Alignment in Dungeons and Dragons
Alignment is often misunderstood, often misused, and often maligned. In many ways, it's an artifact of an older time, an older playstyle. In other ways, its just emblematic of a specific worldview, with clear and objective delineations between good and evil, law and chaos. To get a good grip on it, we'll talk about its origins, in gaming, in the fiction that inspired it, and in the mythology that inspired the fiction.
As a caveat, this entire article is my perspective, including where I think some of the ideas came from and what they mean. While I have read articles explaining, for instance, Gary Gygax's reasoning in making what became the nine alignment we know to day, I have no personal knowledge of his perspective or intent. All this is my point of view. Near the end I'll get into what I think are some good ways to use the alignment system, even today.
Back in the dim and misty, at the beginning of things, alignment in D&D was much simpler. There was Law, representing order, civilization, and yes, laws themselves. A cosmic concept as much as a personal one, having a Lawful alignment meant you were on the side of Law. It was far more an allegiance than it was a clear description or prescription of personal behavior. Alignments were factions, and had their own languages. Chaos was disorder, wildness, 'savagery'. There wasn't nearly as much association with personal freedom. And again, you were part of a faction, dedicated to ripping down civilizations, destroying the rule of law. Neutrality was sometimes a faction and had its own language, dedicated to keeping the balance, which is a concept I'll touch on more later. But it was also sometimes the same as what we would call unaligned, today, only motivated by self interest. Lawful was usually (but not always) conflated with Good, and Chaos was usually (but not always) conflated with Evil.
All this makes sense when talking about cosmic forces, from the point of view, specifically, of a civilization, especially one that has suffered one or more apocalyptic events like monster invasions, wars of the gods, etc. In most D&D, the sheer proliferation of ancient ruins suggests that many civilizations have gone before and been destroyed, usually by the forces of Chaos. That same worldview inherently assumes that the 'Lawful' way of life, ie civilization (which as I harp on, literally just means living in cities) is better, and that those who oppose that way of life are wrong. And yes, that's pretty colonialist, but we aren't getting into that today.
Origins? Well, they've pretty much directly said they got the ideas from Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion series, and from Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. It's worthwhile to note that while Chaos is portrayed very negatively in most of Moorcock's books, and is often the antagonist... it is explicitly stated at several points that unopposed Law is just as bad, leading to stangation and sterility, nothingness. Just a different path to entropy. Only with Law and Chaos in Balance are things as they should be, and the Eternal Champion fights for the balance. Balance being the real good guy is another idea we'll hit again later.
Where did Moorcock and Anderson get their ideas of Law and Chaos being the major factions , rather than Good and Evil or the stereotypical 'Light' and 'Dark'? A number of mythological places, but most prominent among them is Egyptian myth, although it does trickle into Greek myth and philosophy with the notions of Apollonaic and Dyonisian powers. It starts with things like the gods representing the divine order, all being manifestations of Ma'at, which actually includes gods like Set and Sobek often seen as 'evil' in modern interpretations. They are opposed by the serpent of Chaos, Apep (Apophis in Greek.) Law and Chaos are fundamental concepts here, long before the Christianized notions of good and evil. To the civilized people of the Nile, Chaos was destruction and death, because only as a society could they hope to endure the desert, and the floods, and take advantage of the bounty the floods left behind. Even though Set also represented this Chaos, he was one of the main defenders of Law, guarding Ra's barque as it bore the Sun through the underworld at night. So there was already this idea of Chaos or at least some chaotic beings as part of the necessary order of things, and Ma'at was also often conceived of as balance. ( Much like the Light side of the Force is actually Balance and the Dark Side is imbalance, but I digress.) Evil, as a concept, came along much later.
In early D&D, this just got codified, simplified. Law was good (mostly), Chaos was bad (mostly) and Neutral was selfish. (mostly)
It wasn't too long before good and evil entered into it though, giving us the nine alignments we have today. But to really understand those alignments, and even the cosmology that uses them, you have to think of good and evil as secondary modifiers to law and chaos. This holds true all the way up to the Blood War, where the devils fight the demons way more than either fights the Celestial Hosts. Here's where I'm about to look at the whole thing differently.
So. We assume then, that alignments are objective assessments of ones allegiance to Law or Chaos, or to Neutrality and thus Balance. (The notion of Balance was clearly why Druids had to be Neutral, and also why the major 'heroes' in the Circle of Eight, like Mordenkainen, were mostly Neutral and explicitly strove to keep the Balance, not serve Law, or Chaos, or even Good and Evil). Then we look at Good and Evil as flavors of the above, modifications. Less fundamental forces, and more just approaches. What does that look like? I'll run through the nine alignments a interpreted through this lense.
