Talk:Alignment (role-playing games)

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See also Wikipedia:Wikipedians by D&D alignment.

IIRC the Players Handbook has the same descriptions for the alignments (I'm too lazy to check); You may wish to consider rewording this.

They are similar; then again they have to be. They have been reworded and are not verbatim quotes from the PH.--Smerdis of Tlön 14:50, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
It's okay people, you can quote away, that's the same as the text in the Sytem Reference Document.--mathx314 02:18, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Is that so? Well then, it's unnessecarry to do so. Let's move on, down the line...--OleMurder 22:55, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

New classification: ultimate unspeakable infinite evil
The idea-expression divide concept covers the requirement to factually describe these things. It's probably not practical to concisely describe the twenty-sided dice role-playing game systems without a lot of similar text because the concepts being described are the same. The required great similarity makes application of the merger doctrine which flows from the idea-expression divide very likely to apply here and that eliminates the copyright infringement potential. Direct copying is still best avoided, though.--Jamesday 19:22, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

How can ther be three and a haf that is funy maybe I shud put in joke page and fix this page to be corect

Maybe someone should mention: In original D&D only the lawful vs chaotic axis was used. The good vs evil axis was added in an optional book (Eldritch Wizardry? an issue of Dragon magazine). This was incorporated fully into the advanced version of the game, but abandoned for the non-advanced version from the 1981 boxed set onwards.

The alignment system for Palladium has three overall classifications, Good, Selfish, and Evil, with each subdivided into two or three types.

At the moment, I don't have my original D&D stuff with me, or any Palladium games.

Are there any other games that use "Alignment" that are different from D&D?

And while we're at it, we should mention that non-D&D games in general (E.g. GURPS, White Wolf's games, Champions, etc.) are unlikely to use alignment.

Chaotic neutral was also the alignment of madmen, according to my old AD&D manual. Perhaps someone better than I at the typed word should note that. Or maybe not.

Or just someone who is unpredictable, but not necessarily insane. Just self-serving...or out after cash, not caring for good nor evil but chaotically attacking people along a road, f.eg? I can't see, however, that on a "Good, Selfish, Evil"-division that SELFISH differs from EVIL. Same shit in my book, even 'tho Neutral's CAN be "Selfish"...they're not as solely selfish as EVIL one's are, if there's even a doubt. Neutral's can also be SELFLESS, yet we don't call them THAT, now do we? As if there's a "half-way's selfless" or "half-way's selfish"-bar ;)--OleMurder 22:55, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

--OleMurder 22:55, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Sex edit

I noticed that the descriptions for each alignment seemed to alternate between male and female pronouns, a confusing and clumsy system. As no female characters are mentioned explicitly, I have changed all the female pronouns to male ones. However, it still sounds somewhat old-fashioned – if anyone wishes to reword it so tat it uses "they" or somesuch, please feel free to do so. —Wereon 16:18, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's funny you did that, because Dungeons and Dragons has evolved exactly the opposite. In 2nd edition they had a pronoun disclaimer at the begining of the book, basically saying, "We use him and his throughout the book, just because it's awkward to constantly use their or his/her. Hope no one gets offended." Then in 3rd edition they had a new disclaimer that basically said, "We were idiots the last time, it's ridiculous to exclusively use male pronouns and pretend that they're gender-neutral. We'll just switch back and forth this time." - Lifefeed 15:43, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)
What's confusing or clumsy about it? The example for each alignment is a different person, so it can be argued that using different pronouns improves understanding. Certainly "they" is the worst alternative; however IMO references to people, be they concrete examples or not, is one of the few places where using both pronouns works. I've changed them back. ··gracefool |☺ 10:05, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
This is political correctness that more of society has caved in to so as to avoid a lot of noise from energetic complainers.
It is not going to stop until someone does a convincing analysis showing this does not mean what the complainers say.

[edit] Moved from article

Many gamers feel that alignment rules force that system's particular point of view or philosophy on the players and characters alike, and many criticise the system's essential simplicity in dealing with complex moral and ethical issues.

