Alignment Sucks

[DP]

I did law as city mouse and chaotic as counrty mouse. Where law is progress and industry and civiliazation and chaos is sustainability and nature and tribal culture. Tame v. Wild. Druids get to be chaotic and a city rogue gets to be lawful just because he's urban and a ranger gets to be chaotic because he's in the woods. Barbarians make sense as chaotic. Bards will usually be lawful. It just gives a meaning that meshes somewhat with the current rules and is not riddled with contradictions. Inevitables are tottally machines and Slaads are animals. Devils and Effret have big cities and Demons and Djinn have lots of little families and tribes.

[Maj]

Not really. The problem with that is that walking from a utopian paradise into a tyrannical dictatorship would change your alignment immediately upon crossing the border.

What "the rules" or "the laws" are is based entirely on "where you are" not "what sort of person you are", so trying to base any sort of ethical system on such is crazy.

Hardly.

A lawful person should have respect for other countries and their laws. A lawful person from a country where beating children is not allowed, who goes to a country where beating a child is a requirement once a day, would totally beat a child in order to comply with the law. Unless, of course, there were some other moral perspective clouding his thinking.

You're bringing the good/evil axis into something that shouldn't have it. You're asking people who dedicate themselves to following the rules to pass judgment as to whether those rules are good or bad - detrimental to civilians or not - and that shouldn't be a factor.

Now, if you leave the personal code clause in there, then you get to have people who adhere to the same particular set of rules regardless of where they are, but then you have to deal with the problem of having so many personal codes out there that it's chaos.

[Neeek]

1154471595[/unixtime]]

Hardly.

A lawful person should have respect for other countries and their laws. A lawful person from a country where beating children is not allowed, who goes to a country where beating a child is a requirement once a day, would totally beat a child in order to comply with the law. Unless, of course, there were some other moral perspective clouding his thinking.

Then they are changing from good to evil. There is no way around an alignment change based on this insane plan.

You're bringing the good/evil axis into something that shouldn't have it. You're asking people who dedicate themselves to following the rules to pass judgment as to whether those rules are good or bad - detrimental to civilians or not - and that shouldn't be a factor.

You're ignoring that beating children or whatever is good or evil, and that acting in this manner really has severe consequences for the rest of the system: The only Lawful is Evil and the only Good is Chaotic.

[Maj]

Then they are changing from good to evil. There is no way around an alignment change based on this insane plan.

Obvioiusly, you didn't understand what I said before:

I believe that internal motivations define action. In keeping with that, a person's reason for committing to some act defines his alignment, not the act itself. Evil without action is misery. Action without intent is meaningless.

If the guy turned in his neighbor because his goal was to add to his hoard of wealth, he's being a selfish jerk. If he turned in his neighbor because he feels obligated to the law, he's being obedient. If he did it because he feared for other people's safety and well-being, then he's being thoughtful and helpful.

If the person's intention is following the letter of the law, it doesn't matter what the law is. Period.

Inadvertently, you've explained to me exactly why people don't comprehend law/chaos, though. It's because they cannot separate motivation from result, nor can they escape the judgment of good and evil.

[Nidhogg]

If you follow your own, personal code of honor, and never waver, then you are chaotic. Even if you live in a society that mostly agrees with your code, whenever you find yourself at odds with a person (or a society), you won't hesitate to tell them how and why they are wrong (regardless of centuries of tradition). It's what I call 'Captain Kirk syndrome'.

[RandomCasualty]

Maj, your view of lawful is going to be a very narrow group of people. Few people actually follow the law solely to be obedient, they follow the law because there are consequences if they're caught breaking it.

Very few times to people break the law just for the sake of breaking the law. They break the law because there's money involved or maybe they're out for vengeance. Unfortunately, by your motivation system, it would mean that you can remain lawful so long as you don't do anything for the explicit purpose of "Breaking the law".

And what would you do with someone who believed their nation was morally superior and disregarded the laws of other inferior nations, but was law abiding within his own nation? Is his alignment going to be constantly in flux as he travels? What happens if he travels to some place without laws?

