How do you unfuck the alignment system?

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>>51810082

Take the vertical axis back out, and restore it to its original state: a division of teams in a cosmic war, instead of a lousy warning label for "it's what muh character would do" bullshit. Alignment is best when it's simple, and about who your allies are.

>>51810082
Oh nothing, it works just fine when people play actual characters that're consistent in what they do, or change but not suddenly and for good reason. It doesn't work when players act like they're playing Skyrim and can do whatever they want on a whim.

>>51810082
I wouldn't. I use it as is and it's just fine.

The problem is when you mix Objective and quantifiable forces (Law, Chaos, Good, Evil) with shades of grey modern human morality. It just doesn't work.

So I treat alignments like astrology: some label that everyone has, but is ultimately not indicative of how a person acts, or the moral system that guides their day to day activity.

>>51810082
>How do you unfuck the alignment system?
You don't. Sometimes you need to recognize when a system takes away more than in adds, and be willing to remove it when that's the case.

>>51810961
Fucking this. Alignment is a brief summary of someone's moral system not the end all be all of it. People get so autistic about it.

>>51810082
Treat them more as guidelines.

>>51810082
I DM for a group of players, one of them is a rogue. He did something dickish and looked at the others players and proudly proclaimed "well. I am CHAOTIC good."

It's beyond redemption.

>>51810082
You don't. Because it's not a 'system', it's just a descriptor.

>>51810697
This. Between the loaded Good/Evil terminology and the fucked way that more recent editions have the
>oh, Chaotic people can work in a Lawful system if they choose to
"Alignment" should go back to the group you're aligned with, rather than a half-baked set of moral standards.

>>51810082
To derive you alignment from your actions, not the other way around.
And for the love of god, don't attach mechanical strings to it. Only garbage systems do that.

>>51810082
Remove Lawful and Chaotic alignments.
Good, Evil, and Neutral are entirely where your character lies based on the ongoing conflicts between gods and their ties to Positive and Negative energy. What decides Good and Evil is free and arbitrary, because these facts are determined by said gods. If a God tied heavily to positive energy decides that charity makes someone Good, and that murder makes someone Evil, nobody can really argue because this god doles out and holds back Positive Energy based on this criteria. Someone being Good means they mostly display values gods tied to positive energy extol, while Evil means they mostly display values gods tied to negative energy extol. What these values actually are is entirely arbitrary. If the god of feeding orphans is tied to negative energy then feeding orphans becomes an act of evil. Of course, the interractions of many gods is important as well. Feeding Orphans might be NE approved, but Charity is PE approved. How this affects the ultimate Good vs Evil value of Feeding Orphans is largely dependent on how many gods have how direct of a say on it. If there is only one NE god that approves of Feeding Orphans, but three PE gods approve of Charity, Being Nice to Children, and Promoting Community or something, the action might be fairly neutral, if not pulled over to PE anyways, but still a method for appeasing that particular NE god.
A Neutral character either displays a rough mixture of values shared by PE gods and NE gods, displays many features that PE and NE gods both claim, or else does not significantly interact with these values at all.

"Lawful" and "Chaotic" are personal choices. Whether or not a character lives by a strict code, or does whatever they want has no standing on their cosmic alignment. The God of Charity does not care if you follow every city law, or if you break every law you see so long as you promote Charity. This is something that goes into a backstory, not a central point of alignment.

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>>51810082
Use it as an excuse to drag the table into debates over morality that take up entire sessions because they're the type that can't avoid taking bait.

>>51810697
>>51811132
They're up to individual interpretation, but they do have grounding in cosmic forces- There's just not really a difference at the end of the day if your magic channeled from other planes looks like spooky green bats or shining golden fire or the like.
That said, the 'organisations' of these energies tend to keep tabs on and disapprove of misuse. The Glorious Celestial Union of Archons (if they find out) is going to be right pissed that you're using the gift of divine fire to immolate people behind on their taxes, even if they are aligned with the lower planes, by nature of the GCUA.

None of this alters what the PEOPLE and RELIGIONS think, though, and they're free to toast debtors if the next guy up the ladder signs off on it.

>>51811676

This.

I can't believe how many people, even on /tg/, have been literally doing it wrong for years.

Your character does not pick an alignment like class or race, if you do evil things you cease being lawful good. It's really not that hard.

>>51812011
What if I find a way to legally tax the fuck out of the local orphanage? Doesn't that mean I cease to be good but I remain lawful? Maybe lawful evil?

>>51812474

It doesn't really erase your past good deeds, but it's also pretty evil. Make it one step towards evil so from lawful good to lawful neutral at least.

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>>51810082
pay more attention to the new background system.

it's actually pretty good.

>>51810082
> How do you unfuck the alignment system?
Use the Shin Megami Tensei alignment system.

>>51810082
It's training wheels for newbies and an easy grouping system for certain spell effects, no more than that. After a point, alignment should be little more than a guideline for players and GMs, not hard set rules.

>>51813055
The main problem there is is that players are allowed to choose their own alignments.
All humans should be True Neutral, to be honest. Changing alignment to Good or Evil should take a lot, like becoming an outsider or an avatar (not just a worshipper or an adept - I mean, something like Jesus being an avatar of YHWH) of the god of Good or Evil respectively.
Same with Lawful/Chaotic axis - it should take way more to actually affect your alignment.

Make it clear that alignment is a status or descriptor assigned based on character and actions; rather than an alignment defining the character and actions. Also, remove unnecessary restrictions based on it and leave it for rare instances where such shorthand is necessary. Like 5e.

>>51810082
I've found Ideals and Flaws to be a good system. ex:

Ideals:
strives to protect children, regardless of their behavior
strives to enforce rule of law wherever possible

Flaws:
terrified to a fault of deep water
always considers themselves first, and will never self sacrifice

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>>51813097
I don't really like that idea.

Pretty sure the reason players choose their alignment is because they're not fresh children becoming adults. They're adults with backgrounds that exist before being a member of the party. That background shapes their alignment.

The issue isn't fixing the alignment system, it's not letting players be lazy about their backgrounds.

>>51813408
It solves most of the problems. Paladin smiting becomes harder as they struggle to detect evil with the small e, and in general, cosmic alignment system is way more self-consistent than the arbitrary alignment system we've got now that crashes and burns as soon as it stumbles upon morally relativistic issues.

>>51813447
Plus the neutrals get to kill everybody else and get the best ending.

>>51813447
But then you might as well take out the alignment system entirely, and it assumes that all members of a race will always be the exact same alignment, unless they have done something amazingly good or evil - and if I'm understanding it right, even Hitler would be Neutral under your system until he makes a pact with the devil. It tries to ignore the problem rather than solve it, and it is less satisfying than even the imperfect system we already have - we can't consider a generous priest and a backstabbing assassin to both be Neutral, we know it's not how it is.

>>51813533
>But then you might as well take out the alignment system entirely
Not really.
>even Hitler would be Neutral under your system until he makes a pact with the devil
I fail to see the problem. He is certainly justified in someone's eyes and considered a paragon of morality, while in others' he is vilified and considered the worst thing that ever happened.
Saying that something is unequivocally is Evil or Good is saying that it is truly unnatural, something that not only doesn't fit into our arbitrary social standards, but goes against the nature of humanity itself.
Can you truly claim that Hitler was inhuman in both his acts and motives? I'd say he was as human as he could possibly be, because being cruel is in the nature of humanity.
"evil"? Yes. "Evil"? No.

I feel like we really need an alignment CUBE.

Captain America, yeah? He's usually classified as Chaotic or Neutral Good because when it comes down to the Law vs doing what is right, he chooses what is right.

On a Cube he'd be Internal Lawful Good, he is orderly and follows the Laws/order of his own internal morals.

Someone who's External Lawful Good would be a good person, but follow the law.

Chaotic Neutrals, as we know, change depending what the fuck is happening. Internal would depend on what's happening with them, external on what's happening around them.

Internal Lawful Evil has a code of honor. External Lawful Evil lives in a slave owning society and sees nothing wrong with it.

>>51813595
But then Good and Evil would really only be things for angels and demons. That's why the alignment system might as well not exist in that case - you can just change Smite to extra damage against demons, and detect evil to detect demons. Lawful and Chaotic may still exist, but apparently it's on a similar scale, so might as well leave it out.

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>>51813335
>strives to enforce rule of law wherever possible

Whose laws?

>>51813676

>three dimensional tabletoping

Speaking of autism...

>>51813726
>But then Good and Evil would really only be things for angels and demons.
And fae, and devils, and undead, and the Old Ones etc.
You seem to be lacking in imagination.
>so might as well leave it out
And what's the point of putting in a system that arbitrarily classifies your actions? Do you even realize how much of a problem is the good vs. evil dichotomy in the real world? And yet your system claims to solve it? It's silly, that's what it is.
If you perform good deeds, but not of your own agency, can you truly claim to be good? What decides whether the deed is good or evil - the intent or the consequences? Why is it that the same deeds are viewed upon differently in different societies - why is rape and murder acceptable in one society and isn't in the other? Hell, let's even take a look at Aquinas' good and evil, where anything done by divine mandate is considered to be unequivocally good - can you truly say that anything is fine as long as you shout "DEUS VULT" beforehand?
No, fuck you. Using a system that isn't self-consistent is retarded. And the alignment system in its modern iteration sure as fuck isn't consistent.

>>51813801
In this case, rule of law in whatever country they're in. If not, default to home country.

>>51810082
Got to thinking about this in soulsborne terms. Heat and cold being one polarity, Light and dark being the other, with rot and blood being a third dimension in the scale.

Heat would represent those that move for the world to change, where cold would stand for they who would preserve what is good about the world's current state.

Light would represent those that walk the path of the nobility before them, where dark represents those that would stray and seek their own truths.

Rot would be closest to neutrality- a perception that the world around one's self has little to do with one's own actions, and that changes created are destined to slip away. Blood is the ideal that one's own change is the only goal worth following, and that any stagnancy or fear of progression must be discarded to evolve.

>>51813801
>>51813844

I know you guys are talking specifically about a replacement for the traditional alignment axis, but on a bigger-picture scale I feel like "Lawful" as a character-motivator only really means anything if it's referring to Law and Order in a very broad, even cosmic sense, and that it takes local or man-made laws into account only insofar as they serve capital-L Law.

Otherwise you get characters who are described as "Lawful", but who never actually get to express their core values (or rather, they express their core values by changing them chameleon-like to fit whatever authority's jurisdiction they're currently in). And that makes for not only a character that's difficult to play, but one that's honestly difficult to understand.

