Talk:Alignment (Dungeons & Dragons)

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Contents

[edit] Lawful Evil block text source

I do not know exactly how to footnote on wikipedia, but that text comes directly from players handbook 3.5, pg 105.24.47.151.201 (talk) 23:32, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Description of Lawful Evil

The description of this alignment says: "Characters of this alignment show a combination of desirable and undesirable traits: while they typically obey their superiors and keep their word...". Doesn't it violate the NPOV (no/neutral point of view) policy to insist that obeying superiors is a "desirable trait"?

Anyone who (1) does not want to be randomly mauled by a chaotic evil party member or (2) have his throat slipped by a neutral evil party member while he is sleeping. It is a desirable alignment if one wants to rest assured that the scoundrel's betrayal has an elaborate and internally consistent rationale. By the time s/he's thought of one, you could be halfway to Timbuktu.

Think of a malignant genie bound to your lamp- far less immediately dangerous then a simple cutthroat or a crazed marauder.24.47.151.201 (talk) 23:26, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Best/Worst

Resolved.

Okay, somebody needs to edit through the "Best/Worst/etc you can be" statements added at the end of each summary. If someone wants to add the benefits or why one might be that alignment, go ahead, but at least change the context.

The Best/Worst statements are direct quotes from the System Reference Document. --Roninbk 06:04, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic Evil all claim to be the most dangerous alignment, which contradicts itself. It's presumably clear that Evil is a dangerous alignment, but we've to either remove the contradicting claims from all three alignments, or designate one of them as the true "most dangerous" alignment.

All the Good ones claim to be the best one. The contradiction is one of choice, if it were not the best, why would you choose it?

The excerpts are from roleplaying guidelines which describe the alignments subjectively. The best / worst statements lose a lot of meaning outside of that context, and I agree that they should be cut. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:39, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Never mind, they already have been. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:55, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Use of pronouns

After seeing a rather rude comment made by one editor (see edit note of this edit) regarding the genders of the pronouns used. I realized it was only a matter of before someone comes and changes the whole thing to female pronouns, and then someone back to male pronouns, and we get into an argument about which is better.

I have changed all the pronouns to plurals (and have made the appropriate grammatical changes also). This does make sense, since the alignments ‘‘are’’ describing groups of people, not individuals. The article even explains how individuals do not necessarily stick to their alignments 100%. This way, all the descriptions are talking about groups of people, instead of one example character.

It also makes the article more consistent, since previously, there were sections scattered here and there which were in plural, with most of the article in singular. --Yaksha 10:41, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I want to change the toc

I would like to change the toc to:

Good
Chaotic good:
Neutral good:
Lawful good:

etc. It could also be:

Lawful
Lawful Good:
Lawful Neutral:
Lawful Chaotic:

etc. What do people think? I'll fix all the links that pertain to the change. - Peregrinefisher 07:00, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't see how either of these two TOC layouts is any better than what we currently have. So i think it'll just be a lot of work on your part for not so much benefit. But i'm not oppossed to it if you'll go change all the links. --Yaksha 07:14, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

<User: Xylenz, Feb 5 2007> I was going to suggest the same thing. The reason is that most people take the easiest way to mentally organize an idea, often tending towards dualistic bipolarism. For example people mistakenly insist on organizing political views along a single axis: liberal<->conservative. This is a gross simplification of the real breath of political views that completely distorts the model away from any degree of usefulness.

As a result of this tendency to oversimplify for the ease of understanding, alignment is generally NOT viewed as a biaxial matrix. It is seen as a linear progression where LG is seen as "more good" than CG and so on. This over-simplistic distortion of the model is enforced by traditionally listing LG at one end and CE at the other. Listing them in a different order would help deny that this is the case.

Either suggestion would be better than the way it is traditionally done. I prefer the first way simply because it forces the reader to recognize that there is no linear progression of morality. Listing the G-E axis in one direction and the C-L axis in the other direction as tradition has imposed would break the assumption that causes this confusion. Its a great idea.

[edit] Criticism section

I have removed the criticism section because it seems mainly to be original research with POV tendencies and does not have any sources cited. Here is the most recent text:

Criticism
The law-versus-chaos axis has generated some controversy and confusion. Different books, and even different parts in the same book, have interpreted law and chaos to mean different things. Among its different interpretations are a person's feelings on government and laws, a person's sense of honour, how orderly and logical a person's mind works, how flexible a person's mind is, whether a person prefers cities or countryside, and even how orderly a person likes to keep his or her house.

Gygax portrayed in his original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons that the purest good was neutral good because it is goodness for its own sake, but most players consider lawful good as the epitome of goodness. Later versions of Dungeons & Dragons reference material, minus the direct contribution of Gary Gygax, support the latter view occasionally, but recent editions have varied in their portrayal of alignment. Some prefer Gygax's complex description of alignment in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide, first edition. Others prefer the descriptions from the recent 3.5 edition of Dungeons and Dragons, cited above from the System Reference Document.

The system has also been criticized for ethical reasons. Some critics within and outside the role-playing comunity argue that calling labelling a person (as opposed to an act) as good or evil is not only a gross oversimplification -even psychopaths do good deeds- but inherently, ethically wrong. It should not be practiced even in a game.

