Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1132874And in one of the two sources that inspired the Law/Chaos alignment axis, Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions (which also gave us the paladin and the troll), identifies the Nazis with Chaos.

Nazis are definitely Chaotic. Their whole Will To Power, Vitalist ideology is highly Chaotic. They were also Chaotic in their interpersonal dealings.

As you might guess, I much prefer single-axis Alignment, if it's used at all.

Quote from: Shasarak;1132918Oskar Schindler or Erwin Rommel you could advance an argument that they were LG

One of these is not like the other!!! :D:D

Quote from: S'mon;1132920One of these is not like the other!!! :D:D

Greetings!

Indeed. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was a very unusual and principled man and warrior, as well as a dignified and honourable commander. Upon hearing news and confirmation of Erwin Rommel's death, Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill paid Erwin Rommel quite a eulogy. I've read that many people in Britain at the time also lamented Erwin Rommel's untimely death. I think that is an extraordinary tribute, especially more so while still engaged in the war, too. Of course, I have read so many applauding accounts from everyone in North Africa that faced against Rommel, and of course his own soldiers as well, that the man had a legendary status as a soldier of distinguished character and honour. Rommel was also singularly popular here in the United States as well, and quite admired by many of our professional soldiers and commanders--some of which who read Rommel's book before the war began, such as General George Patton, of the United States Army. I think President Roosevelt made some remarks also about the tragedy of Erwin Rommel's death. Fascinating man that Rommel was, and in some ways, so entirely out-of-place in World War II.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Yeah, but I'd peg Rommel LN/N not LG/L; he wasn't much of a Nazi but nor by any account a principled opponent of Hitler per se; morally he was a regular German officer. Schindler spent his personal fortune to save lives.

I'd say the same about Von Stauffenberg - he tried to blow up Hitler because Hitler was a loser, for what the Nazis were doing to Germany (getting her destroyed), not for moral qualms about what they'd done to others.

I think it was one of the Dirty Dozen films where the Americans assassinate a Rommel/Stauffenberg analogue in order to keep Hitler alive, knowing that Hitler's incompetence was their best asset!

I thought the consensus was that the Law-Chaos axis was lifted from Moorcock's books.  Is that no longer the case?  I found the idea really interesting when I read them as a kid, a kind of alternate system to conventional good/evil morality that highlighted the really alien thought processes of Elric and other inhabitants of that multiverse.  I think a D&D game with this  balance as the primary focus would be really interesting.  It is a morality of a sort, but just not one that we use.

As to D&D alignment, I don't think it's either a straitjacket or useless when used properly.  It's useful as a touchstone when deciding how to play your character, and for figuring how magic interacts with various NPCs.  It isn't perfect, but who cares?  Nothing in an RPG is ever entirely perfect.  And if it's a straitjacket, you're doing it wrong.  It's best used as a guide, not a set of commandments.  I like the systematic nature of the system, and it's such an integral part of D&D that it's not the same game without it.

That said, it isn't my favorite alignment system.  I much prefer the labels from TMNT.  They're not as comprehensive, but they do represent the genre pretty well.

And for the game I'm writing now, I just went with an optional set of precepts.  You write some of your character's values in order of priority and that's it.  No mechanical effects, just a list to help you remember how you want to play your PC.

And I have to say that I find this discussion comforting.  Many things about the world have changed or are going crazy, but as long as we're still arguing about alignment I have at least that one constant in my life.

Quote from: Mishihari;1132930I thought the consensus was that the Law-Chaos axis was lifted from Moorcock's books.  Is that no longer the case?  

I think it's generally accepted now that Moorcock was influenced by Poul Anderson, and EGG by both.

D&D alignment has always worked fine for me and my groups, but probably because we accept it as a simple D&D game mechanism (sort of a shirts/skins team system) and don't expect it to model, explain, explore, etc any of the complexities of real life. Clearly it would fail miserably under that sort of impossible test.

Quote from: Shasarak;1132918Were all Germans the same alignment during WW2?  I would say no, and yet you could easily classify the country as a whole as being LE.  Could you have LG characters acting within it?  What about famous ones like Oskar Schindler or Erwin Rommel you could advance an argument that they were LG.  Certainly they were not killed when Indy opened the Arc of the Covenant.

