For my games, intent matters more than actions in most circumstances. I love the concepts involved in the Gray Guard paragon path:
"Do whatever it takes to get the job done, and worry about the moral questions later."
A good-aligned paladin of Pelor might be justified in committing murder, if the reason he did so is to prevent a great atrocity from occuring. Similarly a chaotic evil blackguard might make a series of charitable acts, if his intent for doing so is to maneuver into a position where can wreak much greater havok.
That being said, there are some "absolute" good and evil acts that I will ask players to change alignment for, regardless of intent. Mostly those involve dealing with souls, either permanently destroying them (absolute evil act), enslaving them (absolute evil act), or sacrificing one's own to accomplish something (absolute good act).
I frequently introduce moral grey areas into games; devils that aren't "pure" evil and work alongside good-aligned parties, angels that have destructive views on what doing "good" means, and so forth.
I don't dictate alignment. Characters can be any alignment they want and act in any way they see fit, regardless of edition. If their choices make their fellow players uncomfortable, there will be a discussion, but alignment won't enter into it.
This is pretty much how I handle alignment. If a player says the character is "good" the character is "good". I don't really care what the player does as long as it isn't disruptive to the other players.
As far as NPCs go well I play 4th edition so I don't have to worry about a detect evil spell. I really don't even write down the alignment on most of my NPCs. Just what they are motivated by. What they have to offer the PCs, who they are connected to. How they might react to being asked certain important questions if I have something planned. Usually I'm winging it so there is just an NPC name. I might have just been writing it down as I introduced him to.
The name basically says it all, in your games, how do you dictate alignment?
Do actions speak louder than words? Or does it all come down to the reasons they do what they do? Is it some combination? If so, which weighs more heavily?
Essentially, i'm looking to collect as many opinions as possible (i'd do a poll if i could) so feel free to give a relatively short answer with an explanation.
I don't dictate alignment, neither on PCs or NPCs. Alignment has no mechanical impact in my games (I only play 4E), so I don't find the concept of "having an alignment" useful at all.
Characters have wishes, goals and are willing to take certain actions to achieve them. What those are depends on their background, like upbringing and personal history (orcs raised in a community devoted to Gruumsh for example want to gain wealth and status through violence, while a Waterdhavian lord who was born wealthy wants to keep the city peaceful and civilized so he can live a life of luxury). Others may find these wishes, goals and actions laudable or despicable, based on their own background. But because backgrounds can be so different, I don't think there are any absolutes when determining alignment.
In fact, I would go so far as to say the alignment system is silly in D&D because it's based on our own society's perceptions of good and evil. Stealing is evil? Only because it's illegal by our own, modern laws. The orcs in the example wouldn't bat an eye if they saw another orc steal something (assuming it didn't belong to the orcs themselves). Saving a soul from destruction is an act of goodness? Only because we, as decent folk, like the idea of an afterlive over oblivion. But someone who spent his life killing and raping isn't looking forward to an afterlife in the Nine Hells. He'd probably choose oblivion, and would actually consider someone who saved his soul from oblivion evil.
This also makes the very idea of a Detect Evil spell silly. What if a savage orc (or someone with a similar background) cast detect evil on another orc? Would the outcome be evil? If so, then the spell is useless to anyone but the people who fit the exact background for the spell's intent. If not, then what the orc considers evil, another person considers good, and the spell should be renamed to "Detect If Someone Has A Similar Moral Background As You".
Also, this discussion is probably as old as the game itself. Is the horse dead yet?
We have a fighter that constantly wars against his own nature, being a hero and being perceived as a villain. He makes terrible mistakes and comes from a family of knee-breakers and thieves, yet he saves people and sacrifices himself in ways the general populace will never realize. He also hates being a hero and wishes nothing more than to just be left alone.
Right now he is being accused of carrying an "evil" weapon, of being the thrall of a green dragon and of bringing pain and misery to the city he calls home. In his mind he has kept that evil weapon out of the hands of a group of necromancers, made a deal with a dragon to save his friends and has constantly put himself in harms way to defend the city he calls home.
He is unaligned. The player can play him however he wants. I really doubt he would be as complex and interesting of a character if he was pinned by an alignment.
In my games every action has a consequence. Being a hero is just as tough as being a villain.
