A eulogy for Alignment in CRPGs

[deuxhero]

Ravenloft didn't kill alignment, if anything it made it more impactful. Eberron was bad though, one of the only settings I have never had the slightest of interest in, and can't like DDO for reason of using it either.

There are things about Eberron I like. The Warforged alone are interesting. Shifters and changelings are both potentially interesting, though changelings in particular invite all kinds of crazy bullshit. The Kalashtar are remarkably uninteresting given what they are. I like that Drow are just xenophobic asshats now instead of some sick fuck's catchall fetish dump. A lot of squandered opportunity, though.

What's squandered? Not sure how changelings invite crazy bullshit when magical disguises have always been low level spells.

Mostly to do with the lore and how some changelings make a statement about their lives or something by never assuming anyone else's identity and just staying these weird ghost-faced motherfuckers because, uh, NPC. Also, trannies. Regarding what's squandered - I can't help but feel that the setting would be better served outside of the scope of anything to do with D&D. An Eberron campaign, based on established lore, could be spun into some crazy fun shit. I've never really seen anything that just blew me away as far as what people have bothered to do with it, I guess. Might be more of an issue with people's imaginations than anything else.

EDIT: Also, the whole idea of the Reforged drives me batty. It's an interesting concept - it basically apes the endgame of a Promethean from WoD, but turns it into an unsatisfying PrC that seems to be some kind of oblique statement about how being a 'real boy' is actually shit.

Those sects of Changeling and Warforged are explicitly quasi-religious minority groups. That's not the standard for either.

Also: Mechanics not really supporting an interesting story idea is hardly the setting's fault.

 

[Ismaul]

Evil doesn’t depend on the value system of the beholder. That’s the whole point.

Let's say I grant your point.

Do we know absolute morality absolutely to be able to apply it without fault to all actions? If intent is part of an action's morality, how do we judge if we can't read minds? If consequences are part of an action's morality, how do we judge if we can't predict future consequences of our actions, butterfly effect and all that?

So even if morality is absolute, and even if we knew the right value system that was good, our ability to judge actions still would be flawed and give rise to debate and disagreements.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

It wasn't Eberron that ruined alignment, it was Planescape. While it did neat things and took it to its logical conclusion when metaphysical forces of order/chaos and good/evil are natural realities--it made them too central to ignore. Can you imagine D&D without magic? The axis became nearly as fundamental. That was a problem, because instead of being a tool, it became a constraint. After people started getting bored and tried to subvert it with noble monster races and contrarianism, the entire thing just fell apart. People got burnt out on it, understandably. It gave alot of good flavor though, and is thoroughly ingrained in the RPG zietgiest. I expect its return in 6E.

 

[Shitty Kitty]

It wasn't Eberron that ruined alignment, it was Planescape. While it did neat things and took it to its logical conclusion when metaphysical forces of order/chaos and good/evil are natural realities--it made them too central to ignore. Can you imagine D&D without magic? The axis became nearly as fundamental. That was a problem, because instead of being a tool, it became a constraint. After people started getting bored and tried to subvert it with noble monster races and contrarianism, the entire thing just fell apart. People got burnt out on it, understandably. It gave alot of good flavor though, and is thoroughly ingrained in the RPG zietgiest. I expect its return in 6E.

Subverting things can be interesting when done well. Risen fiends and fallen angels are both pretty old tropes, I don't see why the "ascended monster/beast" is such a drastic departure from that dynamic. I personally find the idea of a creature that embodies, upholds and exults in evil for evil's sake to be extremely alien and difficult to write. Human beings generally prefer to frame evil in terms of "necessity" or a warped view of what "good" is by everyone else's standards. The idea of a paragon of evil, something that just loves being evil because evil is awesome, is really weird and requires taking on an utterly inhuman viewpoint - and I haven't seen many people who can do "inhuman" without making it some sort of almost-parodical "anti-human". There is also the matter of trying to objectively frame morality. Deceit is bad - unless you're deceiving someone into not committing a grave act, like say lying to an axe murderer about where your friends are. Killing is bad - unless you're doing it to remove a threat to yourself or others that can not be talked down. The list goes on, I'm sure people could frame things like ambition in various shades of grey all the way down to near-black but ambition itself couldn't really be considered an evil thing.

