Just 5 Alignments--Why Not This Slant?

4e's description of Good covers both Neutral Good and Chaotic Good in that you help others and respect authority until it is used for evil or selfish ends.

4e's description of Lawful Good covers both Lawful Good and Lawful Neutral in that order and structure are ideal ways to achieve your goals and for society as a whole.

4e's description of Evil covers both Neutral Evil and Lawful Evil in that they are willing to maximize personal gain at the expense of others and are okay using order and laws to do so. Some CE characters from other editions can be Evil in 4e if they can use whatever institution to do whatever they want.

4e's description of Chaotic Evil is that you do what you want, others be damned.

So the shift of your idea might just make Evil into Lawful Evil, Chaotic Evil into Evil, but the good alignments is where it gets tricky. Good into Chaotic Good works but working with authorities that help others goes against the chaotic part. Lawful Good into Good implies that order is inherently 'good' to some extent and it makes it difficult to do the LN or LG jerk characters.

>why make Good and Law so close
Because D&D has, for a while now, had the implicit idea that Chaotic Evil is even worse and more evil than Lawful Evil, and that the pinnacle of Good is the always-Lawful Good Paladin. The evil CEO is still seen as less evil than the serial killer, for some reason, even if the former does more evil in the long run - similarly, the classic Chaotic Good idol of Robin Hood is also, well, a lawbreaking thief. He steals from the rich and gives to the needy, but he's not exactly that shining pinnacle of Good y'know?

The whole Law vs. Chaos thing also fell by the wayside at some point - probably because it's easier to relate to Good vs. Evil, since it's such a common theme in, well, everything else. Law vs. Chaos is a thing in Moorcock, Poul Andersen, Warhammer and... what? The wilderness has been conquered by this point in time, while pulp writers lived in a time where that was less true - Man vs. Wild is less of a theme these days, and Good vs. Evil is literally everywhere. Also, Law vs. Chaos in a modern sense is very much combined with Good vs. Evil - anarchy is Bad, society is Good.

Hence 4E has Good vs. Evil, replacing Neutral with Unaligned 'cause that covers a bit more ground, and putting in Lawful Good as the now-usual "extremely good" alignment and Chaotic Evil as the "extremely evil" alignment.

I don't fully agree - I'm more of a Law/Neutrality/Chaos man, myself - but I can totally see where they're coming from and why they designed it in the way they did.

Also, Chaotic Neutral presumably got the axe 'cause it's a shit alignment that nobody understood properly and Lawful Neutral was a casualty of Law vs. Chaos becoming irrelevant - it's either Unaligned or Evil now. Or, well, then. 5E went back to the traditional system, being the huge throwback system that it is.

What, and have them codify Black=Evil and White=Good even more?

'respeck muh authoritah' has nothing inherently good about it though. The Good play by the rules unless those rules allow bad things through technicality or loopholes, which are artificial barriers to the moral path.

Chaotic good rejects the rule of people over others and so works outside the system, generally due to a Robin Hood situation.

Chaotic Evil being do what you want is just a license to sperg, people'll take it anyway but I'm not saying these are good alternatives just pointing out flaws I take with them\things I find good about them.

Order and authority, it all depends on who's wielding it and what the rules are resulting in--if all you care about is the rules and damn who gets hurt, it's Lawful Evil. It doesn't need to be saturday morning cartoon villains either

Look at debt prisons and everything going on with Australia as a penal colony. You can't be both wholly good and follow every order, and if you've got an escape valve "reject evil orders" imperative you're not wholly devoted to law the way you CAN be if you're Evil. Law calls for being nice? Be nice. Law calls for rape and death? Do what the law says to do.

>What, and have them codify Black=Evil and White=Good even more?
It's funny, because my impression is that people harp more about White being Lawful Evil and Black being misunderstood Byronic heroes.

>'respeck muh authoritah' has nothing inherently good about it though
Hence why I said order being implied to be inherently good is where things get tricky.

>You can't be both wholly good and follow every order, and if you've got an escape valve "reject evil orders" imperative you're not wholly devoted to law the way you CAN be if you're Evil.

Which is why the 4e description of Lawful Good calls out law and authority when they give in to evil and become tyranny.

I think we might be in agreement about alignments. To me, the 4e alignments cover the bases well without getting bogged down in minutia.

>Lawful Neutral was a casualty of Law vs. Chaos becoming irrelevant - it's either Unaligned or Evil now

Nah, Lawful Neutral got wrapped into Lawful Good with a chunk for Evil in terms of 4e alignments.

I think this makes even less sense than the 4e alignments.

Honestly I'd just stick with what 5e has and use it as a broad guideline, or else don't use alignment at all.

>Chaotic Neutral presumably got the axe 'cause it's a shit alignment that nobody understood properly

Speak for yourself. I've never had any problems doing non-derp CN.

