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[jwhouk]

Sparked by the conversation about Pintsize and May: what are the "class alignments" of our various characters?

For those of you who aren't D&D nerds: there are two basic "alignments" for characters - lawful vs. chaos, good vs. evil. Lawful vs. Chaos is the difference between order and rules against randomness and chance. Good vs. evil is respect for life and concern for others vs. causing harm to others and lack of respect for life.

I'd put Pintsize in the Chaotic Neutral category, personally, while Momo would be more in the lawful good alignment.

So what say you all?

[hedgie]

Agreed on those.  As for the others.  Hmm, Faye would probably be Chaotic Good, Marten Neutral Doormat, Hanners probably Neutral Good, Winslow True Neutral, Hannermom Lawful Evil.  Not sure about the rest of the cast.

[techkid]

A helpful (and humorous) guide to D&D alignments from another webcomic I read.

http://www.d20monkey.com/2014/04/23/a-matter-of-alignment/

[KOK]

Dave is awful good.

[Rghfrgl]

Agreed on those.  As for the others.  Hmm, Faye would probably be Chaotic Good, Marten Neutral Doormat, Hanners probably Neutral Good, Winslow True Neutral, Hannermom Lawful Evil.  Not sure about the rest of the cast.

Hanners condition pretty much demands she be lawful lawful.

[KOK]

A helpful (and humorous) guide to D&D alignments from another webcomic I read.

http://www.d20monkey.com/2014/04/23/a-matter-of-alignment/

Funny, but note that these are alignment abuses, not what the alignments are supposed to be. "Only neutral good" is the worst. Neutral good is no less good than the other good alignments. And chaotic has to do with freedom, not randomness.

[Schmee]

I think we could go past alignments and make up entire DnD characters for each character.

Pintsize would be Chaotic Evil, probably some kind of gnoll. A mage, with like a billion useless cantrips memorised.
Marten would follow that guest strip and be a bard, which fits him remarkably well - good with music, fairly useless otherwise.
What would MartenMom be... a rogue, wearing impractical leather armour? Would her BDSM experience translate to some kind of Domination ability, or a high Intimidate score?

This looks like a goldmine, people.

[Loki]

Sven would also be a bard, with a Charisma through the roof, but low Wisdom.

...Coincidentally, I played a bard in our forum DnD game.

[techkid]

VV definitely would get bonuses for initiative.

Funny, but note that these are alignment abuses, not what the alignments are supposed to be. "Only neutral good" is the worst. Neutral good is no less good than the other good alignments. And chaotic has to do with freedom, not randomness.

I know. But when jwhouk put Pintsize down as 'Chaotic Neutral', that just sprang to mind. Particularly "hide the peanut butter, it's about to get weird."

[Platypodes]

VV is definitely chaotic good. 

Jim--lawful good.

May--chaotic evil.

Sam--chaotic neutral.

[Mr_Rose]

VV is definitely chaotic good. 

Jim--lawful good.

May--chaotic evil.

Sam--chaotic neutral.

No, May is not chaotic evil. If she's chaotic at all, it's chaotic neutral and if she's evil at all it's neutral evil. When chaotic evil types want a thing, they normally destroy anything that's between them and "their" thing; they don't go to semi-elaborate lengths to play the system in order to purchase that thing.
Personally I reckon she's a slightly naive chaotic neutral who figured "hey all those other guys got away with embezzling shit-tons of money, why shouldn't I?" without actually bothering to answer the question properly before launching her Grand Plan.

But seriously though, Chaotic Evil is the "worst" of the evil alignments; not even emperor palpatine and Voldemort were chaotic evil and, to be honest, the odds of having a CE character anywhere in QC are startlingly low. The closest there has been was VespAvenger though she'd probably claim to be chaotic good if asked.

[bhtooefr]

VespaVenger thinks she's Chaotic Good but is actually Lawful Evil (and trying to enforce her own laws).

