Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 07, 2021, 02:21:51 AM
Seems that's more of a dick DM problem than an alignment problem.

It's a sense memory association thing. When what in retrospect was a psychological abuser likes something and pushes something, you grow to despise it. I particularly loathe cleric-only healing in systems and anything that puts worship of pagan gods front and center and systems that rely on a lot of "DM May I" resolutions.

I have the same in reverse for Palladium (first and foremost Robotech), which basically saved my interest in the hobby. That healing is a generic magic spell and the system describes their gods as aliens from another dimension that primitive cultures have mistaken for deities is something that definitely felt right. Similarly, though I wouldn't use them today, Palladium's alignments were detailed with specific explanations and examples of where their moral and ethical lines clear.

Throw in that their parry/dodge rules made the sort of light-armored heroes I prefer (I love me some swashbuckling, but in D&D even Robin Hood would be wearing plate if he were a PC fighter) a viable approach and non-Vancian casting and Palladium Fantasy was pretty much the cure to my woes.

For similar reasons 4E D&D is by far my favorite for killing the cleric's healing supremacy entirely (I never saw a divine class played once across multiple tables in any 4E campaign... warlords, bards and artificers with the gods so nebulous we didn't even know their names most times was the norm) and being the first edition of D&D where light armored heroes were viable and also the nuked the magic item Christmas tree of 3e (and the inherent bonuses option got used at every table I ever played at as soon as it came out) and finally let wizards feel like wizards with at-will cantrips and basic attack spells that meant they didn't need crossbows or lawn darts once they'd fired off their few spells for the day.

Basically OSR/TSR is a set of systems I have to fight every step of the way to get a game I enjoy. Why fight a system when I can just use one that does what I enjoy (Palladium, 4E, my own systems) right out of the box?

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 06, 2021, 05:27:14 PM
This isn't a problem if you go by what has been in every ruleset I can remember. That Alignment is a tool, not a straightjacket.

I think Batman would be Neutral Good.

1: Very. Especially AD&D and Dragonlance alignment was something constantly in potential flux as the things the characters do cause their alignment to drift.

2: Off topic but at least since the 70s or early 80s Batman has been anything but Neutral or Good. He is paranoid to the point he plots contingencies against his friends and secretly funnels funds into research into spying on and even eliminating superHEROES. And He has formed at least one group under his own aegis that has killed people on his direct orders. From the 90s on hes been increasingly a bigger threat to the superhero community than to criminals.

In D&D Terms his alignment is closer to Lawful Neutral where the law is the law, its just the laws are written by him. Or Lawful Evil even since his obsessions cause him to very very very often go off every deep end. He has a strict code and woe any superhero that stands in the way of it. But when his paranoia invariably backfires he tends to own up to it and try to fix things. Least for those still living after.

The problem is with these attempts to try and map someone like Batman to alignment is they always forget that we are not dealing with one static version, but a series of different takes on the character sometimes within a single series over time.

Similar to any given PC who starts out with good intentions but gets caught up in the bloodlust or just plain cold equasions and and starts a descent into evil.

Quote from: Pat on June 06, 2021, 06:22:43 PMSo CG people are unable to have a moral code? They're all random fishmalks and inconsistent wishy-washy types who don't stand for anything and can't be relied upon?

I don't think that works as a functional alignment system.

Chaotic Good in D&D usually, depending on the writer, means the person does whats right despite laws or people saying otherwise because some law or opinion has failed. They can be organized. Just not in the regimented manner lawful tends to.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 06, 2021, 09:37:49 AM

Quote from: jhkim on June 05, 2021, 10:46:37 AM
The real crux is whether every published character and creature needs to be given an official alignment. What I really *don't* want is for alignment to be a straightjacket - i.e. an author has a cool character concept, but they get cut or edited because they don't fit the alignment system. On the other hand, if characters are published without regard for whether they fit alignment, then I think the assignments will be highly arbitrary - and the issue might as well be left to GMs to assign alignment based on their views and tastes.

Bigtime citation needed here.  I need to see a character concept (or three) that don't fit into the alignment system.  The system is so broad (and therefore flexible) that just about any personality can be wedged in there to a satisfactory degree.  You are, once again, engaging in the either-or fallacy: either alignment is a straight-jacket, or it's totally arbitrary.  No, there is the possibility that it works just fine for 95% of the cases and is just a little off for a handful of other exceptions, but not enough off to matter.  Which is how it usually works when used.  So I need examples of these "totally unique" character ideas.

