What's the difference between Chaotic Neutral, Chaotic Evil, and Neutral Evil?

What's the difference between Chaotic Neutral, Chaotic Evil, and Neutral Evil?
All seem to fit the "does whatever benefits them" description.

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This should help.

It doesn't, sorry.

>Good: "I will generally take risks to help anyone."
>Neutral: "I will generally take risks to help friends and family."
>Evil: "I will generally take risks to help myself."

>Lawful: "I am generally rigid in my methods."
>Neutral: "I am generally flexible in my methods."
>Chaotic: "I am generally spontaneous in my methods."

Or, if you're in the mood for something longer...

So the difference between CN and CE is that CN might care for people other than himself?
And NE just pays more attention to laws and rules than the other two?

NE wants personal gain but is willing to exercise restraint in "evilness" if it will benefit himself in the long run.
CN just wants to have fun and doesn't give a fuck.

This is perfect.

The only other thing is that there's a difference between "alignment as personality" and the creatures where "alignment as team" is a factor.

Mortals fit into user's description quite well, but demons, angels, etc. are bound to be archetypes of their alignment. It's a strange distinction that makes this system confusing.

Evil = selfish, greedy
Good = kind, altruistic

Yes.

Evil is the alignment that's defined by caring only about itself, generally. Neutral people still care about their friends and family, however, and probably even their hometowns. Not caring about other people isn't called Neutrality, it's called being a sociopath.

Now note that I keep saying "generally". This is because no humanoid being is expected to perfectly represent their alignment all the time. A Good person may have a particular hatred of someone and so not intervene to help them even though it would be the Right Thing To Do.

What's funny to me is that after 42 years, D&D has more than adequately defined the Good/Evil axis of alignments as it pertains to D&D. They even published two entire books - the Book of Exalted Deeds and the Book of Vile Darkness - clearly defining what Good and Evil mean to D&D. That there is still confusion as to this is frankly baffling.

No, what's still relatively murky is the Lawful/Chaotic axis, which have usually been confusingly or ill-defined in D&D. But I think what I posted is a best guess based on the 40-odd years of D&D's existence and publications, especially the last 17 or so since 3rd Edition more or less made the final coda on what Good, Evil, Lawful, and Chaotic mean to D&D; its definitions carried through to 4th Edition, 5th Edition, and Pathfinder.

>Not caring about other people isn't called Neutrality, it's called being a sociopath.
So all Evil characters are sociopaths?

Chaotic Neutral individuals value freedom of choice, change, and personal adaptability. They think people should do what they want so long as it doesn't screw other people over. This also means they're willing to let other people do whatever they want as long as it isn't overly harmful or remove someone else's freedom of choice or expression. Chaotic Neutral is best summed up with the slogan "Don't Tread On Me."

Neutral Evil individuals value selfishness, cruelty, and their own strength. They think that everyone is ultimately selfish and anyone who acts otherwise is either a con-artist or a gullible idiot who's been conned. They seek out power at the detriment of others, because taking from others makes their enemies weaker and thus gets rid of the (inevitable) competition. Neutral Evil is best summed up with the slogan "Do Unto Others Before The Bastards Can Do It Unto You."

Chaotic Evil individuals are a dangerous mix of these two perspectives. They value freedom - the freedom to do whatever they want, whenever they want, as cruelly as possible. They seek strength - the strength to defy the natural order of the world. They crave change - to change their environment to serve only their own basest desires. They are Chaos without any scrap or respect for the freedom of others. They are Evil without any sense of structure or planning. Chaotic Evil's slogan is just their victims screaming.

>Neutral people still care about their friends and family, however, and probably even their hometowns.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number

>Good: Cares about a few billion people
>Good-ish: Cares about a few million people
>Neutral: Cares about a few hundred people
>Evil-ish: Cares about a few people
>Evil: Cares about one person (himself)

Yes. Evil is defined by a general lack of ability to care about what happens to other people. This is literally *the* hallmark of sociopathy. A true sociopath is simply incapable of seeing other people as actually being PEOPLE. He (or she) at most sees a thing he likes to spend time with, a thing he likes to fuck, a thing he thinks can tell fun stories, a thing who cooks good food, etc. But if these people leave or die or whatever then what the sociopath misses is what the things could do FOR him, not the things - the people - themselves.

CE can still care about other people, it's just in a more 'These people make my life better and I can't quantify why' way. It's still possible for them to reasonably take risks to assist other people, even have friends, but they just do it from an entirely selfish perspective.

But this is where alignment lines get murky and confusing.

