A structured attempt at alignment

[erik]

Your two alignment axes are Temporal and Spiritual.

Temporal relates to how you feel about the political power structure of your homeland and is either Loyalist, Indifferent, or Rebel.

Paladins and Monks are required to have Loyalist as their temporal alignment.

Alignments can and do change during play.

Temporal alignment is possibly worse than the meaningless law chaos alignments. Bravo. Bravo.

It can shift during a session. It means different things for different players even if they share alignment. And it is mandatory that some classes have it remain static. What a clusterfuck.

[Aryxbez]

To any consolation on the notion of making a structured case for Alignment: http://www.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?t=265338

Apparently Eberron had a pretty good one, and this explanation rips very directly from that.

[Voss]

Eberron's treatment of alignment was a hack. It was seriously 'I had to include it because it was for a D&D setting contest, but feel free to ignore it because I don't give a shit. Have evil priests of good gods or whatever.'

And the link's links are stupid. 'Faith matters.' Except your gods are demonstrably real with real world effects. Why the fuck do you need faith?
It's like having faith in a table.

The second is worthless since alignment is purely a tag for the purposes of misleading people. Use detect thoughts and rip their motivations out instead.

[Cervantes]

How is Lawful supposed to make sense given that there are places with "evil laws" and places with "good laws"?

Is it just "Concrete vs. Abstract"? Like, Chaotic is trusting your intuition and your immediate impressions ("seeing what to do") while Lawful is relying on some principles. But then neutral is just some weird "not really doing either particularly well" ground and Lawful Evil doesn't make sense because that's just "Be Ayn Rand."

[Prak]

I'm working through this roughly along the systems
@caladfel
That axis is only useable if you don't think about it too deeply. For quick example, where does an Auschwitz gate guard fall under that rubric? What about a eugenicist? A zombie pumping a village's water supply? What about adventurers who sack orc towns for treasure?

It depends on why the guard is guarding the gate. If he is neutral and does not personally know any jews, he might be dissociated enough to find what is going on there appalling, but rationalize it as "I am just guarding the gate". If he is good, he might be torn inside about what is happening there. The adventurers sacking orc towns for treasure? It depends on why they are doing it.

Also, I think that in this implementation we should create an "unaligned" alignment to things that have no intelligence or moral and ethics completely alien (like TV Tropes orange and blue morality).

EDIT: I think this fails requirement 2, however.

Ok, what about a character who protects their own people because they see them as part of themselves?

[Dean]

By far and away the best alignment system I ever played under was the assumption that most every Prime plane creature was neutral and only outsiders would be capital G Good or capital E Evil. The only things that were good or evil were outsiders made of good and evil or high level paladins or clerics who exude auras of good as a class feature.

Law and Chaos are worthless and retarded but Good and Evil have some place in fantasy. So make gods and powerful outsiders have very clear alignments and then people are all just trying to do the best they can.

[Username17]

One problem with Good and Evil is that it's fucking Good and Evil, and it is implausible that anyone gives a shit about anything else. If your political divisions were based on something like Abortion (Choice v Life) and Fiscal Policy (Stimulus v Liquidation) you could imagine people lining up and resorting themselves based on the issues of the day. Maybe a Choice Liquidationist would team up with a Life Liquidationist to block a despised change in tax policy and the next day team up with a Choice Stimulationist to keep an abortion clinic open. Or whatever.

But if one of the teams is "Good" and another team is "Evil" than it does not fucking matter what the other axis you're supposed to care about is. You are not going to team up with Orc Hitler because he happens to support comparable road maintenance budgets to what you'd like to see in a non-genocidal kingdom.

If you want to have some sort of biaxial alignment bullshit (which you shouldn't, because it is bad), then Law and Chaos can stay, Good and Evil have to go.

-Username17

[nockermensch]

I have discovered a truly marvelous biaxial alignment system, which this post is too narrow to contain.

[Omegonthesane]

I have discovered a truly marvelous biaxial alignment system, which this post is too narrow to contain.

You mean we're going to have to discover it centuries from now using principles that aren't actually known in the present day? Damn.

[JigokuBosatsu]

You are not going to team up with Orc Hitler because he happens to support comparable road maintenance budgets to what you'd like to see in a non-genocidal kingdom.

Except isn't that how it works a lot of times in the real world?

Game-wise, I don't feel like I've seen sufficient justification to have an alignment system at all. Is it to preserve the Detect Good spells, et al? Because to be honest my day is already pretty full with casting Fireball, so...

[Scrivener]

You are not going to team up with Orc Hitler because he happens to support comparable road maintenance budgets to what you'd like to see in a non-genocidal kingdom.

Except isn't that how it works a lot of times in the real world?

No it isn't.

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."

[JigokuBosatsu]

Sure about that?

[codeGlaze]

The good thing about fectin's current proposal (imo) is that it is removed from moral alignment. (By 'aligning' you to a side of a power spectrum, not moral deeds. ) The drug analogy is also amusing. Clerics are often labelled 'good' because their powers make you FEEL good.