Like, I'd call MLK lawful as fuck, and he *constantly* broke the law, because he felt the laws were themselves broken.

>>51814147
I think of it like a cop. Whatever his opinion on the law is, it's his creed to enforce it, no matter what.

>>51810697
First post best post.

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>>51810697
>Moorcock
What is that? The character's name or what OP craves?

>>51814271

Michael Moorcock, a fantasy author and creator of Elric, the guy who originated the edgy weak sorcerer guy who wields a black sword with glowing runes that drinks people's souls to feed the demon trapped inside.
You didn't think anime invented that shit, did you?

A fun exercise for OPs and others: Go to your local book store, walk up to the counter, and tell them you love Dick, Pohl, and Moorcock.

Dicks, pussies, and assholes.

>>51814569
> tell them you love Dick, Pohl, and Moorcock
Dude, anyone who doesn't know K. Dick doesn't fucking deserve your attention. Literally every of his short stories were adapted into award-winning movies, so there is no fucking way you wouldn't be exposed to Dick in modern culture.

>>51810697
>Moorcock
Go on.

>>51814601

Just so we're clear, I wasn't putting them down, just making a penis joke. All three are excellent authors. (Well, Moorcock's a bit uneven, IMO, and his work looks a bit less innovative now that everyone and their brother has ripped him off for forty plus years, but taken in context his work's pretty damn impressive)

>>51810082
Get more specific.

Trade in these broad, muddy terms, for explicit personality traits.

Greedy.
Sadistic.
Law-abiding.
Spontaneous.
Principled.
Disciplined.

Etc.


Make a big fuck off list without ever mentioning good evil law or chaos.

Have players list any that apply, minimum like, 4.

Done.

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>>51814569
>>51814601

>>51811490
It's sufficiently vague that it's just not helpful, and the people who try to "follow alignment" just make the game worse.

>>51814664

That sticker is the greatest thing ever.

>>51810082
By only using it as a set of guidelines

>>51814682
The most dangerous part is metagaming or reactions to it - oh, your character is Chaotic Neutral? I hate that alignment, so I won't like them. Oh, your character is Evil? Even though my character doesn't know that and nothing had been done to them, I will actively dislike them.

It's why I argue people should judge characters on a summary of the characters. It has the same problems that you get with using TVTropes terms in that it takes away individuality.

>>51810082
Just. Stop. Using it.

Seriously, DnD and DnD clones are basically the ONLY games with this shit - there's a reason. It's a TERRIBLE mechanic that RUINS both games and roleplaying.

>>51810082
Literally just stop thinking about it.

If the game has an alignment system, it's clearly not trying to be morally complex or philosophically deep, it's trying to be simple. Asking too many questions is missing the point, just roll with it.

>b-but how can killing orcs be moral if orcs have the potential to live a moral life
Orcs are evil and it's good to kill them, that's how.

>>51810082
You get rid of it entirely.

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Add an additional axis that indicates how far from your actual alignment your character might stray?

>>51811620
>Chaotic people can work in a Lawful system
no thats just the general trend of the last few years to choose acceptance over facts.
people just need a strong dose of reality.

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>>51814147
>I'd call MLK lawful as fuck
he thrived on unrest, cared nothing for the laws of God or man despite being an ordained minister and didn't even respect his wife enough to stay true to his marriage vows.
He's chaotic no two ways about it.

>>51817502
>you can't be dogmatic, lawful and good
we get it, you smoke weed.

I'm inclined to go with this guy>>51810697
If you want to keep the Detect spells and metaphysical tie-ins for the alignment system then just make alignment what side that you fall on in the COSMIC DICK MEASURING CONTEST the gods have without effecting character personality

Or you use Palladium's alignment system which just lays out shit your character will and won't do
Or you don't use alignment at all

The only way to fix the alignment system is to clarify what it means. I believe that it was only ever meant to be a rock-paper-scissors mechanic that enables, say, holy water to do damage to vampires and churches to be proof against demons and undead. Alignment should not ever be used as an excuse or motivation.

>>51812999
>Authoritarian/Destructive
>Revered/Feared

That works.

>>51813166
>Make it clear that alignment is a status or descriptor assigned based on character and actions; rather than an alignment defining the character and actions.
That's exactly how it's been since the start, newfriend.

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>>51810082
By playing it right.

>>51817622
Dude, it's is an additional 3D axis shown on a 2D plane, you fucking cocksucking wanking sissy faggot retard. Just fucking reverse it in your mind.

>>51817622
>hurpadurp how does an z axis work

American education system at work lads.

>>51810082

Alignment describes the overall sum of your PAST actions, it's not a straitjacket which narrows your ability to make future actions. If the character's actions are almost entirely lawful neutral up until point x in time, the actions between point x and the later point y may be entirely chaotic good...But if they're insufficient in intensity or scope to change the character's OVERALL sum of alignment, then he'd still be LN afterwards.

Which solves pretty much the whole problem.

>>51810082
Like basically everything else that people get all buttmad about in role-playing games, it doesn't need fixing because there are plenty of alternatives that don't use it, if it's not your thing, and if it is your thing all you need to do is talk to the people you play with to make sure you are all on the same page.

Alignment fuckery is a complete non-issue, as long as you keep metagaming nerds and my immersion nerds separate.

There's no page in a rulebook that will save the day if you have people who want a realistic, improv-acting esque sequence of events, and people who just treat role-playing the same as they treat magic or DOTA, as a bunch of game mechanics you're supposed to squeeze in the right way to win the game sitting at the same table with each other.

>>51817777
Alignment isn't the sum of your actions, it's the REASON FOR YOUR ACTIONS.

It's not a background option choice to get benefit x, that you can ditch any time you want, it's a crude measurement of where your characters core belief fit in the grand scheme of things.

>>51810082
What's fucked about it? Your actions determine your alignment in a pretty commonsense fashion.

Anon, if you're butthurt that all your characters end up being labeled some variant of evil, it's not because the system is fucked, it's because you are, or at least like to play fucked up characters. Either change or live with it.

Sometimes I wonder if these threads have more to do with RL than the game. If they do, the same advice goes.

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>>51817855
You got that shit exactly wrong. Even angels and demons, creatures made of elemental good and evil, can (under extraordinary circumstances) fall or rise and have their alignment changed by virtue of having their morals and intentions, and therefore the nature of their actions, change.
People can change. Most character arcs require the character to change. Confining alignment is not something that should be assumed; and one shouldn't say the alignment itself is responsible for a character not changing their habits.

>>51817918
Broadly I agree with you, but I'd say that Alignment isn't merely actions, it's also motivation or reason for actions.

A Good, Neutral, and Evil person could all jump into a burning building to save someone, for example: the Good person because it's The Right Thing To Do; the Neutral person because they personally know the guy and want to save them; and the Evil person because they hope for a reward of some kind.

axis are:

Idealistic / Cynical
Young / Old

>>51813676
I like the cut of your jib.
Personally I'd still rather do without alignments, especially more complicated ones, but good job!

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>>51817957
Perhaps "reason for your actions" was supposed to mean that alignment can be gleaned from the motivations of a character, where I first read it as "alignments ARE the reason behind your actions"
Pic related, Chaotic Good

>>51814924
TV Tropes trope terms can work for it but only if you list enough to basically make it summary and people actually understand those terms, but listing only few or only one is doing it wrong.

>>51818014
Mental disorders are hard to judge. Pyro doesn't seem to understand that he's hurting people...but he is a violent mass-murderer.

That's where Alignment hits an actual wall and starts to break down: insane people who literally don't and are incapable of understanding that what they're doing is wrong.

>>51818066
As far as intentions, he believes he's helping people and bringing them rainbows and lolipops.
As far as consequences, she's never been shown killing an innocent, just the other mercs who would kill him anyways, and a bit of property damage. There's also the question of whether or not she is actually insane or canonically bound by Pyrovision goggles.

>>51818014
What I meant by alignments are the reason for your actions was that the reasons for your actions, your core motivations, determines your alignment, and that's not something that you just ditch at convenience.

It's your ethics, your moral principles (or lack thereof) not just something you look up at a chart that lists all possible actions and whether they're good or bad. Motivations matter.

>>51818224
>it's muh "intent vs. consequences vs. the act itself" philosophical episode on /tg/

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>>51818224
So we're really breaking down to the problem being features gated behind alignment restrictions and players abusing the system to employ them, right?
Man am I glad I play 5e where alignment only matters to a handful of legendary magic items.

>>51818242
Look, I think alignments are fucking stupid too, but that's literally what they represent.

>>51818319
>I'm buttmad about gated restrictions in a game that runs on imagination, but uses a freaking level system, in the year of our lord 2017

>>51818345
>that's literally what they represent.
I'm just saying, it's easier to not use something that is broken instead of trying to salvage it.

>>51818363
Like I said
>>51817834

It's not something that needs fixing because there are already so many alternatives, and the "problems" people who DO want to use it have with it almost always stems from fundamentally different views on role-playing.

>I'm portraying a person and that person's core values isn't just about having the coolest weapon.

and

>It's in the game, I'm not breaking the rules, so why shouldn't I change according to what's more beneficial for me, the player?

People who want it to be immersive and acting-driven and people who just want a videogame that uses their friends as the game engine should not play together. They're both free to play the way they enjoy more, more power to them, but if they try to do it together, they'll make the experience less than what it could be for each other, and it's the source of so many problems that people misguidedly try to fix by fixing the symptoms rather than the root cause.

I've seen alignment as two things:

1) a way to understand MOTIVATIONS of a character. You make choices as you wish, as long as you can say, "Yes, my character is helping this man on the side of the road because it's good / I might get paid / They'll like me / I can ditch him behind if the road turns sour"

2) It locks you out of certain behaviors, forcing compromise. LG cannot slaughter innocents for their possessions, and CE cannot turn someone in to the authorities and valiantly turn down the bounty. If they do either, their alignment changes.

That's what the point is, it reflects choices over time. If you make new choices, your alignment changes. You define your alignment, your alignment doesn't define you.

>>51819164
>CE cannot turn someone in and valiantly turn down the bounty
Sure they can, then they hightail it out of there before the explosives they planted on them blow the jail sky high.

>>51819164

The problem is really that alignments stem from a very different time in role-playing games, and have drifted a lot.

