Player Alignments

[TigerStripedDog]

You may have a wide array of experience in gaming both from a DMs and Players standpoint, but to say that someone is wrong just because you've never seen a problem with the system is frankly insulting.

Well I certainly never meant to be insulting IL. Remember that this is a place for feedback. And remember that I have seen problems with alignment, both in my group and in other groups. That said, those problems are always with the players and the DM.

Keep in mind, that pretty much implies that both myself as a player and DM have had these problems, personally.

So if I was insulting you, I was insulting myself too.

The point I was tring to make was that these problems can be corrected, they can be worked on. You have a golden opportunity here to step back, identify the RP inconsistencies, and fix them.

OR, you can change alignment. You have to take the penalty sure... but after that you're good to go. I have had players who I have thought about changing alignments on... I truly have. But if I did have that happen, I would take the penalty, thats all, and from that point forward attempt to play with consistency for the alignment i have fixed myself with.

To say she is possibly evil is well... I just can't see you can say that about someone you don't know, based on a few words.

Firstly she's a friend of mine, so I'm bias, I haven't played in a game with her but she's told me the things she's done. I'd actually consider her to be just like GK's example: Robin Hood!

I would consider her to be CG with Neutral Tendencies.

Again, I meant no insult here. I don't know Katten. And she seems like a pleasant enough poster. Perhaps she's a great friend too (you did come to her defense after all).

But what she described sounds evil to me. More than anything else its the "my viewpoint" aspect of it. Keep in mind that evil people don't usually think of themselves as evil. They justify what they do, claiming that they have moral relevance... a sort of "I am the protagonist of my life story, so I must be good"... when really, you could be very evil.

Justifications are a way for us to take what is objectively evil and turn it into something subjectively neutral, or even good.

But again, moral relativity is something better saved for another topic.

And consider, I am going off of what SHE said, not some personal judgement. I don't know Katten, I couldn't accurately judge her even if I wanted to (I don't). Its no real business of mine what alignment she has, it was just a topic of conversation.


Tiger

[Ismaels-Legacy]

I thought you were talking about the character Katten, not the player. I may have misread that, but that was how I interpreted that whole scenario.

[Crimson-Kobold]

I disagree with most of this. Good aligned characters are those for whom the majority of motivations are towards a common good, and the majority of actions are towards good.

An Evil Character is one for whom the majority of interests and actions are for self interest, or the interest of evil parties (even if not necissarily for self gain although this is rare).

A chaotic character is one for whom the majority of decisions are unpredictable in terms of law, order, or consistency.

A Lawful character is one for whom the majority of decisions tend towards order, loyalty, stability, or consistency.

Neutral are those character for whom no more than 24% of their decisions are either lawful, chaotic, evil or good. Balance may or may not be a priority.

Um. Gotta agree with IL. That's just a different wording of what I said, save maybe for evil (what I can say, I prefer my evil to be more interesting then being selfish. Because of this, I would label someone like Jack Bauer from 24 as Evil because of his methods).

Actually, maybe in a vague manner, good as well, since doing something for the 'greater good' doesn't necessarily make you a good guy. Sometimes, only someone without limitations can make a choice needed to do what is needed for the greater good. If you know that saving person A will benefit society more then saving that bus of kids, you'll go and save person A. Kids? We can just make more of those. It's not hard. Bow-chicka-bow-wow. Oh yeeeeeeah.

Another example, I'll use Mass Effect 2. One mission, you are given a choice. Save the miners from an exploding refinery, or ignore them and catch the leader of one of the baddest gangs in the system, and end his reign for good. Saving the miners is the immediate good thing, but if you save them, you cannot stop the boss. His vileness will hurt countless others down the road, and YOU failed to STOP him. Kinda puts good and evil in a different light.

As for Lawful/Chaotic, I used more generalized terms, maybe, but loyality, stablity, consistency...those can all easily be seen as forms of order. Order doesn't have to mean the organized governing bodies. It's the most common application, but there are others. The way you describe chaotic is basically someone who does what they want, based on what feels right for them at the time. You need freedom to make such choices, hence why I used the term freedom.

