What does alignment describe? (Forked Thread: What Alignment is Rorschach?)

[Celebrim]

Most people who have posted to this thread say that alignment is how people ACT. But that misses an important point: I think that alignment is, primarily, intended to describe a person's system of BELIEFS, not actions. Oh, certainly, most 'sane' people act in some rough degree of accordance with their beliefs, but when push comes to shove, when people find themselves against a wall with limited choices, none of which may seem viable, when people are under extreme stress from within and without, it is at those times that people may, and sometimes do, act in ways that are not in accordance with the 'beliefs' that they hold most dear at times when they are relaxing in front of a warm fire with a glass of merlot.

So consider the 'stressed-out' actions of a desperate L/G person in responding to a threat with excessive force that results in the death of someone who merely slapped his face. Does this action mandate an alignment change??? I would argue that it does not, because the person's BELIEFS have not changed at all.

While I agree with your general thrust, a note of caution on that. Actions are nothing more than realized beliefs. Having a belief that murder would be wrong is somewhat meaningless, if you are never in a position to contemplate murder. Only when you are in a position to act on your belief does your belief really have alot of substance. Which isn't to say holding beliefs strongly isn't going to substantially effect how you act, but it does suggest that a person who acts one way when their stated beliefs are another maybe does not actually actually have the beliefs that they think that they do (or say that they do).

Let me add to your criticism by saying that alot of people who are saying, "I believe alignment is merely how you act.", are missing the point in another very important way. In D&D we don't usually go from how a person acts and then try to construct an alignment. In D&D alignment is an attribute we assign the character, and from that we try to construct how the character would act.

I have said absolutely nothing which disagrees with a statement like, "Alignment is the sum of a character's actions." I have also done very little to address what the basis of ethics ought to be - intention, consequence, or virtue. I don't know why people feel compelled to state things as if they were contridicting me when I've not spoken about them at all. But in any event, such a simple statement as "Alignment is the sum of a character's actions.", tells us very little about how alignment is or should be used, and it gives us very little answer to the questions which prompted this thread fork like, "If alignment is the sum of a character's actions, how is not just a short hand and wholy inadequate description of personality?"

I believe that what I have stated still describes what alignment is regardless of which contriversial position we take on free will vs. predestination or consequentialism vs. deontological ethics. I'm trying to avoid taking stands on such things because I think they are largely irrelevant to describing what alignment is and what it is used for, and I don't want to get bogged down in arguments to which there may be no satisfactory answer.

 

[Leif]

Very good points.

-- Your Friendly Neighborhood Devil's Advocate

 

[SKyOdin]

In most of these alignment discussions that I have seen, including this one, people usually end up talking about alignment as if they had to assign alignments to people in real life. However, D&D isn't real life. Characters in D&D are like characters in a novel or TV show.

Alignment isn't something that is ascribed to a character, it is one of the traits that a character is built around. It is not about beliefs or actions, it is about archetype, and the role that a character plays in the story. When we assign a character an alignment of Good, we are giving heroic qualities to that character. When we assign a character an alignment of Evil, we are assigning that character the archetype of a villain.

Alignment is thus a seed of sorts. Once you have determined that you need an evil character to fill out a villainous role, you can start to think up the reasons why that character is evil. The beliefs that character possesses and the acts they have committed in the past are both created only after that point.

 

[Leif]

Yes, but what about Neutrals? They can be either hero or villain, depending upon the circumstances of the situation. Where do you draw your clearly demarcated bright lines then?

....just asking, not arguing....

BTW, Rorschach is by far the coolest character in "Watchmen"! The distant runner-up being, imho, that weird owl dude.

 

[Nivenus]

For the intent/acts debate:

When do good ends justify evil means to achieve them? Is it morally acceptable, for example, to torture an evil captive in order to extract vital information that can prevent the deaths of thousands of innocents? Any good character shudders at the thought of commiting torture, but the goal of preventing thousands of deaths is undeniably a virtuous one, and a neutral character might easily consider the use of torture in such a circumstance. With evil acts on a smaller scale, even the most virtuous characters can find themselves tempted to agree to a very good end justifies a mildly evil means. Is it acceptable to tell a small lie in order to prevent a major catastrophe? A large catastrophe? A world-shattering catastrophe?

