Alignment

[Pellanor]

Here are two threads on the Wizards boards that I find address alignment the best.
The Tome of Fiends - The second post in the thread is the one dealing with alignment.
Having a Sandwich. Good or Evil? - A Mocking look at alignments in DnD. Since this is on the Mature Boards you'll have to be logged on and have whatever setting configured that'll allow you to access the mature boards.

My favourite quote on the subject comes from the Tome of Fiends.

"D&D at its heart is about breaking into other peoples' homes, stabbing them in the face, and taking all their money. That's very hard to rationalize as a Good thing to do, and the authors of D&D have historically not tried terribly hard."



Anyway, here's what I've been contemplating for Alignment in my setting. It's still very much a rough draft, and I have no idea if it would work in actual game play.

I'm going to put together a list of ## virtues and vice, avoiding the number 7 at all costs. Each of these will be a possible motive for killing another.

At character creation everybody is going to pick a fate. Each of these fates will have one virtue and one vice associated with them. For example the Crusader might have Protecting Others and Judgemental.

Whenever a character kills another character they get a blood point next to the virtue or vice that best represents their motive. If this virtue/vice is associated with their fate, they instead get two blood points.

I then plan on having some kind of in game mechanic that uses these blood points. Not quite sure what yet, perhaps an aura or something.

[psychoticbarber]

My favourite quote on the subject comes from the Tome of Fiends.

"D&D at its heart is about breaking into other peoples' homes, stabbing them in the face, and taking all their money. That's very hard to rationalize as a Good thing to do, and the authors of D&D have historically not tried terribly hard."

This is...genius. And so getting sigged, right now.

[sparkletwist]

the world is not cut into nine different types of people

I might play an evil orc who rips arms off humans, eats their brains and drills holes through their skulls, but then goes home to his family and loves them and cares for them as much as any orc can.[/quote]I don't use alignment because it simplifies things too much.[/quote]
I would say that your way is already an improvement because a lot of mediocre players and DMs would instead go:
alignment => behavior

[Raelifin]

By new, I mean non-RAW. As is written, no evil politician would ever enter office, because detect evil would keep them out. (Same thing for chaotic) By the RAW, alignment is a mash of brutally simplified morality, cosmic labeling, and nonsensical restrictions.

There's a lot of talk about Mr. Orc. Your point was that Mr. Orc is evil (by the RAW, in the same basket as undead and demons) because of how he "slaughters innocent townsfolk to feed his children." Now, this is, of course, clearly in contrast with the elves, dwarves, men, etc. who go and kill off hundreds of orcs for no reason other than the fact that they ding when they walk through the alignment detectors.

It makes no sense for a creature to show kindness to those outside of their perceived allies. The only difference is how far the perception extends. A person raised to hate and fear age-old enemies will kill without hesitation, and that's not evil -- that's smart.

Yes, you can keep your nine-fold system, and adapt it to not suck, there are plenty of ways to do it. I just want to be clear that the RAW is not an agreeable solution.

* RAW = Rules as Written

[Stargate525]

Well you could break it up into several 'virtues,' and alter spells and such do detect 1-3 of the virtues (of which there should be several).

Each side would have a 'positive' and 'negative' side, and work like a slider, as follows:

Neglectful......................Devoted
Ruthless........................Merciful
Bloodthirsty....................Pacifist

There'd be more, but you get the idea. Instead of detect evil/law/good/chaos, you might have Detect Mercy, or Detect Devotion. Stuff like that.

[sparkletwist]

go and kill off hundreds of orcs for no reason other than the fact that they ding when they walk through the alignment detectors.

Objective vs subjective evil[/url]

To me, the concept of objective vs. subjective evil fits right in here, and in that case, the detect evil spell gets new life-- it's more "detect whatever the caster finds to be morally repulsive."

A person raised to hate and fear age-old enemies will kill without hesitation, and that's not evil -- that's smart.

why[/i] it exists, and work to resolve it. "We kill them because we hate them and we hate them because we always have" might not fit with some concepts of a "Good" morality.

[snakefing]

I'd like to respond to some of this with a few observations:

First, D&D isn't really aiming for an accurate or psychologically realistic portrayal of an individual. They're using alignment to evoke some kind of epic, good vs. evil themes. They are painting with deliberately broad strokes. If that is the kind of game you want to run, then it makes sense to use alignment that emphasizes those aspects of the game. If not, change it or don't use it.

