Alignment Sucks

[Desdan_Mervolam]

There are always people who are pissed about the current sociopolitical situation, wether they be overtaxed pesants, philosophers, conscientous generals, or simply disgruntled second princes.

And also, there really are people who think in terms of permanent revolution. Not all of them actually understand what that means, but hey.

-Desdan

[Crissa]

But pure chaos can build things - that's the problem with defining it as entropy. Pure chaos built every beautiful sunset and vista in the world.

Chaos is sunsets and forests and magic and energy. Law is gravity, speed of light, and nuclear attraction. Chaos constantly fights to add what Law wouldn't allow.

Life is something between the two: without chaos, it would never exist; without law it wouldn't be able to have DNA.

-Crissa

[Save_versus_Stupid]

1154632535[/unixtime]

Sure you can argue that everyone does everything for selfish reasons. At that point, intention and alignment are completely meaningless, as is the discussion.

But have you ever met someone who actually was thinking, If I do this thing that so many people think is heroic, then I'll be lauded and get extra air time?

I haven't met someone like that, but I'm sure they exist. And I agree entirely, but having no discussion isn't fun, so I would propose that you suspend disbelief and let the argument support both sides.

There is nothing in common between those people and the people who are in tears while giving CPR to the baby girl they're saving from the fire.

One would think that, but I don't personally buy it. Why would someone resuscitate a dying child? Let's examine the possible reasons:

1) The person in question is overall an upstanding guy, and doesn't believe that the life of innocents should end if something [within reason] can be done to prevent it. (Bogus reason, but let's continue). Helping the child is reasonable and so he does it.

2) The person in question otherwise doesn't have any emotional investment in the child, but would feel guilty for the rest of his life if he didn't step in. He starts sucking baby face and the little squirt comes back to life.

3) The person in question feels that he will be rewarded with positive reactions, among other things, for his 'heroic' actions. He makes sure everyone around him is aware of what he is doing.

What i've just described, I feel, are the three alignments. I feel all three of those are entirely valid reasons to save a child, and none are more noble than the others. In every situation, you have saved the child to get something, whether it's psychological reinforcement that you're a good person and you deserve to continue onto the afterlife, or you feel it's easy work for fame and money, or you just want to silence the voices in your head.

To get back to your example, people generally cry when something upsets them. Does the emotional reaction mean anything when determining motive? Not at all. It's just more socially acceptable than saying "Hey, grab the camera, i'm about to be famous!"

Crissa - I'm not so sure that's accurate. Depending on what fairy tale you personally believe (I subscribe to the big bang for lack of better options), entropy did in fact build sunsets and forests. Those concepts didn't exist when the chaotic aspect of creation occured, and have only come to be through the subtraction of parts.

Great post by the way, Squirrelloid.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

What if you defined law as collectivism and chaos as individualism? That would preserve the most important "implied" aspects of the alignment axis as listed in the PHB and probably fit pretty closely with 3.x conventions about the classes.

[Draco_Argentum]

Basing anything on entropy makes no sense. Thats subject to exactly the same complaints Frank and K leveled at Law/Chaos in the Tome of Fiends.

Entropy is chaotic and represents the eventual destruction of all things.

Entropy is a law of the universe that nothing can break.

Look, its both things.

[Username17]

1154681314[/unixtime]]What if you defined law as collectivism and chaos as individualism? That would preserve the most important "implied" aspects of the alignment axis as listed in the PHB and probably fit pretty closely with 3.x conventions about the classes.

The thing is that collectivism and individualism aren't directly opposed. If you are a strict individualist, it is objectively in your interest for everyone else to be collectivist. Getting more help from others is always good regardless of whether you actually believe in helping others yourself.

The key to Law and Chaos is not just that they be personality traits that are miscible yet mutually exclusive; but that they be personality traits that are mutually exclusive that would make two groups of people rally around colored flags to join up into armies and destroy each other.

