Brennan Lee Mulligan & Matthew Mercer question about Alignments (Adventuring Academy) 

I like the idea that the ability to shift alignment is one of the big things that separates mortals from other beings and this is why the Gods actually care about mortals our capacity to change is something that they lack.

"there's no one going like,jeffrey dahmer is just misunderstood!" let me introduce you to the nightmare that is serial killer fandoms

"Mostly, people are not motivated by ideological code, people are motivated by impulse and construct ideological codes to justify and rationalize what they were already going to do. And that's where Bonds, Flaws, and Ideals is actually kind of truthful. On the levels of individuals and civilizations, personality predates ideology: meaning, before you were a fascists you were a bully and an asshole." - Brennan Lee Mulligan The whole hours this is from is totally worth your time.

One of my greatest villains was a general who was essentially Lawful Evil from a D&D standpoint, but it was so hard to pin down. He was at war with a neighboring country, and believed fully that if he wasn't ruthless and brutal, he would both put his people at risk and prolong the conflict. He scorched and burned border villages to the ground, no survivors, but he took no joy in it, and it in fact made him incredibly sad and gave him a form of PTSD. And he had a family, and was beloved among his people not even primarily for war, but for his generosity and kindness and intelligence. He was even incredibly nice to the PCs, and provided them ample opportunities to sidestep conflict with him. He understood their point of view and why they would hate him. But it didn't change his mission. Their final confrontation was...emotionally charged, let me tell you.

I really like how this isn't just bashing alignment. I feel like too many long-time players and DMs diminish alignment without really considering that it's just an option.

*whispers fearfully to myself* _I do not have the commitment nor bravery to be a clipper channel the fact people have watched this is terrifying_

I like that Brennan touches on how in regular D&D lore, alignment is more than just morality as we would think of it in real life; it is a series of tangible, provably real universal forces that have real, enforcable power and fight for control of the cosmos. I'm always more interested in exploring alignment as a cosmic force and something far different that how we imagine "good and evil" in the real world, because that's what alignment is supposed to be, not a personality quiz result. Real morality is grey and nebulous, as the two discuss here. Alignment is and should be treated as something different; a force that influences mortals' morality, but is not to be confused for it, and a lot of people just don't know enough about the lore (or don't care enough and replace it with their own lore or cosmos) to really represent that in their games. You can tell that Brennan loves his Planescape, and I'm endlessly appreciative for it.

I was reading a manga based on DND and there was an interesting moment where the protagonist decided to trust a guy because his alignment was lawful good. Turns out he was a serial killer but he only killed evil people so in his own eyes he was a hero

Original DnD, "Protection from Evil" defined evil as being anyone that wanted to hurt you, but provided extra benefit against enchanted or extra-planar creatures, regardless of alignment. So a fighter attacks you you got an AC bonus, but a fire elemental couldn't approach within 10 ft.

I think alignment can be a useful addition to a character sheet because it serves as convenient shorthand for everyone at the table about the kind of characters you're trying to build. Specifically, it's an easily understandable reference point for everyone at the table for a character's basic social mores and how they can be reasonably expected to react in a given situation. It's something that ideally should diminish in importance over the course of character creation, and the campaign as a whole, because human nature is such a complex thing, but giving your players an easily understandable pastiche of qualities to work with in the beginning helps make the group dynamic easier to navigate and manage, especially if you're working with a new group or setting, no matter how experienced the individual players are.

My first D&D character was a Paladin. I was TERRIBLE at playing him (according to the other players) because I interpreted Lawful Good as an intractable conflict between goodness and order, so when faced with an orderly society of villains vs. well-intentioned free spirits, I genuinely couldn't pick a side. An interesting character for me, but infuriating for the DM whose plot hooks kept not working (I was 13 - I didn't know what I was doing).

Never played a game of DnD in my life, but it's very interesting to watch people who are clearly intelligent and passionate talk about it.

I really hope that one day Brennan does a guest spot on CR!

Alignment is fun because as a gameplay element it subverts expectations and creates intrigue and suspense. If characters encounter a supposed leader of a bandit camp and they aren't evil, what does that mean? If a paladin smites evil against a long standing foe or a race they suspect to be evil only for it to fail, that could open up a moment where characters act differently. Alignment is a tool for the dm to weave stories and choices, nothing more and nothing less.

