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One thing about the Alignment 'system'as a game mechanic is that opinions concerning it are as varied as the players themselves.
Good point on the Klingons,I'll grant you that. But if you have studied much about Arthur and the Knights, Lancelot really was a loose cannon...my interpretation of 'chaotic' does not preclude 'loyalty', but 'allegiance' is a much more restrictive thing...and the two are mutually exclusive yet often paraphrased.
In the Game setting, you do 'Choose' an alignment for your character, and 'play' by the guidelines associated by that alignment. The degree of moral and personal parameters you 'role-play' is up to you.True 'Role-Playing' is acting as a being other than yourself,and if your character has distinct biases, then that becomes part of the character.Reaction to circumstances is part of the character, hence, the character's personality determines how they react to a given situation. And if personality 'determines alignment',as you said, then then you are either role-playing yourself, or not role-playing at all.
Thanks for the comment!

Very true Aubri, but I'd like to respond to Scorpio some more.

"And if personality 'determines alignment',as you said, then then you are either role-playing yourself, or not role-playing at all."

I think you misunderstood me. It is the PC's personality that determines his alignment, not the player's.
For example, in a Dark Sun campaign I once played a thri-kreen (mantis-like humanoid) cleric, whose hivemind-mentality made him usually obey whatever the partyleader wanted. As a conformist and follower, I made him lawful neutral. His personality determined his alignment.
I myself am not of the hivemind mentality. I wasn't roleplaying myself, but I was most certainly roleplaying.

Belphanior
"This is a cool sig."

PS: Ever noticed how you can debate about alignments endlessly and never reach a solution? ^_^

Ok, let me catch up...
Aubri-Very true, and there lies another importance of alignment as a 'Game Mechanic'.My use of 'real life' was intended to give examples that players might think about other than the typical stereotypes.
Belphanior-Exactly my point. You *chose* the character you wanted to play, and 'made him' Lawful Neutral.As I said,
"To sum this up, alignment is all about choosing and playing by certain guidelines."
Pete-You're right, I guess I was addressing the masses.

I usually do feel silly!
I think, subconciously or not, that we tend to pick the Personality/Alignment at the same time...I think they are one and the same.
I quote you,"I think alignment merely *describes* personality, not dictates it."...but I think it does both...
I wrote,
"Basically, alignment is the moral and ethical fabric in which your character is cloaked. It's the foundation and framework to support and house religion, codes of behavior, and rules of one character's engagement within its world. Essentially, alignment is your character and vice versa."
Character=Personality=Alignment?

Maybe the games (AD&D,etc) have reached a point where the whole 'Alignment' thing is not neccessary anymore. That appears to be the trend.
Thanks for the comment!

That is a valid point-as a 'game mechanic' the concept of Alignment has created elements of the game which are dependent on it...if one was to discard Alignment,or even water it down to a PC 'trait', they would have to re-evaluate certain spells, artifacts, classes, and for the most part, the commonly used Religious Pantheons...
Food for thought....

I can't say I'm buying into all of the examples listed here.

Batman, definitely NOT a lawful character. He is and always has acted outside of the law. I'll grant in the past he was more accepted by the police of Gotham, but he is not a Lawful Good personality. He is much more NG or even CG.

Hitler. Well, that's a whole kettle or worms. As a fascist, he was Lawful. The rest of his actions tipped him onto the Evil plane.

Most of the rest are ok. I'd maybe bump Napoleon up to LN, but that's only because of his work in restructuring the legal system. Napoleonic Code anyone?

To classify the Klingons as evil is to classify any tribal/social group with a warrior's ethos as evil. Klingons are meant to embody the concept of the proud warrior. Think Wulfgar's people from Salvatore's books.

I think the article is good, we do need to see more articles written on the subject of the alignment system. We just need to make sure the articles don't start reading like a dissertation for a Philosophy class.

aeon: Okay, so it's a chicken and egg problem. Either way, ridding ourselves of alignment means killing those spells/abilities, so the problem is unchanged.

Wooz:
Hitler def. not Lawful. I'm reading through Churchill's memoirs of WW2 (which start at the end of WWI), and probably 90% of all the crap Hitler pulled was not in any way indicative of a Lawful nature. While he "sort of" came to power lawfully (in that he was actually appointed by the actual Chancellor at the time), he only was appointed because his own paramilitary forces -- the SA, or brownshirts -- were severely dangerous to the actual government (and in case you were wondering, raising a personal army to challenge the government forces is NOT a lawful act). Hitler's rise to power and Germany's rearmament is one long saga of illegal, chaotic, unlawful acts. I would put Hitler squarely in NE (he did have some respect for history/traditions, namely the German martial tradition, so he can't be completely chaotic).

