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Blizzard

2021-09-21T02:04:00Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:987D:4A2D:4A5B:6397: /* The toxic workplace lawsuits */

{{/vg/}}
{{topquote|Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.|Charles C. Colton, ''Lacon: Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those Who Think''}}

{{Infobox Deity
|Name = Blizzard
|Symbol = [[File:Fluff Accurate.jpg|300px]]
|Alignment = Stupid Chaotic Evil
|Divine Rank = AAA
|Pantheon = Activision
|Portfolio =
|Domains = Greed, Falls From Grace, Bad Ideas, Terrible Writing (Formerly: Polish, Execution, Unoriginality)
|Home Plane = California
|Worshippers = Gamers,
|Favoured Weapon = Exploit worker, Union Breaker, Retcons, Virtue Signal, Weinsteinian culture, IP theft
}}

__NOTOC__
'''Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.''' is an American-owned servant of the PRC and [[/v/|video game]] developer founded in 1991. Consumed by corporate merger shenanigans in 2008, they are now a subsidiary of parent company Activision Blizzard. They are well known in the gaming community for rising to prominence by shamelessly ripping off a long list of things, the most pertinent to [[/tg/]] being the similarity between its flagship franchises and ''[[Warhammer 40k]]''. Blizzard is akin to Apple Inc.: they never ''really'' did anything original, and instead took inspiration/borrowed/stole content from other sources, marketing it as though they're pretty much posterboys of the brand, and took the credit for being "pioneers of said genre". [[Games Workshop|Let it not be said they didn't steal their business/creative practices from the best]].

While not as skubtastic as [[Kaldor Draigo|the]] [[Matt Ward|other]] [[Grey Knights|things]] [[Ultramarines|present]], it still does cause tensions in /tg/ when brought up. Especially if it concerns one of their games' [[fluff]].

While Blizzard does [[Blood Ravens|"borrow"]] other people's ideas, there's no denying marketing spends a lot of time and effort studying those ideas, figuring why they are successful, and what parts of these ideas should be improved or removed to make them better. This leads to creating a few extremely well done and successful games, in turn earning a [[Profit|LOT of money]]. While other studios may create revolutionary content, Blizzard is more about ''evolution,'' with their games becoming golden standards of quality, and "easy to learn, hard to master" learning curves. They are also responsible for creating the game-dev meme ''"when it's done,"'' which means they could literally spend a decade on mismanagement one game, probably spending too much time doing drugs in the office, and another decade to force the dev team into crunch with a shit-ton of balance patches, while management pisses off to GDC but it's to be expected, given all other major game developers are the same, if not [[EA|much, much worse]].

[[Skub|There's contention]] between the legions of GW and the hordes of Blizzard in regards to copyrights, who invented which idea first, and whether any ripping-off in fact occurred. Facts seem to lean in the direction of yes, actually. Blizzard's co founder Allen Adham wanted to get the license to the Warhammer Universe however the [https://kotaku.com/how-warcraft-was-almost-a-warhammer-game-and-how-that-5929161 business side of the deal fell through], and the team wasn't keen on working for someone else. The exaggerated features and painted art style of the table top minis was adapted for low poly games. It boggles the mind that there still hasn't been legal trouble for this, and leads many to speculate that there's an off the books deal. Fa/tg/uys tend to accuse Blizzard of ripping off most of [[Games Workshop]]'s content, and they're right. They often write long angry posts about why Blizzard an evil company, what was stolen from their precious settings, and why Blizzard games sucks so much. But this is normal operating procedure for khornporation, Ip for the Ip throne after all. This sounds hilarious when you think about Games Workshop, who does steal '''all''' of its content from other settings. Blizzard only concentrates what's awesome about James Workshop and repackages it after doing minimal rework.

If you ever meet a raging fan, crying about plagiarism, <s>ignore the fucking troll</s> [[lulz|throw oil on the fire and get a-trolling]]. Alternatively, keep raging about [[The Ultimate Necron Cheese List|Necron Flyer Lists]]/[[rage|Terran Hellion Drop]] imbalance.

'''TL;DR''': Good [[crunch]], meh fluff (their memorable humor is arguably the best part of it), they are the [[Tzeentch]]/[[Slaanesh]] to GW's [[Nurgle]].

==Scandals==

From the late 2010's onwards, the company has experienced a steadily worsening fall from grace; whereas Blizzard was usually the universally beloved grand-daddy of the gaming world, albeit with one skubby exception in the form of Diablo 3, a number of PR-fuckups, shallow cashgrabs, [[Communism|grievances of the developers that actually make the games]] and the revelation of pervasive sexual harassment of staff have all but crushed their reputation. In a funny twist of fate, when it comes to their products, Blizzard is currently making a lot of the mistakes Geedubs made before [[Kevin Rountree]] took over. Here are some of the biggest failures and crimes - yes, really - in recent times;

'''November 3, 2018:''' During Blizcon, Diablo Immortals was announced as a mobile game. Gamers were livid, with one asking if it was an out of season April fools joke. The Gamer rage made an notable impact on stock price, taking months to recover afterwards.

'''Feburary 12, 2019:''' Blizzard fired 800 employees after reporting record earning.

'''October 6, 2019:''' During a tournament, Chinese [[Hearthstone]] pro-player Blitzchung appeared wearing a gas mask and goggles in a live stream and showed support to the Hong Kong Protests. Near the end of the live stream he said “Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our age”, a recognized slogan in the Hong Kong protest. After the interview Blizzard disqualified Blitzchung and stripped him of his prize money, and banned him for a year. Backlash was immediate, users deleted Blizzard accounts and destroyed games while #BoycottBlizzard trended with thousands retweeting.

'''October 28, 2019:''' Blizzard announced a $660,000 prize pool for their annual arena/mythic dungeon world tournaments, after previously releasing a set of promotional in-game toys, promising 1/4 of the sales would go towards said prize pool. Most fans believed the money made from the sales would be added to the $500,000 minimum that Blizzard had promised. However, after competing players confronted Blizzard officials, it was revealed that Blizzard had instead chosen to rely entirely on the sales profit for the prize pool, making off with ~$2 million themselves from the other 3/4 of the sales and contributing nothing out of their own pockets. Nerd rage ensued.

'''January 28th, 2020:''' Blizzard released the remastered version of Warcraft 3. The game came out in a notoriously unfinished, buggy and featureless state and used advertisement that borders on being fraudulent (Australian and EU authorities actually filed a lawsuit against Blizzard for misleading advertisements), was missing features the original game had ''13 years ago'', [[RAGE|'''claimed ownership of any custom content created for the game in the ToS in a really, really stupid move that is also illegal under US and EU law''' - especially since Blizzard is a US company]] and even refused to offer refunds, which prompted another lawsuit by EU authorities against them. The game also completely replaced the original Warcraft 3 on the launcher, locking players out of the original unless they have the physical discs plus disc ports and instead prompting them to download the "improved" version.

'''August 4, 2020:''' Employees shared a spreadsheet of salaries and recent pay increases showing that few were given raises after crunch, and overtime. Many employees, despite working at one of the biggest video game companies were struggling to pay rent and using the company's free coffee as an appetite suppressant as they cut meals. Apparently that 5 year service sword does not also pay rent.

'''October 16th, 2020:''' Blizzard announced that they would put Starcraft 2 into maintenance mode, ceasing any content updates in the future. This has left a lot of players angry and sad, especially since Starcraft 2 is one of the very last remaining RTS with a decently sized playerbase and competitive scene.

=== The toxic workplace lawsuits ===
A series of lawsuits against Acitvision Blizzard. Due to the severity of the crimes/charges and their effects along with the related investigation being ongoing, they've been given their own section on this page.

'''July 22nd, 2021:''' California's Department of Fair Employment filed a civil lawsuit against Activision/Blizzard for sexual harassment of numerous employees - especially female employees, some of the incidents going back years. The final catalyst was the suicide of a female employee who was one of the victims of said harassment. According to the lawsuit, the culprits are from several levels in the company (former Senior Creative Director Alex Afrasiabi and former CTO Ben Kilgore are among them), the charges include unwanted groping and posting intimate pictures without their consent, and that other execs knew of the abuses but did nothing. The situation wasn't helped when several Blizzard employees lashed out at several high-profile WoW commentators and streamers such as Asmongold for criticizing them, trying to shift blame onto them despite those streamers having nothing to do with the company or the abuse. With morale at an all-time low and widespread stress, the development of new projects (or at least World of Warcraft) has been stopped until the situation is resolved.
* '''July 28, 2021:''' After delivering a open letter to the upper management, a portion of Blizzard staff staged a walkout protest that gained considerable news coverage. There has been increasing support for staff to unionize, with Blizzard's Board of Directors responding by consulting the same legal firm whose lawyers prevented Amazon's staff from unionizing.
* '''August 3rd, 2021''' Sponsors have started to turn on Blizzard and executive-level employees, such as J. Allen Brack and Jesse Meschuk, have been leaving the company (unclear whether it's voluntary resignations or firings as per the standard sugar-coated dismissals for top level business execs). Brack and Meschuk are both among the executives named in the lawsuit, and Brack is succeeded by "co-leaders" Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra following his departure (with further accusations leveled that Brack left to deliberately avoid being confronted over knowing about the abuses but not stopping them).
* '''August 25th, 2021''' The California Department of Fair Employment leveled charges of obstruction via witness tampering - requiring employees to speak with Activision Blizzard execcs ahead of contacting the DFEH, amending the complaint and even destroying evidence by shredding records from the HR archives. This was added to the lawsuit, and could take the case from a civil lawsuit to a criminal lawsuit.
* '''August 26-27, 2021''': Characters and places named after developers, especially those from the lawsuit, are renamed or removed from Overwatch and World of Warcraft. Examples include the Overwatch character Jesse McCree and World of Warcraft's Draenei city Mac'aree - both named for former lead level designer for WoW Jesse McCree, being renamed.

'''September 14, 2021''': A lawsuit is filed against Activision/Blizzard accusing them of union-busting and worker intimidation, the latter in particular based on company executives responses to the sexual harassment lawsuit.

'''September 20, 2021''': Activistion Blizzard faces a federal investigation as the Securities and Exchange Commission gets involved regarding how the company has handled employee allegations of workplace discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual misconduct. Bobby Kotick and several other senior executives were given subpoenas, with the court date pending.

==Franchises relevant to /tg/==

*'''''[[Warcraft|WarCraft]]:''''' A real-time strategy (RTS) series; initially [[Orc]]s vs [[Human]]s but then later games added more races. Then it became a [[MMORPG]] with [[World of Warcraft|all kinds of crazy shit]]. Particularly notable to /tg/ because it spilled over into multiple genres: There were [[World of Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game|two separate editions of a ''D&D'' campaign setting]], a physical [[Card_Game#Collectible_Card_Games|trading card game]] and has its own board games too.
*'''''[[StarCraft]]:''''' RTS IN SPHESSSSS! <s>[[Space Marines]]</s> [[Imperial Guard|Terrans]] vs [[Tyranids|Zerg]] vs [[Eldar|Protoss]]. Beyond being the national sport of Korea, the ''StarCraft'' franchise has its own board game and has its own unique version of ''[[Risk]]'' which alters the rules just enough so that it isn't merely a re-skinned version of ''Risk''.
*'''''[[Diablo]]:''''' [[Grimdark]] [[Dark Fantasy]] setting involving the wars between [[Angel]]s and [[Demon]]s, and also not actually made by Blizzard. It was made instead by an outfit named Condor, which got bought out by Davidson & Associates, which also bought out a little outfit named Chaos Studios. Then, Chaos Studios got renamed '''Blizzard''', and Condor was renamed '''Blizzard North''', which is why Diablo ended up being playable on battle.net. Meanwhile, another group of guys named Synergistic Software got bought out by Sierra On-Line, which was in turn acquired by CUC International, which gobbled up Davidson & Associates, which was how the job of making Diablo's expansion pack, Hellfire, got farmed out to Synergistic. However, Condor and Blizzard both had veto power over Synergistic's ideas, and Condor, which was already working on Diablo II, didn't want anything to be in Hellfire that was also going to be in D2, which is why the Barbarian and secret cow quest had to be cut and why Hellfire couldn't be played over Battle.net even though the code totally worked. There was a [[fail|short-lived]] attempt to port the Diablo franchise into both [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons#AD&D 2nd Edition|2nd Edition]] and [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition|3rd Edition]] ''Dungeons and Dragons'', though the results were not particularly successful or well-remembered.
*'''''Hearthstone:''''' A digital collectible card game. Think ''[[Magic: The Gathering|MtG]]'' but all the depth and complexity got replaced with RNG bullshit. Also it only costs you one kidney to gather a good card collection rather than [[Forgeworld|both, one leg, one testicle, and the soul of your firstborn child]] , but Blizzard seems dedicated to catch back on that missed profit by adding more content that cannot be bought with in-game currency (gold) and going the way of the battlepass...wait, what do you mean they have two passes?

==Blizzard things that aren't (/tg/ related) rip-offs==
In 1992, they made ''Battle Chess'' for the Commodore 64 & MS-DOS, and also a ''[[Lord of the Rings]]'' [[RPG]] for the Amiga. The ''LotR'' game was supposed to be just the first book, with two sequels, but they never got around to finishing it. They made ''RPM Racing'' (allegedly the first American-made SNES game) and ''Rock n' Roll Racing'' for the Super Nintendo and the Sega Megadrive but that's [[/v/]] shit. They also made a side-scrolling Superman beat 'em up and a shitty Justice League fighting game for a dose of [[/co/]] crap too. There's also their game ''The Lost Vikings'', a platforming puzzle game where you control three [[vikings]], each of them with their own special abilities (Erik the Swift can run faster and jump higher than the other two and also bash through walls with his horned helmet, Baleog the Fierce can shoot an arrow and kill enemies with his sword and Olaf the Stout can block with shield which he can also use like a hang-glider.) Since the game has vikings in it, /tg/ might be interested in it due to their [[Warriors of Chaos|viking fetish]]. A sequel was also made, ''The Lost Vikings 2'', which added two more characters, a [[werewolf]] named Fang and Scorch the [[dragon]], but it's kind of a rarity. Fast forward to more recent times, trying to cash in on the growing MOBA-craze, Blizzard developed ''Heroes of the Storm'' by throwing all their decent franchises into a blender to make one mediocre new game, which is ironic considering highly customized user-made ''StarCraft'' and ''WarCraft III'' maps pretty much spawned the MOBA genre in the first place. Blizz's most recent success is the first-person shooter ''Overwatch''. Though hilariously similar to ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' and [[Blood Ravens|drawing upon]] various sci-fi and fantasy sources, it presents a somewhat unique (albeit poorly fleshed-out) [[noblebright]] setting and characters that are mostly [[/d/|fapbait/schlickbait]].

==[[Skub|Legitimately unbiased comparison]]==
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
Both of the companies' products have a bevy of similarities and differences that can be factually assessed without any real bias. Beginning here is a <s>comprehensive</s> tiny list of the comparisons between popular topics of much [[RAGE|debate]].

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
===[[Orks]] vs. [[Orc#Warcraft|Orcs]]===

While it is true that the light green skin, angry porcine face with lots of tusks, and heavyset jawlines are traits shared across the two species of Orcoids, that's about where the similarities end. While [[Orks]] are brutal, fun-loving omnicidal maniacs who love the [[Dakka]] and only momentarily hesitate to shoot something if it's sufficiently green and orky, [[orcs]] in Blizzard's universe actually eventually filled the unique role of being good guys. For the most part, anyway, back when they were first through the portals they were extremely bloodthirsty but as time has gone on they've settled down nicely. This is actually a first, as no other universe is really known for having Orcs who can be described as friendly (''[[Strike Legion]]'' is a good example though as well as the elder scrolls). In fact the Orcs of Blizzard's universe are the glue of their faction, serving as the lynch-pin by which the other races come together as one Horde.

Similarly, <span style='color:green;font-size:115%'>Orkzes iz da biggest an' da strongest.</span>, with the lowly boy far more buff than your standard human and only getting taller and taller as they age. Orcs, while significantly physically imposing, are roughly the same height as average humans, and are dwarfed by their [[Minotaur|Tauren]] allies.

Though it should be noted, that at current state Orcs spawned a total of three [[BBEG]]s of the setting, including the first Lich King himself, while most other races, except dragons and (technically) draenei, have their count on one or zero. The Orks, on the other hand, ''are'' the BBEGs.

===Terran Marines vs Space Marines===

This should be somewhat obvious. Space Marines, as deigned by [[GW]], are one-man armies, raised from a young age to be killing machines and then augmented to become superhuman monstrosities. Terran Marines, by comparison, are pitiful. If we're being very generous, they're an analogue for the [[Stormtrooper|Tempestus corps.]], but with a worse track record. They are literally a case of the government or rebel faction finding every hick and criminal they can and shoving them in a brainwashing tank, slapping power armor on them, pumping them with drugs, handing them a gun, and telling them to [[Tarpit|keep shooting until it stops moving]]. And, considering everything in the ''StarCraft'' universe can pierce through tanks and [[/m/|giant mechs]], not to mention some power armor, those marines aren't likely to survive their first deployment. So, to put it simply, Terran Marines are really closer to Guardsmen or Penal Legionnaires, except with better guns and even more drugs. And like the Guard, they have really nice tanks and fantastic artillery.

