Is there a way to "fix" alignments? Is there a better alternative...

>Is there a better alternative?

Have you considered not using them?

If the categories were proper categories then they could design real characters. Whoever designed the original alignment system didn't understand enough about anything involved to make it coherent for anything other than a very narrow range of characters but it could actually be done properly

Alignment tells you little about the character anyway.

The problem with the alignment system is that the philosophical world-view that underpins it isn't consistent. You end up with the orc baby problem because it doesn't have a philosophical answer because the worldview is compartmentalized and causes cognitive dissonance.

If you pick a coherent philosophy and then fill in what the alignments mean it will work out fine. Different philosophies will result in different alignment definitions.

I don't even think that's right, you don't have to stick to a specific philosophy, because you should be able to roughly fit philosophies into the alignment system.
For example, the murderous nihilism of the school shooter is clearly chaotic evil. Pic related, this is what I just whipped up so far. I'm pretty satisfied with the Evil definitions, but the others could do with some work.

Alignments work. You just expect them to do more than they actually do.

Will a guy follow the rules?
Will he hurt people?

Everything else is not alignment based.

They work just fine.

It's a horrible system. Just don't use them

>For example, the murderous nihilism of the school shooter is clearly chaotic evil.
No. The school shooter will probably what he's doing is either good or neutral.

I can't parse any sense from you.

Not him but:

*probably think what

Alignments tie back to the objective values of the gods. There is no problem with alignments, you don't like the setting/you are using them wrong

Ah right. That's irrelevant, because it's subjective, and we're not talking about subjectivity here.

>Is there a better alternative?
Reputation?

>Is there a way to "fix" alignments?
No.

>Is there a better alternative?
No.

But what you shoud ask first is do you need to fix them or look for an alternative? Because alignments were never a good idea in the first place, they are literally useless, they add nothing of value to the system or characters created in it.

>Is there a better alternative?

>Real characters are too complex to be described by the system

I've never met a character in any work of fiction that I couldn't classify, provided I knew enough about them. Your failings are not our failings.

Besides, they have alignment tests n' stuff for if you get really stuck. There's even an official one released by Wizards of the Coast way back in like 2000 or so.

wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20001222b

...

How you think of yourself is irrelevant to alignment; it's what you do and, to a somewhat lesser but still important extent, your fundamental reasons for doing it.

(This is why a LE person who is genuinely improving the world around him is still Evil - because his reasons for doing so are ultimately selfish and self-centered, and the fact that it is helping others is, to him, an irrelevant side-effect)

So if you associate LE with totalitarianism where do you place villains who exist within and exploit legal systems without having a special ideological commitment to them?
eg a lord who ruthlessly exploits his population for his own benefit, but is entirely in his legal right to do so.

Depends. When called out on it, what's his defense?

"Fuck 'em." — could be Neutral or Chaotic.
"It's my right!" — definitely Lawful.

So you are saying Hitler was evil even though his actions resulted in that world communism didn't happen.

It's D&D. Everyone will hurt people. The question is why will he hurt people.

This is cool, could make a system out of this.

His actions resulted in a world where World War II did happen. Even if you want to try and make some argument that without Hitler we'd just have gotten Command & Conquer: Red Alert world, that doesn't change that what Hitler touched off was a war that killed at least fifty million people.

Besides, stopping Communism wasn't Hitler's only goal, and you know it - he makes his intentions very plain in Mein Kampf as being about German genetic superiority and an utter disregard for at best - and active desire to exterminate at worst - anyone who wasn't German.

In short: Even if you want to make some argument that Hitler's WW2 was better than Stalin's WW2, that only makes it the lesser of two evils. And the lesser of two evils is still, by definition, Evil.

Thing One that needs to be done is to not call the morality axis Good/Evil. Pretty much nobody thinks what they're doing is capital-E Evil. Even bad consequences or bad intentions can always be justified (to varying degrees of justification).

Thing Two is to not make alignment tied to certain classes (except as part of the Code of Conduct, if the prerequisite of being said class is to join some sort of organized group) or be detectable by magic (because, in addition to the self-justification issue mentioned in Thing One, nobody is a particular alignment 100% of the time).

I propose that any sort of "alignment" system should only be used as a characterization/roleplaying tool, not have mechanical effects; a DM should only bar a player from being particular classes if they think that it doesn't make sense in universe for someone with that character's personality or inclinations to even apply to join a place, or they wouldn't be allowed in because their attitudes don't align with the organization's agenda. Similarly, all actions should be justified in character, which really shouldn't be all that difficult.