Action v. intent is one of the biggest reasons why alignment is a problem, imo. A lawful good paladin who subscribes to a more utilitarian framework for her/his morals wouldn't see an issue with depriving someone of their property if it served a greater good. Likewise, utilitarian arguments could be made for slavery or any number of things that appear to be morally bereft. A character who subscribes to Kant's categorical imperative on the other hand would have moral issues doing any number of things that one could argue are necessary or just given the specific circumstances. With NPCs I tend to first start with their motivations, then work toward the methods that individual would likely use. My PCs have a listed alignment, but I don't pay a whole lot of attention to it. the party's fighter is listed as good, but has been known to use some questionable methods if he sees a higher good in them. I think alignment *can* be useful for a player to understand their character's world view, but that's about it.
I really find it staggering how many people don't understand that in heroic fantasy good & evil are not subjective. I think that's the core problem with people dealing with understanding alignment in D&D. Metal Gear 3 does a great job of discussing moral relativism...but in actuality, the message is that such thinking is USELESS if someone becomes lost in the web of it and can no longer recognize what actually is good or evil. That is the failing of a character like Big Boss (for anyone that is familiar with Metal Gear)...he got lost in the concept of "greater goods" and such and, in doing so, became evil.
Anyway...Evil races consider themselves evil. It is their deal.
If an orc shaman casts detect evil and all his buddies light up (assuming they are high enough level to register on the spell) then that means all is right in Orcopolis. Hell, even most evil people that have it cast on them would say "Of course I'm evil. It's the best way to be in the world" or some other equally evil justification. Seriously just look at a character like Skeletor gleefully reveling in his own evil. That's heroic fantasy evil.
In my game, evil is a definitive force of the universe and several races are evil, know it, embrace it and love it. At the same time, plenty of other beings are evil as well without ever worshipping evil. They're just bad people. Most would never light up on a Detect Evil spell because they're not high enough level to radiate palpable evil. However, detecting their alignment directly would tell you they're evil. This has an actual, reasonable impact on society...those that can cast this spell or learn the results of it can use that information about someones alignment. Generally though even without it it's fairly obvious in their nature.
A paladin or cleric or whatever, knows they can't just denounce people and slay them for being a Lawful Evil pawnbroker that preys on the vulnerable. Are they evil? Yeah they have evil in their hearts. But they aren't worshipping evil...they aren't a physical manifestation of evil...they're a person with flaws. After all, most of the major religions in my setting also believe in redemption and the importance of not rushing to judgement. It is in this way that paladins are such special people...they're entrusted with the ability to make those sorts of judgements. They are both secularly and sacredly charged with the legal and holy ability to make those judgement calls.
As I once told my Paladin when he had questions about paladin-ness (its his first time playing D&D and his first exposure to full on paladinhood) I told him not to be afraid of situations where evil is being furthered as a concept. When you walk into a room and someone is worshipping in front of an altar to an evil diety and you detect evil and they radiate it...well..."The charge: Consorting with evil forces allied against all that is good & right. The evidence: overwhelming. The verdict: Death by holy steel and divine mercy. Seek redemption in your next life" And bam...Smite 'Em.
I also use alignment as a great way to allow people to make meaningful choices. For instance my players had managed to subdue a couple orcs...now, some orcs in my world are wild, vicious and nasty...and some actively worship an evil quasi-diety. The players know this. Since the orcs had surrendered and were not worshippers of evil as a concept (they were believers in the Neutral Evil god Rom who is all about conquest and warfare...but not all about Eeeeevil) the Paladin felt no need to destroy them, especially since they also weren't strong enough to radiate evil. He knew they were of an evil alignment and disposition but he let them live to assist them in a good task...kinda press-ganging them into it. He had no problem with this because the orcs are, in many ways, too stupid to understand good/evil in the way that the paladin does. He did make it clear to them however that if they committed evil in his presence or that if he learned of evil they'd done, he'd have no problem in bringing that evidence to bear and would, if necessary, destroy them.
The orcs were smart enough to stay in line. Well, until one tried to get clever but that's a longer story...
The wizard of the group however REALLY wanted to just kill them when he found out there were orcs (he was seperate at the time) with the party. He literally just wanted to murder them because he hates orcs. I let him know he could feel free but that doing so to surrendered, helpless foes would be an evil act.
Did I care if he did it? Nope, not one bit. I just gave him information to work with...that it would be an evil act because unprovoked murder (the orcs had never so much as threatened the party) is an evil act. Would it have shifted his alignment to evil? Heck no. It's just a sin on the great tally board of life. He'd decide where to go from there. So he spoke to the paladin and the paladin did an excellent job of giving a bit of a sermon to the wizard...and the wizard agree. His agreement was hilarious in that he actually took the stance that in "his infinite intellect" he would use the orcs as a test to see if "such creature" could be "rehabilitated like dogs being trained". He didn't feel the need to commit evil and lower himself to the level of the kind or orcs he hated so much (vicious evil murderous ones). That, to me, is a great choice...not because it's a good choice...it just has great reasoning behind it. Could he just as easily chosen the evil route and would the choice have also been just as great? Yup probably.