But it also intrinsically ties up casting in the game into two power sources. Everything is either derived from positive or negative POWAR(!). Which is interesting to me but could cayse hand-wringing for people trying to figure out how their new power source fits into 'The Grand Scheme'.

Story-wise it allows people to call witches, wizards and druids EVIL! because they are "chaos worshippers". (Not deriving their powers from a deity.) It also allows you to deem a sect of worshippers EVIL(!) because they do not worship your god.

As for detect (bloop) spells... I've started running them as a more psychic feeling of intent (a la force sensitivity or professor x) and less "Holy crap he's pure evil!". So Paladins are really good at detecting bad liars. It could also work for people looking to purge people who they have deemd to be corrupt/evil.

Protection spells could work along the line of 'x person is in a rage and trying to kill you... they are definitely soaking in negative energy, this salt ring will help!'.

[Whipstitch]

As Will Rogers would say, diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock. Yes, the US teamed up with Stalin, but implying that things were all wine and roses is hilariously disingenuous.

[kzt]

It's very rare that someone seems themselves as the bad guy in their personal narrative. It does happen, but not often and I can't think of any mass movement that internally portrayed themselves as evil.

They have reasons and justifications for every horrible thing they do and the presence of all the other members helps firm up the justification in their mind. For an example see Himmler's Posen speeches.

[JigokuBosatsu]

Well, I was specifically replying to Frank's assertion that presumably lawful and/or good groups in fantasyland wouldn't work with "Orc Hitler" on a project that was to their mutal societal advantage. There's no reason why not, since it's something that happens all the time.

Whether Hobgoblin Stalin considers himself evil is beside the point. We are presuming alignment and trying to figure out whether that works as an actual predictor of behavior. Earlier someone mention Lawful Evil making you Ayn Rand... well, okay. I won't disagree. But so what? Unless she gets some sort of Ur-priest class synergy or something it only tells us that some people believe things strongly and we can put them in categories. Do we even need to do so?

I think a lot of the basic early D&D tropes (paladin divine status, priests casting out vampires and devils, etc.) hint at a very Manichean cosmology as far as good and evil. So which is it... do we need to make sense of alignment because it is there, or do we think alignment makes sense so we should work on it? I am genuinely curious.

[Prak]

You are not going to team up with Orc Hitler because he happens to support comparable road maintenance budgets to what you'd like to see in a non-genocidal kingdom.

Except isn't that how it works a lot of times in the real world?

No it isn't.

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."

I think you're underestimating the number of people who will say the test is simply wrong. Or that they're only doing something evil because reasons.

More to the point, good and evil team up practically all the time in comics, which is the source material for fantasy gaming for really a lot of people.

[icyshadowlord]

I think a lot of the basic early D&D tropes (paladin divine status, priests casting out vampires and devils, etc.) hint at a very Manichean cosmology as far as good and evil. So which is it... do we need to make sense of alignment because it is there, or do we think alignment makes sense so we should work on it? I am genuinely curious.

Maybe it's either or, depending on who you ask.

Then again, I'm on the side that alignment cannot and will not work.

Why? Because it always boils down to subjective values instead of objective ones.

Edit: Also, what is a Manichean cosmology anyway? This is the first time I've heard about such.

[caladfel]

Ok, what about a character who protects their own people because they see them as part of themselves?

If he literally think they are part of himself (he might be crazy, I don't know) and is solely considering defending them out of self-interest (i.e. "I am protecting myself") instead of anything else, he is evil.

@Frank
I don't think good and evil should be "teams" in the secular world. And I agree that they could be called something else, like "selfless", "group oriented"(or whatever for neutral) and "selfish".

Edit: fixed quotation issue.

[Prak]

No, lets assume he's not crazy, since there are both established characters who think like that and very real people, and at least a number of them are demonstrably not insane.

for a quote from one of the characters-

“All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany’s Third Thoughts said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine!

so, people who protect their friends and family because they see it the same as protecting themselves.

[JigokuBosatsu]

It has a specific religious meaning, but is shorthand for any simplistic system of dualistic good vs. evil belief.

[schpeelah]

Then again, I'm on the side that alignment cannot and will not work.

Why? Because it always boils down to subjective values instead of objective ones.

Edit: Also, what is a Manichean cosmology anyway? This is the first time I've heard about such.

Only if it's based on subjective qualities like "evil (behavior)" and not objective qualities like "Unholy power source" or "Celestian (follower of the Eightfold Path)".

Manichaeism (/ˈmænɨkiːɪzəm/;[1] in Modern Persian آیین مانی Āyin e Māni; Chinese: 摩尼教; pinyin: Móní Jiào) was a major Gnostic religion that was founded by the Iranian[2] prophet Mani (in Persian: مانی, Syriac: ܡܐܢܝ, Latin: Manichaeus or Manes) (c. 216–276 AD) in the Sasanian Empire.[3][4]

Manichaeism taught an elaborate dualistic cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness. Through an ongoing process which takes place in human history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of light whence it came.

so, people who protect their friends and family because they see it the same as protecting themselves.

