alignment is bad and you should feel bad

[Tanarii]

Question to everyone for context

How often do you play in games where anyone actually pays attention to alignment?

Personally? I now review all my character motivations before a game, including Alignment, to remind me how to get in character. I started doing this with explicit motivations listed out only since I started playing 5e, but it's a fantastic tool for getting in character,

Since I mostly DM recently, I also encourage my players to do that too, but not all choose to.

So currently my answer is "as much as the players wants it to".

Historically, it's mattered a great deal in some campaigns and not at all in others. And I include things like all characters needing to meet strong alignment restrictions during character creation. I've played in many all Good campaigns, and a few anti-Chaos or anti-Law campaigns. The latter especially Alignment was very important. All Good campaigns are often just ways of saying "make heroes to fight Villains".

[Bohandas]

Might I ask how alignment is used to punish PCs? Assuming you aren't a paladin of course. People keep using that phrase but I don't get it.

Well, IIRC in Ravenloft too many overtly evil actions will lead to a character becoming stuck in their own private hell and removed from play

[Arbane]

Anecdata: A PF character I rather enjoyed was an Oracle with the Legalistic curse (Has to keep promises, or suffers penalties) and a not-Norse background. CG. It occurred to me that if she turned Lawful Evil, it was entirely possible that nobody would even notice for a while, since all the things she did would still make sense - she keeps all her promises anyway, having followers and a good reputation was a good thing, being polite to authority figures who can help or hinder you is just sensible, and killing things and taking their stuff was fun.

We also had a Just Playing My Character LE guy in the group, and he did some DUMB stuff because he felt he HAD to.

Other games with Alignment: TORG had three settings with alignment or similar: The Nile Empire was the Pulp Fiction world, so people there are Good or Evil. Nice and simple. Aysle was the D&Dish Fantasy world, and it had 'Honor' and 'Corruption' stats - act extremely honorable or corrupt, and the world would reward you for it, but it wasn't mandatory. The Orrorsh world (Horror) threw out the 'Honor' part and just rewarded anyone who was corrupt enough by eventually turning them into a monster.

[Aliquid]

I didn't say that there was no evil in real life, or that there are no evil people.

I said that reducing everything to "team good" vs "team evil" is a cartoonish oversimplification.

AND a way for "real world" people to justify horrible acts by essentially saying "but I'm on team 'good', so it is ok"

[Max_Killjoy]

AND a way for "real world" people to justify horrible acts by essentially saying "but I'm on team 'good', so it is ok"

And "they're on team evil, so they deserve this".

[Mordaedil]

I feel like cartoons get a bad rap is all I'm saying. Their representation of character motivation and aligned sides is often far more complex and intricate than what often happens in real life.

People might seem complex if you single them out, but they are incredible simple and predictable the further out your perception is. That's why people often get the impression that "a person is smart, people are dumb" from, it's just because each clever individual arrive at the same conclusion, but their minds cannot cooperate in the same way to arrive at a collective reasonable conclusion.

Imagine you are moving through a crowd, you've seen how people in front of you are moving and how you need to move to avoid bumping into anyone while getting to your destination. But everybody else are also making the same observations or are distracted by focusing on other things and thus they will compensate from the situation from their perspective, but then you both move in an unpredictable way from each other and all of a sudden you bump into each other and you just think "gosh, if only you paid a bit more attention to things around, this wouldn't have happened".

You both made calculated smart moves, but unable to communicate your intention to each other, you both made each other the fool. You can apply this to some things regarding what I'm talking about evil sides and good sides in the larger picture too, but there's a problem here. There exists people out there who only have hate for other people and will go to extreme lengths to undermine them and possibly even get them killed. They are just that simple.

And they aren't cartoons.

[RedMage125]

Reread some of those posts. It's not both "us vs them" and "useless moral system" at the same time -- it's that it's a terrible Us vs Them OR a terrible Moral System. That there is also a conflation of the two that reflects a rather toxic real-world "us good vs them evil" mentality that's all too common is just icing on the cake.

"Us vs Them" is exactly how many players treat Alignment -- as permission to freely kill and steal from anything in the wrong / enemy jersey.

So it's a binary choice between "terrible x" or a "terrible y" system, solely because YOU SAY SO, with no other options other than that?