Something that I've always liked about the alignment system and its application to D&D, Is that there's something satisfying in the fact that Terms like good and evil isnt just arbitrary human created moral compass. They are a very physical and literal force the world. Sometimes it's just satisfying to know that when you go to destroy something evil, You know for a fact it's actually evil and not just philosophically evil.

This, I love this. I had a character in a one off I played CN satyr moon Druid named Fen (at least that’s the name he gave at the time). I made him to strongly mimic Bacchae Dionysus (a god in mortal form/a force of nature and whim etc.) he was motivated by selfish desire of interest with a color of doing good things on occasion because a little girl he befriended about gave this 50ish y/old satyr a crisis of perspective. He was willing to do what was perceived as a good deed so long as it didn’t endanger his life to an unnecessary degree/betrayal (y’know, baby steps). And there was this moment where a different little girl knew his identity, sicked a T-Rex like monstrosity on them, wasn’t interested in making a truce or conversation of compromise, and was more afraid of her boss than she was of them OR the Dino. So, as a level 10 Druid with no access to a memory altering spell, Fen came to a conclusion “if lightning struck a tree in the middle of a nowhere forest and killed a girl, does anyone hear it?”. I decided, in character, that killing this girl was in the best interest for myself and my allies at this moment of time. Round 1, girl fails her Dex save, takes lightning damage, fails another save to stay in the tree and goes unconscious as she hits the ground. She fails her first death save. I should note that no one else knew what my intent was until round 2 when I called lightning again and said with a straight face “confirm kill” now she’s at 2 fails and everyone else at the table is getting worried (the 2 other players were a light cleric and a devotion Paladin, obviously very strong good alignment, I don’t blame them in the least) at that moment of deciding to harm a child with intent to kill (even though if she survived our faces would be known to this mysterious figure who owned this t-Rex monster like it was a pet), my alignment went to chaotic evil and I was ok with that even though I disagreed personally. The others were very against killing the child so my character relented leaving a blatant threat to the child that “if you attack us after I decided to spare you BECAUSE they pleaded me to, they will not stop me the second time” What he did, I agree, was evil. But this is about morality and the perspective of someone who hasn’t lived their life being pious before.

Alignment and Bonds/Ideals/Flaws actually work very interestingly together. The b/i/f generally influence the Alignment my character ends up at. Like a wizard that is true neutral not because they're so balanced/ impartial but because they were so fractured and conflicted.

One of my major issues with "Detect Alignment" spells is when they can be applied rigidly in a society. It's one of the classic ways a Paladin may be poorly played. This is where I prefer when alignments are more about the extremes or cosmology connected stuff then society level stuff. It's also why I prefer when a town is 90% neutral aligned npcs going about their lives. A karmic alignment where it's more reflection actions you've taken is another route to my taste. This is where the adjustment for "Detect Cowardice" sits weird for me. As that feels like an adjustment aimed straight at society level detect "if this person is approved by our culture". Which very quickly gets into some dystopian applications if you pull the thread. Not what I feel the default approach should be, even if some GMs/Groups (such as Brennan) can handle it. I personally think it's okay for the Detect alignment spells to be largely irrelevant in a setting that's more people/society based. Then when it *does* pop up it becomes a major deal to the party. Maybe adjust by allowing it to be a more passive detection so the player doesn't have to constantly ask for it without result.

Honestly the idea of detect good and detect evil works very well. It is simply understanding that the vast majority of individuals won't register as anything but neutral. However there are people who go against the flow to try and make things better for others solely because they want things to be better for them who may register as good. There are also those who truly do not care for the wellbeing of others and seek only whatever they find self gratifying. Tywin lanister, not evil, cruel, cold, manipulative, but he has a purpose beyond just himself, definitely leans that way though. The Mountain, just so evil since his only apparent drive is rape and murder.

I always view the alignment chart as something to help newer players and as they get more used to D&D, more nuanced systems such as the MTG color pie work better.

