Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;821274Can you explain how you do it right? I'm curious since you didn't break it down yet.

Alignment should be something that responds to the PC's actions, rather than constrain them. And it should regulate important things in the game: like the effects of spells, divine favor, magic items, reactions, etc.

Arrows of Indra has an example of how I do alignment, though in that particular case it is alignment very much oriented to mythological-Indian concepts.

Quote from: RPGPundit;821468Alignment should be something that responds to the PC's actions, rather than constrain them. And it should regulate important things in the game: like the effects of spells, divine favor, magic items, reactions, etc.

Arrows of Indra has an example of how I do alignment, though in that particular case it is alignment very much oriented to mythological-Indian concepts.

I feel like D&D alignment folds together too many things. Especially, "good" and "evil" tend to be abstract and easily conflated with our modern-day conceptions of good and evil - so there are principles like equality being good and slavery evil. (I haven't read Arrows of Indra so I can't comment on that - it might be a good counter-example.)

Suppose I have a character who is a die-hard nationalist. For the people of her country, he will stand up to see that they live in peace and security - and are treated with justice and compassion. However, if his countrymen are in conflict with others - then it is his country right or wrong, and he will use whatever means necessary to defend it.

By the principle of alignment-from-actions, he may be considered good when she inside his country - and then turn to evil if he is dealing with certain enemies of his country. However, this change from good to evil involves no change in personality or code of behavior - just a change in circumstances.

Quote from: jhkim;821523I feel like D&D alignment folds together too many things. Especially, "good" and "evil" tend to be abstract and easily conflated with our modern-day conceptions of good and evil - so there are principles like equality being good and slavery evil. (I haven't read Arrows of Indra so I can't comment on that - it might be a good counter-example.)

Suppose I have a character who is a die-hard nationalist. For the people of her country, he will stand up to see that they live in peace and security - and are treated with justice and compassion. However, if his countrymen are in conflict with others - then it is his country right or wrong, and he will use whatever means necessary to defend it.

By the principle of alignment-from-actions, he may be considered good when she inside his country - and then turn to evil if he is dealing with certain enemies of his country. However, this change from good to evil involves no change in personality or code of behavior - just a change in circumstances.

That sounds like a Lawful Neutral character.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;821542That sounds like a Lawful Neutral character.

Nationalists can be lawful or non-lawful. The loyalty is to the country, not necessarily to the law.

For example, someone could be a nationalist and still be a Robin Hood type vigilante who breaks the law for the good of the country. A nationalist might even aid in the overthrow of the king if they thought that it was for the good of the country. Rebels usually do consider themselves to be acting for the good of the country.

Actually, now that I think about it. I've often heard that "Good" and "Evil" in D&D are really just about how many rights you afford other people.

For really evil, you'd only care about yourself and that's it. Other people are expendable. Moving across the continuum, you'd have someone that cares about his family too but not strangers. Then you can extend that to the country.

So if you're framing it as someone willing to go to the mat for his own people but can do all sorts of terrible things to others outside his in-group, that would probably be Evil or Neutral. Definitely not Good. Good doesn't stop at borders.

Quote from: RPGPundit;821468Alignment should be something that responds to the PC's actions, rather than constrain them. And it should regulate important things in the game: like the effects of spells, divine favor, magic items, reactions, etc.

And for this reason alone - is why I maintain Alignment is pointless. It's like the God missing from Laplace's tome on Celestial Mechanics not mentioning God. It's not necessary.

If as a GM/Player don't know what your PC's alignment is based on how you play them vs. what you *think* your character should be because of what it says on your paper - then the problem is you. This is why people debate this shit endlessly.

Pundit, all the things you mention right there are easily called for, in fact SHOULD be made by the GM as an afterthought. You know damn well when PC's are toeing a line in order to justify what their character's alignment says on their paper vs. what they really play like. No GM worth their salt *doesn't* know this <--- and you might even be a Scotsman.

This is what underscores the larger point: if you play your character as you envision them and make all your decisions about what you say, what you do in accordance, your alignment is invisible and obvious. If you're some kind of conflicted person that has to use Alignment to excuse your actions in game, you've ceded the point of alignment as you (Pundit) have indicated: the alignment tag conforms to the player, not the other way around.