The clearest case where alignment doesn't work well is when you have two sides who both consider themselves to be good, and the other side evil.

For example, I ran a short campaign that was set in 1600s era England, when there were massive tensions between Catholics and Protestants. Is it *possible* to use alignments in such a setting? Sure, it's possible. But I don't think it adds anything, and if anything muddles how to handle the conflicts. What is the alignment of someone who believes in the divine right of kings and restoring James to the throne versus someone who champions democracy? What about a Presbyterian and a Catholic?

Other settings are historically inspired, like HarnWorld. For example, I played in a game where our characters were all missionaries for the worship of Ilvir. We had different values than those who worship Larani, the more traditional good goddess. But to us, individuality and creativity were more important than the chivalry and conformity of the Laranians. We were the equivalent of a strange sect like the Society of Universal Friends or Mormons. And many were repulsed by us, but we gained some followers. Were we good? Were the Laranians who opposed us evil? Were we both neutral despite considering ourselves good?

Or in my Vinland campaign, there were conflicts between the Norse and their Algonquian allies, and the encroaching Haudenosaunee. The Norse considered themselves good, but they still went on raids as a matter of course, to collect good and slaves. And the Haudenosaunee were much the same.

While it is possible to attach alignments, I don't see that it improves the game compared to not using alignment.

Quote from: jhkim on June 07, 2021, 02:47:58 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 06, 2021, 09:37:49 AM

Quote from: jhkim on June 05, 2021, 10:46:37 AM
The real crux is whether every published character and creature needs to be given an official alignment. What I really *don't* want is for alignment to be a straightjacket - i.e. an author has a cool character concept, but they get cut or edited because they don't fit the alignment system. On the other hand, if characters are published without regard for whether they fit alignment, then I think the assignments will be highly arbitrary - and the issue might as well be left to GMs to assign alignment based on their views and tastes.

Bigtime citation needed here.  I need to see a character concept (or three) that don't fit into the alignment system.  The system is so broad (and therefore flexible) that just about any personality can be wedged in there to a satisfactory degree.  You are, once again, engaging in the either-or fallacy: either alignment is a straight-jacket, or it's totally arbitrary.  No, there is the possibility that it works just fine for 95% of the cases and is just a little off for a handful of other exceptions, but not enough off to matter.  Which is how it usually works when used.  So I need examples of these "totally unique" character ideas.

The clearest case where alignment doesn't work well is when you have two sides who both consider themselves to be good, and the other side evil.

For example, I ran a short campaign that was set in 1600s era England, when there were massive tensions between Catholics and Protestants. Is it *possible* to use alignments in such a setting? Sure, it's possible. But I don't think it adds anything, and if anything muddles how to handle the conflicts. What is the alignment of someone who believes in the divine right of kings and restoring James to the throne versus someone who champions democracy? What about a Presbyterian and a Catholic?

Alignment is designed for labeling baddies, not for moral relativism. It's for Dark Lords and innately evil minions, not Saladin and King Richard holy smiting each other in the Holy Land. Or in a single axis law-chaos alignment system, it's about sides. The law/chaos split doesn't have to about one side being evil and the other side being good, but they do have to be irreconcilably opposed.

But if you want more nuance and subjectivity, it's quite possible to retain alignment and all the mechanics, with only a few tweaks. Instead of having absolute good and evil, have relative good and evil, defined by different religions. If the God of the English knights considers the God of the Saracen infidels to be evil, and vice versa, then their paladins can holy smite each other with abandon.

Good or evil thus becomes defined by each religion, with more tolerant or cosmopolitan religions (like the syncretic Greek or Roman religions) not automatically labeling everything from other religions as evil, while more intolerant (and often monotheistic) religions may consider anything that's spiritual or otherworldly but not of their faith to be evil. Schisms or heresies can be treated as variations on the core religion.

It's important in this case to distinguish between metaphysical good and evil, and mundane rivalries. The knights of England may hate the knights of France as much as they hate true devils, but smite only works against creatures designated as evil by their religion, not against other humans they just happen to hate.