Scorpio: Think of any other way to tell a story. Neither drama, nor movies, nor literature reference any sort of arbitrary alignment system (even D&D based books!). At most they reference never-delineated "good" and "evil". Know Alignment is rather a stupid spell from the role-playing (as opposed to game mechanic) side anyway, and Detect Good/Evil and their counterparts could just be left open to DM interpretation of whether something is "evil" enough to be detected. You can create any character in the books without reference to alignment at all. As an example, take the paladin. Right now the paladin *must* be LG, which makes little sense to me. To me, a paladin can be described as a religious warrior whose deity has rewarded his dedication by granting him certain gifts.
With that in mind, we don't need the Lawful bit, because we can just observe that a paladin is going to adhere very, very closely to his deity's code of conduct (whether explicit or not). The Good part not only isn't necessary, it's counterintuitive -- why shouldn't Neutral and Evil deities be capable of creating their own holy warriors? (The Good requirement only makes sense if you consider that it's meant to discourage characters from playing evil chars, but since they're supposed to be discouraged anyway, why bother?)

Similarly, what need has a ranger of alignment? A rogue? A fighter?

The thing to remember about the D&D alignment system was that it is the bastard love-child of J. R. R. Tolkien and Micheal Moorcock. In Tolkien's universe, there were some absolutes, i.e.; elves were universally good, orcs were universally bad. Humans had free will to choose either side, though with some tendencies; Numemorians are generally disposed to good, Easterlings to evil.

In Moorcock's multiverse, there were pantheons of Law and Chaos. A plane could suffer from having too much of either.

For both, it was often important for the heroes to know which side they were on, because when the big apocalyptic battle came, they needed to know where their loyalties lay.

Gygax combined the two systems. D&D was all about archetypes. The alignment system was a tool to keep characters in their pidgeon holes. A ranger needed an alignment because they are modeled on Tolkien's Dunedain of the north, and they are unversally good. Paladins are universally lawful and good, because the Paladins were originally the elite guards of Charlemagne, and their purpose was to uphold his laws and keep local warlords in check. I'm not sure why druids were supposed to be true neutral.

I don't think it worked well.

Okay, Scorpio, it would be more accurate to say it didn't work for me. I abandoned D&D as soon as skill based systems appeared.

I don't know that there is any one right answer. The answer I prefer is 'good role-playing'. I feel a player should flesh out, at least in thier own mind, how their character thinks, what her limits are, how far will he go, what are her politics, religion, morals, how does his family act, and is he supportive or rebellious, and once that frame work is established, be consistent within it, or if shifting, understand what pressures are causing the change, and where these changes are leading.

But that's very complicated. If the players just want to dungeon crawl and collect loot, it's probably unnecessary. If they want to tell complex, nuanced stories, full of shades of grey, and all the foibles mortal (or immortal, or dead) flesh is heir to, then it's probably necessary.

Our group solved the alignment dilema by taking a survey.
the survey included the following areas:
Alignment (current system)
...What you want to be
...What would you do if pressed
---
Nature & Demeanor
Personality traits List of 50, Pick 10 - 15 - No contradiction unles DMs allows
---
20 situation questions on how you character would react.
They range from helping friends in a bar fight, to saving people, to party dbetrails and they find out etc...
---
Heirarchy of personal motivation
1 - 10 (from a list)
---
Character ultimate goal in life
How they (in a nutshell) plan to attain that goal
---

Once the survey is done. The DM reads, makes any notes needed.
Generates an edited version of this removing all of the private (not known by the players info) and then passes out a copy to the group to read.

This takes about 3 days to do well.

As long as the players stays within the boundaries of what they wrote up, there is no problem with their alignment.
If a fellow player notices a variation in action - The DM notes it
If the Dm notices a variation in action - The DM notes it

If 12 notes are aquired, the DM & Player discuss their alignment. Changes are made (if/as needed) and then a new alignment is handed out to the players.

Penalties for changing alignments: DM asks the players first.
weighs the ideas, and then privately discusses the penalties.
Previous penalties (MINOR: No xp for the encounter which pushed them past the 12 notes mark. SEVERE: Loss of a Level, Special Item, or When healed by Divine means, Use d6 instead of d8)

My method:
Only the DM knows the character's alignment. (MWAHAHAHAH!)
Good: Generally tries to help people. Evil: Doesn't try to help people. Ever. Unless there's something in it for them. Doesn't have compuctions about harming people if there's something in it for them. Neutral: Helps people if it's convenient, doesn't go out of their way to harm them.

