I have never in my life understood the whole alignment debate thing and what is wrong with it - mostly because a lot of people seem to approach it from the wrong angle, assuming you pick an alignment first and then try and make a character's personality fit it, when in fact you're supposed to do the opposite, figure out the character's personality and motivations first and then, based on that, pick your alignment. Most of all the fact that alignments can and do shift over time is an open admission that what starts as a Chaotic Good character is not bound to always act Chaotic Good - he or she could become Neutral Good, or Chaotic Neutral, or really anything else, as the character grows and develops.
So what is the deal, really?
>>46651741
Mostly debate over the definition of the alignment and what actions fit what alignment.
Imo there's a lot of people projecting their values onto alignment descriptions, instead of taking the descriptions at face value.
If you have multiple people doing that, then they're each going to come up with their own version of the alignment which they believe is correct, and they believe the other version is wrong. That's when you get issues.
Ex. From the pathfinder alignment list.
"A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs her. Order and organization are paramount. She may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or she may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government.
Lawful neutral means you are reliable and honorable without being a zealot."
So lawful neutral as listed is all about living by a code, or believing in order, or tradition or one of the things there.
So for example, a character who has some personal code that they firmly believe is the most important thing, which they stick to above all else, including, at least potentially, their own personal benefit, would be lawful neutral (per pathfinder alignments, good would be going out of your way/code potentially for the benefit of others, evil would be the same for the benefit of your self, neutral is just about the code).
Because of this, if you actually take lawful neutral as it's written, which is the only way to avoid conflicting personal opinions of what the alignment is, you can be basically anything as long as you're consistent.
You could easily play a lawful neutral assassin who works for some order of assassins which he believes in and has some tenants or whatever that he's obsessed with, and he'd willingly die for that code or kill other people for it, whatever. The code matters, not yourself, not others.
The problem is that everyone in this hobby is insane, so we all have different and often bizarre interpretations of what the alignments mean.
The mistake most people make is assuming alignment describes your actions.
>>46651926
>But you kill people that's evil!
No, in DnD, killing people to gain personal benefit is evil, killing people is generally considered A-OK.
The alignment system in DnD and systems based upon/inspired by it tend to not actually track really great with reality. Typically they follow the Sith vs Jedi route were esotric self sacrifice and altruism is always good and selfishness and personal gain is bad. With the caveat that doing things because you believe in doing those things rather than because you want to help yourself or others, is some kind of neutral.
To get back to my original point though, the DnD universe (and similar) alignment systems often are a bit inconsistent, sometimes vague, and don't really mesh well with real world ethics (lots of actions are black and white).
This makes it all the easier for people to project their own views onto how the alignments should be interpreted instead of just using them as-is, which would be fine except humans are a fractious bunch and probably multiple people in any given gaming group will have different opinions on what the alignment descriptions SHOULD mean.
>>46651741
I usually interpret it as:
1. Good - help others at a cost to yourself
2. Neutral - help yourself if it doesn't harm others, help others if it doesn't harm yourself
3. Evil - harm others if it benefits yourself.
>>46651741
The alignments should be split up.
Evil, Good, Neutral, Lawful, Chaotic.
Unless the absolute majority of your actions and the intentions behind them fall into a specific category you're simply neutral.
Evil=Harmful
Good=Benevolent
Lawful= Obeys Law and Order
Chaotic=Anarchist
>>46652181
Honestly I think if you ever stray out of just neutral, lawful, and chaotic you are asking for a shitshow. If you keep morality in the setting relative but still allow good vs evil its gets really confusing. As it was previously said most people have wildly differing beliefs on what a good action or an evil action is.
>>46652049
>To get back to my original point though, the DnD universe (and similar) alignment systems often are a bit inconsistent, sometimes vague, and don't really mesh well with real world ethics (lots of actions are black and white).
The problem with the alignment system is it's a relic from a time before everyone demanded their fantasy fiction be """realistic.""" The good guys are good. The bad guys are bad. Orc babies effectively don't exist in D&Dland.
>>46652436
>>46653007
In DnD, good and evil both mean two different things. First, they mean altruistic vs. egotistic. Second, they mean good and evil in a Manichaeist cosmological sense. There's good gods and good guys, and evil gods and bad guys, and they fight each other.
The first one works better for "realistic" campaigns involoving diplomacy and intrigue (Game of Thrones) and the second one works better for more fantastic campaigns, epic battles of good vs. evil (think Star Wars).
A problem is that people throw that shit together and it gets all over the place
>>46653281
The problem is that the setting treats them as fundamental forces, forcing the Manichean definition, but that view gels poorly with contemporary views on ethics. The only way to use the RAW alignment system without alienating the vast majority of players is, again, to declare that there are no orc babies.
>>46653515
I agree with you but I would take it even further. Not only does dnds ethical system gel poorly with people it also gels poorly with the type of game it is trying to be. When the major focus of the game is finding treasure and killing anything in your way its hard to have the good vs evil smackdown that the alignment forces want to push.
Now if the game was about banishing demons and rooting out evil then the alignments might clash less with the game's primary focus.
>>46653916
Who says it cannot be about that? Dnd does not have to be confined to a dungeon crawl
>>46654114
You could do high fantasy with Shadowrun, but that doesn't mean that's where the system is comfortable in terms of mechanics and setting.
I know this is a minority opinion but I dont think that dnd is meant to drift too far from monster slaying for treasure.