No, that's protecting others because you've claimed ownership of them in some sense. Which is either evil if you really own them or morally neutral if it's a mutually beneficial client-patron relationship.

[caladfel]

No, lets assume he's not crazy, since there are both established characters who think like that and very real people, and at least a number of them are demonstrably not insane.

So, people who protect their friends and family because they see it the same as protecting themselves.

In that spirit, "People who protect their family and friends" would fall under the "neutral" purview. Remember that in my proposal, alignment indicates general intent. The result of their actions might be judged subjectively but the intent is objective. And the person still might act against his conscience (and feel bad about it) if sufficiently motivated (blackmailed, for example).

Edit: horrible grammar.

[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."

I think you're underestimating the number of people who will say the test is simply wrong. Or that they're only doing something evil because reasons.

Hence the use of the word infallible and the clause "and it's consequences." Few people would pursue a path of clear evil, not a suggestion of evil, but clear unequivocal Evil, among those almost none are sane.

Morality in the real world can get muddled, but if you can speak to a deity that has the understanding of Good in their portfolio, and you have very real knowledge of how much nicer the upper planes are, the idea of choosing evil goes from a few deeply troubled individuals to three guys that are too stupid to connect dots.

More to the point, good and evil team up practically all the time in comics, which is the source material for fantasy gaming for really a lot of people.

A bad team up is the joker and batman go fight new flavor of the month. It's bland and feels forced, the joker (while iconic) lacks a decent motivation and exists to be evil. During this team up the joker will try to foil batman, and batman will get irritated by the joker. It's pointless and trite.

A good team up is when Lex Luthor and Superman stop a flavor of the month. Luthor isn't a maniac who is build robots because "fuck things not being ripped apart by robots" (anymore) he is a man with a different philosophy, that leads to different actions, and it can be ambiguous as to whether it is an inherently evil stance. During this team up Superman tries to show Lex the good he does and how he can be trusted, and Lex tries to explain that blind faith in a god like being can result in tragedy if supes has a bad day, and asks supes questions like which laws apply to him and which he can ignore. This shows a conflict with a possibility of reconciliation, and two forces ultimately wanting the best for humanity.

If there was a test, like detect Evil, rational people wouldn't be evil. Good/evil team ups only work if you have a chance of redemption or a fall from grace.

[Mord]

This seems to me to be what the DND alignment system is trying to communicate, so let's just spell it out:

Altruistic - Neutral - Selfish
Absolutist - Neutral - Pragmatic

The descriptions speak for themselves, really. Replacing the Good/Evil axis, we have Altruistic/Selfish. An Altruistic person is generically inclined to go out of their way (expends some resource, even if only time) to assist unknown others in solving their problems. A Selfish person is generically inclined to decline to take action unless they would thereby make some gains (to acquire a greater resource value, defined subjectively, than they expended in the act). An Altruistic person helps someone else because they care about other peoples' well-being, happiness, or whatever. A Selfish person helps someone else because it benefits them in some way, either becaue there's a tangible reward or because there's some kind of indirect benefit they put value on (famous heroes get all the dropped panties). Helping your own family or the serfs on your manor could be Altruistic or Selfish, depending on your motivation for doing so.

Replacing Lawful/Chaotic, we have Absolutist/Pragmatic. An Absolutist character is generically inclined to believe strongly in some code or set of rules (either passed to them through culture or personally devised), and act in accordance with them. The characteristic feature of an Absolutist is their unwillingness to compromise on matters relating to their code. A Pragmatic character will act in what way seems to best suit the situation at hand, and may be considered morally dissolute by Absolutists. For a Pragmatist, the ends justify the means.

The problem with coming up with a direct 1:1 replacement for Law/Chaos is that Law is treated interchangeably as "obedience to social mores" and "adherence to an extrinsically defined code." A peasant is Lawful because they will get their head lopped off by the Sheriff's posse if they steal a pig, a Paladin is Lawful because they are bound by the strictures of their order. Likewise, Chaos is interchangeably "adherence to a personal sense of right and wrong regardless of social opinion" and "disregard of all laws and mores." Your typical scoundrel with a heart of gold is Chaotic because he flouts the local authority's laws in preference to the dictates of his own conscience, but your typical Balrog is Chaotic because it wants to burn the world of men to the ground and leave naught but ashes in its wake, following no rules at all.

The Absolute/Pragmatic distinction sidesteps the Law/Chaos problem of social construction - a Lawful character constantly buts up against the problem that what is lawful in one context may be unlawful in another. An Absolutist character has a consistent set of rules to follow regardless of social context. One could consider the Altruistic/Selfish axis to be "why do you do what you do" and Absolute/Pragmatic as "how do you do it." Or, alternatively, Abs/Prag determines the lengths you will go to to follow your conscience, while Alt/Self determines what your conscience says.

EDIT: Also, question: does this exercise assume that alignment meant to be a guideline as to your character's general principles of action, or is it supposed to be the cosmic team you're playing for? I can't imagine casting spells with a "Pragmatic" alignment, or casting "Detect Selfish." Or a god of Pragmatism.