Others critics say that it might be acceptable to label individuals as good or evil. These people have criticized not so much this system when used to classify and describe individuals morality as the fact that entire races and species are classified as belonging to one category. This can make genocide (speciecide?) of sentient races and species classified as evil morally justifiable. Classifying their victims as evil is precisely what perpetrators of genocide did historically. Of course, defenders argue that the system does not have to be interpreted that way and that there is a great difference between genocide of fictional races in a game and the real thing against real humans. Some role-players, however, find the idea of justifiable genocide inherent in the D&D alignment system and repugnant even as a game. Critics of role-playing use it as an argument against role-playing in general, despite the fact that only a minority of role-playing games have an alignment system and not all of these classify entire races and species according to an alignment system.

It's good to see Sensemaker has added this back in with references. Should there be a link to that "Order of the Stick" comic? If I've missed it or misread it, somebody please poke me before I make more of an idiot of myself. Morgrim 01:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, Morgrim. As to your question about the 'Order of the Stick'-link: the reason I have added the link to this comic is that it is another case of someone criticizing the system of having entire races characterized as evil, which makes moral choices ridiculously simple and could be used to justify genocide. Note what it says on this comics page. Miko is asking how the characters could be sure the dragon wasn't a good dragon and the answer is simply that good dragons are gold-colored. Dragons are color-coded for the convenience of the potential dragon-slayer.

Sensemaker

I'm going to put back the reference to Hitler Youth. It is a quote and if you take away that sentence you are not quoting the entire argument which is pretty much the same as misquoting. Besides, removing this part removes James Desborough's and Steve Mortimer's point. Geez, first some guy removes the criticism section for lack of references and now guys are removing my references. I've already lost the reference to the Order of the Stick without making a fuss of it but I'm not gonna allow James Desborough and Steve Mortimer to be misquoted. Sensemaker 11:15, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

... The Munchkin's Guide to Power Gaming is a work of SATIRE. It's not intended to be taken seriously in whole or in part, and quoting it as an "argument" against the D&D alignment system is shoddy research at best, axe-grinding at worst. Iceberg3k 20:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Jesus Christ! Now someone has put up a warning about original research. I have written eight lines of text and it has three sources referenced. It was four before somone took a reference out. That must be among the highest rates of references per text in the wikipedia I have ever seen. Some people seem to be really bad at taking criticism of their role-playing game. I have played Dungeons and Dragons but I can take criticism of it. Sensemaker 11:09, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Incoherent mess, and utterly irrelevant to the purpose of describing D&D's alignment system. "Inherently, ethically wrong"? "Should not be practiced, even in a game?" Get real. It's a GAME, dammit. If you don't like the alignment mechanics, take them out. But we've got enough nerd fights in this hobby already without people complaining about the alignment system in D&D being BadWrongFun. Sheesh. Iceberg3k 04:08, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The ENTIRE SECTION is original research. There is nothing that is properly cited. Of the citations included, two are works of satire, and thus really should not been used (I actually removed the quote from "Munchkin's Guide to Power Gaming" because not only is it a work of satire, but its inclusion is basically used as an ad hominem fallacy). The third is a scholarly work on psychopathy which has absolutely nothing to do with gaming whatsoever. The problem is not criticism of D&D, the problem is that the criticisms cited here are utter irrelevancies, and based on a hyper-simplistic interpretation of the alignment system that the game books explicitly discourage.
If there is not an attempt to better document the criticism section made before Saturday, February 10, I will comment out the section until such attempt is made. Use sources that meet Wikipedia's standards for verifiability. Works of satire don't meet those standards. Iceberg3k 16:55, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
The Criticism section is commented out. If you have documentation of the claims raised in it, feel free to put that documentation in and remove the comment brackets. Iceberg3k 14:00, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

For the umpteenth time, what I wrote under criticism has been edited and reduced so that it is no loger logically coherent. It would seem there are far too many people out there who find it hard to take any serious criticism of their role-playing game (as opposed to silly rants from people who don't really know anything about role-playing) for an article explaining somewhat valid criticism to survive reasonably intact very long. While I find this sad, I have to accept it as a clearly demonstrated fact. I do not have the time and energy to keep explaining and putting the article back to a coherent state, nor do I wish to see it hacked beyond recognition. Therefore I have removed everything I have written on this subject. Please do not put anything I have written back. Write something of your own instead. I shall no longer watch this article and will not answer any further comments. Good day to you all. -Sensemaker

Well that was the most childish thing I've seen yet. The disclaimer on the submission page warns that your content will be edited at will by other users. And it wasn't logically coherent anyway; you had two references that were satirical works and one that had nothing to do with the subject and that makes for a big fat zero in the reference category, so it WAS, in fact, 100% original research. Not that you're going to read this anyway, since you've clearly taken your ball and gone home. Iceberg3k 13:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

"...you had two references that were satirical works..."

But can't satirizing something sometimes be a way of criticizing it (therefore something that made fun of the alignment system could be criticizing it)?

A text on human behavior would indeed be quite relevant to a criticism of a game mechanic that attempts to simulate it. As for satire, I do not understand why Jonathan Swift's a Modest Proposal would be less worthy of citation then a straight polemic against British atrocities in Ireland. A satirical work by definition makes an argument. I do not understand why it has been decided that arguments made thus cannot be cited. This seems quite an arbitrary convention to me. 24.47.151.201 (talk) 23:48, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GNU vs OGL SRD conflict

The GNU for Wikipedia is not the same as the OGL for the SRD and using the material directly copied word for word form the SRD on Wikipedia doesn't comply with the OGL from Wizards.

