A eulogy for Alignment in CRPGs

[anvi]

I don't care if alignment goes away. They should just make everything assuming chaotic good. If you want anything else you are a bad person and shouldn't be catered for with video games anyway. I liked the hundreds of factions in EQ though and if you attack some guards, all the guards will hate you and maybe some other cities will try to kill you. But there may be some corrupt guards who love you. And you can change your faction with anyone by doing quests or slaughtering. They were doing this and more in the 90s with no budget and other games should be ashamed.

 

[Shitty Kitty]

I don't care if alignment goes away. They should just make everything assuming chaotic good. If you want anything else you are a bad person and shouldn't be catered for with video games anyway. I liked the hundreds of factions in EQ though and if you attack some guards, all the guards will hate you and maybe some other cities will try to kill you. But there may be some corrupt guards who love you. And you can change your faction with anyone by doing quests or slaughtering. They were doing this and more in the 90s with no budget and other games should be ashamed.

"Everquest" and "no budget" should not occupy your mind at the same time

 

[Atlantico]

There is a huge divide between people who don't understand that alignment is 100% internal to the player character, and is almost completely transparent to the external world.

That's because this is a roleplaying asset, with tangential but most often minimal or soft contact with the adventure or game-world.

It provides reasoning and motivation to the player character, through the player.

The individual actions of player characters are nearly always impossible to predict from alignment, because alignment guides reasoning and motivation, not the actions themselves.

Alignment is not a shorthand for how a character acts, but a shorthand for why a character acts.

If you are autistic, you cannot understand this, and that's too bad. That's because you are autistic. You are mentally deficient.

But even though you cannot understand this, it doesn't mean you're right. You just don't understand why you're wrong.

 

[Shitty Kitty]

There is a huge divide between people who don't understand that alignment is 100% internal to the player character, and is almost completely transparent to the external world.

That's because this is a roleplaying asset, with tangential but most often minimal or soft contact with the adventure or game-world.

It provides reasoning and motivation to the player character, through the player.

The individual actions of player characters are nearly always impossible to predict from alignment, because alignment guides reasoning and motivation, not the actions themselves.

Alignment is not a shorthand for how a character acts, but a shorthand for why a character acts.

If you are autistic, you cannot understand this, and that's too bad. That's because you are autistic. You are mentally deficient.

But even though you cannot understand this, it doesn't mean you're right. You just don't understand why you're wrong.

"My character hunts down evildoers and drags them into the light to be judged."

"Why?"

Option 1 (extreme autism): "BECAUSE HE'S LAWFUL GOOD"
Option 2 (how anyone who isn't a defective brainlet reasons): "Because he feels incredibly strongly about misdeeds going unanswered and unpunished and he wants to make his world a better place by bringing consequences to those who have evaded them until now. If you'll note, his backstory involves a friend being murdered and the case going cold, and he's still looking for clues and insights about the killer's identity, motives and location."

 

[Sarathiour]

"My character hunts down evildoers and drags them into the light to be judged."

"Why?"

Option 1 (extreme autism): "BECAUSE HE'S LAWFUL GOOD"
Option 2 (how anyone who isn't a defective brainlet reasons): "Because he feels incredibly strongly about misdeeds going unanswered and unpunished and he wants to make his world a better place by bringing consequences to those who have evaded them until now. If you'll note, his backstory involves a friend being murdered and the case going cold, and he's still looking for clues and insights about the killer's identity, motives and location."

shorthand

 

[Shitty Kitty]

"My character hunts down evildoers and drags them into the light to be judged."

"Why?"

Option 1 (extreme autism): "BECAUSE HE'S LAWFUL GOOD"
Option 2 (how anyone who isn't a defective brainlet reasons): "Because he feels incredibly strongly about misdeeds going unanswered and unpunished and he wants to make his world a better place by bringing consequences to those who have evaded them until now. If you'll note, his backstory involves a friend being murdered and the case going cold, and he's still looking for clues and insights about the killer's identity, motives and location."

shorthand

"shorthand" = "duhh I'm borderline illiterate and have the attention span of a goldfish, I'm incapable of reading anything that can't be encapsulated in a two-second blurb"

nevermind the fact that the title of "LAWFUL GOOD" has already been established multiple times to be an effective nothingburger for determining any kind of motivation a character has unless they're a cardboard cutout/shitty NPC. "What's your motivation?" "LAW AND GOOD"

EDIT: It should be noted that if you, as a GM, don't at least do due diligence to understanding a character's backstory you DESERVE to get fucked in the ass Old Man Henderson style, but you'll have way less excuse than Old Man Henderson's GM did

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Option 1 (extreme autism): "BECAUSE HE'S LAWFUL GOOD"
Option 2 (how anyone who isn't a defective brainlet reasons): "Because he feels incredibly strongly about misdeeds going unanswered and unpunished and he wants to make his world a better place by bringing consequences to those who have evaded them until now. If you'll note, his backstory involves a friend being murdered and the case going cold, and he's still looking for clues and insights about the killer's identity, motives and location."