It's not useful for the current crop of D&D players to think about how they fit in the cosmology in a moral sense, like when alignments were first introduced, inspired by Moorcock and his ilk, when all they are going to do with it is put it in the same mental box as the paragon system in Mass Effect.

>Whoa, if I was slightly more evil/good I could pick this option which is really good/unlock a part of the game I haven't seen before!

In 5th edition it matters less than it has in a looong time, but it's still there, making players think about their characters morality in a game-option way.

The core issue is really that the kind of players who would get tons of use out of a good alignment system don't really need it, because they are already thinking about their characters personality and morality when it comes to what actions they take in the role-play, while the players who don't care about it will mostly just abuse it/trivialize it or get encouraged to think about their characters ethics in a very simplified, sunday cartoon kind of way.

>>51814147
>on a bigger-picture scale I feel like "Lawful" as a character-motivator only really means anything if it's referring to Law and Order in a very broad, even cosmic sense, and that it takes local or man-made laws into account only insofar as they serve capital-L Law
Just look at inevitables, the literal cosmic law enforcers.

>>51810082

As DM I usually just assign alignment to the characters. It's my world, and the rules of how the metaphysics work, such as how the universe/planes interprets their actions, is up to me. If someone is acting CN, it doesn't matter how much they protest that they really are CG, because they are not CG.

In the game I'm running right now there are no gods (at least not as intelligent and motivated entities), only Law and Chaos as primal forces, and it's resulted in some interesting philosophies being cooked up by the players about the world, culture, and religion.

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>>51811620
This, it's an alignment not a description.
Bring back racial alignments.

>>51820215
>elves are chaotic
What did they mean by this

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>>51820266
around elves watch yourselves

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>>51820215
>cavemen cannot be chaotic
I don't know if I'm more astounded by this statement, or the further realization caveman was a class.

>>51820266

Elves are dangerous fey creatures, whose Courts are a twisted mockery of human Law.

>>51820384

He's citing Nethack, not D&D. But it's a game that does alignment in a more interesting way than modern D&D, and one that adheres more closely to D&D's roots than the watered-down version seen in the modern game .

>>51820321
>pigface
>cute
That's not an elf, that's orc in well done makeup.

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>>51820435
>in well done makeup.
you have said enough anon.
dont get too curious

>>51811720
So everyone gets a god (if they want in on the system) and are doled out Good or Evil based on their precepts?

>>51810082
>How do you unfuck the alignment system?
Pretend it's not there. Or if you do use it, it doesn't apply to anything other then outsiders/creatures without moral agency.

>>51820419
Yeah, despite being a close to the mechanics emulation of OSR, nethack has place for a lot of emergent gameplay just like in a regular tabletop.
It's shit for story but it's still an intresting play for any unimaginative GM/player looking to improve.
It even does falling and converting correctly without it being bullshit.

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>>51810082

>>51818066
I generally rule that characters incapable of understanding morality are True Neutral 3 like >>51817740 You wouldn't consider a shark evil because it cannot see where its actions lie on a morality system, or even that a morality system exists.

>>51810082
Alignment is a shit system that doesn't add anything to the game except stupid arguments.

>>51820603
I would assume that in that system, Alignment would be established primarily based on a summary of that character's actions, and which gods would approve of those actions. For the sake of ease, it would probably be a good idea to keep good and evil actions mostly tied to a central theme (Selflessness vs Selfishness, or something), but it would be a system where your alignment was derived from your actions, not a guideline on how your character should act.
Clerics and similar characters would probably not prescribe to the alignment system as a whole, since they don't care about what other gods think. In the given example, a Cleric of the god of feeding orphans would likely be considered to have a good alignment after taking all of the other god's average opinions, even though they are devoted to a negative energy god.

>>51821424
Animals are chaotics, like druids and feys.

>>51810082
Let it die.

>>51810697
Reminder that Three Hearts And Three Lions is responsible for swanmays, Trolls, paladins, and the law/chaos alignment system in D&D.

>>51810082
Stop having people, like OP and most of the people in this thread, completely misunderstand it because they never read what it is in the books, only from /tg/ memes and ad hoc'd in game.
Alignments in D&D are so extraordinarily simple, and intended to be simple, that people fuck them up by trying to read more into them then what is actually there, or create logical fallacies that people fellate in an attempt to circumvent them.

What are the problems with removing it entirely?
Maybe using something similar to adjectives a la gurps like hinorable, muschuevous etc

>>51822027
Nothing's broken with the current system but people misusing it for describing PC comportement (something you don't need).
Replacing it with another system to describe comportement is missing the point entirely.

>>51821497
Agreed.

>>51810082
Base it off of Johnathan Haidt's work on the evolutionary origins of morality.

>>51822027
Alignment in D&D (the only place it matters) is baked into the fundamentals of the setting and how it exists.
So long as people don't try to twist/abuse the system or think their morality is subjective, it works, because it's how the world is described, not pcs.
Like what >>51822196 says
Wrong
>I am Lawful Good, so I do ABC
Right
>I do ABC, I would be described as Lawful Good to the DM
I mean, shit, your alignment doesn't even come ever up for 60% of all pcs ever.

>>51822214
>>51821497
Those stupid arguments only result from people un/intentionally doing it wrong.

>>51822246
>everyone who isn't me does it wrong

nice job proving his point

>>51822268

That's not what he said and you know it.

>>51822246
It really doesn't matter why stupid arguments happen. It matters that they do, often, and in many places. These constant alignment threads are just the tip of the iceberg.

>>51810082
It's not fucked. You're just using it wrong, or seeing alignment as a strict ruleset on how a character should act rather than a general guide.

>>51822416
Exactly, the priority of the game should always be fun.

Anything that detracts from the fun and enjoyment of the game should be removed from the game for the benefit of all.

I typically only run games without an alignment system, and if they have one, I remove it. Nothing of value is lost, everyone benefits.

>>51821615
>druids
>chaotic
Druids occasionally alternate from extreme Law to extreme Chaos (or vica versa).
Which sounds pretty chaotic, but when they're being lawful they're being LAWFUL.

>>51822331
Actually it is what he said. Calling other people wrong is exactly how stupid arguments start, and there is never a satisfying conclusion to them.

>>51822416
So we shouldn't drive cars because people die driving them all the time?

>>51822748
No, games might have stupid arguments anyway, because shit happens.

What we shouldn't do is mix alcohol and driving, because then you have way more stupid arguments, for no good reason.

>>51822516
Excuse me if I'm being autistic about this but my group tends to play with a ton of houserules particularly about alignment.
Our druids are ALWAYS chaotic neutral.
Just like our races follow nethack's law/order alignment with drows always being chaotic evil, sylvan elves always being chaotic neutral and all other elves able to be chaotic neutral or good.
Same shit for dwarfs and druegars.
Everything has at least one axis position required, sometimes two, like for the druids.
>>51822233
you're still using it to talk about comportement when it's about affiliation. You're only less wrong because your way prevents a party from falling apart before chargen even ends.

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>>51822870
>chaotic neutral
>2-axis alignment

>>51823020
How are we going to differentiate between devils and demons without two axis?
And also the positive/negative energy duality that's fundamental to clerics and paladins is different from the law/chaos duality. Although you're right we should replace good/evil by light/dark it fits better.

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>>51810082

>>51823020
I liked the time when XKCD was fun instead of political

>>51823184
So what's the difference between Selfish and Evil here?

>>51810082
There are several problems about The Alignment System.

1: Originally, it was inspired by/referencing fantasy literature like Moorcocks Elric, where fantasy protagonists are pawns on a cosmic playing board, used by gods and higher entities to further their agendas. In this context, being a champion of law, or chaos, or good etc makes sense and takes on a bigger meaning than just being a personality trait.

2: D&D and mainstream fantasy (not the same thing) have both moved away from those themes, leaving us stranded with a clunkily structured system that just seems to be a weirdly restrictive role-playing aid and list of character traits, disconnected from the grand scheme of the setting or campaign, other than in a more game-mechanic related context, like X alignment can have X spell or religion. We aren't generally playing campaigns or settings where players are the cosmic champions of order/disorder.

3: As a role-playing aid and game-mechanical restriction, the Alignments are boring as fuck. Depending on a particular DM's or groups interpretation and ambition, the alignments are usually just something that trip players up or inspire very corny, shallow characterization.

So how do we fix it?

We don't. We appreciate it for it's nod towards some of the fantasy giants of yesteryear, and move on.
Create a deeper system or helpful inspiration/advice for the players who really want to go full role-playing that inspires them to create nuanced characters and not just 5 characters to fill all the mmo roles in a dungeoneering squad.
Create fun archetypes that encourage role-playing and fun conflict but that have distinct game-mechanical impact for the players who really just want a boardgame with fun dialogue and theatre of mind combat.

>>51823213
You're just made because Lord Baatus, The Ever Ram, won the election.

>>51823306
Just because someone is selfish, doesn't mean that they actively harm society. This is why libertarians think libertarianism could work. The two are often associated but not necessarily.
A really selfish person wouldn't subscribe to an agenda with a goal of harming some people, because that usually means having to invest unnecessary effort into it that could be spent making yourself more comfortable, and it could attract the negative attention of people.
They will also neither be lawful or chaotic, because they wouldn't risk actually coming in conflict with the law, but they will gladly try and circumvent them if they think they can get away with it.

Selfish here, basically means principle-less.
That's more evil than most people but less evil than it could possibly be.

Meanwhile selfless true neutrals have principles and think that them not being involved in any of this shit serves society better. Or they are just too dumb to think for themselves.

>>51823400
What? No that's a very old page. I'm mad because of the gigantic "Im with her" banner on XKCD even when it was obvious what sort of shit hillary was involved in with donations and the dnc.

>>51823349
I don't know about the recent editions of DnD but in golarion, the two axis are used for the basic cosmogony of the planes since both hell and heaven got a lawful and a chaotic variant on top of accomodating the planes of law and chaos from Moorcock.
So if you go planar, the alignment system is basically geography. Nothing to do with comportement.
>>51823184
this is shit, once again introducing selfishness wich is about comportement is irrelevent in a context of affiliation

>>51810697
Having only read Eyes of the Overworld, there's nothing 'neutral' about Cugel. He fits OD&D's definition of chaotic to a tee.

>>51823306
>>51823404
To address some issues:
Most people in reality would never fall into the extreme evil corner, because there are very few psychos who actually know they're doing evil and like it.
And what people's intentions are does count for something when judging them. Hitler legitimately thought he was doing good, so he can't be on the furthest corner. Stalin was very selfish, so he can't either.