Q: How do I use various Open Game licenses in a joint project? A: Generally speaking, Open Game licenses are mutually incompatible. Each requires an exclusive, invariant set of licensing terms, and most Open Game licenses explicitly forbid adding additional terms.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/oglfaq/20040123g

shadzar|Talk|contribs 10:59, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I know you're just trying to help in removing the OGL stuff, but leaving the page half blank is really quite ugly. It would have been nice if you'd bothered to investigate a little, and tracked down the version of the article when the OGL stuff was added.
I've now restored all the alignment information from before this edit. This is the edit where a editor added the OGL notice and made a lot of major changes to all the alignment sections. I've reverted all the sections to before this version, and changed pronouns to plural. --`/aksha 08:07, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I wanted to make sure I understood the Q&A before I added anything back that may conflict between the SRD and GNU. Unfortunately nobody was "available" at WotC yesterday to answer the question further. shadzar|Talk|contribs 10:11, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm not talking about whether you should have removed it or not. I already said that i understand you're trying to help. I just thought it was irresponsible to leave the pages in a complete blank. No mater what their licensing says, there's nothing wrong with writing about the alignments. So if you removed the copied version, you could have either restored an ealier version, or just written a sentence or two about each of the alignments yourself. I'm sure you know enough about them to pull something out. It would have made the article look a lot nicer than leaving a blanks. As for the titles like "benefactor", i think they're alright regardless of what SRD licensing says. Because they're quotes. And you can't copyright/put licensing onto single words. --`/aksha 05:34, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Even if there are other articles that link to some of the alignment sections, it doesn't mean the sections are correct. There are only 9 alignments like it says, but there are 12 listed. The strongly CN is not an alignment, and the druidic and normal True Neutral are both True Neutral they do not need seperation. shadzar|Talk|contribs 10:27, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
no one's saying they are. Links can be fixed if someone can be bothered doing a "what links here".
the article currently does show 9 alignments, not 12. Strong CN, True Neutral and Druidic neutral are clearly listed as "sub alignments" since they use a lower level header. From what the article currently says, True Neutral and druidic neutral sounds like different things. Or at least druidic neutral as a subset of true neutral. As for strong CN, it's there because it was on the "chaotic neutral" article which i merged. --`/aksha 05:34, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Specific Characters

Kudos to whoever it was that added examples of different types of people that fall under the alignment categories. But, in addition to that, should we add examples of characters, fictional or otherwise that fall into the categories? Here's how I think it would be:


[edit] Lawful Good

(Main Text) (General Example) Batman, Master Chief are examples of Lawful Good characters.

Robin Hood in the "Prince of Thieves" interpretation where he is a noble who lost his land to an lawful evil regime, and fights to restore the reign of the rightful king.

[edit] Neutral Good

(MT) (GE)

[edit] Chaotic Good

(MT) (GE) Vash the Stampede, Gordon Freeman, Groo the Wanderer are examples of Chaotic Good characters.

[edit] Lawful Neutral

(MT) (GE) Excel 343 Guilty Spark —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.81.100.219 (talk) 06:54, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Neutral

(MT) (GE)

[edit] True Neutral

(MT) (GE)

[edit] Druidic True Neutral

(MT) (GE) Ecco the Dolphin

[edit] Chaotic Neutral

(MT) (GE)

[edit] Strongly Chaotic Neutral

(MT) (GE) Havik

[edit] Lawful Evil

(MT) (GE) Dr. No, Darth Vader, Tony Soprano

[edit] Neutral Evil

(MT) (GE) Desert Punk

[edit] Chaotic Evil

(MT) (GE) Carnage

Also, one of the D&D handbooks (Don't remember which, I was flipping through it at a bookstore) has all of the alignments explained like we have on the article, but at the end, it said "(This alignment) is the best alignment because..." Course, it's kind of wierd how it says all of them are the best. Oh well. If somebody knows which book it is, could you please put it on the article? Feel free to expand on this if you have any more ideas. --Averross 15:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

This would be a great idea, but it's too easy to argue about it. I might call Master Chief a neutral good character because he sometimes questions his orders or does things his own way. Excel could be more of a neutral character just because she's so wishy-washy about everything. I think it's a good thing to think about and try to list for personal use or to discuss in a D&D group, but in the end it's not a sure thing. --Durahan
Yes, i know what you're talking about. All the "this alignment is the best because..." used to be on there, but was removed, along with all the alignment names (like "crusader" for lawful good and so on). See the section above titled "GNU vs OGL SRD conflict". A lot of the stuff on there used to word for word from the SRD...and was removed because of copyright problems.
Meaning...we have to write the sections in our own words. But i personally think having the titles, and the "this alignment is best because..." lines are fine. As long as they're put in intalics and quotes. Since quoting is not covered by copyright, as long as we reference to quotes to whereever they come from. Not sure though, we need someone who's familiar with how copyright works.
As for the examples, i don't agree. We'll get into arguments about what alignment characters are. Arguments about how many and which characters to list (i can imagine a LOT of superhero type characters falling into chaotic good or lawful good). And characters outside of D&D aren't designed to fall into one of these moral/lawful categories, so classifying them would be just arbitrary. --`/aksha 00:35, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
i know none of the others, but i dont consider batman all that lawfull myself. is he not neutral good? Also i think robin hood makes a perfect example of a chaotic good character. dont think all these characters should be added to the article though--Lygophile 19:07, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, neither was I, that's why I asked. Plus, I would consider Batman lawful good. He fights for the good of all people and upholds the law in every way. Plus, there would be nothing that could be said that would turn him against his beloved city. --Averross 13:49, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

yeah but he is the type that takes justice in his own hands. and i dont think he has legally been given permission to drive an unlicensed vehical at the speeds that he does. his methods are sure illegal, hence i dont consider him lawfull. he does indeed, fight for the good of all people in general, and that would make one neutral good. lawfull good would be the arrogant by the book nazi assholes, that fight for upholding some law desinged by whomever doubtfull powerjunky, as some blind devouts that desperately cling on to their feeling of elevation they get from forfilling their "duties", and they are NOT those that fight for the good of all people, only those that think like them (other sheeple). you got those two mixed up. (did i not mention i resent lawfull?)--Lygophile 14:51, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

