Results 31 to 60 of 61
-
2018-01-10, 12:51 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2015
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
No. If your game is not D&D, NO ONE has to decide what is right or wrong. Players can have opinions about it, the GM can, the characters can, but all of those are just opinions and stay that way.
And this is better for play with morality dilemmas. I don't know why you would want to pick one of those many existing opinions (whih will exist if the dilemma deserves to be called that) and declare it to be the cosmic backed up right on in game.
-
2018-01-10, 01:50 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2016
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
I thought my point was quite clear, however I'll quote myself with added bolding.
Dungeons and Dragons was not designed to explore ethical conflicts and moral dilemmas. The alignment system was included to actively discourage players from moralizing. Gary Gygax as well as Dave Arneson and other original members of TSR have made comments to that effect in some cases explicitly stating this to be fact in interviews.
That being the case, it's disingenuous to hold out a broken or reductive "morality/alignment" system as being a "flaw" especially compared to other systems which have to one degree or another been designed to handle those moral dilemmas and such instead of actively seeking to prevent them.
I was going to respond to this but the quote below is on point.
For example:
A Fighter can be Lawful Good. A Paladin must be Lawful Good. Setting aside the italicized terms, a Lawful Good Paladin will be held to a much more stringent code of conduct than a Lawful Good Fighter will be regardless of the Edition in Play. Further the Paladin will be punished mechanically for transgression against their alignment, whereas the Fighter typically will not be.
@Satinavian,
You keep bringing up "play with morality dilemmas" and your arguments seem largely predicated on a desire to use role-playing games as an alternative Philosophical Methodology.
As I continue to point out, very clearly, there are systems designed to support this and there are systems designed to prevent this. DnD is and historically has been one of the latter types. Criticizing the system as a result does not represent a "strong" or even "coherent" argument.
This is particularly true as the mechanical effects of a PC transgressing against their alignment are extremely limited in 5E.
-
2018-01-10, 02:55 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2009
- Gender
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
The two-axis alignment grid isn't even bad at dealing with shades of grey (how people keep missing four different flavours of morally neutral is beyond me), nor is it bad for playing out moral dilemmas.
The reason why it's not bad for moral dilemmas is because 1) most characters are not in fact demanded to be Good and 2) most characters do not in fact have complete knowledge of in-setting morality.
So you can have, for example, a Lawful Good character and Chaotic Good character arguing for merits of deontological versus consequentalist approach to a situation, with a Neutral Good character caught in-between and facing the dilemma. Or a Neutral or Evil character facing a dilemma between doing what's good and their selfish inclinations. Choosing what's objectively good is only a no-brainer when you're playing an objectively good role. (Shocking, I know.)
A lot of the complaints about the alignment system are actually based on unwillingness to accept that in D&D, a game master exist and is supposed to deliver the final verdict and tell players to shut up about it. (Not exactly the same argument as jojo's, but pretty close.) And a lot of those complaints are based on player distaste towards how game definitions of Good and Evil differ from their personal definitions of good and evil. (Which is a good argument for changing details of those definitions for their table or setting, but a very bad argument for the alignment system being bad or broken.)
I am increasingly convinced that 90% of people who complain about alignment have either not read or not understood the rules. It doesn't help that apparently d20 developers either didn't read or didn't understand them either, because d20 seems to omit several clarifying passages which were in 1st Ed AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. (The moral panic towards RPGs, and TSR's response to it during the 2nd edition of AD&D, may have had something to do with this.)Last edited by Frozen_Feet; 2018-01-10 at 02:58 AM.
-
2018-01-10, 03:26 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2015
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
So "It's a feature, not a bug" ? Well, maybe to some.
But you are still wrong. It was not introduced to discourage moralizing. It was introduced to reduce intraparty backstabbing according to those interviews. And it pretty much failed to do so.
And it really doesn't discourage moralizing. Instead it provides opportunities for new argueing about morals because now it has to be decided if a character really has alignment X or if action Y should result in alignment shifts or a fall or whatever.