There are loads of evil characters who have friends or even loved ones.

a neutral character is neither actively evil nor actively good (or they might lean slightly in both directions). a chaotic neutral character will not kill innocent people, unless his survival is at stake: by contrast, a good character would probably rather die than kill innocent people, while an evil character will kill innocent people for personal gain or not even that. conversely, a chaotic neutral character won't go out of his way to help people unless he thinks there's something in it for himself.

the difference between chaotic neutral and chaotic evil should be obvious if you keep in mind that neutral does NOT mean purely selfish, it simply means a normal person: someone who looks out for themselves but still has lines they won't cross.

And that's why I kept saying "generally". As I explained, no humanoid creature is expected to 100% conform to their alignment. Alignment is the RESULT of actions and motivations, not the source. Any one thing you do, and any one reason for doing it, could be Lawful, Neutral, Evil, Good, or Chaotic. What matters is the sum.

Don Rafael Montero in The Mask of Zorro (the Antonio Banderas movie from 1998) is a great example of Evil who still has standards. He genuinely loves his adopted daughter Elena, and is willing to take risks to defend her and would almost certainly even die for her...but he "adopted" her in the first place by kidnapping her from her father as a child, after being indirectly responsible for her mother's death. And throughout the rest movie, Don Rafael proves himself to be a thoroughly evil man even though it's clear he has some gentlemanly standards. He just ultimately won't let those standards get in the way of his personal gratification (with, again, the sole exception being Elena, most likely).

If you haven't seen this movie, by the way, you should. It's fantastic.

>but they just do it from an entirely selfish perspective.

Nah. Jayne from Firefly genuinely loves his mom; why else would he wear those hats, or when he comes into a ton of money, think about naming the ship he'd buy after her?

That doesn't change that Jayne is willing to betray even someone he works closely with for years, if offered a chance at more cash. He at least has the decency to say as much to his current employer's face, though, giving him full warning.

(Jayne does seem to have mellowed out by the time of the movie Serenity, though).

CN: aligned only to Chaos
CE: aligned to Chaos and Evil
NE: aligned only to Evil

Soo, where would we put Judge Claude Frollo, from the disney movie version?

I honestly think a real Chaotic Evil aligned character is more likely to self-destruct if it hurts as many people as possible than actively seek ones own benefit.
To be honest "Good = Selfless", "Evil = Selfish" is both a dumb way to discern morality AND inaccurate in terms of cosmological alignments as of 3rd edition DnD and onward.
Good and Evil are absolute cosmic forces and it's implied that truly furthering either cause would require tremendous self-sacrifice.

The first version of the 3x3 alignment chart had it that:
>Chaotic Neutral types were in league with the Great Old Ones who wanted to eat the world
>Chaotic Evil types were furthering the goals of demons who wanted to turn the Prime Material into a blood-stained anarchy
>Neutral Evil types were acting in line with infernal powers that wanted to annex and loot the Prime plane without regard for its inhabitants
Admittedly, that was back when most humans were Lawful Good (literally medieval Catholics) and Neutral was the "Prime Material Plane for Prime Materials!" faction.

Lawful Evil, where else? He sticks to the letter of the law while constantly trying to twist it to suit his own purposes. He clearly has some set of standards, but they serve mostly his own needs. He has no empathy for anything, just lust for Esmerelda. Even his sparing of Quasimodo was born entirely from fear of personal consequences for his immortal soul, not out of any genuine remorse for killing his mother or desire to raise Quasimodo as a person (in fact his raising of Quasimodo has Lawful Evil written all over it - "See, I spared this child like the Bible said, so you can't be mad at me, God.")

>AND inaccurate in terms of cosmological alignments as of 3rd edition DnD and onward

Again with this nonsense? Seriously, people, there was literally a book written on this. Good is clearly defined in it as being made up of:
- Helping others
- Charity
- Healing
- Personal sacrifice
- Worshipping good deities
- Casting good spells
- Mercy
- Forgiveness
- Bringing hope
- Redeeming evil

It has a paragraph or two on each of these concepts in the Book of Exalted Deeds. But even wthout that, the immediate line before the section defining the above is:

>Good is selfless, just, hopeful, benevolent, and righteous.

Says it right there.

>Good is selfless

It's very clear.

>selfless

You'd have to be a moron not to understand it.

>a moron

Not the guy you're ranting at, but it's pretty clear that you're attacking someone for not understanding when they actually disagree. Maybe it would help if you spend a little bit more time thinking about what you're responding to next time out?

That's okay, you can worship the autism that is BoED if you like but it's not for everyone. It doesn't alter the fact that Good requiring some altruism does not mean Evil is selfish.