===Zergs vs [[Tyranids]]===

Both are races of ravenous, rapidly evolving beasts under the control of a distant supreme intelligence, both use biotechnology instead of tools, most of their units are fast, deadly, fragile and numerous, and they even look almost the same. The last part is actually to GW's shame, since they all but copy-pasted the Zerg appearance into Tyranids in 3rd edition, mostly to capitalize on the ''StarCraft'' financial success (yes, they were that greedy and shameless even back then).

Secondly, while the Tyranids' hive mind is their collective consciousness, the Zerg have actual physical entities with emotions and personalities to rule them - from the lowly Overlords, to the Cerebrates, to the Overmind itself (or Overlords - Hive Queens - Broodmothers - The Queen of Blades after Kerrigan took over control), and with that they also get some actual character development and political struggles in their ranks - something 'Nids solely lack as their only real agenda revolves around planet-hopping towards that psychic light known as the [[Golden Throne]], all the while eating everything on the way. Even though most Cerebrates merged into the new Overmind and were killed by Kerrigan (and her puppets) during Brood War, the real reason that they never showed up again was that their hierarchy was similar enough to the 'Nids that the Cerebrates were killed off off-screen and cut from ''StarCraft II'' as a way of [http://comments.deviantart.com/1/359035454/2977652201 Blizzard playing nice with Games Workshop].

Zergs also do not eat worlds like Tyranids do - only conquer and colonize them, which automatically lowers their Eldritch Unstoppable Evil level by half.

There's also a variant of Zerg called the Primal Zerg, which have a strictly more reptilian/mammalian aesthetic and are notably individuals that operate in Packs. Despite being individuals, some with marked intelligence, they're all basically just focused on eating strong prey and surviving and have no ambitions or desires beyond that one dimension.

===Burning Legion vs [[Daemon#Warhammer_40,000|Daemons of Chaos]]===
Both are evil demons, who came from the [[Eye of Terror|dimension of magic]] and want to [[Exterminatus|destroy everything]]. The Burning Legion, however, is everything but chaotic, and is highly organized and structured, and even after their dark god Sargeras got himself killed, they managed to keep their shit together. Moreover, unlike Chaos Daemons, who are the manifestations of emotions and magic, creatures of the Legion are mostly normal sapient biological beings, transformed through overuse of fel magic, or artificial constructs, enlivened by said fel magic. Unlike [[Chaos Gods]], who want the eternal conflict just for the sake of it (which makes sense, given they are empowered by emotions, and conflicts stimulate more emotions), the Burning Legion have clear goals, which are: 1) Gather all the magic, 2) Use it to destroy the Creation, 3) Hope a new, better one comes along. 4) [[Meme|???]], 5) [[Profit|PROFIT]]!

===Protoss vs [[Eldar]]===
You fucking kidding me? OK, both are psychic race with small numbers and long lifespan, both have tech, superior to everything in their setting (save Necrons and Xel'Naga respectively), and both are quite arrogant about their superiority. And that's it. Protoss are tough as adamantium bunkers, can warp in infantry almost instantly any place with an energy field, are fast as a slime, hit like every fucking one of them is armed with a tank cannon or a [[Power Fist]] and tend to move in big unkillable all-destroying deathballs of doom, while Eldar are fast as hell, can be killed by a mean look, and tend to zoom around in small groups at mind-blowing speed, surgically shooting/cutting down priority targets before retreating to the safety of cover. Culture-wise Protoss are closer to [[Tau]] than to Eldar, with a rigid caste system and hierarchy, and the highly collectivist ideology of the Khala, which is actually almost the same as the Tau's Greater Good. From this perspective Dark Templar are basically the Farsight enclave, who told the Khala and its Ethe... I meant Judicators to fuck off and left to build their new home without that brainwashing <s>pheromones</s> psi-internet bullshit. Oh, wait, the Tau Empire was introduced 3 years after the release of ''StarCraft''... OOPS!

Both the Protoss and Eldar also fell out of their golden ages pretty hard, though that's about where the similarities end. The Eldar caused their empire's fall entirely on their own, between all the murder-fucking and general debauchery that was getting out of hand, to such a point that not only did it reduce their species' population to a pitiful fraction of what it once was, but also damned each and every Eldar soul that exists (or has yet to exist) by creating one of the four Chaos Gods responsible for a shit ton of the Grimdark in 40k. Even though the Eldar are fighting against all odds, and making ''some'' progress with the birth of Ynnead, the chance of them actually ever returning to a semblance of their former glory is about as likely as the God-Emperor of Mankind leaping from the Golden Throne and declaring the Imperium of Man a Xenos-inclusive democracy. The Protoss, on the otherhand, are only partially responsible for their fall from power, as the internal strife between the Judicator Caste and Templar Caste didn't exactly help prepare them for when the Zerg invaded their homeworld of Aiur. The surviving Protoss as a whole had to evacuate to Shakuras, where their Dark Templar kin granted them sanctuary (in that kind of arrogant "look at how cool and caring we are ''despite'' you exiling our kind" mindset). Also unlike the Eldar, the Protoss are notably reclaiming their former glory. Having made buddies with the Dark Templar, Purifiers (sentient Protoss AI), Tal'Darim (to the Protoss the way Dark Eldar are to the Craftworlders), the collective Protoss race took back Aiur and is currently rebuilding a unified homeworld for all Protoss.

</div>
</div>

'''TL;DR''': The products have an emphasis on quality (usually), responsible for both awesome and terrible things. If you really want to know what's what, go look it up yourself from a better source than 1d4chan.

As of July 2021, the comparison of companies is moot, as Blizzard has sunk far lower than GW ever did. For all of GW's money grabbing and litigation - which Blizzard is also guilty of, GW never had a corporate culture that fermented sexual assault or induced a suicide. And unlike WoW, Warhammer is growing more and more popular and GW revenue is rising. Eviler and less competent. Oh 90's and 2000's Blizzard, we miss you so.

Blizzard

2021-09-21T02:02:22Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:987D:4A2D:4A5B:6397: /* The toxic workplace lawsuits */

{{/vg/}}
{{topquote|Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.|Charles C. Colton, ''Lacon: Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those Who Think''}}

{{Infobox Deity
|Name = Blizzard
|Symbol = [[File:Fluff Accurate.jpg|300px]]
|Alignment = Stupid Chaotic Evil
|Divine Rank = AAA
|Pantheon = Activision
|Portfolio =
|Domains = Greed, Falls From Grace, Bad Ideas, Terrible Writing (Formerly: Polish, Execution, Unoriginality)
|Home Plane = California
|Worshippers = Gamers,
|Favoured Weapon = Exploit worker, Union Breaker, Retcons, Virtue Signal, Weinsteinian culture, IP theft
}}

__NOTOC__
'''Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.''' is an American-owned servant of the PRC and [[/v/|video game]] developer founded in 1991. Consumed by corporate merger shenanigans in 2008, they are now a subsidiary of parent company Activision Blizzard. They are well known in the gaming community for rising to prominence by shamelessly ripping off a long list of things, the most pertinent to [[/tg/]] being the similarity between its flagship franchises and ''[[Warhammer 40k]]''. Blizzard is akin to Apple Inc.: they never ''really'' did anything original, and instead took inspiration/borrowed/stole content from other sources, marketing it as though they're pretty much posterboys of the brand, and took the credit for being "pioneers of said genre". [[Games Workshop|Let it not be said they didn't steal their business/creative practices from the best]].

While not as skubtastic as [[Kaldor Draigo|the]] [[Matt Ward|other]] [[Grey Knights|things]] [[Ultramarines|present]], it still does cause tensions in /tg/ when brought up. Especially if it concerns one of their games' [[fluff]].

While Blizzard does [[Blood Ravens|"borrow"]] other people's ideas, there's no denying marketing spends a lot of time and effort studying those ideas, figuring why they are successful, and what parts of these ideas should be improved or removed to make them better. This leads to creating a few extremely well done and successful games, in turn earning a [[Profit|LOT of money]]. While other studios may create revolutionary content, Blizzard is more about ''evolution,'' with their games becoming golden standards of quality, and "easy to learn, hard to master" learning curves. They are also responsible for creating the game-dev meme ''"when it's done,"'' which means they could literally spend a decade on mismanagement one game, probably spending too much time doing drugs in the office, and another decade to force the dev team into crunch with a shit-ton of balance patches, while management pisses off to GDC but it's to be expected, given all other major game developers are the same, if not [[EA|much, much worse]].

[[Skub|There's contention]] between the legions of GW and the hordes of Blizzard in regards to copyrights, who invented which idea first, and whether any ripping-off in fact occurred. Facts seem to lean in the direction of yes, actually. Blizzard's co founder Allen Adham wanted to get the license to the Warhammer Universe however the [https://kotaku.com/how-warcraft-was-almost-a-warhammer-game-and-how-that-5929161 business side of the deal fell through], and the team wasn't keen on working for someone else. The exaggerated features and painted art style of the table top minis was adapted for low poly games. It boggles the mind that there still hasn't been legal trouble for this, and leads many to speculate that there's an off the books deal. Fa/tg/uys tend to accuse Blizzard of ripping off most of [[Games Workshop]]'s content, and they're right. They often write long angry posts about why Blizzard an evil company, what was stolen from their precious settings, and why Blizzard games sucks so much. But this is normal operating procedure for khornporation, Ip for the Ip throne after all. This sounds hilarious when you think about Games Workshop, who does steal '''all''' of its content from other settings. Blizzard only concentrates what's awesome about James Workshop and repackages it after doing minimal rework.

If you ever meet a raging fan, crying about plagiarism, <s>ignore the fucking troll</s> [[lulz|throw oil on the fire and get a-trolling]]. Alternatively, keep raging about [[The Ultimate Necron Cheese List|Necron Flyer Lists]]/[[rage|Terran Hellion Drop]] imbalance.

'''TL;DR''': Good [[crunch]], meh fluff (their memorable humor is arguably the best part of it), they are the [[Tzeentch]]/[[Slaanesh]] to GW's [[Nurgle]].

==Scandals==

From the late 2010's onwards, the company has experienced a steadily worsening fall from grace; whereas Blizzard was usually the universally beloved grand-daddy of the gaming world, albeit with one skubby exception in the form of Diablo 3, a number of PR-fuckups, shallow cashgrabs, [[Communism|grievances of the developers that actually make the games]] and the revelation of pervasive sexual harassment of staff have all but crushed their reputation. In a funny twist of fate, when it comes to their products, Blizzard is currently making a lot of the mistakes Geedubs made before [[Kevin Rountree]] took over. Here are some of the biggest failures and crimes - yes, really - in recent times;

'''November 3, 2018:''' During Blizcon, Diablo Immortals was announced as a mobile game. Gamers were livid, with one asking if it was an out of season April fools joke. The Gamer rage made an notable impact on stock price, taking months to recover afterwards.

'''Feburary 12, 2019:''' Blizzard fired 800 employees after reporting record earning.

'''October 6, 2019:''' During a tournament, Chinese [[Hearthstone]] pro-player Blitzchung appeared wearing a gas mask and goggles in a live stream and showed support to the Hong Kong Protests. Near the end of the live stream he said “Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our age”, a recognized slogan in the Hong Kong protest. After the interview Blizzard disqualified Blitzchung and stripped him of his prize money, and banned him for a year. Backlash was immediate, users deleted Blizzard accounts and destroyed games while #BoycottBlizzard trended with thousands retweeting.

'''October 28, 2019:''' Blizzard announced a $660,000 prize pool for their annual arena/mythic dungeon world tournaments, after previously releasing a set of promotional in-game toys, promising 1/4 of the sales would go towards said prize pool. Most fans believed the money made from the sales would be added to the $500,000 minimum that Blizzard had promised. However, after competing players confronted Blizzard officials, it was revealed that Blizzard had instead chosen to rely entirely on the sales profit for the prize pool, making off with ~$2 million themselves from the other 3/4 of the sales and contributing nothing out of their own pockets. Nerd rage ensued.

'''January 28th, 2020:''' Blizzard released the remastered version of Warcraft 3. The game came out in a notoriously unfinished, buggy and featureless state and used advertisement that borders on being fraudulent (Australian and EU authorities actually filed a lawsuit against Blizzard for misleading advertisements), was missing features the original game had ''13 years ago'', [[RAGE|'''claimed ownership of any custom content created for the game in the ToS in a really, really stupid move that is also illegal under US and EU law''' - especially since Blizzard is a US company]] and even refused to offer refunds, which prompted another lawsuit by EU authorities against them. The game also completely replaced the original Warcraft 3 on the launcher, locking players out of the original unless they have the physical discs plus disc ports and instead prompting them to download the "improved" version.

'''August 4, 2020:''' Employees shared a spreadsheet of salaries and recent pay increases showing that few were given raises after crunch, and overtime. Many employees, despite working at one of the biggest video game companies were struggling to pay rent and using the company's free coffee as an appetite suppressant as they cut meals. Apparently that 5 year service sword does not also pay rent.

'''October 16th, 2020:''' Blizzard announced that they would put Starcraft 2 into maintenance mode, ceasing any content updates in the future. This has left a lot of players angry and sad, especially since Starcraft 2 is one of the very last remaining RTS with a decently sized playerbase and competitive scene.

=== The toxic workplace lawsuits ===
A series of lawsuits against Acitvision Blizzard. Due to the severity of the crimes/charges and their effects along with the related investigation being ongoing, they've been given their own section on this page.

'''July 22nd, 2021:''' California's Department of Fair Employment filed a civil lawsuit against Activision/Blizzard for sexual harassment of numerous employees - especially female employees, some of the incidents going back years. The final catalyst was the suicide of a female employee who was one of the victims of said harassment. According to the lawsuit, the culprits are from several levels in the company (former Senior Creative Director Alex Afrasiabi and former CTO Ben Kilgore are among them), the charges include unwanted groping and posting intimate pictures without their consent, and that other execs knew of the abuses but did nothing. The situation wasn't helped when several Blizzard employees lashed out at several high-profile WoW commentators and streamers such as Asmongold for criticizing them, trying to shift blame onto them despite those streamers having nothing to do with the company or the abuse. With morale at an all-time low and widespread stress, the development of new projects (or at least World of Warcraft) has been stopped until the situation is resolved.
* '''July 28, 2021:''' After delivering a open letter to the upper management, a portion of Blizzard staff staged a walkout protest that gained considerable news coverage. There has been increasing support for staff to unionize, with Blizzard's Board of Directors responding by consulting the same legal firm whose lawyers prevented Amazon's staff from unionizing.
* '''August 3rd, 2021''' Sponsors have started to turn on Blizzard and executive-level employees, such as J. Allen Brack and Jesse Meschuk, have been leaving the company (unclear whether it's voluntary resignations or firings as per the standard sugar-coated dismissals for top level business execs). Brack and Meschuk are both among the executives named in the lawsuit, and Brack is succeeded by "co-leaders" Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra following his departure (with further accusations leveled that Brack left to deliberately avoid being confronted over knowing about the abuses but not stopping them).
* '''August 25th, 2021''' The California Department of Fair Employment leveled charges of obstruction via witness tampering - requiring employees to speak with Activision Blizzard execcs ahead of contacting the DFEH, amending the complaint and even destroying evidence by shredding records from the HR archives. This was added to the lawsuit, and could take the case from a civil lawsuit to a criminal lawsuit.
* '''August 26-27, 2021''': Characters and places named after developers, especially those from the lawsuit, are renamed or removed from Overwatch and World of Warcraft. Examples include the Overwatch character Jesse McCree and World of Warcraft's Draenei city Mac'aree - both named for former lead level designer for WoW Jesse McCree, being renamed.

'''September 14, 2021''': A lawsuit is filed against Activision/Blizzard accusing them of union-busting and worker intimidation, the latter in particular based on company executives responses to the sexual harassment lawsuit.

* '''September 20, 2021''': Activistion Blizzard faces a federal investigation as the Securities and Exchange Commission gets involved regarding how the company has handled employee allegations of workplace discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual misconduct. Bobby Kotick and several other senior executives were given subpoenas, with the court date pending.