@Satinavian,
You keep bringing up "play with morality dilemmas" and your arguments seem largely predicated on a desire to use role-playing games as an alternative Philosophical Methodology.
As I continue to point out, very clearly, there are systems designed to support this and there are systems designed to prevent this. DnD is and historically has been one of the latter types. Criticizing the system as a result does not represent a "strong" or even "coherent" argument.
This is particularly true as the mechanical effects of a PC transgressing against their alignment are extremely limited in 5E.
And D&D is rubbish at that. The alignment only gets in the way. So you seem to actually agree with me here.
-
2018-01-10, 04:33 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2015
- Location
- Berlin
- Gender
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
But that's not what alignment is and how you use it. You compare it to a set of rules that you have to follow, weighting each and every action, which leads us to the stupidity of the BoED/BoVD or endless discussion about slaughtering baby orcs.
Instead itīs a "moral core" that's pretty broad and has a lot of overlap with "neighboring cores", making it easy to find out where something is positioned and what itīs "aligned to", making it easy to figure out the mechanical side of it.
You're making the same mistake. Alignment is a core function of D&D and is heavily included in the game mechanics, that's why a Protection from Evil spell works, a Holy enhancement is triggered or a good deity not granting certain alignment-tagged spells.
Alignment is both, prescriptive and descriptive. The "Good" axis defines what is "Good" and a "Good people" or "Good society" will automatically lean towards those moral value and be "in alignment" with them, while a Paladin will have to check himself to "stay aligned".
Overall, I think you're confusing "Good" with "good". A society works when its overall alignment and the alignment of its members or citizens matches. LE folks in an LE kingdom is "good" because their moral outlook and the rules of society match, making it work for them (but that does not make them "Good").
The thing is, "Good" and "Law" are eternal concepts and don't ever change, but they're also very broad fields. If you want, go on any PF SRD site and check out the 30 or so different Paladin codes that highlight different aspects of it, good stuff there with some even the source for conflict between different Paladins, Cavaliers or Orders.
"LG" does support Dredd-Style Paladins very well, itīs just a tightrope-walk to not switch over to LN. Both, Dredd and Captain America are very powerful Paladin archetypes that showcase what this class is about and personally, I abhor the Holier-Than-You-Stick-Up-The-Butt types.
Were you a player at my table, we wouldn't have this discussion at all. Your character would be a Paladin of Aroden and a proto-Hellknight, the other on a Paladin of Iomedae (The Inheritor..) and you could duke out your differences.
Edit and afterthought: Itīs also worth mentioning that we're talking about some extremes when it comes to alignments. "Gutmensch" (literally: A Good Human) has become a swear word used for people that work on a higher moral standard and are willing to pull through with it, as they can be both, inconvenient and frighteningly brutal at what they do.Last edited by Florian; 2018-01-10 at 05:03 AM.
-
2018-01-10, 09:35 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2009
- Gender
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
A lot of the time when "Gutmensch" and equivalents are used as swear words, they're used ironically, with the connotation that the person so labeled is hypocritical, ineffectual busybody or otherwise not actually good except in their own little mind.
Not always, as you say, someone who walks the walk as much as they talk the talk can be pretty horrifying (especially when their morals differ from you). Triggering that feeling is usually the point when I do something similar to the original poster. (Of course, the irony of ironies is that a lot of people are so used to conflating two different uses of the term that they cannot distinquish between a hypocrite and a genuine zealot.)"It's the fate of all things under the sky,
to grow old and wither and die."
-
2018-01-10, 10:58 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2007
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
I see you've purged 4e from your mind. Or you could argue that since the removed alignments didn't have any rules attached to them, they could be removed without consequence.
Except that "detect evil/good" doesn't care what society thinks, it checks the aura/character sheet of the object/person and reflects that (of course, those spells can fail with dealing with redeemed demons and fallen angels). There isn't anything subjective about the goodness of a holy sword, it simply is goodness attached to a lump of metal.
