Strange as i didn't give any answer that jeopardize people, i state that i would not sacrifice myself for society, kings, names, titles or buildings, but (as i do in real life) i would easly put myself in danger to help another being when need arives.
Well... that's chaotic evil for D&D apparently. Insightful for my future runs in BG.
Neutral? B*llshit. I'm not a neutral, by no means. In many tests like these I've got either neutral good or chaotic good.
This test, I think, was made in wrong way. For example, there is no notable correlation between your attitute towards your "nation" and your morality. There just isn't.
I really find myself to not be able to answer many questions in the test. The answers seem very vague and never exactly what I'd do, so I can't complete it. Does this make me chaotic procrastinate?
I got TN this time on the wizards.com test, but I think it's because my answers were all over the place. I agree with @Cheesebelly that the questions and the provided answers are far too vague. Not only do most of the answers not fit me, I can think of three or four different instances of each vague question where I would do totally different things. I almost wanted to select "E - it depends" for every question.
On the easydamus alignment chart that @Mortianna posted, I would place myself at TN (LG).
I think that most people in real life act as true neutrals, with an ideal that they rarely live up to. My ideal self is LG, but in practice, I'm just too lazy to live up to that most of the time. I like order and routine, so I'm pretty lawful in practice, but I won't go to any extreme efforts to ensure law and order in my life. I'm actually wanting to quit my current school-teaching job because I hate enforcing discipline so much, even though disrespectful behavior in others makes me very angry.
People in real life are just too complicated as individuals to be pigeon-holed by D&D alignments. I give it about the same weight as astrology. It's just mumbo-jumbo that people do for fun, and to pretend like they have an easy classification system to predict unpredictable human behavior.
I feel I've done this test before, the way in which the some of the Questions and Answers don't relate to one another is quite memorable.
-I got Neutral.
Edit - @Mortianna (see below) that's exactly what I did! I guess because that's how we're used to these quizzes being framed; All that, despite it being hosted by roleplaying game publisher and a couple of references to going on quests.
From the WotC alignment test site: "Take this short quiz 'in character,' answering the questions as your PC would. [...] This quiz assumes a typical D&D setting, which is a mix of fantasy elements, medieval ideas, and epic myth seen through modern eyes."
I think many of us are taking the quiz as ourselves and not our PCs. The test wasn't designed to determine your alignment in the "real world." There are plenty of other alignment quizzes online that do, however. My favorite is the 1st edition AD&D alignment calculator on HelloQuizzy.
@Mortianna, does the test at the link you provide give one insight into one's own personality, or is it another one designed to just help people create a character in D&D and to know which class and alignment label to give that character?
It certainly makes a *huge* difference whether you answer the questions on one of these tests as yourself, or as a D&D character. Are you a method actor trying to fit into a role-playing game and to exercise your method acting skills while you do it, or are you yourself as a human seeker, looking for real-life insights into self and humanity?
As psychologists, or as potential D&D players and DM's, we could debate about these tests on two different levels. Do they give valid, real life psychological results of any kind? And, do they give valid results indicating the alignment of proposed D&D characters?
That issue actually runs deeper. Do the kinds of D&D roleplaying characters that people choose give any kind of insight into their real-life psychological makeup and ethics? I tend to think that people's chosen D&D characters actually do give real-life insight into what kind of people they are, through intuition alone, but I'm not sure how to strengthen or weaken that psychology hypothesis ethically in any kind of real-life study.
I have an automatic real-life distrust of people who play evil in D&D. And yet, my best real-life friend, who is not a D&D player, identifies best with Darth Vader and Palpatine from Star Wars, taking clear profound delight and relish in saying their lines. Get him to enact any of Luke's, or Han's, or Yoda's, or any other "good" character's lines, and he will do it in clear parody and sarcasm, with clear scorn for the characters. When he "becomes" Vader or Palpatine, he enacts their villainy with a profoundly convincing dramatic seriousness, with almost manic glee in playing the part.
