A eulogy for Alignment in CRPGs

[ERYFKRAD]

Alignment has nothing to do with fame. Where did you get that crap?

The infamy/fame is a stand-in for lawful/lawlessnes. You can substitute.

What. No.

 

[Harthwain]

The infamy/fame is a stand-in for lawful/lawlessnes. You can substitute.

This doesn't cover cases such as Robin Hood.

 

[Nortar]

The infamy/fame is a stand-in for lawful/lawlessnes. You can substitute.

This doesn't cover cases such as Robin Hood.

No, it covers fuck all.
Soft has more correlation with warm than fame with alignment.

 

[Harthwain]

Soft has more correlation with warm than fame with alignment.

Technically you can be famous for good/lawful deeds and infamous for bad/unlawful ones. The problem emerges when you're famous for doing good/unlawful deeds, like Robin Hood. This is where equating fame with lawfulness is not going to cut it, therefore undermining the purpose of the system. This is also the problem of lawfulness vs good - sometimes being lawful doesn't mean being good and vice-versa.

 

[Nortar]

Soft has more correlation with warm than fame with alignment.

Technically you can be famous for good/lawful deeds and infamous for bad/unlawful ones. The problem emerges when you're famous for doing good/unlawful deeds, like Robin Hood. This is where equating fame with lawfulness is not going to cut it, therefore undermining the purpose of the system. This is also the problem of lawfulness vs good - sometimes being lawful doesn't mean being good and vice-versa.

Let's not take good for lawful now.
Another mistake is taking alignment for some kind of a mark or a badge.
There are methods to determine one's alignment, but it's not something visible to everyone and their dog.

A guy can be famous (infamous) for his deeds, not for having a certain alignment.
Even his motives can be hidden from others, let alone the color of his soul. Come on.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Soft has more correlation with warm than fame with alignment.

Technically you can be famous for good/lawful deeds and infamous for bad/unlawful ones. The problem emerges when you're famous for doing good/unlawful deeds, like Robin Hood. This is where equating fame with lawfulness is not going to cut it, therefore undermining the purpose of the system. This is also the problem of lawfulness vs good - sometimes being lawful doesn't mean being good and vice-versa.

Yeah, Robin isn’t actually chaotic good as commonly supposed. He believes in just laws and organizes in a hierarchical fashion.

I don’t think the D&D alignment system is able to capture nuance without shoehorning and inconsistencies (similar to how the political compass meme is completely arbitrary), so therefore should be discarded in favor of other systems for calculating ethics. Like how Ultima had a bunch of morality meters measuring different virtues. Unfortunately, that potentially makes things more complicated than they’re worth it.

Ultimately, I don’t like alignment systems. They’re always either too simplistic, not simplistic enough, too complex, not nuanced, etc. Not surprising when ethics is a whole field of study.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

The infamy/fame is a stand-in for lawful/lawlessnes. You can substitute.

This doesn't cover cases such as Robin Hood.

As I understand Robin Hood, he is a lawless character who is in/famouse depending on the faction perceiving him. I think I expressed myself poorly, i didn't mean to say law == fame. I was saying, you can have both law and fame be a separate metric, instead of trying to lump everything into the classical alignment wheel.

 

[Harthwain]

A guy can be famous (infamous) for his deeds, not for having a certain alignment.

True. This is why I am against substituting famous/infamous for alignment as such. Just because your (in)fame suggests a certain alignment doesn't mean it informs of your alignment.

As I understand Robin Hood, he is a lawless character who is in/famouse depending on the faction perceiving him.

Wouldn't this be a mess though? You could represent his standing by increasing his standing with the people and lowering his standing with the government officials and add in something like "profile" that informs other factions about his existence without influencing their opinion about him (unless it's related in some way).

I don’t think the D&D alignment system is able to capture nuance without shoehorning and inconsistencies (similar to how the political compass meme is completely arbitrary), so therefore should be discarded in favor of other systems for calculating ethics.

I don't think most people here would disagree with your opinion. The real question is what system could be used to replace the DnD alignment system.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

The real question is what system could be used to replace the DnD alignment system.

I think that would depend on the setting of the crpg in question. Non-D&D games invent their own karma meters appropriate to their settings and the stories the writer is trying to tell.