Depending on the setting, it is entirely possible (and presumably recommended by RAW) that the gods themselves can't effect the forces of good/evil. We see that in the stickverse, where the gods appear to declare that it is a good (or at least neutral) act to slay greenskins (specifically only for xp) only to have the raw forces of good/evil declare otherwise. "Society" (even a society of paladins) thought that massacring a goblin village was fine, while the forces of good/evil declared it objectively evil. RAW appears to support this, but much of these arguments date before 3e when the whole concept of RAW was laughable.
While alignment obviously relies on the DM and the setting, it should be equally obvious that the players need to agree to this. The real problem occurs when it takes longer to agree to the setting's morality and ethics than to play the game. Most settings will be black and white (and often include some "fairy tale morality" that won't fly anywhere in the modern world) and others might go for gritty realism (I'd recommend chucking the alignment rules in this case), but you need to agree on the setting. But "objective morality" appears to be RAW and requires houseruling to remove (although pretty much any setting requires a ton of small and large adjustments to RAW).
That's odd. I've always assumed that "alignment" was copied over from chainmail to represent the two sides of the wargaming table. It looks like it still was, but with a significant delay and for different reasons than "we've always had this" (which appears to be the reason that D&D keeps this broken system).
-
2018-01-10, 11:06 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2008
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
That's overly broad--there are systems other than DnD that use alignment, and even systems that don't use alignment may have rules that function similarly to alignment rules.
And since your post was in response to my comments which were about DnD, it's not relevant anyway.
-
2018-01-10, 11:20 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2017
- Location
- Your mom's bed.
- Gender
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
Aren't strong punishments enacted to discourage evil? Let's say they're TOO strong. The worst it could be is Lawful Neutral. Evil is harming the innocent.
-
2018-01-10, 12:01 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2014
- Location
- Cleveland
- Gender
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
Alignments are not open to interpretation. They are cosmic truths. Mortal understanding of those truths, however, is going to be flawed, even with divine or planar guidance. This is how we get orthodox and progressive elements within many churches. It can be an incredibly enjoyable playing experience to explore those rifts.
Of more immediate importance: Is your Paladin Lawful and Good? No he is not. Does he believe that he is Lawful and Good? Sure. So did Hitler. End of discussion.
HOWEVER, this is a bloody game. At your table, he was fun and well received. So well received that your buddy went out of his way to invite you to bring him into another existing game. Obviously, alignment interpretation was less important than depth of character at your table. For table two, or at least with this specific player, alignment was a much bigger deal. These kind of disagreements are usually handled best OOC and occasionally, a compromise can be found. Usually the problem resolves with someone making a new character, but not always.
The move to a Bard is probably a good thing. Not only does it resolve the conflict, it allows you to role-play a whole different personality from what you do at your own table. Variety is the spice of life... Though, maybe not so much for Lawful archtypes.
-
2018-01-10, 03:40 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2015
- Location
- Berlin
- Gender
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
This could get us into a rather lengthy discussion... What you hint at is a pronounced moral difference between people and the society they exist in, with laws and institutions that formed at one point, reflecting a general consensus where "to go".
IMHO, this is what you get when upholding a "C" Alignment as the best personal case, but don't accept the outcome and rather have an overall "L" society - the difference can only be settled by the use of force.
-
2018-01-10, 04:16 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2015
- Location
- Berlin
- Gender
-
2018-01-10, 04:55 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2017
- Gender
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
Pretty much I agree with this and yes, I did re-roll and I am having fun. Variety is good. I might be a little to in love with my paladin character but to me it wasn't a big deal and as i said I follow the player around and make up silly songs of his brave and noble deeds or poke holes in his logic when i see them. It gets a laugh out of the player so he seems to be taking it well. maybe he realized he was being sort of a jerk, I don't know. Sometimes these topics are best left as is and not brought up again if everyone is having a good time. Though while your Hitler analogy is extreme if we go by the lawful good definition in his society at the time many thought that was the right thing to do otherwise why would he have been put in power but that's a huge other discussion and best left alone and out of this thread.