Lawful: Obeys the law, likes things orderly. Chaotic: Sometimes breaks the law just for the heck of it, likes things messy and unpredictable. Neutral: Obeys fair laws, mostly because it's easier to, only disobeys them if they are wrong. The other axis helps to determine this.

Most of the time it's not an issue, because the game mechanics things can be handled by the GM. When a player starts acting like an alignment that doesn't fit a class (or any) requirement, the GM tells them "You had a dream last night, about (said event that didn't fit w/ vow) and your god (or nature force, or whatnot) reprimanded you for not acting in keeping with his/her/its teachings. You behaved in the manner of a disciple of (name of force associated with offending action(s)). If you wish to remain under my protection (or whatever), you must take this action in the future: . . ..)

That's just how I do it. Not saying there's anything right or wrong with above method. It doesn't normally come up in my games because I do sci-fi, non magic campaign.

Chaotic nuetral is the best alignment to have, because you can, pretty much get away with anything!

I'd hardly say it was abberant, Mystic Assassin. I'd say that humans, being creatures of whims and unpredictability, will generally NOT act in a way which is in D&D terms 'lawful', and generally do not class themselves as being either good or evil. We all have aspects of us which are evil, just as we all have aspects which are good. Therefore we could be classified as nuetral. Since we are generally not 'lawful' in our thinking, and we are prone to changing our minds, we are chaotic. Chaotic nuetral. I rest my case, no further questions, your honour...

Ah...you called me 'your honour' I see you've learned your place.

Aberrant (evil) is MY favorite alignment...from the RIFTS realm...ya dig?

My character's not an anarchist, he's more of an anti-hero. A free spirit, if you will. He started off as chaotic good, but I found that too obnoxious and 'rebel-like' for my liking. If you're chaotic nuetral, you're neither a rebel or an anarchist, because, being nuetral, you have nothing to rebel or promote anarchy against. My character could be described as being a bit like Wolverine (but less hairy, and non-smoking), or Aragorn in his Strider incarnation (Before he went all goody-goody as Aragorn and later, Ellessar). He's capable of caring, even having beliefs, and he intentionally stays out of the way of the agents of order, but ultimately he makes his own rules.

Also, by my reckoning, I think that lawful evil, is more of a 'cunning planner' kind of character. Sort of like Hamlet, in the respect that, although he plots and dreams of committing all these dreadful crimes, and doing all these dreadful things, he's ultimately all thought and no action. Likewise, chaotic evil is all action and no thought.

One reason I prefer the anti-hero over the run-of-the-mill goodie-good-good PC is this...

After burning the village of unfortunate innocents, raping the women and stealing the children for human-sacrifice, the Evil Overlord will find himself run-through by the PCs blade: pushed off the cliff inside the volcano unto a fire-breathing ocean of death, after being beaten and disarmed at the end of a five minute sword fight where he fell victim to every cheap shot and cowardly trick that he HIMSELF would normally use against a more GOOD-natured opponent.

EXACTLY! Mystic Assassin (May I call you Mystic Ass, for short) gets it! Right on the button!

Yer Honours,

I see that I have wandered albeit by chance into a debate between men of wit and erudition. I am moved to participate.

The D&D Alignment system is simple, flexible, and reasonably comprehensive. Certainly adequate to all but those who love complexity for the sake of it.

However, there are some campaigns, as has already been noted, that are very strongly aligned. To stay true to the campaign, you need to play it in the spirit in which it was designed.

For example, Moorcock's stories are heavily aligned in terms of Law and Chaos. But Good and Evil are almost absent. In general, Law seems to be less evil than chaos, but there is not a lot of difference. In general, both sets of followers seem to act in their own interest. In other words Evil seems to be dominant.

Another example is Andre Nortons Witch World, which is heavily aligned in terms of Dark and Light. Dark is really really bad, and Light is heroic goodness. Law and chaos may be there implicitly, but they pale into insignificance as motivating factors when placed against the backdrop of the cosmic battle of Dark/Light.

Mystic assassin has made an interesting point above. He says he prefers the anti hero because he can pay the evildoer back in his own coin. Indeed this is more and more a feature of modern heroes. Look at most heroes in films today, and they are only moderately less bad than the villains who's ass they kick. This can make for a very powerful and realistic character.

But my own choice is very different. I play the good guy because my favorite heroes have always been good guys. In a world full of ambiguity and downright evil, I give my respect to those who refuse to compromise their convictions for mere expediency. That doesn't mean you can't stick it to the bad guy. It just means you have to act with justice, compassion, and even mercy if it might do some good.

And yeah. Aragorn was as lawful good as they come. My kind of guy.