==Franchises relevant to /tg/==

*'''''[[Warcraft|WarCraft]]:''''' A real-time strategy (RTS) series; initially [[Orc]]s vs [[Human]]s but then later games added more races. Then it became a [[MMORPG]] with [[World of Warcraft|all kinds of crazy shit]]. Particularly notable to /tg/ because it spilled over into multiple genres: There were [[World of Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game|two separate editions of a ''D&D'' campaign setting]], a physical [[Card_Game#Collectible_Card_Games|trading card game]] and has its own board games too.
*'''''[[StarCraft]]:''''' RTS IN SPHESSSSS! <s>[[Space Marines]]</s> [[Imperial Guard|Terrans]] vs [[Tyranids|Zerg]] vs [[Eldar|Protoss]]. Beyond being the national sport of Korea, the ''StarCraft'' franchise has its own board game and has its own unique version of ''[[Risk]]'' which alters the rules just enough so that it isn't merely a re-skinned version of ''Risk''.
*'''''[[Diablo]]:''''' [[Grimdark]] [[Dark Fantasy]] setting involving the wars between [[Angel]]s and [[Demon]]s, and also not actually made by Blizzard. It was made instead by an outfit named Condor, which got bought out by Davidson & Associates, which also bought out a little outfit named Chaos Studios. Then, Chaos Studios got renamed '''Blizzard''', and Condor was renamed '''Blizzard North''', which is why Diablo ended up being playable on battle.net. Meanwhile, another group of guys named Synergistic Software got bought out by Sierra On-Line, which was in turn acquired by CUC International, which gobbled up Davidson & Associates, which was how the job of making Diablo's expansion pack, Hellfire, got farmed out to Synergistic. However, Condor and Blizzard both had veto power over Synergistic's ideas, and Condor, which was already working on Diablo II, didn't want anything to be in Hellfire that was also going to be in D2, which is why the Barbarian and secret cow quest had to be cut and why Hellfire couldn't be played over Battle.net even though the code totally worked. There was a [[fail|short-lived]] attempt to port the Diablo franchise into both [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons#AD&D 2nd Edition|2nd Edition]] and [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition|3rd Edition]] ''Dungeons and Dragons'', though the results were not particularly successful or well-remembered.
*'''''Hearthstone:''''' A digital collectible card game. Think ''[[Magic: The Gathering|MtG]]'' but all the depth and complexity got replaced with RNG bullshit. Also it only costs you one kidney to gather a good card collection rather than [[Forgeworld|both, one leg, one testicle, and the soul of your firstborn child]] , but Blizzard seems dedicated to catch back on that missed profit by adding more content that cannot be bought with in-game currency (gold) and going the way of the battlepass...wait, what do you mean they have two passes?

==Blizzard things that aren't (/tg/ related) rip-offs==
In 1992, they made ''Battle Chess'' for the Commodore 64 & MS-DOS, and also a ''[[Lord of the Rings]]'' [[RPG]] for the Amiga. The ''LotR'' game was supposed to be just the first book, with two sequels, but they never got around to finishing it. They made ''RPM Racing'' (allegedly the first American-made SNES game) and ''Rock n' Roll Racing'' for the Super Nintendo and the Sega Megadrive but that's [[/v/]] shit. They also made a side-scrolling Superman beat 'em up and a shitty Justice League fighting game for a dose of [[/co/]] crap too. There's also their game ''The Lost Vikings'', a platforming puzzle game where you control three [[vikings]], each of them with their own special abilities (Erik the Swift can run faster and jump higher than the other two and also bash through walls with his horned helmet, Baleog the Fierce can shoot an arrow and kill enemies with his sword and Olaf the Stout can block with shield which he can also use like a hang-glider.) Since the game has vikings in it, /tg/ might be interested in it due to their [[Warriors of Chaos|viking fetish]]. A sequel was also made, ''The Lost Vikings 2'', which added two more characters, a [[werewolf]] named Fang and Scorch the [[dragon]], but it's kind of a rarity. Fast forward to more recent times, trying to cash in on the growing MOBA-craze, Blizzard developed ''Heroes of the Storm'' by throwing all their decent franchises into a blender to make one mediocre new game, which is ironic considering highly customized user-made ''StarCraft'' and ''WarCraft III'' maps pretty much spawned the MOBA genre in the first place. Blizz's most recent success is the first-person shooter ''Overwatch''. Though hilariously similar to ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' and [[Blood Ravens|drawing upon]] various sci-fi and fantasy sources, it presents a somewhat unique (albeit poorly fleshed-out) [[noblebright]] setting and characters that are mostly [[/d/|fapbait/schlickbait]].

==[[Skub|Legitimately unbiased comparison]]==
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
Both of the companies' products have a bevy of similarities and differences that can be factually assessed without any real bias. Beginning here is a <s>comprehensive</s> tiny list of the comparisons between popular topics of much [[RAGE|debate]].

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
===[[Orks]] vs. [[Orc#Warcraft|Orcs]]===

While it is true that the light green skin, angry porcine face with lots of tusks, and heavyset jawlines are traits shared across the two species of Orcoids, that's about where the similarities end. While [[Orks]] are brutal, fun-loving omnicidal maniacs who love the [[Dakka]] and only momentarily hesitate to shoot something if it's sufficiently green and orky, [[orcs]] in Blizzard's universe actually eventually filled the unique role of being good guys. For the most part, anyway, back when they were first through the portals they were extremely bloodthirsty but as time has gone on they've settled down nicely. This is actually a first, as no other universe is really known for having Orcs who can be described as friendly (''[[Strike Legion]]'' is a good example though as well as the elder scrolls). In fact the Orcs of Blizzard's universe are the glue of their faction, serving as the lynch-pin by which the other races come together as one Horde.

Similarly, <span style='color:green;font-size:115%'>Orkzes iz da biggest an' da strongest.</span>, with the lowly boy far more buff than your standard human and only getting taller and taller as they age. Orcs, while significantly physically imposing, are roughly the same height as average humans, and are dwarfed by their [[Minotaur|Tauren]] allies.

Though it should be noted, that at current state Orcs spawned a total of three [[BBEG]]s of the setting, including the first Lich King himself, while most other races, except dragons and (technically) draenei, have their count on one or zero. The Orks, on the other hand, ''are'' the BBEGs.

===Terran Marines vs Space Marines===

This should be somewhat obvious. Space Marines, as deigned by [[GW]], are one-man armies, raised from a young age to be killing machines and then augmented to become superhuman monstrosities. Terran Marines, by comparison, are pitiful. If we're being very generous, they're an analogue for the [[Stormtrooper|Tempestus corps.]], but with a worse track record. They are literally a case of the government or rebel faction finding every hick and criminal they can and shoving them in a brainwashing tank, slapping power armor on them, pumping them with drugs, handing them a gun, and telling them to [[Tarpit|keep shooting until it stops moving]]. And, considering everything in the ''StarCraft'' universe can pierce through tanks and [[/m/|giant mechs]], not to mention some power armor, those marines aren't likely to survive their first deployment. So, to put it simply, Terran Marines are really closer to Guardsmen or Penal Legionnaires, except with better guns and even more drugs. And like the Guard, they have really nice tanks and fantastic artillery.

===Zergs vs [[Tyranids]]===

Both are races of ravenous, rapidly evolving beasts under the control of a distant supreme intelligence, both use biotechnology instead of tools, most of their units are fast, deadly, fragile and numerous, and they even look almost the same. The last part is actually to GW's shame, since they all but copy-pasted the Zerg appearance into Tyranids in 3rd edition, mostly to capitalize on the ''StarCraft'' financial success (yes, they were that greedy and shameless even back then).

Secondly, while the Tyranids' hive mind is their collective consciousness, the Zerg have actual physical entities with emotions and personalities to rule them - from the lowly Overlords, to the Cerebrates, to the Overmind itself (or Overlords - Hive Queens - Broodmothers - The Queen of Blades after Kerrigan took over control), and with that they also get some actual character development and political struggles in their ranks - something 'Nids solely lack as their only real agenda revolves around planet-hopping towards that psychic light known as the [[Golden Throne]], all the while eating everything on the way. Even though most Cerebrates merged into the new Overmind and were killed by Kerrigan (and her puppets) during Brood War, the real reason that they never showed up again was that their hierarchy was similar enough to the 'Nids that the Cerebrates were killed off off-screen and cut from ''StarCraft II'' as a way of [http://comments.deviantart.com/1/359035454/2977652201 Blizzard playing nice with Games Workshop].

Zergs also do not eat worlds like Tyranids do - only conquer and colonize them, which automatically lowers their Eldritch Unstoppable Evil level by half.

There's also a variant of Zerg called the Primal Zerg, which have a strictly more reptilian/mammalian aesthetic and are notably individuals that operate in Packs. Despite being individuals, some with marked intelligence, they're all basically just focused on eating strong prey and surviving and have no ambitions or desires beyond that one dimension.

===Burning Legion vs [[Daemon#Warhammer_40,000|Daemons of Chaos]]===
Both are evil demons, who came from the [[Eye of Terror|dimension of magic]] and want to [[Exterminatus|destroy everything]]. The Burning Legion, however, is everything but chaotic, and is highly organized and structured, and even after their dark god Sargeras got himself killed, they managed to keep their shit together. Moreover, unlike Chaos Daemons, who are the manifestations of emotions and magic, creatures of the Legion are mostly normal sapient biological beings, transformed through overuse of fel magic, or artificial constructs, enlivened by said fel magic. Unlike [[Chaos Gods]], who want the eternal conflict just for the sake of it (which makes sense, given they are empowered by emotions, and conflicts stimulate more emotions), the Burning Legion have clear goals, which are: 1) Gather all the magic, 2) Use it to destroy the Creation, 3) Hope a new, better one comes along. 4) [[Meme|???]], 5) [[Profit|PROFIT]]!

===Protoss vs [[Eldar]]===
You fucking kidding me? OK, both are psychic race with small numbers and long lifespan, both have tech, superior to everything in their setting (save Necrons and Xel'Naga respectively), and both are quite arrogant about their superiority. And that's it. Protoss are tough as adamantium bunkers, can warp in infantry almost instantly any place with an energy field, are fast as a slime, hit like every fucking one of them is armed with a tank cannon or a [[Power Fist]] and tend to move in big unkillable all-destroying deathballs of doom, while Eldar are fast as hell, can be killed by a mean look, and tend to zoom around in small groups at mind-blowing speed, surgically shooting/cutting down priority targets before retreating to the safety of cover. Culture-wise Protoss are closer to [[Tau]] than to Eldar, with a rigid caste system and hierarchy, and the highly collectivist ideology of the Khala, which is actually almost the same as the Tau's Greater Good. From this perspective Dark Templar are basically the Farsight enclave, who told the Khala and its Ethe... I meant Judicators to fuck off and left to build their new home without that brainwashing <s>pheromones</s> psi-internet bullshit. Oh, wait, the Tau Empire was introduced 3 years after the release of ''StarCraft''... OOPS!

Both the Protoss and Eldar also fell out of their golden ages pretty hard, though that's about where the similarities end. The Eldar caused their empire's fall entirely on their own, between all the murder-fucking and general debauchery that was getting out of hand, to such a point that not only did it reduce their species' population to a pitiful fraction of what it once was, but also damned each and every Eldar soul that exists (or has yet to exist) by creating one of the four Chaos Gods responsible for a shit ton of the Grimdark in 40k. Even though the Eldar are fighting against all odds, and making ''some'' progress with the birth of Ynnead, the chance of them actually ever returning to a semblance of their former glory is about as likely as the God-Emperor of Mankind leaping from the Golden Throne and declaring the Imperium of Man a Xenos-inclusive democracy. The Protoss, on the otherhand, are only partially responsible for their fall from power, as the internal strife between the Judicator Caste and Templar Caste didn't exactly help prepare them for when the Zerg invaded their homeworld of Aiur. The surviving Protoss as a whole had to evacuate to Shakuras, where their Dark Templar kin granted them sanctuary (in that kind of arrogant "look at how cool and caring we are ''despite'' you exiling our kind" mindset). Also unlike the Eldar, the Protoss are notably reclaiming their former glory. Having made buddies with the Dark Templar, Purifiers (sentient Protoss AI), Tal'Darim (to the Protoss the way Dark Eldar are to the Craftworlders), the collective Protoss race took back Aiur and is currently rebuilding a unified homeworld for all Protoss.

</div>
</div>

'''TL;DR''': The products have an emphasis on quality (usually), responsible for both awesome and terrible things. If you really want to know what's what, go look it up yourself from a better source than 1d4chan.

As of July 2021, the comparison of companies is moot, as Blizzard has sunk far lower than GW ever did. For all of GW's money grabbing and litigation - which Blizzard is also guilty of, GW never had a corporate culture that fermented sexual assault or induced a suicide. And unlike WoW, Warhammer is growing more and more popular and GW revenue is rising. Eviler and less competent. Oh 90's and 2000's Blizzard, we miss you so.

Blizzard

2021-09-21T02:00:58Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:987D:4A2D:4A5B:6397: /* Scandals */

{{/vg/}}
{{topquote|Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.|Charles C. Colton, ''Lacon: Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those Who Think''}}

{{Infobox Deity
|Name = Blizzard
|Symbol = [[File:Fluff Accurate.jpg|300px]]
|Alignment = Stupid Chaotic Evil
|Divine Rank = AAA
|Pantheon = Activision
|Portfolio =
|Domains = Greed, Falls From Grace, Bad Ideas, Terrible Writing (Formerly: Polish, Execution, Unoriginality)
|Home Plane = California
|Worshippers = Gamers,
|Favoured Weapon = Exploit worker, Union Breaker, Retcons, Virtue Signal, Weinsteinian culture, IP theft
}}

__NOTOC__
'''Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.''' is an American-owned servant of the PRC and [[/v/|video game]] developer founded in 1991. Consumed by corporate merger shenanigans in 2008, they are now a subsidiary of parent company Activision Blizzard. They are well known in the gaming community for rising to prominence by shamelessly ripping off a long list of things, the most pertinent to [[/tg/]] being the similarity between its flagship franchises and ''[[Warhammer 40k]]''. Blizzard is akin to Apple Inc.: they never ''really'' did anything original, and instead took inspiration/borrowed/stole content from other sources, marketing it as though they're pretty much posterboys of the brand, and took the credit for being "pioneers of said genre". [[Games Workshop|Let it not be said they didn't steal their business/creative practices from the best]].

While not as skubtastic as [[Kaldor Draigo|the]] [[Matt Ward|other]] [[Grey Knights|things]] [[Ultramarines|present]], it still does cause tensions in /tg/ when brought up. Especially if it concerns one of their games' [[fluff]].

While Blizzard does [[Blood Ravens|"borrow"]] other people's ideas, there's no denying marketing spends a lot of time and effort studying those ideas, figuring why they are successful, and what parts of these ideas should be improved or removed to make them better. This leads to creating a few extremely well done and successful games, in turn earning a [[Profit|LOT of money]]. While other studios may create revolutionary content, Blizzard is more about ''evolution,'' with their games becoming golden standards of quality, and "easy to learn, hard to master" learning curves. They are also responsible for creating the game-dev meme ''"when it's done,"'' which means they could literally spend a decade on mismanagement one game, probably spending too much time doing drugs in the office, and another decade to force the dev team into crunch with a shit-ton of balance patches, while management pisses off to GDC but it's to be expected, given all other major game developers are the same, if not [[EA|much, much worse]].

[[Skub|There's contention]] between the legions of GW and the hordes of Blizzard in regards to copyrights, who invented which idea first, and whether any ripping-off in fact occurred. Facts seem to lean in the direction of yes, actually. Blizzard's co founder Allen Adham wanted to get the license to the Warhammer Universe however the [https://kotaku.com/how-warcraft-was-almost-a-warhammer-game-and-how-that-5929161 business side of the deal fell through], and the team wasn't keen on working for someone else. The exaggerated features and painted art style of the table top minis was adapted for low poly games. It boggles the mind that there still hasn't been legal trouble for this, and leads many to speculate that there's an off the books deal. Fa/tg/uys tend to accuse Blizzard of ripping off most of [[Games Workshop]]'s content, and they're right. They often write long angry posts about why Blizzard an evil company, what was stolen from their precious settings, and why Blizzard games sucks so much. But this is normal operating procedure for khornporation, Ip for the Ip throne after all. This sounds hilarious when you think about Games Workshop, who does steal '''all''' of its content from other settings. Blizzard only concentrates what's awesome about James Workshop and repackages it after doing minimal rework.

If you ever meet a raging fan, crying about plagiarism, <s>ignore the fucking troll</s> [[lulz|throw oil on the fire and get a-trolling]]. Alternatively, keep raging about [[The Ultimate Necron Cheese List|Necron Flyer Lists]]/[[rage|Terran Hellion Drop]] imbalance.

'''TL;DR''': Good [[crunch]], meh fluff (their memorable humor is arguably the best part of it), they are the [[Tzeentch]]/[[Slaanesh]] to GW's [[Nurgle]].

==Scandals==

From the late 2010's onwards, the company has experienced a steadily worsening fall from grace; whereas Blizzard was usually the universally beloved grand-daddy of the gaming world, albeit with one skubby exception in the form of Diablo 3, a number of PR-fuckups, shallow cashgrabs, [[Communism|grievances of the developers that actually make the games]] and the revelation of pervasive sexual harassment of staff have all but crushed their reputation. In a funny twist of fate, when it comes to their products, Blizzard is currently making a lot of the mistakes Geedubs made before [[Kevin Rountree]] took over. Here are some of the biggest failures and crimes - yes, really - in recent times;

'''November 3, 2018:''' During Blizcon, Diablo Immortals was announced as a mobile game. Gamers were livid, with one asking if it was an out of season April fools joke. The Gamer rage made an notable impact on stock price, taking months to recover afterwards.

'''Feburary 12, 2019:''' Blizzard fired 800 employees after reporting record earning.

