Print

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

[PTTG??]

Can I say I like the basic good/evil chaotic/good system?

From the basic side, it's a simple, easy-to-adjudicate system that doesn't make assumptions about what the players believe. More deeply, it recognizes that any game system will fail to provide an clear and simple set of ethical categories- people have been trying for a millennia or two and haven't made much progress on that front, so it's probably not going to be solved in DnD. By accepting a self-admittedly cartoonish system, you can model mostly realistic characters well enough, and can make Tolkenesque elementally good PCs and fundamentally evil mooks because sometimes that's what you sat down intending to do.

When you intend to run more interesting political games, then the whole alignment system (and the attached parts of other systems, like the detect alignment spells...) can go away; it's not needed.

[misko27]

Can I say I like the basic good/evil chaotic/good system?

From the basic side, it's a simple, easy-to-adjudicate system that doesn't make assumptions about what the players believe. More deeply, it recognizes that any game system will fail to provide an clear and simple set of ethical categories- people have been trying for a millennia or two and haven't made much progress on that front, so it's probably not going to be solved in DnD. By accepting an self-admittedly cartoonish system, you can model mostly realistic characters well enough, and can make Tolkenesque elementally good PCs and fundamentally evil mooks because sometimes that's what you sat down intending to do.

When you intend to run more interesting political games, then the whole alignment system (and the attached parts of other systems, like the detect alignment spells...) can go away; it's not needed.

Yeah, I think this is more-or-less what I would go with. If you want to get philosophical, you can begin to question things as basic as whether evil even exists, or whether "good" is good, but none of that is really relevant to someone's desire to smite evil creatures with holy weapons. You can debate whether actions or intentions define morals, but that doesn't effect me being the overlord of all I survey. You can argue where the line is for transitions between alignments, but what if I just want to watch the world burn?

Moral ambiguity is everywhere in real life. But fantasy is by definition not real.

[Bohandas]

In the Planescape setting (and other settings that assume the Planescape multiverse) it actually makes sense for alignment to be a little bit inconsistent, as it is presumably - like all other outer planar matters - generated by the beliefs of living creatures, which don't always agree.

[BlackFlyme]

Alignments can muddle things if taken too seriously or if people have strict, inflexible views of how each alignment should work and argue with other players about it.

Once had a DM change a ninja's alignment from lawful evil to lawful neutral, because he wasn't evil enough. He followed his orders, which apparently an evil character wouldn't do. Apparently the ninja should have been sabotaging his master's orders and have been plotting to dethrone him and take his wealth/position.

I totally think a lawful evil character would be fine in that ninja's position, as he was getting rewards and favourable treatment due to his job. The whole "evil is an anathema to everything around them" cliche seems to come up a lot in D&D, in my experience.

I haven't been paying too much attention to this thread, I just thought that here would be more appropriate for this story than some other threads.

[kilakan]

I always just got my players to write up a short biography block that explains what about their character makes them the alignment they are.  If someone thinks they are evil because they do X. Y. and Z, than it doesn't really matter what someone else thinks of them.  In their opinion they are in fact evil. 

That's what I always took from the alignments in DnD/pathfinder and how it works with aligned gods.  You worship X god because you also believe your own soul lies within his overarching statement.  Whether that's good, evil, neutral or otherwise.  Sort of why Drow are CE but seem to lead a very lawful society, they themselve feel they are chaotic and whether an outsider can see law and order or not doesn't really matter because that;s not what they believe.

[Flying Dice]

I prefer a pretty loose arrangement. Generally
Good = They're nice, most of the time.
Evil = They're a jerk, most of the time.
Lawful = They generally do what is expected of them by some sort of external social order or internal code of behavior.
Chaotic = They generally do whatever they feel like doing.

Well it isn't about alignment as in "What makes an alignment" this is about what makes a decent character that can be run in a setting.

A totally immoral character with no real connections, liabilities, or anything... Is a psychopath.

Sure Order of the Stick had Balker and he was "evil", but he was a kind of evil that could be directed and he definitely had some morals or inklings not to go around killing random people.

People just want to play the game's secret villain... but if they want to be the secret villain then just ask me if they can be the secret villain.

Not to nitpick, but the only things I remember doing that were threats of violence and magical compulsions. 

But yes, a very large part of the time the people who want to play CE characters are the sort that think it would be absolutely hilarious to ape Belkar or Black Mage in a real campaign. So complete tools, in other words. LE isn't objectionable.

CN is sort of a borderline case. It's a really useful alignment for characters who are chaotic and not particularly nice (Rogues and Barbarians come to mind in particular), but it's also the alignment of choice for the tools who've been banned from playing CE.

