Concerning Alignments

[For Valor]

I Kinda did this following the style that other people do...

Downfalls of the Alignment System
As a Lawful character, it was against my creed to kill him, since he was Lawful. But as a Good character, it was against my creed NOT to kill him, since he was Evil. So I accidently cast a Delayed Fireball and teleported away before I could hear him screaming.

It's obvious that when WotC made Alignments, they were looking for a cool way to personify the bad guys so that no one really had to do any work in defining them, but everyone felt justified in killing them. As a result, they threw out 4 labels: Chaotic, Lawful, Good, and Evil.

Good people are kind and just. They're very nice, and value life. Of course, they don't mind smashing Evil peoples' heads together (at least in a D&D setting, they don't)

Lawful people are rule-followers and obey a law of the land that the PHB kind of insinuated was universal.

Evil people were portrayed by WotC as "I KILL EVERYONE" or "I KILL EVERYONE AND THEN RAISE UNDEAD". They were usually out to destroy the entire world--the whole thing was pulled straight out of a poor action show like Dragon Ball Z. Or an LOTR book. Same concept.

Then there are chaotic people. Those who are chaotic, by observation (since the PHB gave a crap description), range from vagabonds who are trying to save the world to beings of chaos energy who spawn themselves in other humanoids to Giant Frogs that Giant Frog with the powers of Giant Frog.

Honestly, none of these really correlate. The Good/Evil scheme is stereotypical and understandable, but the whole Law/Chaos theme is very fuzzy and undevelopable.

But I'm sure you guys already knew all that. And Frank made some interesting options available for consideration in his Tome works (or was that someone else? It never cited anybody else there, so I'm going with Frank..).

Here I have another option. It's got more options, and better, more sensible definitions.

Law, Anarchy, Good, and Evil
Don't respect me because I'm an aristocrat. Respect me because I cast Blasphemy and Holy Word at Caster Level 122.

NOTE: So, because it has such a variable connotation, the term "Chaos" has been split up. The vagabond-style brand of chaos is "Anarchic/Anarchical" (and yes, those are real words) instead of "Chaotic", while the Giant Frog is still "Chaotic". But we'll get to Giant Frog later. For now, check out what's going on here:

Lawful: The concept of being lawful is no longer obeying the unwritten rules of the land or upholding a vague kind of justice. It's a respect for the chain of command. If you know that someone is your superior, no matter the reason why (maybe you're in a society that favors diplomats, maybe it favors white people, or maybe it favors ugly gnomes), you feel that it is important to cooperate with them. Lawful people do not usually oppose arbitrary leadership positions like aristocrats and all that. Even if they're stronger than their "superior", they'll still obey that person.

Of course, one of the big problems about Lawfuls is that, upon entering a new society, they probably don't have a full grasp of it's culture. This inherent side-effect upon Lawful characters creates a second facet of Lawful personality, the need for understanding. Naturally, Lawful characters support social awareness. Lawful characters get a +2 competence bonus to Knowledge (Local), Knowledge (History), Knowledge (Geography), and Knowledge (Nobility and royalty), and either try to understand the political situations of new societies they encounter, or blow right through them and attempt to enforce other governmental systems.

NOTE: Count Geiger, using his personal experience, suggested combining all of the above [useless] skills into 1 skill--Civics (Int). This is actually a pretty good idea, and I'd recommend throwing all of the above 4 skills together to either make Civics or Knowledge (Civics). Either way, you're still getting that +2 competence bonus to related checks (putting all the skills into one category does NOT give you a +8 bonus. Don't be a cheater.)

Anarchic: Rogues, swashbucklers, bandits, pirates, and barbarians are all usually Anarchic. They don't care much for the idea of following a chain of command--because usually, the better of two people is considered "superior". Anarchic characters can range from those who don't follow the rules of the kingdom (because the kingdom doesn't help his or her family/brother/village/city/whatever), to barbarians who live in the forests and only listen to their chief because he could mop the floor with any of them. Anarchic characters can still have leaders, but those leaders are based on competancy in whatever relevant category they preside over. Usually, anarchic characters don't support their superiors, though that doesn't mean an anarchic society should actively try to stop its ruler from doing anything.

No, anarchic characters don't get free knowledge competence bonuses. Suck it up.