Extreme autism is not understanding shorthand and having to write a wall of text on your character sheet every time.

I would never want to DM for a hyper-sperg who would write option 2 when he could simply write option 1 without giving me the full Sonichu backstory of his special snowflake character.

 

[Shitty Kitty]

Option 1 (extreme autism): "BECAUSE HE'S LAWFUL GOOD"
Option 2 (how anyone who isn't a defective brainlet reasons): "Because he feels incredibly strongly about misdeeds going unanswered and unpunished and he wants to make his world a better place by bringing consequences to those who have evaded them until now. If you'll note, his backstory involves a friend being murdered and the case going cold, and he's still looking for clues and insights about the killer's identity, motives and location."

Extreme autism is not understanding shorthand and having to write a wall of text on your character sheet every time.

I would never want to DM for a hyper-sperg who would write option 2 when he could simply write option 1 without giving me the full Sonichu backstory of his special snowflake character.

Extreme autism is assuming everyone is on the exact same page as you when you use idiotic, meaningless shorthand.

Enjoy your Hendersons, lamby-pie. I certainly will.

 

[Atlantico]

"My character hunts down evildoers and drags them into the light to be judged."

"Why?"

You realize this declaration of the player on behalf of the player character, has nothing to do with alignment, unless you're autistic and don't understand what alignment means.

Option 1 (extreme autism): "BECAUSE HE'S LAWFUL GOOD"

This isn't autism, as much as it is not understanding what alignm... oh yeah. Autism. Being LG isn't itself a reason to do anything in particular.

Option 2 (how anyone who isn't a defective brainlet reasons): "Because he feels incredibly strongly about misdeeds going unanswered and unpunished and he wants to make his world a better place by bringing consequences to those who have evaded them until now. If you'll note, his backstory involves a friend being murdered and the case going cold, and he's still looking for clues and insights about the killer's identity, motives and location."

That's the right idea for roleplaying, but that explanation does not have any direct relation to alignment nor does it need to. Alignment is for the player, to roleplay how a player character reasons and reaches conclusions. The conclusions themselves don't really enter into it.

With that backstory, that could be the conclusion of a LE character draws or a CG character or a TN character.

It's possible to reach the right conclusions for all the wrong reasons, as the saying goes. That's part of roleplaying.

 

[Shitty Kitty]

"My character hunts down evildoers and drags them into the light to be judged."

"Why?"

You realize this declaration of the player on behalf of the player character, has nothing to do with alignment, unless you're autistic and don't understand what alignment means.

Option 1 (extreme autism): "BECAUSE HE'S LAWFUL GOOD"

This isn't autism, as much as it is not understanding what alignm... oh yeah. Autism. Being LG isn't itself a reason to do anything in particular.

Option 2 (how anyone who isn't a defective brainlet reasons): "Because he feels incredibly strongly about misdeeds going unanswered and unpunished and he wants to make his world a better place by bringing consequences to those who have evaded them until now. If you'll note, his backstory involves a friend being murdered and the case going cold, and he's still looking for clues and insights about the killer's identity, motives and location."

That's the right idea for roleplaying, but that explanation does not have any direct relation to alignment nor does it need to. Alignment is for the player, to roleplay how a player character reasons and reaches conclusions. The conclusions themselves don't really enter into it.

With that backstory, that could be the conclusion a LE character draws or a CG character or a TN character.

It's possible to reach the right conclusions for all the wrong reasons, as the saying goes. But that's part of roleplaying.

You just got through saying it's shorthand for the "why". You now walk that back by saying "Being LG isn't itself a reason to do anything in particular". Do you are have stupid?

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Extreme autism is assuming everyone is on the exact same page as you when you use idiotic, meaningless shorthand.

Except the meaning is spelled out in the ruleset. That’s why there is a ruleset. So people are all forced to agree.

Most of the disagreements itt are from people either using different rulesets, not caring about or reading the ruleset, or misunderstanding the ruleset because they have never really looked at it or been involved in a PnP game and have just played Baldur’s Gate or ToEE.

My multi page argument with Mister Magpie exemplified all of these, since he repeatedly shifted from either saying the ruleset didn’t matter because it was old, compared it to different rulesets and outright said the ruleset was wrong because of his understanding of medieval feudalism and his personal interpretation of what lawful good meant and not the clearly spelled out rules for paladins and lawful good characters.

But when you agree to play a game, you agree to abide by the rules, whether you fully understand them or not. Even if you don’t fully understand what lawful good means, the rules will keep you in line. You may think it’s lawful good to steal, but when a DM (or a game) shows you that stealing results in either a loss of all your paladin abilities or else shifts your alignment, you’ll begin to understand what it means in practice.

