So, i have spent hours upon hours trying to wrap my head around them and giving my players a good way to explain each one of them. it's true it depends on the campaign and the DM's to determine them.
My question is, are the alignments based on intentions or how the world sees the character?
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Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
That's how 3.5e described it, and they did a great job describing it. You don't need to read the whole thing, just each alignment pairing. Also, you can simplify it by thinking of them separate. Chaotic Good. They believe in good, but are chaotic in it. Neutral Evil. They are evil, and have no regards for law and chaos, just evil.
As to the specific question, I believe intentions. Take a terrorist, or cinematic Thanos (basically a universe terrorist) for example. They do their actions in the name of their beliefs, not just to cause terror, but to make points clear and set things right. Some may do it for religious beliefs, or even to save the universe. This would be Chaotic good. Not regarding the lawful side of things, and spreading their idea of good.
I would direct you to two videos by Matt Coleville, which I think together cover the topic more comprehensively than anything else.
First is his Alignment video from his stellar Running the Game series where he discusses the origin, purpose and intent of alignment.
Second, there's his Alignment Examples video which is a follow-up where he does the traditional thing of giving examples, but he also makes it clear that alignment isn't really very useful and you don't need to use it at all.
watch these,they helped me understand a bit:part one, 2 and 3 though it is filled with stereotypes and jokes and is not 100% correct,it is still a good starting point.
I think alignment is less about how you see yourself or how the world sees you and more about how your beliefs and intentions effect the world.
Even if you think of yourself as a good person and your politeness makes others think well of you, if you plan to enchant everyone and remove free will for their own good, you are probably lawful evil.
A good way to view alignment is to imagine a scenario, and how each alignment would interact. I remember something like this from the AD&D 2e DM Guide. Imagine that there are a party of 9 players, each of a different alignment. This is how I view the alignments, and other interpretations may well vary.
The scenario: the party have just been to kill a gang of ogres who have been raiding a nearby village, and need to divide up the loot that the ogres had.
The Lawful Good character says that they should take the treasure back to the villagers, to whom it clearly belongs, return it to them, and take the payment that they were offered.
The Lawful Neutral character sees that the treasure was clearly stolen, but since there was no agreement with the village to return the treasure, feels that they should split it according to the party's policy on treasure division and take an equal share.
The Lawful Evil character disagrees, and argues that there is no evidence that it belonged to the villagers, and as such they can claim Finders Rights. Additionally, since the rogue missed two attacks and it was his own Fireball that felled them, his share should be bigger and the rogue's lower.
The Neutral Good character is just pleased that they managed to help the village out, and would like to help the village get back on its feet, but also thinks they should take their costs from the money first.
The True Neutral character sees that the local area will be destabilised if the village is too weakened. The ogres needed punishing, but giving some of the money back to the village will help bring balance back. Other than that, she will want to follow the party policy on even distribution.
The Neutral Evil character has no interest in giving up any of his share. He'll allow them to roll dice to see who gets first pick of the magic items, but is going to use weighted dice to ensure he gets first pick.
The Chaotic Good character has sympathy with the village, and will help them out, but after that he notes that the druid used up all her healing potions and there were more ogres to the north. He'd help the druid stock up, then use the rest of the treasure to finance an expedition to end the ogre threat.
The Chaotic Neutral character does not care, really. He's laughing at a funny tree. Probably drunk. Nobody has any idea what the hell he's doing most of the time.
The Chaotic Evil character isn't that bothered. Before the fight he stole the magical totem that protects the village, and it's worth at least double. But he probably deserves a share. A big share. In fact, the Fighter who insulted him is in pretty bad shape, and if he died during the night, that means a bigger share for everyone else, right?
In my experience, the sticking points that trip up people are the concepts of the range of good through evil and difference between Chaos/Law and neutral. Everyone gets Lawful and Chaotic.
The biggest hurdle with Good vs. Evil is objectivity of what's Good. Is it the character's perspective? Is it some other standard of Good being applied universally? Is it Good=Nice or Good=Necessary? Is it Good=Martyrdom?
