it) is likely to internalize the logic of those laws - make them his own, so to speak - unless they contradict his Good/Neutral/Evil axis.

 

[Aethelstan]

D&D alignments are needlessly confusing. They create confusion and uncertainity but add nothing to the game. D&D would be no worse without them. I wish 3rd ed. had junked them. Alignments belong in the same heap as percentile strength and racial level caps.

 

[fredramsey]

This discussion, unfortunately, has been going on for as long as there has been 9 (instead of 3) alignments.

Myself, I don't pay too much attention to it. I do buy into the fact that there is a difference in the amount of "Evil" in a CE shopkeeper and a demon.

I also do NOT buy into the idea that CN = insane. Heck, that's what I am in RL

 

[Quasqueton]

"Lawful" doesn't have doesn't have a lot to do with following the laws of men or gods! (There is a connection, but it is less direct, and I'll touch on it in a moment.) It is an internal, behavioral descriptor - it refers to whether or not a person has an internal set of rules and organizational ideas for themselves that are relatively immutable. As opposed to someone who either does not have such rules, or for whom those rules frequently change or are ignored - someone with a "Chaotic" behavior, in other words.

The Rogue that steals whatever, whenever, as the mood hits them, with NO regard for anyone (not even bad regard, as in wanting to hurt people) and no particular rules for himself is Chaotic Something, probably Neutral. The Rogue that never steals from children, the elderly, the crippled, or anyone who has his own militia , who never steals from another Rogue unless that Rogue stole from him first, who always leaves his victims with enough silver for their next meal - the Rogue that has a general Code inside himself that he is dedicated to, in other words - is probably Lawful Neutral.

Does the above match the D&D definition of Lawful?

"'Law' implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include close-mindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgmentalness, and a lack of adaptability. Those who consciously promote lawfulness say that only lawful behavior creates a society in which people can depend on each other and make the right decisions in full confidence that others will act as they should."

Does your LN rogue example match this:
"A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs her. Order and organization are paramount to her. She may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or she may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government.
Lawful neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you are reliable and honorable without being a zealot."

Quasqueton

 

[Umbran]

Why are D&D alignments so hard for everyone to agree on and come to a mutual understanding of? What is the intrinsic flaw of D&D alignments?

I think that the reason everyone has a hard time coming to a mutual understanding about alignment is that the definitiosn are designed to be flexible from one campaign to another, and many people try to treat them as if they are supposed to be static across all campaigns.

This is not a flaw of alignments - it is a strength. I want a game that can easily be bent to a number of different moral stances. The problem arises either in the presentation, or in the gamers who don't get the message.

 

[Shuffle]

Implies is the key word there.


However the arguement of having a "code" is flawed as well.

I have a code to slaughter or enslave everything I meet. I have regard for them and that regard is that they are worth less than me and thus not deserving of other treatment.


That is CE in the extreme, someone may try to argue that its LE....

Lawful characters should in general respect laws (unless the laws are in themselves unlawful). Its worth noting that a CG character in a LG society would probably never have a run in with the law. After all CG may not like the laws, but for the most part they agree with his/her moral compass.
And yes, everyoe applies they're moral code to alignments.

I don't think lawful good is hard. Remember a law that is evil, isn't a legitimate law, and thus a paladin can completely disregard it.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I think the real problem (which is exacerbated by the D&D rulebooks) is that, in any given alignment discussion, someone will refer to Lawful as being equivalent to legal, and Chaotic as being equivalent to illegal.

In other words, they purport that breaking a legal law is a Chaotic act.

This is a view that cannot be supported so long as alignments are objective (and they are - it says so right in the rules).

Moreover, those who argue against the D&D alignment system get caught up in the definition of acts - doing X is a Lawful act, doing Y is a Chaotic act, V is a Good act except when it contradicts Q (and becomes an Evil act), etc.

I think stepping away from that point of view, and realizing that, on the whole, there are very, very few "aligned acts" and most of them are magical in nature (i.e., animating the dead is Evil, casting Dictum is Lawful, etc.), and that the true alignment discussion occurs when you ask not "What?" but "Why?," the alignment system makes much more sense.

In other words, suppose Bob kills an old woman as she is crossing the street. Is that an Evil act?