Also I think some people have the wrong impression and keep quoting around different ed and that's ok for this discussion but DO KEEP IN MIND that I am talking mostly of 5th ed here right now which unlike the other ed of the game has a much less strict view of the alignment system.
I don't need to re-quote the lawful good definition but lets look at the detect good and evil spell shall we.
For the duration, you know if there is an aberration, celestial, elemental, fey, fiend, or undead within 30 feet of you, as well as where the creature is located. Similarly, you know if there is a place or object within 30 feet of you that has been magically consecrated or desecrated.
Now I have my own personal view of things which has been made very clear I think in this thread so far so lets take it from a different angle sense everyone seems to be focused on what the rules by RAW are trying to define in 5th ed at least because if we try to play ed war's this topic is going to get more then a little hard to follow.
Lets use the definition given by the book of lawful good again as our example. It dictates that a lawful good character will do what is right by society. So if we take this as the definitive definition of LG does that mean a lawful good god changes by what a society thinks of as good or does he simply look down from heaven and go, boy these people have got it twisted?Last edited by Davrix; 2018-01-10 at 04:57 PM.
-
2018-01-11, 02:38 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2015
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
How about the rest of the system ?
Are there items only good or evil people can use ? Are there barriers which keep people of certain alignment out ? Are there spells which do damage/heling/other effects based on alignment ? Are there class abilities depending on alignment of owner or target ?
If nothing of that exist, then indeed the objective alignment does not really get in the way and people can have different ideas about what is good or evil. But if those things do exist, they can be used to detect alignment and everything that changed is that you now have to jump through more hoops to do so.
-
2018-01-11, 05:58 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2009
- Gender
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
Those magical effects and their causal link with morality is not wholly obvious, though. A plausible in-universe argument can be made that it is only correlation and in absence of complete knowledge of in-setting morality and in the presence of detection-fooling events, it is possible to contest reasons of such correlation.
Never, ever mistake "objective information exists" with "objective information is easy" or "objective information is uncontestable and people will always agree on its interpretation"."It's the fate of all things under the sky,
to grow old and wither and die."
-
2018-01-12, 02:23 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2017
- Gender
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
Very few in fact actually exist in the core 5th ed books atm.
The swords of awakening have an alignment but that's specifically in grayhawk lore and the talismans of ultimate evil and good but they simply state any good or evil alignment. Heck even the holy avenger simply says paladin as a requirement. The only weapons aside from the SOA from grayhawk are the legendary artifacts that have sentience build it so there is a living entity deciding if you morally fit their view of what they wish to accomplish.
As for spells both detect G/E and Protection from G/E just list creature type, the same goes with Magicl circle. it asks you to name a specific creature rather than naming an alignment.
So yea they really are trying to have it both ways. So many things are left more open now to different moral views however the one section that lists gods and creatures such as celestial and demons are bound by the cosmic constant of good and evil. They are what they are and nothing "changes" it (big air quotes)
So yea it basically feels like 80 percent of the book wants to be more open about it and then 20 percent gets stuck in past ed of the game.
-
2018-01-12, 03:50 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2015
- Location
- Berlin
- Gender
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
That's sad, because the alignment system is a good tool if you understand how to use it properly, but it more often than not got either misused or misunderstood.
-
2018-01-12, 03:54 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2017
- Gender
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
I think it has a lot to do with personal views and how it has been written in past editions. Some take it by RAW and will not change one word to make it more flexible. (Though they will happily tweak anything else when it comes to feats or powers most times. Seriously I had player like that once)
Personally if you make up your own world you should be allowed to have alignment anyway you wish. Your world your rules. Using an established world that's published? Maybe adhere more to it but I am still of the opinion that its all based on the tables views. And I happen to enjoy playing in the aspect of what is right and what is wrong.