As far as what sort of guidelines to use when building characters, Meyer's Briggs is terrible in real life, but pretty good for coming up with fictional archetypes. The Big 5 personality index (openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, and extroversion) is closer to currently observed human psychology, but that might not necessarily work in a fantasy setting with actual separate races.

>handed half of europe to the ussr
Gee what a hero

It’s easy:

Good vs Evil
>Cosmic scale as the DM sees fit
>Good is generally self-less and their deepest intentions and desires are just and free of self interest or single influences from the outside. In the most general sense goodness depends on empathy and altruism.
>Evil acts are acts in self interest without caring for collateral damage. It’s the most simple thing in the world to rule on while a universal Good is more subjective. Generally, Evil is built on being a slave to desire above people even if you are legally obtaining your desires.
>Neural is not a place for extremes that are “balanced” by being neutral, people have behavioral limits set by the norms in that area. People are generally self interested, and in a grim or dark setting will naturally skew towards the evil-we end of neutral. The important thing is that neutral is a massive umbrella that most beings fit into.

Lawful vs. Chaotic:
>Determined by the individual
>A lawful person is honorable and disciplined, and probably comes across as boring the more lawful they get. They try to follow custom and tradition without bucking the system, and if they do revolt against the system it’s probably to restore a traditional order - possibly even generations late.
>Chaotic people are ones that are not bound by the same social structures. Chaotic characters would include outsiders that feel they are justified because of real or perceived slights, as well as extremely sociable people that use their personas to get away with things they shouldn’t be able to. Chaotic characters are conflicted and contradictory.
>Neutral is still most people, and is not a balance between two extremes.

The other thing is to take alignment based creatures (devils, angels, demons, etc.) and put them on a separate deterministic structure. You have the great 9 boxes for gods and immortals, and then the neutral box in that is the mortal 9 box alignment.

Not his only goal, but his actions inadvertently prevented Stalin from launching his offensive (plans for a 1942 offensive were created 10 years earlier) that would likely have ended up with USSRs western border being the Atlantic Ocean.

I agree that he was evil, though maybe not LE, the way nazi Germany was actually structured he was more NE or even CE.

>Is there a way to "fix" alignments?
Take morality completely out of the equation and make the system about actual cosmic alignments. You can even keep the gods, just make it so that your behaviour represents this or that divine alliance rather than objective ideals of good/evil or order/chaos. Afterall it's not like you need the system for stuff unrelated to religion and the planes, I mean how many dm actually have a smite evil fail because a random ass bandit is actually TN or CN?

The original alignments, Law and Chaos sort of made sense (It's like LG vs CE). However when they added the Good/Evil axis it stopped making sense.

Your classifications are wrong.

Soul is just traditional alignment rotated 90°

The main reason for the confusion is that the axes are skewed. "Chaotic" for CG isn't the same as "chaotic" for CE. And so on.

It's not. You have to pick one of the lines. Can't pick corner. So there is only four "alignments" not nine.

alignment requires everyone to agree on the definition of "good" and "evil" so every discussion of alignment inevitably turns into baby's first moral philosophy shitfest. ODnD was based off of Tolkien and assumed a mythic morality where shit like the trolley problem is always fixed by just not accepting the premise and trying to save everybody (and succeeding because that's what myths are about). If people want to be edgy faggots then it just becomes useless.

Hmm I disagree. The main axis isn't good-evil, it's law-chaos. If you see it that way, it starts making sense.

I think Mean isn't Evil, it's more like, better intimidation rating and so on.

>The main axis isn't good-evil, it's law-chaos
Sounds like my kind of system

Hitler himself was definitely Chaotic Evil. He structured the government of Nazi Germany specifically to be inefficient so that no one could possibly have more power than him, and he often gave overlapping responsibilities to multiple people. Also he broke pretty much literally every promise he ever made on the international scene.

maker of the image here
I did have the intention of mimicking traditional 3x3 alignment with Soul, but the axes don't mean quite the same thing (not that I have any explicit rules yet, this was just a mockup on a whim)
Mean/Nice and Duty/Play are more about personality and disposition than morality. A Mean/Play character isn't necessarily CE, they could just be really snarky and aloof.

Lawful - Neutral - Chaotic

They define one's standing in a Moorcockian cosmic struggle.