Had this discussion once with a group, and with D&D as the focus. The alignment system is based on planes, and the collective conciousness. Gods are powered with belief, and thus belief has power. The magics that flow through the world are tainted by actions and belief, this is how the original penalties for alignments were explained. Basicly your alignment is a secret god your gaining power from, your sort of a warlock to your alignment, and when your alignment significatly shifts, your changing power sources and that weakens you until you get used to it. Yes, your mind and choices are realistic, but the powers in the background are also affecting you in subtle ways. The alignments are basicly unconsious gods.

As a DM and a player I love Alignment system especially within the realm of how the Planes of Existence and Deities. It gives us as players a strong sense of foundation.

I loved delving into concepts like this in my current campaign. The concept of morally gray npcs and D&D really helped the players build more intensive and inventive character arca

My bard in Tomb of Annihilation was "officially" Lawful Evil. He cared for his group and kept them alive, but the motivation for it was ultimately selfish along the lines of "I cannot achieve my goal alone. A happy and healthy adventuring group is key to achieving my goals". That said, he would not risk his own personal safety for anyone in the group and most definitely would always persuade the group not to risk theirs for anyone who didn't help achieve his goals. Of course, being the bard, all his arguments were super reasonable! ;-)

Im playing a necromancer who's motivation is to simply learn/understand the art in a world that despises magic. He's content just learning & living as a hermit, but travels due to the limited resources where he's from. When the paladin used detect good/evil in the starting room my character was in, I was surprised to find out the dm defined my character as good. I had expected to be outed as a necromancer right away.

Wow. Most interesting conversation about alignment I've EVER heard. Thanks for making me aware of this show. Proud 174th subscriber.

I always thought of the paladin even pre 5e as being full of self-righteous conviction rather than being trapped in the box of lawful good. As long as the paladin adheres to the belief that their actions were 100% right they would maintain their power but a little self doubt or regret trickling in and left unchecked will lead to a broken oath. A perfect example of this in fantasy literature is Kaladin from Stormlight Archive.

I kinda like the way Pillars of Eternity aproached it, its less about alignment and more about reputation but it can also work similarly to alignments in a game mechanic sense.

I like the alignment system and always defend it. I find relative morality to be flaws in the person and not the system and honestly, that’s how it should be. Your characters motives and path are what decide your alignment to me and not your one major action. A Paladin can kill, lie and steal in scenarios but burning down women and children is clearly a step too far. An alignment shift usually doesn’t happen all at once, it’s a slow roll and culminates in a climax that only exists from the path they walked before that step. Great convo

I like the idea of Personalization for the Detect Good and Evil spell. That's clever to me. I, personally, like the Alignment idea playing such a role in D&D, but I also think people are not understanding that Alignment really only matters (in a role play, character creation sense) if your character is actively trying to be on a side of that scale. If you want your former cultist and addict Paladin to stay on the path of the righteous and not fall back on harmful practices, then yes, wrestling with the ideas of what is Good and Evil could be a fun internal and party conflict. Whereas, if your character's base personality is deemed worthy of championing this deity, then that conflict won't be there unless something antagonizes some sort of change. Both are fun characters to play, but the idea of Alignment only really comes into play with one of them because they are actively working and trying to change who they were. For other such situations, it has to be a case by case basis. If you have a generally Neutral Good character, but their actions of late have been taking things from people just because they want them, or treating helpless creatures (even formerly aggressive ones) with heartlessness, there can be a seed that anyone who uses that spell on them could see, and it will be up to the caster to decide how to deal with that. Because everybody has that little seed in them. It's only if you try to nurture it or stifle it that that seed will take root and stain the person or be nothing but an irrelevant, forgotten blip. I have a character who is a Yuan Ti Pureblood who was removed from her people and now lives among people because, in her travels, she learned that she will be MUCH better off and more powerful if she works with the systems these people have created than if she tries to overthrow them. As a Yuan Ti, she doesn't feel emotion like most people do, and still feels superior to almost everyone and everything, and she still will use the ideals of Trust, Honor, and Attraction as tools to gain herself power and safety, but she understands she can't survive without the people she's using, so she actually does treat them fairly well. As a DM, how would you play it if you cast Detect Good and Evil on her? She doesn't mistreat people she is deals with blindly, but she doesn't (and physically can't) feel things like Empathy, Love, or Honor. She could gut an innocent child without blinking, but generally doesn't because she doesn't want the Authorities kicking in her door. How would that spell treat her? Comment below. I'm curious.