-
2018-01-14, 11:12 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2017
- Location
- y
- Gender
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
Well, as was said by others, alignment is not decided by what a character thinks their alignment would be in the game. It's far more objective. The guideline that I found is that good will sacrifice their own [something] for the good of others ("I will work to protect the innocent, or die trying!"). Neutral will sacrifice others for the good of others (The end justifies the means, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette). And evil sacrifices others for the good of themselves ("If I kill you, I get your money!"). I'm not sure who originally came up with this, but obviously there are different points along the spectrum that alignment attempts to label. In this land with these laws, I would objectively say your character is Lawful Neutral. They follow a code and try to help people, but others see the actions to get to peace as overkill. Your character sees it as the end justifies the means, because that's the culture they grew up with. Of course, with this alignment (at least in 5e), you still cannot become an oathbreaker, and it does not affect the way you follow your tenets in any way, assuming you are not playing an edition where you must specifically be Good to be your oath.
This character sounds exceptionally badass BTW.
-
2018-01-14, 04:14 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2017
- Gender
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
Thank you for the compliment and yes he is a TON of fun to play at my other table. And yes this is in 5th, also I'm not even sure 4th required an alignment anymore either but i forget now. And yea he follows his oaths to the letter but I also dont play him lawful stupid either. But long story short he puts the fear of god into anyone who would do harm to innocent people. And will generally outright take the head off of the really nasty types ones.
-
2018-01-14, 04:32 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2004
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
Shoud have spelled out that this is a 5ed game to begin with. Clearly you're doing nothing wrong, as such, even if your paladin is evil, in an edition where paladins don't have to be Lawful Good. He sounds like he's still going on earlier-edition expectations, including "paladin+evil act according to objective morality as interpreted by the DM=ex-paladin."
My advice is to tell him, "Yes, there are entirely valid perspectives which would state my character is evil*, but paladins are allowed to be evil in this edition, so it doesn't matter mechanically."
Then your group can deal with the results of your moral disagreement, which may well still be irreconcilable, but at least you'll be on the same page with regard to what you're disagreeing on--and it's entirely possible that his objection is only to someone in the group acting evil while wearing what he considers an "I'm definitionally one of the Good Guys" badge.
*Or "Yes, my character is evil" will be more likely to defuse the conflict, if that's something you're willing to say.Orth Plays: Currently Baldur's Gate II
-
2018-01-14, 05:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
- Location
- San Francisco Bay area
- Gender
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
.
Unfortunately I stopped playing games in 1993 and didn't start again until a couple of years ago, so I never played 4th edition, but I did glance at it and note that 4e was back to a 5-point of Alignment sort-of likeSpoiler: the 5-point system of the 1977 "bluebook".CHARACTER ALIGNMENT
Characters may be lawful (good or evil), neutral or chaotic (good or evil). Lawful characters always act according to a highly regulated code of behavior, whether for good or evil. Chaotic characters are quite
unpredictable and can not be depended upon to do anything except the unexpected -- they are often, but not always, evil. Neutral characters, such as all thieves, are motivated by self interest and may steal from their companions or betray them if it is in their own best interest. Players may choose any alignment they want and need not reveal it to others. Note that the code of lawful good characters insures that they would tell everyone that they are lawful. There are some magical items that can be used only by one alignment of characters. If the Dungeon Master feels that a character has begun to behave in a manner inconsistent with his declared alignment he may rule that he or she has changed alignment and penalize the character with a loss of experience points. An example of such behavior would be a "good" character who kills or tortures a prisoner.
That's odd. I've always assumed that "alignment" was copied over from chainmail to represent the two sides of the wargaming table. It looks like it still was, but with a significant delay and for different reasons than "we've always had this" (which appears to be the reason that D&D keeps this broken system).
