My take on D&D 9 alignments

Intro

The 9 alignments of D&D have been the source of much internet debate. The reasons for these debates is that people disagree on the definitions of the alignments and judging whether or not someone meets the criteria is subjective.

If you haven't played a game like Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) and don't know what the 9 alignments are then this post is going to be useless and hard to follow. If you want to read it anyway here's a quick and dirty description (better descriptions later) of alignment. Alignment is a category in which your character's morality and personality fit. Alignment is 2 dimensional: lawful vs chaotic and good vs evil. A character's alignment is a 2 word description such as "LE (lawful evil)" or "NG (neutral good)". If a character is in between the 2 extremes the word neutral is used. The same word is used for both dimensions with "neutral neutral" instead being called "true neutral" (which is abbreviated with just N). Typically the 9 alignments are organized in a square with good on top and lawful on the left:

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

"the extreme corners" refers to LG CG LE CE and "the neutral plus" refers to the rest.

For my take on alignment I'm going to examine 2 YouTube videos which inspired me to write this post, then I'll give my own definitions, then I'll answer the most important question "Why do we have D&D alignment?". To give away the answer I think we shouldn't have alignment at all but pieces of it are useful, therefore I need to first talk about the existing definitions and why they are lacking (including my own). You don't need to watch these videos since my dissection should be detailed enough but feel free to give the videos the views they deserve.

Bob

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfN0xD9cfkw
"How GYGAX Ruined Alignment" by Bob World Builder

Bob explains the D&D 1e alignment was belief based and the subjective nature made it useless until they are tested. However 3e was action based which removed motivation which lead to problems. Therefore he redefined alignment as:

1. (will be covered in "Why do we have D&D alignment?")
2. law/chaos: how your character acts. via a code of conduct or not
3. good/evil: why your character acts. selfless or selfish

Honestly this definition is strong. After my own (obvious bias but will be explained) this is the second best definition of alignment I've seen. It's simple and it just works to the extent that I found it hard to explain the issues with it. If you use his definitions you'll be better off than the majority.

The first problem (and the one that's easier to explain) is that it has neutral be "everything in between" rather than giving criteria for them. This leaves it open to interpretation what counts as neutral. One extreme interpretation is "your character is 99% lawful, since he isn't 100% he's in between and thus neutral". This judgement makes it nearly impossible to be anything except true neutral and makes the 9 alignments pointless since it's basically only 1 alignment. The opposite extreme is "your character is 51% lawful which is mostly lawful hence why I say he's lawful". This judgement makes it nearly impossible to be in the neutral plus instead having characters jump between the corners. While 4 alignments is better than 1 it still isn't the intended 9. Looking at percent makes the problem obvious but when you actually are judging alignment you don't have math. Instead you'll be looking at a list of actions from the character and trying to decide if it falls "in the middle" which is vague. This is why it would be more helpful if there was a clear difference between neutral and the others.

The second problem (or "my second problem with it" since this is more like a philosophical opinion) is "how" vs "why" but the issue is hard to explain. He states that belief is useless until tested. Does he think that his new definition of good vs evil is only useful when tested and the law vs chaos is always useful? I'll cover how/when alignment is useful in "Why do we have D&D alignment?". I assert that alignment should be defined by a person's heart and seen by actions (Luke 6:43-45) therefore law vs chaos should also be defined by "why" since motivation causes actions. If a person swears by a code but doesn't know every rule then does something without knowing that it happens to follow that rule then that person has not behaved in a lawful way (even though an observer may wrongly think that he has). Lawfulness should be defined based on how strongly you intend to follow a principle and not based on how well your action actually meets the criteria.

The third problem is that I disagree with "good" and "selfless" being synonymous. Although being good often requires a degree of selflessness it is more than that. Selfless means to deny yourself but it does not require helping others. Good should be defined as helping others AND being selfless. As opposed to Mormons and Catholics who might help others for personal gain (unlike Christianity which doesn't allow such motivation).

As for Bob's self critique that his definitions would consider self defense to be "evil": morality is big and complex. No matter how well defined your religion or philosophy is there will always be edge cases and confusing scenarios so don't get hung up on "I found 1 example where this doesn't work". It's fine. Although it is fair to point out a known weakness.

Guild Master Dan

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYECCocnJ1syH0UDgpnU2wZoTz_z8ssR7
"Dungeons & Dragons: Alignment Done Right" (playlist) by GuildMasterDan

His definition is in the first video but further detail and explanation is provided by the other videos in the playlist.

He defines the alignments as

• Lawful (renamed to principled): has some kind of code
• Neutral: has a world view instead of rules
• Chaotic (renamed to unprincipled): doesn't have any rules

• Good (renamed to selfless): doesn't seek self interest AND seeks to help others
• Neutral: doesn't seek self interest OR seeks to help others (but not both)
• Evil (renamed to selfish): does neither

While he does provide definitions for neutral he makes the same mistake of conflating selfless and good. His definitions appear to be action based but when talking about details and examples they appear more motivation based. So most of my critiques overlap with Bob's alignment definition.

However Dan provides a better example of the issue with conflating selfless and good. This can be seen in his LN video's "expected" example character. He claims that Samara (from Mass Effect) is LN because she's inconsistent about being selfless when in fact she's perfectly selfless but not always to the benefit of others. My above description of his definitions have more detail than his stated definitions because he doesn't realize that selfless doesn't mean good. In this case Samara executing a criminal for the benefit of the many at the expense of an individual is a moral edge case and thus not one that can be easily measured against "helping others". His ending example of the LN "black knight" is a better example of his view since such a person would follow evil orders just because they always follow orders and not because they want to do evil and thus is selfless (since they suppress or lack their own feelings) but aren't being "good". Personally I would consider this black knight to be evil since if they know the acts are evil and continues to allow/support evil then they are evil even if they aren't doing it because they enjoy evil.

