Geekgasm

[zonewombat]

I almost never use my LJ for full-out geeking...I mean, my family reads this thing! However, on another board I'm in a discussion of the D&D alignment system as it pertains to the Firefly crew, and I'm amused by it.

Now, standard disclaimer: I don't love the alignment system. I use percentile-based alignments rather than absolute, to get a wider spread. But that aside, with the classic 9 alignments:

Mal: CG
Zoe: LN
Jayne: NE
Wash: NG
Kaylee: NG
Book: NG
Inara: LN
Simon: NG
River: CN

Zoe's Lawfulness is all about Mal, which, since he's Chaotic, is a problem. Jayne is the very epitome of Neutral Evil. His quote from "Serenity" about "Hell, I'll kill a man in a fair fight...or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight..." should be in the next version of D&D as the NE quote. Book I think used to be True Neutral (because I think he was an Operative and I think Operatives are True Neutral), but started sliding into Good. Inara is in the process of becoming more Chaotic and more Good, but isn't there yet. Simon used to be LG. River may be NG, but she'll need a lot more drugs and therapy before we'll know for sure.

Next I think I'll slap these kids onto the Myers-Briggs chart.

Comments

[e-juliana.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love you and your spicy brains!

I'm thinking Mal is more the CN type.

[dredpyratrobert.livejournal.com]

Think of all the bodies he has left behind. And I think that the occasional good deed falls under the Dr. Who explanation (new series) that even Evil people will occasionally do random Good things so that they can point to them and say how wonderful they are by contrast to their other acts.
Not that Mal isn't trying.

Re: I'm thinking Mal is more the CN type.

[zonewombat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I guess I agree that Mal has become CN, but I think at his core he's CG. "The Train Job" covers both aspects: Him returning the medicine and what he says about it is CG, but kicking the guy into the engine is CN.

[sail-aweigh.livejournal.com]

I'd put Book as CG, myself. If only because in War Stories he was more than willing to do a little violence for no more reason than to help Mal. Also, the fact that having switched sides and/or slipped down that slope, his actual orientation is always slightly in doubt. Particularly when you think of that episode where River is hearing everyone's internal thoughts (was that Objects in Space?) and Book is quite "I don't give a rat's ass...etc.) Sounds like he can be mighty unlawful to achieve his ends.

I guess I still wish we'd gotten more of Book's backstory. He always came across as the most complex character to me, even more so than River.

[seankozma.livejournal.com]

I'd love to hear more about this percentile alignment system. I'm not a huge fan of the system as it stands, and I try to emphasize that it's deeds that determine alignment, rather than the other way around, but I don't always get that through to my players very well. No matter how many times I expound on my theories on the subject, I still hear them say things like "Well, my character is chaotic, so I'd do blah...."

I'm also working on cobbling together a low-magic campaign that might just do away with the concept of alignment altogether, though I know many players like to have something about the character that provides a guidline to behavior and characterization.

[zonewombat.livejournal.com]

Funny you should say that - we've been kicking that very thing around. True20 does away with alignments completely, and having just wrapped up a game in that system, I didn't miss it.

We used a variant of Traits and Flaws to give the players some guideline about the character, but I'd easily dump those too.

True20 also turned out to be a low magic system, somewhat unintentionally. I'm not sure I'd recommend it wholeheartedly, but it's available.

The thing I noticed was that without alignments or big magic, the D&D game felt a lot like a Cthulhu game.

I'll zap you the stuff on the percentile alignment system.

oh and

[zonewombat.livejournal.com]

I try to emphasize that it's deeds that determine alignment, rather than the other way around,

One of the major things that prompted us to start dinking with the alignment system was listening to all our CN friends justify the CN actions they wanted their characters to do as CG. Or NG. Or sometimes even LG.