Everything that you have said that you THINK is a point is tautological.

On the other hand...

The "objective morality" that both the detractors and defenders of Alignment alike describe... is sick, an absurdist horror show where supposed morality is defined simplistically by the actions one takes; where standing by and doing nothing is often more "morally safe" than taking action; where someone can be forced into "doing evil" in taking the least-bad option, when contrivance or circumstance arrange for nothing but bad choices. And it does in fact preclude any sort of moral quandaries or nuance, by establishing a checklist of "evil actions" and setting in stone that committing any of those actions is "evil", no matter what the circumstances are, no matter what the intent or motivation was, no matter what.

Not even remotely true of alignment in any edition that I am most familiar with (3.x, 4e, and 5e).

Take 3e, for example, since that had the most in-depth alignment mechanics of any. If you commit one of these "evil regardless of context" acts in order to do something good, then you have done both. Example, you raise some zombies and skeletons from a nearby graveyard to have soldiers to stop an orc tribe from attacking, thus saving an entire town. By the actual RAW of D&D alignment (not to be confused with the grotesque parody that YOU CLAIM is the RAW), you have committed a morally evil act (created undead), followed by a morally good act (saved hundreds of people's lives. Now, according to the rules on how alignment changes (3.5e DMG, page 134), "Indecisiveness Indicates Neutrality". Someone who wants to accomplish Good ends, but is willing to use Evil means to do so is not truly "Good". And the same thing applies to your "doing nothing is morally safe" line of garbage. Such a person would also be Neutral.

Once again, you intend ONLY to discuss alignment in terms of your grotesquely distorted perception of it, claiming that is "true", then you are objectively WRONG, and I will call you on it.

Unless of course you're killing anything wearing the Team Evil jersey, evidently? What does the Alignment system say about raiding a village of orcs and killing all the adults, or all of them to the last? After all, it's an objective system with ultimate unquestionable answers, it should have an answer for this one, right?

hamishspence answered this beautifully. but you didn't respond, probably because you didn't like the fact that he completely shut down this claim of yours in a way that left you no room to continue saying "but alignment is bad because I want it to be bad". You, in fact, CONTINUE to harp on this point later...we'll come back to it.

How does writing it down on the sheet help?

What purpose is there in writing down a PC's Alignment?

Is it just a reminder, like writing down the names of a PC's relatives?

There's no more XP lost when a DM deems a PC has "changed alignments", so what exactly is it for?

Once upon a time "Lawful" PC's had to truthfully say there Alignment, which implies that they knew what it was, but I see nothing like that in the current rules.

Many DM's have a "no evil PC's" policy, and it's now a cliche that "Chaotic Neutral" on a sheet means 'evil PC in a "no evil" game'.

So what is the entry for?

In an edition with more concrete alignment mechanics, such as 3.5e, alignment determines how some spells, items, and abilities will affect you. Thus, an accurate telling of one's alignment is significant. If I started out with a party of all Good-aligned characters, but the part Fighter has been doing so much morally questionable stuff consistently over a long enough period of time that he has become Neutral, then when my party cleric casts Holy Word, the Fighter is going to be somewhat affected, while the rest of us are not.

And "Chaotic Neutral as evil or evil lite" is, once again, a fault of PEOPLE. Not every person mis-using alignment is a DM. Sometimes Players are jerkbags, too. That's not what CN is supposed t be, and I have seen (and played as) several Chaotic Neutral characters who are not even remotely disruptive to a party of Good and Neutral characters.

So what's the benefit of using alignment when running a game with moral ambiguity? If I'm doing that, then slapping objective "good", "evil" and "neither" labels on things seems pretty counterproductive.

As I said before, alignment mechanics give mechanical voice-in an objective manner not determined by DM fiat-to several classic tropes of fantasy. Also, for what I said to 2D8HP, above.

Moral ambiguity is always still possible, because mortals do not perceive the objective nature of alignment without the use of magic. A PC or an NPC may be as morally ambiguous in play as you like. The existence of absolute objective moral and ethical standards in D&D are on a cosmic scale. So no matter how morally ambiguous a character is, they still end up falling somewhere within a defined alignment.

