Thought Experiment: Name that society's alignment

[Libertad]

This is for a Pathfinder supplement I'm working on.  I want to get your collective opinions and answers.  There is no wrong answer.

First, I’m going to make up two fictional societies off the top of my head.  After reading my short descriptions of both, I want you to assign them the alignment you think most closely matches their moral and ethical structures.  Ready?  Here we go.

Society A is a small isolated village.  Its inhabitants prize the benefits of collectivism and working together, their economy based upon a system of barters, favors, and shaming to encourage good behavior and cooperation.  They have no mayor or king, instead deciding major decisions via temporary alliances of town councils who cooperate together against a major threat or issue.  Everybody is equal, and there is no private property; everything beyond personal possessions is either shared or used by people with the proper training.  This society does not see the value of written laws, but they do have a malleable system of social rules intended to keep things operating smoothly.

Society B is an advanced civilization of art, knowledge, magic, and warfare.  Its people pride themselves on their heritage and favored status in the world, believing that their ancestry alone makes them worthier than other people.  Racism is prevalent in their ways of thinking, and they have trouble understanding why outside cultures act as though this is not the case.  Children of mixed race are doomed to a life social isolation and ostracism, leading many of them to leave.  Some cities and subgroups even practice forms of inherent social stratification among their own kind, such as a caste system or even indentured servitude by applying their own racial superiority inwards.

[Childe]

Society A seems Neutral Good, though really there's not enough information to go on to definitively decide the Good-Evil axis. They work collectively, but if they're working collectively toward Evil ends, it's irrelevant. (Accepting as necessary for this discussion D&D's labels of Good and Evil.)

Society B seems Lawful Neutral, but again there's not much information regarding the Good-Evil axis. I've taken that lack of information as no significant tendency in either direction. While there is racism, it doesn't sound like it manifests in any D&D-labeled "Evil" acts. That said, there doesn't appear to be anything notably "Good" about the society. Making an assumption that the layperson doesn't care all that much about Good or Evil, I assign Neutral.

[linklord231]

Society A seems chaotic neutral, with good tendancies.  The fact that they don't have private property and many possessions are shared seems to swing them more towards Chaos than Neutrality to me.  By the description, it seems like there are more Good people than Evil people in this society, but the majority are probably Neutral. They might work together for the common good, but in my mind for a society to be called Good they should be furthering the cause of Good on as big a scale as they can manage, which is hard to do in an isolationist society. 

Society B seems lawful neutral with evil tendancies.  Lawfulness seems obvious.  Racism and classism is probably Evil, but it doesn't seem like it's being endorsed by society as a whole.  To me, for a society to be considered Lawful Evil they need to be systematically and intentionally oppressing people - more like Nazi Germany than feudalism. 

[RelentlessImp]

Society A seems Lawful Neutral to me; 'having written laws' isn't exactly a requirement for Lawful behavior, but a malleable, probably quite complex set of social rules that everyone behaves by for Reasons. The possessions bit seems like Communism (to everyone what is necessary), and is neither inherently good nor evil in and of itself. It's the social rules bit and their malleability that pushes me towards Lawful here.

Society B can easily be Lawful Good, but I'm going to go with Lawful Neutral again. I mean, yes, Racism is usually seen as one of the big 'Evil' buttons, but we don't live in a fantasy world where other races (species) literally want to tear your head off and spit down your throat on a regular basis, so ostracization of mixed-breeds can easily have a legitimate and completely valid reason, especially if said mixed-breed is literally made up of Evil.

Honestly, both seem like different extremes of Lawful Neutral, with one coming off as a peaceful, no-nonsense commune and the other an Empire beset on all sides by different species of creatures that hate them just as much as they hate the other species.

[X-Codes]

I think that A is True Neutral.  There is a social order, but it's flexible as opposed to rigidly enforced.  The ideology behind their government also seems to be similar to Druidic tenants, which implies moral neutrality, but there's not enough information to have real insight into their moral leanings.

I think that B is clearly Lawful Neutral, and has a significant Lawful Evil population.  There's not enough information to say whether or not the society as a whole is evil, but I don't think they're good at all.  Indentured servitude is nasty business.

[Kajhera]

A is Lawful Evil and B is Chaotic Good.
Er ... I don't have any explanation for that except that I'm reminded of kobolds and elves, respectively.

