Evil but No Good

[FatR]

Your theory is not confirmed by practice, given that the best-known example of an unbalanced alignment system is Warhammer 40k.

40k isn't Neutral vs Evil, it's Cartoonishly Evil vs, Insanely Evil.

First, there is nothing particularly insane about 40k. I can name three space settings featuring much more brutality and total war resulting from boneheaded decisions or sheer malice of one or both sides off the top of my head (Xeleeverse, Boloverse, Lensmenverse), not even counting settings like Cultureverse or Zones of Thoughtverse, where planetary-scale genocides are committed in search of minor tactical or political advantages simply because of the sheer scale of the setting. 40k only gets attention because many aspects are indeed cartoonish. (Which, by the way, does not mean "more evil"). Or because people don't read books.

Second, this proves my point about the outcome of an unbalanced alignment system with supernatural evil but no supernatural good, rather than disproves it.

[Occluded Sun]

I don't think Law, Chaos, Good, and Evil are as hard to understand as is being implied.

Batman is Lawful, Deadpool is Chaotic. Superman is Lawful, the Joker is Chaotic.

Good and Evil deal with how you relate to others - Good will work to prevent harm from coming to others even at cost to the self, and Evil will inflict harm on others even at risk to the self. (Evil is often self-defeating, but then so is Good.)

[Gnorman]

What the fuck is with this constant need to portray Chaotic characters as fishmalks? It's not funny and it's actively stupid.

[Occluded Sun]

Fishmalks are incompetent madmen. Both Deadpool and the Joker are very, very competent madmen. Neither is utterly random, they are random in ways that push their toward their goals. They are usefully unpredictable.

[hyzmarca]

Fishmalks are incompetent madmen. Both Deadpool and the Joker are very, very competent madmen. Neither is utterly random, they are random in ways that push their toward their goals. They are usefully unpredictable.

Neither Deadpool nor the Joker are madmen. Deadpool is irreverent, but perfectly rational. The Joker is murderous and sadistic, but perfectly rational.

[Prak]

In their ways. Most people would call Joker's readiness and glee to slaughter random people "mad," but there's a difference between amoral and insane.

[deaddmwalking]

You're calling 'Batman' lawful? I mean, which version are you thinking of where it is a legal thing to go out and be a vigilante and beat up people because you don't think the police can be trusted?

I'm guessing only the Adam West TV show.

Ultimately, no 'alignment' is truly predictive. Ultimately it just ends up promoting arguments about whether a chosen action is sufficiently 'in character' for the alignment. As if there aren't people in the real world who risk their lives in a burning building but also rape women if they think they can get away with it...

[Prak]

By in large, Batman is actually a pretty good example of a lawful character. I mean, yes, vigilantism is illegal, but Gotham is sort of implicitly a special case, and he has tacit approval from the GCPD in most iterations.

[erik]

By in large, Batman is actually a pretty good example of a lawful character. I mean, yes, vigilantism is illegal, but Gotham is sort of implicitly a special case, and he has tacit approval from the GCPD in most iterations.

[Prak]

As much as D&D law means anything at all, I mean. His entire motivation is "to avenge the death of my parents and make the untouchable criminals of Gotham know that they are answerable to the law, even if that law is currently about as useful as a soggy turd."

[erik]

It means nothing at all, except maybe team jerseys. Law and Chaos are gibberish D&D terms.

I am totally baffled by this thread and its starting proposal since I cannot see the benefit to retaining any alignments.

[maglag]

Your theory is not confirmed by practice, given that the best-known example of an unbalanced alignment system is Warhammer 40k.

40k isn't Neutral vs Evil, it's Cartoonishly Evil vs, Insanely Evil.

First, there is nothing particularly insane about 40k. I can name three space settings featuring much more brutality and total war resulting from boneheaded decisions or sheer malice of one or both sides off the top of my head (Xeleeverse, Boloverse, Lensmenverse), not even counting settings like Cultureverse or Zones of Thoughtverse, where planetary-scale genocides are committed in search of minor tactical or political advantages simply because of the sheer scale of the setting. 40k only gets attention because many aspects are indeed cartoonish. (Which, by the way, does not mean "more evil"). Or because people don't read books.

The thing is that in 40K they are evil on all levels. The Imperium isn't just out to kill everything else, they regularly kill each other. Commissars execute guardsmen as regular protocol, spech merines genocide little boys, black ships harvest sacrifices to a golden mummy, ghey knights kill holy women to gain the favour of daemonic forces, and they all enforce stagnation, misery and suffering whenever possible. Their lifes are filled with hate, their only purpose to kill and kill again until they're killed. In the grimdarkness of the future, there is only war. The only reason 40K is not the most brutal verse is because they have much inferior technology. But if they had the tech level of those other verses, you can bet they would find ways to be even more brutal.

Plus I believe that Xeleeverse, Boloverse and Lensmenverse don't have 10 000+ years wars with several of the starting named characters still kicking around and refusing to compromise or forgive anything ever.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Plus I believe that Xeleeverse, Boloverse and Lensmenverse don't have 10 000+ years wars with several of the starting named characters still kicking around and refusing to compromise or forgive anything ever.

I'm not as familiar with the others, but the Lensman war lasts for approximately two billion years, and indeed has the starting named characters from the beginning of the war to the end of it refusing to compromise or forgive.

[OgreBattle]

The Joker is Lawful, Batman is Chaotic.

[FatR]

The thing is that in 40K they are evil on all levels. The Imperium isn't just out to kill everything else, they regularly kill each other.

