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[DND] The Alignment Thread :O
INeedNoSalt
with blood on my teethRegistered User regular
with blood on my teethRegistered User regular
I am not responsible for any of the opinions I post here, because my stance on alignment comes down to 'Recognize the difference between right and wrong; Alignment is subjective only to a certain degree; use common sense.'
But I am going to offer some of the common viewpoints I see offered on several Alignment-related subjects, because hey, why not have a thread where we discuss something that is poorly defined and try to force our own definitions onto others?
VIEWPOINT THE FIRST: Alignment is broken because it is not internally consistent. How can animals be neutral if evil creatures are defined as "simply hav[ing] no compassion for others and kill[ing] without qualms"? If mindless or animal-intelligence creatures are defaulted to neutral because they are unable to consider moral choices, why are mindless undead evil? Alignment is broken. Never use it.
VIEWPOINT THE SECOND: Alignment is never objective, and the inherent alignment of an act is entirely dependant on the beliefs of the person undertaking the action; for example, killing a newborn because the Prophecy foretells he will bring about a dark age and leave millions dead in his wake would be a Good act if the killer honestly believed the prophecy.
VIEWPOINT THE THIRD: Alignment is absolutely subjective, and any action can be a (lawful/chaotic/evil/good) act given the appropriate reasoning; thusly, Alignment is broken and should not be used. Example: Killing the Doom Baby 'cause the prophecy says so is [Good/Evil] because [he will kill lots of others/he is a baby], interchangably. This is closely related to...
VIEWPOINT THE FOURTH: Alignment is subjective based on individual/culture beliefs - thus, it may be evil to genocide orcs for members of one kingdom and good for another, because everyone in the respective kingdom believes so. This is similar to Viewpoint the Second, on a cultural/social rather than personal level.
VIEWPOINT THE FIFTH: Alignment is objective; murdering an innocent is always evil and tending to the wounded is always good. This seems to be a less common viewpoint, although I have seen it brandished before. This is the closest to where Salty stands (that alignment is objective, with leeway either way for personal/cultural concerns.)
So, my fellow DND players, where do you all stand? Perhaps we can offer hypothetical situations to yell at eachother about!
But I am going to offer some of the common viewpoints I see offered on several Alignment-related subjects, because hey, why not have a thread where we discuss something that is poorly defined and try to force our own definitions onto others?
VIEWPOINT THE FIRST: Alignment is broken because it is not internally consistent. How can animals be neutral if evil creatures are defined as "simply hav[ing] no compassion for others and kill[ing] without qualms"? If mindless or animal-intelligence creatures are defaulted to neutral because they are unable to consider moral choices, why are mindless undead evil? Alignment is broken. Never use it.
VIEWPOINT THE SECOND: Alignment is never objective, and the inherent alignment of an act is entirely dependant on the beliefs of the person undertaking the action; for example, killing a newborn because the Prophecy foretells he will bring about a dark age and leave millions dead in his wake would be a Good act if the killer honestly believed the prophecy.
VIEWPOINT THE THIRD: Alignment is absolutely subjective, and any action can be a (lawful/chaotic/evil/good) act given the appropriate reasoning; thusly, Alignment is broken and should not be used. Example: Killing the Doom Baby 'cause the prophecy says so is [Good/Evil] because [he will kill lots of others/he is a baby], interchangably. This is closely related to...
VIEWPOINT THE FOURTH: Alignment is subjective based on individual/culture beliefs - thus, it may be evil to genocide orcs for members of one kingdom and good for another, because everyone in the respective kingdom believes so. This is similar to Viewpoint the Second, on a cultural/social rather than personal level.
VIEWPOINT THE FIFTH: Alignment is objective; murdering an innocent is always evil and tending to the wounded is always good. This seems to be a less common viewpoint, although I have seen it brandished before. This is the closest to where Salty stands (that alignment is objective, with leeway either way for personal/cultural concerns.)
So, my fellow DND players, where do you all stand? Perhaps we can offer hypothetical situations to yell at eachother about!
INeedNoSalt on
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you magnificent bastard
I think I'm the Fourth.
SoogaGames Blog
It's the only one that makes things work at all. You do have to reconcile the fact that very evil acts can be done for Good reasons. The big question is how good the actor is after that's happened.
So, to content!
I'm gonna have to go with a combination of VIEWPOINT THE SECOND and viewpoint zero: A good person would recognise the baby-murder as inherently wrong, but would still do it (and still be good) if they really believed that baby==doom. The evil person wouldn't care that killing the baby was wrong, but might recognise that it was worth the immediate trouble to prevent future inconvenience. Of course, a chaotic type would have less trouble with either course than a lawful type, but that's a given, isn't it?
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People who like alignment are shit.
People who disagree with me are shit.
This thread is the shit.
Oh shit, gotta go take a shit.
This works pretty ok.