To say that Lawful Good characters are arrogant book nazis a-holes is a generalization. I am sure SOME are by the book but not necessarily arrogant nor nazi. There are those who believe in order that benefits people. A lawful good character isn't necessarily going to follow the laws of some evil tyrant. Luke Skywalker rebelled against the evil empire but he was lawful good in that he wanted order that was not oppressive and cruel. Azn Clayjar 05:31, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

skywalker....hmm, perhaps. high fantasy hmm..allways order vs order where everything chaotic is neutral. but i dont remember any other movie where the protagonist was lawfull. i can think of million neutral and chaotic protagonists in a second though. all of skywalkers friends surely are either neutral or chaotic, outside of maybe his sister. he is frodo, who is probably lawfull as well, but they are simple people that venture out in the wide world. protagonists are allways rebels in a way, struggling either lawfull good, neutral or evil.--Lygophile 16:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Remember, unless you can quote an article stating these non-D&D characters as being one alignment or another, this is original research, and not suitable for Wikipedia. --Reveilled 13:26, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Way ahead of you there. See the Character list section below. -- Kesh 21:19, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Complete Scoundrel, published in January '07, explicitly identifies Batman as being Lawful Good. Iceberg3k 16:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

My bad. I take back my comment about Luke being Lawful good then since that can't be verified. Azn Clayjar 15:38, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

If I'm not too late to comment, you can't be Lawful Good and a nazi, since LG characters can't be racist, according to the Player's Handbook, and they aren't blindly law-abiding, either. Lawful Good characters fight for justice; Lawful Neutral characters fight for Law in itself. Custodes 09:44, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
The difference between LG and LN characters, IMO, is that LG characters believe in the concept of natural law, that natural law is essentially good in nature (the Christian conception of natural law, i.e. "God's Law") and that when natural law conflicts with positive law (man-made laws), natural law should win. LN characters don't believe in natural law, or believe that natural law is inferior to positive law. Iceberg3k 14:23, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
OK, that sounds reasonable, though I can't remember seeing it in any D&D book. Custodes 14:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Like I said, this is HUGE doses of IMO here. It's not an officially sanctioned interpretation, it's my interpretation. And that's why it's not on the main article page ;) Iceberg3k 14:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Chaotic Neutral Article

I was looking for the basis upon which the Chaotic Neutral article was removed and replaced with a redirect to this article, and was unable to find it. Could someone enlighten me, or link to the talk page where this was discussed? --Reveilled 02:56, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I reckon a month is long enough. I assume this was deleted by accident, and I'ma go ahead and restore it. --Reveilled 21:47, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

umm...i originally merged the article. Because...well, one certain D&D alignment really isn't notable enough for an article of it's own. I don't know why it got deleted, but someone really should re-merge it. Before we get articles popping out for all 9 of the alignments. --`/aksha 13:06, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually, that was exactly the intention, that the originally quite short descriptions of the original article could then be expanded into more fully fledged articles for each of the nine alignments. --Reveilled 23:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
i dont think any single allignment would deserve an article of its own. the find the use and comparrison of these allignments as used in d&d informative, but some talk of some alligment used in a system of some boardgame doesnt make an article. Lygophile has spoken 03:45, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. The alignments don't have any notability outside the game, and Wikipedia is not a game guide. Percy Snoodle 11:51, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I've proposed restoring the redirect at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chaotic Neutral. Percy Snoodle 11:58, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

How is an article on an alignment without notability outside a game any different then an article on a creature or place that has no notability outside the game (there are plenty of other pages devoted to individual D&D creatures and places)?

[edit] Ethics

In my mind, this article should be closely linked to ethics since that is what alignment is supposed to be about. Therefore, I'd suggest the following:

and

  • lawful = deontological ethics (meaning that all deeds should be measured according to the intention)
  • neutral = no real philosophical basis
  • chaotic = teleological ethics (meaning that all deeds should be measured according to the result)

Ok, perhaps this is more in lines of "how the alignments should have been described"...

