I think not. You could ask what his princeples are. A player sould give answers according to his or her aligment. Aligment is a way in Pathfinder to handle morality.
Most character probably don't and in most games its a metagame concept more than anything else.
A paladin that falls from grace because he's no longer LG, does not necessarily know he's no longer LG, but he knows he wasn't acting up to the standards required of him.
A Monk doesn't know he requires lawful alignment, but he knows the years of studying in a temple require discipline and order etc, all stuff that cause him to become lawful if he suceeds basicly.
There's of course the Detect spells, and the fact that Good and Evil and Law and Chaos are actual tangibale forces in the PF universe. You can Plane Shift to a Lawful plane or an Evil one etc.
The Detect spells can pick up if you're in line with one of those planes basicly, so I guess the terms Lawful Good etc might actually exist in the world, even if not everyone knows or uses them, or even knows their own alignment.
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Characters don't think of alignment the way players do ("I'm Lawful Neutral."). At the same time, good, evil, and so on are not relative concepts or dependent on perspective the way they are in the real world. In the game world these concepts are empirical and can be measured via magic such as detect chaos/evil/good/law. Note, however, that creatures with 4 or fewer HD (almost everybody) won't register to these spells unless they're a cleric or paladin. It is possible that a hero (or villain) of sufficient level could have their alignment "tested" with magic so they would know, but it still wouldn't be the same thought process about it that players use. A character might determine that they're inclined towards virtue and the greater good, or that they have no evil in their heart and are a free spirit, but they wouldn't use the technical terminology that we do as players. Also, learning stuff like this would really be stuff you already knew about yourself usually. It'd be like going to a fortune teller and having then tell you things like, "you're a free spirit", only it would actually be true as opposed to being just what they think you want to hear.
knowledge arcana or religion should help you. The general townsfolk probably don't know.
Of course ingame it's not "evil" but has another name like spellnames ingame but a character who can cast protection from evil surely has a grip that there are 9 groups, with only 4 directions, 2 pairs of opposites.
Alignment is strictly a tool of the DM (in that the DM wins any argument).
The latter is true, because the former isn't (quite). ;)
Alignments are absolute "forces" of the multiverse, in the same way magic is or the elemental planes. It just is, it's part of the fabric of (the in-game) reality.A neutral cleric who "thinks he's neutral good" (based on the teachings of his church) could be very surprised if he cast Detect Alignment on himself.
That I doubt, as he should "ping" equal to his Deity. Being a cleric and all.
I agree that many people wouldn't know their own alignment, a lot wouldn't care and quite a few might be misguided. But practically every religion has alignment as part of its dogma or teachings and whether they'd actually call that spade a spade or not, it doesn't take a genius to figure out the basic system. Provided that person had been exposed to a variety of religious teachings.
I figure that alignment, being connected to the metaphysics of the setting, is something that some of the more eggheaded types (wizards and clerics) are probably aware of, but not the general populace.
It's sort of analogous to the way we're all subject to the laws of physics, but most laymen are only marginally aware of what those are.
Personally I think they should do away with alignment. What true purpose does it serve that couldnt be explained by other means?
They should also get rid of AC. Sword fighting is so much more than meeting a static number.
If I were to ask another character what his alignment was would he be able to tell me?
Depends on how the question is asked... meta gaming questions= meh... but if you asked my character that question I would punch you in the face
Chaotic Evil means never having to say you are Sorry!
Most Evil people do not think they are Evil (in real Life)..
Hitler and Stalin probably thought they were doing the "greater Good" by doing a "few" Evils... the ends justify the means...
But both of these "Leaders" are obviously LAWFUL EVIL in the extreme.
DnD will always have alignments.. its part of the game... and alignments should be guidelines for character personalities.... not straight jackets (unless you are a Paladin of course)
I think that characters, while not using the "x/x" alignment pairings, certainly UNDERSTAND the underpinnings of ethics and morality. Some probably ARE accurate in their placement of themselves on the alignment axes (axises?) while others do delude themselves.
It's not an all-or-nothing consideration: some people, more philosophically-minded, probably spend more time considering alignment questions than others, but even an uneducated commoner can grasp the basics.
It isn't that characters don't understand alignment, it's just that they don't use game-terms when discussing it.