Meawhile in fantasy, people like the Joker exist, who are completely selfless and just want as much evil and chaotic shit to happen as possible, but he is inefficient in his evilness, because he's also chaotic.

>>51823450
It is not though.
The moral choices a person makes depend to a great degree on whether they only care about themselves, care about society, or care about others exclusively.
A selfish person would make a different choice in a trolley dilemma than a selfless person, or at least the decision would be influenced by it.
Same with an evil and a good person.
Same with a chaotic and a lawful person.

also
>>51823450
>>51823404
>>51823306
A selfish person often does some good, because he wants recognition from others

>>51822556
If these arguments are started because people are NOT reading what it says in the books, then yes, they are objectively wrong.
The dmg of any edition of D&D will outright destroy most of the arguments made in these threads, and the few that do not are the people who are deliberately misleading or hedging on logical/grammatical fallacies to buttress them, which are also wrong.
Yes, anon, you can be objectively wrong about something on the internet, and no amount of shitflinging or 4chan REEEE'ing changes that.

>>51823425
That strip was kinda' disappointing, but it's a island.
The ones preceding and proceeding are not political.

>>51823484

He's chaotic in his general selfish behavior, but he's not Chaotic in the way that Elric is. He doesn't play for Arioch's team, as it were. (Poor old Elric tries not to, either, but it sure ain't easy)

>>51822870
>you're still using it to talk about comportement
In terms of pcs and most beings on the Material Plane, it is BOTH, and you are the one who is treating it like one or another.
Divinely inspired class routes and outsiders are the ones where affiliation matters most, and neither even applies in say, 4e, where alignment is entirely a descriptor of behavior for mortals.

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>>51823510
>The moral choices a person makes depend to a great degree on whether they only care about themselves, care about society, or care about others exclusively.
>A selfish person would make a different choice in a trolley dilemma than a selfless person, or at least the decision would be influenced by it.
>Same with an evil and a good person.
>Same with a chaotic and a lawful person.
It is NOT about the choices of a person, it's about her affiliation. The concept of alignment isn't swayed much by psychology.
Killing abyssians is a lawful act, even if done by a raging barbarian motivated by frustration.
All the problem with the alignment system comes from people misusing it to represent comportement while this ISN'T NEEDED. Comportement is reflected through your ACTIONS.
Alignment is about your race and/or appartenance to an order/faction/tradition. It is an inherent quality that governs the shape of the planes.

>>51823567
>everyone who doesn't agree exactly with D&D does it wrong

nice job proving his point

>>51823670
Not in d&d it isn't.

D&D =/= eternal champion.

If alignments are factions, what does these factions want? What are their objectives?

>>51823670
Yes and haggling for more money for yourself is a selfish act, while accepting the first offer is a selfless act.
Killing someone to save yourself is a selfish act, while killing yourself to save someone else is a selfless act, and you can't call either of these lawful or chaotic, because the law permits both, and you cannot call it good or bad, because the person you kill might be worth less to society than you.

>Alignment is about your race and/or appartenance to an order/faction/tradition. It is an inherent quality that governs the shape of the planes.
Yes and this is shit and people hate it, and don't want to use it for it.
That's it.
Nothing much to it.
People want categories to group the comportment of different people into and call it alignment, because there's no better word. That's all, and that's what i've given you.

If you want alignment as per the original definition the original system works.

>>51823567
>implying there isn't incredible inconsistency in all the various editions of dnd dmgs

>>51823567
These arguments arise because what's written in the books actively makes games worse, and people are hesitant to remove the subsystem without something to replace it.

>>51814651
>Trade in these broad, muddy terms, for explicit personality traits.
It's really this easy.

>>51823736

The spread of civilization, peace, and order, versus the spread of wilderness and struggle and strife of all against all.

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>>51823720
Works like that in pathfinder.
>>51823739
>>Alignment is about your race and/or appartenance to an order/faction/tradition. It is an inherent quality that governs the shape of the planes.
>Yes and this is shit and people hate it, and don't want to use it for it.
>People want categories to group the comportment of different people into and call it alignment, because there's no better word. That's all, and that's what i've given you.
But there is no need to group the comportement of characters. It serves no purpose in the story and it only serves a purpose in the mechanics because it did in the past when alignment meant something different.
The result is a bastardised concept that leads to stupid shit like "my character can't do kill that creature despite there being no alignment conflict or else I loose all class features".

I repeat if alignment isn't implemented in the cosmology of your setting IT IS USELESS AND IRRELEVANT.

>>51823870
>But there is no need to group the comportement of characters. It serves no purpose in the story and it only serves a purpose in the mechanics because it did in the past when alignment meant something different.
But it does.
It serves the purpose of knowing what a character is gonna do most likely, it serves to decide what factions they would join, it serves to decide what gods they worship.

new|alignment does serve a purpose and the old system is unfit for that purpose
old|alignment as in the racial inherent trait, has less of a purpose, because it's either really damn shallow and non immersive, or the behavior doesn't match the individual's alignment

>>51823711
You have really said nothing here, save trying to imply that we aren't talking about D&D (we are, because no one uses D&D style alignments except D&D and OGL games).
You are the kind of shitposter I was talking about, so nice job proving my point that the only reason these threads exist is because people like you make them.
>>51823741
They all have the same basic descriptions of what alignments are. How they are applied does change in the settings, but not in the basic description.
>What is that, Anon? Someone deliberating misleading and misinterpreting the book to push a alignment argument?
Try again, please.
>>51823748
>actively makes games worse
Only with people like you, it seems, who don't know how alignments work and when they apply.
Perhaps if you did it the way the book instructed, and not the way your autism demands you think it does, you would not problems?
I'll throw you a bone. Give me one of these insurmountable issues that only makes the game worse, and I guarantee it is because you are
A: Applying alignments wrong
B: Attempting to use subjective opinion of alignments compared to objective fact, the way they are supposed to be applied (Eberron is a noted break from this, using subjective application of alliance, as is Ravenloft and Dark Sun)
C: You are attempting to use fallacies and obvious edge cases in a poor attempt to discredit a system intentionally broad to encompass a number of ideals and to facilitate having the DM do his job rather than be bludgeoned with rules.
Come on, I have 10 minutes.

>>51823926
>It serves the purpose of knowing what a character is gonna do most likely, it serves to decide what factions they would join, it serves to decide what gods they worship.
You can get that by witnessing their actions or at the very debut of a character by hearing his abridged backstory. Reducing it all to two words is only gonna weaken the substance and make it prone to arguments.
new|alignment serves badly a purpose we have good and easy ways to fulfill
old|alignment may not be immersive but that's because it's not supposed to influencer oleplay much, it's a fucking gameplay mechanic just like your goddamn saving throws.
It also serves a clear purpose: remove it and kytons, demons, devils and abyssians blend together in the same soup of bad monsters.

>>51824015
Players reading alignments, taking the book definitions as rules that need to be followed, and then pitching a fit when they're not.

Using detect *X* constantly to choose targets and kill them, then pitching a fit when they get arrested for murdering a shopkeep.

>>51824015
>implying a basic description can't be interpreted in a variety of ways
>implying there can be a single objective way to interpret things
>implying everyone else is wrong

You are the kind of dull, boring austistic shitheel who literally doesn't even understand the concept of fun or multiple viewpoints.

>>51824052
>witnessing their actions or at the very debut of a character by hearing his abridged backstory.
NPCs though
also NPC creation
also deities.
it makes no sense for a good god to even accept sacrifices from someone with evil actions, just because their innate racial alignment is something good
and if they are incapable of doing evil because of that the roleplaying is shit.

>remove it and kytons, demons, devils and abyssians blend together in the same soup of bad monsters.
not if you differentiate their actions based on new|alignment

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This is a simple, and therefore a personal favorite, take that I have so far.

>>51824015
>Perhaps if you did it the way the book instructed,
But that is shit.
That's what we're arguing, and to anyone with half a brain it should be obvious that judging characters by their SPECIES as good or bad with no overlap is FUCKING SHIT in terms of immersion.

>>51814569
>edgy weak sorcerer

Stopped reading there.

>>51824015
What an arrogant and incredibly inflated view of your own intelligence you must have

Never reply to me again

>>51824065
>Players reading alignments, taking the book definitions as rules that need to be followed, and then pitching a fit when they're not.
Shit players.
>Using detect *X* constantly to choose targets and kill them, then pitching a fit when they get arrested for murdering a shopkeep.
Shit players, also doing it entirely wrong.
In the editions where Detect X exists, humanoids don't even ping unless they are that fucking powerful (enough to be a threat to a populace), a divinely inspired class or a shapeshifted outsider.
What you have just done is shown me that you don't actually know the rules, but parrot /tg/ memes.
>>51824071
>implying that the core book's definition of something isn't what should be cleaved to, and anything different should not be discussed for individual games
Your "multiple viewpoints" is a smokescreen and little else, anon, because you are trying to hide the fact that your argument is based on not what is in print, but your desire to buck the rules and propagate the shitty argument.
>>51824155
So when is the last time you read one of the books?
Y'know, where it takes outsiders to be "always X" and no, just because something pings evil does not give you the right to unilaterally slay it and crow righteousness?
It's hard to take you seriously when what you are talking about is the internet's version of how alignments work and should inform on your actions, not the other way around.
>>51824211
Try to use your opinion less when confronted with facts, anon. You aren't the US gov't.

>>51824199

Hey, he shouldn't be blamed for the flanderisations of himself.

>>51824211
>Never reply to me again
I don't understand this meme.

Is it meant to be funny? Why?

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>>51820215
>Dwarves can't be barbarians

>>51824178
>>51824145
The problem here is, that someone who is selfish will often do good things, because of the expected recompense.
And someone who is selfish will rarely do really evil things, because the backlash could be negative for them.

>>51824243
>and no, just because something pings evil does not give you the right to unilaterally slay it and crow righteousness?
I haven't read old DnD, but it seemed from what i read about it that it was exactly like you said. Some species are born evil and will be evil no matter what.
Because this is shit for immersion new version relax the rules more and more, so it's more applied to actual actions and motivations and not just the ultimate outcome for the balance of the species.
And for that the old system doesn't work

>>51817637

how about you define what your character likes, and what he dislikes, what his ideals are, who his enemies are, and what his moral position is

and then you estimate where you think that would fall on an alignment system

>>51824243
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/detectEvil.htm
Even an evil cr1 commoner pings as evil.