Second, if all you want to do is use alignment as a general, vague label, that is not really a problem. I'm just not sure what you gain from it. But D&D (RAW) doesn't really do that. Imagine you've classified someone's Robin Hood-type character as Chaotic Good (perfectly reasonable IMO) and then some baddie casts Dictum on him. Significant game events can depend on such judgments. It's no wonder that alignment arguments occasionally break up games.

Third, the issue of alignment "dictating" behavior usually comes about through the following mechanism. Player wants to play Paladin; mechanical effects require Lawful Good; player must conform actions to this alignment or suffer mechanical penalties. So the player feels that his actions are constrained by the rule-dictated alignment, rather then the reverse. If you were to do away with alignment restrictions, you'd do away with a solid majority of this issue.

[Seraph]

The alignment based spells are a big-issue.  In Avayevnon, I am removing them.  Since the old alignments do not exist, the spells involved with them also do not exist.  

[Thanuir]

Stargate, see this thread. You might be interested.


Sparkletwist,
I do think that alignment simplifies things (by saying who is clearly good and who evil, mostly). This is good for many sorts of adventure games (group of heroes do good things) and hack and slash (adventurers kill things and take their stuff).
Unfortunately, I am not usually terribly interested in either. Sometimes they can be fun, but mostly, not for me.

So, alignments do nothing to make my games better. To add insult to injury, using them makes me think in alignments, which I dislike and find harmful when GMing.

If a game element doesn't help me, I have no reason to keep using it. Hence, no alignments for me, thanks. (I could design an alignment system that would be helpful, but personality traits implemented in good way do exactly the same thing, but better.)

[sparkletwist]

Imagine you've classified someone's Robin Hood-type character as Chaotic Good (perfectly reasonable IMO) and then some baddie casts Dictum on him. Significant game events can depend on such judgments.

Dictum[/i] to keep him in line, it starts to feel a bit more sensible.

alignments do nothing to make my games better. To add insult to injury, using them makes me think in alignments

Oh, definitely, if having these labels around makes it more difficult, then there's no use for them. I would argue that "thinking in alignments" means that you're probably making too much of them, but rather than trying to completely revise your thinking to match some arbitrary system, getting rid of them is a perfectly reasonable alternative if you can do without them just fine. I personally find them useful.

As I mentioned, some people will never be happy with any sort of alignment system; I just simply think that for those "on the fence" the system can be revised to a happy medium rather than completely dumped.

[Xeviat]

I'm still unsure of where the real problems come from. Killing those who set off your Detect Evil is not good, I don't care who you are. Just because a creature is evil doesn't mean it deserves to die. Orcs are "often chaotic evil", not always, and not even usually. Demons and Chromatic Dragons are always evil, so they can be killed with impunity (because there mere existence is to cause evil), but Orcs have a choice. Their society makes them evil, not their nature.

Killing someone just because their alignment differs from the alignment you identify yourself with would be a Neutral act bordering on Evil in my DM judgment. I do not allow Paladins to go around detect eviling everyone and killing those who set it off; I do allow Paladins to go around detect eviling everyone and then being wary of those that set it off (or even investigating them; they could be spouse or child abusers, or any other sorts of lesser evils.

Remember, it takes a lot of HD for a humanoid to trigger anything higher than a faint evil aura. Heck, I'd even say that someone who just committed an evil act will "glow" with a faint evil aura for a little bit.

Likewise, altruism for your family is not good, it's neutral. It's simple reproduction; most animals will not look after themselves over their children, because they want their children to live on to reproduce, and thus cause their genes to further spread. Altruism for a complete stranger would be very good. Helping your own family at the expense of others would boarder on evil, depending on what you do (a little stealing would be chaotic, killing would be evil).

As for evil leaders and passing detect evil to get into office, you're assuming there's elections. You're also forgetting about all of the methods to mask alignment. I could see a very regimented Lawful republic or democracy having candidates stay in a temple for several days, ensuring that all possible spells have expired, and then be scrutinized by detect chaos spells. But for the most part, I believe the vast majority of people are Neutral, even though they'd like to be good, and they're more focused on Results.

[Seraph]

Helping your own family at the expense of others would boarder on evil, depending on what you do (a little stealing would be chaotic, killing would be evil).