For example, the Star Wars crpgs use the light and dark sides. While these are commonly equated with good and evil (IIRC, this is Lucas' exact thinking in the matter... never mind that the Jedi used utilitarian logic to justify a coup of a democratically elected leader, which is a slippery slope to really dark shit), the series also tries to throw curve balls here and there. It doesn't work because all the cooks and fans can't agree on anything.

I personally hold the view that if you have two cosmic forces that are opposed, then both should be depicted as hostile to life on their own and only conducive to life when operating in balance. (Credits to Michael Moorcock for bringing that up in his Stormbringer multiverse.) "Be wary to falling prey to extremes" is also a much more useful moral message than promoting the idea that one side is perfectly good and the other perfectly evil when humans irl are so horrifyingly fallible and quick to resort to "kill the infidel!".

 

[gaussgunner]

Alignment has nothing to do with fame. Where did you get that crap?

The infamy/fame is a stand-in for lawful/lawlessnes. You can substitute.

No it isn't. Your reputation varies between locations and factions. You can be infamous for burning down a city, and be a hero in the surrounding country and rival cities. D&D doesn't track that, it's up to the DM or game engine.

 

[gurugeorge]

I think traditional D&D style alignment makes a mistake by trying to combine the two concepts of fame/infamy and morality (good vs. evil). The two should be separated and represented by different metrics. This greatly makes up for the rigidity of the old system, while still allowing for useful abstractions.

This allows for characters who "fake" their alignments, for instance a person who is openly lawful, but secretly breaks all sorts of laws for personal gain. The old system restricts you by forcing you to be either lawful/lawless. Obviously, good GM's work around this limitation, but a strict interpretation of the alignment system makes it as if everybody is always constantly aware of your law-abidingness.

I don't think "lawful" actually has much to with "being law-abiding." In a way it's a bit of a misleading misnomer that's caused no end of trouble. The lawful-chaotic axis is more like the axis between someone who has consistent principles and someone who lives by whim. i.e. it should be something like, "rule-following/principled/orderly vs. chaotic."

Being law-abiding in the ordinary sense is one way of being orderly or ordered, but not the only way. The principles don't need to be society's principles, or even principles imposed from the outside - it could even be that one just follows a consistent plan (e.g. to dominate the world) and does whatever is necessary (e.g. even occasionally feigns being good).

It was exemplified recently in PFWOTR by the difference between devils and demons - devils are "law-abiding" (they have hierarchy, they have their own rules that they follow, etc.) demons are chaotic, emotion-driven, etc., and the two groups hate each other for that difference.

If you understand it this way, the system is actually perfect and couldn't be improved on. Good vs. Evil and Order vs. Chaos are indeed the two primary axes of motivation.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I think traditional D&D style alignment makes a mistake by trying to combine the two concepts of fame/infamy and morality (good vs. evil). The two should be separated and represented by different metrics. This greatly makes up for the rigidity of the old system, while still allowing for useful abstractions.

This allows for characters who "fake" their alignments, for instance a person who is openly lawful, but secretly breaks all sorts of laws for personal gain. The old system restricts you by forcing you to be either lawful/lawless. Obviously, good GM's work around this limitation, but a strict interpretation of the alignment system makes it as if everybody is always constantly aware of your law-abidingness.

I don't think "lawful" actually has much to with "being law-abiding." In a way it's a bit of a misleading misnomer that's caused no end of trouble. The lawful-chaotic axis is more like the axis between someone who has consistent principles and someone who lives by whim. i.e. it should be something like, "rule-following/principled/orderly vs. chaotic."

Being law-abiding in the ordinary sense is one way of being orderly or ordered, but not the only way. The principles don't need to be society's principles, or even principles imposed from the outside - it could even be that one just follows a consistent plan (e.g. to dominate the world) and does whatever is necessary (e.g. even occasionally feigns being good).

It was exemplified recently in PFWOTR by the difference between devils and demons - devils are "law-abiding" (they have hierarchy, they have their own rules that they follow, etc.) demons are chaotic, emotion-driven, etc., and the two groups hate each other for that difference.

If you understand it this way, the system is actually perfect and couldn't be improved on. Good vs. Evil and Order vs. Chaos are indeed the two primary axes of motivation.

I assume the law chaos thing to be more in line with Moorcock, the conflict of individual need over that of the community.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Wouldn't this be a mess though? You could represent his standing by increasing his standing with the people and lowering his standing with the government officials and add in something like "profile" that informs other factions about his existence without influencing their opinion about him (unless it's related in some way).