Yet, in real life, you couldn't ask for a more trustworthy friend or a more reliable friend or employee, who has near genius ability in the field of computer programming, and a herculean ability to work 60 or even 80 hour weeks, function perfectly well on 2 hours of sleep if necessary, and can "lift himself up by his own bootstraps" when he needs to. Everyone who knows him in the context of his own geeky technological comfort zone admires and loves him.
So, I can see the makings of a most fascinating real-life psychological study that incorporates not only D&D alignments, but also typecasting in the field of acting, but doing a productive one that would be accepted by academia, and possibly to trickle down to a useable practical psychological theory of counseling, would take great care, and a very creative intuitive leap of paradigmatic thinking, combined with a great intellect possessing great charisma and wisdom.
Remind me, are we doing this whole "human, movies, theater, acting, gaming, D&D, fantasy, sci-fi, geek" thing for fun, because we love it while not knowing why, or do we think that our attitudes toward life might actually mean something that could benefit human concerns and problems?
Okay, I took @Mortianna's posted test, and as it turns out, it was my second time. This time, I got "neutral good". Last time, I got "lawful good", although, I probably am on the borderline between these two alignments, so it may have been only a difference in answers between one or two questions between this time and the last time I took this test that made the difference in results.
This test has extremely good and clear questions, that are easily applicable to modern life, together with a section of questions concerning "what would you do if you were really in a D&D environment...?"
I could answer most of them without hesitation from my own personality, and on only a few, I had to think to narrow it down between two answers.
The test includes lots of art from the AD&D player's handbook I remember so well. These simple pencil drawings capture the spirit of D&D better than almost any more elaborate art I've ever seen since then.
It also gives you interesting trivia about D&D at intervals along the way, to give you a little break from feeling like you're taking one of the ubiquitous standardized tests of American education.
Now, here's the one thing I absolutely deplore about this test and its author. He or she absolutely hates lawful good alignment, and lawful good people. The author's commentary and description of "lawful good", if you are so unfortunate to get this designation from his or her test, is absolutely dripping with contempt, sarcasm, and so much emotional hostility, that I consider the whole test to be invalid. The author has an absolutely hopeless bias against "lawful good", or anything resembling it.
If you are so fortunate as to achieve an alignment result from the test of which the author approves, you get a glowing, warm, complementary, "congratulations on your awesomeness" write-up from the author. Any result even remotely resembling "lawful", and he or she lets you know in no uncertain terms that you have made him or her want to throw up and then spit on you!
The author has also posted several permanent posts in the description and notes that go with the test, excoriating in uncomfortable and most profane language, several individuals who apparently criticized his or her test when it was first posted. These posts in the author notes include using the "b" word against at least one woman who dared to criticize, making me think that the author is probably a "he".
If it were not for the author's choosing almost hysterically emotional, hostile language in describing alignments of which he or she is not a part in the post-test write-ups, I would agree that it is a very good test. Unfortunately, the fact that the author succumbs to such bigotry in writing up the results of the test make me suspect the whole test.
@Mortianna, does the test at the link you provide give one insight into one's own personality, or is it another one designed to just help people create a character in D&D and to know which class and alignment label to give that character?
I don't think there's any way for seasoned D&D players to take an alignment test without recognizing the implications each answer option will have on their final result. It's kind of like administering psychometric tests to a research psychologist.
As psychologists, or as potential D&D players and DM's, we could debate about these tests on two different levels. Do they give valid, real life psychological results of any kind? And, do they give valid results indicating the alignment of proposed D&D characters?
That issue actually runs deeper. Do the kinds of D&D roleplaying characters that people choose give any kind of insight into their real-life psychological makeup and ethics? I tend to think that people's chosen D&D characters actually do give real-life insight into what kind of people they are, through intuition alone, but I'm not sure how to strengthen or weaken that psychology hypothesis ethically in any kind of real-life study.
I don't think the alignment chart even approaches the level of sophistication in describing one's personality than a psychological test, like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
The example you gave about your friend liking the Dark Side and disdaining the Light Side is a great example of how the good/evil binary doesn't apply in real life, other than in extreme cases. Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine had the power and resources to exercise their will. Given the same power, do you think your friend would act in similar ways? Cannot one be drawn to dark things and still be a good, reliable friend and make positive contributions to the world?
