The Endless Alignment Debate

ITT: You explain to me how any self-respecting storyteller would ever allow a thing like Alignment to fuck up his shit and limit his and his players' characters.

I play 0E clones. There are three alignments:

Lawful - Likes people and human habitats and wants them to survive and thrive (in general).
Chaotic - Hates people and human habitats and wants them to wither and be destroyed (in general).
Neutral - Is not willing to work hard for the benefit or destruction of people and human habitats (in general).

For most of my campaigns I just say "play lawful or neutral because I don't want you destroying towns and generally acting like an evil-ass monster."

Alignment hardly comes up beyond that.

When Alignment is:
a). descriptive rather than prescriptive, a reflection of the character's current beliefs and past actions.
and
b). a spectrum, rather than a set of hard and fast boxes, such that characters can be different parts and intensities of each axis while having a general descriptor.

Funny enough this is exactly how D&D says alignment is to be run, but you'd all rather get mad wouldn't you?

But what if my actions and beliefs are all over the place? What if they cannot be classified in these two dimensions, and my actions follow a near-incomprehensible but very strict code? Does the outside world decide? Do I decide? Does Kek decide?

Without resorting to "weird eldritch monster," can you describe a character who wouldn't fit into any alignment?

Keeping in mind that we're talking about tendencies, not strict "you always do this."

Even a lawful good person may be a petty, impulsive shithead once in a while. Even a chaotic evil thief who likes seeing the fear in people's eyes when he mugs them may take pity on a child and give him some coins. That doesn't change their alignment unless it starts to become their habitual way of thinking and behaving.

Say you are benevolent they'll forgive everything.
t. Liu Bei

>But what if my actions and beliefs are all over the place?
Chaotic spectrum, which can conveniently handle everything from rebels without a cause to jackass lolsrandom players. Possibly consider taking the absolute endpoint "True Chaotic" if your character truly has no decision making process and follows only their urges.

>What if... ...my actions follow a near-incomprehensible but very strict code?
Lawful axis, possibly tending toward the Evil ends of it if you use others ignorance of said code maliciously, neutral most likely otherwise. "Cannot be defined in two dimensions" is an arbitrary qualifier, and is rendered moot by having a gradient within each 'axis' anyways.

It's not that hard.

Paladin has a mental issue: he has a split personality. On one hand, he's the standard white knight, helping grandmas find their kittens and saving the village. On the other hand, he's also a bloodthirsty berserker, wanting to eat babies and shit in the mouth of sick people. Every hour, I use a d100 to determine if the other personality than the current one takes over (begins at 10%, increases by 5% every hour), do the same when big decisions are being made.

He is the polar opposite of himself, so, if we run with the whole sliding scale thing, is he True Neutral? Because he is never true neutral, but if alignment is truly a sliding scale, that's what he should be.

>"weird eldritch monster"
even those can be pegged down fairly easily.
If the monster is purely impulsive, then it would fall on the chaotic axis to the degree that it actively responded to those urges. If it had a methodology, however alien, then it would fall on the Lawfull axis to the degree that it held itself by that methodology.
'Good' and 'Evil' in D&D alignment terms are most easily mapped to altruism and selfishness (more specifically at others cost). Most Cosmic Horror style monsters would probably fall on the evil end of that axis simply because of how little they care AT ALL for other beings, but it's certainly possible for you to have Good-aligned Eldrich monsters if you take the Bloodborne path and largely well-meaning but often naive of humanity's methods.

Yeah, but what about racists? If my Elf adheres to the law in elven settlements because that's just "what a good man does", and does not give a shit about the laws. In the same vein, he will help elves, but not humans, seeing as humans aren't really "people" after all. What is he, then?

If you view it as "limiting your character", you have missed the point and made a troll thread.

Immediately change your alignment to That Guy.

works fine for new players , since it can be used as a guideline about what their character is about

if actions do not exactly fit to the alignment , it is fine as long as the character has some kind of actual reasoning behind their actions

since i experienced the 2-dimensonal system as rather unreliable in terms of moral relativity , we use a "trait" system which describes significant character facettes such as greed, impatience , lawfulness etc.

on the other hand , alignment as an actual hardcoded mechanic is absolutely retarded if you dare to think outside a traditional morality

you're not playing a character you're playing a meme

What do you all think of this?

First of all, if you don't have logical consistency in the -writing- of a character, then of course they aren't going to be able to be placed, axis, spectrum, or otherwise. Lets take a look at this one.

So this character has a diametrically split personality. Have they been this way their entire life? If they have, then it stands to reason that one way or another they became aware of the split and that their motivation to become a paladin was to find a way (divine intervention) to be 'cured' of their mental imbalance.
This then bears the question of why the split personality has not been altered. This is up in the air; the character could have two opposing souls, could be required to quest before the god will grant it's miracle to whichever side is seeking it, or numerous other things.
Whichever way is chosen, a 'classical' paladin under this condition would presumably treat their mental divide like one would treat some sort of Lycanthropy; building safeguards and restrictions against their other self.