That's in reaction to the greater "oh, they're a Black creature, that means they're a villain" and "white creature, hero, gotcha" thing that's been a problem for a damn long time. It certainly doesn't help that Black gets all the zombies and demons and nasty murderspells, while White gets the healing and cards that protect eachother in jolly cooperation.

White in New Phyrexia was fucking amazing, though - that kind of forced conformity and misguided religious aspects is exactly what you need for White=Evil. It's just that it's kind of sad that you don't get many examples of Black=Good - it's always isolated dudes, like Sorin (who got turned B/W because why not).

>Nah, Lawful Neutral got wrapped into Lawful Good with a chunk for Evil in terms of 4e alignments.
Huh, shows what I know.

>Speak for yourself. I've never had any problems doing non-derp CN.
True, I guess. It's just that the descriptions for it have been all over the place and the "lolrandumb" play that some of those encouraged is quite frankly awful.

If we're talking alignments i guess this is as good a time as any to post this.

Didn't want to make a whole thread for it, but yeah. Discuss.

>Have you tried reading the OP? :-)

Yes, it's shit and the person who posted it is a faggot

Alignments are fine. Have you tried playing D&D?

The better idea has always been saying all mortals are neutral, and they can only lean towards a cosmic alignment.

Evil is already "selfish"

To elaborate on this:
>Good-Chaotic
would concern themselves primarily with the benefit of sapient/sentient beings, while constantly challenging the currently established order of things.
>Chaotic-Good
would concern themselves primarily with the liberation of people from a system they deem too restrictive. They are anarchist types or hippies who deem personal freedom the most important thing.
>Chaotic Evil
would concern themselves primarily with the overthrowing of a system, without any concern for the benefit of anyone, possibly just because they dislike that they are being restricted from being dicks.
>Evil Chaotic
would concern themselves primarily with damaging other people and doing as much damage as possible without any particular goals or plans. The world must burn.
>Evil Lawful
would concern themselves primarily with damaging people via oppression, and establishing a system for the suffering of people
>Lawful Evil
would be the people who apply the law by the letter and misuse it to harm others or who become a menace by themselves thanks to applying some rules
>Lawful Good
would be the epitome of robotic justice. The law and its intent for the protection of people must be upheld at all costs even if some sacrifices have to be made for it.
>Good Lawful
would be the type of person who is primarily concerned with the good of everyone and thinks that in order to avoid damage it is mostly best to stick to the established rules.

Alignments themselves aren't the problem. How they impact the game is the problem.

1. Players rarely agree on the specifics of alignment, and in any given group it's common to find someone with some really out-there ideas about alignment. In particular it's difficult to find people who agree how evil an Evil character has to be, and too many players view alignments as character archetypes.

2. I don't think having them built into the setting's physics is a good idea, especially when it comes to Detect magic.

I disagree.
You can not be truly evil if you have concerns about your own well being. You could land in prison after all.
It is more evil than normal "good people", but it is definitely not as evil as possible.
Think about the Joker.
He has very little concern for himself, just his evil visions.
Think about great evil dictators. Very few of them lived in total opulence, and most put their plans which we consider evil above themselves.

Plus selfishness has to be a different dimension, because there can be people who apply the law for selfish reasons, there can be people who are evil AND selfish, there can be people who are essentially good, but still mostly selfish, and there can be people who seek to gain benefits for themselves out of chaos.

There are only 3 alignments.

Good, Bad and Ugly.

>Implying that Law is innately Evil and Chaos is innately Good

Fuck off senpai.

>Very few of them lived in total opulence, and most put their plans which we consider evil above themselves.

The fact that you have to use the words "very few" and "most" totally undermine what you're saying.

Because the division between CG and NG are paper thin.

>What is LG?
Do good while respecting order/the laws of the land.
>What is NG?
Do good. Ignore the laws of the land if they get in the way.
What is CG?
Do good. Ignore the -- wait shit

At the end of the day, NG and CG both desire to do good irrespective of laws or order; CG has a more chaotic slant obviously, but they won't go against laws on principal if it hurts others, so in practice there's no difference as both will go with or against the law as long as it means helping people. Only LG has that added twist that is in any way significant.

The same applies to LE/NE, but reversed of course. LE and NE are both portrayed as the "rational evil" as opposed to CE's "slavering monster evil"; they respect order when it benefits them and seem to have something holding them back from becoming Babyrapes McGee, the CE cuntwaffle.

>You can not be truly evil if you have concerns about your own well being. You could land in prison after all.
Risk vs Reawrd is not a selfless act, breaking the law isn't evil.
>It is more evil than normal "good people", but it is definitely not as evil as possible.
Not the point of the alignment system. Typically those trying to concoct the mist mustachioed of evil doers make the worst use of the system.

t. Paizo
>Think about the Joker.
Literal cartoon
>He has very little concern for himself, just his evil visions.
That's the definition of being evil - he follows his evil villan mind no matter the cost. It's ultimately selfish to ignore literally everything else but your idea.