Perhaps the true nature of evil is a lack of balance - a desire for justice completely untempered by mercy, compassion and empathy, or ambition completely untempered by the same. Evil is extremism, or vice-versa, perhaps. Where then does that leave the ultimate exemplars of good?

 

[howlingFantods]

An eulogy

Friendly Grammar tip
It’s a eulogy.
You determine the correct article based on how the word sounds—not based on how it’s spelled. The word “eulogy“ starts with a y sound.
yoo-lu-jy

 

[Sykar]

Alignment systems don't deserve an eulogy. They ought to be shot in front of a ditch.

Or people need to realize that alignment is a guide line, not a rule you sold your soul to.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Shhhhh..... still making $$$ on rule soul fodder.

 

[Tacgnol]

I think the biggest issue with alignment was always people misunderstanding what the alignments were.

Also players who rigidly 100% stuck to their alignment even if it made them make choices that weren't really inline with their character, again exacerbated by not understanding the alignments correctly.

Probably doesn't help there have been overly harsh DMs in the past that force an alignment change for the merest deviation from what they feel the correct behaviour of the alignment is.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Shitty Kitty While your nuanced view is not wrong, it's exactly that which killed alignments. The lines were blurred, and what once was novel became tedious. The basic truths that resonate with people got buried under sophistry. Western culture wants our knights holy and our monsters vile. The alignment axis mechanic lacks the mechanical depth to deal with ambiguity and complexity. People also habitually overlook the neutral alignments when classifying an individual action.

 

[gurugeorge]

I often think the problem was naming the left side "lawful" when really the polarity is between order and chaos. It's hard to see how else they could have named it (as "orderly" or "lover of order" is a bit clumsy), but I think the association of "lawful" with human laws has probably thrown a lot of people off. (i.e. "lawful evil" seems like a nonsense).

And what people don't understand, they generally find an irritant and want to get rid of it.

 

[Excommunicator]

I like the D&D alignment system. It has its problems but it creates a dimension quite unlike other systems.

I can play non-D&D games for more realistic moral/reputation systems. I play D&D games for a flawed but flavourful alignment system and that's how I want it to stay.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Well that's van Cleef from all three movies. I actually think Tuco is more CNl than the CN guy. He at least shows remorse when he visits his brother.

There's four Van Cleefs in the image.
Van Cleef was present only in second and third movies.

Am I missing something?

 

[CappenVarra]

alignment makes perfect sense in Three Hearts and Three Lions

you get your shades of gray by default since everyone is Neutral unless explicitly aligned with cosmic Order or Chaos, works like a charm

if you want to wield the Holy Avenger and be protected from magic, only Lawful characters need apply
if you want to wield reality-bending magics, Chaos is there for you

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

The alignment system makes no sense because the real world is nuanced and complex. It's fine in TTRPGs when the people playing can come to mutual understandings of the moral implications of actions, but in videogames it leads to 1) terrible writing when characters become the embodiment of whatever vision the writer had of the alignment (looking at you, Lawfully Stupid Valery) and 2) muh-immersun breaking butthurt when you perceive something in a different alignment that the writers. So no, i'm glad it's not in BG3. Good riddance. It should've maybe stayed in the Corebooks though.

 

[Ashigara]

Isn't the problem really linked in with the current culture war? Post-modernism says good and evil are just narratives, so everyone who subscribes to that philosophy will have trouble taking alignment seriously.

Additionally the West is multi-religious and a traditional complicated ethical system with all it's nuance may have fundamental differences with another, leading to companies like WOTC wanting to water down specifically western ideas in their ethics.

