Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 22 Pt 1 - Roleplaying Your Alignment

Episode Date: May 24, 2020

Alignment - the much-maligned aspect of many modern RPG systems.  In Part 1, Jeremy discusses his theory on alignment, when it matters, and tips for roleplaying Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral and True Neutral characters.  Part 2 will release on Wednesday this week. Agree or disagree with any of these points?  Email me at [e-mail].  I'd love to hear from you! Resources: https://mykindofmeeple.com/role-playing-games/dungeons-and-dragons/ In depth alignment discussion:  http://easydamus.com/alignment.html Matthew Colville Alignment video in the Running the Game series:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgPhiLBW7jo

Welcome to Taking20 episode 22, Roleplaying Your Alignment. Today's sponsor, skunks. They're just as scared as you are, but now you're the one that smells worse. So roleplaying your alignment. Alignment historically has been a very controversial topic, going all the way from first edition all the way till now. I've heard arguments that alignment should drive every decision you make. As a peek to this entire episode, I strongly disagree with that statement.

I believe that your character's decisions drive your alignment, not the other way around. Much of the controversy was because game systems really tried to narrowly define what each alignment meant. was because game systems really tried to narrowly define what each alignment meant. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition had a big long paragraph for each alignment, their goals, their motivations, and their beliefs. Pathfinder reduced it to a few sentences. 5e made it even shorter. And then if you read the Pathfinder 2nd Edition rulebook, it defines the Law Chaos Scale and the Good Evil Scale, but it doesn't put a specific definition as to what the nine alignments exactly mean. So what are those nine alignments? For those who have no experience with the alignment system, the nine alignments are lawful good, neutral good,

chaotic good, lawful neutral, true neutral, chaotic neutral, lawful evil, neutral evil, and chaotic evil. So what is alignment? They are categories based on a character's general outlook on life, and they broadly describe moral and personal beliefs. Specifically, the alignment is a result of the choices your character has made throughout his, her, or its life. There's a great quote by John Wooden, the true test of a man's character is what he does when no one is watching. Alignment is a loosely defined system of beliefs that shows your character's tendency to act when no one is looking. So we've defined what alignment is, so let's take some time to define what it's not. Alignment is not a prescriptive mandate that can be used to take away choice.

Just because someone's lawful good, that doesn't mean they always have to act extreme lawful good all the time. Think of a villain, for example, who's trying to kill protagonists but also takes care of their mother at a nursing home when not masterminding plots to kill the PCs. Alignment is not an excuse to create a one-dimensional character or antagonist. Alignment is not an excuse to be a dick and just saying, I'm role-playing my alignment. No, you're role-playing a character who just did a dickish thing regardless of what his alignment is. Let's face it, bringing some realism into this, no one on the planet is a one-sided person. Everyone is nuanced in some way. Two characters with the exact same alignment and role-playing

that alignment well put in the same situation may make different choices with different outcomes. So alignment has two axes if you want to think of it this way. Good versus neutral versus evil, which can be summed up very briefly as selfless versus pragmatic versus focused, and law versus neutral versus chaos, which can be thought of structured versus flexible versus independence. Every alignment choice that's made can be minorly or extremely along the axis. For example, someone may be a little bit lawful and a lot good, or a little bit evil and a lot chaotic. Most alignments allow for a potential conflict, by the way. Think of a lawful good character, and if you've ever role-played before, a lot of us have this

idea of what a lawful good character is. This paladin who always does the right thing no matter what. Well, okay, let's take that paladin, and that paladin has the bad guy in his clutches, no matter what. Well, okay, let's take that paladin. And that paladin has the bad guy in his clutches. But if the bad guy isn't let go in 60 seconds, a bomb will detonate, killing 60 innocent civilians. What does your lawful good paladin do? Well, it does depend. Do you lean harder towards lawful? If so, maybe taking that bad guy in to face justice is more important because it prevents him from breaking the law and causing more damage down the road. But then again, you might think that saving the civilians is more important than bringing this one criminal mastermind in. Therefore, you're leaning more good. Listen, there's a running gag about lawful good before I even get into that alignment. One of my

favorite is from a movie called The Gamers, where the party kind of needs to rough up a guy for information, but there's a paladin in the party. And since the paladin has to be lawful good, the paladin would never agree to have someone beat up in front of him. So they always send him off on distracting tasks, like they look off in the woods and go, look, there's evildoers need to go where and go running off in the woods. They beat up this guy to get the information that they need. And the paladin would come back and say, oh gosh, I couldn't find him. Later on, the paladin's figured out what's going on, and so the last time in the movie they do it, they're about to rough up a guy for information, and they all look at the paladin, and the paladin looks off in the distance and says, oh my, are those columns ionic? And start heading

off that direction, walks off screen, so they can rough up this guy to get information from him. Many of the concepts we're going to talk about here are expanded upon great detail on a website called EasyDamus.com. Also, there's a great video done by Matthew Colville, the DM of the chain. He goes over the history of alignment, and I'm not linking to it because of this, but he also happens to agree with me on what alignment is and how it should be used in your game. So I'll provide a link to the resources page and the download page on taking20podcast.com. So please head to the resource page if you really want a lot more information on this.

