Would you die for D&D? For EN World? Alignment and groups.

[El Mahdi]

... this is less complicated?

The way I see it, Yes. Since it outlines what a characters priorities are, it becomes an objective description. Using alignment and alignment codes, even the way you've laid out, still remains subjective. Subjective to me, will always be more complicated than objective.

... For example, Jasper would be Lawful Good with halflings, and Lawful Evil with non-halflings.

Except from the standpoint of Jasper, who feels he's Lawful Good on both counts...

...A thieves' guild could be Lawful Neutral with respect to its members (they are all expected to follow the rules and will be treated impartially), and Chaotic Evil with respect to the rest of the city (disregarding their laws and their well-being).

From who's vantage? The City would consider them Chaotic Evil, the thieves themselves probably would not. A rival city may also consider them to not be Evil, as long as they are causing problems for the city.

Unless Alignment has a standardized point of view, it's too subjective. Is the standard always from the point of view of the DM? Is the standard the point of view of the character? (In which case everyone would probably be some version of Good...even the "Evil" characters.)

This also means that everytime one reads the alignment shorthand, one has to consciously consider from what point of view the description is being made. That sounds significantly more complicated to me...

The shorthand may be less complicated for you, as DM, to quickly understand an npc or pc...but I would think significantly less so for your players. Does a player have to think: "from the standpoint of the DM, my character Jasper is Lawful Good to Halflings, and Lawful Evil to non-Halflings. But in actuality, since I view all non-Halflings as Evil, shouldn't I just write my alignment down as Lawful Good?" (Also, shouldn't he actually be Chaotic Evil from the perspective of non-Halflings?)

So Yes, I do feel that an objective statement and prioritization of a character's values based on an internal valuation, is significantly less complicated than attempting to quantify or define relative morality from multiple external points of view. YMMV. But, I'd suggest bouncing it off your players and see if they find it confusing or not. It may not work quite the way you've envisioned.


P.S.: I also think this a wonderfully thought provoking thread. But, I'll have to wait until tomorrow to give you XP as apparently, I've reached my 24 hour limit.

 

[Philosopher]

My thought is that alignment doesn't work very well, at all. If you need to give multiple alignments for multiple reasons, isn't it just easier to ignore it altogether and write, "Likes halflings, hates non-halflings, pyromaniac" instead of "LG to halflings, LE to non-halflings, CE when fire is involved, CN when upset, LN where delicate pastries are concerned, NE if suffering from a headache" and so on and so forth.

The only reason to even use alignment is to keep compatibility with certain silly alignment-centric spells. And there's no real reason to use those, even.

You're so close to understanding why you don't need alignment in your game. Take the extra step and join us alignment-free gamers. We don't bite! We run perfectly normal games! We aren't rabid!

First it was people addressing my title without reading my post. Now it's people not reading the thread.

I've played without alignment. I don't find it at all difficult to houserule 3.5 in this way, and it plays great. I've also played with alignment. It adds something that I like. I don't take alignment as something carved in stone. This thread isn't about complicating things, and I've already addressed why I wouldn't use the complicated straw man (straw halfling?) you describe.

Sorry if this comes across as snarky. I do appreciate your invitation into the realm of alignment-free D&D, as more people should be aware of its glorious possibilities. But this thread is about the alignment system, so eliminating it isn't what I'm looking for.

 

[Philosopher]

The way I see it, Yes. Since it outlines what a characters priorities are, it becomes an objective description. Using alignment and alignment codes, even the way you've laid out, still remains subjective. Subjective to me, will always be more complicated than objective.

But given that I (as the player) am the subject making the decisions about how the character acts based on alignment, there shouldn't be any problem with subjectivity in the description.

After all, I've given fairly in-depth descriptions of my characters' personalities to my groups, and some of them have occasionally said that how the character behaves is inconsistent with what I've said before. I explain why I did what I did, and we quickly discover that each of us interpreted the personality traits differently. My interpretation is what wins out, of course (this has rarely ever disrupted play, it has just raises interesting points of discussion), because it's my character.

Except from the standpoint of Jasper, who feels he's Lawful Good on both counts...


From who's vantage? The City would consider them Chaotic Evil, the thieves themselves probably would not. A rival city may also consider them to not be Evil, as long as they are causing problems for the city.

Unless Alignment has a standardized point of view, it's too subjective. Is the standard always from the point of view of the DM? Is the standard the point of view of the character? (In which case everyone would probably be some version of Good...even the "Evil" characters.)

This also means that everytime one reads the alignment shorthand, one has to consciously consider from what point of view the description is being made. That sounds significantly more complicated to me...

No, Jasper knew he was being nasty to the non-halflings.

I just took the PHB's description of Good and Evil at face value (even though I find it, as a professional philosopher who has taught moral theory, very unsophisticated). Good involves altruism. Evil involves hurting people. Jasper was consciously altruistic towards halflings and consciously tried to hurt non-halflings.

But, given what you said, I can at least now see why you considered it complicated.

But, I'd suggest bouncing it off your players and see if they find it confusing or not. It may not work quite the way you've envisioned.

Oh, absolutely!

