A Matter of Alignment
Chapter: Comics, Season Five
Keeping in mind that this chart represents some comedic examples of alignment, I will go on record and say this: I hate alignment. I always have.
In my opinion, people have the capacity to be any alignment given the situation so characters should follow that as well. Sure, alignment as a rule is a helpful guide and not an end all, be all but for some players and GMs it is gospel: No wavering and no room for interpretation. In my experience it is Lawful Good that provokes the most discussions (see also: arguments) at a table.
Commenters: I’d love to hear your opinions on alignment in RPGs. Where do you fall? Pro? Con? or Neutral?
Lawful Good is evil. They tend to follow the letter of the law and never accept their own judgement on things. People in the real world who do this tend to commit some of the most evil acts in history.
Just look at the parents that condemn their own children for something as silly as who gets them horny.
I disagree. A person who does those things would be Lawful Neutral at best, probably Lawful Evil, and like all people who do those things, would CLAIM to be Lawful Good. A person who ostracizes his gay son is acting on his own prejudices and hatreds and using religious Law as an excuse. There are plenty of religious people who love their gay kids. They just don’t make the news. Some months ago I talked about this in a video I recorded: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr-gAA96afw
Every person I have ever played with that played a Paladin including the GMs insisted Lawful Good meant that their Paladin has to follow the rules of their god not the rules of man.
This is exactly what I mean by evil. Thou shalt not steal is a rule of god. A paladin would allow his child to starve even if stealing food was the only way to save his own child’s life.
That’s because it’s a Paladin. Their religion based. Not all gods are lawful good either. Some are lawful neutral or evil. When it comes to the whole do I steal and save lives or do I follow the law and let them die, a true lawful good paladin would basically have an existential crisis.
Actually a paladin should give their own food to their child and starve themself to death if it’s a matter of personal poverty. No need for a crisis when you just act selflessly, and besides it’s not a fair argument the Paladin doesn’t steal the food or let the children starve. They’d defeat the tyrant and force them to feed the children. Possibly if they’ve been running around dungeons as a murder hobo they do the philanthropist thing. Anyone DMing for a paladin player who lets children starve should bring back old edition rules and make them lose their powers unless they’re a paladin of an evil deity.
That’s actually the very poor reading of Lawful Good that resulted in the term “Lawful Stupid.”
Lawful Good has a code of morals that they do not break from. Period. They will attempt to work within the laws to make things better. They believe in order and good, not the laws of man.
Lawful Good, in my experience is generally synonmous with Lawful STUPID!
Example: Lvl1 Pally: Oh look, a dragon trapped in a cage, it’s wrong. We must free it.
Pally frees said dragon… said RED dragon.
Pally become snacky cake for said RED Dragon.
And yes, I have seen this happen, well… something similar anyway.
😀
Considering that even a level one paladin can detect evil at will, I’d say that example isn’t so much proof that “lawful good = lawful stupid” as much as it is proof that “some people are really crappy at playing paladins”.
Your player are stupid. And your example its bad and should feel bad for it, RipperJ.
Your grammar is worse.
you’re*
No one used “your” (which implies ownership) in a context that would require it to be changed to “you’re” (which is an abbreviation of you are.)
A more in-depth look at how alignment is supposed to work, as opposed to how most people – who don’t understand moral philosophy – roleplay alignment.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/tabletop/checkfortraps/8386-All-About-Alignment
Then you might not be playing lawful good right…
I don’t have a major issue with alignment as a concept, in my experience the issues usually come from people not understanding that it isn’t an absolute for the PCs (paladins and maybe clerics are the exceptions). You can act out of alignment from time to time without having to fall from grace or whatever.
The absolute alignment thing really comes into play for the outsiders in D&D/Pathfinder because they are literally embodiments of their alignments. Though Pathfinder has even started to mess worth this given the fact that their recent Wrath of the Righteous adventure path has a redeemed succubus as a fairly important NPC, and leaves the door open for a certain demon lord to rise from the Abyss.
That said, if alignment weren’t so baked into the system by now due to the spells that affect specific alignments etc, I’d probably do away with it just to avoid the arguments. I prefer the vices and virtues/morality system that most of White Wolf’s games use.
Agreed. And in addition: The Book Of Vile Darkness and the Book Of Exalted Deeds do the same as you mentioned for Pathfinder in their respective ways for D&D. Exalted Deeds even explains the way by which you can redeem an “allways chaotic evil”-Monster.
That said, if used with a grain of salt and by players and GMs who don’t use alignment to munchkin their way through an adventure, it can even add to the experience. Especially if a well played paladin and blackguard are interested in the same end interesting times are guaranteed.
How long until this is a poster?
/\
THIS!
Seconded? Thirded?
^^ Sooooo much this…
Yes please!
YES! Insta-buy if this was a poster!
Yes plz. I need it for my office.
Blasted auto correct. Should say that Pathfinder has started to mess WITH it, not WORTH it. That’s what I get for typing essay responses on my phone
I’ve been out of traditional D&D and Pathfinder for a little while due to school, and I enjoy the smooth RP that comes with systems that don’t care about alignment. I like being able to just do what feels right, and act appropriately if my character’s having a bad day without losing class abilities.
Anyone played anything based on Apocalypse World? Lots of good character interaction, one social skills, and no alignment charts. I like that.
I’d say useful for when a player is new (sort of) so that they don’t think that their character can be this insanely bipolar crazy person by providing a guideline for sticking to characterization. If that isn’t going to be a problem, then Alignment can be just ignored for the most part /unless/ playing a character that has negatives for not sticking with whatever theirs is. In my group of friends who play, they pretty much always end up either neutral or chaotic good. That seems to me to be what most people tend to be in real life when they aren’t a bit socio/psyhopathic. given that, unless they decide that they specifically want to play a variant of evil Alignment pretty much doesn’t matter.
Alignment is more of a guideline to me. Though earned traits, like “saint”, or “evil deeds” are appropriate based on consistent PC game play. It’s per PC though, not character.
I try to be CN or TN with pangs of good, but I veer to evil often. iRL and in game. I do play good characters very well though.
This is why parties and most GMs won’t let me play certain characters anymore because I play classes as what they are…. I actually played a insane Anti Paladin that thought he was a lawful good Paladin which was difficult to play but took a few months for the party to realize he was evil even after slaughtering a barmaid claiming she was a assassin because she spilled a drink on him or burning down half the town because someone’s horse sneezed claiming it was plague….
So… is a ‘bastich’ an illegitimate sandwich?
