Character Building: The Alignment Axis

"When the Devil is too busy / And death's a bit too much / They call on me / By name you see / For my special touch."

I should probably just come out and say it. I prefer Pen and Paper games that don't use alignment. In even the best games, it can feel a lot like a parent constantly looking over your shoulder. Most of us will, at least a few times a game, step back and contemplate whether or not our character would do something, and the declaration of an alignment(Or even a Nature in World of Darkness) is what causes this, in my experience. Games that lack alignment end up having richer characters with more complex motivations. Alignment can even lead to arguments. I'm sure everyone's been around for one of THOSE: a game dragged to a halt by a GM or a fellow player questioning a character's actions based solely on their alignment.

"Lorian wouldn't do THAT, he's CHAOTIC GOOD!"

"That's an EVIL ACT, Jason. Your character ISN'T EVIL."

Or my personal favorite, Star Wars and its Dark Side Points, the literal Evil Scoreboard.

However, I begrudgingly admit that a high fantasy game needs to have these lines drawn: These are the same black and white morals as a classic superhero game, but without many of the trappings that make the morality there obvious. Fantasy heroes don't wear costumes, and fantasy villains frequently have far more reasonable goals than a supervillain does. In addition to all of that, the machinations and favor of gods are very important to the genre...and thus clear lines need to be drawn. So, I'm going to discuss alignment so as to minimize some of the ridiculousness floating around about how this all works.

Anyway, there's a TLDR at the end of this. If you feel the irony of me discussing a really simple concept at length is getting to you, or if you're confused, feel free to skip to the bottom.

First off I want to address the elephant in the room. Alignment is where a lot of books go really badly wrong with descriptions. Some 1e and 2e sources said absurd things like a true neutral person would switch sides in a battle to keep it even, or a chaotic neutral person would flip a coin in the same situation. They describe Chaotic Evil as sand-bagging in a fight so he'd have enough spell slots to force his friends to give him all the treasure, and Chaotic Neutral as foolishly charging a Gorgon for no reason. Really, someone at TSR had a serious grudge for Chaotic Neutral and it ended up so maligned that its reputation of being "the insane alignment" has stuck to this day. This kind of thing completely moronic, and there's an easy way to keep yourself on track while reading this stupidity: Remember that these are normal people. There's no difference(in terms of morals and ethics) between a character made in Dungeons and Dragons and one made in Shadowrun. So if a game starts telling you something absurd, hopefully you'll notice.

Anyway. Alignment is super-simple and elegant. Even though I dislike alignments in general, I have to admit efforts to simplify it such as in 4e are insulting. Alignment is a pair of Axis: One Ethical and one Moral. I am aware that the word Ethics has a lot of meanings and is sometimes used interchangeably with morals. Please bear with me and I'll explain which type I mean soon. Essentially, the Alignment Axis puts you into one of nine categories by asking you to choose where you lie on these two axis: Basically Yes, Don't Care, or No.

The Ethical Axis. We're going into this one first because it's listed first when you give your alignment. This is defined as your opinion on the artificial conventions of man. Basically, on one end of this axis is honor, reliability, respect of authority, and structure. On the other end of this axis is the logical opposite: Freedom, adaptability, mistrust of authority and a focus on the individual, whether that means yourself or others. Chaos is not selfishness(No, that's later) but instead an insistence that the individual is important over the whole of society. Law is the opposite.

In fact...this really is the axis of politics. Law can be defined fairly easily as "the system is important", in that the person in question feels rigid systems such as honor or written laws are most important. Chaos believes the individual and his freedom are more important. He may even think that Law's vaunted systems ultimately take away the individual's freedom. I'm sure there's a comparison between Liberal and Conservative in here somewhere, but I can't find it at the moment.

This means he may have an important personal system like a code of honor or rigid set of structures to his life. However, it also means that he feels the CONCEPT of structure is important. He's the type of person to uphold laws because the structures they provide is important. If the law is wrong(like the classic conflict of legal slavery) then two things he believes are in conflict: Helping the helpless and innocent is important, but so is structure and law.

But that's it. Honestly. I understand there's some wiggle room in each category and we do have to live with that. Two men can still be defined as Lawful and still disagree heavily about a certain situation. Putting personalities into categories is always going to be like this, and one of our biggest mistakes is trying to narrowly define something that's such a big, wide category.

The Moral Axis. Moving on, the other axis is Good and Evil, with another obvious "Don't care" in the middle. This one confuses people a lot less, thank God. I don't really even need to go into it, since most of us know what I mean when I say "Good" and "Evil". However, I'm trying to prove a point, so here we go anyway. Good is obviously the notion that the innocent should be protected and the needy should be helped. Evil is the notion that the self is most important, and that the innocent and needy should be used and exploited. An Evil person believes (in general) that it's up to the individual to help themselves.

And thus we arrive to our boil-down. Good believes in Altruism, and Evil believes in the Self. Cruelty happens because a man is more concerned with his own property, with his own reputation, or even his own amusement, than the pain his actions cause to another person. Simple. Good believes others should be helped and protected, and that the 'self' is not as important as someone less fortunate.