Neutral: People who are unopinionated about Law/Anarchy usually have an opinion about their political system or the status of their superiors, but it's not strong enough to merit the title of a "Lawful" or "Anarchic" attitude (or it balances itself out with opposite ideas in other situations). Neutral people range from the uncaring to the wishy-washy to the strange radicals who flip-flop between ideas with extremist fervor.

----------------------------------------------------------- And The Other Half -----------------------------------------------------------

Good: Now, the whole idea about the Law/Anarchy side of alignment is based on opinions about superiors. So how about the people below you? Good/Evil is about that, and good people are the people who help those that they see as inferior (not condescendingly) and able to improve. A powerful preist of Pelor will try to educate weaker preists and converts in his ways of magic and religion so that they too may become powerful and in turn help others after them. Those who support Good usually do so to further a cause they believe in (everyone should worship Pelor, Ehlonna, St. Cuthbert, etc.), or to help the next generation become more competent (eg. school, self-defense classes for women, and science camps). The Good are generally apt to helping the poor and desperate, and show sympathy for the disadvantaged.

Evil: Evil is the opposite of Good. Instead of wanting to help the weak, Evil subjects are more inclined to wiping the weak off the face of the planet (or maybe just making them work for you at a minimum wage job). A stereotype about Evil people/creatures is that they are cruel and/or enjoy torture. But that's not it--evil is just the desire to impose upon the weak.

Of course, one would think that this is hardly self-sufficient--evil would wipe itself out as people pitted themselves against each other. But that's not true. Evil people aren't all about killing or torturing. In fact, they're fine with making their inferiors subordinate to them, maybe killing a few here and there to keep the rest in line. And as a result, evil subjects are also totally OK with raising undead, making constructs, and calling all sorts of ridiculous beasties to do their bidding, since that's the equivalent of enslaving a couple hundred people.

This also means that Evil beings need to stay around longer. Hence: liches, fiends that live forever, body-hoppers, and soul-stealers are all the most powerful evil beings out there (and don't forget dragons!). Now keep in mind, not all evil creatures will be enslaved to one another. Laziness or apathy can keep a person from taking over another country--especially after he or she has taken over most of the surrounding countries and could send legions of undead to destroy any resistance anyway. I mean, why bother? So some creatures are still around.

Neutral: Well, if you don't go Evil or Good, then you're either apathetic or you waver so much that it balances out. A neutral person might be a little of Evil or a little of Good, but it's not enough that it merits the title "Good" or "Evil". One could also fluctuate so extremely between the two alignments that it balances out to the Neutral.

Alignment Augments
I'm the God of Exalted Chaos and I--ooooh a pretty bird...

So, in the above section, the generalization was made that a character is Neutral if their Good and Evil balance out (they act in both manners with equal magnitude overall). Now that's not being what we typically consider "Neutral", but the simplification is good enough. The following section includes a couple additions that will expand upon the set alignments, making them more comprehensive and sensible.

NOTE: The stuff below makes the characters lose one of their alignment descriptors, which kind of hurts the game. To compensate, treat any alignment descriptor that isn't there as "Neutral". As a result, if someone is Detecting Law and there's a character in the room who is Exalted Good, the Exalted Good character is treated as Neutral Good for the spell's effect. So if there was some way to seek a Neutral person out (on the Law/Anarchy spectrum), the Exalted Good character could be found that way.

However, being Chaotic and/or Exalted will not qualify you for alignment requirements involving classes, weapons, or whatever (You can't be a Chaotic Evil character and count as "Neutral" for the Druid class).

Chaotic: You flip-flop between alignments, maybe just enough to be weird, or maybe drastically (call 'em Slaad, call 'em insane, call 'em passive-aggressive or whatever you want...). Chaotic characters are typically disliked for their unpredictability, and most are solitary due to their refusal to adhere to any one characteristic in society. When a character chooses to be Chaotic, they pick one alignment on either the Good/Evil spectrum or Law/Anarchy spectrum. This yields: Lawful Chaos, Anarchic Chaos, Neutral Chaos, Chaotic Good, Chaotic Evil, and Chaotic Neutral (all 6 are different! yay!). The character adheres to their non-Chaotic alignment descriptor (helping the weak as a Good person, not paying taxes as an Anarchical person, etc.), but goes back and forth on the alignment that she didn't pick.

