Quote from: rawma;819245Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory for all PCs. Or the Voigt-Kampff test.

Minnesota is Siberia, with giant mosquitos...

Not sure what the alignment on the mosquitos is though.

i would assume under 4 intelligence so by 3e rules neutral

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;819019Do you use alignment in your D&D games? How do you track a player's movement along the spectrum?

It seems like a nightmare.

Yes, and I love it. Often with a graphed chart at home, occasionally in my head if someone does something egregious or many impactful things in a single session. I will give warnings and chances for atonement before things get dangerously close to flipping.

I think it's a dream come true tool for me.

Maybe it's because I started out playing World of Darkness, but I find that character alignment sucks complexity out of the characters and the setting and reduces it to black and white decisions.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;819196By the way. Breaking out of jail: is it ever Lawful?

Hah, just the sort of question that'll have dozens of people passionately arguing either side.

My answer is: of course not.  It's following the laws of the jurisdiction you're in.  If you're a German in the 1930s, the law of the land is that Jews are subhumans, you're forbidden from marrying or sleeping with one, and if you follow all of that, you're being "lawful."  If you're a Southerner in the 1930s, delete "Jews," insert "Negros."  If you're a Southerner in the 1830s, you can slit the throat of one of your slaves with no more comeback than if you slit the throat of one of your pigs, and you're being "lawful."  Breaking Robin Hood, Zorro or the Scarlet Pimpernel out of jail is an unlawful act, however much you might think they're swell guys: they are, by the laws of the lands in which they operate, criminals, and put in those prisons by the recognized authorities in those lands.

Whether a law is "moral" or not has nothing to do with "Law."  That's what the Good-Evil axis is for, or should be.

That many a player, over the years, has decided that "Lawful" is a synonym for "Lawfulgood," with a definition strongly linked to a combination of their personal interpretations of 20-21st century Western morality and their determination to justify how their PCs' actions are in keeping with their alignment, is another weakness of the mechanic.

Quote from: Ravenswing;819282Hah, just the sort of question that'll have dozens of people passionately arguing either side.

My answer is: of course not.  It's following the laws of the jurisdiction you're in.  If you're a German in the 1930s, the law of the land is that Jews are subhumans, you're forbidden from marrying or sleeping with one, and if you follow all of that, you're being "lawful."  If you're a Southerner in the 1930s, delete "Jews," insert "Negros."  If you're a Southerner in the 1830s, you can slit the throat of one of your slaves with no more comeback than if you slit the throat of one of your pigs, and you're being "lawful."  Breaking Robin Hood, Zorro or the Scarlet Pimpernel out of jail is an unlawful act, however much you might think they're swell guys: they are, by the laws of the lands in which they operate, criminals, and put in those prisons by the recognized authorities in those lands.

Whether a law is "moral" or not has nothing to do with "Law."  That's what the Good-Evil axis is for, or should be.

That many a player, over the years, has decided that "Lawful" is a synonym for "Lawfulgood," with a definition strongly linked to a combination of their personal interpretations of 20-21st century Western morality and their determination to justify how their PCs' actions are in keeping with their alignment, is another weakness of the mechanic.

But what if they were Lawful because they were adhering to a set of principles or beliefs that had nothing to do with local laws?

Take a Paladin. Just because he goes into Nazi Germany and flouts their laws, doesn't mean he is being un-Lawful.

Although the situation that made me bring up this question in the first place is something from gameplay. The party got thrown into jail by a semi-evil Duke because one of the rogue party members attacked a guard when the others were trying to just talk to the Duke peacefully, without provoking him.

Then they realize the castle is going to be attacked by a Lich, so they break out to go fight him and try to save the castle.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;819284But what if they were Lawful because they were adhering to a set of principles or beliefs that had nothing to do with local laws?

That's what they all say.

QuoteAlthough the situation that made me bring up this question in the first place is something from gameplay. The party got thrown into jail by a semi-evil Duke because one of the rogue party members attacked a guard when the others were trying to just talk to the Duke peacefully, without provoking him.

Sounds like a righteous bust. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Also, don't hang out with or drive the getaway car for characters who do the crime.

QuoteThen they realize the castle is going to be attacked by a Lich, so they break out to go fight him and try to save the castle.

No, they are now no longer lawful, and must turn in their membership cards immediately or risk losing their lawful alignment. :huhsign:

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;819284But what if they were Lawful because they were adhering to a set of principles or beliefs that had nothing to do with local laws?

Take a Paladin. Just because he goes into Nazi Germany and flouts their laws, doesn't mean he is being un-Lawful.

Although the situation that made me bring up this question in the first place is something from gameplay. The party got thrown into jail by a semi-evil Duke because one of the rogue party members attacked a guard when the others were trying to just talk to the Duke peacefully, without provoking him.

Then they realize the castle is going to be attacked by a Lich, so they break out to go fight him and try to save the castle.

Paladins are generally not expected to follow evil, unjust or evil rulers based laws.