Schindler yes LG, Rommel not so sure of that.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

I postulate that IF you knew what they were doing to the Jews and did nothing you're evil.

Quote from: S'mon;1132919Nazis are definitely Chaotic. Their whole Will To Power, Vitalist ideology is highly Chaotic. They were also Chaotic in their interpersonal dealings.

As you might guess, I much prefer single-axis Alignment, if it's used at all.

   Agreed. I think the 'Nazis as Lawful' comes largely from a superficial reading of both Law (human law and organization rather than order, reason, and civilization) and the Nazis (militarism and sharp uniforms seem 'Lawful').

   Of the various D&D alignment systems, I'm fine with single-axis Law/Chaos, single-axis Good/Evil, and even 4E's variant. The 9-point system is the weakest, partially because I find 'Chaotic Good' a somewhat silly concept and partially because no one can seem to agree which axis gets more weight. There are hints in early material that Law and Chaos was supposed to be the focal point, with Good and Evil introduced for things like 'on the side of civilization, but ruthless and self-seeking' (LE) or 'more whimsical and unpredictable than malevolent' (CG--I think you can see this in Basic's characterization of genies as Chaotic).

  EDIT: All that said, my favorite 'alignment' system is probably Castle Falkenstein's.

Quote from: Shasarak;1132917Just so that I can get this argument straight, Alignment is useless subjective fluff that does not affect game play in any way and at the same time is a straight jacket that gets in the way.

Yeah, thats a real head scratcher that one.

Damn, you got me! Alignment is a useless restriction, so I guess it does kinda sorta affect game play in some way. Assuming that you take it seriously and enforce it in your game (like you're supposed to in the case of some classes, despite it supposedly being only a role playing "tool"). But it's an unnecessary restriction with no bearing on core game mechanics like combat, health, task resolution, etc. It's a secondary component that can be removed without affecting the central game rules beyond just "now you don't have a subjective restriction we can all stop the game every 15 minutes to argue about," so by removing it you can finally focus on actual game play and actual RP, instead of fretting about whether or not you RPed your stupid alignment "correctly" according to someone else's subjective opinion at the table.

Quote from: Shasarak;113291799% of games can operate without it and none of them is as popular as DnD.

Coincidence?

I'm sure that the reason why noobs with no concrete notion of D&D are lining up to play the game has nothing to do with name recognition or the chance to play mighty adventurers fighting mythical monsters and doing heroic stuff, but to be told by someone else that they're playing their alignment "wrong" and watch the game grind to a halt as an argument breaks out about what being X or Y alignment actually means. Not only does correlation totally imply causation, but some completely secondary component of the game that people have been heatedly arguing about for decades is obviously the reason for its success.

Quote from: Shasarak;1132918Were all Germans the same alignment during WW2?  I would say no, and yet you could easily classify the country as a whole as being LE.

Quote from: S'mon;1132919Nazis are definitely Chaotic. Their whole Will To Power, Vitalist ideology is highly Chaotic. They were also Chaotic in their interpersonal dealings.

I'm glad that alignment is such a useful tool that's not completely subjective nonsense that we can all agree that Nazis were obviously Lawful Evil, erm... I mean Chaotic.

And yes, I've seen documentaries that imply that Nazis were a complete clusterfuck trying to please and anticipate Hitler's every whim, which could totally (arguably) make them Chaotic. But they were also trying to spread their rule across Europe and enforce a completely totalitarian regime, which could also quite reasonably be argued to be Lawful (Evil), which is the polar opposite of Chaotic. So it can't possibly be both.

Except it can, because alignment, as defined in D&D, is utter contradictory nonsense with no workable implementation in real life, practical terms. And people, and even governments and regimes, in real life are more complicated than either "Lawful" or "Chaotic".

So which of the two would Nazis be? Neither, because alignment is useless. And just like neither and both could apply in real life, so could neither and both apply in the game. Because there are no objective guidelines so there's no way to accurately say "this is Lawful; this is Chaotic" during game play.

I tend to identify a need to impose your own will on the world with Chaotic. Lawful would want to create ordered systems. Chaos is only liberty for the strongest individual, whereas Law can create 'ordered Liberty' for all.