It’s a self-solving non-issue. Only a complete autist will have difficulty with it, but he has bigger problems than just alignment systems.

Enjoy your Hendersons, lamby-pie. I certainly will.

Ok...

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

You just got through saying it's shorthand for the "why". You now walk that back by saying "Being LG isn't itself a reason to do anything in particular". Do you are have stupid?

People have explained this to you for 20 pages now and you still don’t get it. You have no room to be calling anyone else stupid.

 

[Atlantico]

You just got through saying it's shorthand for the "why". You now walk that back by saying "Being LG isn't itself a reason to do anything in particular". Do you are have stupid?

I also wrote:

If you are autistic, you cannot understand this, and that's too bad. That's because you are autistic. You are mentally deficient.

So you may be exactly that autistic. Autists have a very hard time understanding or empathizing with others. So I quote myself again, this time with context:

(it wasn't a long post, but you still managed to fuck it up)

The individual actions of player characters are nearly always impossible to predict from alignment, because alignment guides reasoning and motivation, not the actions themselves.

Alignment is not a shorthand for how a character acts, but a shorthand for why a character acts.

So *why* a character acts is not because of backstory "because his friend got murdered" or dumb shit like that, because then you are making *your* value-judgements regarding the backstory, not your character.

Your job (as a player) is to do the reasoning on behalf of your character. Hence, alignments.

That's why you're probably autistic, since you can't understand that your point of view, is not your character's point of view.

 

[Shitty Kitty]

You just got through saying it's shorthand for the "why". You now walk that back by saying "Being LG isn't itself a reason to do anything in particular". Do you are have stupid?

People have explained this to you for 20 pages now and you still don’t get it. You have no room to be calling anyone else stupid.

Shorthand for something = communicates that something effectively, in fewer words. Alignment as shorthand communicates little, if ANYTHING, meaningful about the character, and even the definitions/examples of LG play only serve to INCREASE the possible ambiguity of the label. You are an absolute moron.

You just got through saying it's shorthand for the "why". You now walk that back by saying "Being LG isn't itself a reason to do anything in particular". Do you are have stupid?

I also wrote:

If you are autistic, you cannot understand this, and that's too bad. That's because you are autistic. You are mentally deficient.

So you may be exactly that autistic. Autists have a very hard time understanding or empathizing with others. So I quote myself again, this time with context:

(it wasn't a long post, but you still managed to fuck it up)

The individual actions of player characters are nearly always impossible to predict from alignment, because alignment guides reasoning and motivation, not the actions themselves.

Alignment is not a shorthand for how a character acts, but a shorthand for why a character acts.

So *why* a character acts is not because of backstory "because his friend got murdered" or dumb shit like that, because then you are making *your* value-judgements regarding the backstory, not your character.

Your job is to do the reasoning on behalf of your character. Hence, alignments.

That's why you're probably autistic, since you can't understand that your point of view, is not your character's point of view.

Holy shit a moron double-feature. "If I repeat my retard-tier spiel to you, you'll suddenly become just as retarded as me and it'll make sense." No, you fuckwit, it has nothing to do with the player, this is all something encapsulated within the character being played. The CHARACTER saw his friend fall victim to foul play, the CHARACTER wants to both bring justice to his fallen friend and ensure that other people in his shoes also see justice done. The amount of sloppy mental gymnastics present just to pretend you aren't a SHIT roleplayer is incredible, but please, CONTINUE.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Shorthand for something = communicates that something effectively, in fewer words. Alignment as shorthand communicates little, if ANYTHING, meaningful about the character, and even the definitions/examples of LG play only serve to INCREASE the possible ambiguity of the label.

There’s nothing ambiguous about the definition. There could be multiple ways of playing based on those definitions, but as everyone has told you: motives and actions aren’t the same thing.

As Atlantico said, you probably don’t get it because of some defect on your part and not because the system is unclear.

You are an absolute moron.

And yet for around a dozen pages I have proven you wrong while you sit there seething and spewing lame insults.

Every post you make humiliates and exposes you as a complete casual who wants to dumb down game systems because you don’t understand them and wouldn’t want to abide by them even if you did.

I don’t have to insult you. You do a better job of tearing yourself down than I ever could.

 

[Sarathiour]

the definitions/examples of LG play only serve to INCREASE the possible ambiguity of the label.

ha yes, the infamous LG wealthy slave smugler

 

[Shitty Kitty]

the definitions/examples of LG play only serve to INCREASE the possible ambiguity of the label.

ha yes, the infamous LG wealthy slave smugler

"Look at me I can deliberately misrepresent people for stickers"

The LG monk who holds mercy for the suffering as his highest tenet and seeks to alleviate suffering in others, and teaches them how to be strong enough to endure suffering in his absence.