So why use it. Make all the calls for Good/Evil/Law/Chaos based on the emergent qualities of the PC's actions. Try it out - tell your players: no alignment. Just play. And watch what happens.

It takes some actual consideration to exemplify an alignment through play without needing to summon it up as an excuse.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;821548So if you're framing it as someone willing to go to the mat for his own people but can do all sorts of terrible things to others outside his in-group, that would probably be Evil or Neutral. Definitely not Good. Good doesn't stop at borders.

While I agree that this doesn't fit the definition of Good - it doesn't fit the definition of Evil or Neutral well, either.  

Suppose that for a long time, the adventures are all inside his country. We see the patriotic character consistently risking himself for others, helping the weak, and seeing that justice is done. That is consistent with his character - and would seem inconsistent with an evil or neutral alignment.

Then there are characters who are even more widely loyal - such as being protective of all humans and demihumans - but don't care about other species like lizardmen, etc. In practice, I've seen quite a few PCs (including my own) like this.

This debate about Captain America is my whole point.

Why not trot out the ol' Staple: What Alignment is Batman? Give examples! GO!

Quote from: tenbones;821561This debate about Captain America is my whole point.

Why not trot out the ol' Staple: What Alignment is Batman? Give examples! GO!

Quote from: Brad;819153Alignments in D&D are teams; the whole thing went to utter shit when people started injecting morality into it. "If I'm Lawful Good, how can I possibly slaughter baby orcs!?!?" Yeah, that sort of crap has nothing to do with the game and is best left to philosophical discussions. It's like getting into arguments about fair housing laws when you're playing Monopoly.

Quoting myself...you're right, of course, that alignments are terrible if you're interested in some sort of reality about what those phrases mean. You can just use Blue Team for Lawful Good and Red Team for Chaotic Evil; same difference in-game.

It is a hard tether to behavior that is out of accord with a world view. That people toe the line of boundaries and dance around with justifications is nothing new. It is there for both the GM and the player to bring the PC into a more fully dimensional accord. It is like any other world view mechanic, taking a flexible, debatable concept, and hard coding a measure of infractions (and/or punishment) to an endlessly complex world of potential contexts.

It is like the question, "But is it art?" Well, what's your PC's world view? This "ism" here. OK, the GM defines this "ism" as such and by those parameters you see X over there is not art to your PC's world view. But a famous artist recently went avant garde, labeled it art, and is being acclaimed. Yet PC recognizes the contradiction and abides by his world view — as clarified by GM — that it is not art.

Basically Alignment is the system offering a framework of PC motivations to be clarified by the "stage director." System offers Soldier character chance to choose Violent Introversion idea, GM clarifies to player what Violent Introversion idea roughly means in setting, player asks GM for motivation clarity (and boundaries) for PC's Violent Introversion when at Social Gathering #2. Player then chooses PC action amid the specified context. As context narrows and overlaps, any broad idea runs into the potential of crushing collateral values.

The challenge is to prioritize judgments, retaining accuracy when context forces one to lose precision.

In IN SJG "alignment" is pretty much everything we DO. Pick an idea, any idea, Flowers, Swords, Smog, Motion, Humanity, Raspberry Jam, doesn't matter. Now imagine that is your very reason for being. Now imagine making sense of the world around you while keeping that idea in the forefront of your mind — and promoting it.

Anything can be alignment. But behaving with and without alignment is very different. One is significantly more casual in relation to everyday functioning, cost-benefit analysis, and the like. The other is tortured by the meaning of it all and trying to keep it together amid endless contradictions. I find one far, far more interesting and challenging to play than the other.

Quote from: jhkim;821523Suppose I have a character who is a die-hard nationalist. For the people of her country, he will stand up to see that they live in peace and security - and are treated with justice and compassion. However, if his countrymen are in conflict with others - then it is his country right or wrong, and he will use whatever means necessary to defend it.

By the principle of alignment-from-actions, he may be considered good when she inside his country - and then turn to evil if he is dealing with certain enemies of his country. However, this change from good to evil involves no change in personality or code of behavior - just a change in circumstances.