In this case, either way, I'd say that Liche attack'd make most good deities consider this "special circumstances"

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;819284But what if they were Lawful because they were adhering to a set of principles or beliefs that had nothing to do with local laws?

Take a Paladin. Just because he goes into Nazi Germany and flouts their laws, doesn't mean he is being un-Lawful.

As Rawma says, that's what they all say.  If being "lawful" really means "I follow my own set of rules and to hell with anyone else's," then just about everyone who's not batshit insane is "lawful," aren't they?  The assassin there is "lawful" -- if she takes your money, she'll put the shine on the target or die trying, guaranteed.  The crooked politician there is "lawful" -- he protects his own, gets jobs for his constituents, gets revenge on his enemies, upholds the Machine, and when he's bought he stays bought.

Nope, sorry; that's a crocked premise.  And all so unnecessary.

Quote from: Ravenswing;819295As Rawma says, that's what they all say.  If being "lawful" really means "I follow my own set of rules and to hell with anyone else's," then just about everyone who's not batshit insane is "lawful," aren't they?  The assassin there is "lawful" -- if she takes your money, she'll put the shine on the target or die trying, guaranteed.  The crooked politician there is "lawful" -- he protects his own, gets jobs for his constituents, gets revenge on his enemies, upholds the Machine, and when he's bought he stays bought.

Nope, sorry; that's a crocked premise.  And all so unnecessary.

Yes, those examples are of Lawful Evil characters who can be trusted to do their evil thing following their personal code.

I don't like alignment; when I run a game, I prefer a vague "player characters must be nice enough that it's not unpleasant for me to referee" and some division of NPCs into "always OK to kill" and "never OK to kill until you can prove they're bad enough to be in the first group of NPCs".

Problems with alignment occur because:
1. the players choose a bad alignment for the freedom to do anything they feel like, and are unhappy when NPCs never trust them or law enforcement catches up with them or other consequences.
2. players hide behind their alignments to avoid responsibility for their roleplaying decisions.
3. the rules contain some mechanical benefit or penalty that depends on someone's alignment, with ensuing argument over whether a given character actually qualifies; e.g., item usable only by lawful characters, or cost for a changed alignment.
4. the GM messes with the players by demanding specific acts as adherence to an alignment.
5. the GM feels obliged to figure out alignments because it's in the rules.

I'm guessing that mAcular Chaotic is suffering from 5 with a possible small side order of 1 or 2.

Quote from: Ravenswing;819295As Rawma says, that's what they all say.  If being "lawful" really means "I follow my own set of rules and to hell with anyone else's," then just about everyone who's not batshit insane is "lawful," aren't they?

That's pretty much my reasoning on why Lawful has nothing to with laws and customs. Individual whim and the whim of the masses really isn't all that different.

My Law is an overarching cosmic principle that Lawful characters choose to live by. Each GM sets their own Law, based on what they think the cosmic struggle is about, but there is exactly one Law per campaign. The personal opinions of PCs or the shared opinions of a society don't matter, except to judge how closely either is adhering to the principles of Law.

Lawful does not = stupid.

A Lawful person walking into town where the law is that visitors must kill themselves at dawn is not going to likely adhere to that law. Or the obligatory city that outlaws magic or enslaves people, etc.

As a DM though I try to poll players on what they think the alignments mean so I have an idea of what they expected vs what I am personally running alignments as. And as a DM I usually downplay the LNC part of alignments and focus more on the GNE part since that seems to be really the part of alignments most players actually play.

Opinions on just one alignment can vary so much.

It's onion layers. Each layer of morality abuts to the next, and all of them make you cry as you start to slice into them.

A lawful good paladin in an overtly lawful evil land would either fight the system within the jurisdiction of the law to change it to good (public advocacy, social movements, etc.), can't take it anymore and leave (to find friends to change the system forcibly), or declare outright hostilities (I'm right, your laws are wrong, I WILL CHANGE YOU!). War is a perfectly legitimate method of solving an argument and has no bearing upon alignment. What you do during war, however, might.

Just because an individual enters within an environment does not mean the environment's rules suddenly take overriding precedence upon their moral world view. People don't compromise values, neither do systems, thus the fun of clashing. With friction comes PC motivation, which comes generated adventure hooks.

And remember, this is the entirety of theosophy condensed into a Cartesian plane with two axes, into 9 grid sectors. A lot is being hand-waved away into GM responsibility. So who is the setting's final arbiter of what is Good & Evil, what is Law & Chaos? The GM, period. Don't like that the GM has tied abortion to 'chaos' and peanut butter to 'evil', tough, suck it up or walk from the table.

With all the huge problems I've seen people have with alignment on internet forums over the years, I get the feeling that I must be doing it differently somehow.  

I don't know, for me alignment has never been any kind of problem at all.

And what's more, in my own settings (like AoI or Albion) I've done what I think is alignment+, both better and more directly significant to the game.  My complaint about vanilla D&D is that, if anything, alignment isn't made significant ENOUGH.