Book of Exalted Deeds is shit though. It's written by James Wyatt, a fundamentalist Christian, who tries to force his own values into a polytheistic world where they don't fit.

I would argue neutral evil at best, chaotic evil at worst myself. And an argument could be made of he being on the neutral side of good/evil axis, at least during the first minutes of the movie.

I doubt setting fire to your own city in search of a singular person (not to speak of entering a church without permision, and backstabbing) are the hallmarks of a lawful person.

Evil is the willingness to gain things you don't deserve at the expense of others.

I am bothered because most Alignments debates come down to the Good/Evil axis. D&D went to the trouble of printing two entire books defining Good and Evil within the context of D&D, and yet people act like those books were never published.

Alignment debates persist because people would rather argue about Alignments than read the actual published material. It's like encountering two people arguing over which part is the best part of The Hobbit when neither of them have ever read it. "How can you say The Hobbit is actually good? That scene where Biblo slays a vampire is total bullshit! You can't slay a vampire like that!" "Yeah you can! In certain West African myths..." etc.

Evil is by its very nature selfish. This isn't even an idea unique to D&D; each of the Seven Deadly Sins are fundamentally based on selfishness to some greater or lesser extent.

As well...

>does not mean Evil is selfish

The Book of Vile Darkness disagrees, defining Evil as:

>"[Evil] is black-hearted, selfish, cruel, bloodthirsty, and malevolent."

Look, it says it right there: selfish.

It further defines Evil as being or including:
- Lying
- Cheating
- Theft
- Betrayal
- Murder
- Vengeance
- Worshipping evil gods and demons
- Animating or creating undead
- Casting evil spells
- Damning or haming souls
- Consorting with fiends
- Creating evil creatures
- Using others for personal gain
- Greed
- Bullying and cwing innocents
- Bringing despair
- Tempting others (to do evil)

> It's written by James Wyatt

It was written by James Wyatt, Christopher Perkins, and Darrin Drader.

It was edited by Michele Carter and Dwedolyn F.M. Kestrel. It met with the aproval of Bill Slavicsek (Director of RPG R&D), Mary Kirchoff (Vice President of Publishing), Marti Durham (Project Manager), and Chas DeLong (Production Manager). Also playtested by Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel, Todd Meyer, Jon Pickens, Alex Weitz, and Amy Wyatt.

Are these all Fundamentalist Christians, forcing thier world views on us? Are they all solely defined by their religion? I rather doubt it. Is it perhaps more likely that they are a bunch of Hasbro, WotC, and Dungeons & Dragons writers and developers who worked together to concretely define Good within the context of D&D.

>Marti Durham

*Martin Durham. Mea culpa.

LE tries to bend the rules to his advantage and cares about the stability of society because it's easier to exploit when it's stable.
NE does whatever he can get away with
CE subverts organized structures probably doesn't mind the consequences of his actions

>people act like those books were never published.
People are acting like they don't agree with those books. Bashing them with the text is unlikely to change that, especially at this range.

>People are acting like they don't agree with those books

I don't like the fact that Eilistraee has come back to life apropos nothing in 5th Edition. I'd rather she was still dead. But if someone asked me "what's a good backstory for a cleric of Eilistraee?", I would't tell them that Eilistraee is dead, so they can't play a cleric of Eilistraee.

There's disagreement, and then there's denial of facts.

Nobody has said that you can't continue to follow Deeds & Darkness to the letter. Most of what's been expressed in this thread on that matter is the view that those texts give an unsatisfying and perhaps even inconsistent view of alignment. Telling people who disagree with those books that they're denying the "facts" will only alter their opinion of you - and not for the better.

Chaotic characters seem like they would be more fun to roleplay, but also harder to roleplay. I want to play a character who is playful, petty, and easily manipulated, but sharp enough to know when they are being led on for too long. In reality I am boring, predictable, and obsess easily. Maybe that is why the idea is appealing to me?

CG and NG are the same alignment.
LN, N, and some of of CN is one alignment.
LE and NE are one alignment.
CE and some of CN are another alignment.
There are really only about five alignments masquerading as 9.
You do raise a good point that CN, CE, and NE are all effectively identical, though.

3x1 alignment is best.

another issue I feel with alignments is people use them as narrow boxes to put characters in instead of as a description for the character's general MO. Even good people will have done things that were pointlessly cruel at some point in their life, although they might have felt guilty about it later.

>Evil is by its very nature selfish.

Bullshit. Dwarves and metallic dragons personify greed but are far more predisposed to goodness.

