A structured attempt at alignment

[Laertes]

If you're going to have Good/Evil, you need to think very carefully about whether you're going to allow people to be Evil. A lot of more immature players will want to be Evil just because. If you don't allow it, then you alienate them. However, if you do allow it then you can't have too much conflict between Good and Evil otherwise you can't form a cohesive party.

[Occluded Sun]

There's part of the problem - you're confusing the concepts of evil and wrong, treating them as though they were different names for the same idea.

That's not how evil works - and it's not how good works, either. It's not a synonym for right or correct.

You are plain wrong. Good and evil are just moral right and wrong. Not every wrong is evil, but every evil is definitionally wrong.

I'm talking about right and wrong, you're talking about moral right and wrong. THAT IS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT SET OF CONCEPTS.

Moral right and wrong vary according to the specific moral code in question. The entire point of alignment is to categorize entities according to specific aspects of their different moral codes. So they're not going to agree. OBVIOUSLY.

The paladin and demon-worshipper are both going to agree that, faced with a decision with moral implications, it's important to "do the right thing". But if they compared notes, they'd find that they have completely different and mutually exclusive conceptions of what "the right thing" actually is.

[Scrivener]

No one ever thinks they are a bad guy. If there was an infallible test to see if a particular idea and it's consequences is evil, no one would choose to be evil. Even people like Hitler and Pol Pot thought they were doing the right thing. No one ever goes "well it's only a little horribly evil, I might build an orphanage later to balance it out."

There's part of the problem - you're confusing the concepts of evil and wrong, treating them as though they were different names for the same idea.

That's not how evil works - and it's not how good works, either. It's not a synonym for right or correct.

Even though you are using a definition of good that bears no resemblance to anything I can find, it still supports my point that alignment turns into a meaningless squabble about what words mean.

[Occluded Sun]

Even though you are using a definition of good that bears no resemblance to anything I can find,

Try Socrates. Then combine his definition with the practical awareness that people don't agree on what's right, correct, and desirable.

it still supports my point that alignment turns into a meaningless squabble about what words mean.

Better ditch all those rules, 'cause you know they're mostly words, too. I guess you'll just have to give up playing RPGs.

[nockermensch]

"Alignments in the Game" comes later.

The Moral Alignments
Unlike the ethical alignments that affect even how matter and energy are distributed on the D&D universe, the moral alignments concern the behavior of living beings. The history goes that the law-chaos interplay led to ever more complex forms until self-reproducing forms arose and started to evolve.

Evil
Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.

The humble origin of the force called Evil today is predatory behavior. Early life in the D&D multiverse survived by absorbing weaker forms. A great deal of evolution happened since then, but to this day, the idea behind all evil is "sacrifice others for your own sake." While at first this seems to describe the behavior of every animal, ever, things became more complex thanks to the presence of Good (see below), to the point that most nature in the present times is neutral, not Evil. Pure Evil manifests as a sticky, bloody motes radiating a dark aura, accompanied by snarls.

Despite representing a fundamental fact of biology, Evil also came to represent a philosophy among sentient beings, it being that other people should be used according to your desires, their well-being something to be trampled at your convenience or at best attended for your own glory.

While the core around which the Evil philosophy developed would cause horror to most people [citation needed], Evil has a number of associated qualities, like ambition, aggressiveness and independence. Its defects are obvious and terrible: envy, callousness, bloodthirstiness, lack of capacity to empathise, love and forgive.

Good
“My mitochondria comprise a very large proportion of me. I cannot do the calculation, but I suppose there is almost as much of them in sheer dry bulk as there is the rest of me. Looked at in this way, I could be taken for a very large, motile colony of respiring bacteria, operating a complex system of nuclei, microtubules, and neurons for the pleasure and sustenance of their families, and running, at the moment, a typewriter.” -- Lewis Thomas

Life would never go too far if a survival strategy other than "take everything from others" hadn't developed. Early in the D&D multiverse history, primordial life forms learned to cooperate, and life exploded in variety after that. The key concept behind the force of Good is "sacrifice yourself for the others' sake". While this idea can seem paradoxal at first, it led to primordial life forms joining together as organisms with specialised organs and functions. The interplay between cooperation and predation led to all the creatures we find today. Pure Good manifests as bluish green dots emitting a light aura and a low choir of many indistinct voices.