Also the joker is typically the fakest of fake motivations that are lolrandom evil.
>Think about great evil dictators. Very few of them lived in total opulence, and most put their plans which we consider evil above themselves.
Read a book, nigga. What evil dictator didn't do to for themselves?

Yes it is possible that you are both evil and selfish.
That would be the grey-red area on that pyramid.

But if you're selfish at all you're definitely not living up to your full potential of evilness.

>breaking the law
What are you talking about.
If i am selfish and have concern for my well being, then i will most likely be more cautious with my evilness because i could end up getting killed by adventurers/superheroes/cops.
>not the point of the alignment system
Again, what are you on about. Selfish evildoers are more evil than regular people who are mostly in the northern half of the pyramid, but they are not as "purely" evil as people who do evil things without concern for what happens to them.

>Paizo
what
>cartoon
And we're talking about an alignment system for roleplaying games. Your point?
>It's ultimately selfish to ignore literally everything else but your idea.
That is not selfishness. Selfishness for me means concern for oneself.
Not simply self centeredness.
>What evil dictator didn't do to for themselves?
syntax what
Also, hitler stalin gue vara lenin all did heinous crimes against humanity and lived in adequate but not extremely extraordinary circumstances.

because alignments are gray even in their own alignment, why would you make a alignment that is basicly, "im whatever i feel like today" with 2 alignments that are implyed to be "good" or "evil"
its just loose and doesnt work logically

So you're just retarded and don't know the definitions of the words you are using. Excellent job, here's your (you).

Because at the end of the day OP "Chaotic Good" individuals do not advocate Chaos. The "Freedom Fighter" doesn't want society to collapse and for people to live like animals he (assumedly) wants the corrupt establishment to be torn down and replaced with a more fair and just establishment which is more like Neutral Good.

Lawful Evil guy meanwhile doesn't respect "law" either because Tyrants often make arbitrary exceptions and backpeddling on laws so that they don't apply to them or their desireables. They use law and order as a vague justification for their selfishness. They're Neutral Evil.

The asshole who kills people for breaking THE LAW judge dredd style is more Lawful Good/Unaligned than anything.

The common interpretation of both those alignments actually don't work out for them very well so they got scrapped it's that easy.

Keep in mind also that D&D didn't even start with good/evil and just had law/chaos so 4e doing this isn't so much taking away what was there but going back to its roots almost.

well yea. but that definition aligns with what i'm saying "concerned with ones own personal profit or pleasure"
just sticking to your idea of how the world or a part of it must suffer isn't really selfish, because you're not necessarily getting pleasure out of it or getting profit out of it. Most of the real and fictional super evil people actually thought they were doing the WORLD a favor. Their actions only are apparent as evil by outside observers who have information available that they in their closed minds did not.

nice 'tism prism

i actually giggled

>Honestly it might be more interesting to make it 5 options: Law, Chaos, Good, Evil, Unaligned--what's most important to you? A code or being evil or being good or being a sperg?

Sounds a lot like the 10 point alignment system I came up with where the alignments were:

>Good, Mostly lawful
So when it came down to a choice between good or lawfulness, you'd choose good over the law
>Lawful, mostly good
Law over good
>Chaotic, Mostly good
Chaos over good
>Good, mostly chaotic
Good over chaotic
>evil, mostly lawful
Evil over law
>lawful, mostly evil
Law over evil
>chaotic, mostly evil
chaos over evil
>evil, mostly chaotic
evil over chaos
>balanced
Tries to find the action that either doesn't hue to good, evil, chaos or law or which counteracts an imbalance towards one of those in the current situation
>selfish
Coward or Asshole.

....
uuuuh
what?
Is this some sort of trolling? Or are you trying to parody this? Because i posted the same thing before.

>playing a setting with objective morality

It's because you're pyramid was decent, but you, yourself, are a faggot.

>law is evil
Fuck off you libertarian piece of shit.

that is correct.

>Havens and Hells
Mah nigga

>Because at the end of the day OP "Chaotic Good" individuals do not advocate Chaos. The "Freedom Fighter" doesn't want society to collapse and for people to live like animals he (assumedly) wants the corrupt establishment to be torn down and replaced with a more fair and just establishment which is more like Neutral Good.