So it could almost be something like Socialism/Capitalism where every nation has some of each and countries that have more of one are more likely to want to destroy countries that have more of the other. The problem is that while some people support Socialism and want to have more of it, and some people support Capitalism and want to have more of that, there really isn't any personality trait that goes with one or the other.

Indeed, when confronted with a bunch of Owlbears rampaging across the countryside, your personal desire for Socialism or Capitalism informs your reaction in basically no way.

-Username17

[User3]

1154638414[/unixtime]]

It would almost be interesting if they'd bother to define alignment axes in mutually exclusive terms. Heck, a deontological definition of G-E (generalizable or not) and L-C (increases or decreases order using an entropic definition a la information theory) might make for an entertaining campaign world. Assuming WotC could get someone intelligent enough to design such a thing with minimal contradiction, and not mess with it in editing.

(The problem with an entropic definition of L-C of course is that the total entropy of a closed system cannot decrease, so decreasing entropy somewhere means increasing it somewhere else. And there's some superset of planes that is a closed system.)

People associate "entropy" with "chaos," but the concept is actually a lot more complicated than that. I'll talk about the statistical definition here because it's the one that's extensible beyond thermodynamics and it's the one I'm most familiar with.

Entropy is defined as the logarithm of the number of the microstates a system can occupy. How do you get from there to the folk definition of "disordered?" Well, for typical thermodynamic systems, "ordered" systems like crystals have lower entropy than "disordered" systems like gases because the additional constraints in crystals decrease the number of microstates and because ordinary matter is more likely to assume "ordered" states at low energy. Another way to look at it is that entropy is a measure of how much you know about the microstate, given knowledge of the macrostate. (This bleeds into the information theory definition.)

The problem with using this as a definition for alignment is that this definition can produce weird results in corner cases and doesn't necessarily match up with typical conceptions of order once you stop talking about molecules and start talking about people. A black hole is famously a state of very high entropy. Why? Because a black hole is so simple, defined only by a single-digit number of physical properties, yet you can throw anything into it, it's the ultimate expression of the macrostate telling you absolutely nothing about the microstate. So is a black hole orderly or disorderly? I have no idea. Meanwhile, typical human scale examples of "disorder," such as messy rooms and shuffled or unshuffled decks of cards, have nothing to do with entropy. Is a democracy more or less entropic than a dictatorship? The appropriate answer is probably, "Spoon."

If you're really interested in increasing the thermodynamic entropy of the universe, there's a simple algorithm to follow: cool down hot things and warm up cold things. In human societies, one of the simplest ways to do that is to just kill them all.

[RandomCasualty]

1154705275[/unixtime]]
The key to Law and Chaos is not just that they be personality traits that are miscible yet mutually exclusive; but that they be personality traits that are mutually exclusive that would make two groups of people rally around colored flags to join up into armies and destroy each other.

But who even says we want Law/Chaos to be two opposed armies?

I think ultimately we'd like CGs and LGs to be able to work together on some capacity, otherwise party alignments are going to have to be super similar.

[squirrelloid]

Ok, first off, as to making teams, if the whole game world was based on a L-C axis, then people would care because the universe compels them to care. It would be like the politico-philosophical war (the Cold War) of the 20th century; people cared because it was a dominant axis of geopolitics. It Russia had become communist but remained a political backwater, no one would have cared. There would have been no McCarthy, no Red Scare, and no Cold War.

So people behave differently in this campaign world then they do in reality. GOOD. We're making a fundamental alteration of the universe - that Law and Chaos are real business and important in some way, and this better fucking change the way people act.

Which brings me to Iaimeki's post. Yes, i realize its weird, but i'm not subscribing to 'put L and C into these boxes and try to preserve 'traditional' ideas of L and C'. Fuck traditional views of L and C, they don't mean anything, they don't make any sense. I'm saying we say L == x, C == -x, where in this case -x is increasing entropy. Thats the entire definition. Everything else about alignment is concluded from that, no matter how 'weird' it may seem.

