by John Lees

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The Ramifications of Alignment (D&D)	-	Good	-	Front-End Alignments
Evil	-	Evil Player Characters	-	Evil Player Characters II
Dragon #60	-	-	-	Dragon

There is nothing confusing about the
purpose of character alignment in the
ADVANCED D&D® game: to motivate
and guide the actions of a character. But
problems occur when a player tries to
actually use the alignment of a character
to help determine the character’s actions.
“Hmmm. Zarko is of alignment x;
so what the heck does that mean in this
situation?” The terse paragraphs in the
PH and the slightly longer
explanations in the DMG describe 9 distinctly different
alignments in broad terms, but overall
offer few details which players and their
characters can apply directly in situations
where alignment should, or could,
determine a character’s course of action.

Axiology, the study of moral and ethical
philosophy, is a complicated and
confusing pursuit even in the real world.
Moral philosophy is particularly slippery,
because the subject matter concerns beliefs,
which don’t “exist” in the same way
that trees or chairs exist. If I say, “I believe
that thing there is a chair,” you can
attempt to convince me that it is really
only a packing crate by asking the opinions
of other people, showing me a picture
of a chair in a catalogue, and so
forth. The chair is an object in the world
of sensory perception, and can be objectively,
straightforwardly discussed by
many people.

On the other hand, if I say, “I believe
God is a cruel and just god,” you’re up a
creek if you don’t agree with me. You
can’t even find a roomful of people (except
possibly in a church) who all have
the same definition of “god.” You can’t
show me a picture of a god in a catalogue.
Even if you show me the DEITIES
& DEMIGODS™ book and I point to a god
description and say, “There. I believe in
that one,” you cannot be certain that
what I think in my mind about that god is
what you think in your mind about that
god. And discussing what a third person
“really believes” is pure folly. A belief is
not an object in the world of sensory
perception. (Beliefs include ideas, feelings,
and emotions; all those fun things
that make bull sessions tend to be full of
<bullshit>.)

A belief system is difficult to formalize.
Even more difficult is the task of convincing
someone else of the truth and validity
of your belief system. A belief system
cannot be objectively challenged. If I
firmly believe that the world is carried on
the back of a giant snail and is being
slowly buried in metaphysical slime,
there really isn’t anything you can do to
change my mind, short of running me
through with a sword. (Note: Philosophers
frown on such crass forms of
discourse.)

Any time you deal with systems of belief,
you are treading on treacherous
ground. But treacherous ground can be
fun, so let’s have a go at defining a
framework for belief systems in the
AD&D™ game. Our major goal is twofold:
Make character alignment clearer and
more usable, and don’t make any substantial
changes in the AD&D system.
1st off, let’s define a few terms (otherwise,
you won’t believe this is a philosophical
discussion). Three of the slipperiest
terms around are morality, ethics,
and laws, followed closely on the slipperiness
scale by good and evil.

An ethic is a set of general-purpose
guidelines intended to help you decide
how to act in a wide range of situations.
Some familiar ethics are the physician’s
Hippocratic Oath, the Golden Rule, and
the Ten Commandments. Ethics are usually
very short on particular details and
require some interpretation on the part
of the person trying to follow the ethic.
Hence the need for priests, clerics,
judges and the like, to smooth the way
for people who don’t have time to dwell
overlong on such problems.

An ethic is a guide to right action, but it
is not an explanation of why those actions
are right. The Golden Rule, “Do
unto others as you would have them do
unto you,” is a prescription for how to
act, but says nothing about why you
should act in such a way. Philosophers
have devoted thousands of pages of argument
to attempting to prove that a
prescription as simple as the Golden
Rule is the best guide to right action.
A morality is a belief system that leads
to the formation of a particular ethic, or
tries to justify an existing ethic. To a
large extent, the Bible is an attempt to
explain the belief system that gives rise
to Christian ethics such as the Ten
Commandments. Much of the past three
thousand years of philosophy has been
devoted, without success, to attempting
to find or create some form of universal
morality that is obviously implied by the
physical structure of the universe, or at
least one a reasonable person could be
convinced of the existence of, purely
through intellectual argument.

A law is not a moral statement, because
a law does not provide reason or
justification for itself. A law is not necessarily
an ethical statement, because there
may be no formal reason or justification
for the law. Often, laws are an attempt to
spell out an ethic to a ridiculous, bureaucratic
extreme. As such, laws often
maintain only a tenuous connection with
the inspiring moral system (especially
since the lawmakers may not all agree
with that moral system), and laws have
little of the flexibility that allow more
generally stated ethics to remain viable
for centuries.

