Author Topic: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)  (Read 16574 times)

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Saxony

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #20 on: April 17, 2010, 04:53:36 PM »
Hey, keep the alignment discussion light hearted, yo. Otherwise we will all start sounding like Lawful-Anal Paladins and Lawful "Err, Don't cast Detect Evil please" Warlocks. And then we'll start talking about religion. Perhaps we can all unite under the common cause of insulting DnD's alignment system?

I think people who naturally do good when they have the chance are "Good". And people who naturally do evil when given the opportunity are "Evil". Steal from your friends when they can't find out it was you? Sabotage someone to give yourself something in return? Evil. Not super evil, like the black-and-white version Hollywood and other sources sell to us, but still evil. Self-serving and heedless of others. Maybe they wouldn't go out and kill someone, but that's just a matter of degree in my opinion.

Maybe we should implement magnitudes for alignments in DnD. Like Mega-Lawful Feeding-Orphans-Good vs. I-pay-my-rent-don't-I?-Lawful Meh-Neutral vs. It's-all-cool-Chaotic I-cheat-on-my-spouse-Evil.

Maybe a scale of 1 to 10 would work well.

Also, I think Neutral sort of bleeds into Good at times. Or that one of them is poorly defined. If any neutral or good person was given the power to either kill someone or let them live, they'd let them live. I guess what I'm trying to say is that "neutral" is closer to good than to evil.

Whatever else ya'll have said seems valid, too. Just putting my thoughts out there.
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ninjarabbit

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #21 on: April 17, 2010, 06:17:19 PM »
Han Solo (at the beginning of Episode 4) true neutral here

zavule

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #22 on: April 17, 2010, 06:34:27 PM »
Hm.  I used to be neutral good.  Somewhere in the last six years my alignment shifted into Lawful Neutral.
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Prime32

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #23 on: April 17, 2010, 06:45:48 PM »
I put down Lawful Good. Was formerly Lawful Stupid.
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EjoThims

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #24 on: April 18, 2010, 09:29:00 AM »
However, none of these things are necessarily evil, and most are not evil in the least.
Yes they are.

I see the sticking point in our disagreements then.

Just because people rationalize them and justify them as "necessary evils" doesn't mean that they aren't. It just makes it easier for people to lie to themselves and believe they're "good people".

I don't believe there is such a thing as 'necessary evils.' Because if it is necessary to survival, it cannot be evil. A lion killing a gazelle to eat is not evil nor is one stealing to prevent their own starvation, even though it may be unlawful.

The Law/Chaos alignment axis in D&D is absolute shit. They are poorly defined and inconsistent...As it stands now, Chaos in D&D basically equals either random, stupid, insane, or Anarchic (or Giant Frog). Those things are not equivalent at all.

Why would they have to be equivalent? And Chaotic can boiled down pretty simple to entropy. Being something or someone that wears away order by your methods or mere existence makes you chaotic.

Lawful can mean either someone who follows the laws of the land, or follows some kind of personal moral code. Those things aren't equal, either.

Being something or someone that creates or upholds order by your methods or mere existence makes you lawful.

Neutral on that axis would be someone (or something) that through both existence and action generally neither disrupts order and customs and such nor leads to their continuance.

And barbarians are supposedly chaotic, even though they're often described as having all kinds of formal social rules, which should make them lawful.

And? One aspect of preference to order does not outweigh the rest of their society's embracing of freedom, mindless rage, and a general distaste to the more structured life of others.

And how are the slaad, who fucking survive by implanting their offspring into other sentient beings and turning them into slaadi, not evil?

Is a leech evil? Is a wasp? A vine? Grass?

So yeah, in D&D Chaos can obviously "really" mean evil, too.

I disagree entirely.

There's some variation, but the vast majority of people are true neutral, even if they don't think they are.

I'd personally peg it more as about equal in the three I mentioned, NN, LN, NG.

