Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Cobbler89]

This post is to collect D&D-style alignment charts for Dwarf Fortress. The thread is for taking the nature of the alignment chart too seriously (there's some great discussion down there, though).

I was initially indecisive about an image-hosting service, so Berserkenstein volunteered imgur (aside: wow, that is clean and easy); I'll post mine there till further notice, but if you want to post yours anywhere else, who cares...

Just let me know if you have one and I can add it to the collection here.

The original:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

!!SCIENCE!! edition:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Jervous's alternate take:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Rex_Nex]

Heh, nice

[Muffindog]

Very witty! Love the one with the noble the most The bastards must plot for months which is the worst possible mandate they can think of.

They shall be purged with a MAGMA BATH!

[PTTG??]

Chaotic Neutral:

LOOK! That guy who just had his foot chopped off! He dropped his sock! LET'S ROLL BOYS.

Neutral Evil:

Urist has been ecstatic lately. Urist has crafted an artifact lately. Urist has taken joy in slaughter lately. Urist has been saddened by the death of a child lately...

So yeah, these could be all of the alignments...

[NW_Kohaku]

Oddly enough, standard D&D-style alignment has Dwarves as Lawful, and Elves as Chaotic. 

... Of course, that's partly because the origin of the lawful/chaos alignment axis was actually something more like industrial revolution/pastoralism.

[Berserkenstein]

Why didn't you just post this as an image?

[Cobbler89]

Oddly enough, standard D&D-style alignment has Dwarves as Lawful, and Elves as Chaotic. 

... Of course, that's partly because the origin of the lawful/chaos alignment axis was actually something more like industrial revolution/pastoralism.

Fascinating; though it's also worth asking what relationship if any there is between D&D dwarves and elves and Dwarf Fortress dwarves and elves, but seeing as I'm more of picking up on a nerd meme than actually analyzing the origins maybe my take is somewhat misrepresented [EDIT] something of a  misrepresentation as well. I took it to be more useful in being able to separate villains who want to usher in disorderly destruction upon the world from villains who want to rule the world with an iron fist, and similarly to separate heroes who want to champion some ethical/moral ideal from heroes who want to muck up the rule of such an ironfisted badguy in the name of freedom (granted, still an ideal of sorts itself, which can be the difference between hero sorts and chaotic neutrals I would think), but I've never myself read whatever D&D material it comes from originally. At least, not yet.

Why didn't you just post this as an image?

The answer's in the larger-than-the-paragraph parenthetical to paragraph three on the DFFD listing. Admittedly it's a pretty crappy answer in some ways, but figuring out image-hosting sites just isn't a priority for me.

[snip]
So yeah, these could be all of the alignments...

Well, I'll admit I did have trouble placing some for sure, but I went with some simplifying assumptions such as "dwarves are basically goodguys when not driven to cruelty by the weirdness of their circumstances" (or, put it another way, dwarves' more evil tendencies seem to me a mere symptom of the sheer extremity of their chaotic streak).

[NW_Kohaku]

D&D takes the heaviest amount of "inspiration" they can take from Lord of the Rings as they can without outright plagiarism.  Lord of the Rings, meanwhile, was basically inspired by The ring of Nibelung. 

In it, the villain was a dwarf crafted an artifact ring that gave him the power of the gods in exchange for forswearing all positive emotions. 

The whole thing was an allegory for the Industrial Revolution, and the basic sentiment was that in exchange for industrial might, humanity was giving up its better instincts, what with all that child labor in the factories and tearing people away from their farms through dubious legal means to work in typhoid-choked cities and all. 

Dwarves, living in factory-caves and eating mushrooms were seen as a terrible way to live, whereas elves were seen as living an idyllic lifestyle at peace with nature...

Boy how times change. 

Likewise, Lord of the Rings came off with a very Lawful Evil versus Chaotic Good vibe, with the heroes being rangers and simple farming hobbits, while the villains were tyrants who industrially produced their orcish armies. 

Yet somehow, "lawful" is now seen as more heavily aligned with "good" now, to the point where "Law" and "Chaos" are basically used as stand-ins in games that want to use Good versus Evil (or just Evil versus slightly less obviously Evil). 

Personally, I blame the notion that paladins were somehow paragons of pure good, no matter how relentlessly their brand of "good" has been mocked for the change, although it may well just be the cultural zeitgeist.  Somehow individuality and personal freedom became associated with "acting recklessly and antisocially", whereas conformity became a virtue. 

[Dante3214]

Fascinating (not sarcasm)

[Cobbler89]

Hmm, I actually read a lot of Tolkien a while back, and while I'm aware of his views on the industrial revolution and the wild goose chase of human "progress" (and agree to a limited extent, but it's a lot more complicated than any of the cultural zeitgeist, unfortunately), I think you missed the bit where his dark-lord-opposing heroes ultimately are supposed to answer to some ancient ideal of some theoretically (if not always practically) lawful kingdom that was eventually derived from the forces of good sent to create the world in the first place, or something along those lines, in the whole attempt to see things as allegory for the culture in which they were created. Tolkien himself had people at the time saying it was an allegory for the World Wars and nuclear weaponry, which makes less sense than your own take, and he got pretty fed up with it and basically said he tried to write a story that was good in itself and had truths in it that applied to real life, not a story that was an imitation or allegory of anything. Granted, you're allowed to disagree with him if you want to; an author's not necessarily the be-all-end-all of his own work; but I do think Numenor and the exact nature of the old ideals Tolkien's heroes look back to does make the picture a little bigger. I also kinda liked the notion of the alignment chart precisely because it didn't have to be tied down to a cultural preference for associating chaotic and lawful with good and evil or the other way around, you're free to fill in all nine combinations; I could probably come up with examples of all nine in Tolkien if I thought back on it for a little while (it's been years since I actually read any of his work, though I was a fan I guess -- still kinda am in theory).

[Berserkenstein]

The answer's in the larger-than-the-paragraph parenthetical to paragraph three on the DFFD listing. Admittedly it's a pretty crappy answer in some ways, but figuring out image-hosting sites just isn't a priority for me.

The heck?  All you have to do is click a couple icons.  Use imgur click upload, pick your file, copy the bbcode and paste on the forums.  It's less complicated than uploading to DFFD, even though that's not even hard, and people can see what you are talking about right away just by clicking on this thread. 

[Cobbler89]

The heck?  All you have to do is click a couple icons.  Use imgur click upload, pick your file, copy the bbcode and paste on the forums.  It's less complicated than uploading to DFFD, even though that's not even hard, and people can see what you are talking about right away just by clicking on this thread. 

Ah, sweet, thanks! (Well, I didn't say it was hard once you pick an image site, I just said there were various reasons I haven't sorted through the options out there and settled on one like imgur... but hey, berate me for it if you want; I'll admit it's weird of me.) *modifies OP*

[loose nut]

The law and chaos axis in D&D doesn't come from Lord of the Rings – it comes from the Elric of Melnibone books, where there are gods of Law (which is close but not quite D&D's Lawful Good) and gods of Chaos (which are definitely D&D's Chaotic Evil).

[Cobbler89]

Also, for what it's worth, in Tolkien elves, dwarves, humans, hobbits and ents all seem to be basically good but theoretically corruptible (well, maybe the ents could only be destroyed, not corrupted; it's not totally clear there), and all are completely different in most other ways, from societal governance to what they give a darn about to which of the other races they like and dislike. I can supply examples if need be, but if it's enough to point it out I'd rather just get to bed. ;^)

[Jacob/Lee]

Heh, that's pretty nice.