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

[Doug McCrae]

Consider also that the alignment system at present is intended only to be a general descriptor. If an individual is generally disciplined and law-abiding but is habitually late for appointments than that person is lawful by the D&D system. By your system he is chaotic with regard to time-keeping, which does, admittedly provide more detail.

Differing opinions on lawfulness are a major problem with the alignment system. Does it refer to obeying the law of one particular jurisdiction - a nation, a religion - or to obeying the law of whatever land one is currently in? Can one be lawful if one upholds a personal code of honor, or is very disciplined in one's behaviour? By my reading of the alignment system, lawfulness can refer to any or all of the above. The totality of lawful or chaotic behaviour would be what decides alignment. The drawback with this approach is that alignment doesn't provide much information. Your system would fix this, telling us which laws are obeyed or in what area(s) a person is disciplined or undisciplined.

Good and evil are even trickier because there are so many different views. Some would say that if one ever commits an evil act, then one becomes evil, no matter how much good one has done in other aspects of life. Others would say we must look at the totality of a man's deeds. Your system won't work for those that take the former view. An evil act towards an elf for example, makes a person evil 'all over'.

Your approach to good/evil seems to be as a measure of prejudice, particularly race prejudice, though it could include other groups such as social classes, or refer to all outsiders, everyone outside one's own ethnic group. This is pretty realistic, many cultures do seem to observe a 'double standard', acting differently towards their own kind than to outsiders.

 

[Haltherrion]

What occurred to me is that maybe it could make sense for an individual character to have several alignments, each of which describes how the character behaves with respect to certain in-groups and out-groups.

[...]

Thoughts?

I think there is a lot of merit to the concept. The example I always used for this was a member of an assassins guild. Within it the members may act very lawfully and to some extent might even be considered neutral or even good in terms of the sacrifices they are willing to make for others in the order. To the outside world, they might seem chaotic and evil. Is the character L/E? L/N? C/E? A case could be made for many if you have to go with one alignment system.

But alignment serves multiple purposes:

• A short hand description of certain aspects of how a character may act. Lawful people will tend to follow the rules. An evil person will tend to act out of self interest. Alignment has been bashed a lot over the years, but I've always liked that short hand label. It has its utility.
• In some D&D editions, alignment manifests itself in the game mechanics (e.g., a lawful caster cannot summon chaotic creatures) and therefore seems to represent some fundamental nature of the creature.

In the first use, as with any model, you can extend and refine it to allow for more cases. While the examples you and I have used exist, they in the end were always rare enough that it never seemed worth it to me extending the alignment system. Rather, the character or NPC description can go into the necessary detail.

In the second case, one could argue more refinement is needed but instead, I would argue that all our example characters could still be pigeonholed for "alignment affinity" with a single alignment. The assassin for instance strikes me as lawful with respect to how he would interact with law/chaos magic. He clearly is a very regimented individual to have thrived in the assassins guild and chaos magic should not have much affinity for him.

That said, I'm not a super fan of D&D 3.5 aligned spell affects and am perfectly happy without them. I was a little disappointed with 4E's alignment system; I like the first use I listed for alignment and find it a useful shorthand.

Naturally, more complex characters require more than an alignment to describe them but it has its place. On that note, however, I have for a long time defined alignment as:

• Law/chaos: does the character value custom and expected behavior when deciding his actions?
• Good/evil: does the character value the well being of others when deciding his actions?

This puts alignment in "observable" terms and makes it useful, as a ref, when determining NPC actions. You could get into whether alignment is based only on observed behavior or what goes on in a character's head. I prefer the latter since in the end, this is a tool I used for ref’ing and it helps me decide what the actor will do but you could go with the former. In that case, it raises the question, if an "evil" character acts "good" for the rest of his life, is he really evil?

 

[hamishspence]

Cons
Good and evil are even trickier because there are so many different views. Some would say that if one ever commits an evil act, then one becomes evil, no matter how much good one has done in other aspects of life. Others would say we must look at the totality of a man's deeds. Your system won't work for those that take the former view, an evil act towards an elf for example, makes a person evil 'all over'.

Both the DMG and Champions of Ruin suggest that one evil act doesn't change alignment- it's consistantly doing evil acts that makes a character evil.

That said, consistantly doing both Good and Evil acts makes a character Evil, not Neutral.

 

[Philosopher]

Good and evil are even trickier because there are so many different views. Some would say that if one ever commits an evil act, then one becomes evil, no matter how much good one has done in other aspects of life. Others would say we must look at the totality of a man's deeds. Your system won't work for those that take the former view. An evil act towards an elf for example, makes a person evil 'all over'.

Yes, the former view does not work with my system. FWIW, I don't think I'd accept the latter either. Generally, I prefer to attribute the labels "good" and "evil" to actions rather than people. I'm just as happy to say that someone is good (even exemplary) in certain contexts but downright nasty in others, rather than to try to decide on a single label overall. I consider "good" and "evil" very useful labels, but they shouldn't be used to describe things too broadly.

Hence my idea for this thread.

Your approach to good/evil seems to be as a measure of prejudice, particularly race prejudice, though it could include other groups such as social classes, or refer to all outsiders, everyone outside one's own ethnic group. This is pretty realistic, many cultures do seem to observe a 'double standard', acting differently towards their own kind than to outsiders.

Yes, that's what I'm trying to capture. Race may be common, but not the only one. A character may prefer those who share the same religion, regardless of race, or perhaps those of a secret society she belongs to.

It should also be pointed out, that not everyone would necessarily prefer one group over others. I wouldn't want to deny a player the possibility of playing a noble paladin willing to help anyone who needs it. That's what heroic fantasy is about, after all. At the same time I just wanted to add the possibility of a paladin who is only really concerned with defending a specific group (like the Charlemagne's Twelve Peers, the original paladins). YMMV, of course.

 

[Philosopher]

But alignment serves multiple purposes:

• A short hand description of certain aspects of how a character may act. Lawful people will tend to follow the rules. An evil person will tend to act out of self interest. Alignment has been bashed a lot over the years, but I've always liked that short hand label. It has its utility.
• In some D&D editions, alignment manifests itself in the game mechanics (e.g., a lawful caster cannot summon chaotic creatures) and therefore seems to represent some fundamental nature of the creature.

In the first use, as with any model, you can extend and refine it to allow for more cases. While the examples you and I have used exist, they in the end were always rare enough that it never seemed worth it to me extending the alignment system. Rather, the character or NPC description can go into the necessary detail.

In the second case, one could argue more refinement is needed but instead, I would argue that all our example characters could still be pigeonholed for "alignment affinity" with a single alignment. The assassin for instance strikes me as lawful with respect to how he would interact with law/chaos magic. He clearly is a very regimented individual to have thrived in the assassins guild and chaos magic should not have much affinity for him.

In retrospect, this may be what some others have been pointing out, but you make the point quite clearly. While my system may have some advantages, it comes at a cost of other aspects of the (current) alignment system.

That's definitely something I have to take into account. Given that each of these gives a different flavour to the campaign, a DM and his/her players would have to consider what type of campaign they want before making any changes.