Not a problem, I don't play it either. The source books are great for ideas, though. The expansion book, "Rifts: Mystic Russia" happens to be my favorite. Not because it has the word 'MYSTIC' in it.

My group was into HEROES for a while, and we started using the RIFTS books for source material...good stuff. The system is a little too complicated, though...but still good stuff.

But, at the beginning, living by his wits, smoking in dark corners, behaving in a mysterious manner and saying things like "Are you frightened? Not nearly frightened enough!" leads me towards the chaotic nuetral alignment.

My two pence, with fifty pence left over.

Or, for the Europeans reading this: 5000 Euros.

I imagine that you could be confused for thinking him as 'Good', in that he opposes evil, but he's quite clearly nuetral. He does not take up the cup of being king, instead, if I may quote the lines of the late, great Mr. Bean;

"Living in the shadows, scared of who you are. What you are. You are afraid!"

In Fellowship Of The Ring, he goes about, dressed in black, calling himself Strider, and generally being scary and intimidating. As Mr. Butterbur says;

"One o' them rangers of the North. Dangerous folk, they are. Nobody's quite sure of his real name, but 'round 'ere, he's known as Strider'

Also, as a ranger, Aragorn, then going by the sobriquet of Strider, would have to live in the inhospitable wilds, hunting for food, defending himself against wild beasts etc. and therefore would not act in as far as good and evil is concerned, merely survival instinct. Nuetrality. And, since nature is not, by it's erm... nature, orderly, he would have to behave in a 'chaotic' way. See where I'm going with this?

Notice also that at Amon Hen, he does not accompany Frodo on his journey, leaving yon hobbit to go it alone, with big, fat, stupid Sam on his tail, as well as Gollum making silly remarks and plotting to murder them. Had Aragorn been there, Gollum would have had this vocal chords relocated outside of his body at the first opportunity, and he would have lead them there himself.

So, I believe, nuetral. If not a chaotic nuetral, at that.
(Arrogant smile, cocksure swagger)

Hey watch who you callin fat!

Oh you meant Samwise Gamgee, sorry folks.

Carry on now, chop chop!

You've hit the nail on the head, Shark (about alignment).
As for the historical examples, Alexander the Great would have started as neutral evil, and slowly become more chaotic as he became more paranoid. He was a monster, not the glorified legend he is seen as today.

I have a problem with rules that have a requisite alignment for specific magic weapon usage. I understand the concept when the situation in question contains alignment extremes, such as Lawful Good items harming Chaotic Evil creatures attempting to use said items. But what about less defined alignment jumps such as from Chaotic Good, to True Neutral? Or what about the Chaotic Deity, whose Lawful Paladin has requested a divine weapon? You end up with a sword of Lord (insert bad god here) trying to be used by Sir/Lady (insert scary name here), and it doesn't seem correct. Also, should Chaotic deities have paladins? As for non-magical campaigns, should alignments have any ramifications beyond character motive and background?

Yo Sam, you would fit right in at our gaming table! I'd rather lose class levels than to ruin a character’s natural emotional progression. We know that's a part of learning that's as important as any other is. In recognition of that, we award XP for sacrificial role-playing decisions (this is a big help in swallowing the tremendous penalties incurred while 'going it truthfully'). We know when our fellow gamers are biting the bullet to do it right!

Oh, and Cocytus, or whatever you're calling yourself, you are WRONG!

1. I WOULD call Batman nuetral, because, though he is not evil by any stretch of the imagination, a lot of his methods are not exactly 'good' are they? Kicking a bloke into a vat of acid so that his face becomes scarred into a hideous, permanent grin? Not very nice, really is it? I don't care if he did shoot your parents, you can't just scar a bloke for life... It's just not cricket.

2. In the wilderness, there is no right or wrong, they're only survival. So, therefore, in game terms, nuetrality.

Now shut yer cakehole, Mr. Cocytus, or I'll pop round your house and give your wife something to hang her towels on. Woof!

"Oh, and Cocytus, or whatever you're calling yourself, you are WRONG!"

You go on tellin' yourself that, mister.

"1. I WOULD call Batman nuetral"

You're the first person I've met try to make that argument. Batman's career shows a legitimate concern for others, which is one of the defining characteristics of "good" in the D&D alignment system.

"...because, though he is not evil by any stretch of the imagination, a lot of his methods are not exactly 'good' are they? Kicking a bloke into a vat of acid so that his face becomes scarred into a hideous, permanent grin? Not very nice, really is it?"

You seem to need a refresher on your Batman lore. In nearly every version of that story, the joker's falling into the vat was purely accidental.