Speaking on Paladins, in 2E, they were required to have 17 Charisma and be lawful good. If you stopped being lawful good, you became a fallen paladin. As Matt put it, this put you into a box of what you could do. With 5E, they substituted the lawful good requirement for following oaths but this again puts you in a narrow box of what you can do and going outside it makes you an oathbreaker paladin. In fact, I'd argue it even more clearly lays out the edges of that box by giving explicit instructions on what you are required to do, not what you ought to do.

I think Brennan nails it by asking what the alignment system means [to the individual(s) playing the game] rather than projecting meaning onto it and then molding a character to that.

This feels like I’m watching Plato and Aristotle have a conversation.

My problem with the whole bonds, ideals, flaws thing is that the way it is written in the books, it still makes an inaccurate and highly flawed assumption of alignment. For example, let’s take Logic. As written in the bonds, ideals and flaws section, Logic is always assumed to be somehow “Lawful.” To cut to the point, Logic has nothing to do with Lawfulness, and it is entirely possible for a completely Chaotic character to be even more logical about it than a Lawful character. Same thing goes for the opposite with Creative being assumed to always be “Chaotic,” etc. It sets a bad precedent in general, for both long time players and potential newcomers. If they want alignments, then they should own it and stick with alignments. If they don’t want alignments, then they should get rid of them all together and be done with it. At the very least, treat them as optional rules and keep them separate from each other. This weird and inaccurate hybrid nonsense is poorly done, because in trying to have both, they end up with a lesser result than they would have gotten if they had just stuck with one or the other. In short, they need to shit or get off the pot.

I look at alignments in the terms of sacrifice. A good character is more likely to sacrifice themselves. Where as an evil person is more likely to sacrifice others.

6:37 Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... MASS HYSTERIA! - Peter Venkman

The title for this in my feed read "Brennan Lee Mulligan & Matthew Mercer question abo..." and was very glad to read the full title. (Probably a better way to put it would be "discuss alignments")

The Jeffery Dahmer comment unfortunately aged poorly.

Honestly, the alignment system gets a lot of dumping on by people who seem to misread or fail to understand the nuances involved in the roleplay behind that system. The majority of the time things like AD&D repeatedly expressed the fact that the rules and the system were a series of guidelines and 'ease of resolution' methods to facilitate roleplaying. Lawful Good, even as it's described in the Player Handbook for 2nd Edition, isn't this ultra-restrictive or 'lawful dumb' stereotype that always gets highlighted as "this is why paladins weren't fun until we made it so anyone could be one, regardless of if they're good or evil." The alignment had a pretty clear, but otherwise malleable, sense of priorities and ideals which could be tailored to any class of person whilst still having shades of (very light) grey in the direction of neutral conduct as well. Quite frankly the vast majority of the bad stereotyping can be chalked up to bad players or bad DMs rather than any major flaws in the system itself.

My rule of thumb is: your choices is what determine your alignment, not vice versa.

I've always liked at it as good is selfless, evil is selfish, lawful is strict and orderly, chaotic is wild and untamed

As much as I love the classic Alignment System, I always liked the Palladium system better. It seemed better simply because there was more details pertaining to what each one does and how they interact with other types.

I always say a character’s alignment is a product of their personality. Their personality is not dictated by their alignment.

In my opinion, alignment on the lawful to chaotic axis is something along the lines of do you have a personal code, do you keep your word, are you relatively predictable in your actions? On the good to evil access, it is more of a benevolent to malicious or are you selfish or are you selfless that kind of thing. So basically, lawful to chaotic is what you do, good to evil is why you do it.

Part of this discussion reminds me of the PhilosphyTube quote, "People don't go around thinking, 'I'm going to be a bad person on purpose!' I know it feels that way sometimes, but it's not"

Subjective vs Objective good-v-evil will always be a touchy subject. I personally find the alignment system to be great. Where I stand is I completely allow evil characters in the party. Hey, the Rogue is everyone's friend, nice, funny, and a joy to be around. But he also steals for self gain whenever he possibly can, and is the first to slit an enemy's throat without question. He's evil.