Laws derived from no obvious morality
and not part of a consistent ethic are
often perceived to be senseless and stupid,
and are rather difficult to enforce.
Often the situation degenerates to “might
makes right”; the state versus the individual.
Experiments through the centuries
with various legal systems have
shown that laws are a royal pain to everyone
except lawyers and judges.
The terms ethics, morality and law are
neutral in connotation. Our culture tends
to link all three terms with “good,” but
there is no basis for this. A high priest
who rips out the hearts of animals and
offers them as tributes to his deity is just
as moral, ethical, and lawful as a Southern
Baptist minister leading a revival. A
morality cannot be inherently “good” or
“evil,” since it is the morality itself that
defines good and evil. Only from the
viewpoint of. some other morality can a
particular morality be good or evil. A
“moral person” is not a “good person” in
any universally absolute sense. You can
have a room full of people such that each
person believes him or herself to be
good and everyone else to be evil.

So what does all this have to do with
character alignment? Quite a lot. The
good-neutral-evil continuum is essentially
a moral one, and determines what kind
of ethic will guide a character’s actions.
You can think of this as motivation, if you
wish.

GOOD && EVIL
There is a very general overriding
moral structure to the AD&D universe.
As stated in the DMG,

Good: a character of good alignment will generally
uphold another character’s right
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;

Evil: an evil character doesn’t believe
that other characters have rights;

Neutral: and a
character of neutral alignment (with respect
to good and evil) doesn’t become
involved with such considerations.

Once
your group has decided in what kind of
world it is adventuring, the DM should
decide on the prevailing moralities or religions.
Keep firmly in mind that goodneutral-
evil alignment will mean slightly
different things, depending on which beliefs
or gods a character follows. The
DEITIES & DEMIGODS Cyclopedia can
be of considerable help here.

The lawful-neutral-chaotic continuum
is slightly more complicated. A character’s
place on this continuum determines
how he or she interacts with other characters,
how readily he or she forms alliances,
joins groups, obeys laws, and
respects order — in contrast to the goodneutral-
evil continuum determining a
character’s motivations and reasons for
acting. A character’s lawful-neutral-chaotic
alignment comes close to what is
commonly meant by personality.

The rules of the AD&D game concerning
character alignment are an attempt
to formalize something that has defied
formalization through centuries of studies
in moral philosophy. This is a good
place to reiterate that the AD&D game is
a game, and its rules are quite insufficient
for real life. This article is trying to
give you a better feel for how to play the
game, not how to live your life!

LAW && CHAOS
Lawful: A character of lawful alignment puts
great importance on order and rules, and
is usually a member in good standing of
some group. (This group may not be
very large: a band of adventurers or a
thieves’ guild.) To the lawful character,
the group is more important than the individual
and the decisions of the group
take precedence over individual desires.
A lawful character will actively advocate
law and order and will attempt to convince
other characters to follow the tenets
of the group. A lawful character is a
good follower.

Neutral: The character aligned neutrally with
respect to law and chaos might be more
properly called “independent” rather
than “neutral.” The independent, or
“inner directed,” character may observe
laws when necessary, but will certainly
not be an advocate of the desires of any
particular group. (This is not to say that
the independent character cannot be an
advocate of the teachings of a particular
morality; but if so, it is because the character
believes strongly in the morality,
not because the morality has the support
of some group.) Although the independent
character will join a group in order to
achieve a particular end, he or she will
always attempt to avoid situations which
place constraints on her freedom of action.
The independent character does
not make a very reliable follower.

Chaotic: The chaotic character does not pay
attention to laws and does not desire
order. A chaotic character will not join a
group (agree to abide by the rules of the
group), but may possibly be found in a
group if the group just happens to be
going in the same direction, or if a group
is necessary to achieving some very limited
end. Example: If a chaotic character
needs to travel through a dangerous
forest, and a group of armed adventurers
also needs to travel through the forest,
the chaotic character will likely go along
with the group (if the group will tolerate
him or her), but that does not mean the
chaotic character has “joined” the group
in the same sense that a lawful fighter
joins the group. In such a group, the
chaotic character will be an obvious misfit.
The chaotic character makes a lousy
follower.
Once again it must be stressed that
law and order have no direct correlation
with good and evil. A thoroughly rotten,
nasty, evil character can still be a loyal,
obedient member of a group. A champion
of creature rights and all that is good
may not get along with anyone and may
actively avoid group membership.