I think a nuanced web of reputations is best, and most accurately represents reality. Of course its easier said than done. PoE II attempted this and failed miserably.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Wouldn't this be a mess though? You could represent his standing by increasing his standing with the people and lowering his standing with the government officials and add in something like "profile" that informs other factions about his existence without influencing their opinion about him (unless it's related in some way).

I think a nuanced web of reputations is best, and most accurately represents reality. Of course its easier said than done. PoE II attempted this and failed miserably.

New Vegas alone got reputation right

 

[gurugeorge]

I think traditional D&D style alignment makes a mistake by trying to combine the two concepts of fame/infamy and morality (good vs. evil). The two should be separated and represented by different metrics. This greatly makes up for the rigidity of the old system, while still allowing for useful abstractions.

This allows for characters who "fake" their alignments, for instance a person who is openly lawful, but secretly breaks all sorts of laws for personal gain. The old system restricts you by forcing you to be either lawful/lawless. Obviously, good GM's work around this limitation, but a strict interpretation of the alignment system makes it as if everybody is always constantly aware of your law-abidingness.

I don't think "lawful" actually has much to with "being law-abiding." In a way it's a bit of a misleading misnomer that's caused no end of trouble. The lawful-chaotic axis is more like the axis between someone who has consistent principles and someone who lives by whim. i.e. it should be something like, "rule-following/principled/orderly vs. chaotic."

Being law-abiding in the ordinary sense is one way of being orderly or ordered, but not the only way. The principles don't need to be society's principles, or even principles imposed from the outside - it could even be that one just follows a consistent plan (e.g. to dominate the world) and does whatever is necessary (e.g. even occasionally feigns being good).

It was exemplified recently in PFWOTR by the difference between devils and demons - devils are "law-abiding" (they have hierarchy, they have their own rules that they follow, etc.) demons are chaotic, emotion-driven, etc., and the two groups hate each other for that difference.

If you understand it this way, the system is actually perfect and couldn't be improved on. Good vs. Evil and Order vs. Chaos are indeed the two primary axes of motivation.

I assume the law chaos thing to be more in line with Moorcock, the conflict of individual need over that of the community.

That aligns more with good vs. evil to my mind. Good roughly equals altruistic, evil roughly equals selfish.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

The fact that you guys have reasonable disagreement about what the axes even mean is a reason to rethink it over. You have perfectly illustrated why the axes are too simplistic and unable to fit nuance. All those things you mention would constitute distinct axes.

I just remembered that there was a 3pp supplement that reorganized alignment into six axes:

• Morality: Life Vs Death
• Ethics: Organization Vs Entropy
• Epistemology: Nature Vs Artifice
• Metaphysics: Divine Vs Mundane
• Psychology: Passion Vs Thought
• Aesthetics: Function Vs Form

Not quite Stellaris, but YMMV

 

[gurugeorge]

I think a nuanced web of reputations is best, and most accurately represents reality.

But reputation in terms of what? It's like the old philosophical problem about morality: you can say that good is "just what we approve of," but fundamentally, a thing isn't good because one approves of it, one approves of it because it's good, its goodness is a separate, objective fact about it, that is yet to be investigated. The "because we approve of it" move hasn't even made a first approach to the real problem.

Similarly, one's rep with a faction is going to be based on one's behaviour according to that faction's standards. So those standards still have to be investigated, they're more foundational. The faction has alignment, and you as a prospective member have alignment, and the faction will only like you if your alignment is close enough to theirs as a faction.

The alignment system is really quite deep and comprehensive. What motivates what you're doing to do next? Well, it's going to be an action that is more or less for your benefit vs. the benefit of others (the good vs. evil axis) and it's going to be an action that comes more or less from some kind of rule-following, or some whim that comes to you in the moment (the order vs. chaos axis). And as a human being, you're going to have some mix of these that's typical of you; and an organization is going to have some mix of those that's typical of it.

That's quite comprehensive, and it sits at the highest level of abstraction that can still have practical meaning.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Good roughly equals altruistic, evil roughly equals selfish.

It's possible to be individual oriented and still be good.

 

[gurugeorge]

Good roughly equals altruistic, evil roughly equals selfish.

It's possible to be individual oriented and still be good.

That's why I said "roughly" - there is some nuance. Even at the altruistic extreme, you're not going to be able to do good for others if you don't look after yourself to some basic level, and waste away. At the other extreme, you can be self-centered yet still love and feed your pets or whatever. There's always the dot of yin in the yang, or vice-versa, which offers the potentiality for change, recovery and redemption.