While it's true that some later portrayals of Batman make him seem more of a vigilante than a costumed hero, it's important to remember that those portrayals don't comprise the entire canon of Batman comics and film. Batman changed a hell of a lot from decade to decade, especially before the '80s, and each generation made him its own in its own way.

And once again, you've listed one example - which is inaccurate anyway - in support of your claim that Batman uses methods that are not 'good'. I'd say you're confused about the difference between Good and Evil on one axis and Law and Chaos on another. Batman surely doesn't work within the LAW all the time (which speaks to me of a chaotic nature), but he uses non-lethal methods to achieve his goals. He's not above intimidating people to gain a psychological edge, but he DOES NOT kill, and he certainly does not engage in torture. If he were neutral, he wouldn't necessarily have a compunction about killing wrongdoers - check the rules if you don't believe me.

"In the wilderness, there is no right or wrong, they're only survival. So, therefore, in game terms, nuetrality."

The wilderness itself is neutral. The game system is with you there. But how does that make anyone surviving in the wilderness neutral? It doesn't. If wilderness-survival-types - ie, RANGERS - all had to be neutral, the rules would say so. But they've never said so. In 1st ed, rangers had to be good, not neutral. Know why? Because the ranger class was based on Aragorn! Now, in 3d Ed and 3.5, rangers can be of any alignment.

And Ashagua's remarks on this subject are dead on the money.

"Now shut yer cakehole, Mr. Cocytus, or I'll pop round your house and give your wife something to hang her towels on. Woof!"

*Raises brim of cowboy hat in order to spit tobacco juice out of one side of mouth*

You just come on down here, mister. Any time you feel like tryin' to rope my filly, I got two shotgun barrels sayin' that your ass was on the losin' side of the Revolutionary War. YEEHAW! ;)

Careful whom yer calling "Anglais" there, mister.

"RE: Batman, actually he is quite different from author to author."

After Frank Miller's _Dark Knight Returns_, I've found a lot of sameness in the portrayals of Batman, relative to the huge differences from generation to generation prior to the eighties.

"One thing is for sure he is very close to neutrality except for that sissy portrayal in the 70's by Adam West (not his fault, the producers')."

Adam West played Batman in the '60s. And if you think *that* Batman was a sissy, check out the one from the '40s. Weird!

But I don't see where you're getting the "neutral" thing. Any moral ambiguities in Batman's character were added after Frank Miller, whose interpretation is hardly definitive.

"Fighting evil and for the common good doesn't necessarily make you good. Check Wolverine, Captain Nemo, Anakin Skywalker, Lestat."

Fighting evil doesn't necessarily make you good, but fighting for the common good does. And your examples...would be nice if any of them resembled Batman morally. They don't. (According to the majority of authors) Batman doesn't kill, Sam! That introduces a vast moral gulf between him and the likes of Wolverine.

And you mentioned Lestat, which means I get to make fun of you forevermore. Let me know when you're tired of being Quebecois and are ready to join the other Lestat wannabes in New Orleans. :D

Scorpio thought alignment was a determinant.

Belphanior has claimed it as more of a result of pre-game chracter development.

Maybe alignments shouldn't be static.

In one of the newer Star Wars games, every action your character takes affects his force alignment. Maybe alignment changing throughout the game and effecting how certain magic/artifacts/techniques work would be iteresting. Of course, this would mean alot of math and devising a new system, which seems like far too much trouble to me.

Here's a better idea: blow the whole alignment thing to hell and have each character have a reputation based on his/her/its behavior.

And as for the whole batman thing: c'mon y'all, this is just plain weird.

Chatiocally Neutrally Goodly yours,
Theophenes

"And your whole Capt. Nemo thing is ludicrous, Nemo is quite clearly one of the good guys, whether it's in Jules Verne's work or in LXG..."

What's ludicrous, mate, is to pretend that LXG's portrayal of Nemo had any relation to the Verne. Don't get me wrong; I liked the movie, and I liked the movie's Nemo a great deal. But he's nothing like the cold-blooded Captain from the book.

"...was I the only one that thought, in the movie, Dorian Gray's weapon changed like the weather? Look at him once, what's he fighting with? A walking cane? Look at him again, what's he fighting with? A rapier?"

I thought he had a sword cane.

"If he doesn't age, then he doesn't grow, therefore his eyebrows do not grow..."

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

"...therefore, I have spotted a vital mistake in the movie, if not Mr. Townsend's stage business..."

There are loads of 'mistakes' in the movie: for example, if Mina is a vampire, what the hell is she doing sunning herself in broad daylight on the conning tower of the Nautilus? It's silly. But this is the kind of movie you turn your brain off to watch - like the Matrix. If you sit around trying to analyze it, you're just going to ruin the fun it offers.