While I suppose it waa inevitably when Greyhawk added Paladins that were "continual seeking for good" but I think that adding "Good" and "Evil" to "Alignment" was a mistake, and it was better the way the predecessor of D&D, Chainmail had it as:
"GENERAL LINE-UP:
It is impossible to draw a distanct line between "good" and "evil" fantastic
figures. Three categories are listed below as a general guide for the wargamer
designing orders of battle involving fantastic creatures:
LAW
Hobbits
Dwarves
Gnomes
Heroes
Super Heroes
Wizards*
Ents
Magic Weapons
NEUTRAL
Sprites
Pixies
Elves
Fairies
Lycanthropes *
Giants*
Rocs
(Elementals)
Chimerea
CHAOS
Goblins
Kobolds
Orcs
Anti-heroes
Wizards *
Wraiths
Wights
Lycanthropes*
Ogres
True Trolls
Balrogs
Giants *
Dragons
Basilisks
* Indicates the figure appears in two lists.
Underlined Neutral figures have a slight pre-disposition for LAW. Neutral
figures can be diced for to determine on which side they will fight, with ties
meaning they remain neutral."
Clear that it's sides in a wargame, not an ethics debate.
Wisely the 1981 "Basic rules" went back to Law/Neutral/Chaos, which was retained in theSpoiler: 1991 "Rules Cyclopedia"Alignment
An alignment is a code of behavior or way of
life which guides the actions and thoughts of characters and monsters. There are three alignments in the D&DŪ game: Law, Chaos, and Neutrality. Players may choose the alignments they feel will best fit their characters. A player does not have to tell other players what alignment he or she has picked, but must tell the Dungeon Master. Most Lawful characters will reveal their align-ments if asked. When picking alignments, the characters should know that Chaotics cannot be trusted, even by other Chaotics. A Chaotic character does not work well with other PCs.
Alignments give characters guidelines,to live by. They are not absolute rules: characters will try to follow their alignment guidelines, but may not always be successful. To better understand the philosophies behind them, let's define the three alignments.
Law (or Lawful)
Law is the belief that everything should follow an order, and that obeying rules is the natural way of life. Lawful creatures will try to tell the truth, obey laws that are fair, keep promises, and care for all living things.
If a choice must be made between the benefit of a group or an individual, a Lawful character will usually choose the group. Sometimes individual freedoms must be given up for the good
Lawful characters and monsters often act in predictable ways. Lawful behavior is usually the same as "good" behavior.
Chaos (or Chaotic)
Chaos is the opposite of Law. It is the belief
that life is random and that chance and luck rule the world. Laws are made to be broken, as long as a person can get away with it. It is not important to keep promises, and lying and telling the truth are both useful.
To a Chaotic creature, the individual is the
most important of all things. Selfishness is the normal way of life, and the group is not important. Chaotics often act on sudden desires and whims. They have strong belief in the power of luck. They cannot always be trusted. Chaotic behavior is usually the same as behavior that could be called "evil." Each individual player must decide if his Chaotic character is closer to a mean, selfish "evil" personality or merely a happy-go-lucky, unpredictable personality.
Neutrality (or Neutral)
Neutrality is the belief that the world is a balance between Law and Chaos. It is important that neither side get too much power and upset this balance. The individual is important, but so is the group; the two sides must work together.
A Neutral character is most interested in per-
sonal survival. Such characters believe in their own wits and abilities rather than luck. They tend to return the treatment they receive from others. Neutral characters will join a party if they think it is in their own best interest, but will not be overly helpful unless there is some sort of profit in it. Neutral behavior may be considered "good" or "evil" (or neither).
Alignment Behavior
Take this situation as an example: A group of player characters is attacked by a large number of monsters. Escape is not possible unless the monsters are slowed down.
A Lawful character will fight to protect the
group, regardless of the danger. The character will not run away unless the whole group does so or is otherwise safe.
A Neutral character will fight to protect the
group as long as it is reasonably safe to do so. If the danger is too great, the character will try to save himself, even at the expense of the rest of the party.