So I don't think we're as different as you make it out to be.

On lying/cheating:

I'm a bit conflicted on this subject. On one hand, it makes perfect sense that lying and cheating fall under the Law/Chaos roof. But, on the other hand, the moviation undoubtably comes into play. You're either doing it to further yourself (to accomplish your own ends, and don't care who is hurt by them), or you're misleading someone on purpose, which conflicts with being honest, something I've generally associated with a good person.

I suppose in a way, it kinda falls under both, depending on the situation.

Does the lie send them on a time wasting, but otherwise harmless misadventure? Then I wouldn't see that as evil.

But....if you lie to them so that they walk into a trap, so that at least they waste time, at most they die from it, I would say that's evil, because the lie has placed sentient individuals in harms way. Whether or not you thought they could handle it is inmaterial. They could die from the trap. Hoping that they DO die just makes it that much more evil.

Which again makes me think to Mass Effect 2. There's a part where you can force a soldier to give incorrect recon data to his fellows. The Paragon path merely tells them that there's nothing to encounter, and to return to base. The Regenade path gives them coordinates that leads them into a pack of tube birthed and crazy Krogan, an almost certain death. I think that identifies the good/evil aspect of lying quite well.

[TigerStripedDog]

Um. Gotta agree with IL. That's just a different wording of what I said, save maybe for evil (what I can say, I prefer my evil to be more interesting then being selfish. Because of this, I would label someone like Jack Bauer from 24 as Evil because of his methods).

Actually, maybe in a vague manner, good as well, since doing something for the 'greater good' doesn't necessarily make you a good guy. Sometimes, only someone without limitations can make a choice needed to do what is needed for the greater good. If you know that saving person A will benefit society more then saving that bus of kids, you'll go and save person A. Kids? We can just make more of those. It's not hard. Bow-chicka-bow-wow. Oh yeeeeeeah.

Another example, I'll use Mass Effect 2. One mission, you are given a choice. Save the miners from an exploding refinery, or ignore them and catch the leader of one of the baddest gangs in the system, and end his reign for good. Saving the miners is the immediate good thing, but if you save them, you cannot stop the boss. His vileness will hurt countless others down the road, and YOU failed to STOP him. Kinda puts good and evil in a different light.

As for Lawful/Chaotic, I used more generalized terms, maybe, but loyality, stablity, consistency...those can all easily be seen as forms of order. Order doesn't have to mean the organized governing bodies. It's the most common application, but there are others. The way you describe chaotic is basically someone who does what they want, based on what feels right for them at the time. You need freedom to make such choices, hence why I used the term freedom.

So I don't think we're as different as you make it out to be.

Again, I agree that there are some similarities. But the differences were the key. I already talked about those in a response to IL, maybe you didn't read it. If you didn't, please refer back to that post.

I will say this, though, your example with the bus full of kids and the single person... lets call it the "Spiderman Quandry" is not valid as a moral argument. Either way, the hero risks him/herself to save a life. That is a good action. Just because we weigh it against a "greater" good doesn't make it any less good. Even if there are some selfish motivations that go along with the good action, its still good.

The hero saves an innocent life.

And in the example of Mass Effect 2 (played that mission btw), both actions are "good". Saving the miners is good, capturing the villain is good. There is the trick though that the miners are only in danger because of one of your teammates... but lets ignore that as it only complicates the matter.

In this situation, we see the difference between Law and Chaos. The chaotic individual swerves from the mission to save the lives of those in immediate danger. That wasn't the original mission, it wasn't the plan. It lets the villain (lawbreaker) go and leads to any number of horrible chaotic outcomes in the future.

The Lawful character makes a calculated judgement and sticks to the plan. They adhere to the order of things decided before, and understands that the outcome of a villain captured leads to a more orderly future, even if it is at the cost of the lives around him.

Now, this works for a pure alignment, and not a code of conduct of course. A PALADIN might have it within his/her ethos that inocents must be saved and protected at all costs above all else... well, moral quandry avoided for that character.

Both actions are "good". But the Law and Chaos there are the variables.

This is often the most common kind of quandry... at least in my observation of various DM's and groups. Where good and evil are the only outcomes either way, and its law and chaos that are decided. But it is very easy to think of counter examples.