I have to disagree. Trying to put the DnD alignment system in with other ethics systems is a bit too "original research" for me. While in a conversation I might not disagree with your conclusions, they are inherently your interpretation, & thus not appropriate. --mordicai. 23:29, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I disagree, too. That would definitely be original research, and is very open to interpretation. I certainly wouldn't interpret the alignment system as being anything like that. If anything, I'd class neutrality as being egoistic, as neutral characters (like commoners) are primarily concerned with themselves and their family over larger commitments like ideology. That's original research and POV, though. Reveilled 14:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
keep thinking, but this is going nowhere. neutral are surely not utilitarian. utalists would be moderate good. and you got the wrong idea 'bout lawful vs chaotic. lawful v chaotic is probably more in the line of collectivism vs individualism but then talking ethics and traditions and authority and such instead of personal interests. --Lygophile 16:09, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I have to disagree. Chaotic and lawful ethics can both be either deontological or teleological.24.47.151.201 (talk) 23:31, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Character list

I have to say, the character list section should probably be removed. No one ever agrees on this sort of thing, so I see it as a revert war waiting to happen. Plus, it's certainly not verifiable in any sense. -- Kesh

Maybe we should stick to Dungeons and Dragons (Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, etc) characters for the list of examples as that can be verified by their D&D profiles. Like Raistlin of Dragonlance was Neutral when he was a Red Robe and then he became Chaotic Evil when he took on the Black Robes.Azn Clayjar 15:50, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
That would at least be verifiable from sourcebooks so, yeah, that would work. -- Kesh 20:35, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
I would say you should only list a character in the list if they are a notable D&D character with alignment listed, or if a authoritative person like Gary Gygax or the character's creator has made a verifiable comment on the matter. That probably leaves very few non-D&D characters. —Dgiest c 00:26, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Most of that cold be handled with Dragonlance characters alone. Some notable Forgotten Realms characters would likely fill in the missing spots. The only problem will be "version wars" if the alignments vary from one edition to another. -- Kesh 02:32, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
i would agree that its probably a bad idea, but on the other hand i see the ability of merely thinking and discussing that out to sharpen our whole concept of what is lawfull and what is chaotic and thus aiding us in our design of the rest of the article--Lygophile 23:55, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
That would be venturing into original research territory, so it's not going to work. I think we need to stick with verifiable alignment descriptors found for characters in books. -- Kesh 03:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
What's your opinion on verifiable comments by the creators of non-D&D characters? —Dgiest c 03:39, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
If we can find a verifiable statement of the author saying the character fits into alignment X, that would work. Of course, we still don't want to get into too big of a list, and they would have to be the creator of the character for it to really qualify. I'm still favoring just citing sourcebooks for the most part, but could be persuaded about other characters. We need to avoid list-creep, though. -- Kesh 04:14, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
true. it gives actually the best view of what those allignments are, but you cant put it up as official information. yet i see lots of things that is original research....all the examples that are given with every allignment that didnt come directly off the d&d site is original research. its hard to be informative with such rules, needed as they are. probably we should put up that list as unofficial information atop the talk page or something like that, would probably be the best way to go, even if a bit unconventional. Lygophile has spoken 20:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

It looks better without the list. List was fun but not really needed and I agree that most of the charactes listed are original research. Azn Clayjar 18:35, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The real people listed (such as Hitler, Stalin, and Bin Laden) should be deleted. This is getting into politics, and people will always disagree. Moreover, this is a simplified model from a game! I think it would only be safe to list fictional characters with "official" alignments (such as those in Dragonlance mentioned above), or examples out of the rule books (for example, I think some edition of the Player's Handbook gave Robin Hood as an example of chaotic good, but I'm not sure...) --Itub 11:07, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nathyrra

In Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark, one of the player's companions is a drow woman named Nathyrra, and though her alignment is Lawful Evil, she is portrayed as a good character. I think that her alignment may have been set to this for technical reasons (one of her classes is Assassin, which is an evil-only class), though I was wondering if it is possible that her previous life as a killer has turned her into a sociopath, and that she has no motivation to help others, but only serves the good-aligned rebel drow because they took her in (and her lawful nature therefore compels her to remain loyal to them).--Azer Red Si? 23:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, your comments about Nathyrra really has nothing to do with this article. Also your theory about her alignment is just your opinion. But I do wonder why she was evil when she worshipped a good goddess. Azn Clayjar 15:40, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup'd

Cleaned up. No more creating Wikipedia articles by copying SRD pages, okay? ;) --Jonathan Drain 20:35, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[1]

[edit] vandalization

someone added ebaumsworld.com and YTMND.com to the list of examples of chaotic evil characters.

Revert and ignore. If they continue, pester an admin. -Jéské (v^_^v Kacheek!) 15:11, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External Link

Please consider adding an external link to my extensive website on the alignment system in Dungeons and Dragons. I've included information from AD&D1, AD&D2, D&D3, Dragon magazines, Hackmaster, and other game systems. The information there contains a great amount of detail that hasn't been integrated into the Wikipedia article on Alignment (Dungeons & Dragons). I'm not selling anything, have no advertisements, and I'm not trying to promote my website. I was dissatisfied with the lack of information available online for the D&D alignment system, so I created these pages. It is part of my personal website, but the alignment pages are self-contained and all links pertain only to Dungeons and Dragons.

Alternatively, consider using my site to update the Wikipedia article on Alignment (Dungeons & Dragons). I think you'll find it a useful source.

http://www.easydamus.com/alignment.html

[edit] examples

i se some fued/edit war has been going on lately about exampels of fictional character with certain alignments. rather than contribute to the edit war and due to the nature of the sections about it above i just wanted to say this....examples for certain alignments are a good idea. however in the interest of being undisputable i would sugest to using characters referenced in the D&D books themselves. this is how the creators of the various versions of the game percieve the alignments to be and correlation between any editions can then be left to the reader of the article and the editions to decide how each individual thinks an alignment should be. alignment is a big taboo topic for many reasons, and wikipedia is not immune to the war that has raged over these decades. so lets try to stick with examples from the book and prevent reader or editor disputes on the subject or just leave off the examples all together. shadzar|Talk|contribs 17:43, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chaotic Evil Characters