>>51824129
Do your GM gives you the alignment of every NPC you come about?
Weren't you the one talking about old|alignement not being immersive?
Or is it about the detect align spells so you can have a meaningless and misleading insight on a character's personality?
>>51824297
if you wanna circumvent racial alignment you use your backstory (ie: dwarf raised by bears). And of course you don't pick a race that's dfined by it's affiliation to a god (like drows).

>>51823213
>>51823425
Do you really think that a guy who's all about science and education would go with the fucking retard that put a retarded jew-cucked Christian retard woman in charge of education?

>>51824325
I prefer this for the good evil axis

Good: willing to risk harm to yourself and your goals to help others.
Evil: willing to risk harm to others (including friends and family) to help yourself and further your goals.
Neutral: willing to risk harm to yourself and your goals for friends and family, possibly willing to risk harm to strangers for yourself, friends and family, and goals.

>>51823776
My favorite system does something like this.
The players can take drawbacks worth a number of points in character creation.

The drawbacks can be personality traits both good and "evil" that interfere with the character's ability to do what they want. Stuff that comes up more often and is a more powerful compulsion to resist is worth more points.

It can be stuff like "Will not hit a woman" or "Greedy" "Compulsive Gambler" or "Megalomaniacal". They do a lot to define the character and their motivations without having to deal with absolutes.

>>51824344
>Do your GM gives you the alignment of every NPC you come about?
No but i'm also thinking about the GM.
Making small NPC and deciding their actions is easier if you have a two letter description of their alignment

Detect alignment spells are also incredibly useful.
If someone is mostly selfish, we won't trust him to give us a really good deal.
If someone is lawful first and good second, i wouldn't trust him to understand that my character had no choice but to follow what the evil guy wanted, because my family was threatened.
etc
etc

>>51824380
rather than with someone who is objectively rationally speaking the worst possible candidate to have in the current global situation, yes.

>>51824400
You didn't read what i wrote then.

>The problem here is, that someone who is selfish will often do good things, because of the expected recompense.
>And someone who is selfish will rarely do really evil things, because the backlash could be negative for them.

Neither of these can be represented on that axis, despite the outcomes being radically different.

>>51810082
By not giving it mechanical interactions and not treating it as something exhaustingly prescriptive.

>>51824437
>Neither of these can be represented on that axis, despite the outcomes being radically different.
That sort of get's into Kantian Duty Based ethics and other moral debates that are hard to represent in a simple good vs evil spectrum.

If you do have a Good vs Evil dynamic in the game. You have to gloss over grey areas for it to work well.

>>51824437
I'm done arguing if you think a two word system is less confusing to use to remember a character than trying to describe him in 4~6 adjectives crammed into small sentences.
If it works for you, more power to you.

>>51822027
Breaking abilities and items that key off alignment.

>>51821497

I think this thread and every other like it have proven that.

>>51824145
I personally prefer to define the moral axis thus:

Good people are willing to sacrifice for people outside their family/friend unit.
Neutral people aren't willing to sacrifice significantly for people outside their family/friends but neither are they willing to seriously harm them.
Evil people are willing to seriously harm people outside their family/friends.

I don't see Evil as precluding the ability to love individually or have family/friends you care about deeply. The moral axis regards how you treat people who have no reason to be personally important to you - whether or not you have such individuals in your life is a different matter. (A misanthropic hermit who nonetheless never fails to help a traveller in need is probably Good, and a mercenary raider who would happily rape and murder his way through a village for fun and profit but would also willingly sacrifice himself to protect his brothers-in-arms is still Evil.)

>>51824494
But it's not the gray areas.
You cannot represent true evil or true chaos on that axis.
Someone who's willing to sacrifice themselves, to cause suffering to others. And someone who's willing to sacrifice themselves just to bring about total anarchy.

It's also not possible to be super selfish when you're that evil, or that chaotic, because those grand plans WILL detract from your safety and pension plans.

>>51824504
It's that it's more mechanical.
More like a system.
You can actually have a generator built around my alignment system with adjectives applied based on where in the 3D shape they are.
You can't do that if the behavioral alignment is only described by some adjectives, and you have less clear rules for detect X spells with that too.

>>51824514
I don't know if this was shared with any other system in the d20 range but d20 Modern at least ditches the specific two-axis system and instead uses a system of "allegiances", where you list concepts or organisations your characters supports, ostensibly in order of preference. Good, Evil, Law and Chaos are given as examples of concepts a character might ally to - meaning of course the same thing as they do in D&D but without a mandatory "you must pick one of these things!" implication. I'm firmly of the camp that most people and most characters should really be neutral according to D&D's alignment system.

>>51824560
But behavior is the part of the roleplaying game that is beyond the grasp of the rules or else you should be playing a text adventure.
>and you have less clear rules for detect X spells with that too.
no you don't, with old|alignment your aligment is clear and effects like detect ping exactly what is. With new|alignment, you get people arguing because a brainwashed NPC didn't ping as evil because he was sincere in his desire to do good by doing bad.

It's quite clear as defined by D&D 5e how alignment is interpreted.

Alignment is a combination of two factors: one identifies morality (good, evil, or neutral), and the other describes attitudes toward society and order (Iawful, chaotic, or neutral).

These brief summaries of the nine alignments
describe the typical behavior of a creature with that alignment. Individuals might vary significantly from that typical behavior, and few people are perfectly and consistently faithful to the precepts of their alignment.

Lawful Good creatures can be expected to do the right thing as expected by society.

Neutral Good creatures do the best they can to help others according to their needs.

Chaotic Good creatures act as their conscience directs, with little regard to what others expect.

Lawful Neutral creatures act in accordance with law, tradition, or personal codes.

Neutral creatures prefer to steer clear of moral questions and not take sides, doing what they deem best at the time.

Chaotic Neutral creatures follow their whims, holding their personal freedom above all else.

Lawful Evil creatures methodically take what they want, within the limits of code, tradition. loyalty, and order.

Neutral Evil creatures do whatever they can get away with, without compassion or qualms.

Chaotic Evil creatures act with arbitrary violence, spurred by greed, hatred, or bloodlust.

>>51824636
>But behavior is the part of the roleplaying game that is beyond the grasp of the rules or else you should be playing a text adventure.
Well am i not?
A text adventure with more varied outcomes, and reactions to my input.
The point is not to have ALL BEHAVIOR be governed exclusively by those rules, but for example NPCs the players are unlikely to interact with can be rolled up with an alignment and detectX-d and have an altar to a specific god, very simply, without the DM having to come up with everything on the fly. This also avoids the DM potentially coming in conflict with himself if the PCs meet the same minor character again.
Major characters should have a more refined morality, but almost all possible courses of decisionmaking can be represented with my model.

It's the way the character replies to situations that's decided by alignment.

Also, no old|alignment is bad at that, because you wouldn't be able to detect evil from a good natured creature, even if it was about to burn down a village of orcs full of children, because orcs are evil so killing them is - in old|alignment terms - good, even if it's killing innocents, and the orcs would ping as evil despite them never having done anything to harm anyone.
Meanwhile new|alignment would allow you to see if the orcs were actually a threat, and if the person wanting to kill them knew that they weren't a threat. Because if they weren't and he knew, it and he still tried to kill them, he would ping as evil

>>51824763
Humans, dwarves, elves, and other humanoid
races can choose whether to follow the paths of good or evil, law or chaos. According to myth, the good-aligned gods who created these races gave them free will to choose their moral paths, knowing that good without free will is slavery.

The evil deities who created other races, though, made those races to serve them. Those races have strong inborn tendencies that match the nature of their gods. Most orcs share the violent, savage nature of the orc god, Gruumsh. and are thus inclined toward evil. Even if an orc chooses a good alignment, it struggles against its innate tendencies for its entire life.

Alignment is an essential part of the nature of
celestiaIs and fiends. A devil does not choose to be lawful evil, and it doesn't tend toward lawful evil, but
rather it is lawful evil in its essence. If it somehow
ceased to be lawful evil, it would cease to be a devil.

Most creatures that lack the capacity for rational thought do not have alignments-they are unaligned. Such a creature is incapable of making a moral or ethical choice and acts according to its bestial nature.

>>51824621
Since the abilities that key off alignments are exceptional things, like the ability to speak to a unicorn or wield a holy relic, it stands to reason those that are exceptional have an alignment that is more than neutral.

Neutral is for people, not heroes.

>>51824400
Including harming loved ones in evil alignment seems kinda dumb

Plenty of evil characters have loved ones they wouldn't hurt, even if this is ultimately selfish, as hurting loved ones would be hurting themselves.
Evil doesn't mean a psychopath who is incapable of feeling.

>>51820215

Dwarves are literal cavemen.

>>51810082
you don't use it

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>>51824860

>>51824818
Yes, yes it does.
And this is precisely why i added the axis of selfishness.
A selfless evil guy can be more evil than a selfish one caring about his and his loved ones safety.

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>>51817603

>>51824950
Then i'd rather just delete this arbitrary good/evil axis and just use the selfless/selfish one instead.

>>51825005
Yes, but that doesn't describe whether an action is done out of contempt for society, or love for it, or contempt for rule or love for them.

>>51810082
remind players that it isn't an end-all-be-all to their character's motivations and personality, rather just a sort of person they generally get along with or otherwise identify with philosophically.

>>51825045
Which neither your good/evil or selfish/selfless axes described in the first place.

>>51824950
I don't think "selfless" and "evil" are compatible. In D&D terms the good-evil axis seems to correspond pretty closely to altruistic-egoistic. If people include structure the world in terms of in-groups and out-groups, the former of which is to be protected and the latter to be exploited or destroyed, then that just points to a more hierarchically structured worldview (that is, Lawful) that is ultimately still selfish.

>>51825088
Good and evil axis is exactly that.

Good\Evil : net benefit for society|net loss for society
Chaos\Law : net decrease in order adherence|net increase in order adherence
Selfish\Selfless : net personal gain|net personal loss

>>51825128
>I don't think "selfless" and "evil" are compatible.
So what would you say to the evil necromancer, who sacrifices himself to resurrect a dark god, with no chance to rule over the dominion, knowing full well he will be consumed?

And what would you call a selfish greedy monarch, who rips off everyone and taxes their asses off (all without harming the people too much) suddenly building orphanages so his popularity will increase.