Tiger

[Ismaels-Legacy]

I completely agree that both choices in the examples are "Good", but also, the Law/neutrality/chaos axis comes into play. Lawful Good characters SHOULD go for the trapped miners since they are in immediate danger, where as the crime boss is a preventative measure. Why do I say that? Because saving thew miners from immediate danger is RIGHT and JUST. If they are truly lawful, they will feel in their heart of hearts that the law will eventually catch up to the crime lord.

In that same scenario, a Chaotic Good character would likely go for the crime boss. Not always, but he's not going to have much of a moral quandary over the situation. He's more free to make the choice of the greater good. That said, he could very easily save the miners instead since his view of how situations should be handled is a little more fluid. I can see the chaotic good character pointing at others and saying "You, you and you, call the cops and grab a shovel! I'm going after the bad guy!"

A Neutral Good character is a little trickier. I would see this individual helping the miners until they are in a situation where they are able to help themselves, and THEN going after the crime boss, hoping to pick up the trail as fast as possible.

These aren't hard and fast rules, by any means, but my interpretation of the scenario. That doesn't mean that every player with characters of those alignments will behave in the same way, though.

[Crimson-Kobold]

I dunno. I have a hard time justifying leaving people to DIE would be acceptable.

With the ME2 example, it's not that you're letting the miners fend for themselves. You are condemning them to DEATH. You know they will not survive due to the circumstances leading to the scenario.

That's like saying Spider-man would let falling debris from his battle fall on some innocent bystanders because finishing the fight is more important then protecting people. We all know he'd NEVER do that. I'm not even sure the poster boy of anti heros, the Punisher, would even do that. Well, maybe. Hard to say. I don't read the Punisher much (he's just too hardcore for most of the Marvel setting....)

In my eyes, a good character does what is needed, but never knowingly at the cost of innocent lives. A neutral may weigh the options. An evil character knows the mission comes above all else, and must be completely, collateral damage or no.

Greater Good is a bit misleading, as the actions for the 'Greater Good' can often be downright nasty.

Like I said, my view on this is to make evil not necessarily the "bad guy", but rather the guy who is willing to do whatever it takes to win, whatever the cost. So that when you peek at the character sheet, and see the evil alignment, you can't automatically say "Bad guy. We have to fight this dude." I find that way of looking at it extremely narrow and not all that particuarly interesting.

In that same scenario, a Chaotic Good character would likely go for the crime boss. Not always, but he's not going to have much of a moral quandary over the situation. He's more free to make the choice of the greater good. That said, he could very easily save the miners instead since his view of how situations should be handled is a little more fluid. I can see the chaotic good character pointing at others and saying "You, you and you, call the cops and grab a shovel! I'm going after the bad guy!"

Well, that's different. You spliting your forces to attempt to accomplish two things at once. In that sense, yes, both would be good actions.

But, in the scenario presented, that wasn't an option. You either a) save the miners and miss the crime boss, or b) leave the miners to their deaths (There is no question that if you do not help, they will die) and catch the crime boss.

There wasn't room for splitting up the party at that point, namely because of the mechanics in the game (really, my characters were bad ass enough that I could have saved those folks single handedly! )

Now that I think of it, a better example to illustrate my point would be a downloaded quest from the first Mass Effect.

You face off against the terrorist behind the attack (which is to force a mining asteroid to crash into Terra Nova, a heavily populated human colony). He gives you a choice. If you let him go, he'll give you a chance to save the hostages. If you don't, he denotates the bomb in the room they are locked in.

You cannot do both (which is silly, since we have the most freakin' advanced warship in the navy hanging around, but that's a different issue). You either let him go and hope he can be stopped if he tries something like this again and save the hostages, or you put an end to his actions and ensure he cannot attempt another devastating attack like this at the cost of around half a dozen people.

Ensuring the innocents die, I won't say that's a good action The cost is just too high for the greater good. It's not even one I would be ok saying a neutral character would do. Really, it's a good option and an evil option, no middle ground.