So that is what I use alignment for...it creates situations where the players and NPCs can be allowed to make INTERESTING CHOICES that wouldn't otherwise be so well defined.
I'm on a journey of enlightenment, learning and self-improvement. A journey towards mastery. A journey that will never end.
If you challenge me, prepare to be challenged. If you have something to offer as a fellow student, I will accept it. If you call yourself a master, prepare to be humbled. If you seek me, look to the path. I will be traveling it. #SuperDungeonMasterIITurbo
Action v. intent is one of the biggest reasons why alignment is a problem, imo. A lawful good paladin who subscribes to a more utilitarian framework for her/his morals wouldn't see an issue with depriving someone of their property if it served a greater good. Likewise, utilitarian arguments could be made for slavery or any number of things that appear to be morally bereft. A character who subscribes to Kant's categorical imperative on the other hand would have moral issues doing any number of things that one could argue are necessary or just given the specific circumstances. With NPCs I tend to first start with their motivations, then work toward the methods that individual would likely use. My PCs have a listed alignment, but I don't pay a whole lot of attention to it. the party's fighter is listed as good, but has been known to use some questionable methods if he sees a higher good in them. I think alignment *can* be useful for a player to understand their character's world view, but that's about it.
A "lawful good" paladin who "subscribes to a more utilitarian framework" is lawful neutral.
I'm on a journey of enlightenment, learning and self-improvement. A journey towards mastery. A journey that will never end.
If you challenge me, prepare to be challenged. If you have something to offer as a fellow student, I will accept it. If you call yourself a master, prepare to be humbled. If you seek me, look to the path. I will be traveling it. #SuperDungeonMasterIITurbo
Since you're collecting opinions, I'll reply, though mine isn't very useful to the discussion you're looking to have.
I don't dictate alignment, neither on PCs or NPCs. Alignment has no mechanical impact in my games (I only play 4E), so I don't find the concept of "having an alignment" useful at all.
[snip]
In fact, I would go so far as to say the alignment system is silly in D&D because it's based on our own society's perceptions of good and evil. Stealing is evil? Only because it's illegal by our own, modern laws. The orcs in the example wouldn't bat an eye if they saw another orc steal something (assuming it didn't belong to the orcs themselves). Saving a soul from destruction is an act of goodness? Only because we, as decent folk, like the idea of an afterlive over oblivion. But someone who spent his life killing and raping isn't looking forward to an afterlife in the Nine Hells. He'd probably choose oblivion, and would actually consider someone who saved his soul from oblivion evil.
[snip]
This also makes the very idea of a Detect Evil spell silly. What if a savage orc (or someone with a similar background) cast detect evil on another orc? Would the outcome be evil? If so, then the spell is useless to anyone but the people who fit the exact background for the spell's intent. If not, then what the orc considers evil, another person considers good, and the spell should be renamed to "Detect If Someone Has A Similar Moral Background As You".
Also, this discussion is probably as old as the game itself. Is the horse dead yet?
Thanks for poppin in! A lot of the points you bring up are relatively valid, and have certainly been the target of much discussion. But whether you agree with the concepts or not, 3.x has hard coded rules for the implication of alignments: certain classes require you to be a certain alignment, certain spells affect specific alignments different way, some monsters (demons in particular) only take full damage from "good aligned" weapons. The rules assume that your alignment is sorta governed by a set of universal rules...
Yes, it's easy enough to handwave these things in 3.x, and as you mentioned 4e drops those concepts entirely. I'm not trying to start an edition war or anything, but i know both alignment systems and believe each has it own merits (and problems).
For what it's worth, i'm an old school player/dm (started way back in 1st) and currently DM 2 weekly 4e games. One game is with newer players and we pretty much ignore alignment. The other game is an ongoing campaign that started 7 years ago (in 3.5) and last year we converted it to 4e, but we kept the 3.5 style alignments since a major part of the campaign involves the Blood War (the war between devils and demons). I'm about to oversimplify it, but Devils are LE and Demons are CE, this basically makes the war one between the forces of Law and Chaos. In 4e the war still exists but that dynamic of what started it sorta lost in the translation.
Anyway, what i'm actually trying to do is a bit of a fresh take; collect as many opinions on various "small" things related to alignments as possible. Not specifically the alignments themselves, but how people view and use the concept - if they use them at all. Things like Intent vs Action, or Absolute vs Subjective, even things like if the DM restricts alignments, or varies that restriction on a game by game basis (things like Evil Campaigns certainly do exist...).
