Alignment Sucks

[Username17]

OK, we've all dealt with Alignment since we first started gaming - and it's one of the hardest concepts to get a hand on. It's also the subject which brings up more debates than anything else. And it does so because it sucks.

Why? Because Alignment has two problems that it can't address:

1> It is not reciprocal.
2> It offers only blanket statements.

What does it mean for it to not be reciprocal? It means that a wrong plus a right does not equal zero. It means that evil deeds count more than good ones. When the champion of light decides that he really needs to know what is in the tower and captures a janitor and tortures him to death to get that information - the champion of light is no longer a champion of light, and may be just plain evil now. Debate is still raging on that point.

But when Graznak the Slayer notices that there is a baby in the burning barn and walks in and rescues it - noone considers throwing a tickertape parade in his honor. Noone doubts that Graznak is still pretty much a bastard. That's because Graznak is still a bastard - he's still evil, and that good act he did on Tuesday really doesn't change that in the slightest.

What does it mean that it offers only blanket statements? It means that a person under the alignment system can be Good or Evil - but not both. And that simply does not jive with actual human experience. Consider what makes people Evil - doing Evil things, right?

But noone does Evil things all the time. Even fantastically villainous madmen like John Wayne Gacy only kill like a few times in their lives. The rest of their time is spent doing other stuff. It's relatively difficult to be evil eating cheerios - and lots of these people actually do good works at other times in their lives. Gacy, for example, threw parties for the neighbors, helped out at children's hospitals, gave to charity - and raped 33 young men to death.

The alignment system clearly paints this man as Evil, and so do I. But the fact is, he doesn't do Evil stuff all the time, he just does some Evil stuff a few times in his life. And that's enough to be Evil by any sane moral standard. The alignment system implies that horrible people do horrible things all the time - or don't have redeeming features. But they do. There are probably no people anywhere who don't have some good things they do.

And that shouldn't be surprising. Being good is what you are supposed to do. Noone calls you up and congratulates you for not raping and murdering anyone this year - it's just expected. Showing helpfulness, kindness, and honesty is what people are supposed to do - ot is Good, but noone is surprised when you actually do it - people are offended when you don't.

In modern criminal proceedings there is a state of "innocence" - where you haven't done anything wrong. That's good. There is also a state of "guilt" - where you have. That's bad. To describe this is terms of Good and Evil means that everyone starts Good and can become Evil by doing bad stuff. Sounds reasonable, right?

Well that's not actually supported by the Alignment system at all. People who are Evil are supposed to do Evil stuff like all the time. People who are Neutral seemingly are supposed to do Evil stuff some of the time. Which means that "Neutral" in D&D describes John Wayne Gacy - which in turn means that the Alignment system sucks.

-Username17

[Ramnza]

I agree alignment sucks....
However, for spell functions, alignment is necessary. Now we ran into this problem in a previous campaign. What happens when a character is chaotic, chaotic good, chaotic evil? If a character is chaotic neutral and commits an act of evil does that change their alignment? When is alignment just one of those things we accept as not realistic and have as a tag for spells or magic items only?

[Josh_Kablack]

And yet Frank has only described one axis of suckage when there are, in fact two.

We don't even know if Law and Chaos are reciprocal or not, and have an even harder time pigeonholing real-life people on it.

The alignment system is horrible, and yet mechanicly integral to the 3e core rules.

[Username17]

Heck, I can't even tell what Law and Chaos even are. Sometimes Law seems to be being true to yourself (example: Lawful Evil Swordsman with an unshakable, if perplexing, personal code) - while at other times it seems to be devotion to an external code regardless of personal beliefs (example: Lawful Neutral Judge who enforces all of the laws of the land to the letter).

With such a spread of interpretation available - Lawful seems to just mean "has more willpower", rather than a specific ethical position. A Lawful person is more likely to behave the same way when hit with similar ethical quandaries at different times than is a Chaotic person - but the Law/Chaos axis doesn't seem to actually inform what that choice will be in any meaningful or consistent fashion.

As described - Lawfullness should just be the attribute that determines your Willpower saves. I can't tell the difference between "Lawfulness" and "Wisdom" with the specific effects on personality they are actually supposed to have.

Example of Law/Chaos in play: When the Swordsman obeys the order from the dark lord to kill the child, when his own code tells him to not harm women and children - he's commited a chaotic act because he broke his code. When the Judge obeys the law of the land and sentences the man to prison for stealing a loaf of bread, when his own code tells him to help those in genuine need - he's commited a lawful act because he's obeyed the Law which he is sworn to uphold.

Can anyone tell me how you couldn't make an equally compelling argument that the Lawful act was Chaotic and the Chaotic act was Lawful simply by taking the other stance on the other action?