"...and thus, I feel I am to be somehow ingratiated..."

Your sort always do. Very well: all praise be to you, O great Olly. You are truly an alliaphagic quakebuttock. Or something.

"...but I do not know who the director was, and so, I direct my Eastenders Cockney fury towards Mr. Allan Moore, instead. All right?"

*spits tobacco juice* Just for your edification, pardner, the director was Stephen Norrington of _Blade_ fame. Now you know in which direction to toss all yer rotten tomaters, I reckon.

"P.P.S. He was good in that film, though, wasn't he, Mr. Stuart Townsend... He stole the show as far as I'm concerned."

I thought so, too. But I'm still glad he pitched a fit and quit the set of Lord of the Rings. In my opinion, Viggo makes a much better Aragorn.

uhh...

I thought Nemo had a gimp fin and an overwhealming sense of adventure...

"And Cocytus: Here in Quebec all anglophones are Anglais, whether they be from Canada, the US, the UK, Down Under or whatever."

Oh, I know it. Something similar is true for many of the Brits, Aussies, and New Zealanders I've known: to them, all Americans are "yanks". I once had to intervene in a conversation between an Australian friend of mine and a local Texas fellow who had taken great offense at being called a "Yankee." It's all the same to me, though - I was just pretending offense at being lumped in the same category with Olly.

"Batman doesn't kill so he isn't evil that's for sure. But he only fights evil, he doesn't actually do good."

I disagree, but since I've beaten the topic to death I'll let it go.

"What's wrong with liking some of Ann Rice's work?"

Nothing at all. I was just baiting you.

Mohammed: interesting points about the rangers. I had wanted to call Aragorn N/G or C/G, but you're making me reconsider.

As for your point about Nemo, I can accept a judgment of neutrality. He's hard to pin down, which reinforces my belief that the D&D alignment system really isn't very useful.

"...but I've never heard of a sword cane before (From what I saw in the film, they are indeed groovy, and I would love to know if anybody has created D&D rules for one, yet...)"

Not to my knowledge, but there were rules for them in the old TOP SECRET spy role-playing game published by TSR (what kind of spy wouldn't love a sword cane?).

Sword canes are curiously common here in the US, or they used to be. That's not "common" as in "something you see everyday," but "common" as in "more common than they have a right to be." My grandfather, a native of Virginia until his death, owned several. They were for show, one hopes, but I always thought they were damned spiffy when I was a lad.

"But what's all this about Stuart Townsend having a fit on set of Lord Of The Rings? An actual fit?"

From what I heard, Townsend was initially cast as Aragorn. I seem to recall reading somewhere that He left the production over "creative differences" with Peter Jackson - serendipitously for the better, I think.

"...thou oleaginous lobscouse..."

Why, ye thrawn, ill-feckit gaberlunzie...wait, that's just anger talking. ;) Is there such a thing as non-oleaginous lobscouse, I wonder?

Oh no, they're onto me! It's true, I was outraged at being considered 'too young' by that fat, old, bearded kiwi. I would have made a spiffing Aragorn. Ah well, but at least I got to shag Arwen Evenstar whilst I was there, eh?

[Sings] I've been shagging Arwen Evenstar, all the live-long day...

Sharky

Thats why I go for the older kind of hero, more noble, grounded in decency and fair play, violent only if absolutely necessary.

I reject modern ideas of morality. THEY ARE VIRTUALLY indistinguishable from evil. Thats what comes of believing the lies of politicians. As Tolkien says in his preface of 'Lord of the Rings', and I para phrase:

'This book is not an allegory on the second world war. If it was then the allies would have used the ring as soon as they got it, Saruman would have developed his own ring, and both sides would have despised the hobbits. They would not have survived long, even as slaves.'

In the real world, good and evil, like unicorns, trolls, elves and dwarves, do not exist. Nobody is truly good and nobody is truly evil.

A mass-murderer might be considered 'evil' by the media, or labelled it by the newspapers, but nine times out of ten, if you read his lifestory, it's a pretty tragic one. He's likely to be from a poor background, likely with abusive parents, and, often never had a girlfriend/boyfriend.

Society creates that which could be called 'evil', unintentionally, when it isolates people. Nobody is born evil, and if you believe the Catholics, nobody is born good either.

Thank you, Mo, for your interest in my post. However, I wish to add something to it.

Demons are ALWAYS evil in my campaign, because they are creatures created to fulfill the duties of darkness. They are incapable of doing good, behaving in a merciful manner or creating beautiful things for noble purposes. They can, however, be redeemed, though most of them simply refuse to...