As a longtime Paladin player, I still subscribe to the line of strict Lawful Goodness. The caveat being is not so much having the pally being an overtly smiteful and ironically belligerent deliverer of justice. They have wisdom and understand that collaboration with those that are outside of their strict moral leanings is acceptable as long as the work that is done fulfills the paladin's need to bring about what is just and good. :) So many players saw old Paladins as inquisitors and tyrants of purity, but they lose the point that a Paladin is a champion of their faith and in such an instance would be very careful to commit dishonorable acts and have to be very thoughtful in their approach to situations. Their God is watching them at all times and they must carry that weight.

I like working with the notion that alignment is fluid and requires 'upkeep' the further you are away from Neutral, with neutral being the default. You want to be Lawful Good? Cool, that takes work. You wanna be Chaotic Evil? Good luck. And know that when you meet something that is Chaotic Evil, that really means something. And that an entity who embodies Lawful Good may genuinely not understand why you are not, or why you struggle. I like the idea of angels being as terrifying as devils or demons (or worse, possibly) when you consider for a moment the alien mindset they must have. I dunno, just a thought.

My first character as a player after years as forever DM was a confused person. I had no idea what to pin his alignment at. Depending on point of view, his actions and ideals could be considered evil, but others might see him as a force of good. He doesn't follow laws, but has a strict moral code. Neither lawful, evil, chaotic, or lawful every really made sense for this guy. By the end of the campaign though, he bent fully into Lawful Evil. His psyche and reality as a person broke, and he has fully embraced darkness, greed, and cowardice. He's now returning as the BBEG in my next campaign I'm running.

Quotes that did not age well, "there's nobody going, 'oh Jeffery Dahmer is just misunderstood'"

I'm planning on mostly using alignment for figuring out how NPCs are going to react to things. I don't have the time or inclination to construct elaborate backstories for every NPC my players might encounter, so I'll use alignment as a convenient shorthand for how they will behave. If my players keep interacting with that NPC to the point it makes sense to do so, then I'll flesh them out some more.

I see alignment as a thumbnail of a character’s personality.

Ironically the "lawfully good" paladin is closer to what I describe as chaotic evil

Someone lawful good does not mean they can only make lawful or good choices. It just means they make mostly lawful and good choices that's it. You can make other choices for your roleplay just most of them should align to your base personality. If your just a neutral paladin of good then maybe don't slaughter a village. If your a lawful good paladin just try to help people and punish evil rule breakers not break your word or allow injustices to happen for your own benefit. If your chaotic evil you should be prone to solving things violently or with a sadistic joy of doing what you want. It's just most of what you do not all. As long as like 60% of your choices are in either of your alignments your good

The question of alignment is the question of philosophy. Philosophy is always debatable. The alignment system creates a dynamism and definition to solidify the mater enough that a discussion might be had. Certainly moral realitivism can exist within such a framework. Equally certainly, heroic narrative could not exist as easily without it.

One thing that is important about lawful alignments is understanding that not all orders are created equal in a particular person's eyes. Your character may not agree with the order of an evil society. Despite being ordered, they may not agree that it is the "proper" order. They may want to dismantle that society, so that they can re-order it properly. Like how in real life, Christians and Muslims both believe in an ordered cosmology, but those two orders often come into conflict on an ideological level.

This kind of discussion on stated moral alignments, how morality is affected by culture, etc., this is what I'd love to see like a couple of senators talking about. Seriously. If that means Brennan & Matthew were senators? all the better.

Alignment is just another chart to fill in Character Creation, like "Goal, flaws, ideals and personality"

To me: Lawful is strictly following a extental code, Chaotic is doing what feels right to you individually, Good is beneficial to other people, Evil is harming another person for your own gains.

One can be lawful good in the morning, neutral at midday, chaotic evil in the evening, and neutral once again at night

I like to interpret the Good/Evil scale as Selfless/Selfish. That's why I play my Chaotic Evil Barbarian as a total sellout merc who wouldn't lift a finger when asked to help but isn't eating babies or burning down temples just for the fun of it.

i love you, Matt Mercer!

I'd watch a movie about scientists combining their DNA to create the perfect DM but then the kid just wants to play football and they come around to it at the end.