Remind me, are we doing this whole "human, movies, theater, acting, gaming, D&D, fantasy, sci-fi, geek" thing for fun, because we love it while not knowing why, or do we think that our attitudes toward life might actually mean something that could benefit human concerns and problems?
I think it's mainly for fun, but it also allows us to indulge in a fantasy of who we want--or could--be.
@Mortianna, thank you for an insightful analysis of the questions I posed in the first post. I would be most interested in your response to the compliments but also stringent criticisms I leveled against that third alignment test in my second, double post.
@Moomintroll, the first time, I did not. There's a way to click around the site's attempt to force you to register for its matchmaking service. I can't remember how I did it before, because this time, I chose to go ahead and let it spam me, thinking that maybe I could just click "spam" on its sendings to my personal email until it wouldn't matter, and that maybe I would actually get something from it that I would want to see.
Anyway, I think that if you just click on "get results" without entering any spam-phishing info, you can still get your results.
Btw, I would remind everyone that the "tag" feature of this site does not work in edits. If you would edit a post, but you want to make sure to tag a specific forum member that you want to see the edit, you are better off to just make a new post and tag them, and obsolete social conventions about "double posting" be damned. Now, all these alignment tests say I am some combination of "neutral" and/or "good". About the obsolete "double-posting" internet social conventions, which are a subset of basic manners, I am "chaotic good" to the core.
This outdated manners rule had to do with early internet forum and "bulletin board" spammers trying to destroy, derail, and drown out any and all conversation with which they did not agree. For example, they would post "You're stupid, shut up!", or something like that, over and over, and on the early dial-up connections that people had, they really could guarantee that the next fifty or so posts that anyone could see "on the bulletin board" were "You're stupid, shut up!". And, these early spammers actually got very creative with using punctuation keys on their keyboards to obliterate any discussion on the early internet with all kinds of creative, and usually obscene, drawings.
The world of the internet has changed since then. Intent to spam is still deplored, and morally wrong. But now, "bulletin boards" have evolved into "forums", complete with volunteer, or sometimes even paid, "moderators", who police the boards and prevent any malicious posting using a variety of moderator-only controls at their disposal.
In summary, there is absolutely nothing wrong with posting two, and in some cases more, posts in a row. The intent of the postings is what matters, and the moderators will tell you if you have done something disallowed.
In the case of wanting to make an extra point to a just-posted post, and to tag the forum member to whom you are most interested in reaching with the new post, I approve whole-heartedly of making a new post, even if the last post was yours.
@Moomintroll If you don't fill out any of the personal info and just keeping clicking the "show me my result" button, it'll take you right to your result/analysis.
@belgarathmth Since his (obviously a guy) test is on a quiz site and not in any way designed for a serious, professional setting, I really didn't find his rantings, biased opinions, and descriptions objectionable. I got the impression that he's very intelligent and just has a dry sense of humor, and that the user he called a b*tch/c*nt was just some trolling whiner who didn't like what she read in her results. I'd say he's a bit of a misanthrope as well, but, hey, so am I, so I can relate. He definitely doesn't think much of good, but I wouldn't say he is sympathetic to evil either. I read his Lawful Good analysis--WOW! Yeah, he definitely doesn't like lawful good types and he finds lawful neutral types "safe, but boring." Opinionated, yes, but at least he's honest.
I like the narrative-style of his analysis, even if it is rife with his personal views. More importantly, I think the fictional and real-life examples he gives for each alignment is spot-on and the test is probably the most sophisticated I've seen.
From the WotC alignment test site: "Take this short quiz 'in character,' answering the questions as your PC would. [...] This quiz assumes a typical D&D setting, which is a mix of fantasy elements, medieval ideas, and epic myth seen through modern eyes."
I think many of us are taking the quiz as ourselves and not our PCs. The test wasn't designed to determine your alignment in the "real world." There are plenty of other alignment quizzes online that do, however. My favorite is the 1st edition AD&D alignment calculator on HelloQuizzy.
I totally dislike the description of Lawful Good. Sounds like one of those cynical douches who mocks superheroes and drools for nineties antiheroes(Cable, Deadpool, Spawn, Youngblood and others).