Celestials (or angels, as they are known in my campaign) are ALWAYS good, created to perform the duties of light. They are kind, benevolent and loving, never acting malevolently or in a cruel manner, and incapable of creating things of evil and ugliness. However, they can fall to evil, though, and some of the Nine Hells most powerful agents once served under the benevolent gods. However, most angels shun this vocation, and are fierce in their opposition of their fallen brethren...

If the Bible teaches us anything, it is that good and evil, innocence and guilt, law and chaos are simply different sides of the same coin. I like this idea, and tried to incorporate it into my campaign setting.

WEEE! I'M BACK!!

I believe that the Celestials and Demons are only presumed to be evil or good based entirely on their origin, when they should REALLY be classified as good or evil based on their ACTIONS...

Ahh, I see your point...

I suppose also, the actions of said entities could reflect negativly on their behalf, yet serve a greater good in the end...or evil, depending on which entity.

A demon could possess a man and use his body for its own selfish motivations (kill a king, priestess, etc.) or a more subtle demon could persuade the same man with promises of riches or power. Or to a greater extent, make the man believe this heinous task is actually the NOBLE thing to do. In the demon's defense, its target may be a threat to mankind itself, and the demon's wish is to maintain peace, or eliminate assimilation of global powers, or whatever...and...

*looks up at the long-ass paragraph*

DAMN! Where the hell'd I come up with all THAT? I've had too much turkey today...

Olly said:

"Oh, and Cocytus, thou art clearly a prurient, rancorous jobbernowl."

Thank you, you glabrous, sesquipedalian gomeral.

Theo said:

"...but morality is a ridiculous word these days..."

I disagree. People have been decrying the "lapse in modern morality" since the decline of the Roman Empire, when (coincidentally?) "mystery cults" like Christianity had begun to supplant the dignified old state religion...since an obscure tribe of bedouins wandered around Sinai bemoaning the popularity of the neighbors' god Baal...since the Epic of Gilgamesh, for all love. Saying that modern folk have no sense of morality is nothing new; as far as I can tell, it's a sentiment nearly as old as language itself.

Just because one doesn't share morals carved in stone by divine agencies or ancient tribesmen doesn't mean that one doesn't have morals. If one says that some morals are relative to certain situations, that doesn't necessarily mean that one has no sense of moral boundaries whatsoever. Some religious and politically-motivated commentators might have an interest in making their enemies appear that way, but it's usually just a combination of ignorance and willful prevarication.

Religious folk do NOT have any sort of monopoly on morality. In my admittedly limited experience, the average atheist is as often as not as moral as the average churchgoer, and sometimes moreso.

My problem with alignment is not that I don't believe in good and evil; my problem is that I've never met a person who was wholly one or the other. To stereotype someone as good or evil just makes no sense to me.

I do agree with Ashagua that where outsiders are concerned, blanket alignment stereotypes make sense. In the game worlds many of us use, I see Celestials and Demons as the embodiments of moral (or immoral) principle. They aren't given choices as mortals are; they are made to personify a certain moral point of view.

Olly said:

"And, as for 'faults in my logic', Mo, I shall ask you politely, to shove them up your ass."

*spits tobacco*

Pardner, there're so many faults in yer logic that I doubt Mo's rectum could contain 'em all. I doubt even yers could, while we're talkin' about it. But I brought this here box of lawn and leaf bags, and we'll see if we can't fit 'em in these. It *is* heavy trash day 'round here.

Thanks for the bags, Cocytus, you infecund Mohock, I'll put them to good use. It'll be more civilised, this way, if not more fun...

And I believe that young Ashaqua speaks the truth when he talks about individuals being neither good or evil. Perhaps he was once, at some point, a philosophy student?

Brutal.

Looks around carefully.

Ok that wack job, Milow isn't around...

Well morality is something personnal and, I believe, relative.

Only the most anally retentive person can stick to ALL his or her principles ALL the time.

Do you know why our principles need to be somewhat relative? Because of the limitations of language. What?

Yep, language. Language is what one builds his or her thoughts with. Since no language is all encompassing, words sometimes fail to express the exact nature of one's belief system.

For example, I can say that stealing is usually wrong. But for me stealing actually means unjustly taking something that doesn't belong to you.
And what is unjust? I have a dozen or so examples in my head, but there are probably some situations I haven't considered yet. So I'll need to redefine what I mean by that as I come accross new situations.

But, I could be lazy and either:

a) be a self righteous holier than thou kind of prick.

b) be a unconsequential idiot who doesn't believe in morality at all.

So I'll take c) use relative morality.

Now does gaming need to be so complex?

Maybe, but not always (if you ask me).

starts huming before clicking "submit".
... inside Marina...

ah crap! Damn you Olly!