MTG-alignment-wise, second one feels Blue-White while first feels Green and specifically anti-Black.

[bhu]

Neutral and Lawful Evil.

[SorO_Lost]

Society C is Christians. ~Chaotic-Lawful Evil.

Society D is... Oh wait. I did that wrong.

Society A is commies, NG. They have some form of law that handles disputes.
Society B depending on who you ask is LG to CE. Our corrupt history would tell us LG, an eight year old would probably pick Evil through.

[Libertad]

Guess what?  Those two societies I did not make up.

Society A is the theoretical framework of traditional anarchism in how they imagine an ideal society to operate.

Society B is derived from a patchwork collection of "high elves" from popular campaign settings.  Silvanesti elves from Dragonlance, the Complete Book of Elves from 2nd Edition, Gold Elves from Forgotten Realms, etc.

I understand that there are problems with assigning alignments to entire societies, or providing such a brief snapshot of both, but both groups in D&D are traditionally chaotic-aligned.  In the case of "high elves," good even.

In spite of Society A not having a central authority or hierarchy, many of you (on these boards and elsewhere) placed them as a non-chaotic option, even though a popular interpretation of Lawfulness involves this.

My book-to-be specifically is called Death to Alignment!  A set of variant rules options and changes to eliminate alignment as a game concept from Pathfinder while still retaining its more popular tropes (virtuous paladins, demonic hordes, etc).  To that end I was planning on using this thought experiment (just the questions, not the responses) in it to show readers the shortcomings of alignment, both in the game and in applying real-world values to it.

[Leviathan]

The thing with anarchism (or communism, or many similar movements) is that it involves two stages. In the first stage, the existing system is torn down or removed, which is clearly a chaotic act. In the second stage, a new order arises; this new order is often lawful and almost never chaotic.

It follows the same pattern as "you have to spend money to make money" - by doing something contrary to your goals in the short term, you make those goals more achievable in the long term. (This is also how governments justify stuff like torture.)

The people who do well at the tearing down in the first stage are usually not very good at building things up again in the second. When the revolutionaries hold power (as happened in the French Revolution), they carry on the revolution, instead of pursuing the ideals that inspired it.

[RelentlessImp]

Ha! I was right about society B - both the Gold Elves and the Silvanesti -are- a giant Empire who are beset on all sides by enemies.

[LudicSavant]

The thing with anarchism (or communism, or many similar movements) is that it involves two stages. In the first stage, the existing system is torn down or removed, which is clearly a chaotic act. In the second stage, a new order arises; this new order is often lawful and almost never chaotic.

Except neither of those things are clearly chaotic or lawful.

Before you can have a real discussion of what alignment something is, you have to define terms.  As is, Chaotic and Lawful have useless definitions in the PHB, and therefore mean absolutely nothing.  You could describe essentially any action as Chaotic or Lawful... or even as both a paragon of law and a paragon of chaos at the same time.

I would not be surprised if you could post your societies on various internet forum communities and get answers for every alignment for both of them, Libertad.  And that, right there, should illustrate the problem with the PHB alignment definitions.

Actually, in this thread alone, with only 7 answering replies from a relatively close-knit community, I see 5 different alignments listed for society A.  Society B also included CE, CG, LE, LN, and LG (5 alignments from 7 respondents, covering all 4 extreme alignments!).  That's a plainly horrific batting average, and clearly illustrates the point that with the alignment rules as written in the PHB, people are doing little more than playing a vague word association game where they just throw on a label however they feel like it, and players in game will have no idea what they can cast Dictum on without actually throwing down a detect spell even if they have intimate knowledge of the intended target's personality.

It's not even that the idea of alignment is that bad.  It wouldn't actually be that hard to write more consistent and useful definitions.  It's just that in the PHB it's written really, really badly... to the point of being utterly meaningless and arbitrary.

[RelentlessImp]

Actually, in this thread alone, with only 7 answering replies from a relatively close-knit community, I see 5 different alignments listed for society A.  Society B also included CE, CG, LE, LN, and LG (5 alignments from 7 respondents, covering all 4 extreme alignments!).  That's a plainly horrific batting average, and clearly illustrates the point that with the alignment rules as written in the PHB, people are doing little more than playing a vague word association game where they just throw on a label however they feel like it, and players in game will have no idea what they can cast Dictum on without actually throwing down a detect spell even if they have intimate knowledge of the intended target's personality.