It's really more about what is "over" what, what's the predominant, habitual tone of the character - self over others or others over self? And how much "over" in either case. What's the standard evil trope? Usually, it's someone who's willing to sacrifice others for their own gain; and the standard good trope is someone who's willing to put themselves in harm's way to protect others. These aren't really definitions, more like typical examples, ideals.

(Note: this is completely aside from the Ayn Rand line of argument about intelligent selfishness - if that's what you're alluding to. That's a different kettle of fish, I'm talking here about the general, common understanding of the terms, and in that general understanding, the sense of "good" represents the tithe one gives as an individual to society, to keeping society going, and at a pinch sacrificing yourself for it, if necessary. This is a logical artifact of the priority of the group over the individual - the group carries the individual, not vice-versa. The individual contributes to the group, certainly, maybe leavens it, but his existence depends on the prior existence and health of the group, and the group praises behaviour that's in line with that. And that's reflected in religious and common morality, pretty much everywhere.)

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

In original D&D, with a single-axis alignment system, lawful more or less equated to good while chaotic more or less equated to evil. Gygax then created a two-axis alignment system where the lawful/chaotic axis was intended to be orthogonal to the good/evil axis. However, he did not clearly define lawful and chaotic as coherent concepts similar in importance to good and evil; instead, lawful and chaotic were a mixture of concepts that did not necessarily mesh well and were not necessarily important in the fantasy setting. The traits embodied by Law & Chaos:

• Determinism/predictability versus randomness/caprice
• Collective/group versus individual/independence
• Artificial/civilization versus natural/nature
• Hierarchy/regimentation versus freedom/volition
• Reliable/proper versus unruly/eccentric
• Laws/order versus anarchy/entropy
• Strict/regularity versus flexible/persuasion

This is based on the "The Meaning of Law and Chaos in D&D" in the Strategic Review #6 (1976), the AD&D 1st edition Players Handbook (1978), and the AD&D 1st edition Dungeon Masters Guide (1979), all written by Gary Gygax. Later writers might have expanded the meaning of lawful and chaotic alignments even further.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I rather liked Pillow's Disposition system as a replacement for alignment, although the first game handled it rather poorly. One of the few things it did that felt like an all around improvement.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

In original D&D, with a single-axis alignment system, lawful more or less equated to good while chaotic more or less equated to evil. Gygax then created a two-axis alignment system where the lawful/chaotic axis was intended to be orthogonal to the good/evil axis. However, he did not clearly define lawful and chaotic as coherent concepts similar in importance to good and evil; instead, lawful and chaotic were a mixture of concepts that did not necessarily mesh well and were not necessarily important in the fantasy setting. The traits embodied by Law & Chaos:

• Determinism/predictability versus randomness/caprice
• Collective/group versus individual/independence
• Artificial/civilization versus natural/nature
• Hierarchy/regimentation versus freedom/volition
• Reliable/proper versus unruly/eccentric
• Laws/order versus anarchy/entropy
• Strict/regularity versus flexible/persuasion

This is based on the "The Meaning of Law and Chaos in D&D" in the Strategic Review #6 (1976), the AD&D 1st edition Players Handbook (1978), and the AD&D 1st edition Dungeon Masters Guide (1979), all written by Gary Gygax. Later writers might have expanded the meaning of lawful and chaotic alignments even further.

Yeah, all of these things are orthogonal to one another and it makes no sense to conflate them. That's why I don't like the alignment mechanic and especially not the many many arguments that pop up around it for decades. That's why I prefer multi-axis systems like that one I plugged earlier, which is closer to this breakdown.

 

[gurugeorge]

I'm a bit baffled why people aren't seeing those examples as being on an order-chaos axis. They represent order/chaos as reflected in those various domains - what's the problem?

 

[Cross]

I rather liked Pillow's Disposition system as a replacement for alignment, although the first game handled it rather poorly. One of the few things it did that felt like an all around improvement.

I too enjoy role-playing as a character who has a reputation for being honest and dishonest at the same time.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I rather liked Pillow's Disposition system as a replacement for alignment, although the first game handled it rather poorly. One of the few things it did that felt like an all around improvement.

I too enjoy role-playing as a character who has a reputation for being honest and dishonest at the same time.

There is no dishonest disposition, because dishonest means low honesty.
And generally there's opposed dispositions.