I just make up nonsense alignments and refuse to elaborate when asked.

To see 2 of the best DMs as a sideline D&D enthusiast/viewer bounce this concept back and forth is extremely entertaining

Nale, Member of the Fifth Ideal in the Order of the Skybreakers, is a phenomenal execution of a perfectly lawful character, good or evil, it's not easy to say.

You know, if alignments' main purpose within the setting is to show which plane you're conceptually resonant with, it naturally follows that you could have an alignment of Fire or Positive Energy or Shadows or whatnot and have the principles of that plane guide your behavior.

I think of alignment in two areas, it's a cosmic alignment, there's a war in the cosmos going on, and if you pick a side you have to live up to its ideals, which alignments are, they are ideals on a moral and social level

The reason I keep alignment is so the game can evolve around what it means to be that alignment. What is a lawful good character? When someone shooses that disposition we delve into and evolve the concept. That's where the interesting character stuff happens, but the framework has to exist for the topic to be tackled

I have only ever used the alignment chart as a reminder for my character.

It is also usefull for NPC because as a DM you dont have time to deep thinking about every NPC the PCs find

"Dahmer was just so understood" nobody show Matt serial killer fandoms

building on the culture thing in a tribal world you could have different settlements have different laws and rules and have the alignment actually be the source for character moments. where a lawful player is upset about the laws being "wrong" and having development in accepting other viewpoints or a chaotic character arrives in a lawless area where there's no structure to break and losing their purpose

I've been using the Magic the Gathering colour pie for morality and personality for a few years now and find it far more descriptive.

Good is being willing to sacrifice yourself for others Evil is taking pleasure in the suffering of others Both are extremes and relatively rare

I think alignment is only for roleplay, "with your alignment, is that something you would do?"

Funny thing is detect good and evil doesn't go off of alignment it goes off of creature types like Celestial (Good) and fiend (evil)

It sounded like matt spent 2 minutes describing what "neutral" is. Across the board, most humanoids would fall into the neutral category.

I remember being really surprised when Talisen Jaffe said that he hated alignment and he created Mollymauk to be a character that "breaks" alignment. I was surprised because... I don't think Molly was that at all. I guess the older editions emphasized alignment more as something stamped onto your soul. But I always just thought it was a result of your own personal actions and beliefs. I think Molly fits neatly into the alignment system, he always seemed to me to be a classic example of a chaotic good character. The fact that Molly was a fragment or remnant of another being's soul didn't seem important to me.

Where Brennan plays Foucault and Matt plays Chomsky

Relative morality is ruining fantasy

I think Maybe Kayle and Morgan from LoL might illustrate it. Its about perspective, and Kayle being the angel is to rigid in following the laws and morally right whilst Morgana is a fallen angel, but she fights for free will and freedom of choise kinda. So they reversed the roles. In DnD I would reckon it is possible to shift perspectives to make the reality one wants too

I have come to see lawful good as being a person whose sees a collective understanding of society as far more beneficial than acting on your own without regard for others. I see the good as want to help others and trying the get the current structure of the society to do that. In the end you can fully know that the world has problems and your society isn't perfect, but you still know there are some good things about it.

Personally, I always wanted there to be a unique paladin archetype for each alignment. I would be very interested in playing a lawful neutral paladin where it's basically judge dred with magic

Alignment can be a cool story telling element as well. My celestial warlock is a chaotic neutral alchemist. He just wants to make money and research. However, his patron is lawful good and influences his actions over time without being a chain that restricts me like a Cleric.

As an autistic person, the alignment chart is useful to me because I'm so exhausted with the greyness of real life morality. Sometimes i just want to know that I'm making the right decision

Interesting that they mention bonds and ideals because as DM that's more what I look for at player characters to see how I can challenge them what will make them more interested in the story.

Most chaotic neutral characters are actually neutral neutral or neutral evil with no ideological beliefs whatsoever.