This depends on circumstances and what you mean by "helping."  If man came into your house seeking to rob you and ran into your wife in the process and so tried to kill her, killing the man to "help" your wife would not be an evil action at all in my opinion.  True, I could see the argument against it being a "good" action as you were protecting your own interests and did in fact kill a man, I do not see how it could be called evil.  You were not the one with malicious intent.

Now, if the same man succeeded in robbing you, tracking down the man and killing him to "help" your family recover valuables would be a neutral act at best, but most likely evil.  If the man had killed your wife in the process of robbing your home, killing him in revenge would be a borderline evil act as well.  You have greater mental justification, but revenge can very well be seen as evil.

[Xeviat]

This depends on circumstances and what you mean by "helping."  If man came into your house seeking to rob you and ran into your wife in the process and so tried to kill her, killing the man to "help" your wife would not be an evil action at all in my opinion.  True, I could see the argument against it being a "good" action as you were protecting your own interests and did in fact kill a man, I do not see how it could be called evil.  You were not the one with malicious intent.

Now, if the same man succeeded in robbing you, tracking down the man and killing him to "help" your family recover valuables would be a neutral act at best, but most likely evil.  If the man had killed your wife in the process of robbing your home, killing him in revenge would be a borderline evil act as well.  You have greater mental justification, but revenge can very well be seen as evil.

You're right, but everything you said isn't against what I said. I said that helping your family is neutral, not good, and helping your family at the expense of others is neutral, possibly even evil.

Likewise, killing in self defense, in the heat of the threat, is neutral. Killing a helpless person is evil or neutral (one could point out capitol punishment, but I think in a D&D alignment system, the death penalty sits on the boarder of neutral and evil).

[Stargate525]

I'm still unsure of where the real problems come from. Killing those who set off your Detect Evil is not good, I don't care who you are. Just because a creature is evil doesn't mean it deserves to die. Orcs are "often chaotic evil", not always, and not even usually. Demons and Chromatic Dragons are always evil, so they can be killed with impunity (because there mere existence is to cause evil), but Orcs have a choice. Their society makes them evil, not their nature.

That's another thing I dislike about alignment; their connotation with monsters, and them being always one thing. There is no way that anything with a greater than animal intellect doesn't have a choice as to its moral philosophy. The Red dragon raised form the egg in a temple of Pelor? Nope, sorry, you're red, so you've got to be evil.

[snakefing]

[You're right, but everything you said isn't against what I said. I said that helping your family is neutral, not good, and helping your family at the expense of others is neutral, possibly even evil.

Likewise, killing in self defense, in the heat of the threat, is neutral. Killing a helpless person is evil or neutral (one could point out capitol punishment, but I think in a D&D alignment system, the death penalty sits on the boarder of neutral and evil).

All this is well and good, but what is the end purpose of deciding whether act X is good or evil? To stick a label on someone so we can tell how they will be affected by various spells and effects?

To me, there are more interesting ways to approach this, depending what you want.

In the traditional D&D world, Good and Evil are these titanic, cosmic forces.  What matters is not whether people would think it is good or bad, or what Kant would have to say about it. What is iimportant here is whether the Good force or Evil force is attuned to that action. If, in your world, the Good force is perfectly okay with a (righteous) revenge killing, then that is Good. If, in your world, the Good force is more aligned with peace and forgiveness, then the killing is Evil.

On the other hand, if you want more personality depth and less of the epic feel, then you can skip the labels and go with a more descriptive approach. How do the motives of anger, revenge, justice, fear, or duty interact in the revenge killing? How will the rest of the community react? What consequences might there be? Simply labeling the act as good or evil doesn't help much here.

To go back to my example, suppose that Prince John persuades the local Bishop that Robin Hood is a threat to the church and good order. The Bishop, being deceived or maybe just corrupt, agrees. The next time he gets a chance, he casts Dictum in hopes of damaging, capturing, or killing Robin and his men.

Now the D&D rules state that Robin will be affected more strongly if he is Chaotic. So we could now get into a long discussion over whether Robin's general outlook and/or actions qualify him as Chaotic. But really, that isn't the issue at all. The question is whether the Bishop's religious powers hold sway in this case. Is the fact that he's working on behalf of a usurper, under false pretences, going to weaken his power over Robin? Or do the formalities of the circumstances rule the day? (Bishop acting within his authority, Robin flouting it.) To me, this is a much more interesting question, and goes much more directly to the nature of the world you are playing in, than some abstract discussion about whether Robin should be labeled Chaotic.