It was so much easier in first edition, when one could discuss morality and ethics using one's alignment language.
Greg
Generally I would say that alignment is a player's tool, and that a character wouldn't use such an abstract definitions. However, I have also played alignment where it is a private piece of personal information, not shared with strangers, and asking point blank is considered rude.
i had a problem with this the other day.
the players wanted to sell weapons that had come from a devil (erinyes bow) the weapon is not evil aligned but they determined that they should go to some one evil in order to sell it.
so I told them they find a merchant worshiper of Asmodeus.
I tried to RP the merchant as simply a shrewed capitalist. sort of like a car salesman. but they could not get "evil" out of their minds and kept treating him that way.
it was a good session but a touch annoying from a DM perspective because I could not really tell if they were metagaming or acting normally.
when you consider that many cities and capitalism in genral fall under lawfull evil and Asmodeus, though a Devil of Hell, also helped defeat Rovagug and is considered a lawkeeper between the gods of all alignments... I always wonder if the average person considers Asmodeus vile and evil... or simply a universal rules lawyer.
Nope. Alignment is an abstraction of the character's behaviors and actions. It is codified for no purpose other than its use in adjudicating game rules. It is strictly OOC information.
That said, this does not mean the concepts the alignment system embodies are foreign to characters, either. A character is still going to have a general sense of good and evil, order and chaos. They just won't know how these factors combine to create an alignment label.
It's not an abstraction. It's disturbingly real and experimentally determinable. Line up four volunteers, cast a different protection from alignment spell on each, and have the person of unknown alignment punch each of them. See which one(s) gets a deflection bonus.
Which demonstrates an abstraction of the character's personality and actions in order to adjudicate the rules of the game.
It is highly likely that the intention of the designers is that alignment is a metagame construct that is intended to allow for players to have some guidelines and/or constraints on their characters' actions.
Unfortunately the way the designers created spells and tied alignment to certain classes, it would be ridiculous to believe that actual intelligent beings living in the PF world would not quickly figure it out and begin to quantify the alignments experimentally.
So as far as I'm concerned it is fine to play it either way.
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Depends on how you play it. It chips at the forth wall, whether your table is okay with that is depends on your table. I wouldn't necessarily do it from a character perspective, but it wouldn't bother me if a GM summarized to a player: "Your Knowledge (religion) skill check reveals that St. Shining Knight is the LG patron of knightliness. Your Knowledge (local) result informs you there is no shrine to St. Shining Knight in Cloudytown, which is a Chaotic Neutral outpost." After so many years, "Nay, there be no shrine to the Bless'd Golden Paladin in this hive of scum and villainy" might get old enough that some gamers would prefer the metagame.
(Same with character classes, class abilities, feats, ect.)
See, the Order of the Stick, for examples of character alignment discussion:
Unholy Blight's effect on Belkar.
Nale honoring a contract because he's LAWFUL evil.
Lord Shojo enjoying the afterlife of the chaotic good.
Roy being judge for his goodness and lawfulness.
Belkar is still south of neutral.
Sort of, they know how they act they just don't classify it as one of the nine alignments.
If I were to ask another character what his alignment was would he be able to tell me?
"Huh, what?"
More likely, IC you would ask him what god he follows:
"Caiden Caylean, <hic> 'cos 'ee likes s drink! An'a fight! Wanna fight? No? Have a drink."
While player characters might use the terms 'lawful', 'chaotic', 'good' and 'evil' they will seldom describe themselves in these terms. A chaotic-acting person may regard themselves as lawful, because everything they do is perfectly rational to their thinking. An evil person can regard themselves as good, merely 'doing what I must' to get by. A good person can regard himself as evil because his sins are amplified in his mind.
Spells like detect {alignment} mollify this effect, but are not so common as to be available to everyone and besides, you have to trust the person casting the spell, and spells do not always get it right.
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Alignment impacts the effects of some spells characters can case and effects what spells some of them can cast. It also relates to how some magic items work.
It's not an abstraction. It's disturbingly real and experimentally determinable. Line up four volunteers, cast a different protection from alignment spell on each, and have the person of unknown alignment punch each of them. See which one(s) gets a deflection bonus.