In the D&D universe, the fundamental answer is no, an evil act is an evil act no matter what good result it may achieve. A paladin who knowingly commits an evil act in pursuit of any end no matter how good still jeapordizes her paladinhood. Any exalted character risks losing exalted feats and other benefits of celestial favor if he commits an evil act for any reason. Whether or not good ends can justify evil means, they certainly cannot make evil means any less evil.

Some good characters might view a situation where an evil act is required to avert a catastrophic evil as a form of martyrdom... For some, that is a sacrifice worth making, just as they would not hesitate to sacrifice their lives for the same cause. After all, it would simply be selfish to let innocents die so a character can hang on to her exalted feats.

Unfortunately, this view is ultimately misguided. This line of thinking treats the purity of the good character's soul as a commodity that she can just give up... or sacrifice like any other possession. In fact, when an otherwise good character decided to commit an evil act, the effects are larger than the individual character. What the character sees as a personal sacrifice is actually a shift in the universal balance of good and evil, in evil's favor. The consequences of that single evil act, no matter how small, extend far beyond the single act and involve a loss to more than just the character doing the deed. Thus, is it not a personal sacrifice, but a concession to evil, and thus unconscionable.

Good ends might sometimes demand evil means. The means remain evil, however, and so characters who are serious about their good alignment and exalted status cannot resort to them, no matter how great the need.

Of course, that won't solve the issue, but I think it's important to bring up what the actual, RAW definition of D&D "good" is.

No one should mistake D&D alignment for their own moral views, varied as they are. Some of us might be utilitarians. Some might be nihilists. Some might even be objectivists. As a result, it is silly of us to assign our own moral standards to the D&D alignment system, which was clearly not designed to be used in such a way. D&D alignment doesn't really resemble any moral philosophy fully, though it probably comes closest to Neo-Platonic virtue ethics.

 

[Celebrim]

Yes, but what about Neutrals? They can be either hero or villain, depending upon the circumstances of the situation. Where do you draw your clearly demarcated bright lines then?

....just asking, not arguing....

BTW, Rorschach is by far the coolest character in "Watchmen"! The distant runner-up being, imho, that weird owl dude.

Indeed.

And we can come up with other problems with the idea of alignment as 'team' or 'role'. What about the character that provoked this thread in the first place? Where does Rorschach fit into this? Is he villain or hero, or something else? And do we really need bright crisp lines in order to answer questions like that?

Or what about Belkar from the 'Order of the Stick'. He's evil, but he doesn't play for 'Team Evil'. Is he a hero because he plays for 'Our Team' and is that enough to redeem him, or is he a villain no matter what he aids or acheives?

What about anti-heroes in general? And what about the sliding scale of anti-heroism?

 

[Nivenus]

Belkar's evil, because he does evil. Simple as that.

Yes, he fights for "Team Good," but only because it basically gets him free lodging, allies, and no repercussions for doing evil so long as it's to the "right" people. Also, as he states early on, he loves the attention that only they can give him. As a result, both he (for restraining himself in order to be with the Order) and Roy (for tolerating him) are not very pure in their alignments (chaotic evil and lawful good, respectively).

 

[maddman75]

The only thing I've ever seen alignment used for in game was an excuse to be a jerk.

I have to screw up our ambush, I'm Lawful Good!
Of course I'm going to light the book we need to stop the demon on fire, I'm Chaotic Neutral!
You shouldn't be surprised that I betray the group to the villain for no good reason, I'm Neutral Evil!

The best thing 4e did was de-emphasize alignment to the point I don't have to worry about it any more. Better if they'd gotten rid of it and replaced it with some more interesting goals/motivations/flaws type of mechanics.

 

[maddman75]

The only thing I've ever seen alignment used for in game was an excuse to be a jerk.

I have to screw up our ambush, I'm Lawful Good!
Of course I'm going to light the book we need to stop the demon on fire, I'm Chaotic Neutral!
You shouldn't be surprised that I betray the group to the villain for no good reason, I'm Neutral Evil!

The best thing 4e did was de-emphasize alignment to the point I don't have to worry about it any more. Better if they'd gotten rid of it and replaced it with some more interesting goals/motivations/flaws type of mechanics.

 

[SKyOdin]

Yes, but what about Neutrals? They can be either hero or villain, depending upon the circumstances of the situation. Where do you draw your clearly demarcated bright lines then?

....just asking, not arguing.... :

You answered it yourself: Neutral (or unaligned) characters are the ones who are not necessarily heroes or villains, but can become either depending on how events fall out.