Yes, but see, the difference is, my answers are right. 

[bhu]

I described A as Neutral because it was described as 'small and isolated'.  One of the defining points  of neutrality being keeping to oneself (or only being concerned with oneself) it seemed like a rational choice.

[LudicSavant]

Actually, in this thread alone, with only 7 answering replies from a relatively close-knit community, I see 5 different alignments listed for society A.  Society B also included CE, CG, LE, LN, and LG (5 alignments from 7 respondents, covering all 4 extreme alignments!).  That's a plainly horrific batting average, and clearly illustrates the point that with the alignment rules as written in the PHB, people are doing little more than playing a vague word association game where they just throw on a label however they feel like it, and players in game will have no idea what they can cast Dictum on without actually throwing down a detect spell even if they have intimate knowledge of the intended target's personality.

Yes, but see, the difference is, my answers are right. 

While I understand that you're joking, I think it would be more precise to say that none of the given answers were right, because the alignment labels as defined by the PHB don't actually differentiate from each other.  That's the core problem, really.  For alignments to have meaning, people must add their own definitions.  The fact that they often do this without realizing they're adding their own definitions (as opposed to referring to a perceived common definition established in the rulebooks) is why alignments cause more stupid arguments than anything else in D&D.

The argument of "what does X alignment mean" or "what alignment is X" is akin to the ongoing philosophical argument as to whether "when a tree falls in the forest with nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound?"  To a serious philosopher, the answer is obvious.  However, despite the answer being obvious, the "classic" question is still taken seriously by some people who didn't get the memo, and still causes pointless debates today.

The obvious answer is thus:  The two sides answering "yes" and "no" and eternally going at each others' throats aren't actually arguing about the same thing.  One side is asking "if a tree falls in the forest with nobody around to hear it, does it make a sonic vibration?" and correctly concluding yes.  The other side is asking "if a tree falls in the forest with nobody around to hear it, does anyone experience an auditory sensation?"  and correctly concluding no.  The argument is thus a false one:  Both sides would probably agree on the answers of the two questions I just listed, but they won't agree on the original question because they don't realize that they haven't properly defined the question. 

D&D 3.5e alignment arguments are generally the same way:  People are really asking different questions (like "is this action defying the laws of the land" or "is this action organized" or "is this action rational" or Bhu's "does this society keep to themselves" or any of a thousand other questions), because they have totally different definitions of what each alignment means, yet are treating the discussion as if they're answering the same questions.

[X-Codes]

There's definitely no small amount of interpretation going on here when we look at the descriptions of these societies and different traits of these societies are being weighed in different ways by different people.

These arguments do, however, make me think of back in the olden days when NO mortals had alignments of any kind, and the cosmic struggle was between the forces of Order and Chaos, and actually being legitimately aligned with one faction or the other was often akin to being Exalted or Vile in 3.5e, just for the other alignment axis.  In short, you can be a good person, but not "Neutral Good."  To actually be that alignment, you have to be a freaking saint.

...and you know what?  That's probably a better way of doing things.

[LudicSavant]

Not that Exalted means anything either.  Half of the definitions they give in that book simply use synonyms for Good like "benevolence" or "righteousness" with no definitional value and the other half are either things that are about as meaningful as "your special effects are a different color" or things that just flat out cause Int damage to the reader like Ravages.

[Kajhera]

My answers were tongue in cheek. (Except the MTG colors.)

[awaken_D_M_golem]

A ... sounds like Myconids on Ysgard, or out near the 10th ring of neutral Hinterlands ... as in spooky magic to support.

B ... sounds like Illithids, or those weird spell disk super casters race things ... or a Nalfeshnee run "camp" on Pandemonium.

[X-Codes]

Not that Exalted means anything either.  Half of the definitions they give in that book simply use synonyms for Good like "benevolence" or "righteousness" with no definitional value and the other half are either things that are about as meaningful as "your special effects are a different color" or things that just flat out cause Int damage to the reader like Ravages.

Oh, no, giving away all your possessions except for a few rags and a walking stick is a totally empty, meaningless act.  Same with never killing a living creature, even if they try to kill you, or ascending to Sainthood because of your actions.

Get out of here.