Of course, if you don't find alignment to be productive, don't use it. I've never advocated that everyone "should use" or even "should like" alignment. If people don't want to use it, they shouldn't. The ONLY wrong way to play D&D is a way in which people at your table are not having fun. I just argue about what alignment is and is not-factually-according to the RAW.

And "they're on team evil, so they deserve this".

And...we're back to this.

Hamishspence pointed out to you that by a D&D metric, that isn't actually the case. But you wanted to keep saying this about alignment, so you ignored him. D&D alignment actually DOESN'T promote this mantra. And it's a blatant lie to say that it does.

[Max_Killjoy]

So, if that concept of Alignment isn't in any of the books, and it's just so not fair...

Where do so many people who've played D&D get that exact impression of Alignment from?

Why do so many people play it that way, or run into others who play it that way?

Why are there so many discussions of Alignment that come down to grossly oversimplified platitudes being lobbed back and forth?

Where do all these silly "moral trap" Paladin falls we hear about come from?

Why do so many players have horror stories about another player telling them "your character wouldn't do that, his alignment is _____!"


It's a choice between "terrible X" and "terrible Y" because those are the choices, it has nothing to do with my say-so.

If you want to draw up Team A and Team B, use different terms and don't conflate it with morality by your choice of terms.

If you want to actually explore moral uncertainty, quandaries, and disputes... then you can't present caricature of morality based on laundry lists of "good acts" and "evil acts" supposedly adjudicated by cosmic forces, where taking the least-bad option, or having a choice between two bad options imposed on you, or being outright tricked into doing something, can all result in YOU being held accountable for an "evil act" regardless of your intent or motivation. That's not moral complexity, that's a sick joke. And if "the universe" really does have forces that impose that kind of judgement, then "the universe" is morally bankrupt and every character living in it should go outside a raise a one-finger salute to the sky and tell "the universe " to go F itself.


You can call it "a lie" all you want. Doesn't make it any less true.

[hamishspence]

The point of "always evil acts" is to codify what you can't do to anyone, not even "Team Evil" - and not trigger a negative reaction from the "cosmic forces of good" as expressed by the DM.

As BoVD points out though, no matter how "black-and-white" the moral setup is, there will always be grey areas. And it's in these grey areas, that uncertainty, and quandaries, arise.

[King of Nowhere]

AND a way for "real world" people to justify horrible acts by essentially saying "but I'm on team 'good', so it is ok"

And "they're on team evil, so they deserve this".

some people use hammers to bash skulls. This clearly means that hammers are bad and should be banned, and people who use hammers should feel bad. they probably just wait the right time to bash some skull with it.

hell no! Hammers are for planting nails, and they're useful when used for planting nails. If some people misuse them it's not a defect of the tool.

Because that's what alignments are, a tool. As such, there will be some people who will put it to goood use, some who will horribly misuse it, and some who will not have any use for it. Just decide what (if anything) you want to do with it, but don't bash others for their choices on the matter.

So, if that concept of Alignment isn't in any of the books, and it's just so not fair...

Where do so many people who've played D&D get that exact impression of Alignment from?

Why do so many people play it that way, or run into others who play it that way?

Why are there so many discussions of Alignment that come down to grossly oversimplified platitudes being lobbed back and forth?

Where do all these silly "moral trap" Paladin falls we hear about come from?

Why do so many players have horror stories about another player telling them "your character wouldn't do that, his alignment is _____!"

Why several of my high school students told me that rutherford used apha rays to "drill through a gold ingot", when I told them that he shot them through a thin gold foil?
Because they did not understood what I told them and put their own twisted interpretation to it.

Why a lot of americans think that europe is a country?
Those who do are ignorant. And those youtube videos showing those people are only showing interviews of ignorant people.

Why it appears so many people get murdered or abused and humanity is hopeless?
Because the media amplify bad news over good ones.

So, all those horror stories of people horribly twisting and misusing alignments are just that: people who did not understood the issue, who put a twisted interpretation to it because they are ignorant on the matter, and they are a small number of bad cases that got amplified through the internet because people are more likely to recount and remember bad stories.

There are a lot of stories of toxic players around, because roleplaying requires a certain maturity and open-mindedness that not all players have. Some of those toxic stories are about alignment, but that's a fluke. Toxic players will be toxic players regardless of the rules you make. If your toxic player decided he wants to murder the rest of the party in their sleep and steal their loot he will try it, regardless of whether you will slap an alignment on him or not.
You are using intentional examples of bad players to justify your point. that's cherry-picking the evidence, and does not prove anything. Except that there are toxic players.