SoogaGames Blog
Either way I'd say yes, they do. My ideas regarding the game don't always mesh with real life where things can easily be more grey, though, but when it comes to the game, I don't understand how people can have so much trouble with the alignment system.
That said, I consider the nature of actions to be objectively rated by both deed and intent (objective at least to the DM, who has the detached and omniscient viewpoint on what goes on in his story). Committing a particular crime may not be good or evil one way or another, but it's likely chaotic. It may always be evil to kill someone, but whether it's done on a whim or to maintain the killer's structured and predictable society is what makes the difference. So I'd say generally 'good vs evil' is an objective matter of what causes harm or benefit to the whole, while 'chaos vs law' is a more personal matter of what the character considers to be the consequences of their actions.
The character definitely should not reflect their rating, it should reflect them. A character listed as Lawful Good who *sometimes* does bad or disorderly things isn't necessarily chaotic evil, he's just not *purely* Lawful Good. If he does bad or disorderly things just as often as good and lawful ones (or neutral actions- not considered strongly one or the other- just as often as strongly-aligned ones) his alignment should be reevaluated as true neutral; he shouldn't be forced to RP an unchanging 2D label.
Lets take the example of killing the baby. Our Neutral Good walks into the room, and knowing hte gravity of the situation sticks his sword straight through the baby. Normally a Neutral good would not do this. It's evil, but meant to maintian good in the overall order. His alignment is slightly shifted to being more Lawful Neutral then it had been, but it doesn't make him Automatically change whole alignments, and it certainly doesn't make him evil. In that situation, he was faced with an extreme choice, he took the one that he considered good, which is more in keeping with another alignment.
Part of the alignment system, is 9 different viewpoints and 9 different ways to define good. Your character should rarely, if ever, think that what they are doing is truely evil. A Neutral Evil does the right thing, for themself. Neutral Good does the right thing for others. Bith are doing what they consider "good", but both can clearly be defined within the system.
Basically I see the problem as people trying to work subjectivity into the system from the outside, when really the subjectivity is already there on the inside. Andalignement isn't supposed to be a detailed rulebook, just a quick guide to help you keep the character on track.
For the baby killing example, I would expect a good player to show some sort of guilt or doubt, that they knew for a fact this kid was going to destroy the world in twenty of thirty years, but maybe they could've done something to change that, to save the kid, instead of doing the 'easy' thing.
tldr: You're silly.
Code of Conduct helps here, too. "Punish those who harm or threaten innocents"
I'd say Arthas needs to fess up to a legitimate authority and/or divine force. If he doesn't accept the punishment (possibly a quest not unlike one required for atonement) he'll lose the hood. If he doesn't seek out this punishment or gives up the quest or breaks out of jail or refuses to get hanged for his crimes (if that's what the authority mandates), he'll lose the hood.
Guilt and doubt are mandatory, yea. If killing a baby doesn't give you second thoughts, something is wrong.
Killing the baby would still be neutral at most. On the other hand... saving the baby would probably be a good act. Trying to raise him right so he doesn't destroy the world will earn you your wings. :P
Anyway, the fifth one is the closest to the way I play it in DnD.
In the DnD universe, good, evil, law and chaos seem to be just as fundamental and concrete as any elemental force. Certain things about a character will make them more akin to one sort of alignment than another. The inhabitants of the Prime Material are in the unique position of creating their own alignment through their actions (whereas a Balor can no more be lawful good than a Ice Elemental can decide it's going to catch fire one day).
Undead are evil... well, because undead are evil. So are demons and devils... because they're demons and devils. That's how it seems to work in DnD. I'm sure if we were trying to make the DnD game "more like real life" it would be much more complicated, but why would we want to do that? Thankfully places like Faerun and Oerth are simpler... where Paladins can cast Detect Evil instead of having to have long discussions about moral relativism or take anger management classes after "smiting" the bad guy.
Feh, that conclusion is only being reached because of your own philosophical assumptions, compunded by flawed logic.
tldr: You're silly.
Never happen. It's a requirement. Also the thread will be Godwined, very, very early. The discussion will move along quietly until a fictional character will be brought in. Partisans of the character will defend actions. Others will attack. Other characters will be drawn in. All will end in flames.
tldr: Alignment threads are the cause of WWIII.
I don't mean to be difficult, and I think this discussion could be interesting, so I'm not trying to derail.
How are these two different? Is it that (2) relies on some kind of moral belief while (3) allows for justifications based on utilitarian logic?
EDIT: Or is it that in (2) there's an objective measure of good/evil/lawful/chaotic but your internal measure doesn't change if you intended something in line with your alignment, while in (3) there's no objective measure?
In 3, the alignment of an act is whatever the hell you say it is.
Personally, I prefer allegiances. I've seen Lawful/Chaotic used as personality modifiers alongside associated groups and organisations, and unsurprisingly most of the badass bounty hunters in the group were Chaotic
This is actually a recent change. Back in 3.0, skeletons and zombies were True Neutral.