I always found this useful.

now this has got me thinking more about it
instead of Soul being a static square, it will work in the same way as the other stats (and "opposites" are not mutually exclusive)
>players allot their points freely (or roll) among all 12 stats in character generation
>each stat's value is used as a pool of points that are spent to take actions relevant to the stat (more points invested = bigger bonus to roll)
this would be best suited for a roleplay-heavy, combat-lite game I think
a player could put points in every soul stat, going alternately "Paragon" or "Renegade" as the situation calls for it.

The problem with alignments is it makes people feel like they have to play according to their given alignment all the the time instead of an actual nuanced person.

Understand these three simple concepts.

1: It is a measure of good and evil, not morality. They are a concept of the universe itself. It is very possible for "Good" to go against your own good morals.
2: It's a fucking statistic like your hitpoints.
3: See 1 and 2

But who defines what is "good" and "evil"? Isn't it basically more a measure of synthesis/deviance from the GM's personal morality?

The cosmos itself.

In universe, yes, but the GM is essentially the mind of the gameworld. It still boils down to what they think is good and bad

I would argue he was lawful evil to lawful neutral.

He wanted his country and his people to prosper, but didn't really care much about everyone else. he didn't care if they succeeded but he didn't want them to fail either.

I agree that he was chaotic. What he wrote and said all points to hat he wanted a society where struggle determines who rules, a system where the different parts would always be infighting. He actually wanted this, and thought it would turn out good.

Only apply them to monsters, outsiders, and "chosen" worshipers of certain gods (paladins and clerics). Everyone else is Neutral for the purpose of mechanics. That's how I run it.

I'm
Did not mean to pretend that I made the image. But I realized that it had nothing to do with the D&D alignments.
Would you be OK with me stealing this and building a system on it? :3

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply thievery, I was just identifying myself.
Go ahead, do whatever you want with it!

The problem is that lawful/chaotic doesn't make sense. You can sort of get what it means but whenever you think too hard about it, it falls apart. Often they even get conflated with good and evil too, which just ends with people playing double good and double evil.

You're right. After all these years, I still don't quite understand what lawful/chaotic means. Is a corrupt tax collector lawful evil? Even though he's breaking the law and has no kind of ethical code, I've noticed most people are inclined to say yes without thinking about it.

they only "don't work well" if you play with people who religiously follow the D&D manuals.

they can be nuanced as hell, and interesting if played right

Thanks man :3
Will post it on board if it turns out good

>Is there a way to "fix" alignments?
No
>Is there a better alternative?
Play a character instead of an alignment. If alignment matters for some reason, spells etc, the GM can just make a call if they kind of fit it or not.

They work well in 5e because they're 100% fluff.

ignore them

treat them as cliffnotes to character creation instead of the 10 commandments

Probably just regular old unflavoured evil.

>le
Back to rebbit

>The problem is that lawful/chaotic doesn't make sense
how ignorant can you be

Alignment is no longer a system under the players control. You do not know your alignment. The GM decides your alignment and changes it if you stray too far away.

>I wish I could but that's literally all anyone in my area will play.

Do you drink salty water if you are stranded at the sea?
Do the same with d&d

This

Convert some normies.

It’s how I got to play gurps

I only have it mechanically appear as a sort of antithesis mechanic. Good and evil for the purposes of detect/smite/etc basically trigger depending on the viewpoint of the caster.

Say you have a paladin of the war god cast Detect Evil on a room full of people.

The guy who has never been to war but isn't necessarily against the prospect registers as neutral, due to not having a strong stance on the subject of the caster's domain.

The former soldier who fought in the last war to do his part but retired afterword is mildly good because he was willing to embrace war to a point.

The pacifist who decidedly opposes war in all forms registers as evil, due to being against the domain of the caster.

A paladin/cleric of a god of peace registers as very evil for the same reasons as the pacifist, but exaggerated.

Basically this allows such powers and the classes that use them to function without having to arbitrarily say what is good/evil/lawful/chaotic. There's a bit more role-playing with this method, but I find that to be a good thing and it generally works in my experience.

I also like being able to give some fluff hooks for such things when the gods are more "human" rather than just being their domain incarnate, like in one game the god of blacksmithing insulted the goddess of farmers so badly it resulted in a feud so vile each's followers now register as evil to the other's.

They don't need to be fixed. They do a well enough job at describing the motivations for characters in D&D. They don't perfectly fit real world morality. Obviously. They don't fit perfectly into every fictional setting conceivable. Obvious.
Their mandate is limited and they fill it well enough. Problems arise only when autists on the internet who couldn't go toe-to-toe with a state university philosophy student decide they're going to put an end to all fun until they "fix" alignments or vanquish them.

And that's not really even a problem until you have one of those autists at your table.