EDIT:

If you want to actually explore moral uncertainty, quandaries, and disputes... then you can't present caricature of morality based on laundry lists of "good acts" and "evil acts" supposedly adjudicated by cosmic forces, where taking the least-bad option, or having a choice between two bad options imposed on you, or being outright tricked into doing something, can all result in YOU being held accountable for an "evil act" regardless of your intent or motivation. That's not moral complexity, that's a sick joke.

As others pointed out, the only one expressing a charicature of morality is you. nothing you are describing here is really the alignment system, or at least, I've never seen anyone use it like that. Where do you get the idea that intent or motivation do not count? that's absurd. The BoED, which I do not like because it's still too rigid, outright states the opposite. And if you are stuck in a situation where you have no ggood choice, it's a completely different matter than doing evil in a normal situation. In that case of "I did what I had to do", the concept of committing an evil action is along the lines of "you should regret the necessity of doing so, and if possibly atone", not along the lines of "your soul is now damned forever, MWAHAHAHAHA!!!". Again, I've never seen anyone using the sick, twisted mock of alingment you pretend is the real thing.
I think you either had some very bad luck with toxic players in your groups, or you are reading too many bad stories on the internet and thinking they are the norm instead of the exceptions.

[Max_Killjoy]

As others pointed out, the only one expressing a charicature of morality is you. nothing you are describing here is really the alignment system, or at least, I've never seen anyone use it like that. Where do you get the idea that intent or motivation do not count? that's absurd. The BoED, which I do not like because it's still too rigid, outright states the opposite. And if you are stuck in a situation where you have no ggood choice, it's a completely different matter than doing evil in a normal situation. In that case of "I did what I had to do", the concept of committing an evil action is along the lines of "you should regret the necessity of doing so, and if possibly atone", not along the lines of "your soul is now damned forever, MWAHAHAHAHA!!!". Again, I've never seen anyone using the sick, twisted mock of alingment you pretend is the real thing.

I think you either had some very bad luck with toxic players in your groups, or you are reading too many bad stories on the internet and thinking they are the norm instead of the exceptions.

Multiple people in this thread who are advocates of Alignment as useful have described exactly what I just laid out:

• absolute objective morality
• "good" and "evil" as absolute cosmic forces
• "good" and "evil" judged purely by an individual's actions with no regard for intent, motive, circumstances, or limited choices

Someone even claimed that under D&D alignment, the only non-evil choice in the Trolley Problem was to walk away / do nothing, because as soon as the character touched the switch and chose to direct the trolley, they were the one who had killed either the one person or the X number of people, and not the person who set up the situation.

I'll go back and find quotes if I have to.

[Aliquid]

some people use hammers to bash skulls. This clearly means that hammers are bad and should be banned, and people who use hammers should feel bad. they probably just wait the right time to bash some skull with it.

hell no! Hammers are for planting nails, and they're useful when used for planting nails. If some people misuse them it's not a defect of the tool.

Because that's what alignments are, a tool. As such, there will be some people who will put it to goood use, some who will horribly misuse it, and some who will not have any use for it. Just decide what (if anything) you want to do with it, but don't bash others for their choices on the matter.

If someone's "choice on the matter" is to use alignments in a way that reinforces their distorted and dangerous views of real world morality... then I will bash it. For most people, how we view Alignments in D&D very much mirrors how we view morality in the real world.

[Calthropstu]

Am I alone in actually liking the alignment aspect?

It is, by no means, a be all end all kind of thing. It's not like "you filched from the candy jar. You are chaotic now." With the exception of paladins, alignment is simply a guideline for the gods to judge your actions.

And yes, playing with jerks is a thing. GMs need some mechanics to curb that. If you boot everyone who ever makes a **** move, D&D would quickly become extinct because everyone can have a bad day.

But alignment, by itself, is merely a cosmic judging mechanic, nothing else. It determines what afterlife you enjoy (or suffer.)

[hamishspence]

Someone even claimed that under D&D alignment, the only non-evil choice in the Trolley Problem was to walk away / do nothing, because as soon as the character touched the switch and chose to direct the trolley, they were the one who had killed either the one person or the X number of people, and not the person who set up the situation.

