rkhs@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (joseph lee bernstein) (05/11/85)
Aways back when I was confidently designing the 'perfect' game system, I came up with the following five dimensions of alignment. (Yes, you read right.) So, obviously, since then I've simply opted for role-playing. Here's why: LAWFUL v. CHAOTIC: Pretty much straight from the AD&D: society v. individu- alism. The connections between this and personal life (outside strictly ethical matters) strike me as confusing--call for subtle role-playing. GOOD v. EVIL: I drew this distinction over the idea of rights. But that's my CG bias. Perhaps it's better stated that Good rests on accepting that morality is universal, Evil on otherwise? Or Good has general happiness as its goal, Evil doesn't? I think a distinction of emphasis matters more than one of strict belief; Evils can claim their doctrines lead to the only real kind of general happiness, but then look at their *means* to it, or at *what* they mean by it! By the way, the essentially negative nature of evil has a lot to do with the absence of redeemed demons in Judaeo-Christian tradition, ergo in most gaming. MACHIAVELLIAN v. ANTI-MACHIAVELLIAN: Yup. Can this be equated w/ Good v. Evil? Unless it can it's obviously necessary. MORAL v. IMMORAL: A practical index for DMs. Many people don't live perfectly by their beliefs; why expect paladin-like strictness of thieves? And kind of following that last question AMORAL v. ALIGNED: With 'Selfish' in between, as in 'Selfish Neutral'--very different from druidism. Lots of people don't *have* many beliefs. Some of these distinctions rest on some pretty major assumptions, e.g. that there is a worthwhile definition of 'Good' that allows it to be Machiavellian. But a number of them don't--anybody care to tell me 'immoral'='amoral'? I think most of them hold, leaving an absurd range of possibilities. Suddenly, discarding the pretense that philosophy *has* to be a major part of a PC's accouterments looks a lot more attractive.
szy@gcc-bill.ARPA (Steven J Szymanski <SZY>) (05/14/85)
? A few years back, a friend and I want through a similar exercise and came up with two different dimensions for alignments which relate to your "MACHIAVELLIAN VS ANTI-MACHIAVELLIAN" and "AMORAL VS ALIGNED" but are perhaps more orthogonal to the standard Good-Evil/Law-Chaos conflicts. They are: Subtle vs. Direct: Do you prefer to be straightforward about your intentions and actions, or do you prefer to work by subtle, indirect means?. Active vs. Passive: Do you take an active role in ordering your environment to conform to your vision of "the way things should be" or do you lets things run their own course? If you include the character's own person in the above statement (do you try to get yourself to live up to your own beliefs?) then you get something similar to your "AMORAL VS ALIGNED" axis. Prince of Wands Steven J Szymanski harvard!gcc-bill!szy