Quote from: jhkim;1133146I find that the shorthand doesn't particularly shorten anything. As the disagreement over nazi alignment earlier shows, even experienced D&D players often don't have clear conceptions about what different alignments mean beyond the obvious. Using plain English like "selfish bastard" is much more clear than the supposed shorthand of alignment.

So call them shirts and skins and be done with it. Or just use Lawful/Chaotic because it's already in the game and stop worrying.

Greetings!

I have always liked Alignment. It's simplistic, and easy to get a snapshot of whatever individual character's basic moral tendencies are, and perhaps a stronger touchstone to their religious, social, and political allegiances. Definitely not a "straightjacket" but a set of functional guidelines to the character's values, beliefs, and likely behavior.

With all the players I have gamed with over the years, most seem to have embraced such. I have seldom seen such deep-seated debate over the Alignment system--except online. I know it's always existed, I'm just pointing out that gamers at my table have seldom debated the meaning or worthiness of the Alignment system. Most seem to have accepted it sincerely, and haven't ever worried about it.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: jhkim;1133146I find that the shorthand doesn't particularly shorten anything. As the disagreement over nazi alignment earlier shows, even experienced D&D players often don't have clear conceptions about what different alignments mean beyond the obvious. Using plain English like "selfish bastard" is much more clear than the supposed shorthand of alignment.

The discussion over Nazi Alignment is a feature of Alignment, it is not a flaw.

Its the kind of thing that uber Geeks like to talk about, kind of like sports statistics among uber Jocks.

Quote from: jhkim;1133146As the disagreement over nazi alignment earlier shows, even experienced D&D players often don't have clear conceptions about what different alignments mean beyond the obvious.

Alignment is a game mechanic. It doesn't track to the complexities of the real world. Thus, the Nazi argument. Humans in the real world can rarely be pidgeonholed like fictional characters in melodrama.

I avoid the misunderstanding by defining what I mean by Lawful, Neutral and Chaos in terms of particular setting and being very upfront with the players. That's why I use Neutral and Unaligned as interchangeable terms for players who don't want to deal with alignment. Lawful is for players who want moral conundrums and being part of something bigger that themselves in the society of the setting. Chaos is for players who want to be the obvious outsider, the troublemaker, the rogue element.

Quote from: jhkim;1133146Using plain English like "selfish bastard" is much more clear than the supposed shorthand of alignment.

True, but there's a team aspect to alignment. AKA, where does your PC stand in the world vs. other PCs and NPCs?

"Selfish bastard" is good to explain the PC's personality, and its easy for any player to visual and understand.

Chaotic alignment describes not just the PC's world view, but cosmic allegiances in the greater scheme.

I totally understand why that's not necessary (or desirable) for many RPGs.

Speaking of Selfish Bastards, it would be fun to have an RPG mechanic that keyed off of your characters parents marriage status when your character was born.

When I run AD&D, I use the AD&D alignments. I think it's imperfect, but it works okay within the context of the game.

When I run my original D&D homebrew, I use Law/Neutrality/Chaos, where "Law" is "generally promoting humanity and human society", Chaos is "opposed to humanity and human society", and Neutrality is anything in the middle (which could be pure disinterest, or a search for balance/harmony, or whatever).

Quote from: Spinachcat;1133190True, but there's a team aspect to alignment. AKA, where does your PC stand in the world vs. other PCs and NPCs?

"Selfish bastard" is good to explain the PC's personality, and its easy for any player to visual and understand.

Chaotic alignment describes not just the PC's world view, but cosmic allegiances in the greater scheme.

I totally understand why that's not necessary (or desirable) for many RPGs.

None of the settings I've played in the last 20 years (at least) go with the ideas of 'cosmic allegiances' based on alignment. The idea that all lawful beings are on some kind of team seems silly, and the idea that all chaotic beings play well together is even more absurd. Of course, this might have been some weird take on things in the olden days of alignment languages and such, but I can happily say D&D has left that nonsense far behind.

Quote from: jhkimUsing plain English like "selfish bastard" is much more clear than the supposed shorthand of alignment.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1133190True, but there's a team aspect to alignment. AKA, where does your PC stand in the world vs. other PCs and NPCs?

"Selfish bastard" is good to explain the PC's personality, and its easy for any player to visual and understand.

Chaotic alignment describes not just the PC's world view, but cosmic allegiances in the greater scheme.

I totally understand why that's not necessary (or desirable) for many RPGs.

This is something that varies from game to game, but in my experience, the teams haven't corresponded very closely with alignment. Maybe the gnolls and orcs are aligned in a cosmological sense from both being chaotic evil, but they aren't on the same team in a practical sense. Likewise, sphinxes and myconids aren't necessarily on the same team just because both are lawful neutral. Maybe it's different in other people's games.

The closest is that good will tend to ally with good, but even that's subject to practicalities and/or rivalries.

I still technically use alignment in my D&D games - but that's mostly just because it's more work to write and explain house rules getting rid of alignment than it is to just largely ignore it.

Quote from: Shasarak;1133195Speaking of Selfish Bastards, it would be fun to have an RPG mechanic that keyed off of your characters parents marriage status when your character was born.