And I have no problem of including a 10 page description of what this means about alignment if i was the one writing the campaign world, including a long discussion as to what does and does not increase entropy, what entropy really is, and a number of ways in which it is defined. I by no means endorse the fucktastic nothing that is WotC's alignment descriptions. If alignment is going to be a *real and pressing concern* of people in the D+D world, it needs real attention. 10 pages per axis is a minimum for the PHB, with more in the DMG, and (assuming entropy for L-C) an appendix with mathematical examples.

So yeah, no more half-assed shit. If there's going to be alignment, do it right and make sure people know what the fuck you're talking about. Otherwise, i'm just excluding it from my game, because i don't need cosmic teams to have there be teams in the world.

[squirrelloid]

1154673866[/unixtime]]But pure chaos can build things - that's the problem with defining it as entropy. Pure chaos built every beautiful sunset and vista in the world.

Chaos is sunsets and forests and magic and energy. Law is gravity, speed of light, and nuclear attraction. Chaos constantly fights to add what Law wouldn't allow.

Life is something between the two: without chaos, it would never exist; without law it wouldn't be able to have DNA.

-Crissa

All work increases entropy (assuming you don't have a carnot engine lying around. And if you do, i want some frictionless massless pullies while you're in the theoretical physics closet). Thus all building increases entropy. Like G and E, an entropy definition of L-C requires both to exist. Every time entropy is decreased somewhere, somewhere else it is increased due to the second law of thermodynamics. All building increases entropy somewhere, and possibly decreases entropy at the site of building.

[RandomCasualty]

1154712956[/unixtime]] I'm saying we say L == x, C == -x, where in this case -x is increasing entropy. Thats the entire definition. Everything else about alignment is concluded from that, no matter how 'weird' it may seem.

Yeah but you're also using alignments to model real character personalities. What kind of people worry about increasing or decreasing entropy? It's not like Robin Hood walks around saying "I'm gonna overthrow the Sheriff to decrease entropy in the world!". Under your definition every human is going to be neutral on the law/chaos axis unless they're some extreme case, because nobody cares about entropy.

It doesn't make any sense.

We want an alignment system we can apply to real characters, otherwise what's the point in having it?

[User3]

1154693039[/unixtime]]Basing anything on entropy makes no sense. Thats subject to exactly the same complaints Frank and K leveled at Law/Chaos in the Tome of Fiends.

Entropy is chaotic and represents the eventual destruction of all things.

Entropy is a law of the universe that nothing can break.

Look, its both things.

Nice straw man.

If Chaos is pro "Entropy" (not exactly the mathematical kind, but related--See my previous post), the Law isn't about "laws," and not being able to break them. Lawfulness, in this case, represents a desire to decrease local entropy, or rather to generate "negative entropy."

In this case, the lawfuls (assuming tha thermodynamic multiverse) increase entropy somewhere (maybe all that excess heat makes it's way to the abyss, I don't know), but primarily create institutions HERE.

Because it's easier to create entropy by disordering a highly organized system than to mess up a muddle, the chaotics stick around and tear down what the lawfuls build.

And no, most "people" aren't inherently chaotic, they just sometimes act in a chaotic fashion. Most people also aren't good or evil, they simply act in a good or evil fashion. In this case, "neutral" just means pseudo-rationally self-interested.

Does that make sense?

[squirrelloid]

1154714207[/unixtime]]

1154712956[/unixtime]] I'm saying we say L == x, C == -x, where in this case -x is increasing entropy. Thats the entire definition. Everything else about alignment is concluded from that, no matter how 'weird' it may seem.

Yeah but you're also using alignments to model real character personalities. What kind of people worry about increasing or decreasing entropy? It's not like Robin Hood walks around saying "I'm gonna overthrow the Sheriff to decrease entropy in the world!". Under your definition every human is going to be neutral on the law/chaos axis unless they're some extreme case, because nobody cares about entropy.

It doesn't make any sense.

We want an alignment system we can apply to real characters, otherwise what's the point in having it?