So does any sufficiently large mass of people. Imperium's internal conflicts killing as many people as they do, is a matter of the setting's sheer scale.

spech merines genocide little boys, ghey knights kill holy women to gain the favour of daemonic forces,

Cherry-picking pieces of fluff universally ridiculed even by the tabletop players does not show your confidence in your argument. That is before considering the fact that the codex fluff is generally trying to be maximally METAL rather than even somewhat consistent or sensible (I still kek every time I see spaceships with fuckhuge guns that are loaded by teams of workers), and books - at least those I found to be worth reading - paint quite a different picture by trying to make some sense of the setting.

And in that picture I just don't find anything especially "insane" about the Imperium. Like, most of major historical empires from Roman to Chinese, were more of a clusterfuck and more ruthless towards the majority of their population for most of their existences. Being caught by the black ships suck, but it affects a tiny percentage of the population, being under deliberately crushing taxation so that slave markets are filled by insolvent debtors affected whole provinces.

And the Imperium is not the only fucking civilization in 40k, for that matter.

Plus I believe that Xeleeverse, Boloverse and Lensmenverse don't have 10 000+ years wars with several of the starting named characters still kicking around and refusing to compromise or forgive anything ever.

Lensmenverse was already covered.

Xeeleeverse had humanity trying to zergrush the godlike titular race (who are to this day considered to be the golden standard of overpowered tech) for something like a million years, despite considerable evidence that Xeelee consider the conflict as little more than pest control and can fairly easily smash the whole Milky Way galaxy if they so choose. It also featured a race that helped humans to become this xenophobic holding a grudge to the point they prioritized killing as many humans as they could over their own survival, even as the whole universe was dying.

In Boloverse 90% of aliens mindlessly and relentlessly attacked everyone they met, and when humans finally encountered a race that was smart enough to even consider the idea of diplomacy and nonviolent first contact, it ended with both sides genociding each other to tens of thousands - at most - out of many trilliions. Well, at least it did feature some compromise and forgiveness, but only after a whole spiral arm was burned to the ground.

[Occluded Sun]

In their ways. Most people would call Joker's readiness and glee to slaughter random people "mad," but there's a difference between amoral and insane.

The Joker quite reasonably attempts to reach his goals, but his goals are insane.

One of the major reasons he's never, say, destroyed Gotham City, is that he spends a lot of effort on 'humorously' lethal gags instead. Batman is probably the biggest obstacle to any of his schemes working out, in both the short- and long-terms, but he doesn't truly try to kill him because the challenge he presents is entertaining.

Too many people confuse crazy with incompetence. The Joker is dangerous because he's competently crazy.

[Occluded Sun]

You're calling 'Batman' lawful? I mean, which version are you thinking of where it is a legal thing to go out and be a vigilante and beat up people because you don't think the police can be trusted?

Not lawful, Lawful. Batman has a code and seeks to impose order. Legality has nothing to do with it.

[deaddmwalking]

So in short, every alignment can be used to justify any type of behavior making them, at best, useless, and at worst, an excuse for a GM to dick-slap players for not playing their characters the way he considers appropriate.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

[Occluded Sun]

No, it's more that people who dislike alignment are perfectly willing to put up strawmen. Or possibly you just don't get it. It's difficult to tell the difference and I don't think anyone really cares.

[deaddmwalking]

Or, alternatively, the people who are responsible for explaining alignment are fuck-wits who repeatedly explain opposite alignments with the same language. Go read the PHB and explain to me how Mialee's dedication to her art makes her chaotic while Ember's dedication to her craft makes her lawful.

Further, you could consider whether alignment could mean anything if a given character is allowed to perform any actions. If 99.9% of the time you're lawful good but you once raped a 13 - year-old initiate to the abbey what does that even mean? Since there is no declaration that you're confined to your alignment box, the impact of straying outside it isn't defined, then once again it becomes a near meaningless label - certainly not one that you could expect 5-7 people to be in perfect agreement.

Honestly, it sounds like you think YOU know what alignment REALLY MEANS and everyone else is wrong. Which is why this conversation keeps coming up and we could actually find someone who completely disagrees with you.

[MGuy]

So in short, every alignment can be used to justify any type of behavior making them, at best, useless, and at worst, an excuse for a GM to dick-slap players for not playing their characters the way he considers appropriate.

Basically this. I am forced to believe that this is what it boils down to since the actual text is very unhelpful. It's like the Ars Mag thread where a bunch of people think they know what the vague text means and will defend it but come up with different conclusions.

[Occluded Sun]

Just as most people are not exemplars of a philosophical stance but can behave one way at one time and another at another, most well-crafted fictional characters are complex.

For example, I've seen a Doctor Who version of the nine alignment chart, because the Doctor isn't a simple person. Nevertheless, his overall characterization is always Good, and he veers between Law and Chaos.

You *can't* justify any action under any alignment. The meanings of the terms aren't particularly complicated, but they are necessarily implied rather than rigorously defined, and there's a class of player will who try to exploit anything that isn't rigorously and rigidly defined.

[MGuy]

So if you can get that characters are often so complex that they can fit under multiple alignments why are you defending alignments?

[deaddmwalking]

Apparently he thinks players shouldn't aim to have a character with the depth of Dr. Who.

Real people are very complex. You can justify a lot of evil if the people you're committing the atrocities on are 'not people'. That's why you can have one person arguing that murdering defenseless orcs is inappropriate for a Lawful Good character while another argues it is a moral imperative.