This is awesome! :o)
On the one hand, I like the alignment system because I think I’m actually Lawful Neutral in real life. [I do not break laws. I don’t even jaywalk. I never even intentionally drank alcohol before I was 21.] The DM’s I’ve played with have never been particularly adamant about the whole alignment thing, though (thus how a Lawful Good monk was able to participate in a riot and throw molotov cocktails about) so nothing has happened to make me hate it.
While drawing up a character (actually 3) for Iron Kingdoms, I realized they have nothing even resembling an alignment system, and that scares me a little bit. I don’t have a quick reference of “oh, this character’s personality is like X” that I can then use to determine what she would do in a particular situation. I worry that I’ll end up using what I would do in a situation, or try to come up with the “optimal” action, and neither of those are particularly good ways of roleplaying, in my opinion.
In my games anyways, I still use alignment as a reasonable factor to gauge overall morality, because honestly as a gaming mechanic, it does work as intended.
For NPCs.
For players, I let them know that their alignment is most definitely subject to change based on their actions, and I’m pretty quick to wising up to alignment abuse. My regulars know this, too, and very rarely try any funny business with me.
For me anyways, the way to keep headaches to a minimum when it comes to letting themargue a point about is: usually I don’t. I’ve simply seen almost every argument and trick in the book and refuse to be BS’d. Since I usually don’t like to be so heavy handed, for alignment specific appeals, I’d give any player a once-a-night opportunity to make their case to me in 25, 30 seconds or less. If they can convince me, then I grant them their amnesty. If not, my judgement is rendered immediately with no arguments.
The nine alignments themselves are pretty fine, and great measuring points for morality in a game like D&D, but honestly it seems to work best with NPCs. Players are too tempted usually to game the system, sometimes just to see if they can. Other times, just to be d-bags.
Bluh, didn’t mean to post this as a response to Fyora. XD
Serves me right for trying to post from my phone at 2:00 AM.
I actually don’t mind alignments. Alignment gives me the ‘first instinct’ of the character – how they would generally act if left to their own devices. I wrote a short introduction to alignments over on Slacktivist.
Lawful = The Law is worth more than the Individual. A Lawful character will strive to uphold the law and work within the law as much as possible, even at her own expense.
Neutral = The Law works until it is more inconvenient to follow the law than to break it. A Neutral person generally tries to keep intrusion into their own lives to a minimum, and will generally follow the law because it makes their lives better. When the law becomes a problem, this person is more than willing to work around the law to get along with life.
Chaotic = The Law is nothing, Individuality is everything. A Chaotic person ignores any law as she sees fit, doing what she wants. She may function in society and follow some laws because it makes life easy, but not because she feels she should follow the law – she’s willing to break the law any time she wants, for any reason.
/Good = The need of others outweighs one’s own needs. A Good person is one who sees the importance of others as having more value than their own importance, and will strive to help others.
/Neutral = The need of others is important, but one’s own needs are important as well. This kind of person is willing to let others suffer to ensure their own comfort, but is not just going to ignore other people’s suffering or needs if it isn’t necessary.
/Evil = The need of the self outweighs all other needs. The Evil person puts their own interests above anyone else’s, and will help others only if it furthers their own goals.
I’m okay with alignment. It’s useful for some things, but a pain when it comes to others. It was helpful when I was writing my home pantheon.
No Lawful Stupid?
No no, that’s the first one.
I dislike it but in a world of qualitising the imqualitable there needs to be some guideline to ensure consistency. Otherwise “Good heroes” would be running around blowing up hospitals to cause their opposition to flee/lose face. (I’m sure we;ve all met those gamers…).
By slapping a label on such activities, eg the “law is the law” LN types we can set a world where players and GM’s can justify and framework characters which would not exist in their own personal worldview.
If the GM is Chaotic Neutral (like myself), then it is very hard to have the types of farmers, bureaucrats and police who would arrest a child for stealing bread, or have temples and charities who work for donations.
I like RPG _because_ it let’s me (safely!) walk in such alien worlds.
OTOH, The whole “you have to have this alignment to be this class” …wtf. There are plenty of thieves who won’t break the code, whatever it is this week set by the bosses. There are plenty of pious “chaste” sodomites. Not every Holy Warrior is cast in gold, nor every plutocrat uncharitable or scheming (check Bill Gates freebies and contributions for perfect example)
I have never really been a fan of alignment in a game, either. Give me the various ‘disadvantages’ of GURPS any day. Most characters ‘default’ to ‘neutral with chaotic tendencies’, but then you can add in things like ‘is really bad at lying’, ‘kleptomania’, and ‘goes into a bloodthirsty rage at the sight of baby ducklings’… and get build points for it.
There’s also the nWoD Virtue/Vice system, which works rather well, though it still allows your character to be a kitten-eating party-killer.
If I had to pick an actual alignment system, I’d go with the one from Palladium. It breaks down how the characters will act in given situation, and moreover, gives an idea WHY they are the way they are. Are they a Neutral because they were literally raised by wolves, and never learned right from wrong? Or just because they don’t give a crap and are out for themselves?
Oh, and if a player ever says ‘Well, my character is Alignment X, it’s what they would do’ to justify their actions, odds are, they’re being a douchebag, no matter what the alignment is.
Years ago me and my friends played the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game quite a lot. In one of my few forays as a GM I got hold of the Realms Of Chaos books and had my friends roll up a party of aspiring Chaos champions. If you ever want to see an unhealthy look of glee on players faces, telling them that not only is slaughtering innocents and inter-party backstabbing allowed but also NECESSARY for advancement is definitely the way to do it 😉
Testing.
In my current campaign, characters can take whatever alignment they want, but it doesn’t matter at all, except as an indicator to other players what their tendency is. Good/Evil checks are based on cultural stigma and biology. Aasimars, for example, always register as good, while Tieflings always register as evil. Extreme cases of either can register neutral, if warranted. Also, in some areas gambling is evil. Paladins from that area can see underground dealers and bookies when using detect evil. In other areas, poison is taboo, and anyone who uses poison on a regular basis gets the big red flag.
I like this method a lot more.
I don’t like hard alignment, but I like a soft alignment system. An alignment tells me how your charachter thinks of themself, and how they will react in most day to day situations. That being said, I generally play Chaotic Neutral when I don’t know a DMs style, as a DM who uses hard alignment has trouble dinging anything a Chaotic Neutral Charachter does. Also, Palladium’s alignment system makes more sense than the standard D&D system.
I think alignment can be a useful tool but usually it’s abused. I think 4e’s alignment system was superior to the previous editions in many ways. Chaotic Neutral for example? Yeah, that’s one abused alignment right there.