Unless this can be cited, which I doubt, its simply an editors opinion, or original research. I personally don't buy it. Example (talk · contribs) 21:47, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Back some 12 years ago you would see comments like that thrown around. Of course, that was during the whole "storytelling" revolution that RPGs were going through at the time... along with the mindless bashing of TSR that everyone in the "in" crowd were expected to go along with. Boy, were those dumb times... --Paul Soth 00:00, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
TSR was way better than Hasbro... :( Example (talk · contribs) 00:16, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Anyway, Wikipedia is far from the WWIV boards and high school hallways where that sort of pretentiousness went on. Nobody is out to prove anything against the bigger companies or chastise us that we're "roll playing" and not "role playing." I'm just glad I got to see the backlash happen. Hell, I even got to accept the Origins Game of the Year Award for Hackmaster back in 2002 for Kenzer Co. Go figure.
As for the article, it could be worth a mention, provided we rewrite it. "Some" as opposed to "many" for starters, along with the fact that not too many make these arguments anymore. A lot of it was just people trying to look cool and impress each other. If I had to write it, I'd say a lot of it was part of the trend towards more free-form story based games made by (then) smaller companies, which by now has seriously receded. I haven't seen anyone make these arguments (and be taken seriously) in years. --Paul Soth 01:57, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
From the sounds of it I'll like whatever it is that you feel like writing up on the subject, I just didn't like the broad, sweeping emphasis ("many gamers") on a concept which I never heard of, and have little respect for. If it can be placed in context, and explained as a historical and/or minority view, I doubt I'd have any objection. Example (talk · contribs) 10:59, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
If it's anything, I've heard the argument before too. I don't agree with it completely, but it has valid points, and more importantly I think it's widespread enough that it deserves to be written up in here. - Lifefeed 15:18, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)
Well since I've never heard of it, I won't be the one to write it. Some sort of reference would be cool, but so long as you describe in neutrally, I'll take you 2 as proof the idea exists. Example (talk · contribs) 16:19, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Law-abiding vs. Lawful Good

I've added a paragraph to the Lawful Good definition to stress that blind obedience to the law may fall outside the scope of the definition. In my experience as player and DM, and a regular reader of Internet resources committed to D&D, I've seen that mistake too often.

To reiterate the example I put in the main article: it is perfectly permissible to break unjust laws, for example by fighting a usurper on behalf of the rightful king, without breaking the strictures of Lawful Good. In fact, in an Evil kingdom, it is possible to imagine the resistance being led by Paladins.

This misunderstanding of Lawful Good appears to be so common that I think the disclaimer belongs in the definition, even if the SRD doesn't state it explicitly.

Mart

[edit] Good vs Evil

I don't think this is right that neutral people are committed by personal relationships in the AD&D game. I think this is the definition of Chaotic. Lawful characters tend to put their code ahead of personal relationships.

It's straight from the current rulebooks; they literally spell this out in so many words. And what's this about lawful characters necessarily having a "code"? Outdated stereotypes, anyone? PurplePlatypus 03:16, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hamaine

What the hell does Hamaine mean? Also, someone needs to make a complete explanation of the moral systems in Palladium.

[edit] who got rid of the Minsc link?

why?

Pece Kocovski 11:10, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I did. It's good to keep the examples as succinct as possible, and when adding, it's good to use references everyone has atleast a passing familiarity with (this usually means pop-culture references). Plus it looked like you had deleted several spaces between commas on purpose. Ereinion 20:30, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

So your saying its alright, but in ain't well knows as batman,batman or robin hood right?

Pece Kocovski 02:52, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Original research

All of the entries stating that any particular person or fictional character is a particular alignment are original research and should be removed unless cited with an actual published source. -Sean Curtin 02:26, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lawful-Evil, devoted to selfishness?

Gracefool, I respect much of your good work here, and have accepted your other revert of one of my contributions. The claim that 'Lawful-Evil are devoted to selfishness' however, I can't let stand. A Lawful-Evil creature is no more selfish than a neutral animal. You could say that Objectivists and hedonists are devoted to selfishness, and I assure you that most of us are neither Lawful nor Evil.Rearden Metal 06:36, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Interesting, in this interview, author Philip Athans says Ayn Rand's objectivism is "Lawful Neutral". Well, alignments are a game mechanic, not well suited for real life. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:59, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

That is interesting, and what a strange thing to say! Objectivism is about disbanding the lion's share of the federal government. Hard drugs, prostitution and all other victimless activity legalized. FCC, FAA, FTC, DEA, FDA, HUD, etc. dismantled. Objectivism is about erasing laws, not creating them. Not very LN, if you ask me. Rearden Metal 01:57, 10 January 2006 (UTC) (Chaotic Neutral)

