What is YOUR Alignment?
RomulanPaladin
Member Posts: 188
Welp, we still have 20ish days until release so here's a little something of interest to ease the wait.
I'm sure that anyone who has spent serious time with a D&D system has likely pondered over the alignment system. You likely have decided what your personal alignment is. You may have even started to assign alignments to friends and family in your heads...
So, as a matter of interest and curiosity, what is YOUR alignment? Let's see how people identify themselves!
Considerations:
1.) This is just for kicks and giggles. This is a moral model taken from a game and nothing more serious then that.
2.) Rate yourself according to how YOU interpret the alignments.
3.) We are NOT measuring alignment strength. You are allowed to identify yourself as evil even if you are harmless and / or have not committed any seriously vile act.
4.) There are people who take morality very seriously. This is not a serious post. Use common sense when posting and interpreting comments.
I'm sure that anyone who has spent serious time with a D&D system has likely pondered over the alignment system. You likely have decided what your personal alignment is. You may have even started to assign alignments to friends and family in your heads...
So, as a matter of interest and curiosity, what is YOUR alignment? Let's see how people identify themselves!
Considerations:
1.) This is just for kicks and giggles. This is a moral model taken from a game and nothing more serious then that.
2.) Rate yourself according to how YOU interpret the alignments.
3.) We are NOT measuring alignment strength. You are allowed to identify yourself as evil even if you are harmless and / or have not committed any seriously vile act.
4.) There are people who take morality very seriously. This is not a serious post. Use common sense when posting and interpreting comments.
- What is YOUR Alignment?410 votes
- Lawful Good12.20%
- Neutral Good23.17%
- Chaotic Good21.71%
- Lawful Neutral  8.29%
- True Neutral11.46%
- Chaotic Neutral14.39%
- Lawful Evil  4.15%
- Neutral Evil  2.44%
- Chaotic Evil  2.20%
0
Comments
I've never done good things
I've never done bad things
I never did anything out of the blue ...
Neutral evil behind your back.
I sometimes stray from the path of good in game, usually by mistake, like when I got jumped by an assassin in Nashkel and my fireball slayed three innocent townspeople. Collateral damage you know. Since I never reload unless I die (hardcore roleplaying mode), I wiped out the whole population in sheer bloodlust and left Nashkel burning in my fiery wake. Took quite some time for me to achieve reconcilation through acts of goodness, and Minsc left the party.
This make me chaotic neutral doesn't it? Or is alignment more about your intentions than your actual actions? I never intended to slaughter a whole village, but I didn't share any remorse until later. Thoughts on this?
And why I think that I'm chaotic good? I consider myself to be good person (or at least trying to be good), thought my personal "moral code" may seem unfitting for many lawful inviduals. Also, I generaly think that people's humanity and morals should always come first, before religion, nationality, blood ties and other things like that. I think priority is to be good human rather than good catholic/patriot etc.
She's probably right, which is a shame, evil would be far less inconvenient.
I'm definitely lawful, because I like order. I have to keep order all the time when I teach classes, with kids who would much rather be chaotic. I also like nice, neat systems and theories and routines.
I'm good in my own eyes, because I care a lot about the feelings of other people. I don't want anybody or any animal to suffer or be hurt or fail to thrive, and I'll usually try to help, within limits. However, I have a pretty strong selfish streak, and I can be a bit lazy. That moves me toward neutrality.
So I rated myself lawful good, but with strong leanings toward lawful neutrality or even true neutrality (I care a lot about balance in life.)
The Measuring Cup Method
Whatever alignment you adhere to the most prevails. If you act LG the vast majority of the time, you can act CN once in a while (in party pranks!) and still be LG. A cup of good + a teaspoon of evil makes you mostly good. 1 quart good + 1 quart evil makes you neutral. Permutations abound.
The Sports Team Method
It doesn't matter what you do or how you do it; it only matters which team you're batting for. Often, the ends justify the means. What alignment you intend to serve is more important than what your actions accomplish. You can sacrifice a few innocents to try to save a village. You can kill in the name of good.
The Drop of Sewage Method
Someone said "a drop of sewage will spoil a barrel of wine but no amount of wine will save a barrel of sewage." The alignment philosophy here is that evil is a corrupting force that is difficult to redeem. A few evil acts can effectively make you evil and nothing short of extensive repentance will save you.
The Method Method
Intentions are largely irrelevant; the real question is HOW. HOW you define good and HOW you accomplish good. Your method is scrutinized to determine alignment. If you define good as self service and accomplish it by vile deeds, you are evil. If you define good as "needs of the many" and accomplish it by sacrificing "the needs of the few" then you are neutral.
Of course, people mix-and-match.
Sometimes I border on Chaotic Good because I also believe that chaos lives in everything, and sometimes I can be a son of a bitch rebel. But I only do that on bad days, so I'm thinking I'm Neutral Good.
I can be pushy and speak my mind a lot, even when I shouldn't.
I want what's best for most, but not everybody, because that's impossible.
In my mind, some just can't be helped and the dangerous, I wouldn't mind keeping them away from the rest, so they'd be safe, so I'm not chaotic.
I made a poll a couple months ago (What is your PC's alignment) and then asked if it was the same as one's own. The top three PC alignments are (in order) CG, NG, and CN, and the majority of people who commented said they play their alignment as their PC's. It'll be interesting to see how this IRL alignment poll turns out.
As far as BG is concerned I could never grasp why any evil character would be upset at a high reputation (which in the game implies lawful/good), seeing as the 'highest' forms of evil can often be achieved under the cloak of benevolence (in other words, by being universally admired you get wealth, glory, women, children if you're Jimmy Saville, etc).
As far as real life is concerned, I could never work out whether lawful meant an adherence to social law or to God's law. They are largely the same, but they do sometimes conflict. Is it simply the case that if you've never done anything you could be arrested for, your lawful? And if you say God's law is what's lawful, then goodness is almost always an intrinsic part of that. In that case, you couldn't be good without being lawful. It's also worth mentioning that American and British justice systems are heavily influenced by elements of Christianity.
Naturally you might respond by asking, what about those who don't believe in God? That makes them either chaotic (because they reject the highest law), or lawful if it's the case that social law is the only true form of law, or if you're of the sociological persuasion that God and His law are simply a social construction. But in that case there's doubt, two reasonable individuals might be in conflict as to what lawfulness actually is. Surely what differentiates questions of lawfulness from questions of questions of good, is that the former is an objective(ish) scale.
Another position might be that lawfulness is measured by the prevailing social trend. So for example, someone who assists a persecuted minority, despite it being illegal, might be chaotic, but is good. But then we return to the question about the connection between lawfulness and goodness. You might equally argue that everyone in the previous example who follows that law is chaotic, because that is not a right law, for reasons of being tyrannical, persecutory, unjust etc.
I might have changed from neutral good to netural evil writing this, seeing as you poor souls will have to suffer this eyesore of a post...
Chaotic Good, me. Like a lot of other folks, it would seem.
I'm LN and don't think like that, not evil, honest! Yeah, we'll see. I've got my LN eye on all of you "Chaotic Good" people...