Oh, no argument there. CN is a license to do whatever the voices tell you to do, and nobody can call you on it because you’re ‘not evil’.
I’d like to see any one of my players try this on me. I dare them. I double-dare them. ]:)
Same, hahaha.
Other than as an incredibly vague guideline, I find alignments to be remarkably worthless. They fail on a number of fronts.
A) They don’t solve a problem.
I’ve read tales of heroism and antiheroism and intrigue capable of making Machiavelli himself gape slack-jawed. None of which have alignment labels. Nobody has ever sat down to a game and not known how to have fun or to play as part of a group without setting their alignment in stone.
B) They (mostly) discourage creativity.
“Well, I don’t really think it’s going to help anyone, but I went lawful good, and I think that means I need to burn all of us as heretics, for the good of my church.” D&D alignment has rules for XP punishments for “alignment violations”. So not only are you pigeonholing your hero, but if you decide “Oh, it’s not worth causing a scene, we’re all tired and this is just a gate guard.” then your chaotic good guy MIGHT take an XP penalty for not expressing useless outrage over paying the gate toll to get back in the city. That’s fun for nobody at the table, but the rules incentivize it.
C) They’re magically detectable.
Even if “detect alignment” isn’t a spell in your setting, you’ve got artifacts that harm even on casual contact by someone of the wrong alignment. And planes aligned to each, housing all the afterlives. Not that planescape isn’t awesome, but FFS, you have entire worlds of people who have the same moral compass? And that’s not weird? Or bland to walk around in?
D) One saving grace.
The one plus of this system… the slight, redeeming feature? Lawful Evil. Unlike any other slot in this chart, it’s interesting. It’s a goal opposed and aided by an ethic. A paladin usually has to choose constantly between the lesser of two evils: being good or being lawful… because they often can’t do both. Lawful evil is “I work for my own ends, but I won’t break my word.” and they usually can do both. And it’s effective to do both. Good is reactionary. Because if nothing is wrong with the world, there’s nothing to fix. Evil has something to do whether or not the world is threatened. The player will have a goal to work towards, even in the absence of other plot elements. That’s very interesting.
I always wanted to play a LE wizard. Goal: Retire to tower, perform horrifying experiments for power. Method: aid group of adventurers so as to have allies of great political clout… to keep everybody away from my tower when I retire. (Note to self, give former party members ways to stay in touch without visiting in person.)
Alignment should be a “this may help you conceptualize your character’s morality.” No more, no less.
Then players have to write their own label, in terms of an action they’d always do if they could and action they’d never do it’s avoidable.*
The always/never lets you know where to push at a player’s resolve – useful both players and GMs. Traditional alignment wheels? Not so much.
* I have never done this. The idea just occurred to me. It’s rather similar to two very focused Aspects in Fate. I really want to try this if I run a traditional fantasy game again, though!
I find Alignment sound -IN THEORY-. It’s a code your character generally applies to. It’s when a player(Or G.M, as I have seen a few do this) uses it as a rigid code your character MUST apply to.
I’ve treated it as “Look, sometimes the best path you see involves breaking a few rules, but if you’re a Neutral Good who’s burning down every orphanage we pass, you’re not Good. Or Neutral.”
For some characters, the rigid works, though, I have to admit. A Lawful Good Paladin, to me, makes sense, and I can see that type of character being played to that standard 100%, it’s who that character is.
I think alignment can be a guide to how your character views the world. In a party of mostly chaotic good characters I played a chaotic neutral wizard with good tendencies. All things being equal he would generally do the ‘good’ action. However, He was very pragmatic and would be the first one to suggest a somewhat ruthless act if it was the course that would lead to his/the party’s survival.
We had been saddled with a mute orphan girl of about 12 years and needed to find a place for her to call home. We found a temple in a village who would raise the child. I donated a rather large sum of money, primarily silver pieces to see to her care. The players made several Grinch jokes about my heart having grown two sizes that day. One of them made a comment in character. I calmly explained that the silver was heavy and I was sick of carrying it, the child was slowing our progress on the adventure and I had watched the priest secure the money in a hidey hole and now knew where to check should we ever pass this way again in need of cash.
This makes me so happy. And I have to go to work, but…Chaotic Good for life.
I have never played anything but Chaotic Good. Does that make me boring? Idk but its my favourite alignment.
It was the alignment system, and the fact that everyone around me playing had not yet read BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL to be able to consider the outside-the-box thinking needed to approach it in a less restrictive manner, that drove me to GURPS and Hero very quickly. I had to find systems that didn’t encourage systemic restrictions to get the most out of the games I wanted to run.
The only way to have the alignments actually mean something is the GM has to enforce it. During the course of my games, I tell my characters that certain actions they plan to perform, or just did perform, count as ‘alignment damage’ that moves them towards an alignment more along the lines of how they act in game. That ‘Neutral Good’ character in the poster wouldn’t stay Neutral Good for long if they tried to receive payment for every good action. Once in a while is fine, but constant use of the phrase move them towards the purely ‘Neutral’ alignment.
One also has to learn to identify the crazy Chaotic Neutral/Evil characters and try to curb game-destroying tendencies early. They can still be crazy/evil types, but they still need -some- amount of reasoning to what they do, even if it is because they are batman’s Joker style crazy.
WOULD BUY THIS POSTER
To quote the Pathfinder Core Rulebook: “Alignment is a tool for developing your character’s identity—it is not a straitjacket for restricting your character. Each alignment represents a broad range of personality types or personal philosophies, so two characters of the same alignment can still be quite different from each other. In addition, few people are completely consistent.”
Literally my only problem with the alignment system is the way that people forget/ignore this idea. People get so wrapped up in alignment descriptions that they forget it’s possible to play a Lawful Good character without being an uptight holier-than-thou stick-in-the-mud, or that playing a Chaotic Good character does not mean “I can do whatever the hell I want as long as it’s for ‘the greater good'”.
EVERY alignment encompasses a broad range of principles and personalities. To me, that’s why there are multiple deities with the same alignment; just because two gods/goddesses are of the same alignment doesn’t mean they necessarily have the same priorities. It’s like how one Chaotic Evil god’s tenets can be “bring down the system and revel in sin”, but another CE god’s can be “KILL ABSOLUTELY F*CKING EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE”.
One last note: in my personal opinion, no paladin worth their salt should ever prioritize following the law over doing good.
Indeed. I always imagined that, in the case if paladins, the “lawful” comes mostly from how they tend to be bound to the codes of conduct of their faith. But that their codes would probably understand a few rules-breaking every now and then if it meant being Good.