There's more to cover of course, but that's the essentials. And I do think it adds a lot to the game to have alignment in many of these cases.

The biggest problem I usually run into with alignment is murder hobos dragging others down.  I'm currently dealing with this problem in one game where I'm LG but most of the group is N or C/NG.  To avoid being a dick I acquiesce to what they want to do.  But I mean in the capital city we assaulted an evil cult in their base which included fireballs and a wall of fire (luckily middle eastern setting so buildings mostly made out of mud brick or stone) and then the group just wanted to move in since we got the deed off their corpses.  My objections based on the laws of the city were dismissed because they were so excited to have a "base of operations."

Of course later on my Temple arrested me on charges among which were heresy and "setting up illegal chapterhouses."  So now we're infiltrating the temple to take out an evil cult (different one surprisingly) that has taken over and was behind the charges against me.  Again my objections of "shouldn't we try to get some actual evidence?" were largely ignored.

Quote from: jhkim on June 07, 2021, 02:47:58 PM
What about a Presbyterian and a Catholic?

Thats an easy one.

Quote from: Pat on June 07, 2021, 03:29:59 PM

Quote from: jhkim on June 07, 2021, 02:47:58 PM
The clearest case where alignment doesn't work well is when you have two sides who both consider themselves to be good, and the other side evil.

For example, I ran a short campaign that was set in 1600s era England, when there were massive tensions between Catholics and Protestants. Is it *possible* to use alignments in such a setting? Sure, it's possible. But I don't think it adds anything, and if anything muddles how to handle the conflicts. What is the alignment of someone who believes in the divine right of kings and restoring James to the throne versus someone who champions democracy? What about a Presbyterian and a Catholic?

Alignment is designed for labeling baddies, not for moral relativism. It's for Dark Lords and innately evil minions, not Saladin and King Richard holy smiting each other in the Holy Land. Or in a single axis law-chaos alignment system, it's about sides. The law/chaos split doesn't have to about one side being evil and the other side being good, but they do have to be irreconcilably opposed.

Yes, that was my point. Eirikrautha was saying that alignment was so broad and flexible that it could handle anything, and I was arguing that there were situations it didn't handle, or at least, that it doesn't handle well.

And I note that this isn't even about moral relativism per se. A GM might be devoutly Catholic and have that be true in their historical game -- but even so, they still might not think that categories like Chaotic Neutral or Neutral Good are useful descriptors for distinguishing characters who are a Presbyterian, a Jew, a Hindu, and a Muslim. Even given an absolute morality, one can recognize that there are multiple different moral and legal codes that other people adhere to. And further, individual people might have codes and views that aren't defined by their broad religion. A French nun and a patriotic Irish warrior might both be Catholic, but have quite different personal moral codes.

Quote from: Pat on June 07, 2021, 03:29:59 PM
But if you want more nuance and subjectivity, it's quite possible to retain alignment and all the mechanics, with only a few tweaks. Instead of having absolute good and evil, have relative good and evil, defined by different religions. If the God of the English knights considers the God of the Saracen infidels to be evil, and vice versa, then their paladins can holy smite each other with abandon.

Good or evil thus becomes defined by each religion, with more tolerant or cosmopolitan religions (like the syncretic Greek or Roman religions) not automatically labeling everything from other religions as evil, while more intolerant (and often monotheistic) religions may consider anything that's spiritual or otherworldly but not of their faith to be evil. Schisms or heresies can be treated as variations on the core religion.

In practice, I've always handled this by just having a ruling that priestly powers work according to the laws of their religion - rather than calling it "alignment". If someone is a Norse prophetess, her powers work according to her faith. If she wanted to strike someone down by calling on the disir, I would rule on the spot about whether the disir support that action. Likewise, in games set on Harn, priestly powers work according to the laws of their god. If my priest of Agrik called a holy strike, the GM would judge based on Agrikan theology.

That doesn't require alignment. Keeping track of many different alignments for each NPC or creature seems cumbersome compared to just making a call for each case. I could imagine keeping track of multiple different alignments per character i.e. cult leader NPC -- Alignments: lawful good to Morgath, lawful neutral to Agrik, chaotic evil to Larani, etc. But I'm not sure I see the point of that.

