Character Alignments

[georgelee5786]

chaotic neutral

 

[TheEldritchGod]

I am an orthodox Bacon Neutral Neutral Or BNN.

 

[LunaSoltaer]

Yeah, lawful dumbasses, indeed.

While this has an element of truth, I still want to clarify something. I didn't say I USED alignment to write my characters. I said I APPLIED alignment to my mc. The story I'm working on was an edit of my bad first novel. Though my first mc was overpowered, that was his only good quality. He was weak, boring, and didn't even survive till the end of the novel, so this time, I changed him from the goody-two-shoes, lawful dumbass that he was to a freer, stronger version of himself. He wouldn't be selfless, but I didn't want him to be an asshole, and Chaotic Neutral was precisely what I was looking for, so I added that to all my other character-building.

My intent in writing this was for alignment to be used as a tool, as you rightly pointed out, but it shouldn't be the only tool because that would be bland. Writers should consider other things about their characters, and when they need to navigate the complicated world of morality, they can lean on these interpretations of alignment to help them. My character is confident yet not overconfident, realistic with a touch of idealism, and playful but can be mature when he needs to be. I didn't sum up his entire personality in two words, "Chaotic Neutral," and neither should you do that with any alignment.

It sounds like you picked up a flawed system, aware of those flaws, and you wielded it as a shorthand to capture a short synopsis of your character by querying vibes off the collective unconscious and doing a best-fit analysis with respect to your character.

As a writer, you should feel empowered to use anything and everything you wish to use, whether on- or off-label, to conjure your vision. Be mindful of how your audience will think, sure, but don't let them shackle you.

I wonder if this transformation of your Main Character also reflected a transformation within yourself, but that would be psychoanalyzing.

 

[BearlyAlive]

Alignments are like onions. They make me cry. The only alignment that's always there is "lawfully dumb" anyway.

Alignments are somewhat of a noob trap, imo. They unknowingly restrict characters into certain boxes. "No, my villain can't be nice to animals, he's evil. He has to be mean!"

A moral compass is more useful for writing a character than the tabletop alignment chart. Give a character borders and preferences.

 

[RepresentingCaution]

That does indeed provide a lot of food for thought!

 

[CarburetorThompson]

D&D alignment system is cringe and restricts creativity

 

[TheEldritchGod]

D&D alignment system is cringe and restricts creativity

Eh... it depends.

You see, the D&D alignment system means you accept that there is OBJECTIVE evil and OBJECTIVE good and OBJECTIVE law and OBJECTIVE chaos.

In the real world, there is no such thing. People and things are not good/evil. Actions are. And if we were to actually try and do this, we would have more then two axis.

Good - Evil
Order - Chaos
Lawful - Criminal
Positive - Negative

Good and evil would be the morality of your action
Order and Chaos would be if it increases order or causes more disorder.
Lawful or Criminal would be if the action is according to local government or against said laws
Positive or Negative would be if the outcome improved the situation.

Murder, is evil. However, if I kill a psycho who murders random children, that would increase order. However, vigilante justice is criminal. However, I think stopping a psycho from murdering children would be positive.

This only applies to actions. However, in the D&D setting, there is EVIL. You can detect it. It can infect objects. OBJECTS CAN BE EVIL. Just... sitting there. Evil. So, in that setting, morality is an objective force. Evil exists. Period.

In the real world, There is no pure evil/pure good. I cannot point to anything that isn't alive and say, "That is EVIL". We like to. We like to call things moral, but in reality, anything you might think is evil, what really matters is how you use it.

Now if you WANT an objective morality universe, go for it. There's no need to limit yourself to subjective morality. Or you can have fun with some of your universe being objective morality, yet have a person from a subjective morality universe and have them wander about.

In my d20 Campaign, Forgotten Realms is OBJECTIVE Morality. However, Eberron setting is SUBJECTIVE morality. So when the PCs went from FR to Eberron, they had to deal with all sorts of fun. In FR your Dragons are color coded for your ease of Morality. All red dragons are Chaotic Evil. But in Eberron, they could be Lawful good. Just because you see a traditionally evil race in Eberron, doesn't mean you can just run in and murder everyone.

BOY did my players HATE Eberron.

In fact, over the decades, Eberron got a reputation as being just CURSED. Whenever the players wound up in Eberron they immediately freaked out and would move heaven and earth to escape. Eberron was HELL for the players. If you know Eberron setting, it's actually... well... think 19th century but with Magitech/Punk in a post WW1 vibe.

Ahh... I loved using Eberron. My players were dungeon destroying machines, but threaten a little interdimentional portal bullshit and they run screaming.

Good times, good times.

 

[Getterkuma]

If I had to place my characters into these boxes it would be.

Callis: Lawful Neutral (with inclination to good)
Novus: Neutral Good (with inclination to chaotic)
Berula: True Neutral (with inclination to chaotic)
Conatus: True Neutral (with inclination to chaotic)
Sagitta: Lawful Good
Parvus: Neutral Evil (With inclination to lawful)
Foedesius: Neutral Evil (with inclination to chaotic)
Falco: Neutral Evil

Still, this would be just a very superficial read of the characters.