The LG paladin who upholds justice as his highest tenet and seeks to right wrongs, and steer others away from disastrous courses in life that will take them down the road to imprisonment, death and/or damnation.

The LG wizard who considers having great power to be a great responsibility, and tries to impress upon others the importance of judicious use of magic as a tool with which to improve not only their own lives but the lives of others.

Do you see it yet?

The part where you could cut the "LG" part away from all those examples and still receive all the information you needed to design the character you want to play?

Of course you don't. You're more of a computer than a human being. "WHERE IS THE ALIGNMENT FLAG. I REQUIRE THE ALIGNMENT FLAG TO COMPUTE THIS. BEEP BOOP." Fucking NPC.

 

[Storyfag]

You guys almost gave me cancer with this thread.

 

[DraQ]

There is a huge divide between people who don't understand that alignment is 100% internal to the player character, and is almost completely transparent to the external world.

You're almost there! Don't give up! You can reach the obvious conclusion! You too can be a winner! We believe in you! You're going to make it!

That's because this is a roleplaying asset, with tangential but most often minimal or soft contact with the adventure or game-world.

It provides reasoning and motivation to the player character, through the player.

The individual actions of player characters are nearly always impossible to predict from alignment, because alignment guides reasoning and motivation, not the actions themselves.

Alignment is not a shorthand for how a character acts, but a shorthand for why a character acts.

If you are autistic, you cannot understand this, and that's too bad. That's because you are autistic. You are mentally deficient.

But even though you cannot understand this, it doesn't mean you're right. You just don't understand why you're wrong.

Spoiler

He is not going to make it, is he?

 

[PapaPetro]

The Alignment debate was always a metapolitical one: the push for the normalization of moral relativism, moral nihilism, and hyper-liberalism.

 

[Shitty Kitty]

Still laughing at Lambchop, LAMBCHOP of all people, clucking his tongue about insults and degradation of character.

Like I haven't seen the shit you type elsewhere. Remove the log from thine eye, dipshit.

There is a huge divide between people who don't understand that alignment is 100% internal to the player character, and is almost completely transparent to the external world.

You're almost there! Don't give up! You can reach the obvious conclusion! You too can be a winner! We believe in you! You're going to make it!

That's because this is a roleplaying asset, with tangential but most often minimal or soft contact with the adventure or game-world.

It provides reasoning and motivation to the player character, through the player.

The individual actions of player characters are nearly always impossible to predict from alignment, because alignment guides reasoning and motivation, not the actions themselves.

Alignment is not a shorthand for how a character acts, but a shorthand for why a character acts.

If you are autistic, you cannot understand this, and that's too bad. That's because you are autistic. You are mentally deficient.

But even though you cannot understand this, it doesn't mean you're right. You just don't understand why you're wrong.

Spoiler

He is not going to make it, is he?

Hope springs eternal.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Still laughing at Lambchop, LAMBCHOP of all people, clucking his tongue about insults and degradation of character.

Like I haven't seen the shit you type elsewhere. Remove the log from thine eye, dipshit.

I’m not clucking my tongue at you. I’m saying there’s no need for me to stoop to your level because you aren’t even a threat to me. You’re a threat to yourself and your own arguments more than you are to me or mine. notice how you just devolve into insults every time I prove you wrong? You’re so transparent lol

Are you gonna try to deflect to my posts outside this thread again? Lambchop the big bad neon nazi? Lol. This is the rpgcodex and no one cares, kiddo.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

The Alignment debate was always a metapolitical one: the push for the normalization of moral relativism, moral nihilism, and hyper-liberalism.

Maybe when dealing with normal people. But in most of the arguments itt, relativism has been a diversionary argument used in bad faith by people who either don’t understand the alignment system or don’t want an alignment system because it limits their ability to larp.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

You're almost there! Don't give up! You can reach the obvious conclusion! You too can be a winner! We believe in you! You're going to make it!

That DraQ is a shitposter who can’t have a serious discussion about any non-Bethesda game without devolving into memes and theatrics as his argument becomes increasingly harder for even him to buy into?

I think we all came to that conclusion a long time ago. We’re just bored and arguing on the Internet is fun.

 

[Shitty Kitty]

Still laughing at Lambchop, LAMBCHOP of all people, clucking his tongue about insults and degradation of character.

Like I haven't seen the shit you type elsewhere. Remove the log from thine eye, dipshit.

I’m not clucking my tongue at you. I’m saying there’s no need for me to stoop to your level because you aren’t even a threat to me. You’re a threat to yourself and your own arguments more than you are to me or mine. notice how you just devolve into insults every time I prove you wrong? You’re so transparent lol

Are you gonna try to deflect to my posts outside this thread again? Lambchop the big bad neon nazi? Lol. This is the rpgcodex and no one cares, kiddo.

lol your idol had one testicle and killed himself in a bunker after poisoning his dog

follow your leader