ShapiroKeatsDarkMage
Member Posts: 2,428
Comments
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
According to EasyDamus' alignment tendencies chart, I would be TN (LE). ~.^
Well... that's chaotic evil for D&D apparently. Insightful for my future runs in BG.
This test, I think, was made in wrong way. For example, there is no notable correlation between your attitute towards your "nation" and your morality. There just isn't.
On the easydamus alignment chart that @Mortianna posted, I would place myself at TN (LG).
I think that most people in real life act as true neutrals, with an ideal that they rarely live up to. My ideal self is LG, but in practice, I'm just too lazy to live up to that most of the time. I like order and routine, so I'm pretty lawful in practice, but I won't go to any extreme efforts to ensure law and order in my life. I'm actually wanting to quit my current school-teaching job because I hate enforcing discipline so much, even though disrespectful behavior in others makes me very angry.
People in real life are just too complicated as individuals to be pigeon-holed by D&D alignments. I give it about the same weight as astrology. It's just mumbo-jumbo that people do for fun, and to pretend like they have an easy classification system to predict unpredictable human behavior.
-I got Neutral.
Edit - @Mortianna (see below) that's exactly what I did! I guess because that's how we're used to these quizzes being framed; All that, despite it being hosted by roleplaying game publisher and a couple of references to going on quests.
I think many of us are taking the quiz as ourselves and not our PCs. The test wasn't designed to determine your alignment in the "real world." There are plenty of other alignment quizzes online that do, however. My favorite is the 1st edition AD&D alignment calculator on HelloQuizzy.
It certainly makes a *huge* difference whether you answer the questions on one of these tests as yourself, or as a D&D character. Are you a method actor trying to fit into a role-playing game and to exercise your method acting skills while you do it, or are you yourself as a human seeker, looking for real-life insights into self and humanity?
As psychologists, or as potential D&D players and DM's, we could debate about these tests on two different levels. Do they give valid, real life psychological results of any kind? And, do they give valid results indicating the alignment of proposed D&D characters?
That issue actually runs deeper. Do the kinds of D&D roleplaying characters that people choose give any kind of insight into their real-life psychological makeup and ethics? I tend to think that people's chosen D&D characters actually do give real-life insight into what kind of people they are, through intuition alone, but I'm not sure how to strengthen or weaken that psychology hypothesis ethically in any kind of real-life study.
I have an automatic real-life distrust of people who play evil in D&D. And yet, my best real-life friend, who is not a D&D player, identifies best with Darth Vader and Palpatine from Star Wars, taking clear profound delight and relish in saying their lines. Get him to enact any of Luke's, or Han's, or Yoda's, or any other "good" character's lines, and he will do it in clear parody and sarcasm, with clear scorn for the characters. When he "becomes" Vader or Palpatine, he enacts their villainy with a profoundly convincing dramatic seriousness, with almost manic glee in playing the part.
Yet, in real life, you couldn't ask for a more trustworthy friend or a more reliable friend or employee, who has near genius ability in the field of computer programming, and a herculean ability to work 60 or even 80 hour weeks, function perfectly well on 2 hours of sleep if necessary, and can "lift himself up by his own bootstraps" when he needs to. Everyone who knows him in the context of his own geeky technological comfort zone admires and loves him.
So, I can see the makings of a most fascinating real-life psychological study that incorporates not only D&D alignments, but also typecasting in the field of acting, but doing a productive one that would be accepted by academia, and possibly to trickle down to a useable practical psychological theory of counseling, would take great care, and a very creative intuitive leap of paradigmatic thinking, combined with a great intellect possessing great charisma and wisdom.
Remind me, are we doing this whole "human, movies, theater, acting, gaming, D&D, fantasy, sci-fi, geek" thing for fun, because we love it while not knowing why, or do we think that our attitudes toward life might actually mean something that could benefit human concerns and problems?
This test has extremely good and clear questions, that are easily applicable to modern life, together with a section of questions concerning "what would you do if you were really in a D&D environment...?"
I could answer most of them without hesitation from my own personality, and on only a few, I had to think to narrow it down between two answers.