Quote from: KingCheops on June 07, 2021, 04:48:23 PM
The biggest problem I usually run into with alignment is murder hobos dragging others down.  I'm currently dealing with this problem in one game where I'm LG but most of the group is N or C/NG.  To avoid being a dick I acquiesce to what they want to do.  But I mean in the capital city we assaulted an evil cult in their base which included fireballs and a wall of fire (luckily middle eastern setting so buildings mostly made out of mud brick or stone) and then the group just wanted to move in since we got the deed off their corpses.  My objections based on the laws of the city were dismissed because they were so excited to have a "base of operations."

Of course later on my Temple arrested me on charges among which were heresy and "setting up illegal chapterhouses."  So now we're infiltrating the temple to take out an evil cult (different one surprisingly) that has taken over and was behind the charges against me.  Again my objections of "shouldn't we try to get some actual evidence?" were largely ignored.

A person can play a murder hobo without alignment. I'd think it would be easier without a specified alignment getting in the way.l

Quote from: jhkim on June 07, 2021, 06:55:25 PM
And I note that this isn't even about moral relativism per se. A GM might be devoutly Catholic and have that be true in their historical game -- but even so, they still might not think that categories like Chaotic Neutral or Neutral Good are useful descriptors for distinguishing characters who are a Presbyterian, a Jew, a Hindu, and a Muslim. Even given an absolute morality, one can recognize that there are multiple different moral and legal codes that other people adhere to. And further, individual people might have codes and views that aren't defined by their broad religion. A French nun and a patriotic Irish warrior might both be Catholic, but have quite different personal moral codes.

That's why I pointed out it's really about the good-evil axis, when using subjective alignments. If you come from a tolerant religion that accepts other gods as being valid, then an alien god won't automatically ping the evil detector. But if you come from an intolerant religion, then they will. It's not about pinning people to one of 9 quadrants. It's about defining them relative to your belief system. This can also work for law and chaos, but that's not a common division in most real world religions.

Your example of a Catholic French nun and a Catholic Irish warrior requires a couple distinctions in a subjective alignment system. The first is that good and is not defined by their personal beliefs, but by the religion they adhere to. If they adhere to the same religion, then they're held to the same code. The same things are evil, and that applies both to actions and to spell effects like detecting or exclusion. But as I noted, it's possible to have variants within an overarching religion. In the medieval Catholic church these were often called schisms or heresies. Each might have a different evil-dar. But -- and this is important -- it's still not based on their personal beliefs. It's based on the greater belief system that subscribe to, even if that belief system is a heresy that takes issue with the religion it's based on. It's never about the individual.

That said, they can have different personal beliefs. They can often be summarized by allegiances to a country, organization, or a philosophy, but they can have their own twists or even an entire personal code as well. But that's just part of a personality description and roleplaying. It can create some hooks and contacts that have relevance within the campaign, but it doesn't trigger any supernatural effects.

Quote from: Pat on June 07, 2021, 03:29:59 PM
That doesn't require alignment. Keeping track of many different alignments for each NPC or creature seems cumbersome compared to just making a call for each case. I could imagine keeping track of multiple different alignments per character i.e. cult leader NPC -- Alignments: lawful good to Morgath, lawful neutral to Agrik, chaotic evil to Larani, etc. But I'm not sure I see the point of that.

You're thinking about it the wrong way. In a subjective alignment system, it's not about placing every figure on an objective 9 point grid. It's about defining good and evil (or possibly law and chaos, though as I noted that largely ahistorical), from the perspective of the major religions. Creatures don't have an eternal alignment that applies in all cases. Instead, they're judged based on the moral system of each different religion. Is the queen known for all kinds of abuses, even against the church, but is passionate about expanding the religion to new lands? In a highly expansionistic religion, all her failings could be considered minor sins, and easily forgiven if new souls are saved. In another religion, those could be mortal sins. That's defined by the religion, just as much as which creatures ping the good/evil radar.

You don't give each creature a universal alignment, but you also don't have to rely on judgment calls for every case. Instead, you define what each religion considers good, and what it consider evil.

If you're interested, "For king and country" by Paul Suttie in Dragon #101 is an excellent run down of this approach.

If you have trouble grokking Alignment then Subjective Alignment will completely break your brain.