Maybe I shouldn`t create a whole new section for this but I think saying that Riddick is chaotic evil is OR and also wrong, while is true that in Pitch black he was evil, he was never chaotic and in the second and third parts of the trilogy he is not evil i think that he is Chaotic neutral or at least neutral evil, he don`t kill people just like that, he care about his few friends, he feel sorrow, maybe love. He is a criminal, a murderer but he has never killed someone just fot the fun of it, he always has a reason, i know the narrator itself sys "evil fight another kind of evil" but even if he is evil he is neutral. Zidane tribal (talk) 20:52, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I also think that Carl Denham is a poor example of a chaotic evil character. IMO, a chaotic evil character should be the worst of the worst, with no regard either for sentient life or any established institutions. The sympathy both Carl (from the 2005 movie) and Riddick occasionally demonstrate is evidence enough they value at least some aspects of sentience, thus they should both be Chaotic Neutral. Furthermore, these characters more closely resemble anti-heros, where a chaotic evil character would almost certainly be a villain. I'm going to add the Joker as a more appropriate example, and let somebody else remove the other characters if they see fit. Trebnoj (talk) 19:00, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think Chaotic Evil characters are the "worst of the worst," but the Joker is a perfect example of Chaotic Evil. Totally insane and a lust for wanton destruction and death. That's Chaotic Evil. I also don't believe that Riddick is Chaotic Evil. In fact, in the Chronicles of Riddick I would call him Chaotic Good. And in Pitch Black I don't think he's that evil. It's been a while since I've sen the movie, though. He just looks out for himself. I mean, he does help the humans get away, and even saves some of them at times. He is not Chaotic Evil. Blizzard Beast $ODIN$ 00:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
People, opinions do not matter at all. The only thing that matters is the official stance Wizards of the Coast has taken, and deleting examples with cited sources, or worse, replacing them with an uncited example while still retaining that little reference to Complete Scoundrel ([ref name="CompleteScoundrel" /], with the [] replaced by <>), is vandalism, pure and simple. Believe it or not, you are also no pioneers. In the last month I've had at least three different people put the Joker in there and on all three occasions I reverted the changes. No matter how much you want the Joker to be in there, it's not going to happen, and insistently putting him in there will result in an admin being contacted and you possibly being blocked. Vestigial Thumb (talk) 03:39, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Excuse me, but first of all, it doesn`t matter how much absurd, persistent or even nonsensical a edit is if the author doesn`t have the intention of damaging the article, is not vandalism. Second of all i don`t think Wizards of the Coast have a alignment specified for every fictional character there is, therefore, OPINIONS DO MATTER, while there is not official statement or reference, consensus is all that matter so, unless you can provide a statment from WotC of who is and who is not a Chaotic evil character, i will remove Riddick and encourage to add the Joker Zidane tribal (talk) 04:40, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

The example has been both provided and sourced. What is written in Complete Scoundrel is an official statement. Also, opinions DO NOT and HAVE NEVER mattered. All that matters is evidence, and if evidence can't be provided, the statement, or lack thereof, has no place. Vestigial Thumb (talk) 04:50, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I'll add to that, that consensus doesn't matter either without verifiable and reliable sources. All statements in an article should be verifiable by a reader unfamiliar with the subject. A "consensus" about the Joker doesn't qualify, because there are no verifiable and reliable references to confirm that consensus, to someone unfamiliar with the Joker or alignments.
Consensus matters only when deciding what sources to reference, and what facts to include from those sources. So we can argue, for example, about whether Complete Scoundrel mentioning the alignment of Sawyer from Lost means we should also include it in this article. That's where consensus comes in. =Axlq 05:56, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sawyer from Lost?

I think this is an instance of the authors of our source being poorly informed. While his initial impression may have indicated otherwise, the character of Sawyer developed in aired episodes to date is clearly not evil and most likely chaotic. Rather than imposing my own positive judgment, I'll assume that my negative judgment that Sawyer probably isn't definitely Neutral Evil is held fairly unanimously between people who simultaneously know D&D and Lost, and just remove him from the page altogether. Tsunomaru (talk) 01:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