This has become a tangent, but overall it would come down to the particulars of the character's history. For a 'classical' paladin wrestling with an evil split personality, then they would either be considered the usual Good alignment with the alternate self being a malady, or they would alternate as truly separate selves.

Is he actively malicious toward non-elves? If not, then he would fall somewhere in Neutrality, otherwise Evil. This might also push the elf into the lawful axis, depending on how much of it is actively-considered dogma.

Of course it's a troll thread, but it's a lot of fun to write comprehensive responses to the face question, if not for them then for anybody spectating.

Let's say the paladin is two blokes fused into one. Even their souls have been fused, they are, for all intents and purposes, the same person, but the fact that the two individuals of whichthis new one is comprised are so extremely opposite to each other that he developed a split personality instead. The original guys are dead, they no longer exist.

When speaking of the elf, I see your point, but why do I need to define this with such an imperffect scale? Can't I just have the keywords "Racist (Humans), Selectively Law-Abiding, and Superiority Complex" on my character sheet. It's much better suited to describing complex characters.

Best alignment:

Front camber: -3.5° or max available
Caster: >+4.5° or max available after camber set
Front total toe: 0
Rear camber : -3.0°
Rear total toe: +1/16-1/8

So... alignment was originally intended to refer to this: It existed specifically to show where a character fell in relationship to an endless war between humanity and its allies, and those who would destroy humanity, cities, and so on, without reference to personality, beliefs, or any of that. It had nothing to do with morality, except insofar as one believes that civilization is inherently good or evil.

Then the character would have two alignments, one for each personality. The character's alignment is displayed as the alignment of whichever personality is currently dominant.

>but why do I need to define this with such an imperffect scale?
you don't, but the system functions as a generalization, and a fairly decent one when it isn't deliberately misconstrued.
The exact specifics are for roleplay.

Alignment as a game mechanic is fucking stupid. Morality is something insanely hard to judge and to apply a general ideology to every situation is fucking moronic.

Alignment lost all meaning when a second axis was added.

Agreed. I tried to talk about it here but it's like nobody wants to discuss that. They just want to shitpost about whether a full human personality can be measured on two axes and whether those two axes are necessarily the most important for measuring a person's personality.

Split personalities actually can have two different alignments. We know this because characters like this have been shown in the past. So LG and CE.

Because he is asking about storytelling not experiential play. Sure you wanna be able to experience a role that is easy to fill. You play games to role play a stereotype/archetype/symbol/etc. Not a human. A story should represent humans. Things that mutate. Things that make us question and expand set Alignments. We aren't talking about how you integrate yourself into story but how story expands past the set representations. Story should impress you, not placate you.

PS. I'm not angry at you.

Sounds like you want to throw out alignments then. Alignments shouldn't be "How your character behaves," but rather "What cosmic force are you aligned with? Willing or not."

I'm the guy saying adding the second axis made alignments meaningless, not the one who makes it human centered.

Most real people probably don't discretely fit into any single alignment box.

We do like to tell ourselves that we're mostly "Neutral Good", but lying to yourself is second nature as a human being.

I mean, for one thing we always phrase that as "good" on our terms, not those of say, our worst enemies.

I really don't want to get into a discussion about moral realism. Especially since old school alignment with one axis of just lawful/neutral/chaotic was way better than the modern one with two axes.

Good and evil could be selfish or selfless, a selfless character can be as good a villain as a hero

They are part of the rule system of a particularly popular set of rules. That's it. Those are the rules. The rest comes down to the group's understanding of the rules, and the DM's interpretation and treatment of them.

Those who have used the alignment system quickly note that there are, in fact, NO rules for characters breaking alignment, other than "just do whatever". In short, alignment was meant to be a ballpark measure since day one, and it's players who have applied draconian reasoning to it, as they are wont to do, because for some reason some absolute cunts decide to play RPG's.

One guest player once told me, after I said my character (a barbarian from the savannah) was having some serious claustrophobia during her first time to ever go into a cave, that her DM would have ruled it a "character trait" because you mentioned it in passing, and your character would, after that point, be so irrationally afraid of that random thing you mentioned that they would be unable to function. So where does the fault lie? The fear system? Or the DM being a colossal fuckup?

I don't, but if the lawful good paladin is totally cool with burning an entirely innocent town to the ground because someone ripped them off then i'm gonna be miffed.

>Those who have used the alignment system quickly note that there are, in fact, NO rules for characters breaking alignment, other than "just do whatever". In short, alignment was meant to be a ballpark measure since day one, and it's players who have applied draconian reasoning to it
Actually, in some of the earliest editions of D&D, changing alignment would cause you to lose a level.

