tussock wrote:Dean wrote:And tussock set up an alignment that is a Friend of Foe identifier not an alignment system.
That's what "alignment" means. What you're aligned with. The only useful thing about D&D alignment is that Bad people use Undead, summon Fiends, and truck with horrible monsters, and Good people don't do any of that.
The way we describe people in those team-jersey bins (as folk here have struggled to make sense of for many years, as does everyone) is simply an attempt to make sense of what someone was thinking when they summoned a fucking Type IV Demon. That person must have been pretty fucked up, not cared about who they hurt, not cared about property damage and consequences and rules from on high.
But it's bullshit. We don't have to care what they're thinking, we just need to know they're in the team that summons Demons. And it helps if they wear some gods-damned insignia so we can play with those ideas in game. So the Wizards in the red robes are immediately evocative and story-driving without making up endless shit about their homelands and culture that no one even cares about and the PCs don't have good in-game reasons to know anyway. Fuck all that mystery bullshit.
Team red: Baddies. Right there. Game on. Same as the FR, same as Dragonlance.
Not really. The thing is, mixed alignment parties are a staple of D&D. An A Ranger, a Druid, and an Assassin walk into a Tavern and all that. You're Good, Neutral, and Evil characters team up because the Alignment system is supposed to be a roleplaying behavior guideline and enforcement mechanism, not an indication of whose team you're on.
Alignment doesn't tell you what a characters goals are or his affiliations. At best it tells you what methods are acceptable to him.
Lawful? Lying, cheating, and stealing are off the table.
Good? Lets try to keep the stabbings to a minimum.
True Neutral? Can justify anything.
Evil:Some people need killing.
Chaotic? Imposing rigid hierarchical systems is right out. Other than that I have no clue.
The thing where Paladins can't associate with Evil people is supposed to be a huge restriction because mixed-alignment parties are pretty normal and the restriction greatly limits the games that the Paladin can play in. (which, ultimately, makes the restriction stupid counterproductive, but there you have it).
But the thing is, Alignment isn't all that useful as a behavior predictor. It is, at best, a limited behavior restricted. It tells you the things that a character probably won't do. But even that isn't certain.
The other problem is that shifts toward Evil don't add new restrictions, they merely remove the old ones.
So while you know that an Evil person could murder you, you don't know that he will murder you. And for that matter, a Neutral person could also murder you. And so could a Good person under the right circumstances. So not all that useful.
So basically picked Good and/or Law gives you a big list of things that you can't do and the other Alignments don't. Neutral situational morality is fundamentally indistinguishable from Evil situational morality.
For that matter, Chaotic situational ethics is fundamentally indistinguishable from Neutral situational ethics.
Whipstitch wrote: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.
White Wolf was trying to make a game in which you're a brooding goth bemoaning your damned existence. That just happened to be the exact opposite of what most people wanted to play.
FrankTrollman wrote:Tussock wrote:The only useful thing about D&D alignment is that Bad people use Undead, summon Fiends, and truck with horrible monsters, and Good people don't do any of that.
Congratulations. You've just recreated the problem fantasy has been gripping with since Tolkien: Good is Racist. The forces of Evil have Southrons and Orcs and shit, and the forces of Good don't. But the forces of Evil
also let in Elves and Numenoreans and whatever the fuck else it is that team Good has. That means that Evil is more ethnically diverse, which in turn makes Good look a lot more like the Axis than the Allies.
It bothered Tolkien, and it should bother you too. Defining "Good" simply in terms of what skin colors aren't allowed
really doesn't
feel "Good" in the modern era.
-Username17
But it does let you feel good about joining team evil.
Vote Sauron.