A Chaotic character might fight the monsters or he might run away immediatelyChaotics are, as always, unpredictable. The character may not even care what happened to the rest of the party.
Playing an alignment does not mean a character must do stupid things. A character should always act as intelligently as the Intelligence score indicates, unless there is a reason to act otherwise (such as a magical curse).
Alignment Languages
Each alignment has a secret language of passwords, hand signals, and other body motions.
Player characters and intelligent monsters always know their alignment languages. They will also recognize when another alignment language is being spoken, but will not understand it. Alignment languages have no written form. A character may not learn a different alignment language unless he changes alignments. In such a case, the character forgets the old alignment language and starts using the new one immediately....
Unfortunately 'Law' was "usually "Good"', and 'Chaos' was "usually Evil", but "not always".
I still see the point of Alignments in the Monster Manual, but now that D&D has dropped ""Alignment Languages", I'm not sure what the point is of players writing them in on their character record sheets.
-
2018-01-14, 05:44 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2017
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
Paladins have Oaths, while it's perfectly possible RAW to have a Lawful Evil Ancients Paladin, the nature of that oath is going to make difficult unless the DM is looking the other way to enable the edgelord.
It does matter if the other player has been in the group longer, is also playing a Paladin, and is playing a Paladin who can't/won't look the other way while the newly introduced psychopath Paladin goes around chopping people's hands off and murdering unbelievers. Mechanically that's an issue, interpersonally that's an issue.
That's not defusing the situation. If the DM wanted to introduce such a character to the game at session zero, whatever, it's their game. The problem comes when it's an ongoing game that already has a certain tone and moral compass built up over however many sessions, and you already have a Paladin in the group who exists within the established norms of the setting. And then all of a sudden the DM wants to introduce a new character, who was quite literally designed for a different world and just drops them in without asking the group beforehand. That's a problem, because it's changing the game.
-
2018-01-15, 03:27 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2017
- Gender
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
I posted later that it was meant to be in 5th and apologized for that, i guess I should edit the OP
Also i think there is a part your missing. His alignment is Lawful good the idea though was that he is from a time where the way of life was much much different. From his point of view those who prey upon the innocent for pleasure or green deserve very little mercy. I also agree with your point about the other player but there also was no point in trying to argue with someone and changing characters fixed the problem.
Which was I simply rolled a new character but I would point out it wasn't an established game it was a new one and I will also state he doesn't chop peoples heads off unless their literally like sacrificing people or some such.Last edited by Davrix; 2018-01-15 at 03:30 PM.
-
2018-01-16, 08:41 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2014
- Location
- Cleveland
- Gender
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
I wasn't sure if we were doing a bad job explaining this, or if you were deliberately missing the point, but 5th edition actually states "as expected by society."
Until now, D&D alignment hasn't been about what society says is good. It wasn't about what a character says is good. It's about what IS good as determined by Gary and his boys. Within any other edition, your Paladin was LN. In 5th, you can make a weak case that "ancient society" is just as relevant as "society" and at some (most) tables that would fly, because it's a fun idea to role-play, but truly, it's a pretty big stretch. I think you understand that, and that's why you switched characters and came online for venting/validation.
-
2018-01-17, 06:50 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
- Gender
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
Generally speaking, if someone claims there is no such thing as good or evil, or tries to blur the lines, they are evil.
"Good and evil are only points of view, Anakin." - Darth Sidious
"There is no good, no evil, only power and those too weak to seek it." - Voldemort
In fantasy land. In real life, those who call others evil are usually up to something bad. Also, nobody thinks that they are evil.
I'd love to see an Evil Overlord be detected as Evil by a paladin or whatever, and be horrified. "What? How? How can I be evil? Everything I've done has been for my people!"
-
2018-01-17, 07:47 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
I don't know - it's very common for newspaper headlines to call committers of exceptionally atrocious crimes "evil". And at least in these cases, they tend to be more interested in drumming up public outrage at the possibility of the committer being let out early on parole, or being inadequately supervised.