I've almost done that in an rpg I'm working on. The attributes are, Social class, Health and Education, and Steadiness. You can just roll them all up, or there's a lifepath method - where you start with rolling up Soc and go from there. Higher Soc people are more likely to have good Education, but Health has chances of being awful at both low Soc (poor healthcare, family neglect, etc) and high Soc (coddled, plus some very sick children who would have died if they were poor are kept alive by high Soc parents). Steadiness is a game mechanic determining basically how good you are at overcoming the friction of combat, and that's affected by Soc, too -  the higher the Soc, the lower the Steadiness you're likely to start with, since part of the point of rising in social class is so you can insulate yourself from the brutal realities of the world.

In some societies, a bastard would have a lower Soc.

I'm using the full 9-point Alignment as a setting feature in my 1e Forgotten Realms campaign. They just met a horned demonette and discussed having a priest use Know Alignment:

"I'm ok, I register as Chaotic Neutral!"

It's a bit meta, but it works as an in-universe feature of a specific setting. I take it people don't necessarily know for sure what they 'ping' as to magic.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1133207None of the settings I've played in the last 20 years (at least) go with the ideas of 'cosmic allegiances' based on alignment.

Really? Not a single setting had the CG elves and LG dwarfs and the NG halflings presented as natural allies against the CE orcs and LE hobgoblins? And none of the settings had gods with alignment restrictions on the followers? Were there LG gods with CN followers?

Quote from: HappyDaze;1133207The idea that all lawful beings are on some kind of team seems silly, and the idea that all chaotic beings play well together is even more absurd.

Why? If Lawful beings meet up and interact, they may disagree on how to uphold civilization, but all of them seek to uphold civilization. Whereas a bunch of Chaotics may be happy to kill each other, but they're also happy to band together (temporarily) to burn down the nearest village.  

Of course, that's using Lawful/Neutral/Chaos and not the dual axis 9 alignments.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1133052By your description, you make the Nazis sound as though they (as a generalization) are an example of Lawful Neutral intent that became Lawful Evil in practice.

That sounds like Tomas de Torquemada, the Jewish 'Converso' to Catholicism who became a fanatical Inquisitor for the Spanish Inquisition.

The 'Order' the Nazis wanted to build was a highly Chaotic 'Order', ergo they class as Chaotic in the L-N-C system. Less clear are the Communists, who aspire to what looks like a Lawful system (Marx's Communist society), but use Chaotic methods and are highly Chaotic in practice. It's notable that post-Modernist Marxists of the Frankfurt School et al greatly de-emphasise the nominally Lawful end-goal, in favour of highly Chaotic Permanent Revolution.

Conversely, the version of Robin Hood who's fighting Chaotic King John to restore the rightful and Lawful King Richard is a Lawful rebel against Chaotic rule.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1133227Really? Not a single setting had the CG elves and LG dwarfs and the NG halflings presented as natural allies against the CE orcs and LE hobgoblins? And none of the settings had gods with alignment restrictions on the followers? Were there LG gods with CN followers?



Why? If Lawful beings meet up and interact, they may disagree on how to uphold civilization, but all of them seek to uphold civilization. Whereas a bunch of Chaotics may be happy to kill each other, but they're also happy to band together (temporarily) to burn down the nearest village.  

Of course, that's using Lawful/Neutral/Chaos and not the dual axis 9 alignments.

The only one that is close is Warhammwr, but there Chaos means something very different (IMO).

Quote from: SpinachatAlignment is a game mechanic. It doesn't track to the complexities of the real world. Thus, the Nazi argument. Humans in the real world can rarely be pidgeonholed like fictional characters in melodrama....

Actually it does track to the "complexities" of the real world and it does so quite well. The real problem is many people fail to differentiate between empirical thinking and holistic thinking. The whole purpose of religion and story-telling is to render the complexities of objective reality into a wholly apprehensible subjective reality. Stop trying to parse alignment using science-based logic and think in terms of mythic story-telling.

Listen very carefully to Nazi propaganda without bias. What is the story they are trying to tell? They talk repeatedly about the "savage" races and the superior "noble" Aryan race. They talk about building a grand German empire and sweeping away the more primitive Slavic races. Civilization vs Nature, order vs chaos, known vs unknown, Men vs Orcs. Nazism is very clearly of Lawful alignment, assuming of course it is practiced as it is preached.

Additionally it aggressively rejects the mythic story of Christianity. If we accept Christianity as axiomatically good (i.e. a story of good triumphing over evil -- Horus over Set, Marduk over Tiamat, Jesus over Satan, etc.), then Nazism is obviously evil.

The story of Nazi Germany is really the story of conflict between two saviors and two crosses, two lawful forces against each other.

For alignment to work as it should, it must be paired with religion, with a mythic story that fits within the DM's world.

Show me someone who thinks AD&D alignment is broken, and I'll show you someone who doesn't understand AD&D alignment.

Since the alignment system works fine for some people (even if only for me), it's definitely not broken. That doesn't mean you have to like it. You can dislike something without thinking it broken. But thinking something is broken that definitely isn't is a clear indicator that somewhere along the way, you've missed the mark pretty badly.