Does Neutral between Law and Chaos simply disregard Law and Chaos? But is that not also just Chaos? Does Neutral follow its own code? Is that not just another kind of Law? Does Neutral adhere to laws for convenience? Is that not just another kind of Chaos when Laws are meant to be broken? Does Neutral between Good and Evil take no sides in all disputes of concepts? Does Neutral try to be objective in all ideologies? Wouldn't that mean Neutral is innately Lawful?
Back when Paladins had to act with 100% Valor where each battle must be won, there was the funny argument of: "If discretion is the better part of Valor and fear is the basis of discretion, I valiantly flee in terror." Legal loopholes to protect one's own interests could be considered a tactic of the Lawful Evil, which in those days of Valiant-only Paladins, they had to be Lawful Good as well. (No longer, though.)
Regarding the alignments themselves, I have only questions and no answers.
As with most things I see around these forums regarding interpretation of campaign foundations, I would echo the suggestion of DMs and players working together to establish an alignment standard for the environment in question.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
That still leads to question: Do you kill 1/4 of a population of 6 Billion people (even if you'll be hated for it) to save the other 3/4? Is that "good" since it's the needs of the many over the few? EDIT: Letting a society of 6 Billion people self-determinate their fate is letting the society be self-serving. Is that allowing Evil? Is taking that choice away from them for their own good actually good?
Isn't that concept of neutral just the same as chaos because the intended outcome determines the process? EDIT: One could also say that situations change and the criteria for rules change with it. If the goal is situational and you still follow a new process to achieve the goal, is that not law?
It's never so simple in reality, but this is fantasy gaming. So, a standard must be defined for the sake of the ruleset, but given how it's not so simple on this side of the dice, there are a lot of options to pick from for the sake of the game. Setting that standard requires communication, but different interpretations will never be "wrong", just different for a different game. If nothing's ever "wrong", nothing's ever "right", either.
Don't box yourself or others in. Just work it out among yourselves with the realization that there is no definitive RAW on the subject but that some standard must be set for the sake of the gaming system. It's up to you.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I would not call Thanos good in any event or a terrorist.They are not good. Good is not the relative thing here. They are lawful because they are following a set of rules or beliefs. But those beliefs lead to evil. So they are lawful evil, not chaotic good.
So, i have spent hours upon hours trying to wrap my head around them and giving my players a good way to explain each one of them. it's true it depends on the campaign and the DM's to determine them.
My question is, are the alignments based on intentions or how the world sees the character?
At my table, thoughts make no difference - actions do. By this metric (so goes my logic) most everyone is neutral. People care about themselves and their close friends and relatives (and there's no Good Points for that), and keep their heads down when those more invested get into fights.
Also, everyone sees themselves as good (unless they're actually insane). So the rebel, who thinks he has to take a stand and fight for freedom, justice and equality, is no different from the tyrant he fights, who believes he has to protect society from the rabble who try to destroy law and order and the established way of things.
You can be an evil rebel - and you can be a good tyrant. It's not the world view, it's the actions. So you can be a good tyrant or rebel, but you cannot be a good torturer. The ends do not justify the means.
Although maybe the word tyrant is wrong. You can be a good authoritarian ruler.
I'm not completely sure that answers your question, but that's my 2 cents =)
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Ah yes, the classic interplay between morality and the Trolley Problem. Really, which answer you give to the trolley problem is less relevant than why you gave it. An LG character could as readily choke or otherwise decline the decision on the basis that their beliefs forbid them from deliberately taking innocent lives as they could make the call that their duty to protect others means they need to minimize lives lost, even at the expense of other lives. Likewise an Evil character could either decide they don't care enough to act in the situation or go with the numbers purely because they see people as resources and so it's better to preserve what you can.