And what would you do as far as people who are just weak willed and don't uphold their promises? For instance, the man who constantly breaks his wedding vows and cheats on his wife, but solely because he's lustful not because of any inherent will to do harm to his wife? This behavior isn't illegal, nor is it necessarily evil. Under your system I don't even think you'd classify that as anything.

[RandomCasualty]

1154473204[/unixtime]]If you follow your own, personal code of honor, and never waver, then you are chaotic. Even if you live in a society that mostly agrees with your code, whenever you find yourself at odds with a person (or a society), you won't hesitate to tell them how and why they are wrong (regardless of centuries of tradition). It's what I call 'Captain Kirk syndrome'.

Well first, Kirk didn't even have a personal code. I honestly can't think of any rules that he upheld as opposed to "what I feel like doing at the moment", which is effectively not a code at all.

One may consider Kirk chaotic because he actively disregards orders, and has likely sworn an oath to follow the orders of his superiors. This is what tends to make him chaotic, not the fact that he holds to a personal code, but the fact that he disregards his code (part of which includes following orders and following Starfleet rules, something he promised to do).

If people are constantly not upholding their agreements and oaths then they are chaotic.

[Nidhogg]

Sticking with the Star Trek example:

Picard is lawful, but he breaks the prime directive *all the time* because he seems to thrive on extenuating circumstances. Likewise, Janeway isn't lawful, but she does every damn thing she promises, even if they are contradictory. Doing what you say you are going to do makes you reliable, and not doing them makes you a flake. While both attributes (reliability/flakiness) can be placed at either end of the law/chaos spectrum, they are so minor that they shouldn't actually impact your alignment on the whole.

Kirk is chaotic because he goes around telling people why thier entire way of life is wrong, and then tells them why his way of life is better.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

1154474440[/unixtime]]Maj, your view of lawful is going to be a very narrow group of people.

Indeed. This group is called "Lawful Neutral". Lawful neutral believe that structure inherently makes us better as a whole, more than the sum of our number. If children need to be taken to task each day in order for civilization to thrive, so be it. Wether they like the law or not is irrelevant, because if they disobey it, then The Terrorists Win. If you didn't want them to cut your nuts off, you shouldn't have signed the contract saying they could.

When this ethical position is combined with a moral position, then you start getting different reactions. The Lawful Evil man may move his family there just so he is allowed to beat his kids, or may open up a buisness selling willow switches beacause, yanno, there's a market. The Lawful Good man would be disgusted by the law and would make sure that he doesn't live there, or at least find a legal way to not have to do it while he works to change the law.

And I mean hey, nothing says you can't try to change the law. Even the Lawful Neutral guy could think a law to beat your children is silly without any opinion on the moral implications and petition for something more efficent.

-Desdan

[RandomCasualty]

1154477610[/unixtime]]
Picard is lawful, but he breaks the prime directive *all the time* because he seems to thrive on extenuating circumstances.

Well, being lawful doesn't necessarily mean you never break the rules. Picard tends to be lawful good I think and sometimes the good side of him outweighs the lawful side and he has to bend the rules a bit.

Likewise, Janeway isn't lawful, but she does every damn thing she promises, even if they are contradictory.

Janeway is probably a neutral good, though I really haven't watched enough Voyager to make much of a claim about her.

Doing what you say you are going to do makes you reliable, and not doing them makes you a flake. While both attributes (reliability/flakiness) can be placed at either end of the law/chaos spectrum, they are so minor that they shouldn't actually impact your alignment on the whole.

Well, I'm talking about big things, not "I'm going to meet you up at high noon" and then being a bit late. Things like oaths and promises generally have a lot to do with being lawful. Mainly because people who take their oaths seriously generally take their personal code equally seriously. They've been taught that following rules rigidly is a good way to live, so when they say they're going to do something, they usually follow through on it.

This isn't to say lawfuls never decieve, but they feel uncomfortable breaking promises. Remember that devils are true to their word, but they tend to be true to the letter of the argreement rather than the spirit.