You must not read much. Or even play vidya. Durandal from Marathon is almost impossible to classify.

This is the superior method.

the whole system doesn't have to go in the trash but Law and Chaos seem fairly useless most of the time
Good and Evil have the mechanical purpose of letting you know if someone is planning on dicking you over. Law and Chaos can let you know if someone has some sort of code they follow which is valid but something like Detect Law seems like it would get used very situationally
i think Good and Evil could work more like a karmic scale where you start neutral and as you give warm fuzzies you get little gold stickers next to your aura but when you give cold pricklies you get red frowny face stickers. doing one counterbalances the other
i figure this could be good because maybe someone can work to "trick" a Detect Evil spell? you don't know if someone spent a bunch of time saving cats from trees after stealing a grandma's priceless tapestry to cover their trail. or maybe someone normal has an overwhelmingly evil aura, they have some grave sin they have NO IDEA they're committing.

it ain't perfect but i spent three minutes typing it so guess i'm posting it

>wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20001222b
I, personally, am lawful neutral according to this quiz. I can see it.

Stop using them. They exists only for Paladins and Clerics anyways.

The Nazis were not lawful by any stretch of the imagination. Individuals, sure, but the organization as a whole was too mercenary and cutthroat, not to mention inept, not to mention that your positions and titles meant nothing compared to having Hitler's personal favor - or falling out of it. Goering lost very few of his titles as he fell out of favor with Hitler, for example, but it all amounted to nothing.

>but didn't really care much about everyone else

Wrong. He was actively hostile towards most other people. The Nazi philosophy called for perpetual war, or at least perpetual preparation for war, and you can't have a way without killing people.

I'll admit I don't know Durandal, but I've literally had bookcases collapse from being too full. I read plenty.

D&D has a solution to a character who seems to flip between a bunch of alignments, by the way: they're most likely Chaotic Neutral, unless they're actively hostile on a regular basis, in whcih case they're most likely Chaotic Evil.

But Authoritarian-Libertarian is Lawful-Chaotic and Left-Right is Good-Evil.
The political compass is just the alignment chart flipped and rotated a bit.

Durandal develops as a character. It is different depending on the point in time

>Left-Right is Good-Evil
>Good is defined as the desire for the economy to be run by a cooperative collective agency, which can mean the state, but can also mean a network of communes
>Evil is defined as the desire for the economy to be left to the devices of competing individuals and organizations

What did he mean by this?

Like any complex character, his "alignment" is ambiguous and arguable. It evolves over the course of the story, and is sometimes even contradictory. His stated goal is totally self-interested. Multiple times he makes it a point to explicitly reject the idea that you're on "the right side," especially the slavery speech. But at others he makes great arguments that his actions are necessary to save humanity. Where at the beginning he torments his human former captors with vengeful glee, later on in M2 he seems embarrassed to admit that he feels compelled by an irrational protective instinct for humanity.

Then he merges with Thoth and changes even more dramatically.

I'm just rambling now, DnD alignment is not well suited to applying to actual narratives with more depth than a puddle. It's a game mechanic for god's sake, it's like arguing what characters "rolled" in a story.

>Left-Right
But both Trump and Hillary were obviously Nuetral Evil

I feel like these two approaches can be resolved. Rating philosophies along a spectrum depending on how they would be perceived by an average of other philosophies. e.g. Utilitarians play nice with other consequentialist variants, but is at an opposite end from deontological systems. That being said, it would take someone with a thorough, nuanced understanding of common philosophies to do a good job.

Subvert allignments.

>Is there a way to "fix" alignments?

Get rid of them entirely. 4th and 5th already made baby steps in that direction by removing any significant effect they had on rule mechanics.

Nuke it from orbit, then use something that more enjoyably and less arbitrarily represents your character's personality. Vows, Bloodlust, Bad Temper, Charitable, Selfish, Oblivious, Lecherous, etc.

Simple.

Make it solely about "energy alignment" (extraplanars and gods only, and related effects) and divorce it from morality entirely. It helps if you rename the axes to something more morally ambiguous (like "radiant/dire" of ASSFAGGOTS fame instead of good/evil axis)

They're also both neolibs
US overton window has shrunk so much that people think different flavors of Reagan are polar opposites.

Any ideas on LN that isn't boring as fuck or too rigid (LS)?

A character that highly values order and safety rather than adhering to arbitrary rules, far more pragmatic than puritanical.

So an average joe kind of guy?

Roland from the dark tower

Hey look guys, it's Chaotic Neutral.