Oh for the love of fuck...

Alignment is NOT a list of ways for you to act. It is a way to describe HOW you act.

Actions GENERATE alignment, not the other way around.

Alignment is there so that certain spells and effects effect people differently. It is not there as a list of how to play your character, unless you're a complete beginner who needs instructions.

This is not a hard fucking concept. Fucking grasp it already!

> Alignment is there so that certain spells and effects effect people differently.

and what the fuck type of bullshit is that? Somehow, subjective standards of morality are hard-coded into the very fabric of the universe and can be objectively judged by magic?

>you can't pin me in a box!
>describes true neutral, the alignment of most mortals

Just like lycanthropes or Jekyle/Hyde you would have two alignments and a shitty character.

Maybe you thinks its fucking stupid because that's not what alignment is.

Fuck, you've been hating something you don't even understand, and you're dumb enough to tell people that without any hesitation.

NE

He doesn't actually respect law, and acts against people for stupid reasons.

Pretty much, alignment is more fundamental than gods

You basically said humans should be able to switch alignments - which is only an issue in shit editions.

Yes. Yes, that is EXACTLY what I am saying. Fantasy worlds are more often than not, actually crafted by intelligent design of their gods or titans or whatever.

Heaven and Hell are ACTUAL PLACES that are effected in turn effect mortals and their morality, thoughts and actions.

In the real world, we have no proof of morality and so everything turns into a grey mush where eventually, everything is subjective. In fantasy RPGs, we have PROOF that Good and Evil are real and quantifiable. Angels help the innocent and smite the guilty; devils and demons tempt and corrupt and destroy. Gods of both ends of the spectrum grant their chosen followers the ability to create miracles, based on the virtues the gods embody.

Yes. Morality is objective and written into the very laws of reality and un-reality. It has some wriggle room, such as 'benevolent slavery' etc. which one culture may call evil and another may call good, but the basic laws are there and they are ADAMANT.

BBEG concept: being who thinks that being a slave to the alignment system is unnaceptabLe, realizes it is the root of his race being evil. Will do anything to free his people

So, essentially, if I want my game to be boring as fuck and not morally ambiguous in the slightest, I'll use alignment. What a great tool that is!

Alignment as allegiance > Alignment as moral code

>moral ambiguity = interesting content

It's basically babby's first storytelling theory. This is literally what edgy 14 year olds preach ad nauseum.

No, user, you should realize that objective morality is a huge Fantasy trope that's only been losing steam very recently. The alignment system as present in D&D represents how Fantasy, as a genre, basically functioned for a huge amount of the time.

So you're picking out the one genre that has this trope, and the one system that represents it with a ruleset so that it can emulate the trope, and complaining it's boring.

So play something else! Something that is not classic High Fantasy, which is clearly not your cup of tea.

Of course, this is disregarding mankind's internal morality, which is represented through tons of different quasi-religious structures that tend to have the same basic laws of not murdering, not stealing, not fucking around etc. etc. There's some tribe out there that punishes men who commit adultry by inserting a thorny branch into the urethra, and twisting it clockwise ten times. So one could very well argue that morality ISN'T a grey area, but defined. Albeit vaguely defined. Vaguely enough to classify all of mankind in 9 arbitrary groups, perhaps...

Oh fuck your moral ambiguity. You know what makes an interesting story? WHY people do things. Things don't have to be morally ambiguous, if someone has a good REASON for what they did. The characters drive the story, not the setting!

If they're not literally elementals of the alignment (and even then, I'd argue there's some wriggle room if they're not purely automata or animalistic), then they can choose to be whatever they want. Remember, alignment is a DESCRIPTION OF THEIR ACTIONS, not a set of instructions that are imposed on people.

This user is correct. Anyone who thinks differently should feel ashamed and self-mortify, now.

Remember, Veeky Forums, friends don't let friends use the AD&D two-axis alignment system. It comes from Gygax's "drunk with success" days and it's the worst kind of garbage. Just don't.

The problem with the two-axis system is the players, not the system. People see it explicitly as an instruction to only play 9 types of character. When I started play, we were all inexperiences, except for one guy. And he was the one who would say shit like "I'm Chaotic Neutral, so I can do whatever I want".

Powergamers see alignment as a system to game to their advantage, while in reality it's simply a system to describe the world in a way that makes sense for the included rule system.

Ah, fuck your "everything used to be better when everything was black and white" bullshit. People have been through all the content, and they're tired of it. Pretty much every great work that isn't a Grimm fairytale has some degree of moral ambiguity.
It's what fat faggots told themselves so they could be the gleaming heroes they could never be in the real world. RPGs are "cool" now, and people with actual social skills want some proper depth to them beyond "He is Good" and "He is Evil"

>Frontal total toe: 0
>not +1/32
ishiggidy diggidy