As with Evil, despite being a fundamental fact of biology, Good later became a philosophy among the sentients, it being that you should help and protect other living beings and seek their happiness before your own.

Good has some obvious qualities like the capacity for love and empathy, but also with defects like meekness. Excessive generosity and compassion can easily become defects too, something the inferior beings of good are prone to.

Moral Neutrality
Eye for an eye.

Despite what most people will claim, the largest part of all sentient populations is neutral. Being good to your family/kin/tribe and evil to the others is basically the normal state of affairs as the most common humanoid cultures in D&D are as likely to raid each other than to conduct commerce. Being nice to people who are nice to you and wanting to hurt people who hurt you is called "being a normal person". Beings start to register as Good only when they're moved by a general wish to help others for the sake of nothing, even at their own inconvenience. Likewise, to register as Evil, a being must be moved by wishes to cause harm or inconvenience to others.

[Scrivener]

Even though you are using a definition of good that bears no resemblance to anything I can find,

Try Socrates. Then combine his definition with the practical awareness that people don't agree on what's right, correct, and desirable.

So a complete lack of social mobility? (the republic had the reasoning a good life is a just life, and justice is everyone being in their own place) That doesn't even make sense in this context, especially with your "practical awareness" clause.

Maybe I've just forgotten my Plato, could you spell out what exactly what your definition of good is? And if possible cite the dialog where Socrates lays it out for us.

it still supports my point that alignment turns into a meaningless squabble about what words mean.

Better ditch all those rules, 'cause you know they're mostly words, too. I guess you'll just have to give up playing RPGs.

Even though this is clearly a deliberate misunderstanding, I'll explain the difference.

A spell like Bull's Strength is easy to understand and creates no arguments. It is not ambiguous and its use does not devolve into semantic arguments. A hypothetical spell Detect Art would be a nightmare for everyone involved (unless the description mentioned it was for locating Art Garfunkle). The issue isn't the wording, but that Art can be different things to different people, making this spell highly subjective and turning it's use into a debate that has nothing to do with the game itself.

[Cervantes]

Just have Good/Evil be references to some value-neutral "magical" aspect of the world. If you include moral behavior in the definition you're going to just have moral philosophy arguments over "goodness" and "evilness" and that's not fun unless you're playing Kantian Adventures.

So yeah, maybe don't even call it "Good/Evil" as per Ice9's suggestion - Black/White would work, or any pair of opposites which give you the connotations you want.

[Occluded Sun]

A spell like Bull's Strength is easy to understand and creates no arguments. It is not ambiguous and its use does not devolve into semantic arguments.

And it deals entirely with concepts predefined within the context of the existing rules. Alignments must be the same. The task is then to define them - which is the point of this thread.

A hypothetical spell Detect Art would be a nightmare for everyone involved (unless the description mentioned it was for locating Art Garfunkle). The issue isn't the wording, but that Art can be different things to different people, making this spell highly subjective and turning it's use into a debate that has nothing to do with the game itself.

Which is precisely why GMs exist. Their primary function is to resolve otherwise unresolvable disputes, using their judgment as necessary.

[Voss]

Well, if it makes you feel any better OS, 5e did it your way and Scrivener's way. The Alpha PH has this for Detect Good and Evil. (Yes, it's all one spell)

For the duration, you detect the presence of any celestial, fiend or undead creatures within 30', and such creatures cannot become hidden from you. Within the same radius, you detect the presence of any place or object that has been consecrated or desecrated by magic

Which, roughly translated, is 'Fuck alignment. Detect outsiders and undead.'

Not sure if it will survive the translation to final version, but as is, it tells the page and a half on alignments to go fuck themselves and get the hell out.