Kirk is chaotic because he goes around telling people why thier entire way of life is wrong, and then tells them why his way of life is better.

Not quite, being overbearing and feeling superior to others tends to be a personality trait rather than an alignment. You can be real arrogant and think that your way of life is way better or you can be humble and follow your code but not ask that others do. After all, paladins will have plenty of strong opinions on why other people's way of life is "wrong", and they're lawful good.

[Draco_Argentum]

1154464699[/unixtime]]
I'm not sure why people have such a difficult time with the Law/Chaos bit. Good/Evil is obvious (ish), yet the idea of someone being so caught up in following the rules (or so caught up in breaking them) is completely... Not understood. Would it change things to remove the "personal code" bit from the description?

No I understand the idea of following the rules. What is difficult is making that concept into an objective force. I can't see a random selection of Lawfuls agreeing on what is lawful, mostly because there isn't a set of laws anywhere in D&D. Mortal laws disagree so they're no good. Normally you'd go to divine law except that those don't agree either since this is D&D not an actual religion.

[Fwib]

When I was studying themodynamics, I had this professor who was really great at lecturing - whilst you were there sitting in the lecture hall, you understood his subject and what he was talking about perfectly - but when you left, the effect wore off and you were confused again

Sometimes, reading this thread makes me feel like that - I'll read a few lines or a paragraph, and feel I finally have some understanding of law/chaos and then it will all break down again.

I suspect that if I actually studied it carefully, I might achieve the same level of incomprehension of good/evil as well....

[Save_versus_Stupid]

1154528726[/unixtime]]When I was studying themodynamics, I had this professor who was really great at lecturing - whilst you were there sitting in the lecture hall, you understood his subject and what he was talking about perfectly - but when you left, the effect wore off and you were confused again

Sometimes, reading this thread makes me feel like that - I'll read a few lines or a paragraph, and feel I finally have some understanding of law/chaos and then it will all break down again.

I suspect that if I actually studied it carefully, I might achieve the same level of incomprehension of good/evil as well....

Do you mean how alignment *should* work? Or how it is defined in D&D, because the second is very easy to describe.

D&D defines evil as anything with 'selfish' goals, with the addition of anything that people think is evil. This includes any form of undead, anyone who manipulates negative energy regardless of what he's doing with it and demons.

Good seems to be defined as having a "noble" heart, in that you will help your fellow man in some form.

The ridiculous part of the D&D alignment is that if you inspect motives further, you find that even a Lawful good character is pulling the orphans out of the burning house for entirely selfish reasons, whether it's to placate his chosen god or just to feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I refuse to believe there is any sort of creature, with free will and a functioning brain, that is inherently pure good.

But as it's defined, the chaotic guy is 'random' or 'playful' (ie - anarchist), the neutral guy does whatever he wants to on any given day and the lawful guy tries to adhere to the local laws set forth by the governing body.

D&D also seems to ignore that whole grey area where motives, ethics and laws are purely subjective in nature, and one person's sacred ideals are another person's blasphemy.

For the sake of a game though, I don't have an issue with having these contradictory alignments and descriptions, or even saying undead is evil and anyone who casts enervate is going to hell. But I run into problems personally when I try to play evil characters in campaigns, and often meet the GM veto head on (NO! Your evil character will actively try to sabotage the group and my plans for the story!!!111).

[Fwib]

What I meant was, given that law and chaos seem to be so bad, I am sure that if I look into it, I will find that good and evil are also incomprehensible gibberish - thousands of years of discussion on the subject notwithstanding

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Or how it is defined in D&D, because the second is very easy to describe.

Actually, the core rules don't really define alignment in any way. They say a lot about what various alignments "imply" without saying anything about what they "are." As I understand it, it's only in supplements like the BoVD and BoED (neither of which I own) that they start giving concrete definitions, which end up being contradictory and confusing.

[Maj]

if you inspect motives further, you find that even a Lawful good character is pulling the orphans out of the burning house for entirely selfish reasons, whether it's to placate his chosen god or just to feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

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?"

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.