Why do i have to model real people? In the real world, entropy is just a fact of reality, no cosmic beings in outer planes is entropy or 'negative entropy' personified, no one strives for it. If alignments are going to be absolute forces of ideology (and if you have outerplanes, this is by definition true), then you're introducing a very real motivation that *doesnt exist in the real world*. Of course real people aren't going to be modeled well by it - real people would be totally confused if they suddenly found themselves in such a world.

Your objection basically sounds like: Capitalists and Communists can't exist because Robinhood didn't care about the capitalist-communist axis. Bullshit. We can tell other perfectly rational stories about characters who do care about capitalism and communism. So why can't we tell them about people who care about entropy.

Further, a campaign world does not have to look like reality. Magic already changes everything. So why not have L-C 'teams' with their own motivations and ideology, no matter how fantastic. The campaign world can support such people, regardless of whether or not they define anyone in the real world. (Robinhood ends up being N, or maybe N/G, and thats fine. Because he doesnt care about the L-C axis at all.)

I mean, its not like alignment makes enough sense that it actually describes people, or that Moorcock's universe has alignment in any way, shape, or form like you're discussing. Take the stupid real world and you're meaningless and irrelevant objections and shove it - its not relevant, *i'm not talking about modeling the real world*. A campaign world where L-C was defined as negative-positive entropy could be constructed. End of discussion.

I maintain it would be interesting, and make alignment actually relevant. As opposed to crap that experienced DMs ignore or explicitly toss.

[RandomCasualty]

1154725704[/unixtime]]
Why do i have to model real people?

NOt necessarily "real" people, but personalities people can relate to. Unless you're just applying alignments to extreme creatures, like devils, modrons, slaadi and angels, it's important that alignment have bearing on PC characters and that it make sense in the players mind.

The value of human life, honor, devotion, love, hate, vengeance, these are all things that players can relate to and understand. The need to reduce entropy in the world is however an alien motivation, which will make it extremely difficult to roleplay such characters. Bottom line is that all of your PCs are probably just going to end up saying "fuck that entropy garbage" and just being neutral.

Your objection basically sounds like: Capitalists and Communists can't exist because Robinhood didn't care about the capitalist-communist axis. Bullshit. We can tell other perfectly rational stories about characters who do care about capitalism and communism. So why can't we tell them about people who care about entropy.

Because "caring about entropy" isn't rational. Caring about entropy means you're going to go trash someone's newspaper stand for no reason other than because his newspapers were arranged too orderly for your liking. That is not rational behavior. We institutionalize people who think that way.

Further, a campaign world does not have to look like reality. Magic already changes everything. So why not have L-C 'teams' with their own motivations and ideology, no matter how fantastic.

Because nobody is going to want to play on the insane guys team. I mean they may make fine villains, but as a general rule, you don't want an entire axis of which anything but neutral is total batshit nuts.

I suppose some 12 year old kid might find chaos to be a cool alignment cause he can just kill people or smash stuff without justification beyond "I'm increasing entropy in the world", but that's not the kind of behavior I want to promote.

Take the stupid real world and you're meaningless and irrelevant objections and shove it - its not relevant, *i'm not talking about modeling the real world*. A campaign world where L-C was defined as negative-positive entropy could be constructed. End of discussion.

Name one character from any fantasy story that adheres to this odd "entropy war" paradigm. Cause pretty much every character I can find from any fantasy source I've read or seen would qualify as neutral under your crazy LC axis. It has nothing to do with the *real world*, it has to do with every character ever created. Nobody gives a fuck about entropy aside from totally alien creatures.

And that's why it wouldn't work.

[squirrelloid]

1154732903
Name one character from any fantasy story that adheres to this odd "entropy war" paradigm. Cause pretty much every character I can find from any fantasy source I've read or seen would qualify as neutral under your crazy LC axis. It has nothing to do with the *real world*, it has to do with every character ever created. Nobody gives a fvck about entropy aside from totally alien creatures.

And that's why it wouldn't work.