>>51825196
>So what would you say to the evil necromancer, who sacrifices himself to resurrect a dark god, with no chance to rule over the dominion, knowing full well he will be consumed?
Chaotic Evil.

>And what would you call a selfish greedy monarch, who rips off everyone and taxes their asses off (all without harming the people too much) suddenly building orphanages so his popularity will increase.
Lawful Neutral.

>>51824380

So he supports a candidate who advocates hordes of Muslims immigrating into Western countries. And is a feminist shill.

>>51825266
>Chaotic Evil.
The dark god is a lawful evil god though.

Lawful neutral could also be someone who holds all laws and never tries to trick anyone out of their money, because he doesn't care for personal gain.

>>51825196
>>51825266
I'd call both lawful evil.

>>51825316
But he's building an orphanage and thus benefiting society, and no one is hurt.
Meanwhile the other one is bringing about the death of millions, for no reason.

>>51825155
What do you even mean with net loss for society?
Harming others without care? Taking from everyone else and giving to yourself? How is that not selfish?

>>51825344
harming others isn't selfish, because if you harm others, then you'll face negativity from others, and unless you get off on being hated, that is a net loss for you.
taking from others for yourself IS selfish, but that's not the definition of evil, as you can take from others for yourself, to be able to do more good for example.

Intent, not action, is defined by alignment.

>>51825335
He's building orphanages for purely pragmatic reasons.
He cares about keeping himself in power for his own benefit and nothing else.
And don't tell me he's not harming anyone, he's forcibly taking their money, and more than he reasonably needs.

>>51825302
>The dark god is a lawful evil god though.
Oh yeah, I guess it could also make sense in a LE context. In that case it's probably less motivated by a misanthropic desire for ultimate destruction and more by the tenets of the cult and the role of sacrifice therein.

>Lawful neutral could also be someone who holds all laws and never tries to trick anyone out of their money, because he doesn't care for personal gain.
True, because alignments don't necessarily dictate a single mode of behaviour. I think adding an additional "selfish/selfless" axis is trying to put too specific a label on it, really. In the end good and evil largely comes down to helping or hurting people, in broad strokes.

>>51825379

That's a good way to do new alignment that fixes most everybody's problems with it. I still prefer the old alignment, though, where allegiance is the big thing that's defined by alignment.

>>51825344
>>51825316
Look at the mercenaries used by Bane in the dark knight.

"Have we started the fire?"
He sacrifices his life to watch the world burn.

>>51825395
It doesn't matter why he is building them it benefits society.
Intentions are just one side of the coin.

He is forcibly taking their money, but not so much that it harms their productivity, because a productive and reasonably happy kingdom can generate him more luxury, than an oppressed people in misery.
He isn't evil, because he isn't harming society, and because his main motivation is just himself, not to cause harm.

>>51825401
A cult? Who said anything about a cult? He communed with the hordes of hell to find a dark ruler for the world, and now he sacrificed himself to bring about death and misery for everyone.

>In the end good and evil largely comes down to helping or hurting people, in broad strokes.
True.
However you can differentiate between different ways of doing so.
Someone doing a shitton of good because he wants to bask in the glory and gain money and fame and be celebrated and trampling other good doers while doing is is different from someone doing just as much good, and just as much trampling competitors, but purely because they want to see the country flourish.
And your dealings with the two would be radically different.
You could trust one to do something even if you don't offer him money, meanwhile the other would most likely try to haggle the price up as much as he can without actually harming you.

>>51825366
>harming others isn't selfish, because if you harm others, then you'll face negativity from others
That's not really a rule, there are a million possible reasons why you wouldn't face negativity from others for harming people.

And you didn't answer my question.

>>51825515
A net loss for society is moving away from the ideal set of circumstances that would be with the most amount of people as happy as possible.

If your actions consciously help to bring this about, you're consciously doing good. If your actions unintentionally help to bring this about, you're doing unintentionally good.

>>51825513
>He is forcibly taking their money, but not so much that it harms their productivity, because a productive and reasonably happy kingdom can generate him more luxury, than an oppressed people in misery.
Yeah, because he's evil, not stupid, and prosperous servants are more useful than miserable ones.
>He isn't evil, because he isn't harming society, and because his main motivation is just himself, not to cause harm.
WHY would an evil character actively turn his kingdom into a shithole? This only makes sense if it happens as a consequence, such as of violently suppressing opposition, as a goal it just means a character is insane or stupid.

>>51825045
Oh, this argument. If you do something beneficial to others for reward or to gain something, just as rational long-term strategy, then that's neutral, not good. So, paradoxically, in good society everybody does some stuff for others, but never expect something in return, yet receive "gifts" anyway.

>>51810082
>When stupid post 4e-5e fucks don't know alignment is intentionally incorrect for a deep seated number of reasons involving the natural state of the universe pre-deities.

But to quickly sum it up
>Alignment system is a metaphysical set of laws that literally govern, influence, control and manipulate every sentient being in the wheel cosmology
>Good, Evil, and Neutrality are held up by total paragons of this system , and are literally the unwitting embodiment of these forces
>Chaos in D&D is not true chaos, if you knew dick about the abyss, Elder evil, and Thrazridun you'd know that the actual default state found in any other known reality is being completely undermined by this system, and these individuals all have the same goal of utterly destroying it to return to what amounts to "a world without the security and peace of afterlife, meaning and the like"
>This relates to an entire-franchise spanning subtext relating to the FUCKING GREAT OLD ONES BEING BANISHED BY THE COMBINATION OF THIS SYSTEM, THE CREATION OF THE DEITIES ON THE ASTRAL PLANE DUE TO FISSION CAUSED BY SHUB-NIGGURATH OR ONE OF IT'S OFFSPRING LEAVING BEHIND A RADIATION SIGNATURE AND THE INTERACTION OF WHAT IS BASICALLY "HUMANS COULDN'T STAND THE HELL OF BEING SLAVES TO ABOLETHS, LIZARD PEOPLE WHO FOLLOW YIG AND A FEW OTHER PRIMORDIAL RACES" AND THEIR SHEER FUCKING DESPAIR INTERACTED WITH THIS ASTRAL AFTERBIRTH SHIT ON A COLLECTIVE CONCIOUSSNESS PSIONIC LEVEL, CREATING THE FIRST DEITIES, WHICH FORWARD FROM THIS, EXPLAINS WHY EARLY DEITIES WERE CHAOTIC AND BATSHIT INSANE BEFORE THEY MELLOWED OUT

Ever Aberration, Far Realm outsider, and Abyssal entity being CE is because this happened, and it's why D&D has Elder Evils, and not "above and beyond" Great Old ones.

I bet you faggots didn't even know Graz'zt is the inbred son of Nyarlathotep fucking his mother by proxy, or that the Illithid are a third race made by the Elder Things that instigated the Shoggoth rebellion.

>>51825634
>he is evil
No he is not.
His actions do not result in a net loss for society.

>>51825634
>WHY would an evil character actively turn his kingdom into a shithole?
because that's what evil means.
Working against what is good.
And good is what is best for the most amount of people.
And yes, if you are truly evil, you are by definition insane.

>>51825644
>then that's neutral,
yes. but it's different types of neutral which should be distinguished, because you dealing with a neutral person who will accept whatever payment you give him because he doesn't care about himself, will be radically different from you dealing with a person who is neutral but will try to get as much money as possible out of you.

>>51825634
If being good is truly the best strategy then I guess we can just conclude that evil characters aren't all that smart.

>>51825712
This is true.
To be actually evil, you have to be insane.

This is why we consider GOOD to be GOOD, because we know that the rational thing for everyone to do is to be good, because if society benefits, in the end so do you, or your descendants.

>>51825712
>>51825707
Well i'm sorry if i don't want "evil" to mean "insane" in my games.
I'm tired of arguing with you utilitarian fucks and your stupid idea of good and evil, bye.

>>51814651
My group used the 100 alignment system. I rolled "Neurotic Good". She tried to do the right thing because she was terrified of the consequences if she didn't.

>>51825766
>I'm tired of arguing with you utilitarian fucks and your stupid idea of good and evil, bye.
This isn't about utilitarianism.
The definition of good and bad i'm using is the only one rationally justifiable and mostly objectively provable.

If you decide that you define good and evil differently you are objectively wrong.

>>51825797
>The definition of good and bad i'm using is the only one rationally justifiable and mostly objectively provable.
No it's not

>>51825766
I think it's perfectly possible for a king to be Lawful Evil and rule with an iron fist and not be insane, at least not by a clinical definition. But it would involve oppression and violence like a real-world dictatorship. Now some double-meta-machiavellian ploy to win the hearts and minds of the people by building orphanages and never being too hard on them so they'll never rebel.

>Muahaha! Another public park opened! And tomorrow I will go to the puppy shelter and adopt a whole litter! They'll never realise what an evil tyrant I truly am at heart!

>>51825758
If i steal and get away with it, i benefit and society doesn't.
So if i know for a fact that i can get away with it, i guess it would be rational to steal.

>>51825700
Oh wait, there's more:
>Due to the Yog-sothoth's entire nervous network getting ejected out, he no longer registers it as existing in the slightest, because you know, the gate sees all and knows all due to not being a part of the much-reality and is able to observe it from the outside, so if he doesn't know about it, it doesn't exist. Except le sneaky cosmci shapeshifting jude, who always knows
>All GOO's now exist under aliases, because as they are denied from the Wheel's reality, the significance of their entire being and their names, cannot exist under the Conditions provided in the D&D verse, and the GOO's and Outer Gods can only send in proxies, which, they later learn, become joking caracitures of their original selves AKA, Elder evils
>To add to insult, the memetic force of their passing creates other Elder evils, or copies if you will
>After the deities are born, they go about subverting every natural force under the sun, claiming it as their own because they know no better, (Read into how bloody simplistic and revolutionary the fucking creation myths go, Deities are hyper intelligent, but they pretty much lack wisdom in the practical sense, which is how things go down over there)
Also, there's a fucking Reason why Ghuanadaur's dogma Makes NO FUCKING Sense, because if he did, the alignment system would be stoke dead

The Abyss? Well if you know your demonology, you'd know the worst demons in any setting spawn from the horrors of the unknown in response to the fears of man, and that shit, in multiple settings is infact, enough to make a copy/imitation of GOO and wow would you look at that, the Abyss is actually stated to have an active will that alludes to the destruction of the universe the deities created, and aims to produce a demon that helps forward this quality! Nevermind the passive mention of some horrible feature that a Demon that lives too long might acheive! And this is only 1 of the attempts the GOO's made to get in

>>51825797
>>51825766
>>51825876

To elaborate on this.
-Everyone has different visions of what's good and bad
-So you make everyone sapient enough to define this for themselves, list every possible circumstance ranked from good to bad by their own definition. This gives you an objectively correct listing for each individual definition.
-You take these infinite lists and combine them into one, weighing for each circumstance both the position on individual lists, and how many lists put it at that position.
-Other things don't matter, since you have no reason yet to differentiate between the individuals.
-Now you have a list of circumstances where the most highly valued ones objectively fulfill the most definitions of "good" the most and the lowest ranking ones the least definition of "good" the most.
-So now, since you cannot have any circumstances better than what's on the good side, objectively, that side is objectively "GOOD". The other is objectively "BAD".
-So anything working towards bringing about objectively GOOD things is an objectively good action, anything working towards bringing about objectively BAD things is a bad action.

