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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 4703676" data-attributes="member: 32740">Alignment in D&D has never been well-explained as to its actual purpose - the REASON it is included in D&D. Alignment has further never been well explained as to how it fulfills that purpose, being vague, contradictory, and inaccurate. But it HAS worked. Not universally, perhaps, but it DOES work. If you accept that the purpose of alignment in D&D is to act as a guide to players for having their characters behave in a reasonable/consistent manner and not just do whatever they want, whenever they want without justification or explanation, then alignment has worked. Oh, people may disagree on how it's supposed to do that, and they may disagree on just what particular little box a given character is supposed to be in, disagree on when they stray out of their box and what the punishment for doing so should be - but in using alignment (even badly or mistakenly) players ENDEAVOR to get their characters into a particular box of behavior and keep them there. That means alignment has worked, even if it's worked poorly as a result of its own inadequacies and ill definition. Alignment is NOT used in D&D in the same way that it was used in fiction by its creator Poul Anderson (or Michael Moorcock who used Andersons idea if I understand that correctly). Frankly, I doubt that even Gygax had a good conception of what alignment was supposed to be doing for him in D&D. He likely just included his adaptation of it because he thought it was cool - just as he was inspired to include a lot of other bits and pieces from an entire cavalcade of fiction. But once included it DID seem to serve a purpose even if not even Gygax could put into writing at the time what that purpose was. And then with every version of D&D alignment has been REwritten to attempt to make it conform to a new authors misunderstanding of its purpose. Given the way alignment IS generally described in D&D, and given the above understanding of its purpose, my conclusion has been that the best way to categorize characters within a given alignment is to look at how that character sees their place in the universe and how THEY believe that the universe works. So let's take Rorschach as an example. On the axis of law-neutrality-chaos he is lawful. In alignment, the opposite of lawful is chaos - NOT unlawful. Looking at Moorcock/Pouls original use lawful/chaos has to do with ORDER. If Moorcock was dealing with gamers he'd have likely used the term order instead of lawful because it more accurately indicates the intended opposite of chaos. If it IS more about order and how you see your place in the universe it's about seeing a universe where order does exist or should exist, and/or where your characters purpose is to seek or maintain that order. Rorschach believes that there needs to be or should be a certain order in the world and that his purpose and that of other masks is to establish and enforce it. Rorshach therefore doesn't CARE what the written law says except as it suits his purpose. If the law fails to understand and assist masks in their voluntary duty then the law is to be ignored.  On the axis of good-neutral-evil Rorschach certainly isn't able to be associated with the extreme of good because he doesn't care about so many of the things that good identifies with (borrowing a list from 3.5) - <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Altruism</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Respect for life</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Concern for dignity of sentient beings</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Tell the truth</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Honor tradition</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Honorability in general</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Trustworthiness</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Obedience to authority</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Reliability</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Making personal sacrifices</li> </ul>Where he agrees would certainly be:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Judge those who fall short of their duty</li> </ul>But neither is he able to be associated with Evil because he isn't indiscriminate or uncaring in his punishments - he's quite narrowly purposeful and willing to apply punishment to ANYONE when he thinks they have it coming and to protect/avenge the rest. He's doing what he believes is appropriate and beneficial for all the right reasons even if he is ruthless and violent in doing so. The ruthlessness and violence are NECESSARY, not fun or meaningless. Being between the two extremes of good and evil makes him neutral. Lawful Neutral - at least as most D&D alignment approaches would have you think of it. Even if you disagree with my own or someone elses assessment of a characters alignment or how alignment is to be interpreted and used, alignment still fulfills its purpose in the game if it gets players to attempt to play their characters with some thought towards consistency and being able to provide justification or explanation for why their characters act (or don't act) in the way that they do.</blockquote>

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