[Bohandas]

Personally my idea of what Chaotic Evil should look like is shaped more by Bender, Master Shake, Magic Man, the Joker, and GWAR than any of the characters that you mentioned.

Edit:
on a related note, my models for lawful good are Carrot Ironfounderson and the East-Coast Brotherhood of Steel, and my model for Chaotic Good is the Eva Peron Foundation (as interpreted under the assumption that the accusations of embezzlement were false but that the accusations of poor organization and of donations collected via extortion and abuse of government influence were true) and my models for yugoloth-style Neutral Evil are John Galt and the Duke of Blangis

[Neonivek]

Well Chaotic Evil doesn't nessisarily mean you are without morals either, or outright insane.

Bender yeah is a good example of a Chaotic Evil character with morals.

[Bohandas]

It's a crutch. Even D&D deities have their own spheres of influence. Like trade or hunt or sickness. It would make way more sense that each of these deities would reward behaviors that favored their own, rather than some nebulous Nice vs Icky axis just to help people know that they aren't supposed to like those deities and people that are Icky.

IIRC they did operate like that in earlier editions

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'd rather it take a King Of Dragon Pass outlook, where deities of bad things are placated to make them not hurt you. This is also how some polytheistic cultures actually functioned.

[Bohandas]

Relevant:

Spoiler: Psychometaphysics of Law vs. Chaos (click to show/hide)

HERE FOLLOWS SOME PSYCHO-METAPHYSICS.
If you are not hot for philosophy, best just to skip it.

The Aneristic Principle is that of APPARENT ORDER; the Eristic Principle is that of APPARENT DISORDER. Both order and disorder are man made concepts and are artificial divisions of PURE CHAOS, which is a level deeper that is the level of distinction making.

With our concept making apparatus called "mind" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us. The ideas-about- reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently. It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ. Real (capital-T True) reality is a level deeper that is the level of concept.

We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids.

A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The ORDER is in the GRID. That is the Aneristic Principle.

        Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.

        DISORDER is simply unrelated information viewed through some particular grid. But, like "relation", no-relation is a concept. Male, like female, is an idea about sex. To say that male-ness is "absence of female-ness", or vice versa, is a matter of definition and metaphysically arbitrary. The artificial concept of no-relation is the ERISTIC PRINCIPLE.

        The belief that "order is true" and disorder is false or somehow wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion. To say the same of disorder, is the ERISTIC ILLUSION.

        The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely. Pick a grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered.

        Reality is the original Rorschach.

Verily! So much for all that.

(http://principiadiscordia.com/book/56.php)
(http://principiadiscordia.com/book/57.php)

The Hodge and Podge are the two sides of the Universe: the Hodge being chaotic and Eristic, and the Podge
being orderly and Aneristic. They are represented in the Sacred Chao, in which a pentagon signifies the Podge
and a Golden Apple the Hodge, and are in constant turmoil; although one side can occasionally gain a
temporary victory, neither will ever defeat the other. Thus in history, the Hodge constantly overpowers the
Podge, and the Podge then responds and overpowers the Hodge in its turn. According to the Honest Book of
Truth, this is the Eristic Pattern, which "will repeat itself Five Times over Seventy Three Times, after which
nothing will happen.

...

Because of the inherent balance in the Sacred Chao, there is a sort of built-in defense mechanism - The Law of
Eristic Escalation. The law of Eristic Escalation is:

IMPOSITION OF ORDER=ESCALATION OF CHAOS

For example, if the government were to ban all opinions other than officially sanctioned ones, an obvious
attempt to impose order, the result would be massive riots (chaos). Most people, blissfully unaware of this law,
attempt to impose order anyway, with comical results. The most dedicated, such as Confucius, are considered
Eristic Avatars for their trouble. Unfortunately, the Law does not work for anyone who is aware of it.

[GiglameshDespair]

I'd rather it take a King Of Dragon Pass outlook, where deities of bad things are placated to make them not hurt you. This is also how some polytheistic cultures actually functioned.

When if I run a 5e game, I think that is what I would do.

[My Name is Immaterial]

PTW

[Bohandas]

I'd rather it take a King Of Dragon Pass outlook, where deities of bad things are placated to make them not hurt you. This is also how some polytheistic cultures actually functioned.

IIRC a lot of ancient real-world religions used to work this way too

[Neonivek]

Well even evil deities were often necessary in some manner.

Gaia was probably the more irritable Goddess (Titans are Elder Gods shush!) who killed people left and right because she was in a bad mood. Yet is still the Mother goddess.

---

DND's alignments are weird in that... Everything I said still happens... but the game pretends it doesn't for the alignment rules.

So Zeus is still Lawful Good in spite just... smiting people for no reason and his copious amounts of well... rape.