Alignment

Right now, I think it's stifling. I've seen too many people interpret the alignment as being what you can do, rather than a way to interpret why you are doing something.
I actually like that 5e has de-emphasized it.

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I pretty much throw it out, or play a system without it.

Because a lot of fantasy actually works under those assumptions.

>creatures descendant from demons tending to evil
>evil artifacts corrupting the wielder
>holy artifact can only be touched by the pure of heart
>detecting an evil aura
>demon being unable to venture onto holy ground

It works especially in the high fantasy genre.

And I'll that having good and evil as basic "elements" circumvents the need for micromanaging by gods in such scenarios as the faith related ones. Burning by holy water becomes a straight forward reaction of forces present, instead of a god or spirit having to track this flask of interest or something.

Fuck off.

I tried making a thread about this but I didn't take the time accurately describe the alignment issue I keep seeing.

Every game is different and yet every game feels the same with an alignment chart, when it comes to interactions.

A person might lean Lawful Good, but they're not always going to make Lawful Good decisions based on their surroundings, in my opinion.

It seems to me that the setting (fantasy, space, heroes, etc.) would play a larger role in determining how a Lawful Good character might make decisions in a fantasy setting when compared to a heroes setting.

The old adage that one should create three dimensional characters falls short by one dimension. Fully realized characters are four dimensional. Characters are driven by Motivations, but they also aspire to different Purposes, employ different Methodologies in the effort to achieve those purposes, and use different Means of Evaluation to determine the effectiveness of their efforts.

No

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A single action against the prevalent tendencies of their actions wouldn't flip someone.
And it isn't really a problem. Once enough trend in a direction has accumulated you switch alignment plain and simple. As you would with current HP. It is a property of your character that can change. The steps simply have little granularity to them, so only a big change is registered.

Well said.

kek

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You can justify any behavior under any alignment. It's completely pointless.

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The thing you need to understand is that the reason Alignment is the way it is is cause D&D tried to ape Michael Moorcock's novels (the guy who made Elric). In his novels two grand cosmic forces, Law and Chaos, fought one another over supremacy. D&D was meant to follow said notion and (here's the important part) neither one of these were morally what we'd consider "good" or "evil". They were both so cosmically vast and beyond anything we mortal minds could comprehend that what we'd consider "good" and "evil" was a meaningless distinction to it.

Then Gygax (or someone else I can't remember) fucked it up by associating Law with good and Chaos with evil. It became so focused on this that to rectify this they introduced the Good and Evil axis so that they could tell people "no you can be a good person and still be aligned with chaos and you can be an evil dickwad and still aligned with law". But this still failed because people just assumed "Lawful Good" meant EXTRA GOOD.

Take the Paladin for instance. The Paladin was meant to represent the most holy, the most noble, the most stalwart of heroes. And he's Lawful Good. Not Neutral Good, Lawful Good. Because clearly law and order are just objectively the moral decision right?

Nowadays all 4 axis (law, chaos, good, evil) are now universal cosmic forces which govern everything and it's kinda stupid. Lets break it down okay?

I would argue that the Paladin is Lawful good because devotion in the "knight of the church" sense requires rote understanding of scripture and ritual, generally considered lawful activities.

>Shame is the feeling of humiliation due to the consciousness of wrong or foolish behaviour. It is thought to derive from an older word meaning to cover and has clear physiological consequences that are visible to others, such as blushing, sinking the head and hiding the face.

>By contrast, guilt is the emotion of being responsible for committing an offense. One clear difference from shame is that it is essentially an internal emotion and does not necessarily have a clear external manifestation.

Is it accurate to say that Lawful = susceptible to feelings of shame and Good = susceptible to feelings of guilt?

