Using Dungeons And Dragons Alignment System In Real Life

[Brother Oni]

No - that's a single axis.

In D&D, good/evil is one axis, and Law/Chaos is a second.

In humorism, wet/dry is one axis and hot/cold is a second.

Ahhh, gotcha. I suppose it suffers from lumping in too many things on a single axis.

[druid91]

When does a selfish act become an evil one though? If by committing the act or refusing to help, you knowingly cause harm to others, is it still merely selfish or actually evil? Where is the line drawn when it comes to things like the Bystander effect?

If enough people are selfish enough to not pay their fair share of taxes, it causes problems for the government - board rules prevent me from going into detail, but see Greece's current situation.

Another less political example is the recent London Underground attacks, where two men stopped the attacker while others stood around and filmed the incident instead of helping, although I concede that apathy may be the more prevailing attitude here.

Essentially, Good or Evil require actively going out of ones way to harm or help others on general principles. If you're not doing that, then you're neutral. If you're just helping yourself in a way that could potentially harm someone else....

And indeed, it could. Hence why it's a Chaotic action to not pay your taxes.

[Dodom]

While I don't think attempting to fit people on the alignment system should be taken seriously, it can be an amusing intellectual exercice, so why not? Just remember it's just a vague description of a person's behaviour and shouldn't lead to a broader judgement and it should be alright.

Now, I disagree with the people who consider that something can only be evil if the intent was to harm. The intent can be anything all the way to good, if the person knowingly took harmful means to get there, it ends up meaning more than the intent.
Greed isn't necessarily evil, maybe you'll just express it by working lots of overtime, nothing wrong with that. But if you decide that fraud or theft are your way to get rich, it doesn't matter that your motivation was not directly to harm: you decided that harm was an acceptable cost, that's on you too.


I think trying to pin alignments on people I know tells more about me than about them. Most of my friends fit best as chaotic good, even though I consider myself rather lawful. Almost every people I personally dislike I perceive as lawful evil.
Neither is a surprise: I appreciate people who have enough empathy to spontaneously want to do good even if it doesn't fit into a set moral system of theirs, and I despise people who, seeing injustice happen, choose to rationalise it and believe it just fits in how the world is and should remain.

[BLoody D]

Sounds like something I do in my head I'm chaotic neutral for sure!

[Bohandas]

The closest analogue I can think of from reality is humourism (and the Galenist model of temperament), in which you essentially have four points to be measured against and the relative levels of each determine the overall character of the individual. And while, medically, humourism has obviously long been discredited, it was around for a lot longer than modern psychology has been (and some of its influences can still be seen in some current theories of psychology).

Very nice catch. That is a genuinely new observation. It's an actual two-axis system that includes a component of human behavior.

But while humorism is similar in having two axes, wet/dry & warm/cold are completely unrelated to Good/Evil and Law/Chaos.

Would the Chinese Yin/Yang dualism component of Taoism count as another two axis system?

I think the very closest system out there has got to be Discordianism, which uses a two-axis system almost identical in principle to the one in D&D. (and, incidentally, represents the order/chaos axis with a modified yin/yang sign)

[Seto]

Earnestly using alignment in real life is a Bad Idea. Then (assuming an Eberron-like alignment where people are pretty evenly divided), you start wondering who among your acquaintances is Evil, and telling yourself they're evil in the common sense of the word, which is something you shouldn't think of a person, pretty much ever.

If you're able to avoid judgment, however (which is difficult since the system is biased towards Lawful and towards Good, starting with the words themselves), and use alignment for recreational purposes rather than serious moral evaluation, I find it helps a lot with broad characterization.

[KeeperoftheGate]

Imagine if you use the Dungeons and Dragons alignment system in real life. For example I changed from Lawful Good To Neutral Good but I still got some Chaotic Good inside of me. How will you go using the alignment system in your daily life?

Haha, we use the D&D stat system in daily life. "That guy was huge! Like muscle 16 or 17 for reals! He had a Charisma score of 4 though."

[Ruslan]

The Dungeons and Dragons alignment system is a fictional construct and is not applicable to real life*.
Attempting to use it in real life is akin to waving a small wooden stick and yelling the names of Harry Potter spells while expecting to produce any kind of real effect.

* according to a splinter faction of RPG cynics, it's not even applicable to Dungeons and Dragons.

[goto124]

* according to a splinter faction of RPG cynics, it's not even applicable to Dungeons and Dragons.

Even 5e doesn't really care for its own alignment anymore!

[digiman619]

Personally, if I am going to classify people like that, I'll use the five colors of Magic: the Gathering. It has a lot of flexibility like that.