D&D 5E (2014) What Alignment Am I?

[vostyg]

double post!

 

[vostyg]

That simple sense of right and wrong is a code (a very basic one, obviously), but if he attempts to follow it rigorously, then I'd classify him as Lawful. And you've actually made him more Lawful by giving him a tendency to categorizing people, and creating a sort of hierarchy of villainy that he places evil doers on. And their placement on that scale helps him determine how he interacts with him. He is building order and structure into his actions. That is a Lawful sort of thing, the way I look at alignment.

As for good/evil, he is neither. It's that "it's his job" bit that you mention. He's just doing what his code tells him to. A good person will have room in his heart to consider mercy, an evil one will bend his code for his own pleasure or gain.

Your character has created a code and aims to follow it above all else. That to me is LN.

Those are very good points. Thanks!

 

[Mercule]

As I'm thinking about it, he doesn't really follow an external code at all, just his own simple sense of right and wrong. This generally involves protecting the helpless and innocent from those who would prey on them. He tends to categorize people as either villains, victims, or neither, based on their behavior. He is not above roughing someone up whom he categorizes as a villain in order to get information, and he has no compunctions about killing a serious villain outright if only to prevent that person from victimizing others in the future. He takes no particular joy in this. To him, it's just an unsavory but necessary part of his job. He evaluates each person on his or her own merits, and he doesn't waste his time on petty wrongdoers, focusing instead on serious villains.

I'd go with very much Chaotic Good.

I've evolved to a slightly non-standard view of the Law/Chaos axis because of a few issues if you say "lawful characters follow the rules" and/or "chaotic characters follow no code". That would mean that the Paladin is expected to abide by laws that clearly lead to suffering (say, slavery as per pre-war South), which is absurd. Nor could you ever have a CG character who could actually explain his position, which is equally absurd.

Instead, I tend to view Lawful as an indication that the character tends to think of the group while Chaotic means he thinks in terms of individuals. What I mean by this is that a Lawful character will look at clans, races, nations, even clubs or guilds as whole entities. This could be the proletariat vs. the 1%, the enslavement of an "other", or the weight a good king feels from his title. A Chaotic character, on the other hand, tends to look at each situation and the parties individually. It's not just "a rich person", but could be someone who either takes personal responsibility with his money or is just plain greedy. Not every murder warrants the death penalty, but that guy with rage in his eyes just might be a mad dog. Ethically Neutral (Gygax referred to the Law/Chaos axis as ethics) characters balance the two in some way, whatever that looks like -- if they don't have a strong opinion or instinct about it, that's probably Neutral.

The tendency to group people/things may come from a desire for order or order may be a natural outgrowth of a tendency to group things. Likewise, seeing individuals instead of groups may birth a disregard for rules or it could be the other way around. Sometimes, the Lawful character just thinks everyone should do what he says or the Chaotic character just wants to be left alone.

The Good/Evil (moral) axis refers to whether a person looks for what benefits others or themselves first, and by how much. An extremely Evil character would even be willing to kill/maim another just for the entertainment value or because it was easier than asking them to move out of the way. An extremely Good character is likely to court martyrdom. Morally neutral characters are generally capable of justifying small, non-personal harm to others for their own gain -- stealing some bread because they're hungry or even making a career of petty theft. They might also lie (but not about anything important) or be willing to turn a friend over to the wicked queen ("it was him or me").

A category of "evil-hating neutrals" has always been a mainstay of D&D adventuring parties, though. That means they're generally in it for the money (or revenge, etc.), but they recognize that they do have people they care about or just that Iuz taking over the Flaness would be horribly inconvenient. Depending on where the vengeance vs. justice pendulum swings, a character like you originally described could be N or CN. The fuller description almost screams CG, to me, though.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[vostyg]

It's interesting to see such broadly differing perspectives even among veteran players. I was clearly right to be confused! So far, I've heard LN, N, CN, NG, and CG as answers.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[vostyg]

What matters is how you view your character, and how you view the alignment.

It's better to have a clear character concept, and a muddied view of alignment, than the opposite.

Fair enough!