Again, I agree that there are some similarities. But the differences were the key. I already talked about those in a response to IL, maybe you didn't read it. If you didn't, please refer back to that post.

Eh, we really didn't start to diverge until examples came in, save for a little bit on freedoms. But on the major subject of good and evil, I don't think we were really in a real disagrement until examples came up.

Even in your response to IL, the way you described it could still be applicable in the way I said it.

I don't think a Lawful character even has to value order... it may simply be that he or she is loyal, or used orderly methods in their good, evil, or neutral actions.

You suggest that Lawful characters don't have to value order, yet being loyal is a form of order. Orderly methods? Um. I don't think I need to comment on that one

I also don't think that to say that a neutral, lawful, or chaotic character views freedom differently is accurate. One may value freedom above all and still be lawful, if that character views freedom as an unalienable right of all people... you get the idea.

Order will need to encroach on Freedoms. You can't do what you want because you have a methodology to follow, be it as a staunch supporter of order of the land, or down to being loyal, or having a code you must follow. But in some form, you end up sarcificing freedoms for the ability to have a structured lifestyle.

For the tl;dr folks, Lawful=Restrictions. Chaotic=Freedoms.

[Wizard_of_Wumbo]

i think this arguement has now become a moral debate and a argument of what alignment covers what, the alignment system is a roleplaying tool, knda like trainning wheels you know? Its like "ok, now this is how you play as a champion of justice...got it?" and then eventually you can stop using it when you get a little more comfortable with roleplaying and being able to act as a seperate person.

Still pushing the whole "code of conduct" dealio!

[Jenara]

Agreed, posting now has become one view against another.
I truly feel there are some issues that no one will agree on exactly what they mean, its all down to your particular view or moral stance.

[Crimson-Kobold]

That's a good way to approach it. My main beef with alignments is that it attempts to shoehorn everyone into 9 catagories, when things are rarely that simple.

My approach on good and evil is, like I said, an attempt to make things not so clear cut, especially since those concepts are largely subjective.

[phindar]

As far as the Paladin's code of conduct goes, my personal view is to ask, "Could the characters on Law & Order get away with it?" Jack McCoy, Lennie Briscoe, for my money they're as close to a Paladin as you're going to get on network tv. There are other examples (Superman and Captain America get brought up a lot by my comic-reading friends) but you got ot go with what you know.

I agree that the "Greater Good" can be problematic. An evil act committed for the greater good is still an evil act. But on the other hand, a paladin who knowingly commits an evil act for the greater good is going to take the hit for that, but that paladin is also acting out of self-sacrifice, giving up their own powers and abilities for something else.

A lot of the time in D&D, there is a false choice of "Do you do the right thing and get rewarded for it, or do you do the wrong thing and get punished for it?" It's a choice, but not a very interesting one. Choices are more interesting when they cost something (although paladins are a bad example here, because it costs them so much).

Moral dilemnas are more engaging the other way. "Do you do the right thing even though it is more difficult and more costly, or do you do the wrong thing because it is easier?" That can be an interesting if tough choice for a principled character, but paladins usually don't get to make it because no matter how easy the wrong thing is, it's not going to be worth all their class abilities.

The trick, I think, with moral and ethical dilemnas in game is to make them interesting but not punishing, not "Damned if you do, damned if you don't." But that can be a fine line.

[Wizard_of_Wumbo]

its creepy just how many things can be related to and how many problems can be solved by "law and order"...

[garhkal]

As far as the Paladin's code of conduct goes, my personal view is to ask, "Could the characters on Law & Order get away with it?" Jack McCoy, Lennie Briscoe, for my money they're as close to a Paladin as you're going to get on network tv. .

I disagree, as there are many times we see them (and the cops) do things that to me are almost as criminal as what the criminals do. Such as blackmail people into testifying etc.

[phindar]

On Law & Order?

To be clear, I'm talking about the base show. The spin-offs, particularly L&O:CI, get into some pretty dodgy territory.

[TigerStripedDog]

I completely agree that both choices in the examples are "Good", but also, the Law/neutrality/chaos axis comes into play. Lawful Good characters SHOULD go for the trapped miners since they are in immediate danger, where as the crime boss is a preventative measure. Why do I say that? Because saving thew miners from immediate danger is RIGHT and JUST. If they are truly lawful, they will feel in their heart of hearts that the law will eventually catch up to the crime lord.