That Easy Damas website goes so far into alignment, it is a very deep well. I'm going to try to use a consistent example for all nine alignments. Your brother bursts into the front door of your house and asks you to get him out of town because he just killed someone. The alignment definitions I'm going to use come directly from Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, but just know in research for this podcast, I read Dungeons & Dragons 1st through 5th Edition, Pathfinder 1st and 2nd edition, and Starfinder handbooks. Not to mention YouTube videos and debate with my friends and gaming groups. So let's talk lawful good. Lawful good, you can be counted on to do the right thing as expected

by society. That's directly out of 5e. Generally think of this, you're acting with compassion, honor, and a sense of duty. You have a moral code. You believe in order, structure, and upright behavior. So how do you role play this? Now, with each alignment, I'm going to give an example of somebody who typically defines that alignment in a lot of online discussions. The characters that I pick for these examples are subject to debate. For Lawful good, I picked Superman. Now, you can make a lot of arguments that he's actually neutral good, and that's not the purpose of this episode of the podcast. Lawful good in general, think of the way Superman acts.

Respect the laws of good societies. Does not uphold a law that runs counter to lawful and goodness. Believes justice and law should prevail. Helps those in need because good deeds will be rewarded, works well with others who aren't evil, will sacrifice self to help others. When he has an enemy beaten, he'll allow that enemy to surrender. Now please note, that doesn't mean a lawful good character is naive. It doesn't mean that a lawful good character is what we affectionately refer to as lawful stupid, or as my brother-in-law calls it, lawful annoying.

You would allow an enemy to surrender, but if that enemy stabs a character in the back, then he's probably not going to react the same way the next time. So you are lawful good, and your brother bursts into your house and says he kills someone. How would you react? If you're more lawful, you might actually turn him in, even if that leans towards lawful neutral. If you're more good, you may try to help him via legal ways, maybe even help him leave the town via legal ways, and then look for ways within the law to defend him and do the right thing. If you're lawful good, your friends will call you friendly,

and do the right thing. If you're lawful good, your friends will call you friendly, loyal, courteous, reliable, trustworthy, and helpful. However, you can also be seen as inflexible, tied to beliefs, arrogant, self-righteous. The second alignment is neutral good. Defined in 5e as you do the best you can to help others according to their needs. You act altruistically without regard for or against lawful precepts. As a neutral good character, you do what's right, good, and helpful. You're more than willing to bend rules when you need to if that means you're doing a good thing. You value a balance of personal freedom and adherence to laws that are good and just. Doing right, in short, is more important than following the law. So how do you role play it?

Trying to think of examples of neutral good, I struggled with this one probably the most of any of the alignments. Doing some research online, there's a lot of discussion about things like Harry Potter and Captain America and possibly Thor doing the right thing for as many people as possible. So there's a lot about neutral good that's the same as lawful good. You don't harm innocents. You don't torture or kill for pleasure. You help those in need whenever possible, sometimes going out of your way and inconveniencing yourself to do so. You understand the need for laws, but too many of them deprive others of the ability to do good. You don't necessarily feel bad about lying to known evildoers. You definitely don't cause any undue suffering.

So you're neutral good. Your brother comes to your house and says he killed someone. Chances are you try to find out who he killed, maybe help your brother escape, and try to clear his name on the side. Friends would call you self-reliant, kind, respectful, friendly, courteous, merciful, and giving. However, you can also be seen by other good characters as slightly unpredictable and unreliable in certain circumstances. Chaotic good. Chaotic good characters act as their conscience directs with little regard for what others expect. You do what's necessary to change things for the better.