I prefer to think of it in terms of "The airplane problem" - there is a damaged airplane, it will crash - but you (the air traffic controller) can direct it to land in the spot with the least people.


The trolley problem is exactly the same - except instead of directing a plane, you are directing a train - via tracks, rather than the train itself.


Giving those directions, does not qualify as "murdering" the people you are directing the plane toward. Murder requires more than just killing - an element of malicious intent needs to be involved.

And it's only murder, of all forms of killing, that D&D splatbooks say is Always Evil.

[2D8HP]

Question to everyone for context

How often do you play in games where anyone actually pays attention to alignment?....

.
A little bit in Stormbringer which had an explicit Law vs Chaos background based on the Elric series by Michael Moorcock, and there were some both mechanical and setting effects from "Lawful" and "Chaotic" behavior, but I didn't get to play it enough to experience it much.

In the other game that I've played that's with alignment, Dungeons & Dragons, the only time that alignment had much of an effect was a 5e WD&D game in which the DM said the PC's had to have an "Evil Alignment", and which coincidentally or not, one of the dullest D&D games I've played, as I found role-playing a psychopath among psychopaths tiresome.

...In an edition with more concrete alignment mechanics, such as 3.5e, alignment determines how some spells, items, and abilities will affect you. Thus, an accurate telling of one's alignment is significant... .

.
Ah, that explains some, long ago I played a mix of Oe D&D/1e AD&D/third-party/magazine articles/stuff we made up, rules, and a lot of the TSR rules we just didn't use, including most of "Alignment" beyond writing one on the character sheet.

More recently I've played some Pendragon, which has "Passions and Traits" that effect behavior (it's a game that involves both more "roll-play" and "role-play" to game out Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight types of temptations), and that has had some mechanics that effect, and are effected by IC morality, otherwise I've played some B/X TD&D, which had "Alignment Languages" that didn't come up in play, and more 5e WD&D, which has Alignment inform the PC's "Ideals", "Flaws", etc, which DM's may award "Inspiration" bonuses for (similar to some mechanics in 1985's Pendragon), but I've never seen a DM actually use those rulers, just as I've never seen a DM impose the penalties that were in the old TSR D&D rules.

Obviously I haven't interacted with Alignment, because while I started gaming with the "Basic Set" almost 40 years ago, I haven't had enough actual table time, a problem you should totally solve by being my DM.

*place some sort of hopeful begging emoji here*

[Aliquid]

I prefer to think of it in terms of "The airplane problem" - there is a damaged airplane, it will crash - but you (the air traffic controller) can direct it to land in the spot with the least people.


The trolley problem is exactly the same - except instead of directing a plane, you are directing a train - via tracks, rather than the train itself.

That's not how the trolley problem works. It is a dilemma where the two options are basically:
1 - do nothing and a group of people die
2 - do something and only one person dies (but that person wasn't in danger for option 1)

Your airplane problem isn't a dilemma... there is no "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario going on... just a "how can I minimize damages".

[kyoryu]

Someone even claimed that under D&D alignment, the only non-evil choice in the Trolley Problem was to walk away / do nothing, because as soon as the character touched the switch and chose to direct the trolley, they were the one who had killed either the one person or the X number of people, and not the person who set up the situation.

From a Kantian/deontological view, that is true. That's not an alignment issue. That's an issue with a school of ethics that you don't agree with.

To frame it slightly differently, is not saving someone from drowning Evil? I'd say it's very firmly neutral.

Is flipping the lever an "evil" act? Yes. But, as has been pointed out many times in this thread, a Good person can commit an Evil act. Doing it in situations of extreme duress, with appropriate guilt, and after all other possibillities have been exhausted, is not going to tweak someone's alignment. Doing it repeatedly, for little gain, and without looking for other opportunities, will.

If you do a Good act, as a Good person, you should feel pretty dang good, right? Do you think a Good person would feel A-OK about flipping the lever? I sure don't. It may be a necessary evil, but necessary evils are still evil.

A Paladin will likely Fall in that case, but that's why Atonement exists.

At least, that's how I run it. Acts are strict. People are loose and wibbly wobbly and complex.