Now let’s go through the nine alignment
combinations and show how this
approach at defining them makes them
clearer:

Lawful good: Respects law and order
and is willing to suffer limitations on individual
freedom for the benefit of the
group. Puts moral principles before material
considerations. The lawful good
character will be a very faithful member
of the group, but if the laws of the group
clash with the ethics dictated by his or
her moral alignment, the character will
probably leave that group and look for a
group more closely aligned with his or
her ethics. The lawful good character is
an active advocate of his or her beliefs.
(PH) (DMG)

Lawful neutral: Respects the laws and
customs of the group, but does not necessarily
consider creature rights to be
the highest good. Because the lawful
neutral character is not too concerned
with questions of morality, he or she will
be a more faithful group member and a
more loyal follower of his or her alignment
than any differently aligned character.
The lawful neutral character is an
advocate of law and order.
(PH) (DMG)

Lawful evil: Respects the laws of the
group, as long as those laws do not clash
with his or her evil moral alignment. This
is not quite as much of a problem as it is
for the lawful good character, since “evil”
is not as well defined as “good.” The
lawful evil character is an active “advocate”
of evil, although not in quite the
same sense that a lawful good character
is an advocate of good. In the AD&D
structure, “evil” is most easily defined as
“anti-good,” so a lawful evil character’s
advocacy of evil takes the form of opposing
good at every opportunity.
(PH) (DMG)

Neutral (independent) good: Often
goes along with the laws and desires of
the group as being the easiest course of
action, but ethical considerations clearly
have top priority. May pursue quite abstract
goals. Often aloof and difficult to
understand.
(PH) (DMG)

Neutral (independent) neutral (true
neutral): Not actively for or against anything.
Uses whatever means are necessary
to maintain a situation to his or her
benefit. Has his or her own reasons for
doing everything. Usually difficult to
understand.
(PH) (DMG)

Neutral (independent) evil: Puts self-
interest before all else. Will only cooperate
when material rewards are high. Untrustworthy;
has contempt or fear for all
others.
(PH) (DMG)
 
 

Chaotic good: Unwilling to be governed
by the laws and desires of any
group. Interacts with other characters
on a one-to-one basis and, within such
bounds, follows the good ethic of upholding
creature rights. The stereotypical
chaotic good character is the white
knight who refuses to join any group and
goes about on his own, doing good.
(PH) (DMG)

Chaotic neutral: The almost totally
unpredictable non-conformist loner. Will
stand by and watch the white knight battle
the black knight without feeling compelled
to take sides.
(PH) (DMG)

Chaotic evil: Actively opposes law,
order, good, and all other sissy constraints
on doing whatever he or she
feels like doing. The stereotypical chaotic
evil character is the black knight,
roaming around on his own, looking for
something nasty to do.
(PH) (DMG)

Of course, there are gradations between
alignments. Few characters are
likely to be pure: A character of predominantly
neutral moral alignment may lean
toward good, for instance. Also, character
alignment is not an absolute prescription
for the actions of a character, any
more than “being a good Christian”
completely describes the actions of a
real person. There will be lapses in behavior
that might be more proper of a
different alignment, ill-considered actions
in the heat of emotion, actions influenced
by some very charismatic character
of a different alignment, etc. But if
there occur many and frequent deviations
from actions appropriate to a character’s
stated alignment, the DM will
probably (and properly) declare the
character’s alignment to have changed.

It is an unstated assumption that most
characters act in their own self-interest
to some degree; i.e., are not suicidal. A
lawful good character may sacrifice oneself
for the greater good, but will not do
so lightly. A chaotic character will cooperate
enough to aid that individual’s
goals and protect his or her own hide.

The Character Alignment Graph in the
PH continues to make
sense with these clarified definitions. It
is even easier to understand how a lawful
evil character tends toward the diabolic,
a chaotic evil character toward the demonaic,
a lawful good character toward
the saintly, and a chaotic good character
toward the beatific. Also, the outer planes
continue to bear a meaningful relation to
character alignment. This slightly different
approach to alignments clarifies the
distinctions between them while not significantly
changing the way in which the
AD&D game is played.