This ties in neatly into some other things:
-Morality is relative with time, because we can only make estimates as for the ultimate outcomes of any actions, so our ability to judge whether an action brings us closer to GOOD or BAD is limited.
-We are also limited by the fact that we don't know how others rank good and bad things, but we can use a shortcut: We are all sapients, and most desire to live, and most desire comfort. Etc.
This means that whatever is good for you, is most likely also good for others.
In other words: "Love thy neighbor as yourself."
Which is a principle found in pretty much all religions.

>>51825963
Shortsighted.
If you steal, then others will do the same because stealing will be the norm. That means the likelyhood of your shit being stolen increases.

>>51825963

But the universe is chaotic and the future can't be predicted precisely. Worse, the costs of getting caught doing that can be terrible. On the other hand, the benefits of being caught "anonymously" doing some good deed can be an immense boost for your status within that society, because you clearly weren't doing it for the approval of others.

>>51825966
Now to list a few things:
>Aboleths made by !Not Shub-niggurath from Fission
>Illithid are a third "Controller-race" made by the Elder Things from what is possibly sample tissue from Cthulhu's Star Spawn, when they arrived on their settlements to generally ruin their day, whom later, as the worm-Illithids developed Psionics, and Triggered Shoggoth sentient, forwarding the rebellion
>Later escaped and developed cerebromorphis, and became the Illithid

The abyss started with the Obrintyths, whom consist of
>Fucking Dagon
>The Pale Night, Mother of all demons, and oh wait, this is a fucking play on words of the Nameless Mist, the Outer god that made Nyarlathotep. and is the origin of Psuedonatural Creatures, which is a being taken from the Far Realm to suitor in the form of a registered creature of the wheel cosmology
>The Pale Night is the Mother of Graz'zt
The Father you ask?
Nyarlathotep's Elder Evil proxy, and this literally means he fucked his mother by proxy to make Graz'zt, and THIS is why he has THE EXTRA DIGITS
>Totally not a Shoggoth! Oh wait, HE'S FUCKING BASED ON THE OUTER GOD WHERE ALL FOUL THINGS COME FROM, THEY'RE NOT EVEN TRYING TO HIDE THIS SHIT AND WAS A PROXY FOR THE ONLY DEITY THAT DIDN'T MELLOW OUT SINCE THE ENTIRE CONCEPT OF THEIR CREATION CAME INTO BEING

Then we have the Far Realm, a Massive Planar Onion of ever-shifting layers of literally every enviromental hazard listed ever, and higher concentrated biological function which the Elder Evils Astrally/move throughout, where Pseudonatural creatures, Aberrations and Outsiders like to roam.

Lord almighty.

>>51826015
>If you steal, then others will do the same because stealing will be the norm. That means the likelyhood of your shit being stolen increases.
The gain from stealing is much greater than the supposedly increased risk of getting robbed.
In fact this increased risk would be minuscule if it even exists, one individual in a society of so many people hardly makes an impact. And depending on what or who you steal from they might not even realize.

>>51826025
>But the universe is chaotic and the future can't be predicted precisely
Being 100% risk averse isn't exactly rational.
>On the other hand, the benefits of being caught "anonymously" doing some good deed can be an immense boost for your status within that society
It might earn you sympathy but the concrete benefits are hardly comparable to stealing.

If clearly defined by the parameters of the game, personal views of what is good and evil doesn't matter.

Say you're playing a game where women cannot disobey their fathers/husbands. It is good to obey them, and evil to not. Despite your own personal ideas of the freedoms of women, in the game if you do not obey, you are doing evil.

This is clearly defined within the parameters of the game. That is all D&D's alignment is, It defined what is good and what is evil in the game's context. Personal opinion doesn't come into it.

>>51825700
>>51825966
>>51826137
This shit is bananas

>>51825700
>>51825966
>>51826137

Depends on the setting.

Alignment as a mechanic is setting agnostic.

>>51826142
>The gain from stealing is much greater than the supposedly increased risk of getting robbed.
true, but then again, stealing is not really all that evil, because the harm done is small, especially when no one realizes it.


>one individual in a society of so many people hardly makes an impact.
And if everyone thought this way then things would go downhill, but yes, i guess if you know that if everyone did what you did it would be shit, and you only steal without it being an enticing new opportunity for others, then yes you're not insane.

If you however live in a society where laws exist, you run a much greater risk of losing everything than what you can gain by stealing.

>>51826015
This fiction of combining all morality into one list never happened, never will, and we will never know the results.
And even if we somehow knew them, they wouldn't mean anything. You can't really extrapolate anything objective from these subjective lists of morals.

>>51826142
>Being 100% risk averse isn't exactly rational.

No, but a gambler knows that his luck always runs out sooner or later, and place his bets according to what will pay out the best in the long haul.

>It might earn you sympathy but the concrete benefits are hardly comparable to stealing.

On the contrary, social status can be more valuable than material wealth. A smart man can capitalize on public goodwill to acquire power, fame, and wealth.
That stolen wealth is even less valuable if you may get called on to explain the provenance of your ill-gotten gains by say, the IRS.

>>51826281
I'd really like to know a situation where good will from an act of goodness dramatically changed someone's social position.
People may admire it but it does not have the power to put someone in charge like violence or material wealth.

>>51826198
The alignment system isn't this great fucking paragon of morality, it's literally a behavioral Stereotyping system that fucking CONTROLS everything under it, except for Deities, who are fully capable of avoiding consequences this system causes.

Case in Point
>That shit Goylord Glittergold did with Kobold God
>Zarus/Pelor
>That faggot Elf God from the canon forgotten realms comics
>Why Lawful evil always sounds good till the real uncessary parts come in
>Why the whole series of concepts introduced by Lovecraft whenever written up in any D&D matieral in context of aberrations, Elder evil always seems to be watered down to "because they're evil"

And a WHOLE lot of other shit.

When you play the alignment system, make sure people's alignment actually hamper how they say and act, and balance it out between how one leans and meets the alignment, and if they're trying to be ambigious, they end up shafted, Case in Point, Wee Jas, who for all intents and purposes is only evil because she doesn't care if people live of die, and according to her DM entry, is so reasonable and QT you'd question why.

The active part about why I'm not fond of 4e-5e is because 1e-3.5 has an active series of flowing lore and content that was directly expalined in in-campaign events that went out the window in 4e, barring some fluff on the Far Realm and the fact that it seems someone didn't quite alltogther forget about Voidharrow.

You remember binders and Vestiges in 3.5?

Reading up on them, you'll notice they're made up of all the people who essentially got BTFO reality so hard they fell out of what the universe under subverted deity law could dictate, or if they can no longer be a part of said universe. For example, and Elf paladin to Blackguard that got sick of both sides of the spectrum and somehow got ejected after saying "fuck you" to both

Others?
Look up Otiax. That thing didn't come from the Inside, it came from the outside.

>>51826239
>And if everyone thought this way then things would go downhill
You know i'm not actually advocating this, just poking holes in this idea of morality.

>>51826382
>People may admire it but it does not have the power to put someone in charge like violence or material wealth.

You're kidding, right? Before the days of realpolitik and big money elections in the 20th century, the best way to get into local politics was to get known in your community as a good man, like a philanthropist. Crooks did it constantly, setting up soup kitchens and shit was de rigeur if you wanted to get elected to something. If you did it anonymously only to get "found out" later by the newspapers, all the better.

>>51826266
>This fiction of combining all morality into one list never happened, never will, and we will never know the results.
It is the thought experiment.
We have to estimate what would be in that list and i gave you the idea of how to do it according to thousands of years of human history in the end.

And no please read it again.
It is objective from start to finish.
Definitions arise subjectively and objectively the definition is correct with most people subscribe to.

>>51826406
Your issue is you think alignments are a straitjacket on actions, rather than how the character typically acts, and you seem to think that gross alignment shifts should happen due to a single act, as though everyone is a paladin.

>>51826445
Yes, but my point was that anyone actually doing that would have to somehow assume that others won't do it, which may be rational but one can never be sure, and also assume that he will evade punishment which is irrational.

>>51826406
BUT WAIT!

THERE'S MORE!

REMEMBER DEITIES AND THEIR FUCKING MAGICAL DOMAINS?
REMEMBER EVERY CATASTROPHIC EVENT THAT OCCURS WHEN A DEITY SNUFFS IT?

YA EVER FUCKING WONDER IF THE MASS FLOODS CAUSED BY OH I DON'T KNOW A FUCKING WATER GOD DYING IS BECAUSE THE WATER GOD DIES? OR BECAUSE THE HALF OF REALITY IT GOVERNS AND SUBVERTS IS RETURNING TO NATURAL DISCOURSE, I.E DEITY PREVENTS FLOODING OF VILLAGE GETS FAITH AND WORSHIP BUT THE FAGGOT GOD DIDN'T ACTUALLY MAKE ANY IN-DEPTH CHANGES TO YOU KNOW, EVERY SCIENTIFIC METHOD POSSIBLE TO PREVENT THE FLOOD TO A MORE DETAILED DEGREE DESPITE USING IT'S POWER TO PREVENT THE FLOOD WITH THE WONDERS OF THE WEAVE MAGIC?

To mortals, that's an argument of the God's control, influence and importance in the world! To someone with a head on their shoulders, that's because God's are literally extortioners of faith keeping all races in a perpetual cycle of stagnation and denial of cruel reality, because, that is literally the ground zero reason for their creation in the first place, because man could not handle space tentacles, and thus sacrificed his own individuality for metaphysical gobbdygook.