Now, I'm not trying to convince you that your ethics should follow this. That's your thing. I am trying to convince you that this view isn't quite as bicycle-made-of-babies crazy as you're portraying it.

[Tanarii]

Is flipping the lever an "evil" act? Yes. But, as has been pointed out many times in this thread, a Good person can commit an Evil act. Doing it in situations of extreme duress, with appropriate guilt, and after all other possibillities have been exhausted, is not going to tweak someone's alignment. Doing it repeatedly, for little gain, and without looking for other opportunities, will.

There are lots of people that believe a single "evil" (or "bad", if you prefer, for IRL acts) act of sufficient magnitude outweighs all good acts. Fall from Grace thinking, basically. And many people include a single murder, manslaughter, or negligent homicide in that category. Others include any killing.

[King of Nowhere]

Multiple people in this thread who are advocates of Alignment as useful have described exactly what I just laid out:

• absolute objective morality
• "good" and "evil" as absolute cosmic forces
• "good" and "evil" judged purely by an individual's actions with no regard for intent, motive, circumstances, or limited choices

We must be reading different threads, because I see none of them (ok, maybe a bit of the first two, but taken in context). Granted, I skipped a couple pages, but still. We must be interpreting the same texts in different ways.
But anyway, if there are people advocating for those things, those people are wrong. I repeat, you can't cherry-pick the worst cases and say "this is how alignment is supposed to work". Just like you can't take someone bashing a head with a hammer and say "this is how hammers are supposed to be used".

Someone even claimed that under D&D alignment, the only non-evil choice in the Trolley Problem was to walk away / do nothing, because as soon as the character touched the switch and chose to direct the trolley, they were the one who had killed either the one person or the X number of people, and not the person who set up the situation.

I'll go back and find quotes if I have to.

I'd argue that choice is evil too, because you refuse to help those in need.
But kyoryu already made a good dissection of that example with very satisfying answers. Which I hope you are NOT mistaking as "good" and "evil" judged purely by an individual's actions with no regard for intent, motive, circumstances, or limited choices"

If someone's "choice on the matter" is to use alignments in a way that reinforces their distorted and dangerous views of real world morality... then I will bash it. For most people, how we view Alignments in D&D very much mirrors how we view morality in the real world.

First, I know nobody who uses D&D alignments to make real world judgments. Your opinion that "most people" view real world morality that way is either over inflated, overy simplicistic, or you took the wrong sample of the population.
Second, somebody's attitude in a game is not the same thing as in real life. I play civilization, I declare wars, I nuke my opponents. I hope it's clear I wouldn't do it in real life. Going all moral guardian "dude, nuking people is wrong" means completely missing the point. I like to play a game where I can nuke cities, and some other people like games where they cast a spell on a kid and determine that it is ok to kill him. Their choice.
Third, if those people are confusing the game with the real world, then I'd bash those real world beliefs, not the game.
And especially not an innocent game practice that only get problematic when twisted beyond recognition.

EDIT:

There are lots of people that believe a single "evil" (or "bad", if you prefer, for IRL acts) act of sufficient magnitude outweighs all good acts. Fall from Grace thinking, basically. And many people include a single murder, manslaughter, or negligent homicide in that category. Others include any killing.

Well, if you suddenly decide to commit genocide then yes, this is a single evil act that outweights all good acts. Even if you kill a person for no good reason, that's enough to call you evil until you seriously repent it.
As for the trolley problem, intent and circumstances DO matter, and so switching tracks is an extremely small evil. One whose taint on your soul is probably already lifted by the fact that you'll regret that, alas, you had to cause a death.
There may be some people believing that switching track causes you to become utterly and irredeemably evil, but then, there are also some people believing that the earth is flat. There's people believing anything out there.

[kyoryu]

There are lots of people that believe a single "evil" (or "bad", if you prefer, for IRL acts) act of sufficient magnitude outweighs all good acts. Fall from Grace thinking, basically. And many people include a single murder, manslaughter, or negligent homicide in that category. Others include any killing.

A sufficiently evil act may very well do so. Negligent homicide seems a stretch, as does "any killing" (since that would include self defense).