First of all: good is a cosmic truth in D&D. It's a force. It exists. There are spells and abilities that let you "sense" good as like an aura... now... let's just parse down what that means. Cause it can mean a few things and all but one are kinda dumb. Either:

1) The FORCE of good is an entitiy. There is a mind or a consciousness out there that is objective good. Meaning whatever this entity thinks or says, it is objectively the right and moral thing. If it believes walking with your shoes on backwards is the moral thing to do then wearing your shoes normal becomes a sin. This begs a few questions: if this consciousness or entity exists.... why has nobody made contact with it and simply made a list of what is "good" or created some means with which to cast judgement. Either it refuses to speak to people or it's simply SO far away and alien a consciousness that you can't speak to it... which begs the question of how it can be GOOD to begin with?

2) On a similar note. Good actually comes from the good aligned deities of the setting. This is one of those things where D&D is a bit odd because it employs pantheons of deities and gives them moralistic values where in most mythologies deities were more or less embodiments of natural forces. In Greek Myth, Zeus is just a dick who turns into a goose and beds a lady so that she can give birth to another demigod who has to kill some monster that one of his brother's made by turning a human into it cause said human passed wind in its approximate vicinity and it didn't like that. Most gods in most myths are just ASSHOLES because well, look at the shit Deities can do in canon in D&D.

Most if not all deities have an ability that gives them infinite wishes while in the domain of their plane of existence. That's infinite uses of the wish spell in their domain essentially. You have to wonder what the actual mentality of that kind of thing has to be.

But I want to have MtG color alignments

Like... if Pelor saw a starving child, you'd think his first instinct would be like "why doesn't he just desire food to appear in his hand and for a million beautiful women to suck his dick right there and then? He must enjoy this 'starving to death' thing". Like... maybe not to THAT extent but the viewpoint of a god HAS to be VASTLY different than that of a mortal. Their concept of morality HAS to be skewed in some way considering just the sheer power that entity has.

The final explaination (and the one I feel makes the most sense) is that the "force" of good is like the collective unconscious. It is literally the collective belief of what is "moral" gathered together by all the intelligent races of the material plane and formulated into one giant THING. Now this too has some inconsistencies.

Like orcs and goblins and such. Most fluff argues they outnumber humans, dwarves, halflings and especially elves. Most monsters likewise outnumber the "lesser races" as we call them. So shouldn't the notion of what is "good" reflect monster morality to some extent? Or maybe the force of good is something created by elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes and humans.

Heck maybe THE ENTIRE GOOD VS EVIL THING IN D&D is cause the Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Halflings and Gnomes all just created some... GRAND power from their subconscious and all the other things in the world, orcs, mindflayers, goblings, bugbears, trolls, they just made their own but it was incompatable so they're just trying to KILL EACH OTHER. Maybe that's the entrie cosmological debate here? Just this arbitrary group vs another.

WHO KNOWS? WHO KNOWS.

>Do you like the D&D alignment system?
Yes

>or is it just a stifling rule that gets in the way of creating a complex, multifaceted character?
You mean a neutral or evil-pretending-to-not-be character?

I think there's a difference between Good as a cosmic force and good as a value judgement. They happen to overlap but they don't interact. In fact, to Evil societies, Good isn't good. But it will always be objectively capital-G Good. Believing Good-aligned actions to be good is itself a sign of being Good-aligned in the first place.

Shitty system that adds nothing of value, just causes arguments and one-dimensional roleplaying. Should be removed entirely, but of course if they did that there would be massive butthurt because so many people actually take this shit seriously.

Here's an idea

What's the alignment of James Sunderland?

Woot woot

Demons outta the way.

>The FORCE of good is an entitiy.
This is where you are already wrong.
Good is a Cosmic Power that you can draw from, be aligned to in terms of where you gain power from, or be suffused by, but it is not a conscious entity in anything D&D, nor has ever been.
It exists as a coalescent force, just as the primal elements are a coalescent force.
>Good actually comes from the good aligned deities of the setting
Also wrong, the primal forces predate the gods, and even the overgods. The only thing that delves into their origins is the Immortals Handbook, which attributes their creation to That Behind the Diamond Wall, ie, the GM.

>They happen to overlap

WHY do they overlap though?

Why does this thing that exist out there and gives you magic powers happen to have the same outlook as nice and caring people?