Name one literary (not even fantasy, any literary) character who is *good* in a defensible interpretation of good from the standpoint of there existing beings of pure [Good]. I can only think of one (Sonia from Crime and Punishment), and she was intentionally written that way by Doestoyevski (who has a hate relationship with Neiztche and loves Kant).

Characters that good just aren't interesting (and that goes for Sonia too, who is only interesting insofar as Raskolnikov is interested in her, and he's obviously not good).

Honestly, no adventurer qualifies as good as long as they're playing the "stab villains in the face" game, as Frank has already demonstrated. Anything short of Categorical Imperative sort of good just isn't good enough to be G when we know good is objective because there are beings who are pure goodness.

And yet someone thought of this crazy Categorical Imperative nonsense, and someone even wrote a story involving such a character. I'm sure if i scanned enough Sci-fi or fantasy, i'd probably find someone who matched the L-C axis i've proposed. Hell, i'd be willing to start with Moorcock, whom i haven't actually read, but he's responsible for the damn L-C axis in the first place.

[RandomCasualty]

1154736986[/unixtime]]
Name one literary (not even fantasy, any literary) character who is *good* in a defensible interpretation of good from the standpoint of there existing beings of pure [Good]. I can only think of one (Sonia from Crime and Punishment), and she was intentionally written that way by Doestoyevski (who has a hate relationship with Neiztche and loves Kant).

Well by my definition of good, lots of characters qualify.

Good characters? Lots of fantasy heroes qualify as good.

Robin Hood: Gives money to the poor, opposed a corrupt ruler.

Aragorn: Resists temptation of power (one ring), actively fights to protect the innocent.

Batman/Spiderman/Superman + lots of other super heroes: Works to clean up the streets of criminals and other evil people. Also protects the innocent.

Almost every hero from any fantasy or anime is of good alignment, with a few notable exceptions.

Similarly, most villains tend to be evil.

Honestly, no adventurer qualifies as good as long as they're playing the "stab villains in the face" game, as Frank has already demonstrated. Anything short of Categorical Imperative sort of good just isn't good enough to be G when we know good is objective because there are beings who are pure goodness.

The definition of good isn't saint.

And yet someone thought of this crazy Categorical Imperative nonsense, and someone even wrote a story involving such a character. I'm sure if i scanned enough Sci-fi or fantasy, i'd probably find someone who matched the L-C axis i've proposed. Hell, i'd be willing to start with Moorcock, whom i haven't actually read, but he's responsible for the damn L-C axis in the first place.

Actually Moorcock's characters don't tend to believe in Law and Chaos at all. Chaos at one point actually had a big empire, and ruled over the world. Nobody really does stuff to promote entropy in the world, most people tended to just be self serving. Elric (Moorcock's hero) acted pretty much out of his own ambition and could care less about the ongoing struggle between chaos and law. Sure, he helped out in the struggle at some point, but it wasn't because he (or really anyone else in the world) was obsessed with increasing or decreasing entropy. Even the gods of chaos weren't particularly interested in entropy. They (like any other god) just kinda wanted worshippers and control.

Law was simply the word for "good", and chaos was "Evil". There really was nothing deeper than that.

[User3]

1154738965[/unixtime]]
Law was simply the word for "good", and chaos was "Evil". There really was nothing deeper than that.

Actually, "Law" tended to be neutral at best. Neither of the two sides were very beneficial to humanity.

[Draco_Argentum]

So its like the Law-Chaos split in Warhammer.

Chaos is change. Law is the lack of it. The gods of Law actually happen to be against any form of motion. Not exactly human friendly. The Chaos gods are actually just evil with a twist of change for its own sake.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Actually, from a conceptual standpoint, I like the idea that Good=Creation, Evil=Destruction, Law=Stagnation, and Chaos=formless, pointless change. That way, being too much of one thing is always bad. No mortal can truely embody one compass point, and noone can really understand those creatures of pure Good(for example). At the same time, the forces on a given compass point oppose those opposite them by their nature and anyone who holds a reasonably moral philosophy is removed enough from those who have an amoral philosophy that there's a noticable difference between them. It also jives pretty well with classical philisophical systems IMO.