The answer is, "You're asking the wrong question. Why did Bob kill the old woman?" Vengeance? A desire to see her blood glisten on his blade? A case of mistaken identity?

Furthermore, "How does Bob feel about killing the old woman?"

Finally, I believe an almost-as-big problem with alignment is in the supposed superiority of Good and Law. There are two reasons for this, to my mind. First is the Paladin class. They are billed as the ultimate Good Guys, and must be Lawful Good, so therefore Lawful Good is the ultimate Good.

I disagree with this entirely.

More deeply, however, I think that this occurs because the history of moral philosophy has been largely dedicated to discovering that which is good, so that more people may ... be enlightened, for lack of a better term. Therefore, people assume that Good is the best alignment.

The flaw with this, I believe, is that human morality isn't so much about what is Good as it is about what is good. "Little g" good, in other words, is that which is desirable.

For the slave owner, it is good to keep his or her slaves in line and productive. It is good for the serial killer to have a victim at his or her mercy so that horrible things can be done. For the ruthless merchant, it is good to drive all competition out of business using whatever means are necessary.

In no way, however, would the people doing most of these things be Good.

Evil is an objective philosophical force of the D&D universe equally as powerful as Good. There are, therefore, two possiblities: 1) Anyone who believes in the power of Evil (i.e., worships an Evil god) over Good is merely insane; or, 2) There are valid philosophical reasons to believe in Evil over Good.

I believe that 2) must be the case, because I prefer a D&D cosmology where everything that the PCs must war against is not consumed with cacklingly mad schemes.

Thus, a servant of a god of Tyrrany (LE, in D&D terms) actually believes that there is moral good (little g) in the oppression of the slave-serf class, and can construct a valid philosophical proof to demonstrate it. Perhaps he or she will cite the dangers of banditry and crime were they not socially constrained "for their own good," but in any case he or she will have a reason for his or her beliefs.

Well, that turned out a little longer than I expected. Oh well.

 

[Turjan]

The SC judges legality, not morality. Lawful Neutral (in theory).

Quasqueton

He was not referring to alignment decsisions of the judges, but to the morality of the question central to the case; from this point of view, it was a very good example .

D&D alignment is too simplified to emulate all questions that might appear in life. Especially, the law/chaos axis is ill-defined. I think everybody will recognize an extremely good or evil alignment, but everything else is kind of blurry. Sure, an RPG lives from simplifications of a complicated world and with moral questions coming alive, but in my experience this causes more problems in gameplay than it yields interesting deeds.

I just did away with alignment, and that's a satisfactory solution for me .

 

[Wombat]

My biggest problem with alignment has been that it is both Absolute and Relative similtaneously.

Monsters have Absolute Alignment, as to certain spells, planes of existence, magical items. An orc is Evil and thus always Evil. For a paladin to kill an orc is thoroughly acceptable because the cause of Good is being forwarded by the destruction of Evil. Now a lammasu is Good, so for a paladin to kill one would be an Evil act. Clear cut, black and white interpretation of alignment allows this.

Characters have Relative Alignment. The sum total of their actions show a tendency towards one of the nine alignments, but they are not forced into one or another mold. A Good character can commit Evil acts and yet remain Good, not even really tingeing into Neutral, as long as he does relatively more Good acts (by number? by degree? by magnitude? by press coverage?).

These are merely the top of the pops for me, but this annoys me. But consider the poor paladin -- he has a power (Smite) which is Good, but only when used right and only when he himself has been acting in accordance with his Paladin's Code. Now are we to judge the paladin by the Relative Alignment code or the Aboslute Alignment code? Must all of his actions conform to Absolute Alignment, thus placing him in a very tight straitjacket, or to Relative Alignment, which allows a heckuvalotta leeway?

And, as noted above, what is Good and Evil is often shaped by personal views of the players in the modern world rather than the beliefs of the fantasy world. Slavery could be considered Good, Evil, Lawful, or Neutral, depending on how you interpret it. Similar arguments could be constructed for human/sentient sacrifice, bondage, capital punishment, transportation to the colonies, and dozens of other issues, many of which show up in at least my rpgs at one point or another.

So this is my problem -- alignment, even as presented, is neither Absolute nor Relative, but some fuzzy-bordered concept standing sadly and confusedly inbetween.