There's literally no elaboration on this. Good as a force exists because there's magic with the good descriptor that effects things that are good differently than things that are evil.

And why does it only effect things that are evil??? WHO KNOWS. WHO KNOWS.

It really boils down to the fact that... I think the problem is people want D&D to have moral ambiguity (cause moral ambiguity is COOL AND DEEP GUYS) but don't realize the system built around it doesn't support it SO MUCH that the only thing people can reccomend you do with it is "ignore it".

No good actually exists.

It's an aeon like the lady of pain.

It's greatest servant is metatron.

>Good is a Cosmic Power that you can draw from, be aligned to in terms of where you gain power from, or be suffused by, but it is not a conscious entity in anything D&D, nor has ever been.

Then that doesn't make sense?

Why is it being a nice, generous, caring virtuous individual allow you to access THIS magical powersource in particular? What is the discerning factor here?

If it doesn't have a consciousness and just... IS then how come a person who does terrible things but believes themselves to be doing good doesn't instantly recognize they can't draw on this power and go "oh I guess I'm not good then???"

Morality is such a personal, kind of vague and ultimately situational thing that the notion it's intrinsically tied to a cosmic impartial force is just... odd.

I don't know who that is

According to what?
The same way Evil, Law, Chaos, Positive/Negative Energy, Fire, Water, Earth and Air are all primal forces that make up creation.
It exists because it is a part of the firmament, being the wellspring of all deeds altruistic, just as the other planes are the wellspring of their respective forces.
You are trying to understand outside the terms of D&D, where the origins of the planes are beyond the knowledge of both mortals and gods, rather than examining them within the confines of the setting they originate from.
You are basically doing what every bad alignment argument assumes.

God damn, son. I guess if you want to raid Heaven a-

>Androgyne Ray

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For example meet Atziluth.

"It" composes all the outer planes(hell, mechanicus, limbo, abyss, Arcadia, etc)

All the alignments are just one "thing" who is so vastly powerful he isn't stated putting him on par with the lady of pain.

>Atziluth

Can't fool me, 'angels'. I'm calling Delta fucking Green on your asses.

It's pathetic how people argue endlessly on four meaningless concepts when the perfect alignment system has been available for 2000 years, perfectly explaining just what the bad and good qualities of people are that drive them to do evil or good.
>Pride
Putting oneself and one's ideas before others, a cornerstone of typical evil. Usually believes they should rule everything as they know best.
>Greed
A blind strive to take and amass more and more - wealth, power, whatever, without reason and heed for anything else
>Lust
A desire of the forbidden, of ruinous, depraved things. Fights law and order that enforce restraint and modesty, tries to incite depraved, dysfunctional chaos for itself
>Envy
Megalomania, willing to always be on the top, can't stand others having what they don't
>Gluttony
Hedonism, a fear of discomfort, setting pleasures as the goal, indulging beyond what is healthy. Fights tooth and nail to make it possible
>Wrath
A blind hatred against anything they deem unfavorable, acting on the moment and impulse, foregoing proper deliberation for quick effects
>Sloth
Aversion to strife and effort, always seeking the easy way out, would not move a finger unneccessarily and even then fights against what forces it to
Some examples:
The indepedent vigilante hero lacks patience and humility
Wrath is the sin of the overzealous inquisitor
Dragons are greed and gluttony made manifest
Devils are pride and envy, their followers fall to their own lust
The "good" necromancer who can't be assed to care enough to make golems and brings about a plague/zombie invasion is slothful
The evil wizard acting for the greater good is too proud for his good as is the typical evil overlord with his black armor and spikes, who albeit diligent and often temperately calculating is cruel and greedy
The slaver emperor who beggars his nation for conquests and monuments is driven by his envy

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Wanna see how deep the rabbit hole goes?

d20npcs.wikia.com/wiki/Metatron,_CR_426

>It exists because it is a part of the firmament, being the wellspring of all deeds altruistic, just as the other planes are the wellspring of their respective forces.

How can "altruism" exist before society does?