[animea90]

A spell like Bull's Strength is easy to understand and creates no arguments. It is not ambiguous and its use does not devolve into semantic arguments.

And it deals entirely with concepts predefined within the context of the existing rules. Alignments must be the same. The task is then to define them - which is the point of this thread.

A hypothetical spell Detect Art would be a nightmare for everyone involved (unless the description mentioned it was for locating Art Garfunkle). The issue isn't the wording, but that Art can be different things to different people, making this spell highly subjective and turning it's use into a debate that has nothing to do with the game itself.

Which is precisely why GMs exist. Their primary function is to resolve otherwise unresolvable disputes, using their judgment as necessary.

And the rules exist to make the GMs life easier. If you have an entire section of rules that all boil down to GM fiat, then thats a bad set of rule. Especially when the section can have consequences like "the PC loses all of his class features".

Its better to eliminate those rules if possible(and I appreciate that 5e has at least removed all consequences from alignment, even if alignment is still in game).

[animea90]

Well, if it makes you feel any better OS, 5e did it your way and Scrivener's way. The Alpha PH has this for Detect Good and Evil. (Yes, it's all one spell)

For the duration, you detect the presence of any celestial, fiend or undead creatures within 30', and such creatures cannot become hidden from you. Within the same radius, you detect the presence of any place or object that has been consecrated or desecrated by magic

Which, roughly translated is 'Fuck alignment. Detect outsiders and undead.'

5e has also eliminated alignment restrictions for classes. Alignment has no in game consequences and is just something you put on your character sheet because Wizards wants to appeal to older edition players.

[Scrivener]

And it deals entirely with concepts predefined within the context of the existing rules. Alignments must be the same. The task is then to define them - which is the point of this thread.

Then do so.

You seemed to have a belief of a clear and coherent definition of good, you even cited Socrates as the source. Please share it. I contend that there is no simple answer to that question, because it is a fundamental question in philosophy. There will never be a sufficient definition of good, which I have contended from the start.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Unrelated:

For people who wanted to use kick-awesome expansion options that were restricted to people of evil alignment but you didn't want to be evil -- not just not Killfuck Soulshitter, but not even Honorable-but-Ruthless evil -- did anyone ever just do 'evil' actions that were shocking and ostentatious but didn't actually cause that much harm? You know, stuff like snatching candy from children, making bigoted remarks in public, spitting in the beggar dish, etc.?

[Laertes]

If I recall correctly Vampire: the Masquerade pretty much explicitly said "we're going to be using Benthamite utilitarianism for our moral compass in this game." Similarly, Over the Edge uses philosophical libertarianism (in a 90s way, before the internet and the right wing turned it into a curse word) as its working definition of good. Shadowrun plays around with various forms of anarchism. And so on.

As such you could do the same thing and say, "for the purposes of this game we are using morality X", where X is enlightened self-interest or social contract theory or Randian objectivism or total-obedience-to-YHWH or whatever. That would actually be sort of fun, because then you need to don a new mindset every time you go into the game: it reinforces the distinction between player and character. The downside of this sort of thing is that the game may end up attracting people who genuinely hold that mindset and can't see that it's simply a convention of the game rather than being true for all of objective reality.

[Username17]

If I recall correctly Vampire: the Masquerade pretty much explicitly said "we're going to be using Benthamite utilitarianism for our moral compass in this game."

You definitely don't recall correctly. Morality in Masquerade is a bizarre Calvinist thing, where your crimes are worse if they hurt rich people and less bad if you feel bad about it afterward. Here, I will give the examples for the crimes against the normal player humanity range, with the least bad on the top and the most bad on the bottom:

• Tax Evasion
• Physical Conflict
• Petty Theft
• Grand Theft
• Arson

So crimes against rich people are relatively bad, while crimes by rich people barely even count. And then on top of that, you're supposed to get dinged harder by crimes if you "enjoy them," and if you feel sorry and repentant afterwards you pick up less (or even no) atrocity dice for it (as represented by spending temporary willpower to buy guilt - seriously).