[Shjade]

Honestly, I think this kind of listing would probably end up pretty dull in the end as, like, 90% of the cast is Chaotic Neutral: they're all prone to just kinda doing what they feel like doing in the moment and only thinking about the repercussions afterward. Usually after those repercussions have already happened as well. Some of them try to do the right thing more often than not, some of them consider what feels to them like the right thing (these are two similar but different concepts of "right"), but most of the time they're just sorta...reactionary.

Momo's a clear exception, I'd agree with the earlier Lawful Good suggestion for her.

Hanners is more difficult to categorize; her condition and self-imposed "laws" it applies might suggest Lawful, but given she actively tries to break those "laws" by challenging herself to overcome her limitations, I'm not sure it's really accurate to describe that as her inherent alignment.

Marten, being among the characters least prone to extreme things and worrying about whether he's stepping on any toes in the progress after the fact, is probably closer to true neutral than chaotic. Crossing the country on a whim might seem pretty random, but it's perfectly legal and, more importantly, it was motivated by a fairly restricted interpretation of his living situation, in a sense: he wasn't doing it just to do it, he was doing it because he felt like he had more reason to follow the girl than stay where he was. In essence, it was the opposite of a "wild and free" decision. It was more like being tugged to the east coast on a leash, even if the leash was only in his head.

Most of the other characters, just off the top of my head? Yeah, chaotic neutral across the board.

[jwhouk]

At one point, I think there was one of those quiz thingys that could help determine "alignment". I'll see if I can Google it.

[snubnose]

Yeah theres an online test for that http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20001222b

I'm neutral good. Hu ! I was lawful good in the past.

[bhtooefr]

I'm apparently chaotic neutral, although some of those questions were a bit strange, and I'd guess I'd actually be a bit closer to neutral good.

[GarandMarine]

Apparently I'm true neutral

[94ssd]

I think we could go past alignments and make up entire DnD characters for each character.

Pintsize would be Chaotic Evil, probably some kind of gnoll. A mage, with like a billion useless cantrips memorised.
Marten would follow that guest strip and be a bard, which fits him remarkably well - good with music, fairly useless otherwise.
What would MartenMom be... a rogue, wearing impractical leather armour? Would her BDSM experience translate to some kind of Domination ability, or a high Intimidate score?

This looks like a goldmine, people.

I think that Pintsize is a Chaotic Neutral. Very chaotic, perhaps. But he's not out to conquer, destroy, or cause much harm at all, really.

I got lawful good, which I'm kind of surprised at considering my responses. I was almost certain I was being steered toward some type of neutral.

[jwhouk]

Huh. Neutral.

[Redball]

And neutral here as well.

[KOK]

Ditto.

[snubnose]

Most common alignment is reportedly chaotic good.

[Barmymoo]

I got lawful good, which I am not very surprised by but I find quite funny considering that I'm a serial petty-rule breaker and authority challenger.

[Pilchard123]

Neutral Good here.

[Mr_Rose]

Annoyed by the assassination question; there was no option "take the money but tell the king too" so the whole test is invalid.

[cesium133]

I'm apparently Chaotic Evil. 

[Zebediah]

I tested Lawful Good, which I don't think quite fits (but might have when I was younger.) But the questions simply have too few options, and mostly were far too black-and-white - while I am somewhat notorious for trying to parse a specific shade of gray on any moral issue. I strive to be Neutral Good IRL.

[jwhouk]

Has anyone thought to try answering the questions as a cast member (say, Marten, Faye, Hanners, Pintsize)?

[techkid]

Chaotic Neutral as well. Huh.

[pwhodges]

Has anyone thought to try answering the questions as a cast member (say, Marten, Faye, Hanners, Pintsize)?

That's what the first part of the thread was (as indicated by the title and location!).

[Border Reiver]

Lawful good. 

Don't worry, my charisma score is too low to be a paladin....