Tolkien would not be as compelling as he is without his ability to suffuse his world with light, as well as terrible darkness. So I'd say one thing missing from modern fantasy is a sense of good and evil at all, as people argue stuff is "just another way of life" or "made that way by circumstance". Whether you agree with that or not it makes for an uninteresting conflict when one outcome is as good as any other. I want terrible forces of chaos being battled by armies of light and hope because it's entertaining when done right.

Defeating nihilism, entropy, etc, surely carries significance for a living being.

 

[Ebonsword]

I agree that the reason most people seem not to like the alignment system is because they don't understand it.

The overall behavior of the character (or creature) is delineated by alignment, or, in the case of player characters, behavior determines actual alignment. Therefore, besides defining the general tendencies of creatures, it also groups creatures into mutually acceptable or at least non-hostile divisions. This is not to say that groups of similarly aligned creatures cannot be opposed or even mortal enemies. Two nations, for example, with rulers of lawful good alignment can be at war. Bands of orcs can hate each other. But the former would possibly cease their war to oppose a massive invasion of orcs, just at the latter would make a common cause against the lawful good men. Thus, alignment describes the world view of creatures and helps to define what their actions, reactions, and purposes will be. It likewise causes a player character to choose an ethos which is appropriate to his or her profession, and alignment also aids players in the definition and role approach of their respective game personae. AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, pg 23.
​

Doesn't sound like much of a straightjacket to me.

Now, I used to think that alignment languages were stupid, but, when I read the barely decipherable rantings of folks on both the extreme left and extreme right of politics, I think Gygax may have been on to something.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Alignment systems is utter shite and need to be eradicated. Reputation system is vastly superior since good/evil is questionable terms (what for one person/culture could be good - for others can be evil and etc) and law/chaos straight up confusing ( terms order and chaos don't make sense at all
if context in which rules throw it at you).
Thanks to this retarded system we have situation in CRPG when you have to bow down to dev's view on good/evil/law/chaos (influenced by brutal enviroment in industry, no doubt) which sometimes crazy as fuck.

 

[Ol' Willy]

I want terrible forces of chaos being battled by armies of light and hope because it's entertaining when done right.

You want white vs black, aka clearly defined forces of good and evil, like in kids literature. Nothing wrong with that, though, Jedem Seine.

Isn't the problem really linked in with the current culture war? Post-modernism says good and evil are just narratives

Try to imagine modern media portray anyone with slightly racist or homophobic views as "just another way of life" or "made that way by circumstance"

Additionally the West is multi-religious

West is not multi-religious. West is mostly Christian since times immemorial and it is now, parallel societies built by Jews or Muslims don't count

 

[gurugeorge]

Alignment systems is utter shite and need to be eradicated. Reputation system is vastly superior since good/evil is questionable terms (what for one person/culture could be good - for others can be evil and etc) and law/chaos straight up confusing ( terms order and chaos don't make sense at all
if context in which rules throw it at you).
Thanks to this retarded system we have situation in CRPG when you have to bow down to dev's view on good/evil/law/chaos (influenced by brutal enviroment in industry, no doubt) which sometimes crazy as fuck.

The good/evil axis in these games is fairly clearly defined and you'd probably get pretty solid agreement on it with most people. I don't think there's any culture on earth that would say that selfish pursuit of your own goals regardless of the effect it has on others is good, or that defending the innocent, etc., is bad. Those are two "things" (patterns of behaviour) that are characteristic of what human beings do, and one is generally condemned and the other generally approved of.

The difficulty and complexity comes in with the fact that actions often have unintended consequences that may even go against your initial intentions. GRRM was big on this: often he'll have someone doing something that's evil, but that has good consequences further down the line, or vice-versa.

There's also another layer of complexity in the area of what the poet Blake alluded to in his poem about angels and demons: overmuch pursuit of lawfulness and order can sometimes become an obsession that itself shades into evil.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Isn't the problem really linked in with the current culture war? Post-modernism says good and evil are just narratives, so everyone who subscribes to that philosophy will have trouble taking alignment seriously.