In that same scenario, a Chaotic Good character would likely go for the crime boss. Not always, but he's not going to have much of a moral quandary over the situation. He's more free to make the choice of the greater good. That said, he could very easily save the miners instead since his view of how situations should be handled is a little more fluid. I can see the chaotic good character pointing at others and saying "You, you and you, call the cops and grab a shovel! I'm going after the bad guy!"

I really think you have this backwards IL. MAYBE a Paladin would be the Lawful Good exception IF his code decreed that innocent lives must be saved at all time.

But think about Navy Seals. Assuming they are working for the good guys, and any of them value good (an assumption I know), given a mission they are going to COMPLETE the mission! Why? Becuase they realize that their mission is of greater importance than a few lives, innocent or no, and that good will be served by bringing a criminal to justice. By doing that, you prevent evil in the future in greater quantity than saving a few miners.

In this example, there is a plan. There is a goal. How is deviating from that plan, or goal MORE orderly. Isn't flying by the seat of your pants, and leaving the bad guy to go free (escaping the law) by far the more chaotic option?

I don't think a Lawful character even has to value order... it may simply be that he or she is loyal, or used orderly methods in their good, evil, or neutral actions.

You suggest that Lawful characters don't have to value order, yet being loyal is a form of order. Orderly methods? Um. I don't think I need to comment on that on

There is a HUGE difference there. You imply value, when I imply action. Why you do what you do vs what you do what you do are totally different!

A character may have lawful or orderly methods for any number of reasons... none of which have to be a moral value behind order.

That was the core difference between us. For me, Alignment should guide what you do, not necessarily why you do it. A Paladin is the best example. Maybe deep down he's Chaotic good. Maybe he hates the restrictive rules... but he realizes (via Int or Wis) that he can do the most good as a Paladin, and so follows the code. Here GOOD is the motivation, LAWFUL is merely a means.

My approach on good and evil is, like I said, an attempt to make things not so clear cut, especially since those concepts are largely subjective

I touched on this earlier. Whether or not Good and Evil are subjective (or relative) is a matter for debate. I would argue that they are not, that they are absolutes, and we merely justify ourselves through moral relativity to do that which is evil when we would believe ourselves Good. Thats the heart of many a Lawful Evil bad guy I have seen in so many movies, campaigns, and books. Maybe thats for another time.

As far as the Paladin's code of conduct goes, my personal view is to ask, "Could the characters on Law & Order get away with it?" Jack McCoy, Lennie Briscoe, for my money they're as close to a Paladin as you're going to get on network tv. There are other examples (Superman and Captain America get brought up a lot by my comic-reading friends) but you got ot go with what you know.

I agree that the "Greater Good" can be problematic. An evil act committed for the greater good is still an evil act. But on the other hand, a paladin who knowingly commits an evil act for the greater good is going to take the hit for that, but that paladin is also acting out of self-sacrifice, giving up their own powers and abilities for something else.

A lot of the time in D&D, there is a false choice of "Do you do the right thing and get rewarded for it, or do you do the wrong thing and get punished for it?" It's a choice, but not a very interesting one. Choices are more interesting when they cost something (although paladins are a bad example here, because it costs them so much).

Moral dilemnas are more engaging the other way. "Do you do the right thing even though it is more difficult and more costly, or do you do the wrong thing because it is easier?" That can be an interesting if tough choice for a principled character, but paladins usually don't get to make it because no matter how easy the wrong thing is, it's not going to be worth all their class abilities.

The trick, I think, with moral and ethical dilemnas in game is to make them interesting but not punishing, not "Damned if you do, damned if you don't." But that can be a fine line.

I agree with you completely. But is the issue of the Paladin REALLY an alignment thing? Isn't that more about his code of conduct?

Tiger

[Ismaels-Legacy]

I would say that Navy Seals would be considered Lawful Neutral. The mission is the ONLY thing. They may cause the least damage possible, but only if it's expedient.