'''October 6, 2019:''' During a tournament, Chinese [[Hearthstone]] pro-player Blitzchung appeared wearing a gas mask and goggles in a live stream and showed support to the Hong Kong Protests. Near the end of the live stream he said “Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our age”, a recognized slogan in the Hong Kong protest. After the interview Blizzard disqualified Blitzchung and stripped him of his prize money, and banned him for a year. Backlash was immediate, users deleted Blizzard accounts and destroyed games while #BoycottBlizzard trended with thousands retweeting.

'''October 28, 2019:''' Blizzard announced a $660,000 prize pool for their annual arena/mythic dungeon world tournaments, after previously releasing a set of promotional in-game toys, promising 1/4 of the sales would go towards said prize pool. Most fans believed the money made from the sales would be added to the $500,000 minimum that Blizzard had promised. However, after competing players confronted Blizzard officials, it was revealed that Blizzard had instead chosen to rely entirely on the sales profit for the prize pool, making off with ~$2 million themselves from the other 3/4 of the sales and contributing nothing out of their own pockets. Nerd rage ensued.

'''January 28th, 2020:''' Blizzard released the remastered version of Warcraft 3. The game came out in a notoriously unfinished, buggy and featureless state and used advertisement that borders on being fraudulent (Australian and EU authorities actually filed a lawsuit against Blizzard for misleading advertisements), was missing features the original game had ''13 years ago'', [[RAGE|'''claimed ownership of any custom content created for the game in the ToS in a really, really stupid move that is also illegal under US and EU law''' - especially since Blizzard is a US company]] and even refused to offer refunds, which prompted another lawsuit by EU authorities against them. The game also completely replaced the original Warcraft 3 on the launcher, locking players out of the original unless they have the physical discs plus disc ports and instead prompting them to download the "improved" version.

'''August 4, 2020:''' Employees shared a spreadsheet of salaries and recent pay increases showing that few were given raises after crunch, and overtime. Many employees, despite working at one of the biggest video game companies were struggling to pay rent and using the company's free coffee as an appetite suppressant as they cut meals. Apparently that 5 year service sword does not also pay rent.

'''October 16th, 2020:''' Blizzard announced that they would put Starcraft 2 into maintenance mode, ceasing any content updates in the future. This has left a lot of players angry and sad, especially since Starcraft 2 is one of the very last remaining RTS with a decently sized playerbase and competitive scene.

=== The toxic workplace lawsuits ===
A series of lawsuits against Acitvision Blizzard. The charges are so serious and the related investigation ongoing to the point that they're being given their own section on this page.

'''July 22nd, 2021:''' California's Department of Fair Employment filed a civil lawsuit against Activision/Blizzard for sexual harassment of numerous employees - especially female employees, some of the incidents going back years. The final catalyst was the suicide of a female employee who was one of the victims of said harassment. According to the lawsuit, the culprits are from several levels in the company (former Senior Creative Director Alex Afrasiabi and former CTO Ben Kilgore are among them), the charges include unwanted groping and posting intimate pictures without their consent, and that other execs knew of the abuses but did nothing. The situation wasn't helped when several Blizzard employees lashed out at several high-profile WoW commentators and streamers such as Asmongold for criticizing them, trying to shift blame onto them despite those streamers having nothing to do with the company or the abuse. With morale at an all-time low and widespread stress, the development of new projects (or at least World of Warcraft) has been stopped until the situation is resolved.
* '''July 28, 2021:''' After delivering a open letter to the upper management, a portion of Blizzard staff staged a walkout protest that gained considerable news coverage. There has been increasing support for staff to unionize, with Blizzard's Board of Directors responding by consulting the same legal firm whose lawyers prevented Amazon's staff from unionizing.
* '''August 3rd, 2021''' Sponsors have started to turn on Blizzard and executive-level employees, such as J. Allen Brack and Jesse Meschuk, have been leaving the company (unclear whether it's voluntary resignations or firings as per the standard sugar-coated dismissals for top level business execs). Brack and Meschuk are both among the executives named in the lawsuit, and Brack is succeeded by "co-leaders" Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra following his departure (with further accusations leveled that Brack left to deliberately avoid being confronted over knowing about the abuses but not stopping them).
* '''August 25th, 2021''' The California Department of Fair Employment leveled charges of obstruction via witness tampering - requiring employees to speak with Activision Blizzard execcs ahead of contacting the DFEH, amending the complaint and even destroying evidence by shredding records from the HR archives. This was added to the lawsuit, and could take the case from a civil lawsuit to a criminal lawsuit.
* '''August 26-27, 2021''': Characters and places named after developers, especially those from the lawsuit, are renamed or removed from Overwatch and World of Warcraft. Examples include the Overwatch character Jesse McCree and World of Warcraft's Draenei city Mac'aree - both named for former lead level designer for WoW Jesse McCree, being renamed.

'''September 14, 2021''': A lawsuit is filed against Activision/Blizzard accusing them of union-busting and worker intimidation, the latter in particular based on company executives responses to the sexual harassment lawsuit.

* '''September 20, 2021''': Activistion Blizzard faces a federal investigation as the Securities and Exchange Commission gets involved regarding how the company has handled employee allegations of workplace discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual misconduct. Bobby Kotick and several other senior executives were given subpoenas, with the court date pending.

==Franchises relevant to /tg/==

*'''''[[Warcraft|WarCraft]]:''''' A real-time strategy (RTS) series; initially [[Orc]]s vs [[Human]]s but then later games added more races. Then it became a [[MMORPG]] with [[World of Warcraft|all kinds of crazy shit]]. Particularly notable to /tg/ because it spilled over into multiple genres: There were [[World of Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game|two separate editions of a ''D&D'' campaign setting]], a physical [[Card_Game#Collectible_Card_Games|trading card game]] and has its own board games too.
*'''''[[StarCraft]]:''''' RTS IN SPHESSSSS! <s>[[Space Marines]]</s> [[Imperial Guard|Terrans]] vs [[Tyranids|Zerg]] vs [[Eldar|Protoss]]. Beyond being the national sport of Korea, the ''StarCraft'' franchise has its own board game and has its own unique version of ''[[Risk]]'' which alters the rules just enough so that it isn't merely a re-skinned version of ''Risk''.
*'''''[[Diablo]]:''''' [[Grimdark]] [[Dark Fantasy]] setting involving the wars between [[Angel]]s and [[Demon]]s, and also not actually made by Blizzard. It was made instead by an outfit named Condor, which got bought out by Davidson & Associates, which also bought out a little outfit named Chaos Studios. Then, Chaos Studios got renamed '''Blizzard''', and Condor was renamed '''Blizzard North''', which is why Diablo ended up being playable on battle.net. Meanwhile, another group of guys named Synergistic Software got bought out by Sierra On-Line, which was in turn acquired by CUC International, which gobbled up Davidson & Associates, which was how the job of making Diablo's expansion pack, Hellfire, got farmed out to Synergistic. However, Condor and Blizzard both had veto power over Synergistic's ideas, and Condor, which was already working on Diablo II, didn't want anything to be in Hellfire that was also going to be in D2, which is why the Barbarian and secret cow quest had to be cut and why Hellfire couldn't be played over Battle.net even though the code totally worked. There was a [[fail|short-lived]] attempt to port the Diablo franchise into both [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons#AD&D 2nd Edition|2nd Edition]] and [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition|3rd Edition]] ''Dungeons and Dragons'', though the results were not particularly successful or well-remembered.
*'''''Hearthstone:''''' A digital collectible card game. Think ''[[Magic: The Gathering|MtG]]'' but all the depth and complexity got replaced with RNG bullshit. Also it only costs you one kidney to gather a good card collection rather than [[Forgeworld|both, one leg, one testicle, and the soul of your firstborn child]] , but Blizzard seems dedicated to catch back on that missed profit by adding more content that cannot be bought with in-game currency (gold) and going the way of the battlepass...wait, what do you mean they have two passes?

==Blizzard things that aren't (/tg/ related) rip-offs==
In 1992, they made ''Battle Chess'' for the Commodore 64 & MS-DOS, and also a ''[[Lord of the Rings]]'' [[RPG]] for the Amiga. The ''LotR'' game was supposed to be just the first book, with two sequels, but they never got around to finishing it. They made ''RPM Racing'' (allegedly the first American-made SNES game) and ''Rock n' Roll Racing'' for the Super Nintendo and the Sega Megadrive but that's [[/v/]] shit. They also made a side-scrolling Superman beat 'em up and a shitty Justice League fighting game for a dose of [[/co/]] crap too. There's also their game ''The Lost Vikings'', a platforming puzzle game where you control three [[vikings]], each of them with their own special abilities (Erik the Swift can run faster and jump higher than the other two and also bash through walls with his horned helmet, Baleog the Fierce can shoot an arrow and kill enemies with his sword and Olaf the Stout can block with shield which he can also use like a hang-glider.) Since the game has vikings in it, /tg/ might be interested in it due to their [[Warriors of Chaos|viking fetish]]. A sequel was also made, ''The Lost Vikings 2'', which added two more characters, a [[werewolf]] named Fang and Scorch the [[dragon]], but it's kind of a rarity. Fast forward to more recent times, trying to cash in on the growing MOBA-craze, Blizzard developed ''Heroes of the Storm'' by throwing all their decent franchises into a blender to make one mediocre new game, which is ironic considering highly customized user-made ''StarCraft'' and ''WarCraft III'' maps pretty much spawned the MOBA genre in the first place. Blizz's most recent success is the first-person shooter ''Overwatch''. Though hilariously similar to ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' and [[Blood Ravens|drawing upon]] various sci-fi and fantasy sources, it presents a somewhat unique (albeit poorly fleshed-out) [[noblebright]] setting and characters that are mostly [[/d/|fapbait/schlickbait]].

==[[Skub|Legitimately unbiased comparison]]==
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
Both of the companies' products have a bevy of similarities and differences that can be factually assessed without any real bias. Beginning here is a <s>comprehensive</s> tiny list of the comparisons between popular topics of much [[RAGE|debate]].

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
===[[Orks]] vs. [[Orc#Warcraft|Orcs]]===

While it is true that the light green skin, angry porcine face with lots of tusks, and heavyset jawlines are traits shared across the two species of Orcoids, that's about where the similarities end. While [[Orks]] are brutal, fun-loving omnicidal maniacs who love the [[Dakka]] and only momentarily hesitate to shoot something if it's sufficiently green and orky, [[orcs]] in Blizzard's universe actually eventually filled the unique role of being good guys. For the most part, anyway, back when they were first through the portals they were extremely bloodthirsty but as time has gone on they've settled down nicely. This is actually a first, as no other universe is really known for having Orcs who can be described as friendly (''[[Strike Legion]]'' is a good example though as well as the elder scrolls). In fact the Orcs of Blizzard's universe are the glue of their faction, serving as the lynch-pin by which the other races come together as one Horde.

Similarly, <span style='color:green;font-size:115%'>Orkzes iz da biggest an' da strongest.</span>, with the lowly boy far more buff than your standard human and only getting taller and taller as they age. Orcs, while significantly physically imposing, are roughly the same height as average humans, and are dwarfed by their [[Minotaur|Tauren]] allies.

Though it should be noted, that at current state Orcs spawned a total of three [[BBEG]]s of the setting, including the first Lich King himself, while most other races, except dragons and (technically) draenei, have their count on one or zero. The Orks, on the other hand, ''are'' the BBEGs.

===Terran Marines vs Space Marines===

This should be somewhat obvious. Space Marines, as deigned by [[GW]], are one-man armies, raised from a young age to be killing machines and then augmented to become superhuman monstrosities. Terran Marines, by comparison, are pitiful. If we're being very generous, they're an analogue for the [[Stormtrooper|Tempestus corps.]], but with a worse track record. They are literally a case of the government or rebel faction finding every hick and criminal they can and shoving them in a brainwashing tank, slapping power armor on them, pumping them with drugs, handing them a gun, and telling them to [[Tarpit|keep shooting until it stops moving]]. And, considering everything in the ''StarCraft'' universe can pierce through tanks and [[/m/|giant mechs]], not to mention some power armor, those marines aren't likely to survive their first deployment. So, to put it simply, Terran Marines are really closer to Guardsmen or Penal Legionnaires, except with better guns and even more drugs. And like the Guard, they have really nice tanks and fantastic artillery.

===Zergs vs [[Tyranids]]===

Both are races of ravenous, rapidly evolving beasts under the control of a distant supreme intelligence, both use biotechnology instead of tools, most of their units are fast, deadly, fragile and numerous, and they even look almost the same. The last part is actually to GW's shame, since they all but copy-pasted the Zerg appearance into Tyranids in 3rd edition, mostly to capitalize on the ''StarCraft'' financial success (yes, they were that greedy and shameless even back then).

Secondly, while the Tyranids' hive mind is their collective consciousness, the Zerg have actual physical entities with emotions and personalities to rule them - from the lowly Overlords, to the Cerebrates, to the Overmind itself (or Overlords - Hive Queens - Broodmothers - The Queen of Blades after Kerrigan took over control), and with that they also get some actual character development and political struggles in their ranks - something 'Nids solely lack as their only real agenda revolves around planet-hopping towards that psychic light known as the [[Golden Throne]], all the while eating everything on the way. Even though most Cerebrates merged into the new Overmind and were killed by Kerrigan (and her puppets) during Brood War, the real reason that they never showed up again was that their hierarchy was similar enough to the 'Nids that the Cerebrates were killed off off-screen and cut from ''StarCraft II'' as a way of [http://comments.deviantart.com/1/359035454/2977652201 Blizzard playing nice with Games Workshop].

Zergs also do not eat worlds like Tyranids do - only conquer and colonize them, which automatically lowers their Eldritch Unstoppable Evil level by half.

There's also a variant of Zerg called the Primal Zerg, which have a strictly more reptilian/mammalian aesthetic and are notably individuals that operate in Packs. Despite being individuals, some with marked intelligence, they're all basically just focused on eating strong prey and surviving and have no ambitions or desires beyond that one dimension.

===Burning Legion vs [[Daemon#Warhammer_40,000|Daemons of Chaos]]===
Both are evil demons, who came from the [[Eye of Terror|dimension of magic]] and want to [[Exterminatus|destroy everything]]. The Burning Legion, however, is everything but chaotic, and is highly organized and structured, and even after their dark god Sargeras got himself killed, they managed to keep their shit together. Moreover, unlike Chaos Daemons, who are the manifestations of emotions and magic, creatures of the Legion are mostly normal sapient biological beings, transformed through overuse of fel magic, or artificial constructs, enlivened by said fel magic. Unlike [[Chaos Gods]], who want the eternal conflict just for the sake of it (which makes sense, given they are empowered by emotions, and conflicts stimulate more emotions), the Burning Legion have clear goals, which are: 1) Gather all the magic, 2) Use it to destroy the Creation, 3) Hope a new, better one comes along. 4) [[Meme|???]], 5) [[Profit|PROFIT]]!

===Protoss vs [[Eldar]]===
You fucking kidding me? OK, both are psychic race with small numbers and long lifespan, both have tech, superior to everything in their setting (save Necrons and Xel'Naga respectively), and both are quite arrogant about their superiority. And that's it. Protoss are tough as adamantium bunkers, can warp in infantry almost instantly any place with an energy field, are fast as a slime, hit like every fucking one of them is armed with a tank cannon or a [[Power Fist]] and tend to move in big unkillable all-destroying deathballs of doom, while Eldar are fast as hell, can be killed by a mean look, and tend to zoom around in small groups at mind-blowing speed, surgically shooting/cutting down priority targets before retreating to the safety of cover. Culture-wise Protoss are closer to [[Tau]] than to Eldar, with a rigid caste system and hierarchy, and the highly collectivist ideology of the Khala, which is actually almost the same as the Tau's Greater Good. From this perspective Dark Templar are basically the Farsight enclave, who told the Khala and its Ethe... I meant Judicators to fuck off and left to build their new home without that brainwashing <s>pheromones</s> psi-internet bullshit. Oh, wait, the Tau Empire was introduced 3 years after the release of ''StarCraft''... OOPS!

Both the Protoss and Eldar also fell out of their golden ages pretty hard, though that's about where the similarities end. The Eldar caused their empire's fall entirely on their own, between all the murder-fucking and general debauchery that was getting out of hand, to such a point that not only did it reduce their species' population to a pitiful fraction of what it once was, but also damned each and every Eldar soul that exists (or has yet to exist) by creating one of the four Chaos Gods responsible for a shit ton of the Grimdark in 40k. Even though the Eldar are fighting against all odds, and making ''some'' progress with the birth of Ynnead, the chance of them actually ever returning to a semblance of their former glory is about as likely as the God-Emperor of Mankind leaping from the Golden Throne and declaring the Imperium of Man a Xenos-inclusive democracy. The Protoss, on the otherhand, are only partially responsible for their fall from power, as the internal strife between the Judicator Caste and Templar Caste didn't exactly help prepare them for when the Zerg invaded their homeworld of Aiur. The surviving Protoss as a whole had to evacuate to Shakuras, where their Dark Templar kin granted them sanctuary (in that kind of arrogant "look at how cool and caring we are ''despite'' you exiling our kind" mindset). Also unlike the Eldar, the Protoss are notably reclaiming their former glory. Having made buddies with the Dark Templar, Purifiers (sentient Protoss AI), Tal'Darim (to the Protoss the way Dark Eldar are to the Craftworlders), the collective Protoss race took back Aiur and is currently rebuilding a unified homeworld for all Protoss.