-Username17

[Essence]

Entirely agreed, and Maj and I have spent weeks agonizing about how to remove the alignment system entirely from D&D and replace it with something that's similar in effect (i.e. allows clerics to have spells that target some specific part of the populace that equates to roughly 1/3rd of it), but not at all reliant on people's perceptions of abstract concepts.

It's a hard thing to do. The best solution we found was greatly reducing the number of gods (say, to 6 of them), and then having spells that only worked on worshippers of a given pair of gods, or detected worshippers of a given pair of gods...of course, that relies on the arbitrary rule of "you can only worship one pair of gods", which also sucks.

<sigh>


Essence

[Maj]

The alignment system sucks because it tries to force an absolute on relative concepts. And despite the fact that in the game, EVIL and GOOD are supposed to be these black and white, semi-tangible motivators of the universe, they cannot and will never be - because in the real world where this game was written, no one has a clear definition of what these things mean.

We would be much better off picking four definite concepts: four colors, the four directions, four "elements," four senses, four numbers, four letters, whatever... And allotting the gods a category or two, and letting the current mechanics run from that.

But really, the whole idea of basing mechanics on the flavor text of behavior, or what god you worship is ridiculous. There will never be any way that alignment will be resolved from one DM's game to another - what one person believes is chaotic good ends up being chaotic neutral in someone else's world because people have differing ideas of what each alignment means.

And as Ess began to touch on, a lot of the alignment and worship system of D&D (though it extended to our attempt to change alignment) is founded on the notion that you only worship one god. Which is stupid, really. In a polytheistic society where the gods make themselves known all the time, you pray to Fharlanghn when you travel, you pray to St. Cuthbert for justice, you pray to Kurtulmak because you're a kobold, you pray to Pelor for healing... You don't pray to Pelor because you're travelling (While I'm on this tangent, I'd just like to add that the D&D pantheon hopelessly sucks, too). Thus, relegating a god and all followers to certain alignments is inane.

[Machine_Kiss]

Take our wonderful real-life world for example. The various D&D alignment structures would be interpreted in vastly different concepts if you took 1 person from each of the alignments from each of the following countries - Norway, Haiti, Rwanda, Japan, & Iran.

And yet, we have campaign worlds like the Forgotten Realms that have very similar cultural & geographical corollaries to our wonderful real-life world. Meaning the same D&D alignments as interpreted while in Mulhorand, Calimshan, Halrua, & Kara-Tur will most likely *also* be vastly different from each other.

Alignment interpretation & definition is best done in fairly tight geographical boundaries. The farther away you move from a set definition in a specific alignment, the more cultural diversity plays into modifying that alignment.

Whoo!:bash:

[Jack_Lurch]

Something that comes up in our campaign from time to time:

Are good and evil a team? Can the teams beat on each other without violating alignment? Can paladins torture vrock children for information? What about just out and out killing full grown momma and daddy vrocks, if the vrocks were not doing anything to provoke it right at that moment?

-Jack

[Maj]

According to page nine of the Book of Exalted Deeds you're not allowed to instigate violence against something evil without provocation. So if those vrock aren't doing anything wrong, no - you may not randomly torture them just because they're vrock.

[Username17]

According to the Book of Vile Darkness, page 5, Vrocks are still evil regardless of whatever it is doing right now - so you can kill those Vrocks to your heart's content.

-Username17

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

So, kill the Vrock = okay?

Not being polite to the Vrock in a quest for information = Evil?

The above conclusion = dumb.

[Username17]

Yes.

Stabbing Vrocks is OK, but poisoning their food is out of bounds and makes you join them.

-Username17

[da_chicken]

Vrocks are feinds. They aren't just evil-aligned. They are evil, just as you and I are flesh and bone.

If it's your quest to destroy all iron and you meet an intelligent iron golem, do you strike up a conversation or strike the creature down?

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

Right, so why is so wrong for me to be a little extra "persuasive" with Johnny Absolute Evil in front of me when I need some info?

I also don't like that PrC's with alignment constraints mean that I can't make a character that tricked his way into an organization to learn their tricks and secrets. e.g. I can't have a totally opportunist CN Elf Rogue suck the Order of the Bow into teaching him their tricks, because they mystically know he's not Lawful.

Which takes me to another rant on how apparently if you have no respect for the law except for the right of the individual you are apparently incapable of self discipline. The more I think about it, the more the system falls apart under any kind of scrutiny.

Maybe Unearthed Arcana can save us. Not that I'm holding my breath.

[Username17]

In Arcana Unearthed there are no alignments.

Alignments actually make sense - for Angels and Demons. If you are made out of concepts, I can totally see how you could actually be Evil. All the time, and know it. You could even be happy with that. After all, a Tengu is made out of unelightenment, so if he accepts the teachings of the Budha for even a moment he dies. That kind of thing is really cool and is totally workable for monsters.

