Alignment and Realism
As the reader may recall from our last episode:
Alignment in tabletop miniature roleplaying games is a stat that defines the character’s loyalty to a given moral code. The moral codes in a Dungeons and Dragons, and games like it, are meant to be rough and ready, and something a thirteen-year-old boy (the target audience) can grasp and play without difficulty or distraction. Gary Gygax took inspiration from Lord of the Rings by Tolkien and from the Eternal Champion cycle by Michael Moorcock, and decided on a three-by-three matrix of good-neutral-evil by lawful-neutral-chaotic. Other games, especially storytelling games like VAMPIRE THE MASQUERADE or PENDRAGON, meant for an older target audience (fourteen-year-old boys) made the internal moral conflict of the character central to the drama of the game: there the alignment is between honor and dishonor, being a monster or being a man.
The law-versus-chaos spectrum is something Moorcock invented for the admirable purpose of cranking out fairly repetitive action-adventure sword-n-sorcery paperbacks where the angst of our beloved antihero protagonist, the eternally brooding Eternal Champion, never lacks for grist for his woe. It is formula writing, but it is good a good formula, and I personally do not mock it but salute it.
The formula is this: the multiverse is a cosmic war between equally inhuman and unpleasant divinities representing total tyranny and total anarchy. Since victory for either side would be disastrous for mankind, our beloved antihero can always easily be placed in a situation where he must betray one side or the other, betray one ideal or the other, and he can always place the back of his wrist against his forehead and bemoan the fact that he is caught up in an eternal conflict (hence his name) with no meaning and no resolution. Striking this pose is sweet as fresh peaches to the target audience (fourteen-year-old boys) to whom bemoaning the cruelty of life is a newfound pleasure, and they eat it up with cream.
But, upon reflection, lawfulness and anarchy have no innate moral meaning whatever.
Obeying a good law is something no one but a philosopher is loony enough to denounce; obeying or disobeying a bad law requires a prudential and moral judgment between the virtue of obeying a temporal authority rather than a higher principle; disobeying a good law is simply a crime.
And even criminals are not loyal to crime in the abstract: robbers want to rob, not to be robbed. The successful robber wants to be secure in the fruits of his ill gotten gains just as much as a successful burgher or farmer wants to be secure in the fruits of his toil.
Surely there is some moral calculus involved in resolving such issues, but, come to think of it, the same thing could be said about nearly any pair of exclusive values: thrift versus largesse, pride versus humility, asceticism versus pleasure-seeking, vengeance versus forgiveness, capitalist versus thieving, and so on.
One could play Friar Tuck of Robin Hood’s Merry Men, 5th level cleric, as Thieving Pleasure-seeker, for example, because he is an outlaw who enjoys the bottle and the platter. Solomon Kane, Puritan Adventurer, 10th level Paladin, could be played as Ascetic Humble. Kirth Gersen, survivor of the Mount Pleasant Massacre, 15th level Rogue, could be Thrifty Vengeful. John Galt of Galt’s Gulch, 20th level mad scientist, could be Capitalist Prideful. And so on.
None of these men favor or oppose law in the abstract. Friar Tuck wants to see the return of King Richard and an end to the injustices of Prince John; John Galt wants laws that leave men free to enjoy the fruits of their labors. Solomon Kane wants to kill vampires, Spaniards, and the serpent-men of Valusia with his Toledo steel blade. Kirth Gersen wants to kill Demon Princes.
In a role playing game, good and evil are placed on an even footing not because the game master is a Manichean, but because the player don’t want to be penalized by the dice mechanics for playing a thief like the Gray Mouser, or a freebooter like Conan the Barbarian, or even a supervillain like Doctor Doom.
In reality there is no one is loyal to evil as such; evil is the absence or perversion of a good, or a side effect caused when a lesser good is inflated in priority and used as an excuse to dethrone a greater good (as when communists use the good of pity for the poor as an excuse to overthrow the good of rule of law). The debate, and indeed the war, is always over different visions of the good.
Likewise, lawfulness and lawlessness in a role playing game are placed on an equal footing because the players don’t want the dice mechanics to penalize them for playing rebels and rogues like George Washington, Jack Sparrow or Han Solo as opposed to protectors of law and order like Sir Galahad, Judge Dread, or Napoleon Solo.