Negative Energy/Fire/Water/Earth/Air those are all substances. They physically exist (or have blanket effects).

Hell even law/chaos are arguably states at which things can be in.

Altruism is a behavior. It is an action and an intent which is performed. You can't simplify that down into a reaction or a particle like you could with the others. They're completely incomporable.

You're saying that altruism has no personality or consciousness when altruism RELIES ON THOSE THINGS TO EXIST???

Good and evil cannot exist if the world is just barren rock and water with plankton and algae living on it!

>You are trying to understand outside the terms of D&D, where the origins of the planes are beyond the knowledge of both mortals and gods, rather than examining them within the confines of the setting they originate from.
>You are basically doing what every bad alignment argument assumes.

So... you're saying "it's too complicated for you to understand, don't worry about it"?

okay thanks

Isn't it like a positive energy thing?

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You say that but this is there servants.

And time lords are just weaker aeons and both are unstatable.

>If it doesn't have a consciousness and just... IS then how come a person who does terrible things but believes themselves to be doing good doesn't instantly recognize they can't draw on this power and go "oh I guess I'm not good then???"
Precisely because those things are separate.

Positive / Negative energy is like... life and death kinda.

Kind of an abstraction but again: it's a state at which something is in. It's not like a decision or a belief which good/evil are.

But good and evil are literal beings as shown here

But they interact with each other to the point they might as well be one.

Protection from Evil literally forces you out if you're evil. The magic can tell that you are evil, even if you aren't a demon or a hellspawn or are actively drawing on the cosmic force of Evil. It can just tell you're an asshole and lumps you in with all of those guys and kicks you out.

How dose Veeky Forums feel about "real" alignments?
easydamus.com/alignmentreal.html

See this is what I'm talking about.

Good has to have a consciousness in D&D, otherwise certain things just don't make much sense.

That's looking at it from a modern, materialistic point of view. From a D&D cosmological point of view, people get altruism from Good.

The confusion here is that the cosmic force "Good" is named "Good". It was probably named by Good-aligned creatures though, innit? It could just as easily have been named "Poop" and it would have no effect on the cosmology.

It's actually named atziluth and it makes up all the alignments.

I don't think that's canon

It's as canon as we are going to get

Palladium's alignments are the best. Especially since NO NEUTRALS ARE ALLLOWED!!!!11!!1

>tfw i bother to write that all out and people ignore it to tip fedoras
reeeeeee i want (you)s

Based Rifts

You need to include the virtues to make it a functional alignment system.

3-point and 5-point alignment is okay. 9-point alignment is unacceptable unless you're using the Norse cosmology.

eh, thought i'd only bother if i got reactions to the first post but fine
>Chastity
To renounce depravity and decadence, to be able to seek pure and wholesome fulfillment beyond mere pleasure
>Temperance
To resist being overcome with desire, to be able to set one's sights on something grander and preserve oneself from the ruin and dependency brought on by excess
>Charity
To seek not what others have but what they lack and strive to correct it, to be willing of self-sacrifice for the betterment of others
>Diligence
To work with attention to detail, not getting distracted or discouraged, to not be put off by setbacks or pain on the road to completion, to not suffer from effort but cherish it, to be able to set one's eyes on a goal and accomplish it, to not compromise at the expense of the goal
>Patience
To be able to bide one's time, to not act before one ensures in which way they must do so, to not act hastily, prematurely or sloppily only maing things worse
>Kindness
To see others as companions, not adversaries, as misguided or unfortunate rather than malicious, willing to help and harbor good will towards one's peers. To revel in joy, not suffering
>Humility
Not as much thinking less of oneself as thinking of oneself less. Recognizing the importance of others and being willing to learn and improve. Does not mean self-depreciation
Examples:
The old lady telling stories and giving cookies to the village children is the epitome of kindness
The pure, holy maiden working at the church healing and praying is diligent and chaste
The noble who strives to keep the kingdom together and his people happy despite corruption and hedonism all around and against his own pleasures is temperate and charitable
The judge who waits until every clue and cause is sufficiently explored before deciding is patient and just
The true angel/hero/paladin should strive to be all seven
Only through the practice of the virtues can good and order prevail, while the vices undermine it

You have to post an image if you want attention on an imageboard.