</div>
</div>

'''TL;DR''': The products have an emphasis on quality (usually), responsible for both awesome and terrible things. If you really want to know what's what, go look it up yourself from a better source than 1d4chan.

As of July 2021, the comparison of companies is moot, as Blizzard has sunk far lower than GW ever did. For all of GW's money grabbing and litigation - which Blizzard is also guilty of, GW never had a corporate culture that fermented sexual assault or induced a suicide. And unlike WoW, Warhammer is growing more and more popular and GW revenue is rising. Eviler and less competent. Oh 90's and 2000's Blizzard, we miss you so.

Alignment

2021-09-21T01:36:47Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:987D:4A2D:4A5B:6397: /* Chaotic Neutral */

{{skubby}}
[[Image:ALIGNMENT_CHART.jpg|thumb|The old reliable]]
'''Alignment''' is a key game element that originated in [[D&D|Dungeons and Dragons]]. People, creatures, spells, objects, and places can have an alignment. The term is used in other role-playing games whenever characters or NPCs have a simple stat for their own code of conduct. Alignment has spawned more [[RAGE|debates]] and motivational posters than anything else in D&D, and alignment threads now belong in /co/ after we swapped them for Empowered. Post alignment threads at risk of sagebombing. If you're looking for the true idiocy, see the [[Stupid Alignments]] page.

= NOTICE =
Alignment is designed to be a rough explanation of motivation for characters in fiction, rather than a real world moral philosophy; e.g. Captain America is Lawful Good, a rebel fighting against a tyrannical megacorp is Chaotic Good, Sauron is Lawful Evil, a crazed stab-happy maniac is Chaotic Evil, etc.. There is considerable disagreement as to what constitutes Lawful Good or Lawful Evil. Is a cop which follows generally sound procedure to the letter all the time even when it's obviously wrong or a generally principled frontier sheriff who enforces rather brutal but fair justice in a lawless land Lawful Good or not (Lawful neutral, Chaotic Good, etc)? Different people will give you different answers. Both intent and methods are factors in the equation, but again the degree to which they matter and the specifics of what adds up to what is one of contention.

== Alignment in Different Editions ==
* Dave Arneson's [[Blackmoor|First Fantasy Campaign]] has three alignments: Good, Neutral, and Evil. The forces of Good included The Blue Rider, known for "riding hither and yon fighting the forces of evil and carrying off any likely wench encountered." Because of the framework of the First Fantasy Campaign, it's best to understand alignment as "allegiance".

* [[Dungeons & Dragons#Basic Dungeons & Dragons|The original D&D]] goes to a less clear-cut list (Lawful, Chaotic, and Neutral), but does not explain the precise meaning of these terms. The reader is left to interpret them from a list of examples. The side of Law includes Halflings, Patriarchs and Treants; the Neutrals includes animals, Dryads and Minotaurs; and the Chaotics are entities such as undead, "Evil High Priests" and Hobgoblins.

* [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons|Advanced D&D]] (aka 1st edition) combined these alignment systems, with one axis for Good, Evil and Neutral, and another for Lawful, Chaotic and Neutral. Different alignments had their own "alignment languages" to allow them to properly identify one another. Interpretations of alignment language are controversial in their own right. Gygax compared alignment language to religious languages, especially Latin in the Catholic Church.

* [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons#AD&D 2nd Edition|AD&D 2nd Edition]] made a radical change to the alignment system, by defining alignment as the character's "basic moral and ethical attitudes toward others, society, good, evil, and the forces of the universe in general". While the 1st Edition grid was used, it had gone from being the character's allegiance or team to a personality test. Alignment language was axed.

* [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition|3rd]] (and 3.5) Editions made no changes to alignment. Same two-axis method, same class restrictions, same hating people who were on the other side of the chart from you.

* [[4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons|4th Edition]] made a [[skub|controversial]] change. Instead of the classic 3x3 grid which has been in place since the 1970's, the alignment system was changed to a single axis with four positions: good, lawful good, evil, and chaotic evil, with the added option of being unaligned (not smart enough to understand alignments, or simply can't be bothered to give a shit - not to be confused with the old Neutral). As with many of the changes implemented in 4E, this has caused much [[Rage|heated, vigorous discussion]] about the subject.
** Ironically, the designers felt Good and Evil suffered from opposite problems; Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil were quite clearly defined (Lawful Good: benevolent but constrained by external laws, Chaotic Evil: batshit insane psycho random evulz), but Neutral/Chaotic Good and Lawful/Neutral Evil tended to sort of blur together. The point was that alignments should be a conscious effort on the part of the player, rather than acting as a personality anchor: Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil both represent very specific takes on Good and Evil (equal emphasis on law & order as to good for the former, mindlessly impulsive and often self-destructive evil for the latter). However, unless you were the kind of guy who really bothered to get into the nitty-gritty of the Law-Chaos axis splits, Neutral and Chaotic Good tended to be interchangeable in terms of being "I do good, no matter what the law has to say about it" alignments; Lawful and Neutral Evil were likewise interchangeable in terms of being "the evil I do serves a purpose and isn't just for random shits 'n' giggles". Moreover, the Morally Neutral alignments were stripped out under the basis that they tended to just be played as extreme parodies for Lawful/Chaotic Neutral (see: [[Lawful Stupid]], [[Chaotic Stupid]]) or else made little sense for an adventurer (True Neutral). Therefore, the concept of alignment was changed to whether or not a character actively pursues Good or Evil (hence the Lawful Good, Good, Evil and Chaotic Evil aligments, which cover the "how" of supporting good/evil) or simply doesn't care for greater meta-cosmological implications and is out for their own goals (Unaligned).

* [[Dungeons %26 Dragons 5th Edition|5th Edition]] brought back the old grid of nine options based on Law to Chaos and Good to Evil, but drastically shortened the descriptions (their PHB entries average 2 to 3 sentences, and one of those sentences is usually a description of what critters are usually members of that alignment). It also followed in 4e's footsteps by minimizing the actual crunch-value of alignment (even traditional alignment-requiring classes like the [[Paladin]] and [[Monk]] no longer need to be a specific alignment or lose their powers) and retaining Unaligned, though this "tenth alignment" is reserved exclusively for the sorts of creatures that are too mindless to have an alignment. In other words, 5e Unaligned is "too dumb to understand concepts of law, chaos, good or evil", whilst Neutral is "deliberately recognizes law/chaos/good/evil and chooses to hold some middle ground between the extremes".

== Controversy caused by the 2nd Edition Change ==
Making alignment a personality system has led to [[rage|vigorous]] [[Skub|debate]].

Some argue that taking alignment seriously in any way entails failure because it tries to simplify and categorizes something philosophers, sociologists, theologists and psychologists have been debating for thousands of years with no tangible results. A [[:File:Alignments_Batman.jpg|famous example]] shows the goddamn Batman in various periods of his comic and his actions and words correspond to pretty much all existing alignments. Recent developments in D&D (Eberron, 4th Edition) have been relaxing and ignoring the old rigid structure.

Others argue that those people don't understand about how the two-axis alignment system is meant to work (even the hyper-rigid structure of the 2nd Edition alignments was eventually softened to more of a Cartesian coordinates system by [[Planescape]], and ''every'' subsequent edition has eased off even further from the alignment-as-straitjacket model to an alignment-as-storytelling-tool one) and that using an inconsistent comic book character who has been written by dozens of different people over the course of his existence to try and demonstrate that the system fails is completely missing the point.

[[skub|Debate continues.]]

== The iconic D&D alignments (and why your party should kill them) ==
[[File:Alignment Demotivational.jpg|thumb|right|350px]]The title of the section alone should be a giant neon sign to take its contents with a shaker full of salt grains (or a vat of [[skub]], we're not picky).

=== Lawful Good ===
{{Topquote|Where men gather, a bustle of chaos ensues. I would save them all if I could|Keldorn Firecam}}
Truth, justice, apple pie, and curbstomping. All Lawful Good characters are the same boring boy scout types. Their [[Lawful Stupid|ridiculously rigid codes of morality]] will often lead them to betray the party when you kick a bunny or try to use something demonic (I.E. they get angry if you do anything cool). They will also whine constantly about the party breaking the law for perfectly good reasons, and are prone to BS black and white morality. ("You are not doing good, then you must be doing evil! Taste my blade, evildoer!") When they start to complain about the party's "evildoing", have the rogue engineer an "accident" for them, [[Dwarf Fortress]] style. Beware of [[Lawful Stupid]], if it wasn't painfully obvious.

Example(s): A textbook Paladin who combats evil wherever they see it, to uphold their religion's core beliefs.

Expected Personality: A "nice guy" at best. Chief of the Fun Police at worst.

=== Neutral Good ===
{{Topquote|I don't care if it is legal; it's wrong|Ava Fontaine, ''Lord of War''}}
The quintessential "nice guy". Unlike the Lawful Good types, Neutral Good types draw their morality from simply being a good person, not because a book or the law told them to. Its vague, and usually boils down to trying to do whatever helps the most people, ignoring but not acting against traditions and laws. They differ from Chaotic Good in that they don't go out of their way to shake things up or "stick it to the man." Perhaps the simplest form of good, as it doesn't have as many complications as Chaotic or Lawful variants... except when you have Variant 1 (good actions no matter the consequences) [[Stupid Good]] who will try to <s>negotiate</s> ''talk things out'' with the big bad.

Example(s): A peace-loving cleric who is against the mere thought of violence, or a wandering adventurer who visits small towns and helps with various problems.

Expected Personality: [[This Guy|An actual nice guy]], a friendly child, or an all-loving cleric.

=== Chaotic Good ===
{{Topquote|A vigilante is just a man lost in the scramble for his own gratification. He can be destroyed, or locked up. But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, then you become something else entirely.|Ra's Al Ghul}}
Essentially adopting the credo of: "If you want peace, prepare for war", they will do good deeds and actions using rather unorthodox methods. Though this alignment can respect the law, they mostly break in it efforts to protect people, since to them the "Good" comes before the "Law". This tends to have [[skub|mixed results]]. Sure, that cop beat his wife or took drug money… and maybe that bank was run by the mafia. But the fact remains he broke rules - he broke them for good reasons, but he broke them. His well-intentioned extremism is going to get you in deep shit with the man, so be sure to betray him to the establishment at first opportunity. For an apt summary, think Robin Hood. Beware of variant 2 (good consquences no matter the actions) [[Stupid Good]].

Example(s): A freedom fighter, combating an oppressive regime to free their people.

Expected Personality: A hotblooded asshole with a barely functioning moral compass.

=== Lawful Neutral ===
{{Topquote|You're gonna tow me!?"<br>"Towing is first offense, this is your third. GRENADE!|Judge Dredd}}

Think Paladins without the morality. Lawful Neutral characters are essentially the law-made-manifest. They uncompromisingly enforce the law down to the letter and do not give any unofficial leeway regardless of the circumstances. Stole some food to feed your starving family? One year, isocubes. Stole a car to save the lives of hundreds? '''Five years.''' Robbed the bank to buy a cure for your dying sister? '''TWENTY YEARS!''' And code thirty six thirteen, the first degree murder of a street judge... Death. Court's adjourned.

If they aren't actively enforcing the law, they are instead following it to the letter and will insist to other people to do the same. The reasoning varies, but it usually boils down to them respecting and upholding order, which the law represents. Upholding order isn't always simple or easy, sometimes you have to make the hard call and have morality take a back seat a few times for the bigger picture.

At best they're obstructive bureaucrats who will get through almost anything by ruthlessly exploiting every legal avenue and loophole they can find (They probably legally ruined a few lives along the way, but the law's the law, not their problem.). At worst they're insufferable [[Rules Lawyer]]s given the license of roleplay, and will bitch even more about the rules than the lawful goods. They're going to turn on you the second you jaywalk across the street to stop a mugger, so as soon as you get out of town leave them in a shallow grave. Beware even harder of [[Lawful Stupid]].

But what's worse is there are settings where they're completely justified. Judge Dredd, the Adeptus Arbites, ... Chicago on a weekend... Whatever it may say about human nature, it's pretty easy to worldbuild a scenario where hardnosed lawgivers are literally the only thing keeping a city from resembling [[Commorragh]].

Example(s): An uncompromising judge who dispenses justice as their codex demands, for better or worse. Or Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory when he isn't scheming (Lawful Evil) or being Lawful Good to his friends.

Expected Personality: The first half of the neutral jerkass duo, who wants to stop people from having fun.

=== True Neutral ===
Comes in three varieties: "Dedicated to Balance" True Neutral, "Can't be Bothered to Care" True Neutral, and "amoral animal" True Neutral (AKA 5e Unaligned).

{{Topquote|So you remove excess of both good and evil? How can you tell which is which?|Yoshimo}}
The "Dedicated to Balance" types are types who are not concerned about the morality of their choices, but rather how it will affect the status quo (although what that status quo is, is dependent on the character in question, and considering the cosmology of many settings the status quo is not something good). This means that a true neutral character may allow things like war, suffering, or disasters to continue, if it ensures that the balance of power is maintained. They are not necessarily malevolent in theory, as they see their actions as a completely necessary act for the greater good that would benefit everyone in the long run (paradoxically defeating the purpose of their supposed moral neutrality) - but then again they're insufferable dickbags who sees the entire universe as one big chequebook to even out, who will sell you out in a heartbeat if it meant maintaining the status quo, and just how would you balance out a place that has an excess of good? [[Derp|By committing evil acts of course!]] In actuality, these fucks are just Neutral Evil in disguise and [[BLAM|should be treated accordingly.]]

{{Topquote|Good, bad...I'm the guy with the gun.|Ash Williams}}
"Don't Care" types are either extremely uninspired roleplayers, NPC villagers, or [[Bear Lore|bears]]. However, they'll usually do what seems like a good idea at the time. This means you should kill them, because chances are they're reading this at the same time as you, and will try to kill you preemptively.

{{Topquote|Nature is what she is, persistent and amoral|Stephen Jay Gould}}
The "amoral animal" types are those whose actions lack any type of moral motivation behind them, and instead act upon their own pre-programmed instincts like how an animal in the wild would. Typically reserved for non-sapient enemy NPCs (and gods forbid you actually play as one), these types do what they do, because its just their nature.

They don't really see anything as good or evil nor rationalize that to any extent, they just do it for their own survival. (Murdered a man for food? Its just prey like that goat I slaughtered earlier, only less hairy. Me and my brood have to eat to survive, don'tcha know?) The main distinction between those and the "don't care" True Neutrals is the fact that they genuinely lack the capacity to normalize or rationalize in any direction, rather than refusing to acknowledge their ability to.

Overall, show them the business end of your weapon as soon as the opportunity presents itself. Beware of both variant 1 (passive/don't care) and variant 2 (active/cosmic checkbook fanatic) [[Stupid Neutral]]. Given the many [[Derp|Derpy]] problems (roleplaying-wise and setting-wise) and [[RAGE|implications]] that arise from the True Neutral Alignment itself, it is [[Squat|generally for the best to remove it from your system/setting.]] That being said, you can have fun with a character whose motivations are "I don't care, but I keep my stuff in the world so I'll fight I guess." but it takes a good player to do it.

Example(s): "Amoral"<small>(read:evil)</small> druids for the first, filler NPCs and/or civilians for the second, and a literal wild animal for the third.

Expected Personality: The most bland and uninteresting person you can meet, a really weird sociopath, or a literal animal.

=== Chaotic Neutral ===

{{Topquote|Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me|Rage Against the Machine}}

The actual alignment of most Gamers, the original interpretation was the agent of chaos. Characters of this alignment were often random and completely inconsistent as long as chaos was achieved. Anarchistic and individualistic, AD&D 2e notes that they are extremely difficult to deal with due to their unreliable nature. Abandoned 3.X onwards when everyone realized no-one could ever play this alignment longer than 5 minutes before suffering a forced change for the sake of adventure. That is, of course, if the character wasn't killed thanks to AD&D's high character mortality rate.

The current interpretation of this is a perfectly amoral and self serving character. One who isn't necessarily evil, as they don't actively plot to screw people for some higher cause (it just so happens they need to, given the circumstances), but instead believe in maintaining their own self interest (or cause) above all others. As far as they're concerned, they gotta watch out for numero uno and everyone else is just a tool and stepping stone to keep numero uno alive.

The player interpretation of this is "whatever the fuck I want, whenever the fuck I want." [[The Henderson Scale of Plot Derailment|Usually used directly ''after'' the DM bans evil alignments and directly ''before'' the DM ragequits.]] They're alright to have ''so long as your goals align with each other'', but as soon as that changes, it's highly recommended you introduce them to the business end of your weapon and throw their corpse in a ditch.