Exalted: Exaltation requires extreme devotion to a cause. Exalted characters take 1 facet of alignment and fully devote themselves to it, ignoring other alignment descriptors. A character picks 1 alignment descriptor on the Good/Evil spectrum or Law/Anarchy spectrum, and then tacks on "Exalted" or "Exaltation": Exalted Good, Exalted Neutral, Exalted Evil, Lawful Exaltation, Neutral Exaltation, and Anarchic Exaltation (NOTE: Exaltation is, I do believe, the correct term to use in the alignment descriptors here. But I don't like it because it's a long word, so I just use the term "Exalted" for everything, even if it's improper in some sense). Characters adhere to this as much as physically and mentally possible, blocking out everything else (this is where closeminded people come in).

One little tweak to the system is that you can be Exalted Chaos. An Exalted Chaotic creature is completely Giant Frog.

NOTE: So, with extra alignment bits, Spells and effects should extend to include them. There should be Magic Circles for Exalted/Exaltation, Chaos, Anarchy, Law, Evil, and Good. Since there are classically less Exalted and Chaotic creatures/people normally... I was thinking about just meshing those together. So whenever you Detect Chaos, you also Detect Exaltation.

Alignment Magnitude
"Wouldn't it be great if the we could track the intensity of someone's Alignment?"

"I think that would be as great as us only being allowed to talk with words starting in vowel sounds..."

Before you read this (IF you read this), keep in mind that it's a completely off-topic story-ish-thing that really doesn't say anything except "This is why I don't like a system that's not in place." You really don't need to bother.

Alignment Magnitude was something that came up when I was DM-ing a campaign a little while ago. The players wanted to have different alignment strengths, and thought it would be cool if they could have effects work on creatures differently based on those creatures' alignment strengths.

I shut them down. My reasoning was this: If you start putting Alignment Strengths/Intensities/Magnitudes on characters, you start severely limiting their choice capacity. Characters' moral decisions would be limited by a ratio of good to evil or law to chaos that is put in place based on their "intensity" or "magnitude" of alignment. And that's dumb. Sometimes Good characters wake up and feel like burning down a preschool, while Evil characters occasionally get the strong desire to help an old lady across the street. In essence, everybody's got a little Chaos in them. Throwing alignment intensities down takes out that element of occasional kindness/cruelty that makes the game interesting every once in a while.

Plus I'd have to change stuff in the SRD so that it scales with alignment, and I'm just not willing to do that... t3h lazy.

That's it for alignments! If I'm missing something, please tell me.

[Ravyn Dawnbringer]

+1

This is actually quite good. Please, continue.

[Count Geiger]

Of course, one of the big problems about Lawfuls is that, upon entering a new society, they probably don't have a full grasp of it's culture. This inherent side-effect upon Lawful characters creates a second facet of Lawful personality, the need for understanding. Naturally, Lawful characters support social awareness. Lawful characters get a +2 competence bonus to Knowledge (Local), Knowledge (History), and Knowledge (Nobility and royalty), and either try to understand the political situations of new societies they encounter, or blow right through them and attempt to enforce other governmental systems.

First of all There is not a whole lot to understand about different governments. They all outlaw murder and theft, though some say this is not so much to protect the victim but to protect the state's monopoly on murder and theft. The only noticeable differences between governments is how harshly they punish victimless crimes and how involved they are in certain economic fields (Is it nationalized/free market or to what degree do they regulate/subsidize?)

Personally when I think lawful, I think closeminded.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iqktCdX0hs

Pirates/Privateers typically do follow a captain.
Also for government agents I typically use the rogue class.

I don't really understand why barbarians are considered chaotic, I don't think the rage spells has the chaotic descriptor and there is even a devil that can rage. Also historically the most successful barbarians, the huns were able to control vast areas of land controlled by tamerlane and had a rigid class system (if you didn't own a horse you weren't human).

I spent a whole lot of time learning about anarchy and am not entirely sure it would be the opposite of lawful.

The word anarchy means without archons, I wouldn't define an archon as a ruler per se. An archon is probably best defined as someone (or more likely a group) who can acquire resources without actually offering something of equivalent value in return.

