From: cassidy@pleiades.cps.msu.edu (John J Cassidy)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc,rec.games.frp.advocacy,rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: Re: Alignments
Date: 2 Sep 92 16:24:29 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Michigan State University

In article <1SEP199219354030@rosie.uh.edu> lib1p@rosie.uh.edu (Tammy Stark Blandino) writes:
>I have a new topic if anyone would like to discuss it.  Alignments.
>
>Remember Alignments from AD&D?  Well my gaming group has often
>had heated discussions on alignments.  Now I'm not interested in
>a flame war.  I just want some other opinions.

	I can tell by your post below that you might not remember
Alignments from D&D:  Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic.  These were the best
set of alignments as far as I'm concerned.  RuneQuest, though not using
a system of Alignment, used these alignments (/designations).  They
describe things in terms of loyalty, as RQ2 says that Stafford and
Perrin do not believe in "Alignments" and believe that people are more
likely to have loyalties to country or town or cult than to abstracts. 
Thus Stafford and Perrin are saying that there is a alignment of
relationship to loyalties.  Thus a lawful person is the highest on the
loyalty scale, and the Chaotic the lowest, with no loyalty to anyone,
not even the societal structures mentioned above.

	For a while, LNC was the alignment system of D&D.  Paladin's,
added in a D&D supplement, were classed Lawful; they were not allowed to
heavily associate themselves with unprincipled chaotics.  What was
really interesting about the alignment of Paladin's was that they could
be ruthless and cruel, as some have been in history, but they could be
kind and gentle and relatively pacifistic, depending on the way you
wanted to play YOUR character.  This was capable of creating DRAMA!
BadCop/GoodCop situations, discussions of how strong a good was the
public good, etc.  When Gygax added Good and Evil, and tried to
pigeon-hole characters is where the system went awry.  He restricted the
Palidin-class to Lawful-Good, and thus GM's started to interpret the
Palidin's actions on a standard of morality instead of behavior.  The
paladin was not supposed to do that which was bad, even if it was in the
line of completing the goal of his virtuous quest.  And in one case
noted in the Dragon, the GM punnished the Paladin for punching a Dryad
in the nose, when the Dryad had been trying to kill the rest of the
party; the GM's decision was the violence was not nice and so the
Paladin shouldn't do something like that.  Before, a GM would just have
had to think about whether or not the paladin had taken an oath against
punching a Dryad, or whether it was viewed by his society as wrong, or
whether there was a particular law in that part of the forest against
punching Dryads, and so on.  Even then, however, he would have to weigh
it against loyalty to his comrades, and laws that applied to his group.

	Problem that I find with the Grid of Alignment is that Laws are
created by Society or Institutions of Society.  In many societies Laws
are put up to insure the Good.  Even in societies where one class
exploits another, and so not every law is helping everybody, there are
laws put forth protecting the Good of most.  If what is happening is
that these laws are only being partially inforced, then what seems to
be happening is that you have some of your inforcers who are acting
"chaotic", in only caring about a segment of the society.  They are
personally overriding the laws of the society depending upon their
individual interpretation of what the laws are actually supposed to do.
	Also along these lines, is the idea of Chaotic Good.  Now some
have viewed Chaotic Good as some sort of Freedom society ala the
Hippies, and Haite-Ashbury.  The problem of interpreting the distinction
of Chaotic Good that was is that it suggests that there is no laws.  And
there may not be.  But the idea of Hippy-dom is "Harmony" not chaotic
individual action, where each person takes it upon himself to do what he
wants when he wants.  When contrasting the term "Chaotic" and "Lawful",
someone looks at a Lawful society as one with alot of Laws and the
Chaotic society as one with little.  But all great "Chaotic" societies
are governed by "Codes".  Each individual person subscribes to the Code
by consent, and not just because they live in the jurisdiction, as would
be the case in a society of laws.  And what happens then is that the
society becomes a different interpretation of Good and a different class
of law.  Criminal acts become more a case of equity, moderated by the
group.
	So there is some tie between Good and Law.  And conversely there
is some tie between Chaotic/selfish type of behavior and Evil.
Therefore, I always found that the Grid wasn't as four-cornered as
Gygax tried to pretend it was-- more rhomboidal.  And I think that the
original designations of Lawful and Chaotic work better.  If you are
Chaotic you are a selfist; the only standard that you have for your
actions is your own, you do not give your loyalty to anything; and so
are unreliable, even though in your acrions you are capable of acts of
kindness ( if you so desire, but remember that a belief in universal
kindness is a standard of behavior, and not completely personnal. ).
But you are dangerous, as well.  There is no predicting the avenue of
your actions, you threaten the running of a society.

	I cannot prove what I have asserted above.  But an examination
of even Marxism will support what I allege.  Marx believe that the first
act of property was a theft from the group, thus non-lawful behavior.
Marx also argues that selfishness is the chief motivator for the
upper-classes choice of laws: to keep their store of wealth and to
prevent any dilution of that wealth, by subjugating the underclassed.
And Nietche believed that adherence to society's laws was the only
standard that could be established-- no good, no evil, just laws.
I do not need to state the relationship that traditional society finds
between the law and the good.

	Neither do I subscribe to frp.dnd.  And I think that alignments
are outdated, but the above was just my statement of the problems I
found with AD&D's alignment system, and that if you have to have any
kind of alignment system, the older one was better.

	John J Cassidy		cassidy@cps.msu.edu
	~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
	
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