If a creature has an alignment (Neutral = no alignment), that means it has some dedication to morals (whether good or not). Traditionally, evil has been called selfish in D&D, while good means putting others first sometimes. In the Player's Handbook, all the evil alignments are described as being motivated (solely) by personal gain/advancement etc. That is another way of saying "selfish" - at least, according to the dictionary. If you have a different concept of selfishness, that's fine, but that is the way the word is most commonly used. ··gracefool |☺ 00:54, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

The primary problem with comparing D&D alignments to Objectivism comes in that the Alignment system uses the Standard English definition of selfish, with its usual connotations, while Objectivism uses a definition of selfish that has very little to do with its usual meaning. Selfish in the context of an evil character means someone who pursues self-interest and self-gratification without regard to the rights of others. Selfish in the context of Objectivism means someone who pursues self-interest and self-gratification while being careful to respect the rights of others to do the same, something, in my opinion, much closer to chaotic neutral or to simple neutrality. Reveilled 13:54, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Remove examples, or let them stay? Vote here:

It seems a number of contributors want the individual examples (Chaotic Good: Robin Hood, Han Solo, Batman, etc...) removed, claiming they're original research. Let's vote first, before deciding to make the change. Rearden Metal 01:59, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Voting

All in favor of keeping the individual examples, sign here:

  1. Ereinion 03:42, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

All in favour of removing some of the individual examples, sign here:

  1. Rearden Metal 23:30, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
  2. Keep verifiable examples ··gracefool |☺ 01:08, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

All in favor of removing all individual examples, sign here:

  1. Sean Curtin 06:30, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  2. Alexander 007 13:23, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  3. Matthucke 01:50, 31 December 2005 (UTC) (changing my vote; see below)
  4. [[User:Mighty Veil] 03:12, 31 December 2005 (UTC) (see below)
  5. Polls are evil and I am just going to be bold and remove them, but I'll add my thoughts here. The fictional examples constitute original research and are not verifiable. Alignments are a roleplaying game mechanic which does not apply all that well to real life. I took three different "alignment tests", one said that I was "Lawful Good", another said that I was "Neutral Good". The Wizards alignment test said I was "Lawful Neutral" (which is the one I trust most), so it is hardly a precise science but rather one person's opinion. Lord Voldemort is listed as "Neutral Evil", yet I could argue that his extremely strict control over his Death Eater supporters and meticulous and usually quite patient planning makes him "Lawful Evil". There is no real objective standard we can apply to characters that way. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

Giving examples will be a matter of original research. For example, Batman is not "Chaotic Good", though most would agree that The Punisher is. But even listing The Punisher as Chaotic Good is unofficial and original research. One can perhaps say that there are some fictional characters who behave in the manner of Chaotic Good, etc., but unless they are AD&D you can't say they "are" of this or that alignment. Alexander 007 13:28, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that this would be an easy fix. Instead of saying that these characters -are- of one of the alignments without direct source proof, stick with the initial point in describing them as appropriate -examples- of a given alignment. This way we are not saying that they are in fact assigned to one alignment, but rather staying in keeping with the fact that they are characteristically descriptive of one of these dispositions on a definitive basis. In other words, keep the descriptive analogy without officially labeling them. Ereinion 03:49, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

As the person who inadvertently got the ball rolling by adding the early examples, that was the idea I was originally going for. Not that they WERE those alignments, but that the characters would be good illustrations of what a person of that alignment might be like. Pat Payne 19:59, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I've reluctantly changed my vote after seeing a recent change to the article. The examples are of increasingly poor quality - someone has just added some obscure video-game characters, and deleted some of the better examples (Jack the Ripper and Hermione Granger are known to just about the entire English-speaking world, but who the hell is Kefka Palozzo?). As it's impossible to prevent the junk from creeping back in, it's best to dispense with the examples alltogether. Matthucke

Kefka Palazzo is the main villain in Final Fantasy VI. Even though he is a little obscure to some, many videogamers are familiar with him.
But I don't think he is that well known, a better example from Final Fantasy would be Sephiroth, as people other than just gamers are familiar with him. In regards to his aligment, I'd say he fits the profile of Neutral Evil, though that's not fully certain, but he fits it a little better than Lawful or Chaotic Evil. Satanael 16:39, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Mighty Veil -- As much as I like examples. It's doubtful to get an accurate for every example out there since no one really agrees with what the meaning of each alignment actually is. Batman sounds like CG, but if really, I would argue NG. He's about liberty and helping the city. The city is Law. He acts above the Law but he's not trying to undermine it (Chaos). He works with the police (Law).