Imagine playing a paladin where your personal and ethical qualities are at odds

I often used the moral alignments as a more broad description of who my character was and then broke down my character further for my DM so he knew what kind of party he was dealing with.Vesta was an overall good person but they had a very strict internal moral code that they followed that didn't always align with the laws of the land and Vesta very rarely if ever broke their own moral code even if it meant breaking the law and break the law they did when participating in what could have boiled into a full blown civil war as our party was split Vesta was a Hinterlander and would protect their people even if it meant going against the church in the area and the newer settlers who had turned on the Hinterlander (turns out their was a bit of magic mumbo-jumbo causing tensions to be un-naturally raised we dealt with that once things had been cooled down to a low simmer rather than an active boil) our DM intentionally formulated a setting that resulted in PVP and while Vesta was hesitant to fight the people they had lived alongside for so long as the party had settled in this city for so long they where at the end of the day willing to kill if it meant protecting what they stood for

I think one of the crazy things is when people think that good is always good and evil is always evil, the two problems is stealing bread in order to feed your family and then cutting off the hands of all thieves... in the prime material one of those is good and the other is evil, however in the outer planes it is the opposite way around because of the more extreme alignment decisions are... but that is because they ironically live in a more ordered realm however the prime material plans is chaotic and difficult to pin down... but I thought that was something that TSR baked into the game around or before 1st or 2nd edition or at least they did with Grayhawk and then Faerun kinda continued it for example, Mordenkainen is so LN that he seems to be CN but his idea is to try and keep the multiverse in balance and so he seems to pull some very violent character manoeuvres in order to manipulate scales and events in order to keep everything in balance... However from the outside it looks like he is thrashing around randomly and acting on a whim. However these are just my thoughts and observations so I might be wrong :)

I mean, it's pretty simple - if you hurt other people, you're evil. If you promote thriving for yourself and those you care about, you're good. It's not all that complex or difficult.

im yoinking that idea for detect good and evil being cultural thing, it is mine now, god that is so smart, you could build games around that concept alone

Let's not forget the weapons that'll only attune to you based on youre alignment.

Yeah I totally used alignment as a guide, but as I got better it was more of a marker. Cause I was making characters that responded to and were changed by the events of the campaign, even someone’s strongest convictions can be ripped from them if you throw them down a waterfall hard enough. My pride and joy, James, a human monk, started out true neutral, no agenda, just a veteran working in a traveling like architecture job, just surviving, no agenda per day besides a vague alliance with the state. But over the course of the campaign, constantly being faces with his own governments corruption, and the meddling of the gods constantly screwing him and making him feel like a pawn, eventually he developed to chaotic neutral and had it kept going I think he could’ve ended up evil, as it stands his motivations before we stopped were to find a magic to bar the gods from influencing our world, and to overthrow the empire and lead folks to an anarchist utopia of free will (essentially his ark was around the illusion of control and freedom)

In our homegames, we always houseruled that detect good/evil and other spells that affected specifically good or evil creatures differently were limited to alien otherworldly entities like e.g. demons or undead (evil) or angels (good). We also interpreted that as less of a result of the individual creature's mindset and more a result of representing a force that tends in general to be hostile (evil) or beneficial (good) when dealing with mortal creatures of the material plane. So e.g. a vampire would always register as technically evil for being undead and living on stolen life-force, but as a free willed individual could regardless have their own moral preferences and goals and might in some cases be a decent person. (Or for the other side of the spectrum, an angelic being would register as good, but as an individual might be a petty vindictive zealot). Mere mortals would always be considered neutral, unless they were strongly tainted by an otherworldly influence.

one of my dm's explained alignment like this: good alignment like to help others while evil alignment like to help themselves, neutral is the mix of both, lawful is a personal code that can be extended from oneself while chaotic is personal choice above all all above is only guidelines to help the players find their character and have fun

I think that when applied to normal characters in a tabletop game, alignment tends to be more constricting than informing. The thing I've noticed in my... oh god, 20 years of playing... I have most often seen people use alignment to define what they are *not allowed to do*, when I would rather my players think about what is important to their characters. What is important to them, what makes them angry, who do they love? Do they have any beliefs they would die for?

I mostly use the allignment system to inform the character's previous choices before the campaign started. IE. a character may have a background that would place them in chaotic evil at the start of a campaign but that's just the collected summary of who they were before. I don't think i've ever really used it as much more than a guideline for creating and summarizing a character's past choices/behavior prior to a campaign's start.

It's how omniscient(int and not wis) beings judge people, not how people actually are.