It is not workable for people. People simply don't do anything consistently enough to meet the requirements of "Evil" if it is actually supposed to define your life while you are making toast (evil toast), washing your car (your evil car), or making your bed (your evil bed). People, even horrible people, simply can't ever live up to that standard.

As long as Alignments only apply to Outsiders, the system works. Otherwise, it doesn't work under any kind of scrutiny at all.

-Username17

[Oberoni]

You know what? It's like the PHB section on alignment (p. 104) wants to make you mad. It's actually trying to piss you off to the point where you want to take it outside and assault it.

So, " 'law' implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability?" Waitaminute. Do I have to be some petty feudal lord's yes-man in order to trustworthy and reliable? That's stupid. How did those concepts get married?

" 'Chaos' implies freedom, adaptability, and flexibility." Ok, so none of the 'positive virtues' of chaos even contradict law. I can very easily be honorable, trustworthy, obedient, reliable, free, adaptable, and flexible. Really, if you're trying to sell me on this law vs. chaos thing, and how they're opposites, why aren't you showing me that they're opposites?

As a side rant, I get pissed when people 'try to enlighten' the rest of the gaming world by explaining that law and chaos in D&D don't actually have anything to do with how someone actually obeys the laws. Yes it does--the freakin' book says so.

Okay, so the section describing law and chaos doesn't really try very hard to show why they're opposites. Heck, at this point, I'm not actually even sure what they are, period, since the PHB uses terms like "implies" and "can include," which are nice and wishy-washy. So maybe some of the alignment examples can help clear something up.

"Alhandra, a paladin who fights evil without mercy and protects the innocent without hesitation, is lawful good." Pardon me, but WTF? What part of that has anything to do with being lawful, even according to the description one page back? A case can be made that if you attack anything "without mercy," you're probably not a very disciplined person (on account of you not being able to hold back and all), and you're probably breaking the law, if you're carrying on these merciless assaults against evil people in a city.

So really, I still have no idea what "lawful" is. Let's go further down the list, and check out chaotic good. "Soveliss, a ranger who waylays the evil baron's tax collectors, is lawful good."

Oh, that's great. So fighting an evil authority is chaotic? Well, I guess the paladin better be staying home at all times, then. If he goes out to fight the evil warlord in that warlord's own territory, he's not being lawful, at which point he loses all of his paladin powers. Ugh. How does that example give me a vague clue on this whole law and chaos thing?

And let's look at some other examples. "Jozan, a cleric who helps others according to their needs, is neutral good." I had no idea that helping people according to their needs was in any way morally neutral. "Gimble, a bard who wanders the land living by his wits, is chaotic neutral." They might as well have said 'Gimble, a bard who likes Cheerios, is chaotic neutral.' "Mialee, a wizard who devotes herself to her art and is bored by the semantics of moral debate, is neutral." This one even starts to throw the whole 'lawful means disciplined' thing into doubt, because the very example of a disiplined wizard is considered true neutral. (of course, a disiplined monk is apparently more disiplined than a disiplined wizard, according to this very page of the PHB.)

It all adds up to a giant mess wherein I honest-to-goodness couldn't tell you in anything resembling absolute terms what makes something lawful or chaotic. I can't do it, because the game itself can't.

[da_chicken]

Key word: implies. Not equals.

[Username17]

The basic problem here, is that the concept of alignment is inherently unworkable.

Ideally, alignment is based on absolute principles. Actions can be determined Good or Evil, Lawful or Chaotic, without the underlying context. So for example, "eating babies" is Evil. And that's supposed to be the end of that.

And that kind of thing is workable, and some people really form ethical systems based on that notion. Immanuel Kant, for example, has put a whole lot of work into it, and it's called a "deontological ethical system". Look it up - it makes for an interesting read.

But here's the thing: in a deontological system, you have to ascribe some actions as being wrong. But D&D is, first and foremost, a tactical miniatures game. People fight all the time, and loot the bodies afterwards. In D&D, every character kills, lies, and steals. It's just part of the game. And there is simply no way to have a meaningful set of wrong actions if Murder and Theft aren't on it.

So what does D&D do? It does what it has to do under the circumstances: it plays an ethical shell game. See, while actions are being painted black and white with the deontological brush in the one hand - it busily sets aside a list of dos and don'ts based upon utilitarian principles with the other. Quite simply, actions are good because they produce good results. Suddenly, killing the evil bandit chief is Good, because his death actualy causes there to be less death over all.

The problem is that once you've brought Utilitarianism into the picture - the Actions (which we are supposed to be defining as Chaotic, Evil, Good, or Lawful) don't even exist. There is no such thing as "killing" in the Utilitarian model. Your actions increase or decrease the total amount of death - and little details like whether you happened to be swinging a knife in the general directions of peoples' kidneys while you were doing it isn't even worth thinking about.