Additionally the West is multi-religious and a traditional complicated ethical system with all it's nuance may have fundamental differences with another, leading to companies like WOTC wanting to water down specifically western ideas in their ethics.

Tolkien would not be as compelling as he is without his ability to suffuse his world with light, as well as terrible darkness. So I'd say one thing missing from modern fantasy is a sense of good and evil at all, as people argue stuff is "just another way of life" or "made that way by circumstance". Whether you agree with that or not it makes for an uninteresting conflict when one outcome is as good as any other. I want terrible forces of chaos being battled by armies of light and hope because it's entertaining when done right.

Defeating nihilism, entropy, etc, surely carries significance for a living being.

Look, I know brain of a failed abortion like yours is incapable to comprehend anything that does not adhere to your "evul postmodernism wants to ruin muh culture reee" fairy tale, but "bright forces of good vs dark army of evul" is most boring and overused cliche ever. How old you are, 15? Because I stopped with fantasies like that long ago, when I was 14.
You know who also believe in existence of ultimate good and ultimate evil? SJW do. They also love de-humanize their opponents, just like you tried to do and they also blame all wrongs of this world on one group of people (just like you did with you culture war thing).
Whoever responsible for demolition of "abolute good and evil" concepts (your "evul" post-modernism or ((((they)))) or whatever retarded conspiracy theory you want to believe) - they do a good job, because it make fanatics like you suffer. I think it's among few good things in our dark times.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Main issue with alignment is that it's the designers enforcing their moral standards on the player.

e.g., Bartholomew Delgado in Kingmaker is Lawful Evil. Yet nothing he actually did indicated such. You encounter him conducting experiments on a troll to understand how their regeneration works and apply it to normal people or somesuch.
I saw absolutely nothing evil in what he was doing at all, but apparently the designers did. Who knew Owlcat had PETA employees?

As my character was neutral good, I saw the potential of being able to heal the sick and wounded in my barony far outweighing whatever possible harm experimenting on a troll(who are actively invading my land and eating my people) may be causing.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

The good/evil axis in these games is fairly clearly defined and you'd probably get pretty solid agreement on it with most people. I don't think there's any culture on earth that would say that selfish pursuit of your own goals regardless of the effect it has on others is good, or that defending the innocent, etc., is bad. Those are two "things" (patterns of behaviour) that are characteristic of what human beings do, and one is generally condemned and the other generally approved of.

Ok, there situation:
"Alien race opened portal in your world in attempt to make a colony there since their world overpopulated and establishing portal taken so much energy - they had to consume the only gas giant in system. They not expected to find any sentient life and developed life at all. They cannot live in the same atmosphere as native races of your world, they will need to use atmospheric weaponry to change your world into nice, cozy, radioactive and toxic den - just like their home planet. This is the last saving grace of alien species, but it would bring sentient races and animals of your world into extinction. Your character (paladin btw) stand before device that can close portal and should make a decision. This would be last chance to make difference, because road here was dangerous (other members in party died after rockfall) and later aliens will update their security protocols, so no member of other race would use such device."
Looking forward to your explanation how paladin will be able to commit genocide of whole race without losing his powers (alignment LG btw) or even worse being damned to rot in Hell after death.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Looking forward to your explanation how paladin will be able to commit genocide of whole race without losing his powers (alignment LG btw) or even worse being damned to rot in Hell after death.

Moral relativism, mate

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Moral relativism, mate

Well, yeah, thats how it would work with reputation system, but alignment system in D&D proclaim that there exists absolutes around which worlds and planes revolve.
I actually expected at first to see answer like "depends on what god paladin worship", but I remembered that D&D Gods lack any "holy book" where their established rules written for worshipers, so situation described by me depends on dev/DM. And this means players in CRPG will be held hostage by ideology of development studio.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

And this means players in CRPG will be held hostage by ideology of development studio.

[Lawful Good] Yes, our child should begin hormone replacement therapy immediately.
[Chaotic Evil] We have decided to homeschool our child.