The idea that, in general, a single Evil act makes you Evil is not supported, at least in most editions. The exception of Paladins falling from a single Evil act proves the rule in this case, as if a single evil act turned *anyone* Evil, then it wouldn't need to be called out specifically for paladins. And note that even with Paladins it has to be knowing and intentional, IIRC.

If your point is "a lot of people have strange ideas about alignment that aren't really supported by the rules or logic", well, I'll agree with that.

I'd argue that choice is evil too, because you refuse to help those in need.

Not helping people in need is pretty much Neutral by most descriptions of alignment. It kind of defines Neutral on the Good/Evil axis - helping others, at no benefit to yourself, is exactly what a Good act is! Throwing someone in the river in hopes they'll drown is an Evil act...

But kyoryu already made a good dissection of that example with very satisfying answers. Which I hope you are NOT mistaking as "good" and "evil" judged purely by an individual's actions with no regard for intent, motive, circumstances, or limited choices"

Hey, thanks!

[Aliquid]

First, I know nobody who uses D&D alignments to make real world judgments. Your opinion that "most people" view real world morality that way is either over inflated, overy simplicistic, or you took the wrong sample of the population.

You are putting the cart before the horse.

I'm saying that most people decide what alignment means in game based on their real life value system. Not the other way around.

Second, somebody's attitude in a game is not the same thing as in real life. I play civilization, I declare wars, I nuke my opponents. I hope it's clear I wouldn't do it in real life. Going all moral guardian "dude, nuking people is wrong" means completely missing the point.

But you aren't pretending that you are a "good guy" and "doing the morally right thing" while you do that. You aren't saying "In this game nuking people is totally virtuous behavior." You are playing a game and having fun, while being fully aware that this isn't in line with your real world values.

Third, if those people are confusing the game with the real world, then I'd bash those real world beliefs, not the game.
And especially not an innocent game practice that only get problematic when twisted beyond recognition.

They are imposing their real world beliefs into the alignment system of the game. Bashing one is bashing the other.

There is a difference between this statement:
"In this game your character can torture 'evil' children for fun"

and this statement:
"In this game your character can torture 'evil' children for fun and still qualify as one of the 'good' guys"

Unless you make this statement:
"In this world, 'alignment' is so distorted by the powers of the insane gods that a character could torture 'evil' children for fun and still qualify as one of the 'good' guys. Your character doesn't have to agree with this morality, but that's what is enforced by the gods"

[hamishspence]

That's not how the trolley problem works. It is a dilemma where the two options are basically:
1 - do nothing and a group of people die
2 - do something and only one person dies (but that person wasn't in danger for option 1)

Your airplane problem isn't a dilemma... there is no "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario going on... just a "how can I minimize damages".

They're in danger by being on tracks in the first place.

Switching a track, is "minimising damages".

It is "pushing the fat person into the path of the trolley to stop it" that's fundamentally different from the airplane problem.

[Tanarii]

Well, if you suddenly decide to commit genocide then yes, this is a single evil act that outweights all good acts. Even if you kill a person for no good reason, that's enough to call you evil until you seriously repent it.

A person could do actively Good works all their life, and yet they kill someone once for "no good reason", and continue doing seriously Good works, but never repent the killing ... and they're Evil? This is exactly what I mean by "Fall from Grace" thinking. If you prefer: the weight of single Evil actions always outweighs the cumulative of small Good actions. They never match up on the "balancing scale".

I'm not saying such thinking is wrong! But it is a common assumption, at a gut level, for most people. And it's one that's not necessarily supported by most edition's Alignment systems. IMO it needs to be pointed out as a common assumption, exactly because it is so often brought into the discussion without being explicitly defined as what it is.

A sufficiently evil act may very well do so. Negligent homicide seems a stretch, as does "any killing" (since that would include self defense).

The idea that, in general, a single Evil act makes you Evil is not supported, at least in most editions. The exception of Paladins falling from a single Evil act proves the rule in this case, as if a single evil act turned *anyone* Evil, then it wouldn't need to be called out specifically for paladins. And note that even with Paladins it has to be knowing and intentional, IIRC.

If your point is "a lot of people have strange ideas about alignment that aren't really supported by the rules or logic", well, I'll agree with that.