Selfless nihilist evil is likewise a huge S&S trope and well represented in D&D.

>yet people act like those books were never published.

BoVD presents many different things as evil, and that's fine.
BoED lectures the reader on how many different things disqualify you from good, while also not being able to present good beings in a way consistent with itself, and that's not so good.

>CN and CE are the same
stop this meme now you are a shit roleplayer and/or have not played with decent roleplayeres

I'm only referring to CN by the canon presentation (for example, "acts guided by his whims or impulses" is a common definition) -- what kind of fucking moron would base his views of the rules off how pleased they were by other people's portrayal of the rules?

Are monsters like Orcs and Goblins really evil? The old monster manuals clearly states they are evil, and this trope even extends to a lot of classic fantasy literature. Recently I read an older series where goblins were described as being evil by their nature and not through any conscious choice (R.A. Salvatore's books).

Tolkein's Orcs were under the command of evil forces sure, but are D&D Orcs and Goblins straight lifted out of Tolkein? If so, what force commands the Orcs?

imagine a young adult bing drinking, doing dumb stuff, and shouting "yolo"

I would align that as Stupid Chaotic (Neutral). They are certainly "guided by whims or impulses" but are they really evil?

Yeah, their appropriately aligned patron deities.

Selfishness and greed are different things.
Someone who amasses wealth by murder, theft, and coercion and uses it for securing personal power and the oppression of others is greedy in the Evil sense.
Someone who amasses their wealth through fair trade and honest work, then goes on to secure the realm through philanthropy and public works is greedy in a Good sense.
Both will fear threats to their wealth, but for different reasons.

Merely being rich isn't evil despite what the 98% will have you believe.

No, I get the way that fans, largely in the interest of 3x3 meme poster debates, imagine a boundary between CN and CE (amongst others) but there's no reason to think some of those whims and urges that certain CN types might have wouldn't involve evil behavior.

>fair trade and honest work

The main problem is that D&D is primarily a game about get rich quick meme schemes and snap judgment extrajudicial violence, so that doesn't really help us much.

So most PCs are actually evil due to their greed, oftentimes sticky fingers, and willingness to commit violence upon others to achieve their goals.

And thus we come to the crux of why I find that definition retarded and self defeating.

If you at any point you have to be a modern cop (in terms of how fluffily prisoners must be treated for example) or peaceful businessman to be good, congratulations, you've failed and must start over.

>modern cop
>fluffily treat prisoners

omg you're serious, let me laugh harder

Is it really self defeating though? are those acts committed by murderhobo adventurers not evil? They are a whole party of evil adventurers and I see nothing conflicting about that. The players might not want the "evil" label, but the actions of the characters are beyond all doubt evil.

Lawful Evil is all about staying power. Lawful Evil wants to stay in business and not poke too many beehives. "Sneaky" comes to mind, but even that's not quite right. Lawful Evil types are, if masterminds, quite fond of "not" telling people things, and letting their stooges make the really evil decisions. LE won't knock over a beehive unless it's sure the mess will be cleaned up without incident within an hour or so. LE has no qualms about misleading NE or CE into knocking it over and getting stung to shit though, so long as their name isn't on it.

Neutral Evil is the ultimate in selfish. NE will do whatever it takes to achieve their goals, regardless of the beehives it kicks along the way. NE may not kick over a particularly powerful beehive, or one not in its warpath, but any opportunity to further their goals within reason is taken.

CE often, but not always, cares more about the journey than the destination. For LE, Beehives are problems waiting to happen. For NE, Beehives are obstacles on their path. For CE a good beehive is an afternoon of fun. Now, not all beehives are equal, of course. This CE may want to kill the bees, that one may want to steal the honey, and that one might want to sacrifice the bees while rubbing its junk over the larvae, but for CE it's the act of knocking over the beehive that's important.
Not that CE is always focused on the beehives. CE can do other stuff too. What they do is often for their short term enjoyment. They aren't incapable of long term profit, but they will stop to piss on the roses along the way.

The tendency people have to put good alignments on a pedestal, and then moreso with every passing year, makes good ever more useless and alignment ever more pedantic.

>but the actions of the characters are beyond all doubt evil.
>So most PCs are actually evil due to their greed, oftentimes sticky fingers, and willingness to commit violence upon others to achieve their goals.

Beyond redefining evil as "almost all PCs and deities," its also really stupid to broaden the definition of a murderhobo to such a degree.

This is the way I interpret the alignment system, though note I have never read an RPG splat book in my life so may just be retarded.