P.S.: I also think this a wonderfully thought provoking thread. But, I'll have to wait until tomorrow to give you XP as apparently, I've reached my 24 hour limit.

Thank you! I appreciate your contribution to it.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

No, Jasper knew he was being nasty to the non-halflings.

I just took the PHB's description of Good and Evil at face value (even though I find it, as a professional philosopher who has taught moral theory, very unsophisticated). Good involves altruism. Evil involves hurting people. Jasper was consciously altruistic towards halflings and consciously tried to hurt non-halflings.

Sure, but human (and presumably halfling) nature is such that his beliefs will almost certainly tell him that being nasty to non-halflings is perfectly reasonable because they are evil, non-sentient, just animals, inferior, or any one of dozens of other reasons. They are not worthy of being treated morally, and are therefore irrelevant.

No one in real life goes around cackling and twirling a mustache. Even those who admit to being deep in the shades of grey generally believe it's for a good reason.

Take the Romans. They killed a whole mess of people... and immediately turned around and raised the standard of living for the survivors by orders of magnitude in most places: roads, aqueducts, sanitation, etc. This isn't inconsistent on a good/evil axis. It's just what people do. Ends that justify means, etc.

 

[Philosopher]

Sure, but human (and presumably halfling) nature is such that his beliefs will almost certainly tell him that being nasty to non-halflings is perfectly reasonable because they are evil, non-sentient, just animals, inferior, or any one of dozens of other reasons. They are not worthy of being treated morally, and are therefore irrelevant.

No one in real life goes around cackling and twirling a mustache. Even those who admit to being deep in the shades of grey generally believe it's for a good reason.

Take the Romans. They killed a whole mess of people... and immediately turned around and raised the standard of living for the survivors by orders of magnitude in most places: roads, aqueducts, sanitation, etc. This isn't inconsistent on a good/evil axis. It's just what people do. Ends that justify means, etc.

I fully agree. But this does not change the fact that according to the PHB definitions of Good and Evil, Jasper was good towards halflings and evil towards non-halflings. His motivations, justifications, and self-perception are a separate issue.

Does anyone actually believe that the D&D alignment system reflects real morality or psychology? I've never come across anyone who's actually made that claim, so I'm not sure why so many people feel the need to argue against it.

 

[Kzach]

Sacrifice myself for you nerds? Hell no! I'd sell you all out for a pat on the back.

Oh, wait, that's not what the thread is about... err... carry on.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I fully agree. But this does not change the fact that according to the PHB definitions of Good and Evil, Jasper was good towards halflings and evil towards non-halflings. His motivations, justifications, and self-perception are a separate issue.

But you're the one suggesting that rather than having alignment as a weak blanket statement about him, he should be parceled up into these bizarre little boxes.

Alignment isn't meant to work the way you're trying to use it, and is frankly nonsensical that way. In the traditional sense, alignment is about game mechanics. Your system is sort of hinky and meaningless for that. Will he Detect as Good in a Halfling village, as Evil in a Human village, and Neutral if the village is exactly 50/50 population? Will a Halfling caster detect him as Good, and then watch in confused horror as he burns a human village alive?

On the other hand, some people do use more complicated "loyalty" systems to try to get at behavior, but as several people have pointed out, those don't tend to use a raw Good-Evil axis. Us-Them is a better fit for such things because it avoids contradictory behaviors and severe semantic arguments.

This is why I'm with the crowd who don't use alignment. It adds very little by the RAW, and trying to complicate it always leads to more confusion and irritation than interesting gameplay, IME.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Does anyone actually believe that the D&D alignment system reflects real morality or psychology?

One could apply the classification part to people in the real world. Categorise some as good, evil, etc. Certainly the terms 'good' and 'evil' are applied to individuals in our world, as if they do have meaning. I don't think any weapons would get +2d6 damage against those classed as evil, mind you.

Regarding thinking of oneself as evil, I could only see that as applying to demons and other supernatural evil. The way I see it, natural beings in D&D land who have an evil alignment think of themselves as pragmatic or sensible or 'gets the job done' or somesuch. In fact I think when an evil being casts know alignment they get back a result like 'idealistic fool' for a good target and 'pragmatist' for an evil one.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Alignment isn't meant to work the way you're trying to use it, and is frankly nonsensical that way. In the traditional sense, alignment is about game mechanics. Your system is sort of hinky and meaningless for that. Will he Detect as Good in a Halfling village, as Evil in a Human village, and Neutral if the village is exactly 50/50 population? Will a Halfling caster detect him as Good, and then watch in confused horror as he burns a human village alive?

How about a half-elven caster casting know alignment on someone who is lawful good to humans and chaotic evil to elves?

Maybe it would give a reading of neutral!

Also, how would this work for a paladin's smite evil, or weapons that grant bonus damage versus certain alignments?

 

[Doug McCrae]

Alignment would no longer be about sides in a cosmic conflict.

I think that's where it's strongest. Or rather, any use at all. We could use other labels for the cosmic struggle tho, such as the god or principle to which one has sworn allegiance.

Alignment purely as a descriptor of personality or attitudes towards others? I can't see the point. Why not just play a character like he's a real person with a real personality and not have to worry whether he is neutral evil or chaotic evil with respect to orcs.