Alignment, and how you define it

I wanted you thoughts and opinions on alignment. I've heard at alot of d&dish tables, and a bit from mine "My character is (chaotic, lawful, good, evil), so of course he'd do xxxxx.:" That argument for character action has bugged me more than most things in gaming. Maybe that's because I wanted to get into character and play a character, not a statsheet. I've always thought alignment should be more about a representation of the way a character thinks rather than the way a character thinks being a representation of their alignment.

But what does good/evil/lawful/chaotic mean anyway? Obviously sway too far in one direction or another and magic can effect them in certain ways.

So start out with the lawful/chaotic spectrum. I see this as a basic way that the character views the world. On one side, everything is orderly or atleast that would be the best way to have the world. Probably the character has a set sense of honor and does their best to follow it. They want to get things done sure, but see a structured way to do it. For example, those kids that love sorting things for fun at a christmas party, ala Martha Stewart. On the other side is seeing a free universe. Unconstrained by systems and numbers. Personal codes? Why? Honor, what's that? This is not bad or good, just that the character doesn't see a reason why things need to be done certain ways, for themselves or others. Example being the kid who's making chaos of all the ornaments on the tree. No reason to have them in any pattern on there right?

The Evil/Good spectrum can be easier to grasp. It has to do with improving the world, yourself, and taking advantage of the world around you. Another concept to apply is power over and power with. Someone seeking power with someone else is growing themselves and the other person at the same time. Someone seeking power over another is just taking it to grow themselves. A good character wants people/the world to be a happier, better place. An evil character doesn't care how others are doing, sometimes to the extreme of wanting to harm them. But for the most part they'd see others as targets to take advantage of. A good character might give a donation to the red cross hoping another family can get off the streets for a few nights. An evil character character would give a donation to red cross, hoping the tax incentive would knock them down to another tax bracket. A good character does not want to harm innocent children because of their potential for the world. An evil character might want to kill innocent children so they don't grow up and take his place of power.

Now, this is all a spectrum, and neutrality is in there too, but then it's not necessarily seeing everything needing to balance. It might simply be seeing both sides of the spectrum as nutballs and moderation is probably a better course in life.

So, what do yall think?

*jumps out of the window*

I alignment is overblown. People make waaay too much of a fuss over it, and in the end, don't even come to a concensus when the discussion is all said and done.

I leave it undefined.

Haven't used alignments since 1985 in the homebrew. Haven't written one down on a character sheet in most games for about that long as well. Dislike the way D&D handles the whole concept, frankly.

I define alignment as lame.

I generally view good-evil as morality (do you value other people's lives or not? Good people want to help others, evil people want to harm others, neutral people are indifferent)

Law-chaos I see as ethical (how do you achieve your moral goals? Lawful people believe in contractual obligations and duties, chaotic people believe in self determination and individual freedoms, neutral believe in a mixture of the two.)

True neutral is the hardest to make sense of, under this scheme, but I think that's true of any scheme.

Lawful people care more about how something is done rather than the results. Honor is an excellent example, it is more important to fight honorably and die than to fight as a villain and win.

Neutral people care as much about the results as they do about the method. They do their best to achieve the goal, but some methods may be too underhanded.

Chaotic people care more about the results than how they are obtained. Machiavelli is chaotic "the ends justify the means"

Good people are selfless. They help others and avoid hurting others unless doing nothing would cause greater harm.

Neutral people help others if it's convenient or "of value" to them. They try avoid hurting others if they can.

Evil people are selfish. They help themselves. They don't avoid hurting others, they may even enjoy it.

I alignment is overblown. People make waaay too much of a fuss over it, and in the end, don't even come to a concensus when the discussion is all said and done.

Alignment works, but only if you keep it simple and don't go too much into detail.

Steve Geddes makes a very good point about alignment.

There are people who like alignment, and people who don't. Alignment is something that has survived Editions of the game (1st ed-2nd ed-3rd ed-3.5 ed- Pathfinder) relatively intact.

I suppose I look at the alignment system as a simple summation of a characters outlook and tendencies.

For example, now I’m using broad strokes here,

A LE Lord might use his armies to conquer his smaller squabbling neighbors so that he can bring "peace” and "Order" and spread the "rule of Law" or rather his law across the land. And because he believes in the righteousness of his cause, because he believes he is the man with the strength and will iron to do it, he is willing to order his army to do anything to achieve his goal i.e. burn fields, slaughter "small folk", burn down monasteries, churches, rape nunneries etc, use catapults to launch live infected people and blankets into hold fasts etc.

A CE reaver might hop in his long boat row across the water, and he and his crewmen, rape and pillage a village, taking what they want, slaughtering the rest. They take what they can, because the strong should rule over the weak, and they can take what they can and do what they please.

A NE swindler may have a love for gambling and betting on the races. He is willing to say what ever it takes to get money to bet on the races one more time. He is willing to say anything promise anything, promise the same thing to two bookies, and do what ever he can to get some gold, get out with his skin intact, and get on to the next town and start things all over again.

These characters may also have another side to them.

The LE lord may have a wife and children, and he may be very kind and loving to them and very protective of them.

The CE reaver may have a girl back in his home village that he loves and wishes to impress by his acts of "valor".