The test includes lots of art from the AD&D player's handbook I remember so well. These simple pencil drawings capture the spirit of D&D better than almost any more elaborate art I've ever seen since then.
It also gives you interesting trivia about D&D at intervals along the way, to give you a little break from feeling like you're taking one of the ubiquitous standardized tests of American education.
Now, here's the one thing I absolutely deplore about this test and its author. He or she absolutely hates lawful good alignment, and lawful good people. The author's commentary and description of "lawful good", if you are so unfortunate to get this designation from his or her test, is absolutely dripping with contempt, sarcasm, and so much emotional hostility, that I consider the whole test to be invalid. The author has an absolutely hopeless bias against "lawful good", or anything resembling it.
If you are so fortunate as to achieve an alignment result from the test of which the author approves, you get a glowing, warm, complementary, "congratulations on your awesomeness" write-up from the author. Any result even remotely resembling "lawful", and he or she lets you know in no uncertain terms that you have made him or her want to throw up and then spit on you!
The author has also posted several permanent posts in the description and notes that go with the test, excoriating in uncomfortable and most profane language, several individuals who apparently criticized his or her test when it was first posted. These posts in the author notes include using the "b" word against at least one woman who dared to criticize, making me think that the author is probably a "he".
If it were not for the author's choosing almost hysterically emotional, hostile language in describing alignments of which he or she is not a part in the post-test write-ups, I would agree that it is a very good test. Unfortunately, the fact that the author succumbs to such bigotry in writing up the results of the test make me suspect the whole test.
The example you gave about your friend liking the Dark Side and disdaining the Light Side is a great example of how the good/evil binary doesn't apply in real life, other than in extreme cases. Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine had the power and resources to exercise their will. Given the same power, do you think your friend would act in similar ways? Cannot one be drawn to dark things and still be a good, reliable friend and make positive contributions to the world? I think it's mainly for fun, but it also allows us to indulge in a fantasy of who we want--or could--be.
Anyway, I think that if you just click on "get results" without entering any spam-phishing info, you can still get your results.
This outdated manners rule had to do with early internet forum and "bulletin board" spammers trying to destroy, derail, and drown out any and all conversation with which they did not agree. For example, they would post "You're stupid, shut up!", or something like that, over and over, and on the early dial-up connections that people had, they really could guarantee that the next fifty or so posts that anyone could see "on the bulletin board" were "You're stupid, shut up!". And, these early spammers actually got very creative with using punctuation keys on their keyboards to obliterate any discussion on the early internet with all kinds of creative, and usually obscene, drawings.
The world of the internet has changed since then. Intent to spam is still deplored, and morally wrong. But now, "bulletin boards" have evolved into "forums", complete with volunteer, or sometimes even paid, "moderators", who police the boards and prevent any malicious posting using a variety of moderator-only controls at their disposal.
In summary, there is absolutely nothing wrong with posting two, and in some cases more, posts in a row. The intent of the postings is what matters, and the moderators will tell you if you have done something disallowed.
In the case of wanting to make an extra point to a just-posted post, and to tag the forum member to whom you are most interested in reaching with the new post, I approve whole-heartedly of making a new post, even if the last post was yours.
@belgarathmth Since his (obviously a guy) test is on a quiz site and not in any way designed for a serious, professional setting, I really didn't find his rantings, biased opinions, and descriptions objectionable. I got the impression that he's very intelligent and just has a dry sense of humor, and that the user he called a b*tch/c*nt was just some trolling whiner who didn't like what she read in her results. I'd say he's a bit of a misanthrope as well, but, hey, so am I, so I can relate. He definitely doesn't think much of good, but I wouldn't say he is sympathetic to evil either. I read his Lawful Good analysis--WOW! Yeah, he definitely doesn't like lawful good types and he finds lawful neutral types "safe, but boring." Opinionated, yes, but at least he's honest.
I like the narrative-style of his analysis, even if it is rife with his personal views. More importantly, I think the fictional and real-life examples he gives for each alignment is spot-on and the test is probably the most sophisticated I've seen.
Neutral good hmm? Interesting...