The assumption of "Fall from Grace" and "Evil actions generally outweigh Good actions" may or may not be applicable to Alignment, depending on how that specific edition's Alignment works. If it's like Star Wars Light vs Dark side in most computer and table top games, where individual actions carry a certain value of "Good" or "Evil" or "Lawful" or "Chaos" it's really a matter of making sure that the group is in agreement on the values, so that it IS possible for a lifetime of Good works to balance out one single horrifically Evil act. Or not, depending on the morality value of the horrifically Evil act.

If it's a general behavior (like 5e), it's not a particularly valid assumption at all. In 5e, a Good character might very well Murder due to their Flaw once in a single specific situation, and still be a Good character if their prior and future behavior matches their particular Good alignment's typical behavior.

[2D8HP]

...I'm saying that most people decide what alignment means in game based on their real life value system. Not the other way around....

.
That's true for these on-line discussions, unlike say "Wisdom" which in-game means something different than how it's usually used, "Charisma" is now used in-game for persuasiveness, which is closer to it's dictionary meaning, rather than using it as a synonym for "hot or not" as I saw it mostly used years ago, but other than DM's looking at the listed alignments in the Monster Manual, to see how likely a creature was to attack the PC's, I've never actually noticed Alignment mentioned much at the table, if it all.

[hamishspence]

A person could do actively Good works all their life, and yet they kill someone once for "no good reason", and continue doing seriously Good works, but never repent the killing ... and they're Evil? This is exactly what I mean by "Fall from Grace" thinking. If you prefer: the weight of single Evil actions always outweighs the cumulative of small Good actions. They never match up on the "balancing scale".

I'm not saying such thinking is wrong! But it is a common assumption, at a gut level, for most people. And it's one that's not necessarily supported by most edition's Alignment systems. IMO it needs to be pointed out as a common assumption, exactly because it is so often brought into the discussion without being explicitly defined as what it is..

The only 3.5 ed source that takes this approach to the afterlife (that you, a Lawful character in this case, with a few Evil acts under your belt, go to the Nine Hells no matter how much good you do) is Fiendish Codex 2.

And if you do repent your evil acts (but die having not yet atoned for them) you get a "second chance" being brought back to life as a Hellbred.

It also says nothing about your actual alignment - so, the unrepentant double murderer character (Murder is 5 pt Evil/Corrupt act, 9 pts of Corruption trips the afterlife trigger) - might be Neutral, or even Good if the player convinces the DM to focus on what the majority of the character's acts are like.

[Aliquid]

They're in danger by being on tracks in the first place.

Switching a track, is "minimising damages".

I'm saying that for the airplane one, minimizing damages is the only thing you are doing. There is no downside, there is no consequence. With the trolley, when you minimize damages there is a consequence of killing one innocent bystander. That innocent bystander's blood is on the hands of the person who decided to pull the switch... even though they saved the lives of the others.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'm saying that for the airplane one, minimizing damages is the only thing you are doing. There is no downside, there is no consequence. With the trolley, when you minimize damages there is a consequence of killing one innocent bystander. That innocent bystander's blood is on the hands of the person who decided to pull the switch... even though they saved the lives of the others.

I'd say that the blood from either outcome is on the hands of the person who set up the scenario.

Also, I'd have thought that the innocent bystander would also be tied to the tracks, such that it was "these multiple people tied to the tracks die" or "this one person tied to the tracks dies". If the bystander isn't tied to the tracks, then he can get the heck out of the way and the choice is easy and bloodless.

[hamishspence]

I'm saying that for the airplane one, minimizing damages is the only thing you are doing. There is no downside, there is no consequence.

There's the consequence of having altered course. The families of the people who were landed on, who would not have been killed if course had not been altered, would be a little upset, even if they might be convinced that it was necessary.

[Aliquid]

There's the consequence of having altered course. The families of the people who were landed on, who would not have been killed if course had not been altered, would be a little upset, even if they might be convinced that it was necessary.

Yes, good point that is the same dilemma. Clearly I didn't read the scenario fully.

[Aliquid]

I'd say that the blood from either outcome is on the hands of the person who set up the scenario.

If the scenario were placed into a game then yes... but if this is a "real world" thought experiment, then nobody "set up the scenario" it is something that you hypothetically stumble into.

We face all sorts of real world dilemmas on a regular basis... the trolley problem is just a thought experiment that takes those dilemmas to an extreme, to see what people's moral response is.