The NE swindler may have a brother, who is a priest, and he always comes back to him hoping for some sort of forgiveness from his brother, and whenever he can he gives some of his ill-gotten gains (gold) to his brother's church because he wants to help in some way.

Adding another element like that makes the character more interesting, gives him motivations and generally makes him more interesting.

Anyways, sometimes what you need is a simple card board cut out character….and the alignment system is good for that too.

I suppose I look at the alignment system as a simple summation of a characters outlook and tendencies

Yora I should have looked at your link first....

Yep thats a pretty good summation of things.

If alignment is a good thing or not depends on the game.

If I were to run Lord of the Rings as a campaign, alignment wouldn't be out of place. The story is meant to have good guys and bad guys and has magic items that fill the good with hope and the evil with despair. If you want the world to work that way and the sides clearly separated and recognizable, alignment does a very good job.

But then you have stories in which there are only opposing sides with opposing views with no cosmic forces backing them up. Forcing an alignment grid on them can be done, but usually ends in poor results.

Alignment works well at what it does, but it's not a helpful tool for every game.

I pretty much agree with the rules as they describe it -- that they are a broad, general definition of the character's morals, attitudes, and personal philosophy. Per the rules, law-chaos represents philosophy/ethics in a very broad sense; good-evil is morality. I don't go deeper than that because they are a broad definition, and per the rules, a "tool for developing a character's identity" and not a "straitjacket."

The in-game view of alignment in my system (for fluffing how to explain alignment based spells work, etc.) is that your soul, influenced by your actions and perhaps vice versa, is "aligned" with an Outer Plane that best exemplifies your ideal self. A Lawful Good person is "aligned" with Celestia or Bytopia, for example. When magic detects their alignment, they see their aura as colors associated with Celestia, etc.

I tend to define Lawful folk as Orderly, Disciplined, and Organized, and Chaotic folk as being Disorderly, Disorganized, and Undisciplined.

Good and Evil usually don't give me much trouble.

Alignment works, but only if you keep it simple and don't go too much into detail.
This one works perfectly well.

I guess I should've rephrased my statement.

Arguments about alignment are overblown. I think the system as is is fine, and I still use it in my games because I like the idea that the quintessential moral essence of a being has an impact on how magic and other things intereact with them.

I try not to use alignment at all in my games. See alignment and magic circle and holy word are based on alignment subtypes, Paladins can smite anyone their Code of Conduct allows them to, and characters have to decide for themselves whether or not they can live with the consequences of their adventuring lifestyle.

It means my players argue with me less and with each other-- in-character-- more, and that means the game is more fun for everybody.

I think alignment as implemented in game is silly. The alignment that I would use to describe people is not the same that I would use for describing the war between heaven and hell.

I was going to link to the same thing Yora already did because it's a good for a descriptive alignment; Good-Evil to Nice-Mean and Lawful-Chaotic to Rules-No Rules. Honestly though I did away with traking this kind of alignment in my games because they add no enjoyment, help none of my players, serve no real useful purpose, and clog my game up with petty loopholes and metagaming.

For "Good" spells and auras I replaced it with "Holy", and for "Evil" spells and auras, I replaced it with "Taint". Got rid of Chaos and Order spells because those are just dumb to a stupid degree...

In my opinion, you shouldn't neccesarily decide on character alignment during creation, or at least not anywhere near the beginning of it. esspecially if your starting low level you should leave it open and get a feel for roleplaying the character before deciding on it. I know htis wouldn't work with some classes as they are limited to one off the diety or whatever, but just decide on a personality and go with it.

I remember seeing a list of questions like the personality tests they give you during job interviews or whatever but for your character that helps you narrow down the alignment.

The only question I vaguely remember is your traveling down the road and run accross a group of workers on a farm. One is slacking off as his boss shows up and begins whipping the worker brutally. As it turns out all the workers are slaves, and slavery is legal in the realm you are currently traveling thru. What does your character do?

now depending on the interpretation being used, a lawful good character deciding to stop the whipping and free the slaves would risk losing his alignment, as a lawful alignment is supposed to mean you follow the laws of the land. There are lots of variables and different beliefs about what the alignments mean.

Sorry if I rambled on after makign my small point, but it's a good one. get your characters personality in your head before thinking alignment. Happy roleplaying all =)

Asta
PSY

as a lawful alignment is supposed to mean you follow the laws of the land.

Correction, a lawful alignment CAN mean that the individual is supposed to follow local laws and customs, but that doesn't hold for everyone.

One can be a lawful character by having a strict code of conduct that is outside of the purview of the local authority, and it could very well include things such as hunting down and eliminating slavers.

It's all up to GM discression though.

In my groups I keep alignment simple and define it as follows:

Good is to sacrifice the self for the sake of others.

Evil is to sacrifice others for the sake of the self.

Lawful is to use logic to solve your problems.

Chaotic is to use intuition to solve your problems.

Note: In the context of alignment "pain" or other negative emotions can be considered a sacrifice, while "joy" and other positive emotions can be considered a benefit. The larger the sacrifice to benefit ratio, the more heavily aligned it is. Sacrificing a town to cure your morning boredom would be heavily evil, while making someone a sad by saving yourself would be so slightly evil it would become rounding error (i.e. round to 0). Sacrificing your own life to make someone happy might be dumb, but is still heavily good. Getting a cut on your arm to save a town (assuming you could guarantee that it would only be a cut) would be rounding error.