There's an element of "good intentions" that tend to be in play here.Marut-2 Avatar by Serpentine
New Marut Avatar by Linkele
-
2018-01-17, 08:11 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2013
- Location
- Paris, France
- Gender
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
(Having read only the OP): what would you argue makes your character Good? Personally, I'm seeing Lawful Neutral here. I think you nail the idea of "legal enforcer-knight", but for a Paladin, Good is supposed to be more important than Law, so redemption if possible should be privileged over execution. This paragraph seems harsh:
The character has a very very strong moral code. He doesn't simply murder any thief or rapist, though he might put the fear of god into them and not be gentle about it. He only truly goes straight wraith of god on people that are very clearly trying to do harm to others for their own gain. Cultists sacrificing people, bandits rapeing and killing villages and caravans in the area, that sort of thing. For them there is no mercy, no quarter. His gods judgment will be the final thing they see before leaving this world basically.
I'd argue that unless your character has strong Good traits that you have not mentioned (willingness to sacrifice himself for others, altruism, putting effort into helping others without a reward, etc.), you have an interesting Lawful Neutral character. A good test is to ask yourself: if he comes across an Evil law, does he uphold it or rebel against it? Your slavery example makes me think he'd respect it, albeit grudgingly.
As for the question: do right and wrong change according to societies and times? In real life it's a very difficult question, thankfully in D&D it's simple. (At least, the theory is simple). Good and Evil are objective and eternal. Slavery is Evil, murder is Evil, full stop. A Paladin has a duty to oppose Evil wherever it may be found (that doesn't mean he has to be stupid and get himself killed, but doing nothing is not an option).
What is perceived as "good" or "evil", lowercase, changes according to society, but not Good and Evil. If, as it appears, your character was LN then, so is he now.Last edited by Seto; 2018-01-17 at 08:13 AM.
Avatar by Mr_Saturn
______________________
Kids, watch Buffy.
Originally Posted by Bard1cKnowledge
Check out my extended signature and the "Gitp regulars as..." that I've been honored with!
-
2018-01-17, 10:12 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2015
- Location
- Berlin
- Gender
-
2018-01-18, 04:58 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2017
- Gender
Re: My good is your evil. Lawful good/Evil Alignment disccusion.
The first part I can answer rather easily and yes he has some very strong good traits. i make it a personal note to have him stop and heal the sick or hand out a few coins whenever he can. His time period was very much centered around the idea of for the people and protecting the innocent. Crime simply had very strict punishments in place and paladins at the time acted as judge jury and if needed executioner. In more recent parts of the game the party has set up a stronghold and his part was setting up a soup kitchen of sorts and offering work to those without any.
Though I would argue that there is no such thing as an EVIL law. Once again I must stress what we say is evil is simply our perception of it based on our own views and upbringing. If we were raised in a society where slavery is legal and had been for centuries and nothing taught us to the contrary we would simply take it as the norm and not something to be weighed as good or evil. I think laws are very much something to be gauged as neutral. But to answer your question if he is in a town or city with a law he strongly disagree's with he will respect it to a point. Slavery to him is something that is evil so while he may not go around freeing slaves he may just be a bit to busy looking at a shop window if one is escaping to do anything about it.
As for the last part of your post its not as simple as it once was in 5th ed. They are trying to have their cake and eat it to in this case. On one side it says gods, celestial and demons are objectively good and evil and the laws of such is eternal. But in everything else its left open to perception of society and the player itself. Paladins no longer have to derive power from gods, their oaths bind and give them power if they wish. detection spells no longer tell you anything but creature type and aside from sentient items almost no magic item has an alignment requirement save for 3 in the DMG. So 5th is in this weird place of being sort of both so now it does become complicated if your looking at the raw. My simple solution has been its your game world. Dictate how you wish it works.