How I usually do it:
“Do you have a personal code (that you actually follow)?” yes= Lawful
“Do you have to justify your behavior?” yes= Neutral
“Do you consider the effects of your actions?” no= Chaotic
Now Good/Evil is based on context & needs to be judged on a case-by-case basis.
PS: The Joker is a wildcard of the purest sense. If anything he is a compulsive and pathological liar so it’s impossible to pace him anywhere on a chart.
Joker may be a wildcard, but he’s still a mass murdering psychopathic monster, in addition to being self-serving and a compulsive liar.
While he may be unpredictable, it’s those aforementioned qualities that put him squarely in Chaotic Evil territory.
The idea that chaotic characters don’t consider the consequences of their actions is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard on the topic. If anything, they are more concerned with consequences than lawful characters, since they are more likely to consider that the ends justify the means, such as in the cases of petty “evils” like theft, lying, or word-breaking. Tell me that a CG character isn’t more likely to approve of such things, while a LG character would balk at them even for a good cause.
I demand this on a poster, sir… stat!
I use the 4e alignment system, with some changes. Alignments represent an individual’s attunement to the cosmic scales of balance, or alignment.
A demon in my world would be both strongly Chaotic and strongly Evil. Fey would be strongly Chaotic, and some would also be either mildly Evil or mildly Good to lesser degrees. Elementals are strongly Chaotic while Celestials are strongly Lawful. The goddess of healing and peace is primarily Good, while the god of tyranny is strongly Lawful and Evil. Mortals tend to fall somewhere in the middle, being considered Unaligned.
This system reflects the fact that my world is built around the struggles between various cosmic forces, all vying to influence the mortal realm. I basically use Unaligned instead of Neutral.
My favorite take on the classic D&D alignments comes from HackMaster 4e. Players can take whatever actions they want, the GM just tracks them using an alignment wheel/graph and Alignment Infraction Points (AIPs) for every time the player does something out of their declared alignment. Over time the PC could gradually shift to another alignment and not even know it until an Alignment Audit come around. If they are in a different alignment category when that happens then, bam!, alignment shift and lose a level. No arguing over actions and players are free to do whatever they please, whenever they please. The consequences just come down the road.
Alignment works if you use it as a FRAMEWORK for a character’s behavior. A Lawful Good character need not always follow the letter of the law exactly and make every other character follow the letter of the law exactly. In fact, a Lawful Good character might not even be concerned with the actual laws of the place he or she is living at all. A Lawful Good character just needs to ultimately be concerned with the greater good and have some sort of moral code.
The problem arises because not everyone can or does see how much room these alignments allow for interpretation and because way too many people get hung up on exactly what alignment a character should be.
I don’t see it as a necessary part of the system, but with intelligent players, it’s not a problem.
I use alignments in games that have them but more of a ‘guideline’ than a hard fast rule (the exception being paladins/blackguard, you want to be a (un)holy roller? well that’s your bag to hold mate.) My players know that if they get too far out of alignment that I will change their alignment but most of the time the group doesn’t throw a fit.
I don’t know. I gotta admit that neutral good and neutral evil don’t really sound like their alignment to me.
Neutral Good sounds nothing but selfish (ironically neutral evil). And Neutral Evil sounds nothing but cowardly (no stance on issues therefore, true neutral)
I’ve always really liked neutral good because to me at least they were the ones who did something good because it seemed like the right thing to do. It wasn’t what society declared to be right (LG), nor was it only motivated by the need for freedom (CG). They did good because it was good.
Neutral Evil on the other hand….They felt to me like that one Pirate who just wants to loot and raid because he really really likes money. He’s unburdened by conscience and is well and truly depraved. He’s a sociopath, but he’s not a psychopath. Nor is he trying to twist societies rules to his own ends.
Oh, I am not presenting accurate representations here. These are the worst examples of how some folks treat each alignment.
In my group we take on aligment as more of a gideline that a rule. It can be helpful in establishing a character’s personality at the beginning, and as the sessions roll, we kinda forget about it.
(Unless someone tried to do something that is completly contrary to what he’d been doing. Then it’s either a GM-Player plot against the party or some lame attempt at metagaiming that gets mocked for days afterwards)
We’ve tried playing by aligment and found that it put a damper on both the GM and the players.
I think alignments are good in that they give structure and focus. Playing towards them at all times is kind of boring and stale, but they have their purpose.
Especially if you’re dealing with it in a campaign setting like Planescape where ideology is king. I definitely suggest checking out old Planescape material if you’re having trouble coming to terms with alignment. They aren’t a “be all end all” but they are definitely something that is useful.
I don’t like to enforce alignment in my dnd/pathfinder games on players, saying “No you can’t do that. You are lawful/good/evil/etc”, but I do believe in natural consequences. Acting good or evil is likely to have their own repercussions from NPCs and from the players.
As one of my players once said “Act like a evil dick. Get stabbed in the evil dick.”
I’m sorry, but NG is SO FAR from the definition of ‘Neutral Good’ that’s it’s not even funny. An NG character tends to take all factors into consideration before going good — they’re the most flexible of the goo alignments. LN is about honor and honor codes — he MAY react like that, if he was close to LE. LE is actually on the nose. NE acts like that if they’re dumb. CE and CN are pretty dead-on. CG are individualistic good guys — think Dirty Harry or old-style Green Arrow. N is close enough. I have to admit that LG is close to dead-on.
Personally, for alignments I prefer Pathfinder’s numerical alignment system in Pathfinder’s Ultimate Campaign supplement. It allows for more flexibility in alignments.
Oh, I am not presenting accurate representations here. These are the worst examples of how some folks treat each alignment.
I think alignment is often used to justify lazy roleplaying. If you use it to limit the game, it is definitely a bad thing.
On the other hand, if you use it to flesh out your characters and provide opportunities to face hard choices, it can be a big improvement on the game.
The obvious example would be to face a lawful good character with a choice where any good course of action would be unlawful and any lawful course of action would be morally wrong by their standards. Which way they end up choosing starts to say which they value more.
As a postscript, I will say that true neutral really is no good, and choosing it is in itself an act of lazy roleplaying.
I had a character concept once that was basically Jesus as a halfling with a mace. The game never got started, but I did end up running the poor guy through a test session with one of the best GMs I’ve ever met, and she put me in exactly that situation. Because of who the character was, I wound up sacrificing him to save the life of a small child, as it was the only way to satisfy both the law and ethics. You can really test a character to the breaking point if they’re played with strong convictions, and I love to see those moments.