Questions, comments, queries , problems, bitches, rude gestures and/or remarks

[Thrudd]

The DnD alignment matrix was one of those game constructs that grew from Law vs Chaos and it was and is a horrible mechanic at best.

My own personal favourite alignment system is what was developed in the Palladium system - based on psychology of all things =- whoda thunk it?

(click to show/hide)

Palladium uses a system where alignments are described in detailed terms with alignments describing how a character acts in a certain situation; whether they will lie, how much force they will use against innocents, how they view the law, and so on. The alignments are organized into three broad categories: Good, Selfish, and Evil. The seven core alignments are Principled (Good), Scrupulous (Good), Unprincipled (Selfish), Anarchist (Selfish), Aberrant (Evil), Miscreant (Evil), and Diabolic (Evil). An eighth alignment, Taoist, was introduced in Mystic China, but has not seen wide use.

Each category contains answers to a set of questions on moral behaviours. For example, given the question "Would you keep a wallet full of cash you found?", most selfish or evil alignments would keep it, while most good alignments would seek to return the wallet to its owner. The categories are not organized into a pattern like Dungeons & Dragons. The system specifically does not include any sort of "neutral" alignment on the grounds that a neutral point of view is antithetical to the sort of active role heroes and villains should play in a story.

[Loki]

The system specifically does not include any sort of "neutral" alignment on the grounds that a neutral point of view is antithetical to the sort of active role heroes and villains should play in a story.

Huh. That's a really interesting thought.

[KOK]

The Palladium Roleplaying Game contains a long tirade about neutral not being possible. And then it has good, evil and something in between. Only it is not called neutral, which seems to make it possible.

[hedgie]

Heh, in 2nd-Ed D&D I actually played about as closely as possible to a True Neutral fighter/necromancer.  She was mainly in the group since a lot of the enemies were *so* bad as to be in the must be eliminated category, but couldn't comprehend why the priest didn't want her to raise their corpses as zombies (after all, *something* has to carry the loot and walk over that suspicious looking floor).  Then again, other party members took their alignments to extremes.  There was one Lawful-Stupid paladin who was so obnoxious that the LG dwarf fighter-priest actually applauded my character after she fireballed the pally out of sheer annoyance (this character was the sort who actually *did* have tea with angels and demons alike, as long as they didn't fuck with things), and yes, I didn't spend enough spell-points to actually *kill* the paladin, only maim him.

Then again, the character at low-level had basically read the campaign's analogue to the Necronomicon and manage to keep *most* of her sanity, but lost any chance of remaining neutral-good in exchange for being grossly over-powered.

[GarandMarine]

Fantasy Flight's new Star Wars RPG basically requires you be lawful good.

Blegh.

[Storel]

She was mainly in the group since a lot of the enemies were *so* bad as to be in the must be eliminated category, but couldn't comprehend why the priest didn't want her to raise their corpses as zombies (after all, *something* has to carry the loot and walk over that suspicious looking floor).

Hmm... do you really want something walking over suspicious-looking floors while it's carrying your loot?

[Loki]

Obviously you raise all the corpses you encounter. Some of them carry loot, while some others walk over suspicious areas.

If you want to read about a necromancer party executed well, I strongly recommend http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?325177-Cattle-Driving-Necromancers-Bizarre-Campaign-Journal - which is exactly what you'd expect from the url.

[Mr_Rose]

I don't get why people are all up in pitchforks about necromancy… I mean, when you think about it properly, it's really just recycling.

[hedgie]

Obviously you raise all the corpses you encounter. Some of them carry loot, while some others walk over suspicious areas.

Exactly.  Animate Dead is the spell that every GM hates, 'cos at least in 2nd ed it made rogues even more worthless, and all their clever traps tended to fail when zombie went boom.  Then again, post Necronomicon-reading survival (okay, I failed a Ravenloft Powers Check and had an alignment shift), and there were even *more* game-breaking necromancy spells out there.  Especially when you're the only mage in 1 000 miles who is using spell points, and erase another mage's entire arsenal of spells memorised in the past year with a simple 4th level spell (obviously causing brain-damage in the process).  In a hybrid first/second ed game, necromancers, or even a generalist mage with that leaning were horrible game-breakers, especially if multiclassed.