You don't let bureaucracy get in the way of doing what's right. You're willing to break the law to do good, and maybe even enjoy breaking the law to do good. Freedom and independence are just as important as life and happiness. You tend to be individualistic, but you can work with others. So how do you roleplay chaotic good? Well, the classic example is Robin Hood, and it's hard to think of a better one. He broke the laws and lived in Sherwood Forest because the government run by the Sheriff of Nonningham was undeniably evil. So roleplaying chaotic good is similar to neutral good in a lot of ways. You don't harm innocents, you don't kill for pleasure, you help those in need. You dislike restrictive laws though. Maybe you have a slight distrust of

authority. You keep your word to non-evil entities but maybe you can lie to evil ones. You won't torture for pleasure but you may rough up for information if you need to and you're very distrustful of organizations. So you're chaotic good and your brother comes to your house and says he killed someone. What do you do? You get him out of town and give him the resources to stay hidden. Friends would call you independent, free-spirited, optimistic, helpful, kind, respectful of personal liberties. Other people would call you rebellious, clashing with other good characters, rebelling against systems maybe when it's not even necessary. Lawful neutral. Lawful neutral characters act in accordance with law, tradition, and personal codes.

They value honor, order, rules, and tradition, following a personal code in addition to those set by authority. Lawful neutral alignment tends to be more dispassionate and calculating. They may even lean harder on the letter of the law than the spirit or intent of it. They believe a strong, well-ordered government is necessary, regardless of good or evil. If the law is wrong, then they would suggest, rather than breaking the law to do the right thing, use legal ways to change the law. They believe in being respectful to leaders and people in authority over them. They are very mindful of social casts. Perfect example, Commissioner Gordon from Batman. Judge Dredd.

Mama is not the law. I am the law. In a lot of ways, lawful neutral is the same as lawful good. You'll keep your word. You don't kill for pleasure. But there are some differences. You may use torture to extract information, but never pleasurable to do so, and only if it's legal. You may help those in need, only to advance the normal social order.

You work very well with others. You respond very well to authority. You tend to trust organizations and tend to follow the law. So your brother comes to your house and says he killed someone. You are very likely to turn him in if you go pure lawful neutral. Friends call you reliable, responsible, orderly, loyal, and respectful of authority. Others call you rigid, methodical, and respectful of authority. Others call you rigid, methodical, emotionless, merciless, and maybe even oppressive. The fifth alignment, honestly, is the hardest one. True neutral.

True neutral are those who prefer to steer clear of moral questions and don't take sides, doing what seems best at the time. So they don't lean strongly towards any alignment, or they actively seek to balance them. So there's two different kinds of neutral we can talk about here. The first kind is the neutral, dispassionate, calculating, understanding that law and chaos are opposing forces and good and evil are opposing forces and struggles to remain in the middle of both of those axes. to remain in the middle of both of those axes. Another type of neutral slightly oscillates between law chaos and good evil, never to extremes on either axis, but maybe wobbles a little bit around the neutral axis so the grand sum total is neutral if you added it all up. A neutral character will evaluate each situation independently and make a decision. However, that character may save the

most people one day or maybe try to not upset the status quo the next. Neutral characters tend to be concerned with their own well-being. They may be good to friends but malicious to those who wrong them. A hellfire and brimstone preacher is just as bad as an evil racial supremacist. The true neutral may view the other alignments as necessary forces in the universe and all equally important to each other. They remain non-judgmental. So how do you role play neutral? So thinking of examples, Treebeard from Lord of the Rings is cheating because he's a tree. Animals would be cheating because they're by definition neutral. When thinking of characters from movies or TV shows, one of the ones I thought of was Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly.

He does the right things a lot of times, but sometimes he's a little bit of a scoundrel. I mean, he's not a great man. Mercy is the mark of a great man. Guess I'm just a good man. Well, I'm just a good man. Well, I'm alright. True neutral, like lawful neutral, will not kill for pleasure. You'll keep word if it's in your best interest. You may harm a person if it's necessary.

You may use torture to extract information, but you'll never do it for pleasure. You'll help others in need if it's in your best interest. Authority is great as long as it's parallel to your own self-interest. You follow the law unless breaking it's in your own best interest. You value your own well-being and the well-being of loved ones, and you tend not to betray family members or friends unless the situation's dire. So your brother comes to your house and says he kills someone. What's in your best interest? Is's in your best interest? Is it in your best interest to protect family?

If so, that's what you would do. Is it in your best interest to not help him at all and not turn him in? That might be your choice. Or you could turn him in. Neutral allows for a little bit of oscillation back and forth. I mean, friends will call you diplomatic, self-reliant, even-handed, and impartial. But others will call you distant, non-committal, wishy-washy. All right, party people.

At this point, I'm 16 minutes into my 20-minute time limit of this edited-down episode, and I still have four alignments to go. Looks like it's going to be a two-parter this week. If you're listening to this as it comes out, I'll release a second part on Wednesday, so look for the episode then. In the meantime, thank you so much for tuning in to Taking20 episode 22, Roleplaying Your Alignment, part one, and I want to once again thank our sponsor. Our sponsor is Skunks, the original junk in the trunk. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game.