This is for all my friends that don’t understand 5e alignments:
The allignment has two spectrums
The first between good and evil, which determines the intentions of the characters actions and the functional result, for instance a good character believes that their goals are just, a neutral one doesn’t really have a bad or good goal but rather a personal one, and an evil character accepts that their goals are evil. Now sometimes it’s hard to consider if a character is neutral or evil since most evil goals are personal, the idea is that a neutral character will default to actions that cause the least harm to others, a neutral character would not cause suffering or pain to reach their goal unless they had to. An evil character might stop along their path to strangle a few children. That’s why I mentioned functional result, consideration for consequences.
The second spectrum is between lawful and chaotic. A lawful character considers a set of rules, this doesn’t just mean express laws but also things like oaths, honor, and societal convention, the idea would be that they have a code of ethics that they adhere to at all times, no matter the goal or consequence, however these ethics could be any amalgamation of law and person rules. Neutral characters may have this personal code or may have no such thing but rather view rules and codes as a suggestion, a way to act in most situations, they follow laws and convention until they feel that this path no longer aids their goals. Chaotic characters believe that rules and ethical codes limit their potential, they generally don’t follow the rules even when following the rules doesn’t harm them because they just don’t want to.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way let’s dive in:
Lawful good: this character has a set of strict ethics and codes which dictate their actions, they also have what they consider to be an absolute moral correctness, an ideal. This could be a god, a country, or a person, whatever the case the most common theme is centred on justice and treating others how you would want to be treated, however these rules and ideals really can be anything. This is the kind of character that might lie to a villain but never an innocent person even if they think telling the truth to the innocent might somehow inform the villain, that is to say they aren’t stupid, they wouldn’t go blabbing to everyone, more likely they would just say something like “I can’t tell you” or “trust me”. Think of a cop
Neutral good: this character once again has an ideal and a set of ethical rules, however they wouldn’t find it very hard to break these rules. If their goal is just then it’s really dependent on the specific nature of the character. For instance this character could likely lie to close friends if it meant the prevention of their deaths. Think of a spy
Chaotic good: this character has an ideal but no code of ethics, they believe their goals to be just but also believe that rules and ethics are limiting, this character would have no issue lying about literally anything so long as they didn’t believe their actions would have bad consequences, however remember their goal is still just such as ending world hunger or defeating an evil demon, they aren’t just plain tricksters. Think of a vigilante.
Lawful neutral: this character may or may not have an ideal, but they do have a set of ethics, generally speaking their goal may be just or it may not be, that is to say it is either something like curing a disease (out of personal reasons) or finding treasure (for personal reasons) or stealing a dragon (damn you dragon heist), but generally their motives are personal not big picture. This character if one of their ethics was truth telling would be unable to lie to anyone, at all, for any reason. Think of a white collar criminal. (Saving a close loved one is still personal because at it’s root, it’s selfish)
True neutral: this character just has their goal, they don’t care about all this shit about loving thy neighbor or eye for an eye, they just want to do their shit, die, and enjoy the path they took, not necessarily in that order, they just say “look I want a dragon, because dragons are cool, if you tell me that beating up that guard will get me a dragon, then I will fucking beat up that guard.” However if you told them that walking down the street and saying “here dragon dragon” would get them a dragon, well then they would probably do the second thing. Think that you generally like to be clean probably, so you keep yourself clean, however if you had to crawl through mud to survive you probably would. Think of a thief.
Chaotic neutral: this character has a goal, yes, and it’s hard to describe this since it’s very similar to the previous one but also the most misunderstood. This character does not just randomly do things, they are, you might say, governed by their goal. For instance stealing a dragon. In this goal once again they do not wish to cause harm or pain, but rather find rules to be limiting to their goals whether or not they directly limit them, just the idea of rules limits ones perspective on what is possible, which is enough to limit them if only indirectly. As such this character would likely go out of their way to break rules, so as to ensure they are not limited in their thinking, and are thus reaching their full potential, it’s not just about not caring about the rules, it’s about hating them. Think of a hacker that leans towards the white or grey hat.
Lawful evil: here we have a person whose goal is generally something personal and irreverent of anything else, there is no care made towards the well being of those they dont have to care about, there is no considering the consequences to anybody but themselves. Now this doesn’t mean they never do good things or they actually don’t care about anything, firstly a lawful evil has a set of very specific ethics, the easiest way to write it is making like a game with the concept of “if it was easy it wouldn’t be fun” the villain never lies because it tarnishes their reputation which can be used as a resource, they don’t steal because that would be too easy, they don’t kill because they want deniable accountability. These are a few examples. A lawful evil character may have a few close friends whom they would never harm, and may even from the outside appear to be benevolent if their goals happen to result in the prosperity of others, such as a greedy politician that realises as long as the public are in good health, they generally don’t rebel, which ensures their position and wealth’s safety, or a business man that sells a service that just happens to help both involved, even though this business man doesn’t care if it helped the customer.
Neutral evil generally tries to stay within rule sets, but removing the game element and just considers the practical aspects of it, like the use of an untarnished reputation or clean money. This isn’t to say they can’t break these rules but they could have some issues, think of the leader of criminal organisation, that never gets their hands dirty, but once considered shooting someone themselves to see what it would feel like.
Finally, chaotic evil. We’ve actually come full circle because we’re back to it being a game, but this time it’s a game that this character just decides to upend, pick back up, add new pieces and then change the rules, whenever they feel like it. Often times their goal is something like causing pain or chaos, rather than being functional and they do things in waves of function vs dysfunction. This character does whatever they want, when they want, for whatever reason they want, this character is like a trickster demon, sometimes they live normal lives just to feel how mundane it Is, before filling their basement with the mutilated corpses of their closest friends just to see how long it would take for someone to notice. Once again they abhor rules for the limits they place on them.
jacobvanloon
janainaart
tangentwithtanner
blakekathryn