A lot of people interpreted the "grievous harm" clause in isolation to essentially claim that Masquerade Humanity was the Wiccan Rede, but that's because White Wolf players had a lot of neo-pagans and also White Wolf players are great at ignoring text in rulebooks that doesn't say what they want it to. The rest of the text makes abundantly clear that you're supposed to tally up harm in terms of dollar values (with human deaths being apportioned an appropriately high actuarial amount) like a good Calvinist. And then you're supposed to count how good you feel against yourself when calculating your virtue - again like a good Calvinist.

-Username17

[tussock]

First, some requirements:
1) New alignment system shall be biaxial, like 3E D&D alignment (T) and should have the same form (O).
2) New alignment system shall accommodate different interpretations of alignment characteristics (T) and should be interpretation-agnostic (O).
3) New alignment system should support adventure hooks (O).
4) New alignment system shall be simply explainable (T), and should be useable without explanation (O).
5) New alignment system shall be compatible with 3E (T), and should be transparently compatible with 3E (O).
6) New alignment system shall have associative, in-game effects (T).

Motherfuckers, may I present ...

TEAM JERSEY ALIGNMENT

[*]Point 1
Goodies: Team PCs, associated with Dwarves, Elves, Hobbits, and other such fine folk.
Baddies: Team monster, associated with Orcs, Goblins, Fiends, Undead, and worse.

Empire: team city folk, associated with Dwarves and Goblins and Devilishly detailed contracts.
Woodsy: team wild folk, associated with Orcs and Elves and Trolls all not giving a fuck about your empire.

NB: that is just Good, Evil, Lawful, and Chaotic. That's all they mean in-game anyway. I'll use GELC from here to save confusion. The middle alignments might be the temptables (xN), the farmers (Nx), and the no-just-leave-me-alone (NN). You can tell who they are because they wear colour-coded outfits.

[*]Point 2
What that means is up to you. Don't want to help the stupid goody-two-shoes? That's fine!

[*]Point 3
There's a CE spellcaster taken to the woods, oh noes! Next thing you'll be up to your ears in Demons! Team jersey alignment is the best system because you can expect people to play in the standard teams, and some of their player options are adventures waiting to happen.

[*]Point 4
So, you guys are in team green. They're allied with blue and yellow., and hate Reds. Go.

[*]Point 5
It is the 3e alignment system. Detect Baddies actually makes sense, as some of them may cheat and wear the wrong colour clothes. When you catch them, tattoo that shit right on their face, show everyone what dirty cheaters they are.

NB: You can't just kill people for being in the wrong team. They're not your friends, but they might be a friend of a friend, or just have friends you don't want to annoy. You could always offer them a spot on your team instead, if it matters.

[*]Point 6
You're actually in a political alliance with both the Dwarves and Elves, even though they can't really stand each other. That's what NG means. By falling out with the Elves when taking on some grand ship-building program, you move to LG and change your insignia to show your new fealties. LN folk flock to your new building programs. Team jersey.

[Occluded Sun]

Scrivener, you've misunderstood the point of the discussion. The question 'what is good?' has two different meanings - what is the nature of the conceptual category, and what things belong to that category? The issue at hand is the nature of the label, not to what sorts of things the label should be affixed.

***
Quite a lot of people have run with the idea that alignment has mechanical implications only if you derive power from it, or your existence is dependent upon it. So whether peasant X is lawful neutral or chaotic good or neutral evil has no mechanical significance at all.

It does simplify matters greatly.

For classes like paladin, I'd say the player and GM ought to work out a code of conduct that the character is supposed to follow. Much more specific, and thus easier to adjudicate.

If you want to play a character with the mechanical powers of the paladin (or similar class), but you don't want to deal with the disadvantage of a code of behavior, then I'd say it's up to you to present the DM with an alternative set of disadvantages - something that requires less work on the DMs part.

[Scrivener]

Scrivener, you've misunderstood the point of the discussion. The question 'what is good?' has two different meanings - what is the nature of the conceptual category, and what things belong to that category? The issue at hand is the nature of the label, not to what sorts of things the label should be affixed.