Evil subjects are more inclined to wiping the weak off the face of the planet (or maybe just making them work for you at a minimum wage job).

Those two objectives could not be more different from one another.

But that's not it--evil is just the desire to impose upon the weak.

If that included the strong as well all governments would qualify.

Personally I define evil as willingness to severely harm innocents to accomplish any goal.

And as a result, evil subjects are also totally OK with raising undead, making constructs, and calling all sorts of ridiculous beasties to do their bidding, since that's the equivalent of enslaving a couple hundred people.

I really don't think having mindless undead/constructs is comparable to enslaving sapient creatures. Also this might just be me but I like my expansionist empires composed of humanoid true believers of the cause of various alignments.

This also means that Evil beings need to stay around longer. Hence: liches, fiends that live forever, body-hoppers, and soul-stealers are all the most powerful evil beings out there (and don't forget dragons!).

Good Dragons and good celestials are also immortal.
Also there was jasmine (from angle) who maintained world peace via devouring some people every few days.

[Maxus]

Here's how I handle it:

People generally know Good when they see it. They know Evil when they see it.

Fuck Law and Chaos.

I treat them as physical forces. Order and Chaos / Stasis and Change. The cycle which keeps matter going and whose effects may be observed in things like civilizations (which rise, maintain, then fall, and then a new one is formed from the remnants of the old. Like material objects and atoms).

Both would are harmful in large amounts (an Axiomatic sword would make all the cells it hit go into stasis, which is JUST AS BAD FOR YOU as an Anarchic sword turning them into random junk or making them fly apart). Both are needed for the necessary continuance of everything.

[TavishArtair]

This post bugs me because you get all your history wrong. Alignments were not made by WotC, and originally the only alignments were Law and Chaos, with Law being more Good and Chaos being more Evil in a general sense. Good and Evil were only imported, and naturally they confuse the system, because Lawful means Good. Things were only imported.

[For Valor]

Of course, one of the big problems about Lawfuls is that, upon entering a new society, they probably don't have a full grasp of it's culture. This inherent side-effect upon Lawful characters creates a second facet of Lawful personality, the need for understanding. Naturally, Lawful characters support social awareness. Lawful characters get a +2 competence bonus to Knowledge (Local), Knowledge (History), and Knowledge (Nobility and royalty), and either try to understand the political situations of new societies they encounter, or blow right through them and attempt to enforce other governmental systems.

First of all There is not a whole lot to understand about different governments. They all outlaw murder and theft, though some say this is not so much to protect the victim but to protect the state's monopoly on murder and theft. The only noticeable differences between governments is how harshly they punish victimless crimes and how involved they are in certain economic fields (Is it nationalized/free market or to what degree do they regulate/subsidize?)

Nah-uh. Wrong. What you're doing is basing your ideas off of the governments of our universe. Your stuff is based off of history. Which is pretty legitimate, but incorrect. In the modern world, there aren't places COMPLETELY devoted to good or evil, and there are no Magocracies, Necromocracies, Dragonocracies, Celestiocracies, OR Fiendocracies. There are also no hidden civilizations, no time-warp civilizations, and no countries, cities, or even towns or neighborhoods that are actually fully devoted to the prospects of Good or Evil. D&D is MUCH more varied and different than our modern world, and the Governments would be proportionally varied.

Also, keep in mind that there are 17 outer planes (including the Outlands), each of which will have a different overall outlook. Outposts there will have differently developed systems of government, and every plane will have a seperate culture and way of being ruled. Economy and punishment are only the beginning...

[quote="Count Geiger]
Pirates/Privateers typically do follow a captain.
Also for government agents I typically use the rogue class.[/quote]
Yes, and by most standards (scratch that, stereotyes), the captain is the most badass of the lot. Pirates and privateers serve him because he gets them loot, and NOT because they're on a contract.

and from the d20 SRD--
Rogue Alignment: Any (nice shot with that one, though)

I spent a whole lot of time learning about anarchy and am not entirely sure it would be the opposite of lawful.

The word anarchy means without archons, I wouldn't define an archon as a ruler per se. An archon is probably best defined as someone (or more likely a group) who can acquire resources without actually offering something of equivalent value in return.

Random House 2010 Dictionary -- "a state of society without government or law." Go ahead and disagree, but I'm standing by what I wrote. You change the word if you don't like it.