Mighty Veil -- I thought examples had been removed already, but noticed them. Oh wow. These should be removed ASAP. I'd love to point out how wrong the alignment guesses are but I know that'd start up an argument. As I said above, everyone has their own idea of alignment. I'm old school, so I like the original 1e simplified view of it. But lots of people use 2e's (LG is the crusader, etc), or agree with the more "progressive" point of view of 3e (Is hunting a rabbit for food immoral because it involves murdering a life?). But I have to say it! Ra Gul, the bad guy who wanted to destroy a city and by doing so, accepted many would die. But that's okay since it's his want. Is not, is so not LN. That's CE right there. But heck, I'd argue it's possible to play a CE rogue in a group of good characters easily, without it turning into a mess.

I no longer oppose removing all the examples. Their quality is deteriorating, and some of the assigned alignments are certainly debatable. Ra's Al Ghul as CE makes no sense whatsoever, BTW. His terror group was too well organized & disciplined for such a label. Rearden Metal 21:12, 1 January 2006 (UTC) '

  • I think we should follow the Wikipedia standard, and remove examples that are not verifiable. Contrary to what some of you have assumed, some examples can be verified (D&D NPCs often have explicitly listed alignments). Also, some examples are definitive, such as the folkloric Robin Hood as Chaotic Good, or Judge Dredd as Lawful Neutral. ··gracefool |☺ 01:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

The votes and comments seem to indicate that the examples should go. They've just been getting worse, and worse. And the paragraphs keep getting more awkward. I'll remove them tomorrow, unless someone objects before then. --Eyrian 02:18, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect section headings

This article is full of section headings that are incorrect according to the usual conventions at Wikipedia:Manual of Style. It's also full of notices asking people not to change them because of links from other articles. Could those other articles be specified, please? I'll check back here, and if no one answers within a reasonable time, I'll go ahead and fix the headings, thereby breaking those links. If someone answers here, I'll fix the links if that task isn't too Augean for one person to do alone. Michael Hardy 02:41, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Alignments of real people

This clearly violates Wikipedia:NPOV so I removed it unilaterally. Alexander 007 11:45, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

(December 31, 2005; Mighty Veil) Something to consider on this. In the forum thread with Gygax (link below). He briefly gets into a political discussion with someone. In Gygax's view, US/Canada political parties are all LG. They all want to create laws (Lawful), which they believe will create a good result (Good). In a follow up email I asked him to expand:

EGG:"First remember that law is FORCE. Thus all political parties advocating strong government advocate strong laws and force to back them up. Libertarians are the least lawful of the American political parties. In general, the AD&D alignments do not mesh well with political parties, as the alignments are too absolute. I believe that the Natural rights of man--life, liberty, and property--are in the neutral good to neutral position in regards alignment."

  • To try and avoid those NPOV problems, I keyed the alignments to specific characters in fiction, to describe to the layman what a given alingment may be like. Pat Payne 22:36, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gygax stuff

Recent discussions with game creator Gary Gygax, done on the forum of Gaming web site EN World, has shed new light on Dungeons and Dragons' alignment and the misconceptions about it. The idea for alignments came from the Poul Anderson book, "Three Hearts and Three Lions". In the book, the forces of Law, represented by the Paladins of Charlemange, were at war with the forces of Chaos, the Faerie kingdom. This is why paladins were initially lawful and elves were chaotic.

Other misconceptions on alignment include the use of them in the game. Common belief makes alignments an element of concern for the player. In fact, they were more for the Dungeon Master's use. Players only need to be concerned if their class could be lost due to a change in alignment. The idea that lawful good was presented as the "best" good is pure myth. As Gygax suggested, the purest good was neutral good, as lawful and chaotic meant the player was expected to follow the views that governed them. Another alignment myth is that 'true' neutral means a character is continually balancing morals, in a yin yang or fanatical fashion.

As basically described, lawful means a character believes in laws. A good character will usually promote law, while an evil character may use them to its advantage (e.g. The Chicago mob of the 20s required the law to outlaw liquor to operate, they could be seen as an example of lawful evil). Chaotic meant an either an opposing view to the common lawful view (e.g. 1960s America's "chaotic" characters were those espousing the hippie counterculture) or no rule of law at all (the common view of chaotic today). Neutral was about freedom and liberty, with good characters promoting it, and evil characters repressing it.