Also, I think I'm going to use Lawful-Anal now. :D

Etarran

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #25 on: April 18, 2010, 02:34:29 PM »
The problem with this discussion is that D&D alignments do not follow the same rules that the real world does. In dungeons and dragons, morality is absolute, existing as something external to the humans who name such concepts. While there are numerous real-world religions and philosophies that believe Good and Evil to be absolutes, I suspect that most of the people contributing to these discussions do not on balance believe that good and evil are so rigidly defined, the modern world having embraced a certain amount of moral relativism. Furthermore, those philosophies tend to place all humans on one end of the spectrum (as in the concept of original sin, for example).

Since you can't, in the real world, Detect someone's Alignment, or have your sword catch fire when you Smite evildoers, there's a lot less certainty to go around. Without a clear and present external judge, we can't say that alignment is so obvious as it is in dungeons and dragons, which is why there is such difficulty deciding if something like a white lie qualifies as evil. In Dungeons and Dragons, an act is Evil if it is performed by an Evil creature, and Good if performed by a Good creature, no more and no less. Yes, it is possible to change alignments, but the rules assume that that only happens to PCs or plot-central NPCs, who get all sorts of exceptions when it comes to moral codes.

Thus, I think that if you are trying to bring a D&D alignment system into the real world, you have to look at intent, rather than action, because the alignment system attempts to measure an inherent quality to the person it describes. Some people tell lies because they wish to make others happy ("Yours was the best play in the whole festival!"), while others tell lies for some kind of personal advantage ("Yes, I was most terribly deathly ill on the day of the test. Cough."), and still others simply for the joy of storytelling ("Did I ever tell you about the fish I caught last weekend? It was THIS BIG!"). The first is pretty clearly a good action, the second either chaotic or evil, depending on whether someone is hurt by the lie or not, and the last pretty squarely chaotic. It is even possible to tell lies with lawful intent, if you are forced into a deception because of some overarching moral principle.

If you want to meaningfully judge a person's alignment - something which is pretty presumptuous of us to attempt - you have to look at the balance of intent behind their actions. We don't have character sheets or manifest deities telling us whether what we do is good or bad, so only in the sum of our thoughts and desires can something as fundamental as an alignment be said to be found.

That said, I'm Lawful Neutral. :P

Negative Zero

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #26 on: April 18, 2010, 02:49:27 PM »
I've wanted to know this for a while: Is it Lawful or Chaotic to twist the wording of a rule for your own gain?

Surreal

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #27 on: April 18, 2010, 03:33:25 PM »
If you are twisting it for the purposes of deception, then I would say chaotic. If you are twisting it because you honestly believe your interpretation, then lawful. How's that for a wishy washy answer?
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Negative Zero

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #28 on: April 18, 2010, 03:47:57 PM »
If you are twisting it for the purposes of deception, then I would say chaotic. If you are twisting it because you honestly believe your interpretation, then lawful. How's that for a wishy washy answer?

It's pretty wishy-washy, for sure. Let's say you're twisting it so you can get away with something the law is supposed to normally prevent. You know, reading into the RAW.  :D

Saxony

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #29 on: April 18, 2010, 04:30:51 PM »
If you are twisting it for the purposes of deception, then I would say chaotic. If you are twisting it because you honestly believe your interpretation, then lawful. How's that for a wishy washy answer?

It's pretty wishy-washy, for sure. Let's say you're twisting it so you can get away with something the law is supposed to normally prevent. You know, reading into the RAW.  :D

I guess its all about your intent. If you're trying to pull a trick and warp the law, its chaotic. If you're trying to make everyone else believe what you feel is the real law, then you're lawful to the extreme.
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dark_samuari

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #30 on: April 18, 2010, 05:02:14 PM »
I love how many numbers evil has right now (I contributed a point to lawful evil as a result of my supreme narcissism).

But to actually bring something to the table one should perhaps try to adjust how they view their alignment to what ethical/moral system they're using.

I mean, you guys are all talking about the intent of a situation and the actions within it but if we present a Deontological perspective to it than it's changed radically.