No one (aside from a philosopher) is loyal to law in the abstract or lawlessness in the abstract; men debate which laws should be enacted to afford the greatest peace, liberty and virtue to society, or men debate by to whom the enforcement of the law should be entrusted, or what limits placed on the laws that they not become destructive of the ends for which they were enacted. The debate, and indeed the war, is always over different versions of the laws.
And, I should mention in passing, that no game system I have ever played penalizes the size stat or strength stat of female characters, or adds a plus to charisma, and, again, this is not done because anyone (aside from a Leftist) thinks males and females are identical in physique. But if the player wants to play Batgirl rather than Robin, why place an obstacle in the way?
Utterly Gratuitous Picture of Batgirl
All these alignment systems in role playing games are unrealistic or simplified for the sake of the setting of the game or the ease of play. But some of us like a little more realism in our games.
So what would a realistic system of alignment look like?
First, realism must acknowledge that human knowledge of the moral order of the universe has not been the same among all ages, nations, tribes and tongues. Not all nations reached the same level of achievement in philosophy and theology just as they did not reach the same level of achievement in building pyramids or aqueducts. The Spartans wrote no plays, the Eskimos erected no mausoleums. It is politically incorrect to say this; and that is the firmest possible assurance that it is true and certain.
Second, realism must acknowledge that the basic moral virtues are known to all nations, cultures, cults and worlds, albeit not in the same way nor with the same clarity. The moral order of the universe is not arbitrary and meaningless, because if it were we could not even honestly debate whether it were or no. (If the moderator wishes to portray morality as arbitrary or meaningless in his game universe, as in a game of PARANOIA, he must needs eliminate alignment as a thing listed on a character sheet.)
Third, realism must acknowledge that philosophy and worship are two unrelated disciplines among the classical pagans, and that theology, that is, the art of reasoning about God, is a cultural artifact of Western monotheism; and that it passes away when monotheism passes away, replaced by an ideology or worldview that battens on its leavings and residue.
In other words, realism should reflect the incomplete nature of classic moral visions that do not unify philosophy and theology, and the corrupt nature of modern moral visions that reject theology and therefore eventually reject philosophy, falling farther into error than the classical and ancient thinkers, making the last state worse than the first.
Also, we are not dealing with personality traits, but with the system of thought or vision of the world, whatever it is, the character uses to justify his actions. A child or a psychopath does not justify his actions, he merely obeys whatever rules his parents teach, or whatever madness the demon possessing him commands.
Naming the alignments is a matter of some delicacy. We do not want to say Pre-Theological, Theological, and Post-Theological because that terminology is too awkward; and we do not want to say Pagan, Orthodox, and Heretical, because that terminology is too honest. We will use the terms Classical, Principled, Conventional.
These three basic worldviews admit of several subdivisions. To keep this alignment system compatible with Dungeons and Dragons or Palladium, we will limit ourselves to nine alignments all told.
All classical moral codes recognize the virtues as prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude, but each with a different priority. It should be recognized that chivalry toward women, compassion for the weak, equality for slaves, and mercy for the undeserving are unknown in the classical scheme, or are personal and odd departures from the pragmatic hopelessness of the ancient and hierarchical world, where Pharaohs and Brahmins and demigods and gods were superior both in power and in moral worth to their underlings.
The classical positions involve either religion or philosophy, but not both; the principled position is theological, that is, affirmed both by reason and revelation; the conventional positions lack a philosophical coherence, but instead follow the consensus opinion of the general society or a consensus opinion of a cult or separate institution opposed to the general society.
Only the Principled position allows for a hierarchy of lesser values grounded in an ultimate value, which takes into account the rights and opinions of others. Absent principle, the only moral postures toward the world are hedonism, stoicism, mysticism, and flat despair.
- Legalism is the position that one should obey the received code of conduct as promoted by the temple authorities, tradition, civic laws, and the gods. The lifestyle values outward and visible adherence to ritual and rite rather than well-intended acts. Confucius or the Pharisees are examples. The legalist is a practical and prudent man: his prime virtue is Prudence.
- Zealous rejects the cold aloofness of legalism as playacting, and is concerned with internal conformity of passions and emotions to divine or civic demands. Zealous is the position which demands loyalty unto death to the ashes of one’s ancestors and the altars of the city’s gods. The Zealots are imprudent and intemperate in their zeal, but, unlike Ideologues (see below) their zeal is always for some concrete thing, the City of Rome, or the Temple of Solomon. Aristotle’s ‘Great-Souled Man’ and all the Roman exemplars of patriotism are Zealous in their tone and approach. His prime virtue is Justice, because the letter of the law is insufficient for him.
