A eulogy for Alignment in CRPGs

[gurugeorge]

Nope, even if they're about to get wiped out by a nearby supernova, the aliens are still in charge of all the causality leading to the situation. They created the engines that would lead to a genocide if not prevented.

Basically there's no way one can wheedle any sympathy for the aliens, they are totally at fault

Nope.
First things first - there is no such thing as monolithic aliens* or monolithic humanity for that matter.
What we have is individuals (paladin, alien decision makers), singularly** making decision affecting a large number of non-participating parties - specifically selecting one bunch of those parties to be sacrificed so that the remaining bunch may live, rather than sacrificing others so that selves may live.

The decision-makers in either scenario (alien portal vs our portal) are at fault for whatever genocide occurs, not the paladins. There is no symmetry between the decision-makers' decisions and the paladins', the decision-makers bear all the blame.

These scenarios are quite different from your hypothetical accident.

Second, sacrificing someone else's life for your own is, other things equal, morally neutral.

No, it's evil. Opening a portal to an alien system so your own species can survive, without doing due diligence, is evil, and if as a result of technological limitations you can't do due diligence, then that's just too bad. Find another way.

 

[Harthwain]

If you meant Reputation as in Baldur's Gate, that's just a streamlined form of Alignment from an external perspective, and it works okay. If you mean Faction Reputation, that doesn't fit the bill.

I meant reputation in more general terms. If you take shady jobs (and successfully complete them), then you are offered more complex illegal jobs, because you are gaining reputation of someone who can "get a job done". If you have a reputation of somebody who works with law enforcement, then it stands to reason nobody will offer you illegal job and criminal element may attempt to flee or turn outright hostile whenever they see you outside what they consider to be the neutral zone.

 

[BING XI LAO]

I'm diagnosing everyone who doesn't like Alignments as Chaotic.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

The D&D-style alignment system is rooted in Western (i.e. secularized Christian) morality and thus is not only arbitrary, but greatly inappropriate for those RPGs that try to play with shades of grey within their narratives. So while it can work just fine in a vanilla fantasy adventure in which the lawful good paladin kills the chaotic evil troll babies and it is treated as being a moral act (a.i. Pathfinder, continuing in the same D&D-style simplistic narrative tradition as Baldur's Gate), I'd say good riddance for its removal from other CRPG titles.

 

[Lithium Flower]

 

[DraQ]

I'm diagnosing everyone who doesn't like Alignments as Chaotic.

I am diagnosing everyone else as lawlful.
No, that's not a typo.

 

[Desiderius]

That's why I said we're missing an ontological pole.

Fighting nonbeing (nihilism) is distinct from fighting chaos (entropy) is distinct from fighting evil.

Don't know about ontological pole but I do have a ten foot one.

For you it would be an axis.

 

[DraQ]

These scenarios are quite different from your hypothetical accident.

No, it's evil. Swerving onto an empty sidewalk so you can survive, without doing due diligence, is evil, and if as a result of technological limitations you can't do due diligence, then that's just too bad. Find another way.

> gurugeorge was crushed by a cable reel

 

[gurugeorge]

These scenarios are quite different from your hypothetical accident.

No, it's evil. Swerving onto an empty sidewalk so you can survive, without doing due diligence, is evil, and if as a result of technological limitations you can't do due diligence, then that's just too bad. Find another way.

> gurugeorge was crushed by a cable reel

Comparing a high tech civilization with immense technological resources with a person who has only the abilities of a normal human brain in the heat of the moment is frankly ludicrous.

Or to put it another way, one cannot possibly characterize the alien/human civilizational survival strategy as an accident.

 

[Alienman]

And how does a Paladin fall without any alignment? He can just lie through everything without any repercussions, there is nothing changing him.

Paladin falling is dumb when the class is supposed to be of roughly equal power to the other classes. A code of conduct should either be a counterweight to the rest of the class being more powerful, or something every PC has to deal with (such as humanity and its equivalents in World of Darkness games, or complications in Mutants and Masterminds). Only the Paladin, who has (or is supposed to have) roughly equal power to everyone having the giant weakness nobody else has is just bad game design.

Like you said, why not make it more powerful then, than to scrap it all. Just seems a bit radical to a fairly easy to fix problem. Having divine powers should come with some drawbacks either way I think.

 

[Shitty Kitty]

tbh I think the "Paladin" should actually be just a template or prestige path for a martial base, as even in a lot of lore it's common for a Paladin to have squired first or simply been a soldier who found a higher calling. Not sure how you'd make the Cleric a template insofar as what path that character would have been walking before he was ordained, but I'm pretty sure you could come up with something that made sense.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

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.

The Paladin isn't "committing genocide," he's preventing a genocide from being committed by the aliens.

The Paladin is preventing one genocide by committing another.
Alternatively he may facilitate one genocide by refusing to commit another.