Evil subjects are more inclined to wiping the weak off the face of the planet (or maybe just making them work for you at a minimum wage job).

Those two objectives could not be more different from one another.

Read the article--I said that "Evil" means hurting those weaker than you. Both objectives fit in that context. They might be different, but they're both evil. And that's all I care about.

But that's not it--evil is just the desire to impose upon the weak.

Personally I define evil as willingness to severely harm innocents to accomplish any goal.

If that included the strong as well all governments would qualify.

Then I used the wrong word. What's the verb for "walk all over"?

And do not say "severely". That's leaving no room for the people who want to slightly harm innocents--those people are evil too.

This also means that Evil beings need to stay around longer. Hence: liches, fiends that live forever, body-hoppers, and soul-stealers are all the most powerful evil beings out there (and don't forget dragons!).

Good Dragons and good celestials are also immortal.
Also there was jasmine (from angle) who maintained world peace via devouring some people every few days.

Well, if someone masters immortality, you'd be a damn fool not to take up the chance to master it yourself. Immortality is pretty useful. But there are more evil fiends than good celestials out there (they've got more of a knack for the gift, I'd say), and I KNOW that the Good side doesn't have the equivalent of life-prolongers (liches, body-stealers, etc.). And Dragons weren't a good idea to bring up, since they apparently die of old age anyway...

Fuck Law and Chaos.

Aww, but I enjoyed writing this! And you're hating on it... sadface

[For Valor]

This post bugs me because you get all your history wrong. Alignments were not made by WotC, and originally the only alignments were Law and Chaos, with Law being more Good and Chaos being more Evil in a general sense. Good and Evil were only imported, and naturally they confuse the system, because Lawful means Good. Things were only imported.

I'm sorry if the history offends you. I'll be more objective from here on out in my observations.

In the meantime, commenting on the material would make me happy. Could you please?

[Count Geiger]

Random House 2010 Dictionary -- "a state of society without government or law." Go ahead and disagree, but I'm standing by what I wrote. You change the word if you don't like it.

I'm using the literal greek translation. For utter bedlam use the word Anomie in place of Anarchy.

Edit: Also I personally have combined Knowledge (Local/history/geography/nobility and royalty) into a skill called Civics (Int)

[Itay K]

One thing that bothers is me is your assertion that alternating extremes of good/evil behavior somehow cancel itself out to "neutral".

In modern sensiblities, It usually doesn't - if you go around randomly murdering some hobos and giving money to others, you're still evil.

[Quantumboost]

This post bugs me because you get all your history wrong. Alignments were not made by WotC, and originally the only alignments were Law and Chaos, with Law being more Good and Chaos being more Evil in a general sense. Good and Evil were only imported, and naturally they confuse the system, because Lawful means Good. Things were only imported.

I'm sorry if the history offends you. I'll be more objective from here on out in my observations.

The issue isn't "too subjective", it's "too objectively false".

[Lokathor]

Uhm, this is a silly question perhaps but humor me: Why do we need alignment at all? Can't we just eject the "I kill you with alignment words" spells and the "I kill you with alignment damage" weapons and then kinda just not give a shit? What are we keeping other than alignment by keeping alignment in the game?

This isn't an idle question, I'm really wondering about this for the game I'm working on.

[Starmaker]

Why do we need alignment at all?

It's a sacred cow of D&D and people are trying to make some sense of it.

What are we keeping other than alignment by keeping alignment in the game?

Lots of stuff, starting with the Great Wheel up to the awesomeness that is the Soulborn. Monster behaviour and cultures are practically defined by alignment. Frank has posted a great article about the necessity of making shit up - but made-up shit has to have some common ground. So in one game orcs are desert raiders from the South (CE) and in another they are Vikings from the North (CE) and in yet another they are a noble people (CG? are you serious? wtf?) rebelling against the oppressive goblinoid empire (LE). For a GM to go with or against the stereotype, a stereotype has to exist.

I'm really wondering about this for the game I'm working on.

Your own game can have an alignment system that makes more sense or no system at all.

[Utterfail]

Good/Evil seems to be more salvageable than Law/Chaos is. Because the Law/Chaos axis is fucked in half, and we all know it. I think a decent replacement might be Honor and Dishonor.

