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Alignment, what do you think of it? I think it's a good thing because it clearly lays out your characters views on morals, religion and law even if those topics are very subjective.

I like it. It's a good way to help a player get into their character. Not everyone is a born actor or writer and RPGs should have mechanics that aid the process of characterization.

Its all about perception.

While it fleshes out characters, there is nothing to say that views on an action or decision would vary.

Eg. Wrongly accused, you are hunted by Templars of a Holy (Lawful Good) order. Does killing them to defend yourselves prove that you are Chaotic Evil? Or does it simply preserve your lives so that you can continue on your quest to bring down the real evil?

I think a character in that situation that finds the killing easy or even goes out of his or her way to kill is acting in an evil way.

Manchu wrote:I think a character in that situation that finds the killing easy or even goes out of his or her way to kill is acting in an evil way.

Again, perception.

Killing is easy if it is what you are paid to do. Hence, Unalligned mercs.

Going out of your way to kill something which is inherently Evil alligned (Eg. every zombie ever), even though you have cleared a path through to your objective could be to earn additional XP. This is selfish, not Evil.

Killing is easy if it is what you are paid to do.

Whether that is true or not, it already assumes a moral perspective -- which I daresay is evil. If money is the only thing it takes to make your character kill other sentient beings that are not hostile to him, you're probably evil-aligned.

This is selfish, not Evil.

It's also not the circumstance you yourself brought up and to which I was referring (the self-defense "escape from the Templars" scenario).

Manchu wrote:

Killing is easy if it is what you are paid to do.

Whether that is true or not, it already assumes a moral perspective -- which I daresay is evil. If money is the only thing it takes to make your character kill other sentient beings that are not hostile to him, you're probably evil-aligned.

This is selfish, not Evil.

It's also not the circumstance you yourself brought up and to which I was referring (the self-defense "escape from the Templars" scenario).

Sorry, out of context. You did not quote anything in particular, so I assumed you were introducing a new tangent.

Depends on the setting, but generally I find it's easier to just have an agreed-upon statement of what kind of charcaters the GM is expecting to deal with... I.E "You're all relatively good, but possibly selfish and greedy, space cowboys" (Firefly) or "You're all backstabbers but you'l be assigned appropriate dark secrets to keep you somewhat organized."

Here is the way I see it and I am going to use a silly example to illustrate my point.

You see a lost puppy and decide you aren't going to leave it out to die.
Good- You would either take the puppy in and raise it to be a companion and/or look for the original owner. You may use it to help people that you find as a way to help them without thinking about what is in it for you.
Neutral- Probably find some way to make the puppy into a useful tool, such as to help you track people/creature or some such thing. You won't mistreat it, but you won't really be sad if it gets stopped by a giant either since it is just a dog.
Evil- Train the puppy to be a ferocious attack dog. You specifically train it to be mean and overly aggresive. You may treat it well or poorly, but you are exploiting the thing in order to get what you want and damn what anyone else needs.

Obviously the examples aren't prefect, but you don't have to be a bloodthirsty psychopath in order to be evil and you don't have to be a guy that rescues kittens out of trees to be good. Sometime a good character is a jerk, and sometimes an evil character is really nice. It all comes down to motives.

This isn't a full alignment chart!

I want my neutral good.

Melissia wrote:This isn't a full alignment chart!

I want my neutral good.

This is about what you think of alignment.

I know

And what I think about is "where is the option for X?" frequently . Especially in the new DnD 4.0.

The Foot wrote:Here is the way I see it and I am going to use a silly example to illustrate my point.

You see a lost puppy and decide you aren't going to leave it out to die.
Good- You would either take the puppy in and raise it to be a companion and/or look for the original owner. You may use it to help people that you find as a way to help them without thinking about what is in it for you.
Neutral- Probably find some way to make the puppy into a useful tool, such as to help you track people/creature or some such thing. You won't mistreat it, but you won't really be sad if it gets stopped by a giant either since it is just a dog.
Evil- Train the puppy to be a ferocious attack dog. You specifically train it to be mean and overly aggresive. You may treat it well or poorly, but you are exploiting the thing in order to get what you want and damn what anyone else needs.