I don't get why people are all up in pitchforks about necromancy… I mean, when you think about it properly, it's really just recycling.

It doesn't help when the rest of the party are goodie-goodies, and think that it's evil to make zombies.  They learnt to see things differently after encountering Lovecraftian nightmares that could only be perma-killed with a specific poison that took a quest line to even acquire, and in very short supply, or dragon's breath, when we had neither on hand.  My character pointed out that since she was dating a vampire warlord, she had a whole army of energy/soul-draining undead at her disposal.  They stopped objecting to her making undead minions at that point (since that was the third thing that would kill these things).

Edit:  And she did make her singing and dancing proficiency checks by a wide margin when doing the "I told you so" dance.

[GarandMarine]

I just picked up a big pile of Dark Heresy and Edge of the Empire source books. I avoided the new Age of Rebellion RPG specifically because it's super goodie goodie.

[hedgie]

I just picked up a big pile of Dark Heresy and Edge of the Empire source books. I avoided the new Age of Rebellion RPG specifically because it's super goodie goodie.

Yeah, that would suck.  I've played "good" characters, but they were never obnoxious about it, and tended to have more utilitarian views than deontological or virtue ethics.  Systems that force a party to be "good" really detract from the possible tensions and ergo, RP opportunity of a group.

Edit:  The LG dwarf fighter/priest that was still in the same group as my neutral character that when finally reaching a decent city (and hated her), when the rest of the goodies decided to go on patrol against evil mutually said "Fuck this, let's get drunk, and find someone to get laid with".  Thankfully, we both achieved said goals whilst bitching about the other idiots in the party.

Edit *again*:  Damned dwarf got laid by an awesome dwarf lady, and my character was stuck with an elf dude who had a comliness score of 25, but was gone in 30 seconds.

[GarandMarine]

Well I'd have to read the book in detail and it's not even out yet so I can't REALLY judge (more then I normally would) but Age of Rebellion casts all it's characters as heroes of the Rebellion against the Empire. So you're already in a pretty set position, I think there's some moral wiggle room, but one of the major mechanics is Duty and earning Duty points...

[Storel]

Obviously you raise all the corpses you encounter.

Or create. 

Some of them carry loot, while some others walk over suspicious areas.

Fair enough.

If you want to read about a necromancer party executed well, I strongly recommend http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?325177-Cattle-Driving-Necromancers-Bizarre-Campaign-Journal - which is exactly what you'd expect from the url.

Oh, my. I've only had time to read the first two segments so far, but they are awesome! Thanks for the link. 

[hedgie]

Obviously you raise all the corpses you encounter.

Or create. 

Both!  There are never enough corpses to turn into zombies.

[GarandMarine]

Side note, I'm now planning an Edge of the Empire campaign where I cast my players as CorSec operatives and have them solves crimes while unraveling a Black Sun remanent plot and being hunted down by a serial killer.

The Necromancer Cattle Drive is now my third favorite D&D campaign.

[Thrudd]

I think it is just me and maybe some of my former co-adventurers from long ago - whenever I hear the term Necromancer cattle drive I picture animated cattle that have already been pickled cured spiced and dried hard enough to resemble mahogany in both colour and consistency. Add a dash of minor regeneration and  Voila, Beef jerky that you not only do not have to carry but can carry stuff for you as well as being avoided by most scavengers. .... Yeah it was a weird campaign with everything from a Cheese Golem to Beer Elementals. 

[Neko_Ali]

Don't you mean Alementals? 

[hedgie]

Maybe they were lagers.

[HauntingPoem]

http://www.easydamus.com/character.html

I found this much more accurate and satisfying to discover alignment. Quite a few options as well.