The aliens are in charge of ALL the bundles of causality that are causing the problem. That the Paladin's action results in the alien race's death is entirely the consequence of their own choices and actions

They aren't if the had no way of knowing. The situation is also easily modified to not make aliens responsible for the state of their world - let's say they are about get wiped by a nearby supernova.
Even if they had a way of knowing their decision wouldn't necessarily make them evil - they would be making the same kind of decision as the paladin, essentially.
Who dies and who gets to live.

Also, aliens are probably not a single homogenoeus entity (unless hivemind). Exterminating entire species for the decision made by few is not exactly a clear cut morally good decision.

Disagree heavily that the paladin would be intentionally causing a genocide, the actions of the aliens led to their demise.
Refusing to allow the innocent party to die would be the correct choice.

 

[Chippy]

Modern people dont like beeing judged by or held to any objective standards, even fictional standards.

Maybe they should just have an 'other' alignment choice at character generation to bypass it all...
Me being edgy.

 

[Shitty Kitty]

I think Ultima actually handled this best, in a way. You had these ideals, these precepts like Compassion, Valor, etc and you identified strongly with one or more - or if you were walking a higher path you sought to uphold them all as best as you could. Alignment is remarkably vague and meaningless for such a convoluted system. But an ideal can be more clearly defined and thus is a more important path to walk. Sure, you may be an orderly, goodly person in tendency, but what do you DO with that? Do you seek to dispense justice, to correct wrongs and steer people back towards a more righteous path? Do you uplift the suffering, the weak, and show them how to persevere and thrive? Do you exemplify bravery in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, fight the good fight and demonstrate to others that if it's worth having it's worth fighting for?

 

[Desiderius]

The D&D-style alignment system is rooted in Western (i.e. secularized Christian) morality and thus is not only arbitrary, but greatly inappropriate for those RPGs that try to play with shades of grey within their narratives. So while it can work just fine in a vanilla fantasy adventure in which the lawful good paladin kills the chaotic evil troll babies and it is treated as being a moral act (a.i. Pathfinder, continuing in the same D&D-style simplistic narrative tradition as Baldur's Gate), I'd say good riddance for its removal from other CRPG titles.

No, not secularized.

The man who created the world where all these games ultimately take place wrote prose and poetry that ever and always was woven from the rich threads of his hard won ancestral Catholic faith in style, allusion, and destiny. And of course he and his writing are quintessentially Western as well.

We, here, are men of the West, and the secular is the fruit of the Sacred.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

D&D alignment is rooted in Americanism, go read the definition of good in the AD&D DMG and let me know what document it sounds familiar to.

 

[Gastrick]

Alignment is great in CRPGs. On the one side, it puts you to higher ideals that are difficult to follow in regular life.
On the other side, it makes massacring a bunch of innocents better since give you more evil points.
They should be expanding alignment systems to more advanced forms based on classical philosophy such as ethical-moral.
Basic action games have no alignment. Wanting to take alignment back is not dissimilar to hating civilization and wanting us all to become equal "again", even though that isn't how it works.

 

[Desiderius]

D&D alignment is rooted in Americanism, go read the definition of good in the AD&D DMG and let me know what document it sounds familiar to.

There was a Gygax reading list (Appendix N) floating around some years ago that was far weirder than mere Americanism.

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/91186.Gary_Gygax_s_Appendix_N_

 

[Gastrick]

Rinslin Merwind
I see you are butthurt with your quick shit rating, I must have hit the nail on the head.

 

[DraQ]

Rinslin Merwind
I see you are butthurt with your quick shit rating, I must have hit the nail on the head.

Fair point, I rated it retarded instead.

 

[Gastrick]

Fair point, I rated it retarded instead.

Another alignment-hater is butthurt by my truth bombs.

 

[DraQ]

Fair point, I rated it retarded instead.

Another alignment-hater is butthurt by my truth bombs.

Turd bombs? Maybe Rinslin Merwind was right, after all.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Another alignment-hater is butthurt by my truth bombs.

You claim that we irritated by your "truth bombs", yet it was you, who overreacted on our ratings...
I think you have to learn many things about RPG Codex, mate.

 

[Shitty Kitty]

Alignment is great in CRPGs. On the one side, it puts you to higher ideals that are difficult to follow in regular life.
On the other side, it makes massacring a bunch of innocents better since give you more evil points.
They should be expanding alignment systems to more advanced forms based on classical philosophy such as ethical-moral.
Basic action games have no alignment. Wanting to take alignment back is not dissimilar to hating civilization and wanting us all to become equal "again", even though that isn't how it works.

I wonder what kind of retarded subhuman thinks regular life has clear-cut alignments that fit into a 3x3 grid.

 

[Desiderius]

Fair point, I rated it retarded instead.

Another alignment-hater is butthurt by my truth bombs.

Turd bombs? Maybe Rinslin Merwind was right, after all.

There’s a first time for everything, but no this ain’t it.