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Following on from a conversation I had from a mate regarding factions/reputation systems in video games (particularly open world RPG's), I would be interested in hearing the Dakka communities thoughts regarding the alignment of the races in the Warhammer world.

Sometimes I find that simply classing a race as Order/Destruction or Good/Bad doesn't always sum it up as accurately as it could.
I guess the most simplistic and widely implemented means of doing this would be;

Good
- Lawful Good
- Neutral Good
- Chaotic Good

Neutral
- Good Neutral
- True Neutral
- Chaotic Neutral

Evil
- Lawful Evil
- Neutral Evil
- Chaotic Evil

Let me know what you guys think, interested in hearing your thoughts.

Interesting question. From having read a bunch of WHFB BL novels it's actually not as easy to categorize as one might think.

For example. The Empire... they're the good guys right? Humans trying to survive against evil forces trying to destroy them. But the empire is so damned big it's really not easy to lump them into one camp under good.

Similarly, the High Elves are generally considered good... but they're really self-serving and also have slavery so where do we put them?

Skaven are easy (Evil Chaotic) as are Beastmen (also Evil Chaotic).

This thread could become a moral ambiguity debate in a heart beat... But my opinion is that each race is mostly out for their own good, some alliances aside.

The only truly "evil" forces from the perspective of a majority of warhammer races would be chaos affiliates as they are trying to destroy/alter the known world which would be damaging to all other races (ie skaven and empire would probably end up on the same side of a fight vs a full invasion of chaos daemons for preservations sake)

That's my opinion at least

Hermit

Goblins&Orcs are the epitome of chaotic evil

Skaven and Empire on the same side? Not in this world.

In regards to O&G's im inclined to disagree Sig.
Orcs and Goblins will literally fight anyone, they arent in it for land or resource gains... they literally just want to fight.
I'd say Orcs and Goblins are more Chaotic Neutral than Chaotic Evil.

Personally I'd place all Chaos factions under Chaotic Evil along with Dark Elves. Vampire Counts Im more inclined to label as a Neutral Evil than Chaotic... but Im sure theres tons of reasons why thats not right.

I always found the D&D alignments to be very restrictive. People aren't 2 dimensional sociopaths. I'm sure Hitler was in a good mood now and then.

They do a far better job describing the environments they live in and their societies and histories and you can piece the rest together.

Ogre tribes that live near WoC may be very different than the ones who exact tolls on the Spice Road or who are working as mercenaries in Empire. It's not all Space Marines where everyone is some inbred clone 5000 iterations deep so that everyone farts at the same time at breakfast.

I'd say Wood Elves range between true neutral and Chaotic neutral. We aren't nice fairies, and they actively seek out and murder any who set foot in there forest. They care nothing for the outside realms accept maybe Brettionia because the WE are actually controlling there society by pretending to be Goddesses (!) and stealing children from parents either to never be seen again to return as damsels. When High Elves came to make peace, we told them to shove off and try get home by themselves. They ended up wandering for a few hundred years until they got out and where then burned as evil spirits by Brettonians. They have slaughtered two Dwarven armies that where just passing by. These aren't the traits of one of the 'good guys' and although many people wouldn't think so...Wood Elves are kinda D*cks

I have always held that WoC are Lawful good. They juat have different laws and a different idea of what is good.
This automatically makes HE chaotic evil....

Niteware wrote:
I have always held that WoC are Lawful good. They juat have different laws and a different idea of what is good.
This automatically makes HE chaotic evil....

And this is what I mentioned in my first post... Each race can be categorized based on their own perspective and based on their enemies'