Your example needs more clarity for judgment. Further, it needs a GM to nail down the alignment grid abstraction to the setting's context itself. Thus, yes, you can have a setting where LG view slavery as a good thing.
e.g."If I did not indenture servitude this man, his family would go hungry or die from exposure in the wilds. However, I cannot afford to cover him and his family's expenses solely on my own without his labor. I will set a stipend aside of his labor for the next Jubilee so that he may start afresh."

But first, war is a state that conflates so many contextual contradictions, and so rapidly, as to be a veritable morality minefield — for all alignments. However, given that justice and compassion are primary guidelines along with nationalism, you can assign the character towards good as much as you can around lawful. If during war "any means necessary" comes up it could still mean with justice and compassion retained.

For example it could mean seeing that assassination, or poisoning a bivouac's food supply, or whatever tactic is deemed 'cowardly' or 'dastardly' in that setting during war, would be just and compassionate because it causes the least disruption to other innocents. However, since it breaches the "agreed upon rules of engagement" it may be deemed 'unlawful' by GM view of setting. That could leave the character viewed as NG. (Or there could be an unequal perspective on covert op tactics, where his nation views assassination & poisoning of combatants at rest still within bounds while the opposition doesn't.)

Again, only the GM — who controls everything, including the meaning of words as it applies to setting — can offer clarity here. Ask the GM. They are all 5 external senses, and your PCs' internal 6th (gut) sense. Alignment is not some magical trip wire waiting to go 'Gotcha!' Your PC already knows things about the world that you as the player does not, including themselves (PC) and what their core values are. The GM is there to answer player questions about such things.

However, war is a time of extremes, and breaches of world view are a given over time in such circumstances. When remaining long term In Extremis I offer more lassitude to players before alignment shift. Basically they ask me as much as they can about what feels right to their gut, but since time is of the essence more breaches of world view are expected — for all alignments.

I think having a mechanical framework to alignment, a responsive framework, can be of all kinds of good utility, and this is why it's better to have it than not.

Quote from: RPGPundit;822181I think having a mechanical framework to alignment, a responsive framework, can be of all kinds of good utility, and this is why it's better to have it than not.

In my view the original intent of alignment was to set up a basic world view of characters very quickly.

Major reason why Alignment causes problems in gaming table is that many people think it is a rigid dogma for "allowed behavior" that must be enforced.  Thus it is used as a limit to players actions (or more precisely freedom of action) which is very bad gaming (and game design).

I've also seen that many people see alignment as a source of behavior and personality for NPCs that characters will interact. Knowing whether king keeps his word or witch ultimately cares anyone for her immediate family is useful for GM. However, there are better systems for that like playing card drawing system for motivations in GDW's games.

Second place where alignment is useful is settings where you have few strong ideologies like World Revolution versus Free World. Here it can be set as a list of oaths and vows and things character serves. This can then be used as a mechanical modifier in negotiations between conservative French resistant fighters and SOE operatives to make them fight common enemy of French fascists. In some settings alignment is far more stronger (like being banner man of House Lannister) or weaker. I see also no point in tracking players' Alignment because unless it has some effect from game mechanism standpoint (Think Paragon - Renegade in Mass Effect games). If is only for informational purposes it becomes unnecessary chore and reduces amount of fun from gaming table.

Why do you think it has utility in table? What kind of utility you have thought and how often it should change?

In Arrows of Indra, alignment served as a clear guideline for the PCs as to just what their present relationship with the Gods and the Asuras was.  That was very useful.

In Albion, law/neutral/chaos allowed one to know if the Unconquered Sun favors them, if they can use (or even touch) sacred divine artifacts, or if they are in turn vulnerable by character to being accused of witchcraft.

Quote from: RPGPundit;822181I think having a mechanical framework to alignment, a responsive framework, can be of all kinds of good utility, and this is why it's better to have it than not.

Sure. The problem is that gamers took off with this framework and went in the wrong direction with it. As most discussions about alignment prove (refreshingly unlike this one) - it comes down to this odd atomic hair-splitting about where the line gets crossed and the cosmic hammer comes down and BOOM! you're now a new alignment.

But - to play Devil's Advocate - if a campaign concept requires this kind of strict adherence and point-to-action allocation in order to maintain some kind of cosmic morality structure, then sure, the response should reflect that. I just don't think in regular-ol'-D&D it's that necessary. Your setting/campaign conceits can vary.

I think Planescape might be one where I'd be pretty strict with it.