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My definitions

• Actual Lawful: likes rules and follows them as much as possible
• Actual Neutral: views rules more like guidelines and will ignore them sometimes. an impulsive person doesn't think about rules and falls in here as well.
• Actual Chaotic: hates rules. sometimes rebellious and sometimes ignores them but thinks that rules shouldn't exist

• Actual Good: selfless benevolent: likes other people
• Actual Neutral: selfish but not hateful or selfless that isn't for the sake of others
• Actual Evil: malevolent: hates people (selfish or selfless)

• Viewed Good: beneficial
• Viewed Neutral: useless
• Viewed Evil: harmful

If you've read this far these definitions should be little surprise but I'll need to go into some details. The first thing to address is the 1 thing that may have surprised you: why are there 2 definitions for good vs evil? The reason is that I'm making a distinction between what your alignment actually is vs what people think it is. To be truly good you must be selfless but people can't read your mind (and you may even fool yourself) so people can think of you as good even if you have selfish motivations (as long as you don't make them obvious). This distinction between what you are vs what people think you are will be important for "Why do we have D&D alignment?" (and by now it should be obvious why that I made this post first). You'll notice that the actual law dimension and the actual good dimension are both based on motivation because motivation is what determines your actual alignment.

You may wonder why there's no viewed law dimension. Well there is but I didn't list it above because it wasn't needed to address my concerns and the definition is simple: do people think you fit the actual lawful etc. So technically yes, there's an actual 9 alignments for how your soul is judged (ie who you really are) and a viewed 9 alignments for reputation. However viewed law is more vaguely defined and less useful anyway so meh.

Another difference between actual good and viewed good is that while generally speaking actual good is also viewed as good this isn't always true. If you are trying to help but cause a lot of damage due to incompetence you are actually good but possibly harmful.

A detail about actual good vs evil that's missing above is that of dedication level. Actual good is someone who will be willing to go out of their way, take risk, and sacrifice for someone's good. Actual evil is someone who will be willing to go out of their way, take risk, and sacrifice for someone's harm. Actual neutral may do things that are good/evil but is not too much effort, low risk, and low cost. This means that actual good is a little more heroic and that most people fall into actual neutral (more on that later). This dedication level is part of what it means to be selfless vs selfish: being selfish doesn't mean refusing to do something easy that helps someone.

The actual law dimension is not based on how many rules you have but how strongly you hold them. If a lawful character runs into a situation that his rules don't cover he isn't required to make a rule before he can act (although he is allowed to make a rule if he wants) which is to say that a lawful character can act and make decisions without needing to always depend on rules. However a lawful character has such respect for rules that if a rule is clear he'll want to follow it if possible. A lawful character need not subscribe to all rules (which would be impossible anyway) but he would typically appreciate the idea of the rule even if it's in a code that he doesn't follow. Conversely a chaotic person hates rules perhaps because he feels like rules restrict freedom (which is not always the case). Someone who thinks rules are mostly pointless would be neutral.

Lawful can be applied to all types of advice: philosophy, religion, common sayings, code of conduct, governmental laws, personal advice, plans, blueprints, instructions, or guidelines. Even though guidelines is in my definition of neutral the difference is how you view them not how the rules are written. A book with very general advice can be taken as gospel by a lawful person or a very specific book can be taken not very seriously by a neutral person. I'll use a vacation as an illustration but keep in mind that this is how such people might react and is not always the case since personality is much more complex than an alignment chart (also see "Why do we have D&D alignment?"). Alice prefers to join tour groups because she likes the way everything is planned out and she can look at the schedule to see what's next. Following structure like this makes her feel safe like everything is under control. Her love of rules makes her lawful. Carol likes to get an example itinerary online then quickly notes which items are important and edits in time to explore and do her own thing. If this is how she tends to treat all rules in life she would be neutral because she's using rules as a basis for her own ideas (which are not as rigid). Eve is given an itinerary. This makes her unhappy because the list makes her feel restricted, trapped, and controlled even though she enjoys all of the things on the list. Her hatred for rules makes her chaotic.

If a person thinks rules are good and opposes those rules because they want bad things to happen that would be evil but doesn't affect law/chaos. Although you certainly can respect the rules of others doing so doesn't affect how lawful you are. If a person is trying to overthrow society and makes a complex plan for how to do it then follows that plan exactly then they would be a lawful anarchist. This sounds like an oxymoron but it is because they have such respect for their own plan even though they have no respect for government's law. Recall that lawful only requires a positive view of rules of any kind (but not all kinds) in this case it is for their plan. A chaotic person wouldn't have a plan and a neutral person might make a vague plan but then improvise (without being forced to do so) just because they changed their mind about how some part should be done.

By my definition (ignoring "viewed") the average person would be true neutral. I consider this a strength of my definitions since most people are not heroes or villains. They don't think about morality much and live a normal life sometimes being good but only if it isn't too much too ask. Villains/antagonists would also rarely be evil (since selfish is the most common). I consider this to be a strength as well: most villains aren't evil and don't consider themselves evil. If a selfish villain gets what he wants then he may settle down. Whereas a truly evil villain is never satisfied because hurting people was the whole point (rather than a means to an end).

I feel like this is the best possible definition for alignment because it answers every issue I can think of. But you still shouldn't use alignment (see next post: "Why do we have D&D alignment?").