That's fine. The source Complete Scoundrel isn't infallible, after all. We don't have to name all the examples in that source. =Axlq (talk) 07:18, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Sawyer is Neutral Evil, and here's why: He has no urge to rebel against anything, and is purely out for himself (thus neutral). He stabs people in the back without hesitating, except if he likes them. Remember that "neutral people are committed by personal relationships," and thus his unwillingness to hurt those he cares about fails to amount to altruism and thus fails to counter all the other things he does (hoarding, stealing and betraying to name only a few). He is malevolent, plain and simple. Vestigial Thumb (talk) 01:16, 10 January 2008
That's where I have to disagree. Sawyer has a criminal past, meaning he has little respect for codified laws. When the survivors began settling in their little society, he made deliberate efforts to distance himself from the others and live "outside society". Even in his life previous to the Island, he was nomadic -- not tied down to anything. If anything, that's at least slightly more chaotic than the average person, and the average person is True Neutral. As a con artist, he only ever took money; large sums of money, yes, but mostly from fairly wealthy couples. Note that he elected to abort a con when he found out that the couple had a child. He has allowed himself to suffer purely for the sake of helping Kate, and at least late in the third season he's come to start acting genuinely helpful, even if he still gives people a hard time about it. The only men he ever killed were a man he thought had caused his parents to die and the man who actually did (and an Other, but that was war). He shows genuine empathy, even if it's deeply buried. Tsunomaru (talk) 17:33, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
See, here's the thing: There's having little respect for laws (as in breaking them when it suits you) and being an active rebel (as in breaking them on principle; deliberate acts of civil disobedience). You are excluding the middle ground here on the law-chaos axis. On the issue of good vs. evil, he hurts people without good reason. It doesn't matter if he only screws wealthy people. Those people earned that money and he's hurting them to benefit himself. Financial hurt still counts as hurt. And deciding to not screw over a couple because they had a child means almost nothing because children have a way of messing with your head. It's a biological imperative to protect them that makes people think twice before hurting them.
Also, Wizards of the Coast has officially recognized him as neutral evil. I can understand the logic behind it and academic principle prohibits the exclusion of an example based on nothing but conjencture or opinion. Vestigial Thumb (talk) 22:24, 11 January 2008
Okay, granted that his history as a con artist indicates a greater amount of evil than normal. It also goes to the discussion that he breaks laws and acts deceptively more frequently than an average person. In my experience, it's generally accepted that there is a grey area, that some TN people are more evil than others and some NE people are less evil than others. You speak of deliberate, ideological chaos; why doesn't deliberate, ideological evil enter into the discussion? No, Sawyer doesn't break laws on the principle of Chaos; nor does he steal from people on the principle of Evil: he does these things to further his own personal goals, and there are conditions under which he will suffer -- either physically or by aborting a con -- due to empathy for others. This isn't intentional evil. To be honest, I think it's reasonable that realistic characters don't deliberately espouse ideologies of Evil, but rather some psychosis drives them to believe that evil actions are justifiable. Yes, Sawyer is mean. Yes, he steals from nice people. Given the opportunity, would he become a lich? Doubtful.
My point is that it's a misrepresentation of the character and the alignment to use Sawyer as an exemplar for NE; in the traditional D&D ethos, evil characters are generally expected to be villains, or at least villainous. In the context of his canon, Sawyer is far from being the most evil character. Even more importantly, the entire series features a certain pattern of character redemption, and, of course, the canon isn't complete. A single judgment on any character's alignment before his or her story is complete is quite likely to be inaccurate. We only have limited insight into the actual motivations of the character, and we don't know the sum of his actions until they've all transpired.
To recap: Sawyer is most likely somewhere between "Neutral Evil with Neutral tendencies" and "Chaotic Neutral with Neutral tendencies". He's not the type to worship dark gods and perform human sacrifices. He doesn't kill for sadistic pleasure. And, as a protagonist on a show with a recurring good/evil motif, he's more likely to turn decisively to the good side than to the evil side -- but even then, we don't know, because the story is incomplete. WotC has only "officially" recognized his alignment insofar as that their company published the book that did so. Its authors represent the original vision of Gary Gygax, or even Cook, Williams, and Tweet, the authors of the 3rd edition, only because their company had purchased the right to it. That doesn't make them the final authority over the alignment system; there's precedent for this in the various levels of canon in Star Wars. Now, I'm not proposing that we place Sawyer under a different alignment. I'm proposing that it's irresponsible and misrepresentative to label him as something that, if not now, he probably won't be by the end of the series, and that he doesn't represent very well in D&D context anyway. Tsunomaru (talk) 02:37, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
You don't have to be ideologically evil to count as evil. And willingness to become a lich utterly fails to factor into the deal. Further, just because he isn't into human sacrifice or the worship of dark gods, does not make him not evil (if that were true, not one person in this world would be evil). The fact is that he is a very good example of a neutral evil criminal type.
And for the record, WotC is the ultimate authority on alignment at this point. They own it (as well as the system in which it's included). Vestigial Thumb (talk) 18:55, 15 January 2008
WOTC is also prone to error, which is why they publish lengthy errata lists for their books. We're talking about a character from an obscure TV show that nobody will remember 2 decades from now, unlike other examples cited that have passed the test of time ("obscure" in the sense of "too U.S.-centric"). That character is a point of contention. WOTC lists other, more acceptable examples we can use, so I have no problem excluding Sawyer. There is no requirement for us to provide an exhaustive list of everything a WOTC book says. =Axlq (talk) 18:54, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
That's not the issue. WotC defined the neutral evil alignment, and to show how that definition can be interpreted, they included Sawyer. Thus Sawyer effectively becomes an amendment to or clarification on the definition of what neutral evil means or can imply. Thus he should be included. Vestigial Thumb (talk) 22:02, 16 January 2008
Vestigial Thumb: "See, here's the thing: There's having little respect for laws (as in breaking them when it suits you) and being an active rebel (as in breaking them on principle; deliberate acts of civil disobedience). You are excluding the middle ground here on the law-chaos axis."
Vestigial Thumb: "You don't have to be ideologically evil to count as evil."
Hmmm.... My point: while Sawyer occasionally ventures into the territories of both Chaos and Evil, he is committed to neither for its own sake.
While various D&D sources may have crystallized definitions of Law and Chaos, Good and Evil are preexisting concepts in human culture and philosophy; should we suppress our better judgment of the notion of these concepts just because two authors sanctioned by WotC disagree? If there's going to be an example of NE, it seems logical that it should be somebody on the middle ground of the alignment's range, not somebody who's barely over the cusp. I don't think you can deny that there are serial killers and violent criminals in real life who are far more evil than the character of Sawyer. Even more significant are the typical NE villains a character would be met with in D&D, the only context where alignment actually matters. That means liches, practitioners of human sacrifice, worshipers of dark gods, mass murderers, grave desecrators, and individuals of similar malevolence. To qualify as an exemplar of NE, a character should be on par with these people in magnitude of Evil. For people who are already familiar with the alignment system but not Lost, using Sawyer as the example would give them the false impression that he's far worse than he actually is; conversely, for people familiar with Lost but not the D&D alignment system, it would give them unrealistically tame expectations for how dark the game can get. Tsunomaru (talk) 00:56, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Evil people are not as bad as people like to think. At least not in D&D. As long as you stay on their good side, they will look out for you just like everybody else would. What you are describing (commitment to evil for its own sake) is fiendish evil. It's how the fiends behave. Mortals generally have neither the willingness or the stomach for the evil fiends are capable of, thus fiends do not make a good standard for it, but rather an example of how extreme it can get.
It's also inconsequential that serial killers are worse than he is. It does not make Sawyer 'not evil'. The way he behaves (and has behaved) fits the definition of neutral evil, thus that is what he is. WotC has decided that he is neutral evil and has decent reasoning behind it, so I insist that he be kept as an example. That's what good academia demands, it's what Wikipedia demands of its users and its just plain good manners to supply all relevant information when it exists. Vestigial Thumb (talk) 12:17, 17 January 2008