Also the alignment of 13 year old [[edgelord]] characters with KEWL powers if they aren't Neutral/Chaotic/Stupid Evil, because the rebellious asshole who doesn't play by the rules is totally kewl. Beware of [[Chaotic Stupid]].

Example(s): A lone, thrill-seeking rogue fighting for his own gains and enjoyment.

Expected Personality: The other half of the neutral jerkass duo, this time having fun at the expense of everyone else.

=== Lawful Evil ===

Two types, The Corrupt Tyrant and The Honorable Villain(tm) (aka the Bipolar Dick)

{{Topquote|Our strategy is to exploit the value in our huge and extensive (nearly 40 years) library of IP across multiple markets globally and in multiple categories for both direct income and increased brand awareness and engagement.|Games Workshop 2021 Financial Report}}

For type 1: You have your Fascists, Stalinists, Social Darwinists, contract killers, organized crime, corrupt officials, corporate/business sharks and anybody else who can be reliably and systematically counted on to be a [[Eldrad|dick]]. In real world terms, Lawful Evil would be corrupt politicians, [[Games Workshop|ridiculously wealthy plutocrats who play the system in obviously self serving ways]], and/or [[Loren L Coleman|high-functioning sociopaths]] (ones who are good at hiding their evil and selfish tendencies). Most do it in a socially acceptable manner that others might applaud as clever tricks; sometimes you might never even know a person is Lawful Evil, since they usually do their utmost to appear integrated in societies. The endgame is almost always multidimensional domination, so be sure to kill them before they get ''too'' powerful. Alternatively, kill them before they get the chance to screw you over/enslave you/bind you to some contract that will suck for you.

{{Topquote|When your enemies defy you, you must serve them steel and fire. When they go to their knees, however, you must help them back to their feet. Elsewise no man will ever bend the knee to you.|[[A Song of Ice and Fire|Tywin Lannister]]}}
For type 2: Think of a ruthless warrior that nonetheless holds himself up to some sort of code; they might despise weakness and will show no hesitation at slaughtering innocents, burning villages, etc., but will sometimes let those innocents arm themselves first, as they consider killing an unarmed opponent "dishonorable". While they might care little for virtues such as mercy and compassion, they still take giving their word very seriously, and once they've been forced to make a promise you can usually count on them keeping it. However, as soon as the innocent picks up that sword, their opponent shows cowardice, or they've fullfilled their word, they’ll show no pity or hesitation and immediately resume slaughtering. Usually they are dedicated to some cause higher than themselves, and often that cause is serving the type 1 Lawful Evil villain; just as often they are also the type of disgruntled servant that will turn on said villain once they've developed some sort of respect for the hero's strength and/or realize that their boss is a dick with [https://pics.me.me/you-have-no-honor-like-a-woman-no-rrrip-your-21799641.png no honor.] There's a 50/50 chance of them either switching teams or taking the BBEG's spot for themselves, and they tend to do a better job at it. Kill them as soon as you can because in either case you'll have to put up with a cliche redemption arc or you'll have to deal with a more dangerous bad guy leading the opposing team later on.

Type 2s tend to be more prone to [[Lawful Stupid]]. Both types can borrow elements from the other to make for a more complex character such as a Type 1 who behaves Type 2 because they believe that kind of behaviour better serves them personally or a Type 2 who behaves Type 1 because they think selfish behaviour is what they must do, probably because their culture, religion, philoshopy or simple life circumstances dictate so.

Example(s): Type 1: A corrupt Baron with an eye for the throne. Type 2: A dark knight in the service of an evil god. Type 1 borrowing from Type 2: A Barbarian Chieftain who wishes to keep his authority and not be labeled a tyrant while doing so. Type 2 borrowing from Type 1: An orphan who did what they had to survive and would have ended up a good man if they had a better upbringing.

Expected Personality: A smart man with legitimate grievances against the powers that be, or a smart asshole.

=== Neutral Evil ===

{{Topquote|I think my mask of sanity is about to slip.|American Psycho}}

The asshole alignment. Follows the law as long as it helps them, then breaks it when it doesn't. Ingratiates themselves to people, before betraying them. Does good deeds, until they cease to elevate them. Social acceptance never really comes into it with these guys. There's some variety on how willing they are to act on their evil impulses, on one hand you can have someone that slits people's throats and purses for a living but on the other you can actually have a NE individual that goes through his entire life without directly killing someone, not because they haven't thought about it, but because they know the circumstances they find themselves in make getting away with murder flawlessly more trouble than it is worth. The latter are also the reason why Paladins can't just go around using their "detect evil" ability and throwing everyone that tests positive into jail, not everyone who has the potential to be a murderer will do it (in fact, most won’t, they'll just be garden variety assholes instead).

If he's being an insufferable prick you should probably just kill him, nobody will question you. If he's generally acting like a good guy you should definitely just kill him, ''he's up to [[Just as planned|something]]''. Beware of [[Stupid Evil]] if they are of the more impulsive variant or are arrogantly confident on the current situation.

Example(s): A greedy merchant that would rather let someone die on his doorstep than give away his coin for the more restrained version, a serial killer putting on a facade to continue his deeds for the more unhinged one and a lowlife thug who doesn't have any moral qualms about murdering people for money but is restrained enough to know doing this is a bad idea most of the time for a more balanced variant.

Expected Personality: High functioning (selfishness helps prevent impulsiveness to some degree) sociopath.

=== Chaotic Evil ===

{{Topquote|Let their blood RAIN FROM THE '''SKY'''!!!|Jeremy Irons, Dungeons & Dragons (2000)}}

A psychopath who's evil for the sake of being evil. There's no redeeming/remotely sane factor why they're Satan-incarnate — not to get rich, not to get revenge, not for survival, not to set things right in their own misguided way; they just relish in the act of being a total dickwad. They will murder people for kicks, rape and torture people to get their willies on, and hates everyone else, just because they were there. Some people just want to watch the world burn; those are Chaotic Evil people.

Always on a feud against society and will piss on a book of law just because he likes it, and fuck you, and fuck your law too, and I’ll eat your babies. This alignment has little-to-no depth at all and is very dangerous to keep around, its only real purpose is to make a quick 2D villain for your party to murder without any qualms, or a fun psycho-type character in a non-serious game. It is highly recommended you give them a good stomping and throw their corpse off the ramparts as soon as possible, because they will be trouble the moment their attention shifts to you. If you start out your party with one, you kinda deserve it, once the inevitable happens.

It should be mentioned however that being Chaotic Evil has nothing to do with being a fucking idiot (though many are very susceptible to falling into one of the "Stupid" alignments as is mentioned below), they might have this constant urge to brutalize everyone in the room but as long as the room has armed guards at the ready or the people there are otherwise useful for the CE character's schemes they'll play along, be ready for them coming back and painting said room red with blood as soon as any of that changes though.

Beware of [[Stupid Evil]] or worse, someone who ''alternates'' between [[Chaotic Stupid]] and [[Stupid Evil]].

Example(s): An insane doomsday cultist, who fights and kills just for the sake of fighting and killing. A bloodthirsty warlord indiscriminately spilling the blood of whomever is unlucky enough to be in their visual range, just to constantly feel the thrill of taking people's lives. The disfavored creations of gods (the trope of the fallen favored son going emo dates back to antiquity).

Expected Personality: Low functioning (impulsiveness is completely unchained) sociopath, "For the Evulz!" in full effect.

== Alignment and Society ==
Let's say you're an adventurer and you arrive at a citystate ruled by a count and his personal cronies, who extort the local populace for money and resources, drafts anyone who can't pay their fines into the army and has a secret police that roots out dissenters. The remaining low nobles and merchant class play to his vain nature and do their best to claim political and economic power in the absence of the old ruling family. How do you react? Well, depending on your Alignment, you may feel like...

* '''Lawful Good:''' This city is corrupted by greed and ambition! The common people are being preyed on by the powerful and the civil society crumbles from fear and self-preservation. I could try to support to the poor and help with any issues they may have, or maybe go on a quest to find the real heir to the city. As tempting as it may be to wage open war on them, such chaos will undoubtedly result in many dying. The only right way to go about this is to reform the system.

* '''Neutral Good:''' This is just not right... These poor people can't live on like this forever. I have no relation to anyone here, so maybe I can help the resistance movement, or make life difficult for the bureaucrats and nobles on a case-to-case situation. Even if I can't make a change now, I won't submit to their cruel system.

* '''Chaotic Good:''' Oppression of the worst sort! These tyrants gotta get what's coming to them... I could ruin their parties, sabotage their movements and maybe even assassinate the count himself! I need to support the people who dare stand against him... And if his cronies and goons come, I'll treat them like the traitors they are! Freedom has a cost after all...

* '''Lawful Neutral:''' Not the nicest city, this... I better listen to the city guard and keep my business to myself, so I can avoid problems. I shouldn't get involved; I can't know if all these harsh measures have a point. How would I like it if someone came and made a ruckus in my hometown, after all?

* '''True Neutral:''' Another city. I've seen so many by now, it's difficult to tell them apart. Someone on the top, some at the bottom and walls and guards to keep it that way. I better just finish my work and move on.

* '''Chaotic Neutral:''' How come there's so many of these wretched hives around? Who cares, there's opportunities here that others may miss... But not me! I'm sure there's someone who needs something smuggled, someone beaten up, something moved out of sight... I'm sure there's loads of options for the enterprising man, such as myself. Still, maybe I should just get what I came for. I'm sure those indentured workers are hungry and may part with the information I need for my quest in exchange for a bit of bread. Poor sods... But hey, they could just go do something about it all.

* '''Lawful Evil:''' It's always a wonder to see an efficient state like this. Sure, it could be prettier, maybe a little less... Direct, but hey, beggars can't be choosers, and they get things done. The Orcs are gone from the forest, the corruption of the old dynasties gone, it's amazing what one can do with a coherent society! Maybe I should see if I can't move up the ladder here... There's got to be some options for an ambitious, loyal and efficient supporter of the realm.

* '''Neutral Evil:''' You can't make an omelet without breaking a some eggs, and eggs sure are broken here... But why stop there? This prissy "My-First-Government" should just throw out the pretense and begin marching that army on the countryside. If anyone should object, they can draw their swords and let their arms do the talking! Now that the people are following the count, why not promote him through propaganda, make public executions mandatory and reward loyal citizens? The sky is the limit!

* '''Chaotic Evil:''' Oh, oh my, this all looks so wonderfully... ''flammable''.

All that is to say, Alignments make sense when seen through the lens of what is normal in society - and in most games, what is considered to be normal comes from our precognition. We expect freedom as good, cooperation to be normal and exploitation as evil, so that's what we call Alignments. That isn't bad; it's just important to understand that it isn't a system that allows for the sort of "Well from my experience, the Orcs are good!" discussions because, from our view, they're clearly evil. In fact, you could replace "Good" and "Evil" with "Normative" and "Divergent" - do you consider sapient rights, morality and general decency, or do you follow your own conceptions of what is right or wrong?

== A Broader Perspective ==
Alright, salt shakers and skub cans aside now.

When creating a character after the alignment system, you can run into the problem of the alignment table being too narrow. After all, in a lot of games and stories, characters aren't just "good" or "lawful" - they can be complex characters with more than one side to them, or with a goal to pursue rather than an ideal, that can lead them to behave very different from what the alignment table offers. This is because the ideals and concepts presented on the table can be interpreted in various ways that might end up harming your character in the long run, and as such may be more viable as a guideline rather than an outright rule, like most elements of tabletop gaming.

Lawful is usually regarded as "I follow the rules of the land", while Chaotic tend to be "I do whatever I want regardless of laws", but it doesn't in fact have to be like that: Lawful doesn't have to mean that your character follows the laws, just that the character has some kind of ruleset or set of morals they follow and generally won't bend from, even if they are self-imposed (such as the rigorous self-discipline of a [[Monk|monk]]). Similarly, Chaotic might mean that your character doesn't care for these limitations and will change ideals on a whim, or not have them at all. Likewise, Good is usually "I help and protect and don't afraid of anything" and Evil "I will kill because I can", but Good could also mean that your character is generally not self-concerned and will happily defend someone else to preserve something (remember, humans are flock animals — we only do good to others if it does good to ourselves, even if that is just the good feeling of doing good things), while Evil can be a character who has a goal they want to achieve by absolutely any means necessary.

Examples using the above method of making a character could be the Lawful Evil duelist who will happily kill a man on the street, but only if it follows his own code of honor, and who is in a [[party]] because he wants to meet stronger foes, or the Chaotic Good mage who one day helps his [[party]] with spells, but turns a character into a rabbit the next, just to make sure the spell works properly when he meets an opponent.

Another point is that alignment is meant to represent ''tendencies'' rather than hard-and-fast stagnant points. A Good character can be pushed to the breaking point and do something Evil, or a Lawful character can agonizingly choose to make a Chaotic decision that goes against everything he believes in to prevent the unthinkable, or an Evil character might find herself doing something selfless because she's not ''that'' evil. Indeed, people acting in ways they normally wouldn't due to pressure and circumstance is where drama comes from. Plus, and this is the important bit, ''doing one act out of alignment does not constitute an alignment shift''. (Unless you're a pre-4e paladin anyway.) The Lawful cop whose heart causes him to make an exception for the hooker who needs to feed her kids, or the Chaotic cop who swears to his dying partner that he'll bring the bad guy in "by the book" don't ''stop'' being lawful or chaotic just because they acted out of alignment once.

Just remember that these things aren't set in stone. Talk with your fellow PCs and the [[DM]] and make sure they understand how you interpret the system and how you use it with your character - you can have loads of fun with unique characters this way. Anyone can make and play a Lawful Good Paladin who is gonna spare the [[BBEG]], but it is harder to make and play the Lawful Good [[Konrad Curze|vigilante who will happily slaughter entire groups of criminals and put them on spires around town as an example of what happens if you mess with the children of the village.]] That said, every alignment also has [[Stupid Alignments|generally agreed-upon points]] where you would be wise not to push too far.

== Alignment, Allegiance and Personality in other RPGs ==
* White Wolf's [[World of Darkness]] games clearly separate allegiance and personality. For example, Vampire: the Masquerade has Camarilla, Anarchs, and Sabbat for the character's basic allegiance (although unlike D&D, these have no metaphysical consequences). All of the World of Darkness games use a shopping list of Jungian archetypes to describe a character's personal code of conduct, described as their "Nature." The games have much emphasis on social interactions, betrayal, deception and general being a bastard, so there's also the archetype they present publicly, called their "Demeanor." Good or evil can be a bit irrelevant when the player characters are all vampires/werewolves/demigods/dead/half-imaginary. Characters that behaved appropriately to their Nature archetype were gained a stronger self-confidence, evidenced by awarding "willpower" points they could spend later to make tasks more likely to succeed.

* White Wolf's [[Exalted]] has the four Virtues: Valor, Compassion, Conviction and Temperance. All are measured on a scale of 1-5 for mortals, but some beings can go up to ten. It describes, respectively, how brave you are, how nice you are, how good you are at sticking to your guns, and how much willpower you can muster to avoid temptation. Two is considered the human average, but since you're (hopefully!) supposed to be some kind of mythical hero, you have to at least three in something to start with.
** Being all the way down at one means you are, respectively, a coward, a sociopathic dick who can't feel empathy, an aimless wishy-washy vagrant, or any flavor of hedonist you care to name. The cosmic spirit of unlikable douchebaggery, the Ebon Dragon, is about the only being with a one in ''every'' virtue.
** Having too much, though, turns you a different flavor of psycho; respectively, a frothing berserker, an unbalanced lunatic who can't stop helping people and won't look at the bigger picture, a zealot incapable of realizing that you're wrong, or an uptight jerk who literally wants to stop everyone else from having fun. Each virtue can override one other virtue, but raising them all high takes up lots of XP and can turn you into a neurotic wreck like the Unconquered Sun, who has a ten in ''every'' virtue and has turned into a burned-out wreck of a deity listlessly squatting in his celestial house playing ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' all day because breaking ''any'' virtue would lessen him and it's really hard to function without repressing at least one in a weak sort of way.

* [[d20 Modern]] uses "allegiances" instead of ethics, indicating the character subscribes to an established code of conduct, or the mores of a social group. Dealing with an NPC with a matching allegiance gives the player a +2 circumstance bonus to social tasks. If an NPC witnesses you violating one of their allegiances, that's a -2 for any social tasks with that NPC evermore. Characters can have multiple allegiances, each providing the +2/-2 when appropriate, but not cumulatively.

* [[RIFTS|Palladium Fantasy RPG]] (and all Palladium games that came later) uses three categories for alignment: Good, Selfish and Evil. These break down into seven alignments: Principled, Scrupulous, Unprincipled, Anarchist, Aberrant, Miscreant, and Diabolic. They added "Taoist" for their Kung-fu games, but nobody used it. D&D fans often enjoy noting that these roughly correlate into most of the same alignments as the classic 9-axis. There is no "True Neutral" equivalent alignment in Palladium, however; per word of god, this was because A: [[Stupid Neutral]] was, well, a stupid idea, and B: anyone who truly did not give a shit about anything (the ''other'' primary description of the True Neutral alignment in D&D) would not be at all inclined to go adventuring. By the game designer's arguments, somebody who's only adventuring to get something they need or want done (your classic "I don't care if the Empire's hurting people, but they'll take my farm if I don't take them out" jerk) would fall under one of the Selfish alignments.