Quote from: Pat on June 07, 2021, 03:29:59 PM

Quote from: jhkim on June 07, 2021, 02:47:58 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 06, 2021, 09:37:49 AM

Quote from: jhkim on June 05, 2021, 10:46:37 AM
The real crux is whether every published character and creature needs to be given an official alignment. What I really *don't* want is for alignment to be a straightjacket - i.e. an author has a cool character concept, but they get cut or edited because they don't fit the alignment system. On the other hand, if characters are published without regard for whether they fit alignment, then I think the assignments will be highly arbitrary - and the issue might as well be left to GMs to assign alignment based on their views and tastes.

Bigtime citation needed here.  I need to see a character concept (or three) that don't fit into the alignment system.  The system is so broad (and therefore flexible) that just about any personality can be wedged in there to a satisfactory degree.  You are, once again, engaging in the either-or fallacy: either alignment is a straight-jacket, or it's totally arbitrary.  No, there is the possibility that it works just fine for 95% of the cases and is just a little off for a handful of other exceptions, but not enough off to matter.  Which is how it usually works when used.  So I need examples of these "totally unique" character ideas.

The clearest case where alignment doesn't work well is when you have two sides who both consider themselves to be good, and the other side evil.

For example, I ran a short campaign that was set in 1600s era England, when there were massive tensions between Catholics and Protestants. Is it *possible* to use alignments in such a setting? Sure, it's possible. But I don't think it adds anything, and if anything muddles how to handle the conflicts. What is the alignment of someone who believes in the divine right of kings and restoring James to the throne versus someone who champions democracy? What about a Presbyterian and a Catholic?

Alignment is designed for labeling baddies, not for moral relativism. It's for Dark Lords and innately evil minions, not Saladin and King Richard holy smiting each other in the Holy Land. Or in a single axis law-chaos alignment system, it's about sides. The law/chaos split doesn't have to about one side being evil and the other side being good, but they do have to be irreconcilably opposed.

But if you want more nuance and subjectivity, it's quite possible to retain alignment and all the mechanics, with only a few tweaks. Instead of having absolute good and evil, have relative good and evil, defined by different religions. If the God of the English knights considers the God of the Saracen infidels to be evil, and vice versa, then their paladins can holy smite each other with abandon.

Good or evil thus becomes defined by each religion, with more tolerant or cosmopolitan religions (like the syncretic Greek or Roman religions) not automatically labeling everything from other religions as evil, while more intolerant (and often monotheistic) religions may consider anything that's spiritual or otherworldly but not of their faith to be evil. Schisms or heresies can be treated as variations on the core religion.

It's important in this case to distinguish between metaphysical good and evil, and mundane rivalries. The knights of England may hate the knights of France as much as they hate true devils, but smite only works against creatures designated as evil by their religion, not against other humans they just happen to hate.

There's more to cover of course, but that's the essentials. And I do think it adds a lot to the game to have alignment in many of these cases.

Greetings!

Pat! Very well said.

I use the traditional alignment system in my own world of Thandor, though I interpret it in much of the same manner as you describe here. It doesn't have to be *perfect*. It also doesn't have to always be absolutely consistent. Alignment and the moral universe doesn't always have to make entire sense or to be fully comprehensible to the people of the fantasy world--or even to the Players. It's ok if it remains a bit mysterious and uncertain.

I'm reminded of St. Paul's instruction, "For we see through a glass darkly..."

I like using the Alignment system. It works just fine in my campaigns.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on June 07, 2021, 08:41:48 PM
Pat! Very well said.

I use the traditional alignment system in my own world of Thandor, though I interpret it in much of the same manner as you describe here. It doesn't have to be *perfect*. It also doesn't have to always be absolutely consistent. Alignment and the moral universe doesn't always have to make entire sense or to be fully comprehensible to the people of the fantasy world--or even to the Players. It's ok if it remains a bit mysterious and uncertain.

Thanks. I definitely agree with mysterious and uncertain, but I do think it needs to be consistent. Not knowing isn't the same as previously defined rules randomly changing. The players may be in the dark when it comes to certain rules, but they should be able to rely on the rules they know not changing. That rewards their investment in the campaign, and helps make the world seem more real.