An honorable person is literally someone who is worth of honors. It's somewhat less subjective than "Lawful" is . You can think a guy is a complete evil dick, but recognize that he's done things for your society, or hell, even another society. Likewise, most people can agree on what a dishonorable person is, they break the taboos that all cultures have because it debases the social contract.

[Username17]

Good/Evil seems to be more salvageable than Law/Chaos is. Because the Law/Chaos axis is fucked in half, and we all know it. I think a decent replacement might be Honor and Dishonor.

An honorable person is literally someone who is worth of honors. It's somewhat less subjective than "Lawful" is . You can think a guy is a complete evil dick, but recognize that he's done things for your society, or hell, even another society. Likewise, most people can agree on what a dishonorable person is, they break the taboos that all cultures have because it debases the social contract.

No. Cultures do not have common taboos or reasons to classify someone as honorable or dishonorable.

Consider Azteca and Spanish Christianity. An Aztec Jaguar Warrior is honorable when and if he refrains from killing an opponent who has not had proper funerary rites said over them, and drags them back to a temple with their hands tied so that a priest can properly commit their souls to the afterlife and then murder them while they are bound and helpless. A Christian soldier is honorable because he murders men right there on the field of battle and puts wounded men "out of their misery" by stabbing them in the chest as they lie injured on the ground.

To the outlook of either, the other is horrifying and debased. The "honorable" action of each is regarded as dishonorable and revolting by the other.

-Username17

[CatharzGodfoot]

Uhm, this is a silly question perhaps but humor me: Why do we need alignment at all? Can't we just eject the "I kill you with alignment words" spells and the "I kill you with alignment damage" weapons and then kinda just not give a shit? What are we keeping other than alignment by keeping alignment in the game?

This isn't an idle question, I'm really wondering about this for the game I'm working on.

We don't need alignment at all.

I'm using the literal greek translation. For utter bedlam use the word Anomie in place of Anarchy.

Not bedlam, just people not understanding you. While kinda defeats the primary purpose of language.

[Quantumboost]

Uhm, this is a silly question perhaps but humor me: Why do we need alignment at all? Can't we just eject the "I kill you with alignment words" spells and the "I kill you with alignment damage" weapons and then kinda just not give a shit? What are we keeping other than alignment by keeping alignment in the game?

This isn't an idle question, I'm really wondering about this for the game I'm working on.

For a new game or version, alignment is absolutely not required (certainly not good/evil/law chaos alignment). You could have a less-retarded alignment system by using a different basis than the one in D&D, but there's not much reason to.

For something like, say, a sourcebook for 3.5e D&D which is supposed to revise the existing game - alignment is there, and removing the "I kill you with alignment words/damage" spells and effects has far-reaching consequences, specifically that you can't use several of the existing outsiders out of the box. So if you go that route, you also have to handle those consequences (either providing an alternative/conversion for the outsiders with those spells, or outright saying "you can't have Balors and Glabrezus").

[Username17]

A "prompt" is an invaluable tool for acting of any sort, and cooperative storytelling is part of that. Your character should have something written down to imply what they would do or why they would do it - if nothing else then just to get the party started.

White Wolf's old Nature & Demeanor system worked pretty well actually. nWoD's Virtue & Vice system is asstastic, but even that is better than the AD&D alignment wheel or the WHFRP Law to Chaos line.

-Username17

[Blicero]

Yeah, this is really good. There are maybe a thousand ways to define Good and Evil, and a million to define Law and Chaos, but this definition might actually work.

(I personally ditched Law and Chaos and then just have Good=helping people in a Kantian "ends justify the means" way, Evil=I do what I want Consequentialist "means justify the ends" way It's easy enough to explain but still has room for interalignment conflict and such.)

[Utterfail]

Kantian is not "the ends justify the means", thats utilitarianism. Under Kant's philosophy you always do the right thing, no matter what the end may be. That's why the kantian paladin works so well.

"Ends justify the means" and "means justify the ends" are essentially the same statement.

[CatharzGodfoot]

"If the outcome is good, then the actions were justified (good)." is a very different view from "If the actions were good, then the result is justified (good)".

In fact, they'd make decent positions for a Law//Chaos system. Both are a little bit too absolute, though.