* [[GURPS]] doesn't have alignments. Instead, it's a long list of mental disadvantages you can take during character generation to restrict the character's behavior. Since characters are on a point-buy system, these disadvantages can be traded for other advantages. You could take Compulsive Honesty (-10 point flaw), for enough points to get you Ambidexterity (+10 point advantage), or Kleptomania (-15) for a military rank of Lieutenant (three ranks @ +5).

* [[Warhammer Fantasy]] had five alignments on a linear scale: Law - Good - Neutral - Evil - Chaotic. This was used as a rule of thumb for reactions between people — identical alignments would be well-disposed towards each other, but the further apart alignments are, the more likely things would come to blows. A character's alignment could shift at most one step left or right from where they started. Later editions of Warhammer de-emphasize the alignment system in favor of allegiances and broad personalities.

* [[Dungeon World]] uses alignment as a method for gaining experience points; you choose one of the three offered during character creation. Playing an evil rogue? Get 1 XP when someone else gets in trouble for something you did. Playing a good druid? Get 1 XP when you eliminate an unnatural menace.

* Sitting somewhere between a D&D alignment and a personality test, [[Magic: The Gathering]] has a five color system of magic that also had personality traits wired into make up. For example, red is the color of acting rather than thinking, and they have the most destructive spells and cheapest creatures. Blue, on the other hand, is logical and thinks rather than acts, and they have the most counter spells.

* The [[Star Wars Roleplaying Game]] uses a form of alignment called '''Morality''' which has a mechanical effect, but it only applies to Force users and how they activate their powers, so any other character can behave in whichever manner they choose without penalty. Force users move up and down the Light/Dark scale in a fluid manner which can be incredibly difficult to maintain at the same value from session to session. It has an inbuilt tendency to climb upwards, but can be decreased due to actions on the part of the player. The rules incorporate a hard and fast list of what actually constitutes "bad" and how minor or major it impacts your score, and doesn't really incorporate any level of intention or thought process that goes into the act (except for cases where the character lies), meaning that the GM shouldn't be blamed for hitting the character with a big alignment shift at the end of a session, but character could swing back in the following session just as naturally.
**Wizards [[Star Wars D20]] also used a light/dark system which influenced what powers were available to Force users, but the system was incredibly punishing to players, requiring them to have absolutely no dark side points at all in order to get the best out of ''Light'' powers while causing them to alignment shift every time they even ''used'' a dark-side power, also it risked them losing their characters to the GM if they reach a ''Dark'' threshold determined by their wisdom score. Plus while there was a list of what actions accumulate "dark" points, some of them are subjective and call on GM rulings, and those points are quite difficult (but not impossible) to get rid of once obtained.

* [[Mutants and Masterminds]] avoids alignment and replaces it with the motive category of '''Complications''', of which each character must have at least two. While these can encompass weaknesses (shards of your home planet being deadly to you or your powers not working on wood) and things to protect (most commonly secret identity and friends/family), one must be a '''Motivation''' for why you're out being a hero. These force a character to act a certain way or let the GM hose you when he wants to but, in exchange for the inconvenience, give a [[Action Points|Hero Point]] when it comes up. For most heroes in the intended genre the motive isn't much of an issue, if you aren't protecting the city/fighting evil/whatever variant you call it, you aren't playing the game. Further Complications can be based on personality like being unable to resist the request of a pretty girl and/or flying into a rage at a certain type of criminal.

===Alignments in Real Life===
As long as humans have been around we've tried to sort out ethics, and then put people into categories of "good" or "Evil", "lawful", or "chaotic". For much of human history we've used [[religion|religion]] and [[Herp|race]] as the measuring stick of how we figured this out. During the 20th century, though the former is still widely used (and several alternate methods still crib from it), societies have largely figured out a much better way than the latter (though [[That Guy|some people]] still use that too) to type people's personality or "alignment", thanks to personality tests. Developed by armed forces to ease selection, personality tests are, like RPG game alignments, not perfect; however, they are still a good guide line for describing a person’s personality, and some, like the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, are medically useful when treating mental disorders. One of the most common personality typing systems is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKnNO5pxRGQ with a rough description of what it is here]. Of course, since people in real life grow and change, so can their personality (and thus 'alignment'), so re-testing is necessary to keep an accurate idea. Myers-Briggs is really a lot like a horoscope, with descriptions so vague and generic they can easily apply to just about anyone. Try reading the descriptions and see how many could apply to you.

Philosophy also offers concepts that resemble alignment. Two major branches of ethics, deontological ethics and consequentialist ethics, broadly resemble lawful and chaotic alignments respectively. Deontologists believe that actions are right or wrong, and that the consequences of the action are irrelevant. Conversely, consequentialists believe that the morality of an action is based on the outcome, that "the ends justify the means". Naturally this tends to be used to justify actions that are clearly harmful to some.

== Gallery ==
Did we mention that alignment charts are a [[meme]]?

<center><gallery>
Image:Alignment.jpg|An alignment chart for gradient alignment tracking.
Image:Lawful Good.jpg|Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.
Image:Alignments_Batman.jpg|Batman is a complex guy
Image:Chaotic_Good_V.jpg|"We are legion!"
Image:Chaotic_Evil_Joker.jpg|Cue Mark Hamill laughter.
Image:Lawful_evil_Palpatine.jpg|"Unlimited powah!"
Image:Alignments_oversimplified.png
Image:The_Axis_of_Stupid.png|Of course, idiocy is not exclusive to specific moral conundrums.
Image:Sandwich-alignment-chart.jpg|<s>We are all agreed on this then: A rock is not a sandwich.</s> Somebody mentioned [[Skub]]?
Image:5 by 5 alignment chart by doaspotcheck-d3i5jfy.png| Yes, somoene decided to make it *more* complicated.
Image:11x11 alignment.png| By the emperor...why?
</gallery></center>

== External Links ==
* [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharacterAlignment Character Alignments] as explained by [[TVTropes]]
* [http://mightygodking.com/index.php/category/dd-explains-everything/ MGK made half the Alignment charts you laugh at]

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Alignment]][[Category:Game Mechanics]]

Stupid Good

2021-09-21T01:31:35Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:987D:4A2D:4A5B:6397: /* Examples of Stupid Good */

{{fail}}
{{Topquote|Ignoring what he's done in the past. Blindly, stupidly disregarding the entire graveyards he's filled, the thousands who have suffered, the friends he's crippled.|Jason Todd to Batman about Joker, nailing how Stupid Good characters actually end up causing massive harm for the sake of their own "morals."}}

{{Topquote|Now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.|Dark Helmet, ''Spaceballs'', having just casually disarmed Lone Starr with two tricks that even [[Lawful Stupid|Ned Stark]] would have seen coming.}}

'''Stupid Good''' is a term derived from the [[Dungeons & Dragons]] [[alignment]] system, but can easily be applied to [[character]]s in any [[role-playing game]] in fact, it can be applied to characters in any medium, for a specific way of playing a morally good character, usually a [[Paladin]] with a relatively even split between this and [[Lawful Stupid]].

==Definition==
[[File:Stupid Good Bender.jpg|300px|right]]
A Stupid Good character takes actions with good intent, but without regard to long-term consequences and obeying one typically "good" principle while ''completely'' disregarding all other principles. This alignment is not at all selfish, just rigid to the point of insanity. For example, a character might refuse to lie (an action that, in a neutral context, is usually considered "bad") under any circumstances. If asked by a serial killer whether he'd seen a man running past, such a character might say that he did see that man running past, even though this would realistically lead to the man's entire family being tortured to death. A good rule of thumb is to ask whether any person in real life would consider this to be an ethical and reasonable course of action. If not, time to check for Stupid Good.

Batman's treatment of the Joker is probably the most famous example. By not only refusing to kill the evil clown, but often saving his life, Batman has enabled the murder of millions of people. When it comes to deciding which action is right, they pick one specific idea (don't kill the Joker) and make it the absolute cornerstone of their decisions on morality. This also highlights another aspect of a Stupid Good character - they can be shown to be intelligent in many other ways. A refusal to kill an enemy is probably the most common form of Stupid Good presented in media. This is usually applied selectively instead of generally, as a character who refuses to kill the villain may have just burned twenty of the villain's henchmen to death without a second thought. The villain is often spared simply because they are narratively important.

A common thought experiment in the field of ethics is the Trolley Problem, where you have a choice to directly cause the death of one innocent person and save ten people, or save one person and indirectly cause the death of ten others. This can be argued either way, but Stupid Good is a matter of extremes. A dead giveaway of Stupid Good is if that person would not kill the villain even if it would save the lives of a billion people the villain himself put in danger.

While crazy in the context of real life, Stupid Good characters are sometimes shown to be right within the context of their very contrived narrative. Stupid Good cartoon characters can seem to have made the "good" choice, but only in retrospect and only because they got lucky with a one-in-a-million matter of pure chance. A leader with responsibility to subordinates or subjects who acts in this way in real life would clearly be betraying their team in order to "uphold their morals".

In the vast majority of cases, however, a Stupid Good character will become [[That guy]] in a gaming group. The player's Disneyland version of what he thinks a really nice character would do is sure to get in the way of the plot and make it seem very stupid if he is allowed to influence the direction of the story. [[Cegorach|Amusingly]] common in terms of actual game mechanics in Dungeons & Dragons, along with Lawful Stupid. Paladins often suffer from some degree of [[MAD]] in various D&D editions, thus leading to intelligence being a dump stat, leading to characters who are literally lawful good and very, very stupid.

===Examples of Stupid Good===
*The '''Autobots''' particularly from the classic 80s cartoons. Almost incessantly "good" and stubborn in their refusals to do anything remotely bad. Seriously, in the whole run of the original series and the millions of years of war between them and the Decepticons, did they kill anyone?
**Optimus Prime can also be equally described as [[Lawful Stupid]], thanks to shit like the time he let himself get blown up as a consequence of a duel in which he ''knew'' the other guy cheated.
*The '''Organians''' from the original series of [[Star Trek]] are peace lovers to the extreme, to the point in intervening in the Federation/Klingon War and stopping all fighting across the galaxy. Particularly in the expanded content where they refuse to get involved in Q-Wars threatening multiple dimensions of existence.
*[[Batman]], as mentioned above. Just...how many times did he let the Joker live or even went out of his way to save his life, FULLY KNOWING that he'd escape Arkham and kill many more innocents and starting the whole dance over again? Various reasons have been given, from "Killing the Joker means ''he wins''" to "Batman is already unhinged and you want him to start ''killing people?''", with different levels of merit. Yet, the core sentiment remains the same: the Joker is extremely dangerous, clearly incapable of trying rehabilitation to the point of simply being unable to and not containable without drastic measures. Sending him back to Arkham is just kicking the can down the road and death is probably the most humane option at this point.
**It should be added that this stupidity goes much deeper, way beyond only Batman's part in it. Given that many versions of the Joker have known kills numbering in the three, four, or sometimes even five digits, why hasn't he "broken his neck falling down the stairs" or "jumped out a tenth story window" while in Police custody? How did he avoid capital punishment when even pleading insanity has its legal limits? Certain versions of The Joker remaining alive is inexplicable in realistic terms, full stop. That's comic book logic for you.
*Ned Stark can both fit into Lawful Stupid and Stupid Good, as his penchant for mercy (he doesn't want Robert to murder Tommen and Myrcella in a fit of rage) ends up getting him executed and generally starting the major clusterfuck known as the War of the Five Kings.
** The War would have likely happened anyway because Stannis and Renly were both gathering armies & planning their moves, plus Littlefinger was playing everybody to destroy the realm while Ned was already on Littlefinger's hitlist for being married to his crush. The real stupid things there were not only not getting his kids out faster (he tried but that can also be blamed on Sansa wanting to stay and ratting him out to Cersei), but not getting more trustworthy allies and confronting Cersei privately about her crimes and expecting her to turn herself in. Another note is that Ned’s execution was both unexpected by most and virtually everyone thought it was a bad move. Tywin personally claimed it made no sense and was forced to fight Ned’s angry family as a result. Numerous others acknowledged that they just executed a highly valuable political hostage and pissed off powerful family members and vassals of Ned. Ned himself didn’t expect to be executed because he did his part and knew how valuable he was. Had things gone “normally” (fan theories include Joffrey being insane or Littlefinger whispering into his ear to cause this), Ned would have gotten out alive but still badly off.

==The darker side of goodness==
<blockquote>''"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain." ''</blockquote>

On the flip side of Stupid Good, there are those who attempt to justify whatever it is that they do so long as their characters create good outcomes. In essence as opposed to good '''actions''' "no matter the cost", the other side of stupid good is good '''consequences''' "no matter the cost". Generally those who circumvent moral problems with clever use of ethics and is therefore more often associated with Chaotic Good on the alignment scale ''(though not exclusively).''

This ''"ends justifies the means"'' approach is less like taking good actions to the point of situational absurdity and more like players using logic to create goodness out of absurd situations.

An example of a dilemma surrounding this phenomenon is: Is it morally good to do something evil, to result in an even [[Greater Good]]? Such as killing an innocent to save the king/country/world/universe?

The '''[[Book of Exalted Deeds]]''' says that the above example is most definitely '''not''' a Good act, no matter the intention of the PC and treads the muddy Neutral ground at best, however not all RPGs use the [[D&D]] alignment system, but any RPG that involves some mechanical tracker of morality may inevitably encounter a player action which causes an awkward collective intake of breath, followed by the question of ''"[[This Just Happened|did you really just do that?]]"''.

This is dangerous ground for any potential [[GM]] and needs to be [[Rules Lawyer|decided]] upon firmly when it arises. While there are many examples of real-world applications of the line of thought historically and politically, they are controversial almost without exception. In roleplaying games; the end justifies the means approach can certainly be seen as upholding the "moral good", but if a GM allows attitudes like this to take root, savvy players may eventually find reasons to do anything and have essentially just become [[Murderhobo]]s with apparent moral authority, and it can force hard-alignment systems to lose their legitimacy.

If "Good" players start justifying why they are [[Imperium|seeking out and slaying whole villages]] of Orcs "just BECAUSE they are evil" or if they are committing acts of [[Alpha Legion|terrorism against an oppressive state]] even when that state system is perfectly codified and functional then a GM should probably think about dropping any alignment systems rather than attempt to enforce muddy and dubious decisions.

===Examples of "Good" done Stupidly===
* The [[Tau]] in 40k, though with particular reference to the harsher side of the [[Greater Good]] where they believe that people can be forcibly brought into harmony with one another. It's not terribly unreasonable given that pretty much everyone else in the setting is either [[Orks|insane]], [[Chaos Space Marine|evil]], or [[Imperium of Man|xenophobic]] ([[Dark Eldar|or all three]]) to the point where almost nobody gets along without a gun to their head.
*[[Konrad Curze]] - VERY VERY much so, despite the fact he [[Noblebright|brought crime and corruption on his world to near-zero, improving efficiency and bringing hope]] to his world, he was NOT a good person, no matter what he was attempting to argue.
*The '''Organians''' again; Though only in [[/v/|video games]] where they have given up the non-violent approach and decide to force everyone into peace by [[derp|declaring war on them]].
* Stannis Baratheon, from the show adaptation of [[A Song of Ice and Fire]]. He keeps on committing morally dubious and sometimes even downright villainous acts, such as sacrificing his own daughter to a fire god, in order to save Westeros from a bunch of evil elves, their zombie minions, and their Darth Maul lookalike leader; all at the behest of a crazed priestess who can't see that Stannis is NOT the chosen hero of yore, which she has fooled both herself and him into believing. In other words, he's a more well intentioned Macbeth who ended up with the same fate.

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Alignment]][[Category:Stupid Alignments]]

Stupid Good

2021-09-21T01:29:23Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:987D:4A2D:4A5B:6397: /* Examples of "Good" done Stupidly */

{{fail}}
{{Topquote|Ignoring what he's done in the past. Blindly, stupidly disregarding the entire graveyards he's filled, the thousands who have suffered, the friends he's crippled.|Jason Todd to Batman about Joker, nailing how Stupid Good characters actually end up causing massive harm for the sake of their own "morals."}}

{{Topquote|Now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.|Dark Helmet, ''Spaceballs'', having just casually disarmed Lone Starr with two tricks that even [[Lawful Stupid|Ned Stark]] would have seen coming.}}

'''Stupid Good''' is a term derived from the [[Dungeons & Dragons]] [[alignment]] system, but can easily be applied to [[character]]s in any [[role-playing game]] in fact, it can be applied to characters in any medium, for a specific way of playing a morally good character, usually a [[Paladin]] with a relatively even split between this and [[Lawful Stupid]].

==Definition==
[[File:Stupid Good Bender.jpg|300px|right]]
A Stupid Good character takes actions with good intent, but without regard to long-term consequences and obeying one typically "good" principle while ''completely'' disregarding all other principles. This alignment is not at all selfish, just rigid to the point of insanity. For example, a character might refuse to lie (an action that, in a neutral context, is usually considered "bad") under any circumstances. If asked by a serial killer whether he'd seen a man running past, such a character might say that he did see that man running past, even though this would realistically lead to the man's entire family being tortured to death. A good rule of thumb is to ask whether any person in real life would consider this to be an ethical and reasonable course of action. If not, time to check for Stupid Good.