Good - Character is predisposed towards committing acts considered "good" by society, usually characterised as being selfless and/or beneficial to the greater whole. Committing any acts considered "evil" would weigh heavily on the character's morals and psyche.

Neutral - Character is not predisposed towards committing good or evil acts. They will not necessarily pick evil acts over those considered good, but the committing of evil acts will not weigh upon their psyche.

Evil - The character is predisposed towards committing acts considered detrimental to society/the greater whole, usually for their own benefit. Any "good" acts committed would almost always serve some self serving purpose.

Lawful - The character follows a particular set of rules which guide and influence their actions. Example is a police officer who has to follow the proceedings of the law in order to bring in any perpetrators.

Neutral - Characters that either do not follow a set of personal rules/guidelines or do not allow it to influence their actions/decisions to a great degree. However they will not actively go against it in a chaotic fashion. Characters will make decisions based on Good, Evil, and Neutral alignment rather than Lawful/Chaotic motives.

Chaotic - Characters whose actions, either directly or indirectly, go against the laws/rules followed by society and/or the other characters.

I can see what you are getting at and that only makes me feel more like alignments just have too much baggage attached to them and are no longer useful from a narrative, mechanical, or role playing perspective

>are no longer useful from a narrative, mechanical, or role playing perspective

I'm inclined to agree. The main use for me is that it helps understand the intended context of a given monster -- though its usually fairly obvious.

I think instead of saying a monster is "lawful evil" you could say a monster "exploits systemic inefficiencies, loopholes, and easily influenced legal processes, for personal gain, leeching funds through means of graft and tax evasion away from purposes that would benefit society"

Exactly this.
Alignment, in theory, serves as an easy way to see what kinds of characters this character will or will not get along with. A LG Fighter and a CE Fighter aren't so diametrically opposed that they can't be on the same team, but what one does (likely the CE one) is going to offend the other one and make it difficult to RP together. Not that it can't be done, it just takes more thought and cooperation on the part of those fighters players.

Alignment is also a fast way to see this characters motives. How do I get NE Wizard to make it to point C, but not points B or D? By putting personal gain at point c, and unnecessary risk at point B and D. Put helping someone at point B, and failing to help someone at points C and D for the LG Monk.

The main thing I blame for the current alignment cancer is Paladins, and Paladin archetype classes. Paladins represent an unrealistic extreme of LG, that makes Evil and Chaotic alignments seem stark as well by virtue of their intolerance of them. A CE Thief could still totally do Robin Hood shit, it's just that he wouldn't be doing it for the good of the people, he'd be doing it because he wanted the fame, and maybe a folk song about him, or maybe because he wants the heirloom sword of some guy, but its hidden. A LG Wizard might find himself razing a town full of innocent people to the ground because a necromancer was working on a spell to capture the souls of said town for use in ambiguously evil plots. There are selfish reasons to do good things, just as there are selfless reasons to do bad ones.

This problem started when "neutral" was defined as the default for humans. If just being good aligned (let alone being a paladin or other exemplary good character) requires you to be better than the majority of decent people, it's getting too hard.

>Murder is Evil
It's Good to destroy Evil if you cannot redeem it.
>Theft is Evil
It's Good to deprive Evil of its power and influence.
>Greed is Evil
It's Good to reward actions that have diminished the presence of Evil. It would be rude to refuse.

I believe the noble adventurer murderhobo tradition was more or less founded on these assumptions. It's this new breed of murderhobos that give murderhobos a bad name, making a mess for their own entertainment and manipulating the intent or purpose of adventuring and questing contracts for personal benefit. Make murderhobos great again.

Every Veeky Forums alignment thread ever, can we go home yet?

>implying the Wizard needed a reason

I feel the alignment system would make more sense if we translated it to capitalism. Not only will it concertize abstract concepts, but we can now also measure them more effectively.
>Orcs are Socioeconomically Depressed, Frivolous humanoids, while Elves are Socioeconomically Privileged, Frivolous humanoids, and Dwarves are Socioeconomically Privileged, Greedy humanoids.
We can measure these as well. Orcs and Elves are both frivolous humanoids, but elves are more frivolous than Orcs because of X Y and Z reasons.
Animals still have no alignment because dogs have no socioeconomic status.

You could, but the point is that while alignment doesn't serve any apparent point for PCs, it is still mildly useful for quickly giving you a feel for a monster or NPC.

Not that its that helpful under any circumstance. For example, Vhaerun and Tiamat pretty much act like most would expect of each other's alignment, not their own.

Yeah, 1e DMG Neutral and Chaotic Neutral are packed with tons of flavor already.