(outdent) You insist? Well, as a counterpoint, I insist Sawyer be excluded for the simple reason that he isn't a notable enough fictional character to deserve a mention. When it's clear, years from now, whether the Lost TV show stood up to the test of time like Batman, James Bond, Odysseus, and other examples have done, we can re-consider. I personally think Sawyer is too obscure. Heck, as an American, I've never even heard of this Sawyer fellow until I saw it in this article (can't watch everything, after all, and Lost is way down on my list of priorities), yet I'm familiar with all the other examples. I don't think the argument "WOTC mentions Sawyer, so should we" holds water. =Axlq (talk) 19:25, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

He is actually a fairly notable character outside of the U.S. The show has a very large international fandom and a widespread effect on popular culture. Read the article about Lost to see what I mean. Just because you have barely heard of him doesn't mean that millions of other people haven't and it's presumptuous to think so in the first place.
So yes, I insist that he be kept as an example. Vestigial Thumb (talk) 2:30, 20 January 2008

Sawyer from Lost is a bad example of the Neutral Evil alignment. Character like Emperor Palpatin in Star Wars or Lucius Malefoy in Harry Potter are better example of what a Neutral Evil character could be. The point here is not to do an hypothetical debate about the alignment of the Sawyer from Lost but to give a good and mostly non-ambigous example of what is a Neutril Evil character. The case of sawyer is just to ambigous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.70.205.213 (talk • contribs) 12:28, 20 January 2008

I guess my gripe here is that the article asserts the opinion of the source as if it were fact, in violation of the WP:NPOV policy. I have re-cast the sentence to fix this. Nobody can argue that Complete Scoundrel says Sawyer is Neutral Evil. But if Wikipedia asserts it as fact, then everybody will argue about it. =Axlq (talk) 17:48, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
That's a good compromise right there. Vestigial Thumb (talk) 18:21, 20 January 2008

I have delete the example of Sawyer even if it's describe like a citation of the «Complete scoundrel handbook». An example is supposed to help clarify a definition, wich it's obviously not the case since there is a controversy with the example. In this case, the example add more confusion than clarification to the article. So, it's better to avoid this particular example instead of adding it. And the fact that the «Complete scoundrel» use Sawyer as an example of Neutral Evil character is not a good argument to use it as an example in a Wikipedia article since «The complete scoundrel» could be completely wrong in is analysis of the character. Only the author of the series «Lost» could be consider a reliable source to consider Sawyer like a Neutral Evil character. Briefly, it's better to avoid a controversial and poor example instead of using it and adding confusion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.70.205.213 (talk) 03:40, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 'Outsiders'

The term 'outsider' is frequently mentioned in examples of Alignment, however there is no example of what, exactly, an 'Outsider' is. I've linked the first mention of 'outsider' to the description under Creature Type, but I still believe it could use a bit of clarification or a change to something similar to other parts of the article - for example, 'Slaadi represent pure Chaos.' The example under Lawful Good could be changed to sound similar to that - 'An example of Lawful Good are known as Archons'.

I'm not exactly sure on those examples in the first place, but I'm new around here and leaving them in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by X9122017 (talk • contribs) 02:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] That comeplete scoundrel book is nuts

Indiana Jones, a man who steals religious atifacts from indiginous cultures, and Batman, a vigilante who denies criminals due process, are "lawful"? What version of "lawful" does that book use? Serendipodous 14:47, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

A version where your alignment doesn't change to Chaotic for entering a different town (i.e. the Core definitions). Alignment is an objective standard larger than small locales and cities. User:Vestigial Thumb 3:10, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, the system is pretty open to interpretation, isn't it? --Kizor 07:16, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Examples

It would seem to me that some of the xamples provided for the different alignments are off. Most are right but I noticed a few flaws. Riddick from Pitch Black is considered Chaotic Evil? Lara Croft is True Neutral? Idk about that. Also, what alignment are the drow? I was under the impression they were Chaotic Neutral. Blizzard Beast $ODIN$ 00:06, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Nope, the Drow have always been chaotic evil subterranean elves. As for the character examples, they're official. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:55, 2 June 2008 (UTC)