That sounds like it was an incredible session! Good on you and your GM for that.
Down with alignments!
The main problem with alignment is that it’s tied into certain mechanics. If it was just a way to rate your character’s actions overall (ie: it’s not that a Lawful Good person can’t commit murder, it just means that the murder is insignificant compared to their good acts if they’re still considered LG), it would be fine. It’s when you have to make use of spells like “Protection from Good” that alignment becomes a hot button issue, since now the way your character is judged on that scale becomes mechanically important.
Side note: fuck Paladins as written. Every bad stereotype about Lawful Good is essentially Paladin players refusing to stray so much as an inch from the oath as written in the manual.
I find TN to be a bit of a catch 22 really.
People who hit TN quality actions imho…
Tenenbaum (to me the absolute in TN alignment, if you’re doing something do it right)
House
Wow that list ran short, I know there were more. Anyway, TN can be fun occasionally… I played a TN druid who decided that nature could suck one for once on occasion, resulting in a variety of calamities (forest wildfires, tidal waves sucking up entire cities) simply because a particular disaster deemed it necessary. The DM was ticked because my arguments were solid enough at the time due to the situation laid before me. (Epidemics, extinctions, etc.)
Still love the chart, as I’ve seen these types of players. Love the work as always Brian.
These are good parody stereotypes 🙂 but for me the two biggest problems with D&D for decades have been alignment and Vancian magic.
Alignment can be helpful for beginning players I admit but it more often it leads to people playing a point on the Good vs. Evil and Lawful vs. Chaotic graph rather than an actual character. That then leads to anti-social behaviour in-game that the players can legitimise to themselves (and try to legitimise to everyone else) on the basis that they are playing their alignment. Alignment is also very human-centric and very absolute. How would behaviour that is both ‘lawful’ and ‘good’ to the society in question change with non-human races (whether they are a monoculture on not), or between the Aztecs and the Inuit, to give just two examples?
If I was to run a D&D game again I think I would tell my players that they are all either true neutral or lawful neutral with tendencies for other alignments that they would choose to fit their character concepts. Any other absolute alignments would be reserved for extra-planar beings and would all be equally alien and unnerving or the occasional exceptional member of the PC/NPC races. If a player wanted to work towards their character being one of those exceptional people that would make a great story arc which could take years to accomplish.
As a Pathfinder Society GM, I’ve come to find that I unconsciously sigh when a player says, “Well, I’m Chaotic Neutral.” Part of the organized play aspect is that we can’t have evil characters, and players who cling to neutral desperately want to play evil. I literally had a player get pissed off at me for moving his character into ‘evil’ and booting him from my table when he started defining how his character was raping an NPC.
I also like to remind players that alignments come in steps–a lawful good character who murders a child-pickpocket in the middle of a crowded street has committed an evil act, just the same as a lawful neutral character–no matter what the Hellknight’s player says.
I don’t think alignments in and of themselves are bad, but it depends upon my group of players. I’ve GMed for some friends for whom I throw them out entirely, and other friends I include them more so. The more experienced the roleplayer, the more likely I am to throw alignments out the window. It’s really helpful for people just beginning to roleplay to get a feel for their character.
I like the treatment that it gets in Dungeon World as being more of a motivational guideline rather than anything else. They’re also usually simplified a great deal. In fact, in some of the playsets I’ve seen, there’s an actual motivation there instead of anything resembling alignment.
I had a DM who ran an all-evil aligned campaign. It was funny. We ended up killing everyone in several Inns, and took over running them. I played a parody of Drusilla (from BtVS). She carried around a possessed doll (it had no stats or anything, it was just a gimmick) that had to feed on fresh corpses.
In True Neutral fashion, “Meh.”
No, really, we’re almost all Lawful Good folks. If we weren’t, civilization would crumble. So why not play characters that are the same?
Because it’d be boring as all committee meetings. And so self-righteous.
I’d recommend rolling the dice and having your “Lawfulness” determined same as the other stats. After all, we do that for “wisdom,” which is certainly the same as any alignment.
That is an interesting concept that could be explored: Rolling for a form of alignment or moral compass.
I’ve always seen society more as Lawful Neutral, your average person, anyway.
As a player, I like alignments as long as they don’t restrict what class I can play (as a GM, I generally don’t use the restrictions in Pathfinder). I usually play Neutral Good or True Neutral, but recently, I rolled up an Aasimar which is Chaotic Good and is a cleric of a Chaotic Good Goddess. It has been interesting to play because sometimes, I have to go against my mostly Neutral party,and other times, I have to slip towards Neutrality myself when rationalizing that sometimes the “Greater Good” is the security of my party, not the “greatest possible good, whatever that is.” And it is different for me to play and that makes it fun and interesting, to try to go against my own personality and play something somewhat foreign to ME.
As a GM, unless a player goes totally out of the box, I don’t pay much attention to alignments. Most of my players choose True Neutral or Neutral Good. Their personalities tend towards Good, and I have a GM’s rule about NOT preying on fellow party members…
My 78 yr old mother is coming in talking and I can’t finish this at all…
“In my opinion, people have the capacity to be any alignment given the situation so characters should follow that as well. ”
Wow. That is some morally relativistic nonsense. So any person has the capacity to become an immoral, slavering, cannibalistic monster, if they run out of food and need to eat? That’s utter shite that history has proven wrong time and again.
Maybe YOUR moral compass bends with circumstance, but there are many people who have principles, and stick with them.
That is a fine point. I may have overstated my line of thought a bit last night while writing the post. What I am getting at is that I believe we all have our moments of drift from law to chaos. Usually it is nothing huge or noticeable as the little moral voice in our head steps in most of the time. How that translates in RPGs can be a hotbed of arguments and interpretation, though. I know some who alignment as a compass to follow, while for others it is law, and others still (in the case of this ridiculous comic), forget about the little voice that we have in real life (or most of us have) that prevents us from doing horrible things.
I’ll certainly proof my blog posts a little better in the future.
i’ve never been an alignment fan. i find that enforcing alignments gets in the way of characters growing and changing in ways other than the number of dice their fireball gets. and having interventionist gods punish alignment drift by e.g. cursing a character or taking away abilities is just ham handed and uncreative. if, say, a brutal barbarian starts to show hints of kindness and empathy or develops a desire to learn to read and hoards books instead of burning them, he may be ridiculed by his peers or threatened and distrusted by his chieftain, perhaps even be exiled or have to flee for his life. all of these things open up story possibilities. having some savage deity wither his axe arm until he cuts a cow for crom or kisses up to some other god to get healed is just a ho hum dead end.