The problem is that Neutral is not defined, except as "Somewhere between Good and Evil, and Lawful and Chaotic", when Good and Evil are, as someone else said, not exactly measurable values.
Plus, using Neutral for both good and evil, as well as Lawful and Chaotic is just confusing. Like, 20% of the problem would go away if the alignments were Good, Neutral, Evil, Lawful, Moderate, Chaotic, or some shit.

>The problem is that Neutral is not defined

It was until it became Normie: The Alignment.

5 axis alignment was kind of neat.

How would that be "alignment", though? The reason it's called that is that you could generally assume that creatures sharing and alignment are aligned together. So just like the Sects of V:tM, the different alignments of D&D had shared interests and codes of behaviour and could be expected to club together against external threats, even if they spent the majority of their time clubbing one another.

Eh, dont think Ive ever had a character who wouldnt lie, cheat, or steal if it got good/neutral things done faster/ with less violence.

>The problem is that Neutral is not defined
That's a consequence of the change, not the reason for it. Neutrality used to mean "not signed up to one of the Outer Planar armies" and represented a kind of Prime Material independence faction. That's why the druids used to be mandatory neutrals - they were associated with the Inner Planes and the Prime itself.

Not him, but it can certainly be argued that Haves and Have Nots are gonna ally against each other at least as frequently as Good vs Evil.

I don't see many adventuring parties all of the same alignment, but I do see plenty of the same economic niche.

Wrong.
>Good, I will do good things even against challenge.
>Neutral, I'll do the "logical thing" (subject to perspective)
>Evil, I work to do harm.
>Lawful, I'll uphold, upkeep, and or respect the law. Either the law of my group/self/sect/land/ect.
>Chaotic, I'll do what I think is best with even against the law or normal standard, normal self define best.

There is wiggle room because the alignment system is a general discription, you can also define evil as evil God's/evil energy and define good as good God's/good energy. Because good and evil energy is physical in some common DnD settings.

Exp.
>Lawful evil = lawyer.
>Neutral evil = common thing or robber or moral equal.
>Chaotic evil = rapist, Clinton, or someone who murders you for insulting his culture.

Not true. Look at Ayn Rand Paladin.

>A CE Thief could still totally do Robin Hood shit, it's just that he wouldn't be doing it for the good of the people, he'd be doing it because he wanted the fame, and maybe a folk song about him, or maybe because he wants the heirloom sword of some guy, but its hidden.

Motivations do not matter, only results. If you intentionally help the poor, you are doing good deeds.

>Motivations do not matter, only results. If you intentionally help the poor, you are doing good deeds.

Results and intent matters for good keeping alignment, only intent matters for evil keeping alignment, and its been that way as far back as 1e core.

2e had an example of chaotic evil types uniting with chaotic good types to stop an evil oppressive feudal lord, because suddenly its their problem too.

> it can certainly be argued that Haves and Have Nots are gonna ally against each other at least as frequently as Good vs Evil
Are you sure about that? Think about a classic feudal army. It's more or less a cross-section of the society from which it's drawn, ranging from lowly camp followers up to members of the ruling caste. If your analysis is correct, when one of these things comes to a hostile city, the most common result should be that the urban poor align with their "class brothers" in the army and together they have a revolution against the toffs.

I'm not going to say that never happened or that it hardly ever happened, but I don't think it was a defining feature of the kind of societies that inspire D&D and other fantasy RPGs.

some do what they will to do, some others do what they think they want, but are driven by misleading demons

I disagree with the dedicated true neutral alignment description. It explicitly contradicts the description of neutral evil despite saying they are the same.
only one of theme is necessarily concerned with themselves and does evil only to advance sell interest, while dedicated true neutral would either avoid doing something considered good or evil with the same dedication a paladin would avoid doing some evil, or they would commit evil for the sole purpose of doing something evil for balance.

this is really simple but i like it.
this should be the end of all alignment discussions.

>Are you sure about that?

Absolutely. I said "at least as frequently," but probably moreso. I'd say somewhere between two to ten times as often or more.

>more or less a cross section of the society from which it's drawn

There's going to be even fewer alignment based associations (0%) in this situation than economic based associations (in this case, it sure looks entirely based off economic based associations and not choice or morality).

> and together they have a revolution against the toffs.

Gygax presented revolution against feudal masters imposing serfdom as both inevitable and very difficult to put down; similarly, the chance that PCs will meekly abide serfdom being imposed on them is very slim. Exactly how the PCs will respond to feudalism is not heavily dependent on their morality but from economic factors, ie. whether it will profit them.
And lets face it, D&D's societal outlook is primarily American in nature. The most obvious example are town guards and the justice system; that most towns will have VERY idealized versions of modern police with RenFair gear is taken for granted.