[IgnatiusDrake]

Ok, here goes:

Good -- A good character is one who would willingly forgo an act that would advance his own status or power because it would leave one or more people in a worse situation for his actions. A good character might still take action or prevent actions that would help others if the cost to a greater number of people was higher. So, a good character might take action to sink a ship coming to port if it was known the passengers carried a plague and had been warned to turn away (though they might also allow the ship to land, if they did not think the situation through).

Evil -- An evil character is willing to advance his own status or power even through actions which disadvantage others. For Devils, this includes corrupting innocents, slaying good creatures who oppose them etc. They do this not for the sake of the evil itself, but because these actions advance their agenda. In the situation with the ship above, the Evil character could sink the ship to protect himself, as someone who might catch the plague, warn it to turn away, or just take precautions to protect himself and do everything he could to get the ship into port if there was an item on board that he wanted or having a plague in the city was beneficial (to provide an opportunity or motive for a coup, for example).

Lawful -- A lawful character will strive to live up to what he believes his obligations to be. This, naturally, varies depending on the good/evil alignment component. A LG character thinks upholding the civic good is his obligation and would actively intervene if he observed someone being mugged, for example. A LE character could be loyal to those above him (assuming the superior was stronger) and would likely try to keep his word or fulfill a contract with someone who he felt had dealt with him honestly and fairly.

Chaotic -- A chaotic character doesn't adhere to a particular code of conduct, rather they try to fulfill their goals using whatever method seems appropriate at the time. A CG character could assassinate a superior if he knew of some impending evil plot by that superior which could only be prevented by their deaths. A CE character would basically be a walking pile of Id, an ultimate hedonist thinking only of his own good (or the good of a small group, such as their family or their adventuring party). If he sees a pretty girl, he might try seduction first but if she was reluctant he would have his way with her (assuming he didn't think he would be caught or punished).

Neutral -- Sort of a split the difference situation. On the G/E axis this means that he might try to avoid actions that will harm others, but not take actions that would disadvantage himself unduly for the benefit of others. On the L/C axis, this means that he assumes he has a looser definition of what obligates him to others than a Lawful character, but more strictly than a chaotic character.

That's my take on alignment. Note that the L/C axis is dependent on the character abiding by or disregarding what he believes his responsibility to others is, and not an objective set of obligations. The common sense stuff is covered by G/E.[/i]

[TavishArtair]

A question: a lot of games use a "driving interest" line instead of an alignment system or a "how you act" system, sometimes with a context supplied for it (such as an emotion, such as "Kill all orcs / Hatred"). Is that a useful prompt? Why, why not?

[Count Geiger]

IMO Reboot is probably the best show to pull off alignment.
Megabyte: LE
Hexadecimal: CE

[Blicero]

Yeah, my generalizations might have been a bit too obscure.

What I was trying to get across was, Good characters are unwilling to do Evil things in order to accomplish Good acts. Whereas Evil characters have no problem doing Good things so long as it's all for some overarching Evil purpose. Or they might just do it cuz they feel like it and don't have any intentions of profoundly altering the cosmic balance.

But I also make the determining of whether any act glows as red or blue much more up to the perception of the committer and witnesses. So a Paladin could honestly do something like kidnap or even kill the children of some Evil person in order to draw them out of hiding, and, as long as he believes that individual act is good, he won't become fallen unless someone convinces he's strayed from the rosy path of altruism (I mean, killing evil things is Good, right?).

Along with my simplifying of the detect good and such spells into things that are more like "detect hostile intent" and such, it makes moral matters a lot more confusing, interesting, and dynamic.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Bilerco, that doesn't seem like a useful guide either for game rules or personal conduct. You've said that 'evil people draw from two sets of behaviors, namely "Good" and "Evil"' and 'good people draw upon a single set of behaviors, namely "Good"'. You've indicated that killing children is within the "Good" set only so long as you believe that you are furthering "Good" goals.

If the set of Evil behaviors can be defined as the subtraction of Good behaviors from the universe of behaviors, the only thing we can deduce is that Evil people won't kill children to further Good goals. They might do it to further Evil goals, though, making the two "alignments" completely equivalent until you've actually define what Evil and Good goals are. Apparently killing children for its own sake isn't enough of a Good act?