Moral relativism doesn't really make for good starting points for defining Good or Evil since, naturally, it's a position that rejects singular definitions of the concepts. For the purposes of this fictional game, the premise is that constructive, nurturing, selfless, etc. traits are "Good" and destructive, exploitive, selfish, etc. traits are "Evil". While a character's perspective and motivations are a factor, the conceit of D&D is that there is a cosmic force with a metric an individual's actions and motives can be weighed against. In practice, this force is the DM, so really it comes down to the DM deciding where the lines are and how that's going to work in practice and communicating them to the players.
So, i have spent hours upon hours trying to wrap my head around them and giving my players a good way to explain each one of them. it's true it depends on the campaign and the DM's to determine them.
My question is, are the alignments based on intentions or how the world sees the character?
Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
The way I see the alignment as the character's belief: how it wants the world to be.
I don't think that is the other way around, namely how the world see the character. However, there are a lot of interpretations on the matter.
I like this video to explain 5E alignments. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJuqNnuEsWU
Most important thing is to remember that in 5E alignments is another personality trait like what you get from backgrounds.
http://easydamus.com/alignment.html is a good summery.
I don't think you need to explain 5e specifically. The alignment system has been around for forever.
https://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm
That's how 3.5e described it, and they did a great job describing it. You don't need to read the whole thing, just each alignment pairing.
Also, you can simplify it by thinking of them separate. Chaotic Good. They believe in good, but are chaotic in it. Neutral Evil. They are evil, and have no regards for law and chaos, just evil.
As to the specific question, I believe intentions. Take a terrorist, or cinematic Thanos (basically a universe terrorist) for example. They do their actions in the name of their beliefs, not just to cause terror, but to make points clear and set things right. Some may do it for religious beliefs, or even to save the universe. This would be Chaotic good. Not regarding the lawful side of things, and spreading their idea of good.
Also known as CrafterB and DankMemer.
Here, have some homebrew classes! Subclasses to? Why not races. Feats, feats as well. I have a lot of magic items. Lastly I got monsters, fun, fun times.
I would direct you to two videos by Matt Coleville, which I think together cover the topic more comprehensively than anything else.
First is his Alignment video from his stellar Running the Game series where he discusses the origin, purpose and intent of alignment.
Second, there's his Alignment Examples video which is a follow-up where he does the traditional thing of giving examples, but he also makes it clear that alignment isn't really very useful and you don't need to use it at all.
watch these,they helped me understand a bit:part one, 2 and 3 though it is filled with stereotypes and jokes and is not 100% correct,it is still a good starting point.
I think alignment is less about how you see yourself or how the world sees you and more about how your beliefs and intentions effect the world.
Even if you think of yourself as a good person and your politeness makes others think well of you, if you plan to enchant everyone and remove free will for their own good, you are probably lawful evil.
A good way to view alignment is to imagine a scenario, and how each alignment would interact. I remember something like this from the AD&D 2e DM Guide. Imagine that there are a party of 9 players, each of a different alignment. This is how I view the alignments, and other interpretations may well vary.
The scenario: the party have just been to kill a gang of ogres who have been raiding a nearby village, and need to divide up the loot that the ogres had.
As I thought about this I figured that you can make a good example of each alignment from characters in Game of Thrones.
LG: Eddard Stark
NG: Jorah Mormont
CG: Arya Stark
LN: Stannis Baratheon
TN: Varys
CN: Jaqan Hagar
LE: Littlefinger
NE: Mellisandre
CE: Joffrey Baratheon
In my experience, the sticking points that trip up people are the concepts of the range of good through evil and difference between Chaos/Law and neutral. Everyone gets Lawful and Chaotic.
The biggest hurdle with Good vs. Evil is objectivity of what's Good. Is it the character's perspective? Is it some other standard of Good being applied universally? Is it Good=Nice or Good=Necessary? Is it Good=Martyrdom?
Does Neutral between Law and Chaos simply disregard Law and Chaos? But is that not also just Chaos? Does Neutral follow its own code? Is that not just another kind of Law? Does Neutral adhere to laws for convenience? Is that not just another kind of Chaos when Laws are meant to be broken? Does Neutral between Good and Evil take no sides in all disputes of concepts? Does Neutral try to be objective in all ideologies? Wouldn't that mean Neutral is innately Lawful?