Between class, race, alignment, and the profit motive, the latter is the clearest indicator of how PCs you know nothing else of will respond to various scenarios. It is also going to be the thing PCs will have most in common (barring human fighter types being the most prevalent) out of the above.

This is more of a reach, but similarly, antagonists factions tend to have motives as far as the PCs are concerned heavily defined by which economy, if any, they participate in (the dirt poor, backward raider dudes, the slaver dudes, and the soul harvester dudes).

Next time you DM, see which the PCs mobilize against with more eagerness: race enemies, alignment enemies, or enemis taking their stuff.

The whole discussion is a reason why I vastly prefer the older Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic alignment system these days.

Or just keep alignments as cosmic forces that don't really apply to mortals directly. Heaven/ The equivalent's creatures like angels are Good. Demonic and Devilish creatures are Evil. Neither are entirely human or human-like in their behavior and values, and their alignment defines them.

The only way a human can have an alignment other than Neutral is by being a high level cleric/ paladin of a deity or some kind of a demon cultist.

That keeps running into the neutral paradox of how does a neutral make any friends if they're only willing to help people they know?

>absolutely
That's unfortunate because a closed mind is difficult to address. Perhaps you would do me a favour and imagine yourself to be just "fairly sure" while reading this?

So, you've told me that there aren't any alignment based associations ("0%"!?) in a feudal army and I'm quite confused by that. I mean, Gygax's notion of Lawful Good was pretty much the Christian Church (contrasted to Chaotic Good Hellenic religion), which would certainly be a unifying force for a feudal army. Now, there were certainly conflicts within Christianity, but as far as I know conflicts with Christians and Pagans on one side against armies of Christians and Pagans were not that common in the medieval period. So we could say that alignment does work here by lining up a conflict in the world.

I take the point that peasant revolts are somewhat common in the assumed setting though I don't recall where Gygax wrote that. I'm also not sure how this deflates the problem case. Again, if "economic alignment" is decisive, wouldn't we see armies that have a mix of economic privilege dissolving and reforming along class lines? That seems like something from the 20th century, and not even a constant then. (By contrast, it's not really a problem for classical alignment to say that oppressive feudalism would be outside the realm of Lawful Good behaviour and lead to alignment revolts.)

>Next time you DM, see which the PCs mobilize against with more eagerness: race enemies, alignment enemies, or enemis taking their stuff.
If the capitalist alignment system has legs, there should be variations. One might also note that PCs typically seek out people on their economic level to fight - not so much Haves vs. Have Nots as competition with fireballs. I'm also not sure whether PCs would change their "economic alignment" as they got on in the world and whether this would be a choice or simply automatic.

Lawful evil: Wall Street
Neutral evil: private military companies/mercenaries
Chaotic evil: Charles Manson

post charts

That's definitely a workable approach and a friend of mine handles it exactly like that in his campaigns.
The reason why I stay away from a good/evil axis is that with only law/chaos you now can have a more warhammerish grimdark world where everyone can be a mean asshole, the Paladin included.

I'm going to need some sauce for those bottom panels.

>So the difference between CN and CE is that CN might care for people other than himself?

Imagine two pirates, a CN and a CE.

The CN pirate is obviously in the business to get rich, but he would never turn his back on his crew. He'll cheat and swindle and rob, but if you stick with him he'll treat you with respect.

The CE pirate, on the other hand, would sell his crew out to the devil if he would get paid well enough for it. He'll use pain and fury to keep his crew loyal to himself, but will not care about showing others the same loyalty.

>The reason why I stay away from a good/evil axis is that with only law/chaos you now can have a more warhammerish grimdark world where everyone can be a mean asshole, the Paladin included.
You're blaming good/evil alignment descriptors for 2e's "family friendly" presentation. Gygax thought that it was Lawful Good to carry out swordpoint conversions, complete with killings before any "backsliding" occurred.

>Evil can't have people they like/respect/care about
pls

...

For the umpteenth time alignment is not and has never been about morality. This is a pure invention spawned from settings that don't use the same cosmogony copy pasting the alignment feature and and the confused players finding an ass backwards use to it.
Alignment as a morality is dumb anyway, it serves no purpose. No, it's not a good gauge of character it's so reductionist it only spawns retarded threads like this one when used that way. And you know what is a good succint gauge of character? The abridged version of your backstory you read on the first session. "My character is X from Y but Zer" is a better gauge of character than an alignment.
Alignment is relative to the setting''s cosmogony. Good and bad are not moral concepts but life and death energy. That's why killing undead is always a good aligned act even if it is a morally bad act. Races related to fae are all racially chaotic.
>but muh elf village elder/lawyer
Law and chaos not as in the law of the people (since it's different elsewhere) and not as in the personal code (as this means nothing and can be abused to hell and back).
This way, class alignment restriction actually serve a purpose. Monks must be lawful because they attain their prowess through internal discipline. A barb can't be lawful because rage is a strong chaotic trance.