Ah, Ashaqua, but therein lies the rub.

Its all well and good to say that you are going to use a moral system defined by an all knowing and all powerful god. But how are you going to know what it is?

Trying to figure out what that moral system says puts you right back where you were in the beginning. Christianity, to use it as an example, tries to find that moral system from the bible. But, if you look at how the bible has been used through out the centuries, you'll pretty quickly come to the conclusion that the bible is relative.

And you're back where you began.

The easiest example is slavery. Was acceptable in the old testament, and the bible was used to justify slavery until around the 1800s. Different parts of the world stopped doing that at different times, but that was basically when it all went down.

A less emotionally charged example would be working on sunday. Just a couple of decades ago it was taboo. Now its common place. Our economy wouldn't function so well if we didn't at least have gas stations and grocery stores and police working on sunday.

Again, its all well and good to say that the bible is not relative, and that people just got it wrong. But what makes you think that YOU are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN to have it right, when ALL THOSE PEOPLE had it wrong? To put it another way, they were absolutely certain they were right. You are absolutely certain you are right. It'd be crazy for you not to concede that there's really no way for you to tell what god's true point of view on working on sunday is. But, you still have an opinion. Hence, that opinion is relative to your point of view.

Oy. Huge can of worms here.

Ashaqua, claiming refuge in the divinely-inspired Word does not make one's moral standpoint absolute. Since several other religions are doing the same thing with wildly different conclusions, it merely makes one's standpoint relative to one's own religion.

Cadfan's made some good points about this Book, this moral absolute of yours, and there are more to be made. Suffice to say: if the Book itself were absolute, there'd never have been any schism in the church. But the redeemed can't seem to agree on how to interpret it: once again, each sect claims a monopoly on absolutes that are in fact merely relative to that particular sect.

I could go on and on with you about religion in specific and Christianity in particular. They are favorite subjects of mine. But Cadfan's right - we're gonna have to let it go, or else continue the discussion via private e-mail.

In an attempt to steer the topic back on track, how absolutely should a DM enforce alignment? How much margin of error is there before the 'general alignment tendency' necessitates a shift in a character's alignment?

How does alignment describe the gods?

Personally, I've banned alignment. Totally. I encourage the players to work out personal values and beliefs for their characters, but after I saw how much stupidity and abuse grows from the paladin's "detect evil" ability, and how difficult it is to run a campaign where the bad guys are hidden and treacherous, I just plain threw it out.

Originally, I threw it out only for sentient humanoids, but it eventually had to go for everything.

It encouraged role playing stereotypes, and it gave the party a magical "bad guy radar." Neither was good for the game.

Ashaqua,
My current game is not using D&D, so it is no longer an issue, but back in the day, I just changed detect evil to be less annoying. Cast on a person (or any sentient being with free will), it does nothing since the person is not inherently evil, but possesses free will and can be either good or evil at any given moment. If the person is currently engaged in an act of stunning evil, then something might register.

Detect evil, in my old games, would let you sniff out a vampire disquised as a farmer, but not pick out the farmer harboring evil thoughts from among his neighbors. Detect evil would still work on non-sentients, evil creatures without free will - those truly evil by nature, or items, or magic auras and whatnot, just not on people.

That's my 2 cents on detect evil.

Cocytus,
In terms of strict alignment enforcement in D&D, if you are a cleric or paladin, you need to stay pretty much in scope. If you are a non-religious character then you really have to go out of your way for me to punish you. My thinking is that as a regular guy, as long as you pay your tithe, your church (and the god it serves) is unlikely to ostracise or punish you for minor violations of creed.
If it turns out that a character develops in a manner that the player did not originally predict, and an alignment change seems in order, I would approach the player, and make it part of the story - wrenching moral choices and a rethinking of deeply held world views and all that. Though i have to admit, that last part is just theory, I never had it happen when I was GMing.

As a player, my CG fighter is exploring a dungeon during an interplanar cataclysm, when he unexpectedly encountered a slightly disoriented blue dragon, and since I had the drop on him I jumped in and unloaded with both barrels (figuratively speaking). Unbeknownst to me the cataclysm had disoriented the dragon in such a way as to change his alignment to good- so my DM penalized me for attacking a good creature - alignment change, level loss, the whole bit. I thought it was a bit extreme, but he was a by-the-book DM, plus it gave me the chance to go on a quest to redeem myself, and return to CG (though I did not get the levels back as a result of the quest, I earned them back the hard way).

Different GM styles is all.

Finally, and a little off topic, I wanted to thank you both, and Cadfan, for having the good taste to not engage in a religious flame war on this site. It was very considerate of you all.

John