When will this be available as a poster?
I had a similar concern.
Me three!
My problem with alignment is more in the variability of how people define it. for one thing, my friends and I try to figure out actual people’s alignments, and I have discovered that nobody puts the dividing lines in the same place on the good and evil spectrum. You don’t have to be a baby-eater, or even a killer, to be evil, now do you have to be a saint to be good. Yes, Hitler was evil, and that’s very cut and dried, but, knowing as much about the man as I do, I would also tend to put, for example, John Lennon at the low end of Neutral (because of what he did to those closest to him), if not straight into Evil as well. You can be evil for being verbally abusive and refusing to improve yourself, and you can be good for avoiding bad deeds and sometimes giving to charity.
The alignment system promotes extremes, which can be very counterproductive, and I tend to use it only at the very start of character creation to get a sense of whether or not a character will be quirky and unusual for what their culture is. Alignment is important, for instance, if you have an exiled, lawful neutral Drow, or an evil gold dragon.
I also find that, for the most part, alignment can be related pretty easily to sanity. For a sane character, evil and good will be the major factors, whether they’re horrendous people or paragons, and law and chaos will determine how they enact their preferred alignment. for an insane character (I’ve seen a few of these), the dominant aspect of the personality is law or chaos, a sort of nearly-ritual obsession with behaving a certain way, and good and evil are determined by the outcome of that madness.
As of 4th ed. D&D we only worry about Alignment as a general guideline for how a character should react to a given situation. When a situation comes up that challenges alignment for a character I let the player make the decision they feel is appropriate, if it fits their alignment there is a small reward, a +1 or +2 bump on an important roll or if they need some extra cash for that new sword they find the money in a different pocket or the merchant is willing to haggle. If the character violates their alignment karma might visit a little misfortune making skill DCs a point or two higher. This is never a big deal, just little karmic balances for playing to type. The exception to this is Paladins and Clerics. If these characters break alignment too often without atoning they receive messages from their higher power. I also like to flavor misses as their powers not working if they have a ‘bad karma’ balance. I never punish a player/character for violations beyond the small things. If a character violates their alignment a lot, we discuss a need for a change and we construct a scene to reflect the shift of the character’s world view. This makes it a story point and a great role-play opportunjty rather than a game mechanics issue.
I should point out that I only implemented these rules after discussion with my players and making sure we were all on board with the idea. Also, the players are usually the ones to decide if they have violated their alignment. I might ask if they feel they have violated or acted with their alignment and they give their honest opinions. Other times they tell me if their characters are having to make an alignment issue.
it’s a mixed bag for NEWBS oh yea defiantly have em do it but honestly i think it can hinder players form making there characters more interesting
That’s not how I’ve always been tought NG (and NE) work. It’s supposed to be the “True Good”. Help the needy, respect the laws unless breaking them does more good, always stand up against evil, that sort of thing. Reverse for NE. It’s not about the LAW or the freedom of CHAOTIC behavior, it’s about the GOOD.
I agree. I naturally play as neutral good and always interpret that as “not the law’s idea of good, my idea of good” and more often than not I have higher expectations XD neutral good gives you the freedom to work towards what your character believes is good and frees you from others opinions of good and law in how to get there.
I do many tasks without being paid yet I always seem to end up with the most money…funny that.
My first D&D game, I made the mistake of not taking the weapons dropped by the goblins of our first encounter. But I was creative enough to ask if we could enslave the goblins and sell them at the next town. I was told they would wake up and we would have to fight them again along with the next encounter. The group decided no. I think I should have brought more rope. And taken the swords. Not quite sure where that would have put me on the alignment scale.
Pretty sure that’d be around Lawful Evil, by doing something that while may not be strictly illegal, is morally deplorable by most of society by committing an action you know specifically will cause an extreme form of hardship and suffering on.
My personality traits fall between “Chaotic Good” and “Lawful Evil”. Not quite “Neutral”, though.
http://www.wordofthenerdonline.com/the-beard-speaks-revising-good-and-evil/ is a detailed analysis I wrote on the subject. Shameless plug I know, but also relevant. I don’t particularly like the alignment system, and don’t use it per se except for those individuals who are strongly biased towards one of the extremes (Good, LE, and CE), such as Monks and Paladins who have strong and or religious reasons for adhering to a code of ethics. I also have my players write down a reasonable number of commandments (I usually ask for 10 for some reason) that their character’s faith demands they follow. And I have no problem with bonkers – Chaotic Stupid – style characters… as long as they are funny and amusing and in character. I’ve played a few of them myself, but I ask they be crazy in a specific way and not just “Bugs Bunny”.
“Chaotic Stupid” lol
I once got one of my players to stop being Chaotic Stupid when I sat him down and explained to him that Chaotic alignment means that when you do things, you’d essentially be shouting out “YOLO” for your reason.
I’m just as likely to burn a village to the ground as I am to save a bunch of kids for no reward…
Is that chaotic neutral, or somewhere in the evils?
Evil.
One of my groups, when they found out that there was no special reward for discovering and stopping the monthly source of pollution in this river, wanted to sit at the edge of the lake that flows into the river and poison it so that they could sell purification sponges to the town…
Mind you, they were idling around town beforehand, as retainers that will be granted a tract of land if they do a good job at protecting the construction workers for 2 months, and were told ahead of time that there would be no reward, outside of whatever loot they found off in the wilderness. They just wanted more reward money. <_<''
I would say I fall into chaotic good on this issue. ;P
I guess I’ve been lucky to play with people who understand that it is a guideline to a character’s general outlook on life. A L/E may help a L/G take down a C/E. Their alliance may be very temporary, but they are not mutually exclusive.
I like alignment because it helps people get an idea of what they think their character might do in a situation. Kind of like a WWJD charm for your character’s personality. Lol
“Hide the peanut butter, it’s about to get weird” needs to be some kind of D2M meme.
I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when I read the Chaotic Neutral. It’s not just the line either; his character representation from the clothing to the expression is outstanding. I am impressed sir, truly impressed.
Thank you, kind Sir!
Hmm did my new gravatar work, just checking. Useless post sorry :).
What we did to handle the alignment debate was the “Fractured Alignment” system where on average your alignment shifted a bit per session with in a likely range and under uncommon odds possibly to an opposite range. At the least it made things interesting…
I’m usually Lawful Evil(if allowed) because, yes evil gets shit done. Or I’m Chaotic good.
I never understood how people play opposite ends of the spectrum as their “Usual” alignments… :-X Am I just weird?