if part of this is subtly inaccurate, lets fix, but there is too much good info here to just ashcan it all... I restored for now, and welcome corrective edits and discussion, but oppose such a large (3 paragraphs) deletion. Sam Spade 17:34, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Neutrality isn't so much about freedom and liberty as abstentation from siding with law or chaos, good or evil, as any neutral character might view unaligned mores or ethoi as inaccurate or eventually harmful. A Lawful Neutral character does not verbotim consider Evil or Good as tyranny, but rather as unnecessary and perhaps degrading the essence of Universal Law. As long as we're on th' subject, a Chaotic Neutral character isn't crazy or wild by default, but rather can be very devoted to supporting Chaotic universal forces, and the frequent reaction to predictability and homogenity as dangerous to their equilibrium and hazardous to any eventual situation of Chaotic substantiation within social and physical kingdoms.
Since there is no *real* designation between philosophy and habit within D&D alignment, a character is considered to prefer their alignment outlook in dealing with all situations, be they ideatic, potential, or manifest and actual. Alignment is hard to explain in some ways, as it denotes complex underlying reasons for all events in a game where all events are usually quite simple and even without rationale (such as a dragon turtle guarding a mimic or "casting magic missile at the darkness").
For all that, alignment can be understood as being a natural force, so powerful that even the deific powers in D&D worlds hold to it, and yet it can be changed by any character with wit to change their innate outlook.

[edit] Expanding Alignments to Full Articles

The details on each alignment seem rather band and really not much more than near-reproductions of the SRD definitions of these alignments. Might we exapnd the alignments into full articles on each? I was thinking we could include the standard definition of the alignmen, but also a discussion of how the definition of the alignment has changed over the editions of D&D, as well as some common characteristics of characters of that alignment, to give some basic information on roleplaying that alignment. I made a fairly quick version of Chaotic Neutral as an example of what I'm thinking of here (I wrote it fairly quickly, as I said, and it's my first article, so it's unreferenced and probably has some POV issues, but they could be fixed if we expand all the alignments into full articles). Reveilled 20:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

The current article is in the article namespace, but is titled to suggest it isn't an article. Convention would suggest placing such draft articles in a Talk page subpage, or userpage subpage.
Still, not a bad first draft at all. In fact, I would suggest moving it to Chaotic neutral, and adding a stub notice. An Admin will need to move it, as a redirect occupies that space at the moment. -- Ec5618 22:23, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Ah, I'm a bit new here, and didn't know it was possible to make subpages in talk pages (and even now I'm only aware of their existance rather than how to make them). I was worried about putting it directly into Chaotic Neutral lest I mess up links to the alignment page (since Chaotic Neutral is just a redirect), but since no actual articles link there (I completely forgot to check that), I'll move it over. Reveilled 22:43, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Again, I'll suggest asking an Admin to handle the actual move. -- Ec5618 22:56, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I put up a request for the move. Hope it doesn't take too long, but maybe I'll get a few more first drafts done to balance out the alignments in the meantime. Reveilled 01:41, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
Reveilled, you could have moved the article there yourself when it was a simple redirect, but now it has other stuff in the history, only an admin can move it. But yeah, it looks like a good start. Fixing all the redirects won't be so fun though. ··gracefool |☺ 03:23, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
I realise that now. Oops. Fixing the redirects might not be fun, but hopefully it won't be too hard to do.

[edit] Other examples

I thought putting Feanor in CG but I am not sure if he is Good at all. Certainly he is not Lawful and of course not Evil. OTOH I don't think he is CN either. I think he would be a nice and enlightening example to put in the article, provided that we decide where he fits of course. BTW what about Conan? Pictureuploader 23:23, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Potentially contentious idea...

I was wondering; would it be too much to suggest any real life or historical figures who have been or could be considered of a particular allignment? Serendipodous 09:56, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it would. I think that the current examples are already treading on thin ice as to original research (And should probably be removed. They're gettting more and more out of hand), and to try and work with actual people is likely to cause serious contention. --Eyrian 20:12, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible split

Since the D&D portion of this article is so large, how would people feel about splitting that off into Alignment (Dungeons & Dragons) and keeping this article for discussion of alignment in role-playing games in general? Percy Snoodle 12:57, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Anyone for or against this? If no-one shouts in the near future I'll go ahead with this. Percy Snoodle 13:40, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Go for it. --Eyrian 16:28, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Done. Links will be fixed shortly... Percy Snoodle 14:05, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wights vs Revenants

Revenants are a family of hereditary ghouls. Per the Sins of the Blood sourcebook a vampire who has zero humanity becomes a wight who is entirely controlled by the beast. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Heptapod (talk • contribs) 02:52, 5 February 2007 (UTC).