Obviously the examples aren't prefect, but you don't have to be a bloodthirsty psychopath in order to be evil and you don't have to be a guy that rescues kittens out of trees to be good. Sometime a good character is a jerk, and sometimes an evil character is really nice. It all comes down to motives.

Evil-Kick the puppy.

Melissia wrote:I know

And what I think about is "where is the option for X?" frequently . Especially in the new DnD 4.0.

Yeah I agree, that's the one thing I hate the most about 4th edition (I love it for the most part) is the new alignment system, evil people can't be lawful and good guys can't do crimes even if they have morally just

reasons to do so. Plus it destroys a lot of the lore about the after-life.

KamikazeCanuck: I think it's more evil to train other things to be evil than it is simply to be evil to them.

Melissia wrote:KamikazeCanuck: I think it's more evil to train other things to be evil than it is simply to be evil to them.

This is why true evil is a talent

I like how Arcana Evolved handles alignment. It doesn't exist. Alignment is ever-shifting and is in a constant flux based upon the decisions of the character. Most DMs/GMs don't do an adequate job of factoring alignment changes and accordingly shouldn't be tracked or tallied. I don't feel like going and getting the book to do a cut and paste, but the system's handling of alignment is great.

Melissia wrote:KamikazeCanuck: I think it's more evil to train other things to be evil than it is simply to be evil to them.

One is probably lawful evil and another chaotic evil.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

Melissia wrote:KamikazeCanuck: I think it's more evil to train other things to be evil than it is simply to be evil to them.

One is probably lawful evil and another chaotic evil.

Not necessarily true. A teacher doesn't have to be orderly or follow the law.

Eh, follow the law? The act of training something involves a system of discipline. That's the lawful part.

Right, while kicking a puppy is just good old fashioned chaotic evil. Mwa Ha Ha!

Manchu wrote:Eh, follow the law? The act of training something involves a system of discipline. That's the lawful part.

But one can train an individual to be chaotic, breaking the bonds of the law for them (or shattering the bonds of tyranny in the case of lawful good). This tends to lend oneself to also being chaotic.

The lawful good alignment is more about the natural law and less about the positive law; with lawful evil, the reverse is true. Learning this is one of the classic tropes of character development among paladins.

As to your specific example, the nature of the trainer is not necessarily reflected by what he inculcates into the subject of the training.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Generally speaking, chaotic characters of any shade make poor teachers. Sure, one can learn things from observing them but they rarely have the inclination to foster the discipline it takes to train in others, regardless of what they expect from themselves.

I'm going to agree with manchu on this, all training or teaching is inherently structured.

I mean how would one be taught to be chaotic? Watch someone else doing it? That is a flawed method as chaos is, by definition, random (lets ignore mathematical chaos for now) and so imitating the kind of acts of a truely chaotic individual would in fact be placing a set of rules and order upon yourself.

As for alignments as a whole, I think they are a good idea when they are external judgements of a character rather than a something the character strives to be or a set of restrictions that force you to take certain actions (IE good people cannot commit crimes, evil people must always kick the puppy). To reiterate what IS useful is analysing the actions and more importantly motives of a character to make an estimate of their alignment, say for example I played a character who had an obsessive compulsive disorder and cared little for his fellow living creatures - he would likely be lawful evil yet his alignment may change over time.

Its early and I have an exam in half an hour so I'll leave these disjointed thoughts here and run for the bus.

Yeah I was only making points on good, neutral, and evil. I didn't really want to get into what the differant brands of good/evil might do as I am at work and that would take a while.

@CaF: I may not understand you clearly but I think alignment is useful for the opposite reason -- rather than just giving an external label to your character after the fact (of some moral action), it spurs the player into thinking about how her/his character thinks about themselves and the world around them. Again, given that not all people are naturally good at developing characters, this is a really useful tool for roleplayers. Maybe we're saying the same thing, I dunno.