Mechanically, from all the splat books I've read Alignment is NOT ethics. Instead it's a Cosmic Power Struggle between a force that is called 'good' and a force called 'evil' and a force called 'order' and a force called 'chaos'. At any given moment these forces are perfectly balanced. Even the slightest deviation will tip the force towards one or the other. At any given moment in time Which side wins or loses in this cosmic balancing act is based on the actions of YOU.
Do an act that strengthens 'Order', and order 'wins' over chaos, forever, even though this test is infinitely repeated and the consequences are only shown as far as the DM wants to show it. Thus One can not justify an action that strengthens Order or Good or Evil or Chaos in the long run, if at that moment it would weaken it. Because it doesn't matter. The war was lost, and you can't go back.
Try to think of it as Angels Pounding at the Gates of Hell, and on the verge of Victory, BOOM you did an evil act, and the demons are strengthened and fight them back.
There are a ton of guidelines throughout the books for what acts strengthen which alignments, so I won't get into it.
I believe I'm backed up on this in the books Book of Exalted Deeds, Complete Divine, and a ton of 3.0 books that are designed to assist Paladins and Clerics (I forget what it's called) both official and not.
Now, A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act.
It's up to the DM to decide if Evil in this case is evil alignment or evil ethically.
What I do is that I try to make it such that repeatedly doing evil or chaotic acts causes all the major evil and chaotic players to be strengthened. Where an evil army might have lost a battle, maybe they instead win it.
Alignment is not so much a rule as it is a guildeline for your most basic moral compass.
See, I'd much rather say "That's evil," and since he's completely vengeance oriented and willing to murder children, I'd readily step him down towards Evil.
I blame you, this is the classic fate of all alignment threads. People sometimes have this large block about accepting that what they'd like to do would qualify as evil in the objective framework of D&D.
The "Mindless" Undead are merely the tools of a necromancer. If someone shot you, you wouldn't say the gun was at fault, would you?
I do agree, however, that Good and Evil are relative terms. I prefer the terms "With us" and "Against us," as certainly they're more appropriate.
Stabbing a kid to death is pretty clear-cut to me in terms of good or evil. What's supposed to be 'good' about such an act, anyway?
I'd say the issue stems from failing to keep the 'chaos vs law' half of alignment in mind. Attempting to factor in family vendettas into what's essentially an 'Epic Winnie the Pooh' black & white view of fantasy morality is probably what's causing the resulting conclusion that child vengeance killers are 'ambiguous'.
Alignment is not Ethics! Using your armies of undead to fight Nazis or save babies yeah that's 'good'. But a Paladin should be able to smite them.
I always thought there should be a more logical reasoning behind dousing something with water, and having it burn accordingly to how others preceive it.
But I suppose that's how it works. Good always conquers Evil. Evil shows for a sequel, comes up with another bad plan and is once again mercilessly beaten.
I would like Good and Evil abandoned, though, as themed forces would prove more logical. But I digress.
I made a similar argument
Well, and this will utterly degenerate the discussion and i apologize for that, but, would it be it morally "good" to kill hitler as a child, knowing, or having a very good idea of, what he would do later in his life? How bout a african dictator who actively commits and funds genocide?
While these might be clearcut answers to you, i don't think they're clear cut answers; it's just that you've made your choice on this. That's cool, but, not everyone has. The moment of stabbing a sleeping child in bed was a defining moment for this character and one of the better RP scenes when the other PC's confronted him about. Moments like that are why i play the game. He did/has gone down a somewhat evil path, but, really it's more of a, i do what i have to do, amoral path of survival.
re: morals vs ethics, can people define what they mean by those terms cuz i think of them as morals being societal/cultural mores whereas ethics are personal. This doesn't seem to jive with what ya'll are saying, so, fill me in here.
Killing anyone for crimes they've yet to commit is an evil act, regardless of how you justify it.
See, i disagree with that. If you have full knowledge that they are going to commit evil acts, murder, torture, rape, debauchery, etc on a mass scale and that they will pass those values to their children, and so on and so on... Now what if your friends and family were going to bear the brunt of those acts? What if they already had?
What you see as a moral imperitive, i see as a question.
The purpose for killing in the name of 'good' is in actuality a matter of Chaos vs Order, regarding whether it's done to prevent massive deaths or to simply get back at them folks who done wronged you. But 'good vs evil' typically boils down to direct help vs harm upon others.
Heck, it's even more basic than that...
"Good and evil are not philisophical concepts in the D&D game. They are the forces that define the cosmos."
-- Player's Handbook v3.5, page 103.
I have personally never used alignment in a campaign, and I don't think i could take a GM seriously who insisted on it. Good players don't need it to limit their stupidity or flesh out their characters. Playing with bad players isn't fun anyway. Alignment won't save the day.