Surreal

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #31 on: April 18, 2010, 05:26:42 PM »
Here's one test I've been playing with - http://www.zinious.com/dnd.php
Depending how I answer, I typically wind up as:
lawful good or lawful neutral
human, just barely hedging out dwarf or gnome
paladin/bard most of the time, sometimes ranger/druid/monk, never rogue/wizard/cleric

From this one - http://www.angelfire.com/dragon/terragf/back/xstattest.html
Str 14, Dex 16, Con 15, Int 17/17, Wis 14, Cha 15

I'm a 51 point character :D (not sure what I'd build with that though, keeping with my "suggested" types)
« Last Edit: April 18, 2010, 05:32:53 PM by Surreal »
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Saxony

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #32 on: April 18, 2010, 06:54:22 PM »
But to actually bring something to the table one should perhaps try to adjust how they view their alignment to what ethical/moral system they're using.

I mean, you guys are all talking about the intent of a situation and the actions within it but if we present a Deontological perspective to it than it's changed radically.
I guess it all depends on what kind of duty or rules you think applies to you. Based off the Wikipedia article( :D ), Deontology seems biased towards Lawful-Anal. Sort of like how Chaos and Law used to be euphemisms for Evil and Good.

What exactly were you thinking of? This sounds interesting.
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dark_samuari

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #33 on: April 18, 2010, 07:04:14 PM »
But to actually bring something to the table one should perhaps try to adjust how they view their alignment to what ethical/moral system they're using.

I mean, you guys are all talking about the intent of a situation and the actions within it but if we present a Deontological perspective to it than it's changed radically.
I guess it all depends on what kind of duty or rules you think applies to you. Based off the Wikipedia article( :D ), Deontology seems biased towards Lawful-Anal. Sort of like how Chaos and Law used to be euphemisms for Evil and Good.

What exactly were you thinking of? This sounds interesting.

All I was bringing up is that by presenting an ethical/moral system as to which you can guage the actions of your character it becomes perhaps easier to identify which alignment they may fall into.

Within ethical philosophy the three biggest ethical theories are Utilitarianism (the consequences of the action), Deontology (the action itself) and Virtue ethics (the performer of such actions).

If someone decided to bring Deontological perspective into how they character views morality (and how we may view it as well) than it provides a better way to look at morality. By apply a system we can lean away from everyone conflicting in what they have been taught or what they feel is right & wrong. 

Also, for those who would wish for an easier way to imagine Deontological ethics you merely have to think of Rorschach from Watchmen, who is an almost embodiment of that ethical system.

Etarran

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #34 on: April 18, 2010, 09:57:54 PM »
The issue, of course, with such a system is that our culture leans strongly towards a utilitarian perspective, with a distinctly ethical relativist bent in recent years. So while we can apply a deontological system, it won't really reflect the ethical principles of the culture.

Littha

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #35 on: April 19, 2010, 03:39:01 AM »
I hit lawful evil, not going to go into it but i can be pretty sadistic for my own amusements sake that and lying to peoples faces to get what i want though i am careful not to get caught breaking any rules...

yea I'm well adjusted...  :devil

Saxony

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #36 on: April 19, 2010, 04:17:47 AM »
That isn't something to be proud of. Hope that was a joke.
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Littha

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #37 on: April 19, 2010, 04:27:35 AM »
Its not a joke but I'm not proud per se, acknowledging that i am in fact an evil person by D&D standards is a stretch from being proud of it.

Most people cant or wont come to conclusions about themselves like this in a form of self denial though it wont stop it from being true.

dark_samuari

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #38 on: April 19, 2010, 04:34:54 AM »
That isn't something to be proud of. Hope that was a joke.

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Re: Min-Maxer's Poll: What Is Your Alignment? (No Post Needed)
« Reply #39 on: April 19, 2010, 04:41:24 AM »
That isn't something to be proud of. Hope that was a joke.

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