You would need to get them to punch each one about 200 times to get a statistically significant reading and you could still be wrong. You are trying to determine a small deflection bonus in the face of a large d20 random roll. Also, you didn't control for the differing dexterity of the volunteers. :)
There was a good writeup of this on the Goblinworks blog recently.
In the real world, there's no absolute definition of good or evil or law or chaos, and everyone subjectively forms their own opinion of other people's ethics and morality. Two people could have very different opinions about a third person. In the world of Pathfinder, this is not the case. Alignment is a universal constant—an absolute framework within which every sentient creature is embedded. Two people can use magic to determine the alignment position of a third and they'll both get the same information.
Alignment in the Pathfinder world is also a descriptor. Things don't just act in good or evil ways; they are good or evil. And when a person uses something which is strongly aligned, that person is engaging in an act which is definitively aligned as well. The whole "ends justify the means" thing doesn't apply in Pathfinder.
There are also external consequences for a person's status within the alignment system. Some characters can lose important class features if they stray too far from a defined alignment—notably paladins and clerics. But there are forces in the universe who may be paying attention regardless of what path in life your character has chosen, for in Pathfinder, there are gods.
The gods of the Pathfinder world are strongly aligned. In fact, they are virtually the definition of what each alignment represents. There are several gods in some of the alignment positions who are each different expressions of the alignment they represent. And these gods are Paying Attention. How one lives a life is not theoretically related to how one spends eternity, it is a demonstrable fact. The gods are also a meddlesome bunch, and they grant and withhold favors to those who espouse their faiths and follow their teachings—including adherence to the god's preferred alignment, although many are fickle, so that one may never assume anything about a god's intentions or actions.
...
In a world where alignment is meaningfully absolute and there is magic that can detect it, there are issues of security and trust which are therefore deeply impacted as well. Knowing where one's companions stand on the alignment graph is important.
(emphasis mine)
Alignment is a metaconcept that is also a physics rule for the D&D/PF universe. Unless you get rid of alignment, it's as real to the characters as gravity is to you and I. Since you don't see anyone disbelieving gravity and soaring through the sky, you can bet you don't see anyone disbelieving Lawful in a D&D/PF universe and not being Chaotic. Someone who said there is no good is as likely to end up in an insane asylum as someone who says there is no sky.
Items have good/evil/law/chaos bane, and wizards routinely make those, and so know about the alignments. Paladin's can detect evil at will. Inquisitors can detect all alignments at will. This would be like in today's world someone using blood to determine blood type. We all understand that there's multiple types of blood, and how they interact (O Negative is the universal donor, for example).
I would say yes, they would have to understand alignment.
The world contains "Detect Evil", a spell usable by all Clerics, Oracles, Paladins, and Inquisitors, that can identify the power and location of evil auras. There are detection spells for all forms of alignment as well.
Also, because of planar travel, there are entire planes that exude the auras of alignment and these have been known about for a long time as well.
mdt had a great argument with blood type. Blood type exists, and once it was discovered it took no time at all for the entire world to accept it as fact.
Now, I may understand that not all characters KNOW their alignment. They could simply be guessing at it. But the premise of alignment? Yes, it is most certainly known about.
It makes absolutely no sense for it to be an OOC abstraction when it has tangible IC results.
Common sense would tell you that players don't think about themselves in terms of alignment.
However, the existence of alignment based spells flies directly in the face of common sense for the purpose of a game mechanic.
In the game, Good and Evil are absolutes. In the real world, Good and Evil are very depended on your own moral beliefs.
In one culture a person might think the idea of stoning a woman for committing adultery is monstrous. In another culture, it's completely righteous.
Realistically a spell like Detect Evil would actually detect "anyone who's moral beliefs conflict with mine". Because nobody but cartoon villains and the insane actually thinks of themselves as evil. Everyone thinks their own beliefs are right.
But since it's a game mechanic, good and evil are universal constants. And considering how important it is for interacting with certain spells, it makes sense that most adventurers would at least take the time to learn their alignment if they weren't able to figure it out on their own.
By asking a player what their characters alignment is would be considered shorthand for characters talking to each other about their overall beliefs for life in general.
It could be played out, but using what we consider classifications of those beliefs helps to maintain a good gaming pace instead of slowing it down for moral discussion.