EDIT - partially ninja'd!
FWIW [4e designer] baseline assumption was that roughly 70% of your feats would be put towards combat effectiveness, parties would coordinate, and strikers would do 20/40/60 at-will damage+novas. If your party isn't doing that... well, you are below baseline, so yes, you need to optimize slightly to meet baseline. -Alcestis
Action v. intent is one of the biggest reasons why alignment is a problem, imo. A lawful good paladin who subscribes to a more utilitarian framework for her/his morals wouldn't see an issue with depriving someone of their property if it served a greater good. Likewise, utilitarian arguments could be made for slavery or any number of things that appear to be morally bereft. A character who subscribes to Kant's categorical imperative on the other hand would have moral issues doing any number of things that one could argue are necessary or just given the specific circumstances. With NPCs I tend to first start with their motivations, then work toward the methods that individual would likely use. My PCs have a listed alignment, but I don't pay a whole lot of attention to it. the party's fighter is listed as good, but has been known to use some questionable methods if he sees a higher good in them. I think alignment *can* be useful for a player to understand their character's world view, but that's about it.
A "lawful good" paladin who "subscribes to a more utilitarian framework" is lawful neutral.
I don't know that I buy that. Utilitarianism is a pretty well-respected philosophical system in which the goal is to produce "good." Let's say your character is in the middle of a town square filled with "innocents." He only has time to take one action. He can 1. move out of the way himself, 2. let the bomb explode without taking any actions, or 3. hurl the bomb where it will only kill one "innocent" in an alleyway. If he takes action 3 -- something I think a lot of characters would do, he's using a utilitarian framework and committing what he would see as a "good" act. While most people into philosophy don't consider themselves utilitarians -- myself included -- utilitirian bias is pretty ubiquitous.
The issue that I'm trying to get at here, is that players come with their pre-conceived notions of good and evil. Even if evil is a palpable and real thing in the fantasy universe, the notions of what is good and evil will be informed by the players' beliefs as to what good and evil is.
Action v. intent is one of the biggest reasons why alignment is a problem, imo. A lawful good paladin who subscribes to a more utilitarian framework for her/his morals wouldn't see an issue with depriving someone of their property if it served a greater good. Likewise, utilitarian arguments could be made for slavery or any number of things that appear to be morally bereft. A character who subscribes to Kant's categorical imperative on the other hand would have moral issues doing any number of things that one could argue are necessary or just given the specific circumstances. With NPCs I tend to first start with their motivations, then work toward the methods that individual would likely use. My PCs have a listed alignment, but I don't pay a whole lot of attention to it. the party's fighter is listed as good, but has been known to use some questionable methods if he sees a higher good in them. I think alignment *can* be useful for a player to understand their character's world view, but that's about it.
A "lawful good" paladin who "subscribes to a more utilitarian framework" is lawful neutral.
I don't know that I buy that. Utilitarianism is a pretty well-respected philosophical system in which the goal is to produce "good." Let's say your character is in the middle of a town square filled with "innocents." He only has time to take one action. He can 1. move out of the way himself, 2. let the bomb explode without taking any actions, or 3. hurl the bomb where it will only kill one "innocent" in an alleyway. If he takes action 3 -- something I think a lot of characters would do, he's using a utilitarian framework and committing what he would see as a "good" act. While most people into philosophy don't consider themselves utilitarians -- myself included -- utilitirian bias is pretty ubiquitous.
The issue that I'm trying to get at here, is that players come with their pre-conceived notions of good and evil. Even if evil is a palpable and real thing in the fantasy universe, the notions of what is good and evil will be informed by the players' beliefs as to what good and evil is.
You forgot action 4. Smother the bomb with his own body and it kills no one except for, maybe, himself. Seriously this exact example is in the Captain America movie.
That's the heroic, fantastic action to take in THAT situation.
I'll also point out, again, that if a DM creates a situation where the ONLY answer is a morally ambiguous one, that is not heroic fantasy. Heroes of heroic fantasy thrive and succeed through their heroism. Not relativism.
EDIT: Just as an addendum...consider why you never thought of (or didn't post) the option 4 I gave as an answer. It is worth thinking about and/or discussing.
I'm on a journey of enlightenment, learning and self-improvement. A journey towards mastery. A journey that will never end.
If you challenge me, prepare to be challenged. If you have something to offer as a fellow student, I will accept it. If you call yourself a master, prepare to be humbled. If you seek me, look to the path. I will be traveling it. #SuperDungeonMasterIITurbo