Screencapped for posterity.

It helps if alignmenst are in less nebulous terms.

>The thing you need to understand is that the reason Alignment is the way it is is cause D&D tried to ape Michael Moorcock's novels (the guy who made Elric). In his novels two grand cosmic forces, Law and Chaos, fought one another over supremacy.

it's not that simple

D&D was also influenced by "three hearts and three lions", which also used law/chaos alignment, but where law was associated with good and chaos with evil.

>Holger got the idea that a perpetual struggle went on between primeval forces of Law and Chaos. No, not forces exactly. Modes of existence? A terrestrial reflection of the spiritual conflict between heaven and hell? In any case, humans were the chief agents on earth of Law, though most of them were so only unconsciously and some, witches and warlocks and evildoers, had sold out to Chaos. A few nonhuman beings also stood for Law. Ranged against them was almost the whole Middle World, which seemed to include realms like Faerie, Trollheim, and the Giants– an actual creation of Chaos. Wars among men, such as the long-drawn struggle between the Saracens and the Holy Empire, aided Chaos; under Law all men would live in peace and order and that liberty which only Law could give meaning. But this was so alien to the Middle Worlders that they were forever working to prevent it and to extend their own shadowy domain.

the paladin class comes from the same book, which is telling.

Once you have figured a character backstory and origins, what's the best way to write it down? As a biography, as a story...?

>Take the Paladin for instance. The Paladin was meant to represent the most holy, the most noble, the most stalwart of heroes. And he's Lawful Good. Not Neutral Good, Lawful Good. Because clearly law and order are just objectively the moral decision right?

In D&D? Yeah.

>>I would argue that the Paladin is Lawful good because devotion in the "knight of the church" sense requires rote understanding of scripture and ritual, generally considered lawful activities.

The Paladin as "kight of the church" came later in D&D. They were originally just really noble types. That they would take up the causes of churches, or the downtrodden, or some other worthy cause just happened to coincide with them being so noble. They were never beholden to the church or any deity any more than a normal Fighter was. It's just that a Paladin was more likely to be a do gooder and cooperate with other meddling do gooders like priests of Pelor than a mercenary/man-at-arms might.

>I've seen too many people interpret the alignment as being what you can do, rather than a way to interpret why you are doing something.
That isn't a problem with the system, though. It's a problem with stupid people.

>Chaotic Evil Nieztsche
>speaking against Lawful Evil regimes
You know nothing of Nietzsche, as did the one who made the thing in particular, sacrificing understanding for the opportunity to make a joke pulling from the literal meaning of a figurative statement.

But can we do anything about the middle column still saying neutral?

I super like this and never considered it.

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No.

As a roleplay aide I think it's fine. It mainly becomes a problem when people see it as an absolute limiter on behavior, or when it gets too tied to mechanics like with spells and damage types. Back when you could deal chaotic aligned damage or speak a lawful language, that was pretty dumb.

I unironically think the MtG color wheel is the best alignment system ever devised.

Barring that, substituting "Evil" with "Dick" and "Good" with "Kind" for the D&D alignment grid isn't that bad. A Lawful Evil soldier who sees the rest of the party as his crew, or a Chaotic Evil old woman who turns people into dolls and thinks the party is her grandchildren, are some of the most satisfying characters I've played.

Imagine the kind of psychopath it takes to make a mess like this. Imagine the rest of their life.

thas more like it

Problem with this though is that "dishonorable" is obviously only from the honorable perspective. I doubt Chaotic characters really set out to be as dishonorable as they can. It's just that they don't give a shit about honor, or what those honorable types think of their conduct.

Good for making memes.
Pretty much shit for anything else.
Partially because it now does almost nothing, and partially because it's really poorly defined.
Anyone else remember when the big question was whether genocide was Lawful Good or Chaotic Good?

meh

we might be onto something here

almost there

and done