Lawful Good. It is not 'the most good'. It also isn't the domain of jerks and assholes. This is where the dedication to law and order, to the society more than the individual, is tempered with Good. Where only moral means can be used to enforce their ethics. Where kindness becomes just as important as the needs of society, and some thought is given to individual rights. If they are more dedicated to good than law, then it becomes the alignment where one believes that law and order are the best ways to achieve Good. If the reverse, then the alignment believes that the best way to achieve law and order in the long run is goodness, kindness, and love, rather than the iron fist of law.
Lawful Neutral. It is not that they do not care about good, or kindness. It is merely that they are dedicated, first and foremost, to law and order, and to a well maintained society. That order and predictability are more important, on a societal and cosmic level, than either kindness or cruelty, and they'll use whichever one they think is more likely to be effective, all within the framework of the Law they hold above all else. Their law need not match that of the society they are in, but it will be predictable, and consistent, and based on the order laid down by the beings they revere. Piety and tradition are vital parts of this worldview. This may actually be the most common alignment in many settings, and arguably the real world, within an entrenched society.
Lawful Evil. Order must be maintained or everything will fall to Chaos, and even be destroyed. The good of the individual is completely irrelevant in the face of the needs of the society, and order must be maintained at all costs, by any means. They are draconian, more than willing to engage in cruelty and atrocity if it keeps society stable. They are also willing to use the rules as they stand for personal gain, since the society itself isn't concerned with individual welfare, the citizens are often more concerned with it, and willing to manipulate the system to achieve their aims while staying technically legal and maintaining public order. They may or may not be aligned with any cosmic sort of evil, and they may or may not want to do explicitly destructive or tyrannical things, but they definitely trend authoritarian.
Neutral Good. The well being of all sapient creatures is the first priority. Kindness is king. Compassion is queen. Order and Chaos are irrelevant except as tools to ensure the good of the people. A cruel law is opposed, but so is a freedom that often leads to abuse of others. They tend to balance Chaos and Law in an attmept to achieve the greatest good, or simply do what they see as good regardless of Chaos, Law, responsibility, or personal freedom.
Neutral. This is the alignment of pure balance. For it not to be simply, in modern terms, unaligned, there has to be a certain dedication to the idea of balancing the forces of the universe. The idea that without evil, how would we recognize good? Without Chaos, who would need Law? The idea that all things have their place, and most especially that the wild and untamed should be balanced with the regimented and controlled nature of civilization, thus making it the most common druidic perspective, even in the modern day where that isn't explicitly required in the rules.
Neutral Evil. Chaos is a tool. Law is a tool. The aim? Self interest. A NE character will use and manipulate anything and everything just for their own aims, without any concern for others, for rules, for the freedom of others. Perhaps the most nihilistic of alignments, they have no real ideals. To them, nothing matters but their own gain. They might balance law and chaos to do so, but its purely utilitarian. What works to get me what I want? Tradition and personal freedoms are equally irrelevant to them.
Chaotic Good. Just like LG and NG, they want the best for everyone. But they are firmly convinced that strict rules actively impede that. That personal freedom in all things is the path toward the most good outcomes, or at the very least that it isn't worth losing freedom, even if the outcomes are beneficial for the most part. They value self expression, spontaneity, and freedom of choice above tradition or law, and often directly oppose new regulation of any kind, even if it is intended for the greater good.
Chaotic Neutral. Freedom above all. Good, bad, none of that matters. I do what I want, when I want, and everyone should. If you don't, that's your problem. This does not mean that they are automatically psycho random people (unless they are slaadi etc), but it does mean that they tend to be more motivated by whims, and the needs of the moment, and to value their own personal freedom above all other considerations. They probably wouldn't go out of their way to be cruel, but they also wouldn't go out of their way to avoid it.
Chaotic Evil. Often represented as the worst evil, they actively despise rules and order, and love cruelty and destruction . If they have a saving grace it is that they value freedom, but because they don't care about what is good or kind, that means their freedom, usually. If they are strong enough to enslave others, well, good for them. This could also be the alignment of the once noble freedom fighter who has both accepted that the ends justify the means, and has actively come to enjoy and value the cruelty and violence they have had to use to achieve their notion of freedom.
Obviously I have my own biases, and astute readers will be able to figure them out. But the old alignments may still have some utility, if thought of in cosmic or societal terms rather than the purely individual, and as descriptive of what is (at least for mortals) rather than prescriptive of what they can and can't do. It's a shorthand for allegiance and basic worldview, but it certainly shouldn't be seen as the be all and end all of a characters motivations and action. Much like the labels Progressive, Liberal, Centrist, and Conservative, or the labels Authoritarian and Libertarian, the people inside those vary widely.