(I’m a GM) I like the alignment system, but I find that players who play chaotic tend to be annoying; Chaotic doesn’t mean ADHD, it doesn’t mean you roll dice to determine your next action, etc. It should be called ANTI-LAW, just like Good is ANTI-EVIL.
Chaotic should mean that your character will side with the rebels instead of the empire; your character tries to avoid taxes/tariffs/paying for stuff; your character doesn’t do quests that authority figures hand out, or at least charges them extra and is insulting to boot.
I also don’t let my characters play evil unless there aren’t any good-aligned players in the party; evil is okay for a one-off, but for a long-term game, evil will end up being chased by law enforcement for too much of the game. Intra-party conflict tends to take away from the rest of the game and slow things down.
I personally like 4e’s alignment system. It’s much more simple and straightforward, but it’s also not “Black and white.” Your character doesn’t have to fall into a small, neatly defined box. It simply demonstrates your character’s general outlook and behaviour.
That said–I almost always wind up Lawful Good. 😉
That’s exactly what the alignment system has always been about. Does 4e really try to sell this as a revolutionary change? That’s fucked up.
For me, I don’t really like the Good-Evil axis, as I find saying something is simply ‘good’ or ‘evil’ to be rather reductionistic. I find the conflict between ‘law’ and ‘chaos’ to be far more intriguing, as you can have actual meaningful conflict between fate and free will, between a harsh rule and lawless anarchy, and so forth.
Because of this, I find that I really want to convert the Magic: the Gathering color wheel into a lot of settings, because it results in a lot of interesting conflicts between actual opposing philosophies as opposed to saying “Them evil, me smash”.
there’s a group from my college that has tried to get me to join them several times. for the most part, the guys are laid back, thoughtful, well-skilled role-players.
Then there’s Terry. Terry is mostly there as he’s friends with the guy who runs the game, but its obvious he thinks he knows more than everyone else, despite barely comprehending how the alignment system works. for instance his interpretation of CN – that of being a selfish ‘i do what i want’ individual isnt that far off, and ive given him props for that.
its what comes whenever a ‘pretty girl’ is harmed whether that ‘pretty girl’ happens to be the Dark Elf assassin trying to enslave them, the barmaid caught in the crossfire, or the NPC the characters are trying to protect, even going so far as to slit the throat of their fighter/tank when he slapped her to bring her out of her hysterics…all while in the presence of a Solar/Deva who he immediately kneels in front of of since..
wait for it…
its a pretty female…and then he bitches when the Deva incinerates his character for being a potential force of evil. in order to keep the game moving the DM asks me to take Terry Aside and explain to him what he did wrong and why the angel did what IT/she did.
“but im playing in alignment, my character wants to protect pretty girls”
“thats fine Terry, but you dont go full CE in front of an Angel and kill a party member.”
“dude, im CN, i do what i want…”
” no ‘dude’ you need to get it. yes, you’re playing the role of a selfish, lecherous git, with a thing for pretty faces. thats fine. that DOESNT mean you murder your party members, especially one taking orders from an angel, and especially not in front of it…”
“well..i was doing what i was supposed to…”
“No. what you did was go full retard, and then thinking that pledging your services to the angel, WHOSE AGENT YOU JUST MURDERED, was going to just smile and say ‘sure, join us’. no. what you just did, was make yourself seem as utterly evil and demonic as the demons it faces, and chose to END YOU before you ran the risk of becoming an even BIGGER problem down the road…yes, CN is a selfish alignment, but its also called ‘the madman’s alignment’ you wont commit to good or evil. may do both, but that doesnt mean that the opposing forces are just going to ignore you. CN puts you ONE step away from the worst of the alignments, and the complete diametric opposite of an angels. now if you want to sulk and complain cuz your character died, thats fine…but YOU”RE the one who didnt think it through…”
“its my choice, i make my character’s decisions!”
/sigh “and yes, how well did that work out for you?” when i relayed how the convo went to Nathan, he just shrugged and said ‘yah, thats what i was expecting, he just doesnt get it…’ a couple of games later, Terry’s character was ressurected, to hammer the point home, it was a succubus that raised him from the dead, in order to push him to the road to damnation and as a way to kill the angel who was aiding the party.
he STILL wasnt getting it. six months down the road when Nathan just took Terry aside and said ‘thats it dude, yer out…’
Good, neutral and evil sucks. Virtually nobody in the real world considers themselves to be evil, and few would deem themselves to be neutral either.
What is good and what is evil (or bad) is subjective.
Many roleplaying games have no defined good or evil. And they are usually better than D&D because of it (less dogmatic, less simplistic and so on).
I can do good, but I would not say I AM good. I can be a pretty nasty piece of work. I would classify myself as neutral, not so much for intentional balance as I do both good and evil as suits my purposes. I would probably be lawful, as I do adhere to a set of rules. While they do not change on whimsy, only through careful consideration, they are my rules. They are not society’s rules even if there is overlap.
Just because someone doesn’t think that they are evil doesn’t mean they aren’t. The depth or lack of it under the D&D alignment system has more to do with the roleplaying capacity of DMs and players than the system itself. There are many ways to play and define the various alignments. So long as the player and DM work it out before play, s’all good.
I both like it and loathe it at times.
People at my tables tend to take it too far at times and try to play their alignment rather than their character. And then there’s there’s the people who seem to try to force me to ban any permutations on Neutral and Evil other than Lawful.
And then there’s the guy who picks True Neutral to dodge all of the alignment based spells.
It works best if it has something to ground it in, and there’s some consensus on how alignments relate to the society you’re in. e.g. an Oriental Adventures party I played in with a LG Buddhist nun, LG Kensai, LN samurai, CN magician. Alignments made sense (based on belief systems, society’s rules, being an outsider from mormal society etc).
I think problems occur when there’s no real structure to inform a character’s morality/ethics – he’s just LG, or CN, or NE, because he is.
I guess what I’m saying is, alignment works when best when it ties into the world you’ve built.
I tend to use alignment, along with race and class, as a base to figure out how the character thinks. For example, a LG Elf Fighter will be played far more Lawful and far more Good than a LG Human Fighter, because the Elf is going to outlive the human by about 300 years, and will have had far longer to become set in his ways. That same LG Human Fighter will also be less Lawful/Good than a Human Paladin of the same age, yet may be more tolerant of others depending on the paladin’s religion. TL;DR – Alignment is a starting point, not the end.