I'm sure someone will be along in a moment to point out the flaws in this system, but it seems better than what we have now.

-Desdan

[Username17]

I'm sure someone will be along in a moment to point out the flaws in this system, but it seems better than what we have now.

Good call.

If Lawfulness is stagnation, it makes it pretty hard for there to be Lawful actions, doesn't it?

You can't do the lack of change. You can do change, you can do creation, you can do destruction. But you can't do nothing. It's the absense of verb, and that means you can't take actions on its behalf.

-Username17

[Fwib]

1154760124[/unixtime]]

I'm sure someone will be along in a moment to point out the flaws in this system, but it seems better than what we have now.

Good call.

If Lawfulness is stagnation, it makes it pretty hard for there to be Lawful actions, doesn't it?

You can't do the lack of change. You can do change, you can do creation, you can do destruction. But you can't do nothing. It's the absense of verb, and that means you can't take actions on its behalf.

-Username17

Repairs and cleaning would be lawful actions, actively keeping things the same, removing grafitti, mowing the lawn, housework - all that stuff... probably a lot of other stuff too...

Building would probably be neutral, since it is neither stagnation nor random change for change's sake - thoughts?

[The_Matthew]

1154825880[/unixtime]]

1154760124[/unixtime]]

I'm sure someone will be along in a moment to point out the flaws in this system, but it seems better than what we have now.

Good call.

If Lawfulness is stagnation, it makes it pretty hard for there to be Lawful actions, doesn't it?

You can't do the lack of change. You can do change, you can do creation, you can do destruction. But you can't do nothing. It's the absense of verb, and that means you can't take actions on its behalf.

-Username17

Repairs and cleaning would be lawful actions, actively keeping things the same, removing grafitti, mowing the lawn, housework - all that stuff... probably a lot of other stuff too...

Building would probably be neutral, since it is neither stagnation nor random change for change's sake - thoughts?

Actually, mowing the lawn wouldn't really be lawful because you let the lawn change at all in the first place. Best lawful lawn trick would be to remove the lawn and sow it with salt so there can't be a growing lawn, but then again you won't do that because the lawful end dosn't justify the chaotic means.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

1154760124[/unixtime]]

I'm sure someone will be along in a moment to point out the flaws in this system, but it seems better than what we have now.

Good call.

If Lawfulness is stagnation, it makes it pretty hard for there to be Lawful actions, doesn't it?

You can't do the lack of change. You can do change, you can do creation, you can do destruction. But you can't do nothing. It's the absense of verb, and that means you can't take actions on its behalf.

-Username17

Hmmm... I'm strangely comfortable with that.

-Desdan

[Joy_Division]

Then Law isn't stagnation it's regression. (To a time in the past percieved as being better than now.)

I don't think creating entropy is a useful or particularly sensible goal. Attempting to achieve the heat death of the universe doesn't seem to me to be an ideal anyone would strive for. Even removed from it's scientific definition you have one team devoted to entering libraries and putting books back in the wrong place and the other devoted to reordering them.

It may be defensible based on the idea that some deity will reward you in the afterlife for totally messing up your room. However it seems like a completely rediculous bit of philosphy to put in your games. I don't see why the existance of magic requires we heap nonsense into our games. A little sense is good if it doesn't get in the way of balance.

To me law and chaos do not seem to fit the bill for a general abstract philosophies to worship. To me lawfulness could be to strive for a very particular ideal like worshipping the old gods or re-establishing the old republic. Chaos would be the freedom to try new paths.

Good and Evil work as on the cosmological ideaology scale but law and chaos seem to be hopelessly mired in the political.

[RandomCasualty]

I'm not sure why everyone is so obsessed with having Law and Chaos both be some kind of cosmic "team".

Lets face it, evil isn't a team. You dont' work with someone just because they're evil and you're evil. Evil fights amongst itself, alot. That being the case, I'm not sure why we care if all lawfuls get along or that lawfuls and chaotics have some innate disdain for each other that constantly brings them to blows.