When you justify things in terms of Utilitarianism you can't assign the actions themselves a moral relevence in a deontological system. The two don't mix in any meaningful way.

For the deontology that alignment demands - actions must themselves have an ethical value. D&D can't assign a negative ethical value to killing - so it cannot make a meaningful deontological statement. Which means it can't support an alignment system.

-Username17

[Oberoni]

1072061881[/unixtime]]Key word: implies. Not equals.

Then the alignment system is based on nothing more than implications and hints? That's not exactly a strong point for it.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

For the deontology that alignment demands - actions must themselves have an ethical value. D&D can't assign a negative ethical value to killing - so it cannot make a meaningful deontological statement. Which means it can't support an alignment system.

This is no more complicated than real life. Even among people who believe in absolute standards of right and wrong,everyone but Quakers and Jains (and possibly adherents of a few other obscure religions) would also agree that killing someone to prevent them from killing another innocent person is good. The real folly of the alignment system is that it introduces the complex subject of ethics into the game and then creates too simple a framework to deal with the topic adequately. This problem is compounded by the fact that the DM is expected to constantly monitor the ethics of everyone's actions and adjust their alignments accordingly.

One possible solution to this problem which I have seen discussed in a couple of places is to replace alignment with the d20 Modern allegiance system. Using that system, fiends are still evil, but people aren't evil unless they decide that they enjoy torturing babies on a regular basis. Further, the DM only has to monitor the actions of characters who have devoted themselves to good or evil, law or chaos. OTOH, you also have to decide whether you want to allow other kinds of allegiances into the game, as d20 Modern does, and whether you want to adapt the rules to those changes. For example, you must decide whether you want Magic Circles Against Sembia to be cast in your campaign.

As a side rant, I get pissed when people 'try to enlighten' the rest of the gaming world by explaining that law and chaos in D&D don't actually have anything to do with how someone actually obeys the laws. Yes it does--the freakin' book says so.

I suspect the problem is that they didn't want paladins who venture into Lawful Evil territories to be in a double bind about which of their alignment constraints to violate. Unfortunately, instead of trying to develop a coherent explanation as to which laws a lawful character must obey to be consistent with their alignment, they just made everything nice and vague so that gamers could entertain themselves by arguing about the issue forever. It falls into the same complex issue-simple framework trap mentioned above, except that they didn't really even define the simple framework when it came to law and chaos.

[Username17]

Even among people who believe in absolute standards of right and wrong,everyone but Quakers and Jains (and possibly adherents of a few other obscure religions) would also agree that killing someone to prevent them from killing another innocent person is good.

People who claim to believe in absolutes with regards to morality who then make major exceptions are hypocrits and have no place in an ethical debate. If the alignment system is based on a general hypocritical viewpoint it is less than useless.

-Username17

[Oberoni]

But they're not necessarily being hypocrites at all.

You assume people start from the position "Killing other people is wrong."

They're starting from the position "Killing other people who don't kill innocents is wrong."

I know, I know--it looks like a simple case of shaving one's maxims (aka 'adding lots of conditions and exceptions to one's moral structure'). But it's not--the idea of killing only those who murder innocent people, and allowing all others to live, is a coherent one.

So I don't have a problem with the D&D system insofar as it says it's ok for good guys to kill bad guys (not just evil people, but evil people that have murdered other good guys in cold blood). I just have a problem with the other horrifically vague parts.

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

As somebody just starting to run Champions it seems to me the alignment system works much better in a 4-color comic book world than in a pseudo-medievil fantasy setting. Yet, D&D has such a system and Champions doesn't.

If you're looking for a point, there isn't really one.

[da_chicken]

1072073417[/unixtime]]

1072061881[/unixtime]]Key word: implies. Not equals.

Then the alignment system is based on nothing more than implications and hints? That's not exactly a strong point for it.

No, it simply means that while good and evil are absolute concepts in D&D, their descriptions are not.

It's a fundamental failing of real world language to be able to describe in any real way a concept such as absolute good or absolute evil.

I and the people I play with find the discussions on the nature of Good and Evil in the BoVD and BoED very useful, since the alignment descriptions in the PH are [intentionally] lacking. However, a lot of people here carry their biases against game designers on to those books and everything in them. Even the non-mechanical stuff.

Ultimately, pinning down alignment gets in the way of playing the game.

Shut up. Roll dice. Have fun. Let it go.

[Username17]

I actually think that Monte is one of the best designers they have ever had.

And thee's lots of cool stuff in the BoVD. But the descriptions of what makes things Evil are non-reciprocal, contradictory, and retarded.

Any world view in which casting Negative Energy Burst is Evil inherently had better have Cone of Cold be equally inherently Evil or it is really stupid. So the listings of what makes things inherently Evil is stupid. Really Stupid.

-Username17