I love DND but I thin fits had the best AL system I have seen. More complex and fully explained by odes of what a P would o would not do- with lots of room for shads grey. Love the above comic by the way
AK m R key is being a pain that should say “RIFTS”
The way I’ve always understood alignment is that Good seeks first to help others, whereas Evil seeks perhaps not the direct harm of others but rather the benefit primarily of self to the potential detriment of others. Likewise, Law adheres to a fast (though possibly arbitrary) set of rules governing behavior, while Chaos breaks, either deliberately or incidentally, established rules, laws, traditions, conventions, or whatever. Neutral is a bit ambiguous, and I’ve come to recognize two distinct definitions: One where the character hovers somewhere between Good/Evil or Law/Chaos, with no deterministic pattern of action (what is commonly but, imho, erroneously considered “chaotic”); or two, where the character is a paragon of Good/Evil/Law/Chaos, to the point of ignorance of or utter indifference to the perpendicular axis (e.g., a Neutral Good who helps the poor, sick, and needy wherever and however possible and neither knows not cares what the law has to say about his actions). Neutral Neutral or “True Neutral” only really makes sense in the first light, as a striving for balance between the interests of selfishness and selflessness and the ideals of justice and freedom.
I’ve gotten away with playing Paladin class as Chaotic Good, just for the simple reasoning that few GM’s can argue: I do the right think because my morals tell me too, not because some damn law does. if the law means a man trying to feed his children goes to jail, I’ll give him some gold and get him a job working at cleaning an inn to put some bread on the table. if I have to bribe a few guards to look the other way–or failing that, knock a few out–by Desna I’ll do it.
ADnD and the circle of alignment grew from the liberated/inspired alignments of DnD that came from the Elric books – Law Neutral Chaos.
It just never really worked and is more of a hindrance than a useful tool.
I always like the Palladium treatment of alignment that had solid examples and explanations of each archetype. Each had a code of conduct they followed and the middling ground was easy for most players to follow character-wise. Everything from the Scrupulous Paladin, Unscrupulous Rogue, Diabolical Necromancer with the one step further, the Aberrant (totally nasty, even other evil types are wary of them)
I’ve seen amazing DM’s take the alignment “mechanic” and make the game fun as a result of it. I’ve seen some abuse the absolute shit out it, and I’ve seen people just use it as a guideline. If you can find a way to make the mechanic have some weight that doesn’t overshadow the play itself, its usually fun as hell. It’s all about the runner, IMO. Personally, I think it’s just like any other metarule. That which helps us is good, that which hinders us is bad.
A lot of people see alignment as proscriptive to a character’s personality. It was never meant to be that way—it’s a descriptive tool that’s totally independent from personality and describes the “path of least resistance” for that character.
I wrote a little essay about it.
Can’t use tags, though, it seems, so the link is here: http://frothingmug.blogspot.com/2012/02/aligning-your-alignments.html
Putting together the comic and the alt-text, if the CN guy just slathers all the goblins with peanut butter, you’re all good!
. . . or perhaps I mean to say, “All gross.” Whichever. 😀
I think D&D5 got the right direction: while ideals, goals and personality traits will lead the character actions, a very mild version of the alignments will give an hint about roleplaying when the rest doesn’t apply.
I like playing druids, so I usually go for neutral good. I don’t stick by the alignment rigidly though. I just use it as a general guide for how my character usually reacts in a general situation.
Speaking as someone who is running a Neutral Good paladin (in Radiance) in a party of Chaotic Neutral (ranging from the crazy pyromaniac gunslinger who threw a bomb into a cave where there were centurs who had been terrorising a village, to the half orc barbarian who was mostly interested in food and fungus beer (and was not adverse to tearing off the arm of a goblin we’d just defeated and munching on it) to the antisocial hobgoblin ranger who until recently had the barest minimum of interaction with people), I don’t usually notice Alignment. The only way it really affects us is 1) the minor ethical conflicts my pally has with the gunslinger and the barbarian (including the notable one where she wasn’t going to let the gunslinger steal the cart to ride back to the city, after which we promptly found out that we were getting a lift, in that same cart, back to the city), and 2) how many free heals my pally gets on party members per day. Other than that, it doesn’t really affect us. My pally does whatever good she can at any one time, and the only major issue we’ve had is the abovementioned cart incident (which was only an issue because we were having trouble playing it through, as all of us (including the gm) were losing their shit at the situation.)
Good and evil are false philosophical constructs. There is only existence and non-existence. The balance of the universe. What is “good” to one is “evil” to another, and vice verse.
aaaand this is why I love chaotic good paladins. Desna is my homegirl.
Not all Lawful Good characters have to be lawful stupid. I rather dislike the stigma that killer GMs and rules lawyers of the past caused by forcing LG characters to act lawful stupid, especially when it came to Paladins, which is incidentally one of my favorite classes.
I completely agree. I have just seen the bad examples over the years so I made the joke. Nothing but love for great paladins.
Claryifying comments I have made in the past. Paladins Being Lawful Good doesn’t mean they intentionally do evil things. What I mean is that they refuse to violate God’s Law even when doing so would clearly be the right thing to do.
Violating a law because it’s the right thing to do is Lawful Neutral you’re keeping the spirit of the laws if not the letter. For example Lawful Neutral is all “I will steal a loaf of bread to feed my child because letting him starve is an evil act” Lawful Good is “I won’t steal a loaf of bread to feed my child because doing so is an evil act that will condemn myself and my child”
It isn’t that they are intentionally evil it’s that they are incidentally evil by refusing to consider bending or breaking laws that are causing pain and harm they allow evil to be done.
I tell my characters that alignment represents your characters priorities and their values. Are they capable of acting outside of their alignments? Certainly. What’s more important, is how a character reacts to a reflection that they have acted outside their alignment. A lawful character who cheats the law or breaks a code should feel guilty, or dissapointed with themselves, or should go to great lengths to justify it. A chaotic character who snitches on a friend and gets them in trouble should feel dirty, or embarrassed. Just like real people, in times of extreme stress, duress, or in unusual circumstances will act in a manner that they wouldn’t normally, so can characters. I love alignment because I see these cases as opportunities for character growth, not restrictions. I should also add that my games have two more philosophical alignments, rational and social. Rational characters value knowledge, thought, logical reasoning, careful planning, debate, and philosophy. Social characters value relationships, what others think about them, fame, attention, taking care of others, how others get along (or don’t), family, what people say about them. Spock and McCoy are my go-to examples of rational good and social good. Moriarty would be a good example of rational evil, and the evil fairy from Sleeping Beauty who cursed a baby because she didn’t get invited to a party is a good example of social evil.
100% Anti-Alignment. The only thing worse than Alignment is Alignment Language. It makes NO SENSE!!!
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