The one exception I could see is when the religion itself changes (or splits, in the case of a heresy), say a revelation from above or the new laws of a prophet. (Think Moses. Or for a fictional example, the Ahma from the Tales of Wyre storyhour at EN World makes a great example.) But that should be a rare, campaign-defining event. In fact, that would be a great end game result or even reward for a paladin or cleric PC.

In general, you should not look to real-world religion at all when you design D&D theology and religion.  There would never be a Martin Luther of Pelor, because the Church of Pelor is in regular and direct communion with Pelor and Pelor's celestial hierarchy of agents.

Also, there is the fact that in D&D worlds with aligned planes, gods flatly do not define morality.  Pelor can say that burning the infidel with holy sunfire is Good.  He is wrong, and him doing so will drag his shiny ass to the Lower Planes as surely as it will the least of his servants.

Also also, a world where Pelor exists is a world in which worship of Pelor is mediated not by cultural contact with strongly religious cultures which venerate Pelor, but with Pelor's direct agents.  Evangelism in D&D worlds isn't about spreading the doctrine of your chosen god or goddess; every culture with enough magic to get casters with Contact Other Plane will have a good and objective idea of who the main deities of the world are, as well as what they are about, even if they have never traded or interacted.

Religion in D&D is ahistorical; our world's conceptions of religion and faith have extraordinarily little to do with D&D religion, and faith as a concept means something wildly different in D&D worlds.

Now, of course, you can play in worlds other than the default implied setting.  But if you're using the default rules, then serious theological arguments should start and end with the high-level clerics casting Contact Other Plane, Commune, and maybe a few Planar Ally spells to double-check their doctrinal understanding with their deity's higher-ups, then record the output of this, and any other cleric who does the same process and asks the same questions should get the same answer.

---

I also must say that I personally strongly dislike the your-religion-works-differently method of moral quandries.  In D&D worlds, things like afterlives, curses, and divine punishment are objective facts.  Either some religions are right and others are wrong, or none of the religions are objectively right and "Detect Evil" just detects according to an arbitrary moral code.

So, who codifies a religion? Does every cleric get their own subtlety different implementations of the What's Evil detection spells? What's the point of them, then? Who is in charge of deciding when a religion becomes real enough to get their own detection keys? Can your world's Scientologists cast Detect Psychiatry?

If Good and Evil are actual, first-class concepts such that casting Detect Evil or Smite Evil have game-world effects, then you should bite the bullet, declare what is true, and deal with things like "The Blood of Vol teaches that use of undead in warfare to spare the lives of the living is a Good act, as long as the corpses raised are Karrnathi nationals who consented to having their bodies defend their nation and kinsmen after their deaths.  They are wrong; raising the dead is always Evil, even when you do Good with them."  And if they're not, then you should bite the bullet the other way, and have your clergy deal with the fact that their magic and holy codes are 100% arbitrary, that the church of their deity's opposition feature can do all of their tricks, and that there are dozens of other religions that are just on an entirely different spectrum, and finally, that there is objective truth of the world that can be noted and shaped with magic, and that their god's truth is not one of those things.

---

The thing is, it's going to be really hard to tell a game set in a historic-inspired setting where you have actual divine magics and any resemblance to historic events and not make a really horrifying pigs-ear of sectarian problems; you can look at the loops that 7th Sea goes through to avoid declaring any of the Christian-analogue religions actually true or false in the way the smaller and pagan-ier faiths can be as an example of inexpertly attempting to thread this needle.  Now, you can set a historic game where part of the premise is that the medieval Catholic understanding of sin is broadly correct, and that heresy and apostasy are actual, serious evil acts.  Dogs in the Vinyard bites this bullet and declares the morality of 1900s-era settler Mormon theology objectively true, and that things like unrepentant homosexuality or wives not being subordinate to their husband can literally destroy communities by calling down demonic influence.  You can do this, and make it clear that what is true in the game is not what is true in our world, but it's still very, very easy to tread on ground most people don't want in their games this way.

So, I generally prefer either the morality-as-physics or every-cleric-is-LARPing models.

Robert's made a good point here. In fact, the word 'faith' in a religious context probably is not the same as what we would consider it, since it is a fact in these settings (except for maybe Eberron) that the god is out there. And if there is a doctrinal dispute, there are spells that can be used to resolve it.

This is an interesting conundrum; I may need to contemplate it for a while myself.