Obviously, someone who's selfish can still have friends. Sincere ones that he actually cares about. Dunbar's Number, or more famously referred to as the Monkeysphere, tells us there's a cognitive limit to the number of people we're able to care about. It's easy to think of an Evil character's as simply a much smaller number. Selfishness doesn't always mean personal, but it often does. Everyone has a concept of "Others". They may be people outside a group we belong to, people we don't know personally, or, in some cases, even everyone but ourselves. The way the character feels about those "others" are where his moral alignment lies.

What the Fuck I'm Talking About. What I'm saying is that the alignment axis is really simple at the end of the day, and conflicts and annoyances happen when someone tries to more narrowly define one of its six categories. We argue because we get it into our heads that someone's not "evil" enough, not "good" enough, or even sometimes, "Not Chaotic Good Enough". I went into how our predefined notions and baggage affect the Paladin, so I hope you can see what I'm getting at. Our opinion of what alignment represents is far, far larger than what it actually is.

To prove that yes, it really is this simple, I'm going to go into some of the alignments and show you how my simple definitions still end up pointing out the alignment's classic and "typical" personal outlook. We all know the "Stereotypes" of the alignments, but if you're confused please feel free to contact me personally. In the spirit of brevity, I won't be pointing out every single classic stereotype before I discuss them.

Lawful Good. "I believe in Structure and Altruism.". The lawful good character believes that the system works. That it's necessary. He feels rigid structure is necessary to keep the helpless safe and to help the needy. He feels that helping others is important, but without structure it can be harder, or even impossible. Honor and Laws, to him, exist as a tool or method to help others.

Lawful Evil. "I believe in Structure and myself." Obviously few would ever SAY they believe in "myself first", but the Lawful Evil character is selfish nonetheless. He, like the LG person, believes that "the system" is important. He believes in structure. However, since he is only concerned with himself, he sees the system as a tool. He sees it as something to get "good" at, to manipulate to shackle other people. He sees things like honor and laws as a way to garner himself more power.

Chaotic Good. "I believe in Freedom and Altruism." The classic Chaotic Good character believes a person's own freedom is vitally important, but he also believes in protecting and helping those in need. He feels letting people do what they want is important, but has no problem drawing the line when he sees something wrong. Wrong is Wrong, and a law telling him that it's not is simply idiotic at best. His reputation for unreliability or randomness may come from his love of freedom, since it includes his freedom to follow his desires.

Chaotic Evil. "I believe in Freedom and Myself." The archetype of villains, Chaotic Evil, feels that freedom is important. To put a finer point on it, he feels that HIS freedom to do what HE wants is important. He doesn't care about other people. He doesn't care about absurd things like written laws or "fake" structures like honor. People should take what they want. The world is Kill or Be Killed, and anything else is a weak person trying to convince themselves otherwise.

This works for all nine alignments, but since the partially neutral alignments are less complex, I'm going to gloss over them a bit. When someone has no strong opinion for one axis, it means they believe solely in their other axis. Obviously. A lawful neutral person doesn't believe systems of honor and law are "for" anything. He believes they're necessary by themselves. They are not a tool to him, they are simply something important. A Chaotic Neutral character isn't insane or wacky, they simply believe in freedom for freedom's sake. To him, personal freedom is the only important thing, with questions of morality being met with ambivalence at best. Neutral Evil is consummate selfishness, Neutral Good is consummate Altruism. The True Neutral (Neutral Neutral) character is unique in that he may believe there is balance in everything...or he simply may have no strong stance.

A small note on conflict. As I mentioned earlier, the Lawful Good person may have conflicting emotions about something such as an evil being legal in an area. This will happen somewhat often to all four alignments with no neutral components...however, admittedly less so with evil ones. I will go into the nature of evil soon, but suffice to say when you feel the self is more important, you tend to have less compunctions about other things. Anyway, when the two concepts a character feels important are in conflict, it means he's making a hard decision. It doesn't necessarily mean he's being forced to choose one alignment axis over the other, even though it can often feel that way. A person's actions are always going to be tempered by the specifics of the situation, and a compromise with themselves doesn't need their alignment "took a hit" or "needs to change".

In fact, even though this is getting a little long, I want to put this here especially. Alignment isn't a set of shackles. It's a category. There's no need to argue or bitch. Be nice. If someone has an alignment component to their class and you're the GM, warn them if you feel they're stepping out of line. Give them time to step back in so nobody loses their class abilities. Poke people whose alignment seems to be changing over the course of the game, and if they like that idea, chill. People change, and sometimes this is the most fun you can have in a game. There's no reason to shackle people to one alignment and punish them for changing. Look at Vegeta during the Saiyan arc when he was introduced. Then, look at the Frieza saga, and then finally the end of the show after the Buu arc. Ask yourself if he's the same alignment in all of these eras.

Overall, to give you guys the TLDR of all this, alignment is just a lot simpler than you think. It's a question of how your character feels about four base concepts. That's what you need to take away from this. There is no "I'm more Good than Lawful." except where a person comes into conflict with themselves and makes a decision about a situation. Alignment isn't a 1-10 grade of where you stand or what's more important than what. It's not nine different specific little outlooks. It's not a narrow little box your character is shackled into, and it's not four concepts each weighed against the other three.

It's two simple questions with three answers each, because saying "Neither" is a valid answer.

"What's more important, Structure or Freedom?"

"What's more important, helping Others or helping Yourself?"

That's it.