No, you realized how completely wrong you were on an easily agreed upon definition of good and have decided to claim you are talking about something else.

I am indeed talking about the nature of the label. Good, or any attribute that can be linked to good, will result in arguments about whether an action is good. It's like arguing about the bonus granted to nearby allies while ignoring that nearby is an incredibly poor term to use that will result in different understandings, and lead to arguments with no right answer.

The fundamental issue has not been addressed, and I posit cannot be.

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, the WW humanity system was also attempting to use its evil meter as a general indicator of impulse control--get too low, and the MC was supposed to take away the character from player control for being too much of a sicko. That subjects the whole system to all the usual speculative biases people have about crime.

[Occluded Sun]

No, you realized how completely wrong you were on an easily agreed upon definition of good and have decided to claim you are talking about something else.

I am indeed talking about the nature of the label. Good, or any attribute that can be linked to good, will result in arguments about whether an action is good.

Not if a definition is supplied... which is the point of the thread.

The fundamental issue has not been addressed, and I posit cannot be.

Then you've aired your position, and can now be silent, since you have nothing further to contribute.

[Dean]

Quite a lot of people have run with the idea that alignment has mechanical implications only if you derive power from it, or your existence is dependent upon it. So whether peasant X is lawful neutral or chaotic good or neutral evil has no mechanical significance at all.

I think that's well put. That is my position on which times alignment should be in play.

[Scrivener]

The fundamental issue has not been addressed, and I posit cannot be.

Then you've aired your position, and can now be silent, since you have nothing further to contribute.

That's not how it works. I have pointed out a fundamental problem with this idea. It has not been addressed.

There has been much hand wringing on idea of making "good" mean something other than Good, which is insane and pointless. There has been the replacement of the word good with altruism, which just adds another step before you get to pointless debate. And tussock set up an alignment that is a Friend of Foe identifier not an alignment system.

It doesn't matter if there are mechanical benefits or not, it doesn't matter what ethos you espouse, the very idea of dictating alignment is pointless and stupid. Its like you are trying to make a cube with 7 sides and are getting upset that someone keeps mentioning the flaw in your logic. If you can get past this sizable hurdle, you then have to make sure that a rational actor should be able to select any of the alignments. Getting fussy that I have pointed out an error in your logic isn't going to solve your issue.

Personally I say scrap alignment altogether. If you want a system to describe behavior of individuals pick your favorite adjective based system and slap that on. Alignment systems are completely fucked, and if you can't bypass the first hurdle (defining your terms) you can't hope to get past the remaining issues.

[fectin]

Actually, no.
You have suggested that there is a superficial problem with an assumed implementation of alignment. It's an easy mistake to make, but that's why you need to actually break things down as step one.
Occluded Sun has responded by defending a non-conformant solution, which is also unhelpful.

[animea90]

No, you realized how completely wrong you were on an easily agreed upon definition of good and have decided to claim you are talking about something else.

I am indeed talking about the nature of the label. Good, or any attribute that can be linked to good, will result in arguments about whether an action is good.

Not if a definition is supplied... which is the point of the thread.

The fundamental issue has not been addressed, and I posit cannot be.

Then you've aired your position, and can now be silent, since you have nothing further to contribute.

Philosophers spend tens of thousands of hours trying to find some way to define some things as good and others as evil without any sort of consensus.

[Prak]

The Moral Alignments
...
Good
...
Life would never go too far if a survival strategy other than "take everything from others" hadn't developed. Early in the D&D multiverse history, primordial life forms learned to cooperate, and life exploded in variety after that. The key concept behind the force of Good is "sacrifice yourself for the others' sake". While this idea can seem paradoxal at first, it led to primordial life forms joining together as organisms with specialised organs and functions. The interplay between cooperation and predation led to all the creatures we find today. Pure Good manifests as bluish green dots emitting a light aura and a low choir of many indistinct voices.

"On a cellular level, I'm actually quite good."
-Evil Blackguard smartass.