>>51826524
Son, you need mo' fluff in yo diet. In multiple commentaries they've mentioned what makes an alignment owner the one it ascribes to.

>>51826524
No, his issue is that he's trying to define alignment as something of a metanarrative that transcends edition and setting.

While a cool idea, it's ultimately and totally irrelevant if someone doesn't want to use it, and it's quite irrelevant with 5e's turn towards a setting agnostic game.

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>>51826597
Also, Tharizduun is the ONLY Deity to figure this meta shit out, and tried to end the universe to escape it.

he- Succeeded in a parallel reality created by the sheer magnitude of his endgame scheme, and shed his fucking divinity, becoming a Great Old One, in the realm of Voidharrow, which was still a part of 4e where they established the Sharn as the only remaining evidence of him pulling this shit off

Anyhow, gonna be dumping some stuff.

>>51826511
You cannot create objectivity from subjectivity.
It doesn't matter how many "subjectivities" you use

>>51826819
Technically you can. >>51826165

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The Grand Aboleth, post into modern day setting wasn't entirely retconned, and still had a presence in D&D being the Paragon of the Aboleth Species, it as large as a City referred to as the "Eldes"t, and besides the removal of the varied sub-species of Aboleths and their roles in society, the use of Savant Aboleths remained, as their replacements, with the same Modus operandi of gather slaves to take back to your cities as they always had.

But, in effect, the Aboleth are what amounts to D&D's equivalent of Deep ones

Now, before I continue, the entirely of this GOO Lovecraft D&D stuff literally started when they couldn't actually get the rights to Lovecraft n D&D, and THEY REMAINED BUTTHURT ABOUT IT EVER SINCE.

There is literally an entire Dragon magazine article on how much of this shit they fucking put into this franchise on this crap, and they've been doing it for ages, and, since the drive to compete with PF, have rewrote their shit in favour of this, neverminf what you can find in Elder Evils and Lords of madness respectively, or a wide degree of notable creatures in the Monster manuals around 3.5 4e-5e also followed on by making this even more loose with Warlock Star Pacts and the addition of so many Elder Evils I've lost count at this point.

Also, Illithestine, the Illithid God? Read up on what the grand aim of the Elder brains is, they're literally trying to mantle Yog-sothoth unwittingly, I guess not even the Elder things can write Out Cthulu's all encompassing genome control.

>>51826850
You're just saying the game subscribes to a particular subjective parameter. This is fine.
But it's still not an objective value.

>>51823086
>How are we going to differentiate between devils and demons without two axis?
Devils are LAW, Demons are CHAOS.
Or don't differentiate them, just parcel them all into CHAOS.
CHAOS loves itself some infighting.

>And also the positive/negative energy duality that's fundamental to clerics and paladins is different from the law/chaos duality.
It very definitely was not different at first.
Or even a thing at first.

Clerics of LAW (read: church militants, or vampire hunters) can hold back, scare, or outright destroy undead/demons by invoking their Patron.
Clerics of CHAOS (read: cultists) can compel or control undead/demons by invoking their Patron.
That was nothing to do with positive/negative energy.

A Cleric of LAW turns a Mummy (tied to the positive energy plane) just the same as they do a Ghoul (tied to the negative energy plane) or a Type IV Demon (not tied to an energy plane).

>Although you're right we should replace good/evil by light/dark it fits better.
>replacing a 2nd axis with a 2nd axis
Listen to yourself, dude.

>>51826885
No. i'm saying it's objective what good and evil is in the context of the game.

Don't twist words faggot.

>>51826819
You can if you're talking about definitions.
An objectively correct definition is the one most people choose. This is how human language works.

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Then, there's the Mooncalf, the only cosmic horror offsping that had the capacity to escape the shafting to CE and remained NE, and was actually such a debated concept they published a fucking DM entry for simply put: "Fuck it, we don't know where to put this." it is also notably, probably Star spawn, but looks closer to some Terraria shit.

>>51826930
That's not what you were arguing for before.
Though i guess that might not have been you.

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>>51827061

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>>51826735
3.5's mention

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>"Open the Far Realm you faggot. DO IT!"

>>51827085
It wasn't. I was the anon that initially brought up the idea of alignment is defined by the game.

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>>51827419

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>>51827451

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Reading on the Aboleth Elder Evils, they blatantly state Yog-Sothoth is pretty much banished and is the black space between the stars to act as a reminder of what once, was, even if he's under another name.

>>51813676
Dude, he's obviously clear cut Lawful Good as fuck

>>51820266
They'll stick it in your butt when you aren't paying attention

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As for furthered references if you wanna look into this more:
Elder Evils, Lords of Madness, the Illithad, the Only entry on the Far Realm in Dragon magazine, Ecology of the Aboleth, that one D&D adventure with the Illithid that takes over a town and fills it with pit fiends for a bit of insight on how Alienist cabals operate, Graz'zts Dragon magazine article, Dresmscape and stuff on the plane of dreams and nightmares as it relates to the far realm with the concepts of Dream larvae, Fiend Folio, Dagon's DM entry, those 2 4e adventures revolving around the Far Realm, DM's Ecology of the Kaorti, The DM entry on Shogarathot, the Alienist in Complete magic, Play and under stand the videogame Bloodborne and read Lovecraft's From Beyond to get how this interellates with the Astral plane Psionic projection shit in D&D, a number of Binder vestiges, the mention of deities being made from something passing the Astral sea in like, 1 or two sources Scholars mention, the stuff on Astrology, which is a clusterfuck, Savage species, that fucking mineral eating monster which is basically Dark Young of Shub-niggurath, Ghaunadaour from the Guides to faerun, Origins of Juiblex "Namely the one where it's made to sound like he's a veteran shoggoth from another dimension that was in the war, unlike they gary gygax one where he was a god that syphathzied with the Demons and got demoted because of it.

Oh right- I should also mention~

What do you think occurs if a Ulitharid larvae is placed in a Psionic Half-drago host for Cerebromorphis?

Also, Beholders don't fucking matter at all, they cannot even function without weave magic, they just up and die, don't bother with them, they're a local threat, unless they're half-farspawn Beholders, mentioned in a web-enhancement.

>>51820266
Elves have chaotic hearts. They are driven by wanderlust, and master few things despite their long age because they suffer ennui easily.

>>51810082
Read it.

Use it correctly.

Enjoy it.

Why won't this idiotic meme ever die?

There is nothing wrong with alignment. It's a game. Play it, play something else, who gives a fuck.

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It's honestly extremely simple, if you want to keep the 3x3 chart most people use.

Turn the Good/Neutral/Evil alignment into Selfless/Neutral/Selfish instead, keep Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic, and make it malleable. Encourage DMs to change a character's alignment when act out of it's subset often enough, and encourage players to change their own alignment when it becomes obvious they need to.

Most importantly, make it clear that actions determine alignment, not that alignment determines action. Sure, you may be called Lawful Good, but do enough lawless actions and you'll be branded to Neutral Good, continue pushing that border and you'll be Chaotic Good.

>>51824818
>Plenty of evil characters have loved ones they wouldn't hurt

Yes, but no one is expected to be a perfect paragon of their alignment, with the exception of creatures literally composed out of it (demons, modrons, etc).

How would you align a generally good natured man struggling with extreme urges to kill but does everything in his power to hold back these urges?

>>51829160
Lawful Neutral.

He tries to stick to his personal creed of "lets not be a serial killer," but struggles, so it's mixed.

Either that or make two alignments, Lawful Good for non-urged, Chaotic Evil for when the urges take over. But that seems a little Jekyll/Hyde like for me.

Remove it. All you need is three definitive character traits - two strengths and one flaw. The rest of the character builds through play.

>>51820104
Mind sharing?

>>51810697
fpbp

>>51814606
>It's another 'Americans hear Moorcock and giggle like schoolgirls' thread.

It's a bird name.

>>51822748
That's the argument they make for gun control and guns per capita are safer than cars.

>>51817753
I like you. I also agree with you.

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I want to make an orc or dwarf or something that's part of a clan that focuses entirely on granting others glory. Like they live and die without sense of identity so that they can help someone become a legend. They just latch onto the first impressive/ambitious person or group they find and help them out, throwing their life at whatever problem they need to.

He'd be true neutral, right?

>>51813726
>you can just change Smite to extra damage against demons, and detect evil to detect demons.

But previous editions of D&D had waaay more malevolent spirits/aliens/monsters than just demons and devils. Ifrit, all kinds of undead, Rakshasas, many so it was just easier to say you smite evil stuff.

Although 5e did simplify things by lumping all malevolent extra-planar creatures under the "fiend" descriptor.

>>51814210
>I think of it like a cop. Whatever his opinion on the law is, it's his creed to enforce it, no matter what.

But considering how many stories there are about cops and other law enforcement agents who break multiple laws in pursuit of "true justice" and just as many cops that exploit the system to do stuff they know they shouldn't be able to do...

>>51826382
>I'd really like to know a situation where good will from an act of goodness dramatically changed someone's social position.

You know that the reason that Favela gangs, Yakuza, Al Queda, the Viet Kong, Hezbollah and other such organizations get as much local support as they do is because they have the habit of generating some degree of good will.

Sure they may violently put down those who oppose them, but they're also organized enough to patrol the streets for petty crime, provide goods and services that may be hard to come by, and often run stuff like schools, orphanages, hospitals, etc.

And the people in these organizations tend to be locals of similar socio-religious-ethnic background and fight against the "other".

Such powers often take hold when existing societal structures break down and can no longer provide for a people, or when the people feel the powers that be are oppressing them or hellbent on destroying them.

>>51813832
>And what's the point of putting in a system that arbitrarily classifies your actions?
Classifying your actions.

>>51832054

And what's the point of classifying your actions?

>>51814210
That's a terrible idea because cops waive the law daily.

>>51821660
Who the fuck uses swanmays?

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>>51832174

>>51823741
Which is irrelevant, the only alignment rules that matter are the rules of the edition you are currently playing. Using 2E's alignment section to debate a topic for a 3E game is fucking retarded.

>>51832246

So are these "alignment is a terrible system you guys" and their related "how do I force a paladin to fall" threads, but we keep making those too.

>>51826198
B-a-n-a-n-a-s

>>51832296
But alignment is a terrible system you guys.

>>51810082
By taking your dick out of the system OP, stop fucking imaginary systems.

Dont think about it too much. Dont try to define stuff too much and just be kinda fast and loose about it.