[RandomCasualty]

1154530914[/unixtime]]
D&D defines evil as anything with 'selfish' goals, with the addition of anything that people think is evil. This includes any form of undead, anyone who manipulates negative energy regardless of what he's doing with it and demons.

Good seems to be defined as having a "noble" heart, in that you will help your fellow man in some form.

The ridiculous part of the D&D alignment is that if you inspect motives further, you find that even a Lawful good character is pulling the orphans out of the burning house for entirely selfish reasons, whether it's to placate his chosen god or just to feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Yep, it's why I hate the evil= selfish definition.

Personally I like to define the good/evil axis like this.

good= Believes in the unconditional value of life. Might risk his life for the beggar down the street who he's never met.

Neutral= Believes in the value of the lives of those he cares about, or possibly others in a group (fellow soldiers, etc.) Would risk his life for friends.

Evil = Doesn't put value in anyone else's life but his own. Does things for others solely to improve his own life. Would risk his life only if there was something in it for him.

[User3]

I'm not even going to get into my dislike of the alignment system right now. What i do want to address is the ridiculous perception that following or not following given mortal legal institutions makes you lawful or chaotic.

There are beings who are [lawful] just like there are beings that are [evil] and [good]. This means there must exist some universal cross-planar Law (capital intended) that you can choose to follow or not. I don't even know what the fuck such a thing would look like, but it has to exist because there are beings who *are* that Law.

So when you see a Modron...err... ok, whatever the 3e replacement is again... that dude is pure fucking Law, and whatever laws your homeland happens to have doesnt mean jack.

The bad news: we don't have a clue what this universal law is. We just know it exists. Time to start feeling like a mathematician.

The good news: The Paladin doesnt get fucked for crossing state lines into C/E territory of death. He's got some higher Law he can follow which doesnt give a shit what the locals think. We still don't know what it is, so we don't have a fucking clue whether the Paladin is actually doing it or not, but we do know breaking laws in joe schmo's evil emporium isn't going to wreck his lawful mojo.

Of course, this also means devils are just as much pure Law as they are Evil, and Demons are pure Chaos and Evil. So when Asmodeus makes his Evil toast and drinks his Evil coffee, they're also Lawful at the same time. Yet Lloth gets Chaos coffee and Chaos toast. And you know something - i have no fucking clue what that means. At least with Evil toast I can almost conjure up some thought construct which plausibly makes sense. Does Chaos toast sublimate into a gas cloud?

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.)

-Squirrelloid

[Digestor]

That last post made my pants tighter. But I agree, a Paladin's law is by holy decree of his/her god, and above the law of the land. At least, that's how I see it.

[Fwib]

Anyone got a link to all this 'deontological, generalisable stuff' for beginners?

[User3]

A problem with the "entropic" concept of Lawful/Chaotic is that the only real 'negative entropy' we've got is evolution/life, and from that intelligence. So a "chaotic" being would be inherently opposed to all life (and un-life) in the multiverse, and most would probably consider that evil.

It might work though. If you create some arbitrary foci which the chaotic focus on destroying before they get down to the basics, you can make them seem less evil, and more importantly almost sensible.

So the Chaotics are focused on tearing things down. Starting with conventions, ideologies, goverments, and so forth. Continuing with 'technology,' like physical architecture and artifacts, and finally life (& un-life, &c).

Chaotics are Revolutionaries, especially in the sense that once the revolution is over, they can't (or don't want to) come up with any replacement for what they've destroyed. They can follow revolutionary ideologies, but only until they've accomplished tearing down the old ones.

What the chaotics aren't, by nature, is 'random.' At the very best they act as a force of natural selection, tearing down the weak, old, and bloated.

The Lawfuls, on the other hand, are the builders. They construct the theories, write the "Book"s, enforce the laws, and so forth. They're also the once who grab the reigns after a revolution and re-build society.

Good an evil come into play in the following sense: The chaotic good are the warriors of haven. They seek to tear down and destroy all that is evil. Similarly, the sole purpose of the Tanar'ri is to destroy everything which is good.
They Demons simply perpetuate the old, unfair, immoral regime, while the Paladins seek only to build up and maintain the institutions of good.