Alignment is totally useful. Even if you end up cirticizing the two-axis system of D&D and concluding that it doesn't fit your character accurately -- well, it's still served its purpose by making you think carefully about your character's moral outlook. Your character may not fit into one of the nine alignments but after examining each of them and deciding that none work, you've probably come to a much better understanding of your character and how she/he thinks and behaves.

Manchu wrote:@CaF: I may not understand you clearly but I think alignment is useful for the opposite reason -- rather than just giving an external label to your character after the fact (of some moral action), it spurs the player into thinking about how her/his character thinks about themselves and the world around them. Again, given that not all people are naturally good at developing characters, this is a really useful tool for roleplayers. Maybe we're saying the same thing, I dunno.

Alignment is totally useful. Even if you end up cirticizing the two-axis system of D&D and concluding that it doesn't fit your character accurately -- well, it's still served its purpose by making you think carefully about your character's moral outlook. Your character may not fit into one of the nine alignments but after examining each of them and deciding that none work, you've probably come to a much better understanding of your character and how she/he thinks and behaves.

I'm saying alignment is useful but as a tool to make you think about the character rather than something the character thinks about, it is rare for an evil character to think "man I better do X instead of Y, cos I'm evil" after all.

Yeah, that's a very good distinction. Similarly, it's always funny for the party to meet a new NPC and expect him to introduce himself like "Hi, I'm a chaotic neutral, seventh-level ranger."

I have found them to be a two edge sword, that at times should never be drawn. The on a Player by Player Basis.
We have had Playes in the Past that would Use Chaotic Evil as an exuse to create Chaos and desturtion out of his own need to be the center of atrention.
We have had players of Lawful Good Characters do the oddest things in the Name of Law an Order.
When used properly they are great tools and can move Characters along in a good way.
Example:
I have a Character named Londo a LE Lupin Fighter who started with a Int of 07. The reason I made him LE was two fold.
1] Our Group had an unwriten rule, Evel Characters were Bad and had no place in adventuring and were usaly killed off by a "Good" Party as soon as they could justafy it.
2] I wanted a Chalange so I gave him a reason to be Lawul Evil. Being the only Lupin in his village he was always picked on be the other children, but one a ltille girl who liked to play fech with him [she thoght of him as a big puppy]. The only towns person who was nice to him was the Black Smith, who also just saw him as nothing more than a work animal, but treated him well and showed him how to be a smith. Well one day some badits came into town and killed the backsmith and the [now] teenage Girl [who he had a secret crush on]. He went crazy and killed all of the Bandits. The town was now afraid of him so he in his simple mind he went into the "Might makes Right" Mode. If someone seamed to treat him, any female or a child badly he would do whatever it took to spread "Justice". A lot of times he was even cruel in this act.
He never thought of himself as Evil, he was not bright enough to now what Alignments were. He never thought of himself as Lawful, but his "Instinct" for justice made him such. it was not until years later that the concepts of Good-Evil, Law-Chaos were explined to him that he got it.
Now he is a LG Paladin to The Goddes [as he calles here] and has been trying to redeem himself of all of his past deeds and he became a much better character becouse of Alignment.
In 3rd edition I use to joke that he had 10 Levels of Fighter, 4 Levels of Paladin and 14 Levels of Angst.

So it is all a mater of Perception and use and should not used as a Cruch

Cheesecat wrote:

Melissia wrote:I know

And what I think about is "where is the option for X?" frequently . Especially in the new DnD 4.0.

Yeah I agree, that's the one thing I hate the most about 4th edition (I love it for the most part) is the new alignment system, evil people can't be lawful and good guys can't do crimes even if they have morally just

reasons to do so. Plus it destroys a lot of the lore about the after-life.

Not necessarily true. The 4e alignment choices are:

Good (description is basically Chaotic Good)

Lawful Good

Unaligned (Neutral)

Evil (Lawful Evil)

Chaotic Evil

They do exactly what you describe, they just took out most Neutral stances (beyond True Neutral), and replaced "Chaotic Good" with "Good" and "Lawful Evil" with "Evil".