Single Axis Alignments any different ?

[Phasics]

In your mind is there any difference between role playing a character with a single alignment e.g. Lawful vs a character with a Lawful Neutral alignment.

For example where a Lawful Neutral character might make decisions influenced strongly by thier relation to the law the neutral part of their alignment would also have them consider the moral implications on the scale of good and evil.

However a Purely Lawful character might act exclusively with the regard to the law to the exclusion of all else. the question of good or evil would simply never enter into their mind.

In a way a single axis alignment could represent a mental disorder in the character. for example if a characters mind can't comprehend the difference between good and evil and base their actions on how lawful or chaotic they are could such a person ever detect as good or evil ?

In the same way a character acting purely Good with no concept of law of chaos can they ever detect as such based on the choices they make ?

[Losobal]

Law: Lawful characters believe that obeying rules
is the natural way of life. They always try to tell the
truth. They are fair to others and keep their promises.
Lawful characters put the welfare of the group
above their own and generally behave in a manner
that most people would consider good.

Chaos: Chaotic characters are the opposite of
lawful characters. They believe that life is random.
They think luck rules the world and laws
are made to be broken. To them, keeping promises
is not important, and telling lies can be fun-ven
useful! They think they are more important than
anybody else and generally behave in a manner
most people would consider bad.

Neutrality: Neutral characters believe there
should be a balance between law and chaos. To
them, the individual is important, but so is the
group. They tend to treat others as others treat
them, and usually look out for themselves first they
expect others to do the same. They prefer to
rely on their own abilities, rarely trusting their
fate to luck or another character.

(not mine) were the classic 3 of the Basic Set back in the day. Basically Chaos was the alignment of 'the badguys'. The days of simplicity.

The idea of doing good without a concept of law/chaos/etc, hm, potentially tough because it lacks an anchor perspective. What Good are you doing? Your interpretation? A greater power interpretation? A State/country/community interpretation?

That being said, the old standby of Angel and Devil on your shoulders is used to represent the good/evil considerations without law/chaos aspects.

[Kazaan]

Here's how I figure it:

The two axis model of alignment works best when the effect of the two axes are reciprocal. Lawful-Good characters feel that Lawfulness leads to Good and Goodness leads to Lawfulness. This makes for a more powerful conviction because the two aspects support and strengthen one another. By contrast, a Neutral-Good character only has a single axis to support their actions; they have no strong conviction towards Law or Chaos. The Neutral-Good alignment is representative of the "commoner's good"; they value Goodness, but lack followthrough. Lawful lends towards Discipline; you do it because you should. Chaos leads to Pride; you do it because you really want to and you have confidence in yourself. Superman is the posterboy for Lawful Good while Robin Hood is the posterboy for Chaotic Good. But there's no really significant posterboy for Neutral Good. To summarize, the Lawful Good character is better at being Good than the Neutral Good and better at being Lawful than the Lawful Neutral. But the Neutral Good character is more versatile; he may not be as good at being Good as LG or CG, but he less frequently runs into issues that would prevent him from achieving his views of Good.

Furthermore, even the two-axis model is lacking. Thematically speaking, there's no good reason a CE character can't be just as heroic as a LG character. The alignment system is better represented by a cube with a third axis being that of Heroism vs Villainy. As it stands now, we have sort of a slanted cross-section with LG being angled up towards Heroism, CE angled down towards Villainy, and LE, TN, and CG being sort of in the middle. NG and LN are "heroic-lite" while CN and NE are the diet coke of CE. That's not even counting Blue-Orange Morality considerations.

So, to go the other way and boil it down to one dimension less as a single alignment bar makes it just that; one-dimensional. One system I've seen has an alignment bar that follows the concept that Law vs Chaos is the major conflict in the world; Chaos is just Evil by another name and same applies to Law.

<-[-C]-[C]-[CN]-[NC]-[-N]-[N]-[N+]-[NL]-[LN]-[L]-[L+]->

Chaotic-Minus sort of represents CE while Chaotic is just "normal chaotic". CN is Chaotic with neutral leanings; there's no such thing as "chaotic-good" because good is a concept associated with lawfulness. Then you have NC which is Neutral with Chaotic leanings and the three Neutral alignments representing slight evil or good leanings. Then it mirrors the other way to describe the interplay between Good, Neutral, and Lawful. It's condensed and "sort of" represents all the alignment considerations on a single axis, but it's very constricting and leads to a very simplified consideration of absolute bad vs absolute good. But morality has more dimensions to it; even more than the three I listed as ideal for considering mortal morality.

[Atarlost]

I would ditch good and evil. They're really just proxies for ally/enemy of the protagonists and trying to put specifics to them pisses off everyone with philosophical or religious views of morality that don't exactly match those of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.

Law and Chaos aren't actually opposites, but there's a vague germ of meaning there that could be expressed in a value neutral way that doesn't offend almost everyone who has bothered to form an opinion on the subject.

Really, I'd prefer to get rid of alignment completely, but if you need a cosmic conflict it needs to be mostly orthogonal to good and evil as actually defined by actual ethicists.

[Kazaan]

If you don't like the Universal Absolutist concepts of "Lawful vs Chaos" or "Good vs Evil", I've used alternate, more personal concepts to represent how a person thinks about certain things. This can still be used to govern mechanical restrictions, but in a more personal manner and less metaphysical.

Instead of Good-Neutral-Evil, use Cooperative-Independent-Competitive.

Cooperative focuses on teamwork; they believe you can get more done and achieve better results by working with others towards a common goal.

Independent focuses on self-improvement; they believe you can get more done if you improve your individual capabilities.

Competitive focuses on... well, competition. They believe that competing with someone else yields better results and more improvement.

Instead of Lawful-Neutral-Chaotic, use Conservative-Liberal-Radical.

Conservatives value traditional methods. They believe in using what you already know works and "don't fix it if it ain't broke." You only bother trying to make improvements if the current method is already broken beyond repair. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Benefits you already possess have greater weight than benefits you could potentially have.

Liberals value progressive methods. Sure, use what works, but don't wait until it's broken before you try to find a better way. Look for the better way while still enjoying the benefit of traditional methods and never settle for "good enough".

Radicals are always looking for new ways to do things and view tradition as a stagnating force that just holds us back. The radical would happily break what works just for an excuse to re-work it with improvement in mind.

These can have mechanical basis in the same way we have certain classes or abilities "alignment-locked" now. Some will be quite different; Whereas the Paladin is locked to LG traditionally, with the system I described they may be locked out of Radical (the Radical mindset works at odds with the Paladin's mindset) and Independent (They must either focus on Cooperation to help their fellows or Competition to strive to be better than the aggressors; the self-focus of the Independent outlook is contrary to the Paladin's mindset).