That's only because later writers turned Robin Hood from an outlaw commoner who bashed that bloody tax collector over the head because fuck that guy, into a distressed nobleman who just wanted the RIGHT king to tax everyone. Culminating with the humiliating bit where this old folk hero, now safely remade into an upper class twit, bends the knee to the "Good" King Richard, an asshole Frenchman who hated England and everyone in it, and was mostly liked because rather than meddle with things, he fucked off to the Crusades first chance he could get, just to get away from the rain and the smell of damp sheep. (And probably to hope to see his brother die so he could rush home and claim the throne of France, which is the one he thought he should have been given.)

alignments aren't fine
the problem with them is A) they're subjective and B) they directly affect too many mechanics (and for something entirely subjective, 'any mechanics' is too many)

you'll find wildly differing ideas on what each alignment means even within a single group, and chances are the actual books will disagree within themselves, with the number of editions, monsters and splats out there

of course, wildly differing ideas on what constitutes 'good' or 'evil' aren't necessarily bad until you start giving, say, certain players penalties for not following another player's particular definition, at which point it all falls down
say for example, when the party paladin and the GM disagree on some stupid moral quandary

alignments either need to be completely set in stone, rigid as all fuck and used as VERY strict lines in the sand or they need to have absolutely minimal impact on the game's mechanics

>say for example, when the party paladin and the GM disagree on some stupid moral quandary
But that's the beauty of it.
Morality IS objective IRL, and the only thing that can change it is the knowledge of more or less information about the thing.
And being able to have arguments about the morality of some hypothetical action is what elevates RPGs above playing with cards or something.

>Knowledge begets morality
>Therefore morality is a metaphorical equation

Still need evidence that there is only one objective answer before we can prove that the equation itself is inherently objective.

>My question is, why make Good and Law so close

They didn't "make" anything, IMO, they recognized that Good and Law *are* close. There's a reason people generally liked the growth of the rule of law over the rule of men through history. You can also pin down Good in a way you can't pin down Evil because of the murphy principle that there are many more ways to go wrong than right.

I have posted that many times before - i really should make a pasta.

The key components for that proof are that you have to take into account all things capable of forming an opinion on what is good for them.
Then you create a set of circumstances weighed from best to worst for each being. You can then unify these sets and combine the weighing of each individual circumstance
you now have a list of things the first of which is objectively "the most good possible" and the last of which is "the most bad possible" as you can not have better or worse outcomes when taking into account all the actors possible.

After this you have to take a look at an action performed and see whether it mostly brings about items high up on the list or low on the list. If it brings about more items ranking high, it is a good action, otherwise it is a bad action.

This may all sound very theoretical, but some simplifications can be made to make the idea usable. It is for example reasonable to assume that all sapient life has to share some traits, so we are not all that different.
So while we can not know precisely how other people rank the circumstances from good to bad, it is reasonable to assume that the ranking is not too dissimilar to our own, statistically speaking.
Which also ties this neatly into the one moral guiding principle found in every major religion and most minor ones too.
Because when you deal with someone else you should most likely do onto them as you would want to have done onto you.

The only thing remaining is a lack of information about the outcomes of each individual action, but thanks to chaos theory taking that into account is computationally impossible, so each action has to be weighed by the information available to the actor when performing it, if judging the morality of said actor, but with historical perspective the action itself can be judged differently.

There are only two alignments, my friend. Those With Loaded Guns and Those Who Dig.

OP, check out Palladium's alignment system.

Yes and it was bland.

You have a point: it's objectively verifiable whether a character is lawful or not. What is good and what is evil is more subjective.

Here we go again...part 1 of 2.

Neutral as an axis was the biggest mistake. What have Neutral Good/Evil or Lawful/Chaotic Neutral actually contributed?

Part 2 of 2.

BONUS!

Part 3 of 2.

>methods methods methods
Wrong.

Please note that they're listed as "protagonist" and "antagonist", not "hero" and "villain".

I should just collapse these into a single pic. It would be faster.

Neither makes sense. If you're going to add Law/Chaos into the equation, then you can't align them explicitly with good/evil? People don't think an authoritarian regime systematically exterminating all opponents to their rule is automatically more evil than a group of evildoers performing random murders for shits and giggles, and vice-versa. Similarly, nobody thinks that a heroic revolutionary fighting against a grand injustice is automatically more good than a heroic cop fighting a group trying to collapse society from within and reign as warlords in an anarchic hellscape. If you're going to make the leap and involve both good/evil and law/chaos, you need them to be at least somewhat independent, I guess.

>Law (Good Aspect: Community)
>Chaos (Good Aspect: Freedom)
>Law (Evil Aspect: Tyranny)
>Chaos (Evil Aspect: Madness)

>Lawful Good
>Chaotic Good
>Lawful Evil
>Chaotic Evil

nothing has changed.

No you see you can choose, for example,

Chaos (Neutral Aspect: Entropy),
or
Law (Good Aspect: Chivalry).

He was just giving examples for main 4 I think.

>talking morality
>mlp as an example
Guess which user stood far back when gravitas was handed out.

...