Ideas about an alignment questionnaire

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[Death_Jester]

Hello All,

While talking to someone on the boards or at one of the meet-ups someone brought up on the idea of an alignment questionnaire for Dungeons and Dragons.   Now I know that 4th ed. doesn’t use the same alignment ideas as 3rd did so this will be strictly for the older version that use the Lawful, Chaotic, Good, Evil and Neutral axis. 

We all know that alignment has two components and we need to define them before we can really quantify them.  The first part is the meta-moral philosophy and ethics which tells us how a person relates to the larger concepts of right and wrong in a societal context.  In other words how does the individual deal with groups of people or authority in general.  Does the individual try to fit in or “fight the power” the reasons do not matter in this case only the desired outcome.  The second part is more interpersonal, how does the individual deal with others one on one.  This could also be seen as personal character or behavior (code of conduct). 

I know we could debate these concepts and definitions for days but that isn’t the point.  I’m just going to ask that we take the above as the yard stick that alignment will be measured by and go with it.  Otherwise we will never get anywhere with what we want to do here.  We need a way to quantify these two concepts so that questions can produce a result.  This result will be a mathematic representation along a continuum from which we can determine where someone falls.

I would suggest several questions at least 100 but there should be a lot of questions so that there is very little chance to repeat. 

What I’m suggesting is a group of questions that can measure these two qualities.  They should be phrased in the form of “What does your character agree with or what would your character do” ect.   The question should be of a form that will allow the character to either agree, disagree, or not care about the proposed outcome.

I will give you some suggestions about what I’m talking about here.

Your character is the ruler of a small prosperous kingdom your neighbor kingdom is having a famine. You send food to save the starving people.  1. Agree 2. Don’t Care 3. Disagree
This question is asking the individual if they would will act lawfully towards a large group of people. 
The answers are pretty much show that 1=Lawful reaction 2=Neutral reaction 3=Chaotic reaction

A young child is playing in the street your character is driving a cart filled with goods that need to be delivered quickly.  You run the risk of hitting the child in order to get the job done 1. Agree 2. Don’t Care 3. Disagree
This question is asking if the individual will risk the life of one person in order to fulfill their goals.  The assumption is an evil one risking the life of someone else.  The answers show 1=Evil 2=Neutral 3=Good the order of the answers can be reversed easily to manipulate the “weight”.

I hope that others will find this a fun task because making these questions could be an exercise in how twisted or creative you can be to put people in situations.  Even if you don't play Dungeons and Dragons (or even this version) I ask that you consider contributing because from these questions you can help better define characters in your own games.

Let the games begin.

I will be posting some of my own questions as I think them up too. 


Peace all Jester

[Cosmic J]

What if Law, Chaos, Good and Evil are actual measurable forces in your game world? 

[Chris]

And they affect the dice in some way.......

[Carlson]

What if Law, Chaos, Good and Evil are actual measurable forces in your game world?  

This was done in Green Ronin's Advanced Player's Manual, where Law/Chaos and Good/Evil are each scored on a 21-point sliding scale. By having a 21-point scale, it makes alignment checks possible (d20 rolls)

[Chris]

Think Cosmic J means that they are also part of the setting, i.e. they can be measured by science or magic. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong.

[Death_Jester]

What if Law, Chaos, Good and Evil are actual measurable forces in your game world?  

I'm going to need some clarification on what you mean buddy.  

I can tell you that the only thing I wanted to do was to create a questionnaire that the player could fill out as if they were the character to get a feel for what kind of alignment he or she is before the game.   I also wanted something that would stimulate some thought on the player’s part to give depth to the character’s actions during the game.  I'm not trying to inject an entire new system into anyone's campaign setting if that is what you were thinking.  Lord knows we do enough book keeping as it is.  

Everyone that has ever played Dungeons and Dragons knows that Law, Chaos, Good, Neutral, and Evil are part of the setting already as part of the magic system.  For those game systems that do not use these ideas as part of the setting this questionnaire could just be used a loose guide for how the character sees him/herself in society or when dealing with people one on one.   I hope that helps clear up what I was thinking.  I know that sometimes my writing can get in the way of my ideas.  

[Cosmic J]

What if Law, Chaos, Good and Evil are actual measurable forces in your game world? 

I'm going to need some clarification on what you mean buddy.   

Think Cosmic J means that they are also part of the setting, i.e. they can be measured by science or magic.

This. In some of my game worlds, Law, Chaos, Good and Evil are actual measurable forces of the spirit world, in the same way that Earth, Air, Fire and Water are measurable quantities in the physical realm. A person's alignment is not just a philosophy, but something inherent to their totality. Objects and places can be infused w/ these forces as well.

I realise now that you're trying to come up w/ questions that help pinpoint a character's moral and ethical outlook on life, so my original question is mostly irrelevant. 

It should be easy to come up w/ a long list - just about any question one asks could give some clue. I would start w/ clear and precise definitions for the different alignments. Then I would ask questions that are answered in the affirmative by the diametrically opposed extremes of alignment. After that, it becomes easier to fill in the blanks - first define the boundaries, then fill the spaces in between.

Does Law mean one goes w/ the crowd and looks out for society at large, or does it mean that one is a very structured in thought or action, or both?
Does Chaos mean one lives his life in an unstructured way, one is an anarchist, or does it mean both?
Does Good mean you value all life, or just the lives of your species (plus other sentient beings)?
Does Evil mean one has no regard for the dignity of any life, or just the lives of "lesser" beings?

See what I mean? Very sticky, these questions. 

[Carlson]

They also did an online questionnaire/alignment test for 3.0. Might give you a good jumping off point.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20001222b

[Chris]

This should clear things up:

[Death_Jester]

It should be easy to come up w/ a long list - just about any question one asks could give some clue. I would start w/ clear and precise definitions for the different alignments. Then I would ask questions that are answered in the affirmative by the diametrically opposed extremes of alignment. After that, it becomes easier to fill in the blanks - first define the boundaries, then fill the spaces in between.

Does Law mean one goes w/ the crowd and looks out for society at large, or does it mean that one is a very structured in thought or action, or both?
Does Chaos mean one lives his life in an unstructured way, one is an anarchist, or does it mean both?
Does Good mean you value all life, or just the lives of your species (plus other sentient beings)?
Does Evil mean one has no regard for the dignity of any life, or just the lives of "lesser" beings?

See what I mean? Very sticky, these questions. 

I see that this could be very tricky indeed.  If I defind these things it could only apply to my settings and be useless to anyone else. I'd want to come up with something universally useful.   

I'll have to come up with something else I guess. 

[Cosmic J]

I once posted some background stuff I lifted from old Dragon magazines for some of my players to look at. Might be something there you could use, especially the parts about motivations and traits:

http://louisvillerpg.com/forum/index.php?topic=1748.msg30268#msg30268