In this sense, Chaotic and Lawful [Good or Evil] are complimentry alignments. They're neccesary forces that augment/compliment each other, even though their methods may be at odds.

True Good and Evil, however, don't care whether they're creating or destroying as long as they work towards the greater Good or Evil.

True Lawful and Chaotic will often find their goals allied with their more moral (good or evil) fellows, but depending on the level of organization such alligences usually fail once a specific set of goals has been completed.

In this situation, most adventurers will be Chaotic or Neutral on the "ethical" axis, and I think that's fine.

[Username17]

Anyone got a link to all this 'deontological, generalisable stuff' for beginners?

Sure.

I don't subscribe to it myself, but if you're going to try to make Christian morality work at all, it's a pretty good attempt.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1154638414[/unixtime]]
(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.)

Honestly I don't think you're ever going to get a rigid definition of what "lawful" means, because it actually means different things to different people. It basically means you follow the rules, but what those rules are is entirely relative. It could be a judge following the law of the land, a soldier following orders from a superior officer, or captain Picard upholding the Prime Directive.

You can't really say that every lawful character acts the same way, because the codes vary from situation to situation.

In general however, we can say that lawful characters tend to follow some kind of pattern and chaotics tend to just "go with their gut". This makes lawfuls sometimes feel a bit more mechanical, as it is possible to to predict the rulings of a lawful character. A chaotic on the other hand is somewhat of a loose cannon. You're never quite sure what he's going to do.

The main thing that I dislike about law and chaos is the idea that they're somehow opposed like good and evil. Two lawful characters aren't brothers by any means. A Lawful cleric could be a devout servant of Bane and utterly dedicated to spreading Bane's code, while a similar lawful cleric may serve Tyr and be dedicated to justice and righteousness, yet another character may merely be a loyal knight of a given king, who does what his king orders. As you can imagine all these characters could be on any side of a battlefield depending on circumstances.

While lawfuls may disrespect chaotics and chaotics may consider lawfuls a bunch of squares, they're not going to be killing each other on crusades. In fact, Lawful/chaotic has absolutely nothing to do with what team you're on and people dont' run around casting detect chaos and killing everything that radiates it. Though superiors in an army may detect chaos to try to find a loyal soldier to promote.

[User3]

1154644080[/unixtime]]

1154638414[/unixtime]]
(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.)

Honestly I don't think you're ever going to get a rigid definition of what "lawful" means, because it actually means different things to different people. It basically means you follow the rules, but what those rules are is entirely relative. It could be a judge following the law of the land, a soldier following orders from a superior officer, or captain Picard upholding the Prime Directive.
...

The argument is a semantical one. If we can create a binary moral/ethical axis that isn't Good or Evil, we've succeeded.

I may have not made a "rigid" definition, but at least I think I made a sensible one.

[RandomCasualty]

1154656988[/unixtime]]
The argument is a semantical one. If we can create a binary moral/ethical axis that isn't Good or Evil, we've succeeded.

I may have not made a "rigid" definition, but at least I think I made a sensible one.

Well, the goal is not only to create an alternate axis, but to create an alternate axis that says something about character personalities and models them well.

In my opinion, having chaotics be "the revolutionary" is kinda crappy, because that's generally not how people act. Revolutions occur not because you've got straight up anarchists looking to stir up trouble but rather because you've got folks upset with how the current regime is being run. Robin hood doesn't overthrow the Sheriff of NOttingham and then try to overthrow the legitimate king when he comes back to the throne just because he promotes chaos.

If the new regime is better, those people don't suddenly want to tear it down again, just because "they're chaotic". Otherwise chaotics are basically mass murdering anarchists who just want to tear down society for no good reason. But that's not how people act or think, so in my opinion it's not a great classification system.

Seeing chaos as entropic in the sense of alignment is a mistake IMO, because people generally don't think that way. You may have loners who prefer not to be controlled, but they don't go overthrowing governments just for the hell of it.