 

[GreenTengu]

Alignments are a very poor method for classifying anything. It was a terrible idea out the gate and it would have been discarded to the dustbin, but it became a sacred cow.

You see, if you presuppose alignments are a thing then by all means you could create something whose behavior and actions always adhere to that particular alignment.

But if once you have a character made organically-- there is almost no chance that you are going to be able to have people universally agree on the alignment of that character. Especially if it is a character who has been thrust in myriad of situations and has had to react to those situations organically based on the character's values, ideals, ethics as they struggle against the challenges presented.

Generally speaking organic characters are not going to be as myopic as the alignment system tries to force characters to be.

A character could be Lawful so long as the laws they have to deal with are reasonable and to their mind fair, but once things become too bureaucratic or tyrannical they might well rebel against it, particularly if the lives of themselves and those they value are impeded by these laws.

And if someone lives within a tyrannical system, it might be natural for them to rebel in every small way they can. But that doesn't mean they are up for tossing the world into 100% complete anarchy-- even if they themselves initially think so. At some point when exposed to enough lawlessness they will find that the situation is unbearable and begin advocating that people at least keep their word and everyone respects each others ability to live freely, particularly within that anarchy someone else begins exercising unfair power over them and there is no social contract to prevent it.

Similarly, someone might be good in all the actions they take, be ready to stand up for justice... but once you say they need to forgo clothing and shelter and subsist on nothing but mushrooms in order to avoid having negative impact on other life and bring no suffering into the world, they are probably not going to be good. And if someone wrongs them or those they care about, they might well be willing to engage in evil actions in order to reach justice.

Similarly, someone might be labeled as evil because they are primarily interested only in their own enrichment and empowerment and quite content to cut corners and cause others to suffer in order to have that. But that doesn't mean they are going to stand for people causing suffering to others' eternal souls in order to summon demons and desecrate their bodies to turn into meat sack puppets to cause terror to their families... that kind of stuff is a step too far and they are going to fight to stop it.

None of these should be considered indications that the character fundamentally shifted so much that their alignment needs to change. It is just that the situation was far too extreme in the direction of this simplistic division of human morality. It is just that the situation has shifted around them.

It is even worse when applied to races....
We know not all Dwarfs are "Lawful Good" in all their actions all the time because greed, revenge and racial hatred are part of their fundamental concept.
Same thing, Elves would not be trained to use weapons and spells that cause suffering if they really were all about being good, kind and polite to all living things all the time.

Similarly, if Orcs really were universally chaotic evil in every single action they ever take, there is no possible way they could exist as a people as there would never be a next generation that would be able to be born as helpless infants and somehow survive until adulthood. Where exactly are these big hordes of them coming from that adventurers are slaughtering given that apparently their alignment indicates that they should have wiped themselves completely out?

 

[tuxgeo]

"Law" is Group-think: an agreed set of rules for all members of a group to live by. Think of a traffic-light system: red light means stop, green light means go. We in the present day have the technology to implement this; but what are we implementing? A driver pulls up to a red light in the middle of the night, when no other traffic is approaching, and STOPS at the red light -- because that's the code. When the light turns green again, the driver proceeds again. That's "Lawful": following agreed-upon rules as a matter of course, regardless of the actual circumstances in which one does so.

A character who always follows internal drives, impulses, feelings, directives, or whims without much (or even *any*) regard to established laws is clearly Chaotic. That's the prime meaning of Chaotic: each individual deciding for himself or herself what to do in each situation. Even if the behavior of one Chaotic individual is consistent throughout a time period, that doesn't make it Lawful, because the individual is following internal guidance instead of external guidance.

 

[Satyrn]

No. I disagree.

. . . In order to have an effective distinction, a lawful character must have some referent outside of themselves. A "law" to follow.

I think we will never be able to agree, because this looks like a fundamental sticking point. I will never accept that. To me, a Lawful character is Lawful because he seeks to find order, structure, predictability in his actions and the actions of others, and seek to create that order and structure in some way.

In my thinking, for example, being a neat freak is a Lawful trait. That person has a place for everything, and everything has a place. That's order and structure, and that person knows where an object is based on that predictability.

A messy slob like me is more Chaotic.