Nethack did alignment right despite having only one axis. You'll notice alignment actually has repercussions beside the GM fiating your paladin falls.

>It's Good to destroy Evil if you cannot redeem it.
>It's Good to deprive Evil of its power and influence.
>It's Good to reward actions that have diminished the presence of Evil. It would be rude to refuse.

So you just looked at the bylines rather than actually reading the Book of Vile Darkness' description on each of those, then.

>is people use them as narrow boxes to put characters in instead of as a description for the character's general MO

That's a failure of the players, not the system. D&D since 3rd Edition at the latest has maintained that Good can occasionally do Evil, Lawful can occasionally do Chaotic, etc. No one is expected to be a perfect paragon of their alignment at all times. That's the entire reason why alignments can shift over time, after all; not to mention that if alignment couldn't change then it would be nearly impossible for a Paladin to fall.

>R.A. Salvatore's books

R.A. Salvatore himself wrote a short story with a good goblin in it, Nojheim, who was just a good person trying to live a normal life. He ends up getting enslaved and abused by humans. Drizzt Do'Urden tries to rescue him, but Nojheim is hanged by his human abuser before he can.

In the Forgotten Realms as a whole, no, orcs and goblins are not innately evil. They just grow up in shitty conditions and have evil gods constantly screaming in their heads, pushing them towards evil. If you grew up in Somalia and had literal Satan as a backseat driver, you probably wouldn't be a great person, either.

But when removed from their shitty "standard" culture and the influence of their evil gods, they can be just as good or evil as anyone else. Case and point - in Zakhara, to Faerûn's south an orc is as likely to be good as evil, lawful as chaotic. And he doesn't innately hate elves, either, nor do elves innately hate him. Because Gruumsh's influence doesn't extend into Zakhara.

It's all so subjective. Everyone seems to interpret alignment differently, so I can only say how I do with full deference to the fact that I might not know what I am talking about.

The way I always saw it was that Evil is callous. Chaotic is a little wild, a little anti-authority. Chaotic folks just don't like it when someone has power over them in any capacity, though how much they do about that depends on the individual.

Neutral? Well, Neutral on the Good/Evil axis is self-interested. Very focused on their immediate sphere, with a few exceptions. But they're not callous. Most ordinary people are some flavour of neutral, I'd say.

Neutral on the Law/Chaos axis takes matters of authority, justice, and law on a case-by-case basis. They don't mind them most of the time, but they're not going to work with a flawed system more than they have to. Not out of any direct dislike of authority, but out of pure pragmatism on the chaos/law axis, as coloured by their ultimate goals and moral alignment.

Chaotic Neutral is anti-authority, motivated by their immediate sphere (self and allies, anything that might threaten or further that), but they're not callous. They generally agree that some things Go Too Far. If a highwayman prefers to talk and trick his way out of fights but still fundamentally hoards his treasure for his own gain, he's probably CN but not necessarily CE. The ordinary street tough who didn't do nuffin is probably CN, too.

family introduces new friends, or necessity makes them work together

Chaotic Evil is like that, but darker. Self-motivated. Anti-Authority. But unlike CN, they show a ruthless disregard for people outside their sphere. There's no such thing as "too far" anymore, pussy. These guys are the extremist types who will gladly tear down the shit around them. Casualties are accepted and expected, and not something to be cried over. That's just how a revolution works, baby.

Neutral Evil cares first and foremost about himself, doesn't give half a fuck about anything he can't use, but doesn't get hung up on issues of law and chaos. He'll work with rules he likes and break those he doesn't, but it's not some arbitrary thing or a deliberate statement like a Chaotic character. It's just pragmatism. If people get hurt getting what he wants - well, fuck 'em. It's just business, player. A lot of mob bosses are sitting pretty right here unless they have that strong "Family" vibe.

Of course, I mostly don't care about any of that if someone makes a case for another interpretation that makes sense. Alignment is fun to talk about, but who REALLY gives a shit?

Let's play a game
Describe a character and Veeky Forums will try to guess its alignment

Interesting... What was his view on neutral/neutral then?