- Quietism rejects the passion of the Pious and sees no hope in conforming inward passions to outward events. Indeed, Quietism rejects the outer world altogether as deceptive, perhaps even as a literal illusion. Buddhism and Taoism are Quietist. The emphasis is almost entirely on self-command. Their prime virtue is Temperance.
- Fatalism is the most common worldview ancient or modern, because it is the position that the social order and the cosmic order are one and the same, and this order determines the outcome of events and the shape of history and human destiny. The Norse Viking who said no man can escape his weird, the Egyptian Maat, the Hindu Karma, are examples of this, as well as the Greeks who cautioned against hubris, all are fatalists. The worldview requires a posture of stoicism and resignation to fate. The prime virtue of a fatalist is Fortitude.
- Principled. A man is principled who accepts the classical virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude, but also the cardinal virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity. This is the most advanced of the worldviews but also the most demanding.
- Pragmatism is the stance that regards divine matters with benign neglect. He is scrupulous to observe his honor and his rights, particularly property rights, and but avoids overt criticism of cults opposed to his own. His motto is live and let live. He is concerned with this world, his duties toward it, and the pleasures he can get from it. He retains hope in human progress and charity, or at least some fellow feeling, the requires him to regard his fellow men as creatures possessed of innate dignity and rights. But he lacks faith. Pragmatists tend toward hedonism. Robert Heinlein characters are Pragmatists, as is Ben Franklin.
- Ideologues reject the pragmatists for their worldliness, and wish to reform the world to match some impractical and utopian ideal. Their motives are allegedly altruism toward the downtrodden and oppressed, but they lack charity, and regard their fellow men either as childlike helpless victims or subhuman ruthless oppressors. To the Ideologue, men have no rights. Ideologues so they simply do not care what harm they cause in the pursuit of their ideological program, counterproductive or not. They live in hope for their coming utopia. Ideologues tend toward Stoicism. Ayn Rand and Karl Marx are both ideologues, but pursuing opposite utopian visions.
- Mystics reject both the worldliness of the Pragmatist and the inhumanity of the Ideologue, but they lack hope in heaven. Some mystics merely reject the society in which they live, other reject the material world altogether. They place no faith in human reason, as a pragmatist, or human progress, as a Ideologue. Instead the Mystic seeks serene mystic unity with some ineffable ultramundane reality, such as a godhead, or a nirvana, or in some mundane stand-in for godhead, such as Hegel’s Absolute, or the Life-Force of the Creative Evolution invented by by Henri Bergson. Their prime virtue is Self-abnegation.
- Nihilists have neither faith nor hope nor charity. They are not people who regard nothing as worth doing but instead regard the decision of worthy and worthless as personal and arbitrary. They believe in no universal or objective truth, but dismiss all philosophy and theology as merely a narrative or self-serving propaganda meant to weaken victims of the dominant worldview. Hence, they have no rational motive for practicing prudence, justice, temperance, or fortitude, and a strong motive for eroding and corrupting the willingness of others to be prudent, just, temperate, or brave. They are as nearly perfect an evil as human psychology allows. Nihilists tend toward neurotic narcissism, megalomania, and paranoia. Nietzsche and Sartre are Nihilists.
Now, we could, if need be, subdivide the Principled alignment into various dogmatic beliefs rather than the general worldview involved in determining player character motives and actions.
We could, for example, divide Gnostics from Christians, depending on whether the player character held secret knowledge outside the teachings of the apostles were necessary for salvation; and divide Christians into Eutychians, Nestorians and Dyophysites depending on their Christology.
In a role playing game, if a player character comes upon a shining sword thrust deeply into a stone, and it is a plus-one Monophysite blade, a player character of the knightly class would have to revise his notions about the Hypostatic Union before he could draw the blade and use it against Melchites.
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UPDATE: A reader correctly points out that I am misusing the term ‘Theosophist’ which has a specific meaning, so I am changing the word used to refer to those who lack hope to Mystic. For similar reasons, the term ‘Pietist’ has a specific historical meaning, and was misunderstood by readers, so I am changing it to a more neutral term, Zealot.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