Like I said, L-N-C in its older conceptions makes sense to me. Enlightenment Liberals and Traditionalist Catholics are Lawful. Nazis and Communists are Chaotic. SJWS and the Alt-Right are Chaotic.  Traditionalists tend to Lawful, but some extreme Reactionaries may lean more Chaotic. Aggressive Militarists lean Chaotic. Neo-con 'Global Transformationists' lean Chaotic. Laissez-faire liberals and conservatives lean Lawful.

The English Civil War and the American War of Independence had a pretty even alignment spread on both sides. Maybe in the latter the US Rebels & Whigs were slightly more Lawful than their Loyalist & Tory opposition.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1132947I'm glad that alignment is such a useful tool that's not completely subjective nonsense that we can all agree that Nazis were obviously Lawful Evil, erm... I mean Chaotic.

And yes, I've seen documentaries that imply that Nazis were a complete clusterfuck trying to please and anticipate Hitler's every whim, which could totally (arguably) make them Chaotic. But they were also trying to spread their rule across Europe and enforce a completely totalitarian regime, which could also quite reasonably be argued to be Lawful (Evil), which is the polar opposite of Chaotic. So it can't possibly be both.

Except it can, because alignment, as defined in D&D, is utter contradictory nonsense with no workable implementation in real life, practical terms. And people, and even governments and regimes, in real life are more complicated than either "Lawful" or "Chaotic".

So which of the two would Nazis be? Neither, because alignment is useless. And just like neither and both could apply in real life, so could neither and both apply in the game. Because there are no objective guidelines so there's no way to accurately say "this is Lawful; this is Chaotic" during game play.

Um... Is Neutral Evil not an option?

Quote from: VisionStorm;1132911I also liked the idea of [Planescape] having various factions based around various philosophies dealing with different takes on the nature of reality. Not only did I like the idea of factions in general, and having clearly defined groups that were prevalent in the setting, characters could belong to and added an additional layer of intrigue to the setting. But I also loved how none of these factions seemed to imply or be built around any specific alignment. Even when some of them might impose certain alignment restrictions, the underlying idea behind the faction wasn't about alignment, but some attitude or belief about the nature of reality or its purpose that transcended alignment itself.

Granted, some of them may have been silly or not very deep, but the core idea itself was pretty good. And it helped reinforce that the theme of the setting wasn't about alignment, but rather belief. And the biggest draw of the planes wasn't alignment (which was completely secondary even when related to the nature of a plane), but the wacky nature of the planes and the weird stuff that could go on in them.

Yep, you just expressed the matter better than I did. Planescape could have been "The game where factions and planes are alignments" but instead it is became "The game where factions are discrete philosophic views, and planes are discrete concepts", which is so much more interesting.

The setting even hints at the possibility of dropping alignment altogether and retain only the individual concepts. The very model of the Great Wheel, according to the books, is just that, a theoretical model used by the scholars of Sigil. The planes could be rearranged however one sees fit, and in fact another model is cited (the chinese) that does that, arranging everything as a single mega-plane where individual planes are spread on without visible order. Of course the default game system (AD&D) precludes that, as it's firmly (unfortunately IMO) tied to Alignments. But nothing that a tweak by the players couldn't fix.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1132943Agreed. I think the 'Nazis as Lawful' comes largely from a superficial reading of both Law (human law and organization rather than order, reason, and civilization) and the Nazis (militarism and sharp uniforms seem 'Lawful').

   Of the various D&D alignment systems, I'm fine with single-axis Law/Chaos, single-axis Good/Evil, and even 4E's variant. The 9-point system is the weakest, partially because I find 'Chaotic Good' a somewhat silly concept and partially because no one can seem to agree which axis gets more weight. There are hints in early material that Law and Chaos was supposed to be the focal point, with Good and Evil introduced for things like 'on the side of civilization, but ruthless and self-seeking' (LE) or 'more whimsical and unpredictable than malevolent' (CG--I think you can see this in Basic's characterization of genies as Chaotic).

  EDIT: All that said, my favorite 'alignment' system is probably Castle Falkenstein's.

So what I said from the start? You're either Good or Evil.

By the way Law is a poor substitute for Order, which is what represents the polar opposite of Chaos.

Mind you, this is only speaking about Medieval or Pseudo-Medieval settings, In other settings it might make sense to shift to a more nuanced POV or to remove any sort of "Alignment" all together.

As for reason, while I appreciate the importance of, I think Empiricism is a much better tool to create and foment Law, Order and Civilization.