Back when Paladins had to act with 100% Valor where each battle must be won, there was the funny argument of: "If discretion is the better part of Valor and fear is the basis of discretion, I valiantly flee in terror." Legal loopholes to protect one's own interests could be considered a tactic of the Lawful Evil, which in those days of Valiant-only Paladins, they had to be Lawful Good as well. (No longer, though.)
Regarding the alignments themselves, I have only questions and no answers.
As with most things I see around these forums regarding interpretation of campaign foundations, I would echo the suggestion of DMs and players working together to establish an alignment standard for the environment in question.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Alignments are merely guidelines for helping guide how to portray your character.
I have found this reddit post helpful
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That still leads to question: Do you kill 1/4 of a population of 6 Billion people (even if you'll be hated for it) to save the other 3/4? Is that "good" since it's the needs of the many over the few? EDIT: Letting a society of 6 Billion people self-determinate their fate is letting the society be self-serving. Is that allowing Evil? Is taking that choice away from them for their own good actually good?
Isn't that concept of neutral just the same as chaos because the intended outcome determines the process? EDIT: One could also say that situations change and the criteria for rules change with it. If the goal is situational and you still follow a new process to achieve the goal, is that not law?
It's never so simple in reality, but this is fantasy gaming. So, a standard must be defined for the sake of the ruleset, but given how it's not so simple on this side of the dice, there are a lot of options to pick from for the sake of the game. Setting that standard requires communication, but different interpretations will never be "wrong", just different for a different game. If nothing's ever "wrong", nothing's ever "right", either.
Don't box yourself or others in. Just work it out among yourselves with the realization that there is no definitive RAW on the subject but that some standard must be set for the sake of the gaming system. It's up to you.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
The best Alignments Explained video I have ever seen.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I would not call Thanos good in any event or a terrorist.They are not good. Good is not the relative thing here. They are lawful because they are following a set of rules or beliefs. But those beliefs lead to evil. So they are lawful evil, not chaotic good.
At my table, thoughts make no difference - actions do. By this metric (so goes my logic) most everyone is neutral. People care about themselves and their close friends and relatives (and there's no Good Points for that), and keep their heads down when those more invested get into fights.
Also, everyone sees themselves as good (unless they're actually insane). So the rebel, who thinks he has to take a stand and fight for freedom, justice and equality, is no different from the tyrant he fights, who believes he has to protect society from the rabble who try to destroy law and order and the established way of things.
You can be an evil rebel - and you can be a good tyrant. It's not the world view, it's the actions. So you can be a good tyrant or rebel, but you cannot be a good torturer. The ends do not justify the means.
Although maybe the word tyrant is wrong. You can be a good authoritarian ruler.
I'm not completely sure that answers your question, but that's my 2 cents =)
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Ah yes, the classic interplay between morality and the Trolley Problem. Really, which answer you give to the trolley problem is less relevant than why you gave it. An LG character could as readily choke or otherwise decline the decision on the basis that their beliefs forbid them from deliberately taking innocent lives as they could make the call that their duty to protect others means they need to minimize lives lost, even at the expense of other lives. Likewise an Evil character could either decide they don't care enough to act in the situation or go with the numbers purely because they see people as resources and so it's better to preserve what you can.
Moral relativism doesn't really make for good starting points for defining Good or Evil since, naturally, it's a position that rejects singular definitions of the concepts. For the purposes of this fictional game, the premise is that constructive, nurturing, selfless, etc. traits are "Good" and destructive, exploitive, selfish, etc. traits are "Evil". While a character's perspective and motivations are a factor, the conceit of D&D is that there is a cosmic force with a metric an individual's actions and motives can be weighed against. In practice, this force is the DM, so really it comes down to the DM deciding where the lines are and how that's going to work in practice and communicating them to the players.
I mean, all I meant was that it’s a non-starter for defining alignments within D&D.