Hey, I know Alignments are shit, but how do you define alignments and what media has helped you define alignments in your games?
SOX from pic related helped me with Chaotic Good as someone who is opposing the law but trying to not hurt innocents while doing it and doing it in a progressive and positive manner.
I use a two-step process.
1) Is it morally good/evil?
2) Is it legally allowed/disallowed?
Just try to member the humans are fickle who respond more off emotions and passion than some vague cosmic force. With that being said, the forces of good/evil and law/chaos are very real things in the D&D world. To find a balance between these too you got just let the workings of alignment in the hands of the GM and if you're the GM you need to understand player's aren't perfect human's who always think with perfect judgement.
>>44349396
Is it:
For the good of the people/others?
For the good of the me?
Or who the fuck cares?
Are they:
Trying to change the status quo?
Doing it in the name of personal codes or honor?
Or who the fuck cares?
>>44349447
>Is it morally good/evil?
whose morals are you using?
>>44349396
my group of friends and I have come up with a personal definition of the classic dnd alignment chart that allows most folks to fit in an alignment rather than them being limited to fictional characters with extreme actions
basically the good-evil axis becomes an altruism-selfishness axis instead
it's important to note that being called "good" and "evil" using our system is just a relic of its origins, rather than being any sort of descriptor
but basically one's natural tenancy to think for themselves or think for others determines where someone falls on the good-evil axis
lawful and chaotic is a bit more complex but roughly translates to how much YOUR personal moral code is followed by YOU
the idea behind it is that everyone does have some sort of moral compass and scruples that developed through whatever culture they were brought up in and personal experience, but to what degree you let that compass dictate what you do determines how lawful or chaotic you are
an important part of this system as a whole is that alignments aren't determined by WHAT you do but by WHY you do
>>44349748
we did this so that you can use a basic facsimile of the dnd alignments but be able to remove the subjectivity of "good" and "evil" that exists within different cultures, fictional or no
it's basically utilitarian alignments based on the subjective beliefs of the person you're analyzing
so using this you can give an alignment to anyone from your boss to the famous characters we've been doing it to for years
things can turn out a little differently with this mentality, however
using Heath Ledger's joker as an easy example, it could be pretty widely agreed upon that he is chaotic evil because he does bad things and disregards all forms of authority
but using our system he is basically the patron saint of chaotic neutral
his entire life is built around taking things that he knows shouldn't be happening and making it happen
he isn't evil in our system because he very clearly has no regard for his own safety or survival and at the same seems to be doing what he does without even enjoying all of it
his strongest trait is him doing what he himself knows to be wrong for the sake of it being wrong, rather than personal enjoyment
our patron saint of chaotic evil isLadd Russobecause, despite him functioning much the same way as the joker, he does it for his personal enjoyment more than anything else
>>44349396
Under what circumstances is the character willing to bring harm to innocents?
>Only for a perceived greater good (this includes self-defense) - Good
>Only for a perceived greater good, or in defense of one's accumulated assets. - Neutral
>Any reason they deem worthy, especially including personal gain or pleasure- Evil
When will a character obey authority?
>Always, except when it clashes with their personal values - Lawful ("Laws are the very foundation of our society! Without them, we are disorganized savages.")
>When they perceive the limitation as appropriately reasonable or to avoid penalty- Neutral ("Authorities' rules are good suggestions to follow. But they're nothing sacred.")
>Only when it agrees with personal values or to avoid penalty. - Chaotic ("I don't care what authority says, one way or the other. I do as I think best.")
this is all you need.
>>44349748
>lawful and chaotic is a bit more complex but roughly translates to how much YOUR personal moral code is followed by YOU
but that's wrong!
>>44349748
>an important part of this system as a whole is that alignments aren't determined by WHAT you do but by WHY you do
but this is very true.
Its why Hitler is technically good-aligned. He thought for sure he was vanquishing a great parasitic evil and righting terrible injustices. Everything he did, he thought he was doing for the greater good.
This is why Good villains can be just as bad, if not worse, than evil ones.
All it takes is the wrong delusion/misinformation, and enough power to act on it.
>>44349396
Generally lawful but more concerned with Good than Law. Ultimately Neutral Good but with a fairly strong Law leaning.
>>44350507
>"they need our help"
>"b-but the prime directive says..."
>>44350289
>but that's wrong!
not in our system it isn't
I'm not saying this is how it works in dnd, I'm saying this is how it works to us
like I said before, everyone has their own personal sense of what people should and should not do
lawful or chaotic people do a lot of listening or not listening to this while people who aren't to bothered about it are neutral on it
most people, by my cynical reckoning, fall under neutral evil
true neutral, funnily enough, is the rarest alignment in our system, being someone who doesn't particularly care about themselves or others very much or about what should or shouldn't happen
that's where you get people like L from Death Note or Agitha form Twilight Princess
people who are typically solely interested in one thing
>>44350632
but then he helps them anyway, and then officially reprimands everybody.
>>44350085
>Heath ledger's joker
>CN
>Doing blatantly evil things without regard for personal safety or enjoyment is chaotic neutral
Yea, nah, that's fucking retarded. The entire point of chaotic neutral is that you're self serving to the highest extent and do whatever the fuck pleases you most/offers the highest personal reward at any given point in time. Now most people assume that's just being "lolrandumbXD" and, sadly, for the most part that is indeed what it has become, but that's not what it's about in actuality.
It's about being that one guy in the group that upon seeing orcs raid a village decides whether or not the situation is worth his time for any particular reason and sticks with that idea until given a good reason to change his mind otherwise; the decision could be based on anything from wanting some sort of payment, to liking something or someone in that village enough to stick his neck out, to enjoying a good brawl, to something as simple as going "I don't like orcs, fuck orcs.". Is this kind of shit that makes CN hard to do without coming off as a edgy teen or randumb; you have to commit to the character following their own code and do it in a way that doesn't make everyone try to strangle you both IC and OOC with your entrails.
Conversely; this is also the reason that CN is actually one of the more interesting roles to play, because when done right it allows for some pretty good character development, because a lack of ties to anything beyond oneself means that a character can eventually be made to build ties to anything else and potentially transition to any other alignment in the spectrum. All that's needed is the right motivation.
>>44352323
>do whatever the fuck pleases you most/offers the highest personal reward at any given point in time
by our personal system that's textbook chaotic evil
you know what's right and wrong and you disregard it more oftan than not for the sake of PERSONAL enjoyment
it being motivated by SELFISHNESS makes it our "evil"
that joker isn't lolrandumb or anything, but he does it to make a point
he's holding what he thinks is wrong on a higher pedestal than even himself, making him chaotic neutral
I think the relic of still calling it "good" and "evil" really makes people misunderstand
remember it's just "altruistic" and "selfish" with neutral being something that exists for non-extremes or extremes of chaoticness or lawfulness
even those terms are a bit of a misnomer because it's more accurately "communally minded" and "self-interested"
If I am using alignments, which I think are stupid.
Good is helping others, because you want to.
Evil is harming others, because you want to.
Law is relying and believing in society/broad group categorizations(nation, race, religion) above all else.
Chaos is relying on oneself and/or close group categorizations(friends and family).