Batman's treatment of the Joker is probably the most famous example. By not only refusing to kill the evil clown, but often saving his life, Batman has enabled the murder of millions of people. When it comes to deciding which action is right, they pick one specific idea (don't kill the Joker) and make it the absolute cornerstone of their decisions on morality. This also highlights another aspect of a Stupid Good character - they can be shown to be intelligent in many other ways. A refusal to kill an enemy is probably the most common form of Stupid Good presented in media. This is usually applied selectively instead of generally, as a character who refuses to kill the villain may have just burned twenty of the villain's henchmen to death without a second thought. The villain is often spared simply because they are narratively important.

A common thought experiment in the field of ethics is the Trolley Problem, where you have a choice to directly cause the death of one innocent person and save ten people, or save one person and indirectly cause the death of ten others. This can be argued either way, but Stupid Good is a matter of extremes. A dead giveaway of Stupid Good is if that person would not kill the villain even if it would save the lives of a billion people the villain himself put in danger.

While crazy in the context of real life, Stupid Good characters are sometimes shown to be right within the context of their very contrived narrative. Stupid Good cartoon characters can seem to have made the "good" choice, but only in retrospect and only because they got lucky with a one-in-a-million matter of pure chance. A leader with responsibility to subordinates or subjects who acts in this way in real life would clearly be betraying their team in order to "uphold their morals".

In the vast majority of cases, however, a Stupid Good character will become [[That guy]] in a gaming group. The player's Disneyland version of what he thinks a really nice character would do is sure to get in the way of the plot and make it seem very stupid if he is allowed to influence the direction of the story. [[Cegorach|Amusingly]] common in terms of actual game mechanics in Dungeons & Dragons, along with Lawful Stupid. Paladins often suffer from some degree of [[MAD]] in various D&D editions, thus leading to intelligence being a dump stat, leading to characters who are literally lawful good and very, very stupid.

===Examples of Stupid Good===
*The '''Autobots''' particularly from the classic 80s cartoons. Almost incessantly "good" and stubborn in their refusals to do anything remotely bad. Seriously, in the whole run of the original series and the millions of years of war between them and the Decepticons, did they kill anyone?
**Optimus Prime can also be equally described as [[Lawful Stupid]], thanks to shit like the time he let himself get blown up as a consequence of a duel in which he ''knew'' the other guy cheated.
*The '''Organians''' from the original series of [[Star Trek]] are peace lovers to the extreme, to the point in intervening in the Federation/Klingon War and stopping all fighting across the galaxy. Particularly in the expanded content where they refuse to get involved in Q-Wars threatening multiple dimensions of existence.
*[[Batman]], as mentioned above. Just...how many times did he let the Joker live or even went out of his way to save his life, FULLY KNOWING that he'd escape Arkham and kill many more innocents and starting the whole dance over again? Various reasons have been given, from "Killing the Joker means ''he wins''" to "Batman is already unhinged and you want him to start ''killing people?''", with different levels of merit. Yet, the core sentiment remains the same: the Joker is extremely dangerous, clearly incapable of trying rehabilitation to the point of simply being unable to and not containable without drastic measures. Sending him back to Arkham is just kicking the can down the road and death is probably the most humane option at this point.
**It should be added that this stupidity goes much deeper, way beyond only Batman's part in it. Given that many versions of the Joker have known kills numbering in the three, four, or sometimes even five digits, why hasn't he "broken his neck falling down the stairs" or "jumped out a tenth story window" while in Police custody? How did he avoid capital punishment when even pleading insanity has its legal limits? Certain versions of The Joker remaining alive is inexplicable in realistic terms, full stop. That's comic book logic for you.
*Ned Stark can both fit into Lawful Stupid and Stupid Good, as his penchant for mercy (he doesn't want Robert to murder Tommen and Myrcella in a fit of rage) ends up getting him executed and generally starting the major clusterfuck known as the War of the Five Kings.
** The War would have likely happened anyway because Stannis and Renly were both gathering armies & planning their moves, plus Littlefinger was playing everybody to destroy the realm while Ned was already on Littlefinger's hitlist for being married to his crush. The real stupid things there were not only not getting his kids out faster (he tried but Sansa wanted to stay), but not getting more trustworthy allies and confronting Cersei privately about her crimes and expecting her to turn herself in. Another note is that Ned’s execution was both unexpected by most and virtually everyone thought it was a bad move. Tywin personally claimed it made no sense and was forced to fight Ned’s angry family as a result. Numerous others acknowledged that they just executed a highly valuable political hostage and pissed off powerful family members and vassals of Ned. Ned himself didn’t expect to be executed because he did his part and knew how valuable he was. Had things gone “normally” (fan theories include Joffrey being insane or Littlefinger whispering into his ear to cause this), Ned would have gotten out alive but still badly off.

==The darker side of goodness==
<blockquote>''"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain." ''</blockquote>

On the flip side of Stupid Good, there are those who attempt to justify whatever it is that they do so long as their characters create good outcomes. In essence as opposed to good '''actions''' "no matter the cost", the other side of stupid good is good '''consequences''' "no matter the cost". Generally those who circumvent moral problems with clever use of ethics and is therefore more often associated with Chaotic Good on the alignment scale ''(though not exclusively).''

This ''"ends justifies the means"'' approach is less like taking good actions to the point of situational absurdity and more like players using logic to create goodness out of absurd situations.

An example of a dilemma surrounding this phenomenon is: Is it morally good to do something evil, to result in an even [[Greater Good]]? Such as killing an innocent to save the king/country/world/universe?

The '''[[Book of Exalted Deeds]]''' says that the above example is most definitely '''not''' a Good act, no matter the intention of the PC and treads the muddy Neutral ground at best, however not all RPGs use the [[D&D]] alignment system, but any RPG that involves some mechanical tracker of morality may inevitably encounter a player action which causes an awkward collective intake of breath, followed by the question of ''"[[This Just Happened|did you really just do that?]]"''.

This is dangerous ground for any potential [[GM]] and needs to be [[Rules Lawyer|decided]] upon firmly when it arises. While there are many examples of real-world applications of the line of thought historically and politically, they are controversial almost without exception. In roleplaying games; the end justifies the means approach can certainly be seen as upholding the "moral good", but if a GM allows attitudes like this to take root, savvy players may eventually find reasons to do anything and have essentially just become [[Murderhobo]]s with apparent moral authority, and it can force hard-alignment systems to lose their legitimacy.

If "Good" players start justifying why they are [[Imperium|seeking out and slaying whole villages]] of Orcs "just BECAUSE they are evil" or if they are committing acts of [[Alpha Legion|terrorism against an oppressive state]] even when that state system is perfectly codified and functional then a GM should probably think about dropping any alignment systems rather than attempt to enforce muddy and dubious decisions.

===Examples of "Good" done Stupidly===
* The [[Tau]] in 40k, though with particular reference to the harsher side of the [[Greater Good]] where they believe that people can be forcibly brought into harmony with one another. It's not terribly unreasonable given that pretty much everyone else in the setting is either [[Orks|insane]], [[Chaos Space Marine|evil]], or [[Imperium of Man|xenophobic]] ([[Dark Eldar|or all three]]) to the point where almost nobody gets along without a gun to their head.
*[[Konrad Curze]] - VERY VERY much so, despite the fact he [[Noblebright|brought crime and corruption on his world to near-zero, improving efficiency and bringing hope]] to his world, he was NOT a good person, no matter what he was attempting to argue.
*The '''Organians''' again; Though only in [[/v/|video games]] where they have given up the non-violent approach and decide to force everyone into peace by [[derp|declaring war on them]].
* Stannis Baratheon, from the show adaptation of [[A Song of Ice and Fire]]. He keeps on committing morally dubious and sometimes even downright villainous acts, such as sacrificing his own daughter to a fire god, in order to save Westeros from a bunch of evil elves, their zombie minions, and their Darth Maul lookalike leader; all at the behest of a crazed priestess who can't see that Stannis is NOT the chosen hero of yore, which she has fooled both herself and him into believing. In other words, he's a more well intentioned Macbeth who ended up with the same fate.

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Alignment]][[Category:Stupid Alignments]]

Stupid Good

2021-09-21T01:25:02Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:987D:4A2D:4A5B:6397:

{{fail}}
{{Topquote|Ignoring what he's done in the past. Blindly, stupidly disregarding the entire graveyards he's filled, the thousands who have suffered, the friends he's crippled.|Jason Todd to Batman about Joker, nailing how Stupid Good characters actually end up causing massive harm for the sake of their own "morals."}}

{{Topquote|Now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.|Dark Helmet, ''Spaceballs'', having just casually disarmed Lone Starr with two tricks that even [[Lawful Stupid|Ned Stark]] would have seen coming.}}

'''Stupid Good''' is a term derived from the [[Dungeons & Dragons]] [[alignment]] system, but can easily be applied to [[character]]s in any [[role-playing game]] in fact, it can be applied to characters in any medium, for a specific way of playing a morally good character, usually a [[Paladin]] with a relatively even split between this and [[Lawful Stupid]].

==Definition==
[[File:Stupid Good Bender.jpg|300px|right]]
A Stupid Good character takes actions with good intent, but without regard to long-term consequences and obeying one typically "good" principle while ''completely'' disregarding all other principles. This alignment is not at all selfish, just rigid to the point of insanity. For example, a character might refuse to lie (an action that, in a neutral context, is usually considered "bad") under any circumstances. If asked by a serial killer whether he'd seen a man running past, such a character might say that he did see that man running past, even though this would realistically lead to the man's entire family being tortured to death. A good rule of thumb is to ask whether any person in real life would consider this to be an ethical and reasonable course of action. If not, time to check for Stupid Good.

Batman's treatment of the Joker is probably the most famous example. By not only refusing to kill the evil clown, but often saving his life, Batman has enabled the murder of millions of people. When it comes to deciding which action is right, they pick one specific idea (don't kill the Joker) and make it the absolute cornerstone of their decisions on morality. This also highlights another aspect of a Stupid Good character - they can be shown to be intelligent in many other ways. A refusal to kill an enemy is probably the most common form of Stupid Good presented in media. This is usually applied selectively instead of generally, as a character who refuses to kill the villain may have just burned twenty of the villain's henchmen to death without a second thought. The villain is often spared simply because they are narratively important.

A common thought experiment in the field of ethics is the Trolley Problem, where you have a choice to directly cause the death of one innocent person and save ten people, or save one person and indirectly cause the death of ten others. This can be argued either way, but Stupid Good is a matter of extremes. A dead giveaway of Stupid Good is if that person would not kill the villain even if it would save the lives of a billion people the villain himself put in danger.

While crazy in the context of real life, Stupid Good characters are sometimes shown to be right within the context of their very contrived narrative. Stupid Good cartoon characters can seem to have made the "good" choice, but only in retrospect and only because they got lucky with a one-in-a-million matter of pure chance. A leader with responsibility to subordinates or subjects who acts in this way in real life would clearly be betraying their team in order to "uphold their morals".

In the vast majority of cases, however, a Stupid Good character will become [[That guy]] in a gaming group. The player's Disneyland version of what he thinks a really nice character would do is sure to get in the way of the plot and make it seem very stupid if he is allowed to influence the direction of the story. [[Cegorach|Amusingly]] common in terms of actual game mechanics in Dungeons & Dragons, along with Lawful Stupid. Paladins often suffer from some degree of [[MAD]] in various D&D editions, thus leading to intelligence being a dump stat, leading to characters who are literally lawful good and very, very stupid.

===Examples of Stupid Good===
*The '''Autobots''' particularly from the classic 80s cartoons. Almost incessantly "good" and stubborn in their refusals to do anything remotely bad. Seriously, in the whole run of the original series and the millions of years of war between them and the Decepticons, did they kill anyone?
**Optimus Prime can also be equally described as [[Lawful Stupid]], thanks to shit like the time he let himself get blown up as a consequence of a duel in which he ''knew'' the other guy cheated.
*The '''Organians''' from the original series of [[Star Trek]] are peace lovers to the extreme, to the point in intervening in the Federation/Klingon War and stopping all fighting across the galaxy. Particularly in the expanded content where they refuse to get involved in Q-Wars threatening multiple dimensions of existence.
*[[Batman]], as mentioned above. Just...how many times did he let the Joker live or even went out of his way to save his life, FULLY KNOWING that he'd escape Arkham and kill many more innocents and starting the whole dance over again? Various reasons have been given, from "Killing the Joker means ''he wins''" to "Batman is already unhinged and you want him to start ''killing people?''", with different levels of merit. Yet, the core sentiment remains the same: the Joker is extremely dangerous, clearly incapable of trying rehabilitation to the point of simply being unable to and not containable without drastic measures. Sending him back to Arkham is just kicking the can down the road and death is probably the most humane option at this point.
**It should be added that this stupidity goes much deeper, way beyond only Batman's part in it. Given that many versions of the Joker have known kills numbering in the three, four, or sometimes even five digits, why hasn't he "broken his neck falling down the stairs" or "jumped out a tenth story window" while in Police custody? How did he avoid capital punishment when even pleading insanity has its legal limits? Certain versions of The Joker remaining alive is inexplicable in realistic terms, full stop. That's comic book logic for you.
*Ned Stark can both fit into Lawful Stupid and Stupid Good, as his penchant for mercy (he doesn't want Robert to murder Tommen and Myrcella in a fit of rage) ends up getting him executed and generally starting the major clusterfuck known as the War of the Five Kings.
** The War would have likely happened anyway because Stannis and Renly were both gathering armies & planning their moves, plus Littlefinger was playing everybody to destroy the realm while Ned was already on Littlefinger's hitlist for being married to his crush. The real stupid things there were not only not getting his kids out faster (he tried but Sansa wanted to stay), but not getting more trustworthy allies and confronting Cersei privately about her crimes and expecting her to turn herself in. Another note is that Ned’s execution was both unexpected by most and virtually everyone thought it was a bad move. Tywin personally claimed it made no sense and was forced to fight Ned’s angry family as a result. Numerous others acknowledged that they just executed a highly valuable political hostage and pissed off powerful family members and vassals of Ned. Ned himself didn’t expect to be executed because he did his part and knew how valuable he was. Had things gone “normally” (fan theories include Joffrey being insane or Littlefinger whispering into his ear to cause this), Ned would have gotten out alive but still badly off.

==The darker side of goodness==
<blockquote>''"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain." ''</blockquote>

On the flip side of Stupid Good, there are those who attempt to justify whatever it is that they do so long as their characters create good outcomes. In essence as opposed to good '''actions''' "no matter the cost", the other side of stupid good is good '''consequences''' "no matter the cost". Generally those who circumvent moral problems with clever use of ethics and is therefore more often associated with Chaotic Good on the alignment scale ''(though not exclusively).''

This ''"ends justifies the means"'' approach is less like taking good actions to the point of situational absurdity and more like players using logic to create goodness out of absurd situations.

An example of a dilemma surrounding this phenomenon is: Is it morally good to do something evil, to result in an even [[Greater Good]]? Such as killing an innocent to save the king/country/world/universe?

The '''[[Book of Exalted Deeds]]''' says that the above example is most definitely '''not''' a Good act, no matter the intention of the PC and treads the muddy Neutral ground at best, however not all RPGs use the [[D&D]] alignment system, but any RPG that involves some mechanical tracker of morality may inevitably encounter a player action which causes an awkward collective intake of breath, followed by the question of ''"[[This Just Happened|did you really just do that?]]"''.

This is dangerous ground for any potential [[GM]] and needs to be [[Rules Lawyer|decided]] upon firmly when it arises. While there are many examples of real-world applications of the line of thought historically and politically, they are controversial almost without exception. In roleplaying games; the end justifies the means approach can certainly be seen as upholding the "moral good", but if a GM allows attitudes like this to take root, savvy players may eventually find reasons to do anything and have essentially just become [[Murderhobo]]s with apparent moral authority, and it can force hard-alignment systems to lose their legitimacy.

If "Good" players start justifying why they are [[Imperium|seeking out and slaying whole villages]] of Orcs "just BECAUSE they are evil" or if they are committing acts of [[Alpha Legion|terrorism against an oppressive state]] even when that state system is perfectly codified and functional then a GM should probably think about dropping any alignment systems rather than attempt to enforce muddy and dubious decisions.

===Examples of "Good" done Stupidly===
* The [[Tau]] in 40k, though with particular reference to the harsher side of the [[Greater Good]] where they believe that people can be forcibly brought into harmony with one another. It's not terribly unreasonable given that pretty much everyone else in the setting is either [[Orks|insane]], [[Chaos Space Marine|evil]], or [[Imperium of Man|xenophobic]] ([[Dark Eldar|or all three]]) to the point where almost nobody gets along without a gun to their head.
*[[Konrad Curze]] - VERY VERY much so, despite the fact he [[Noblebright|brought crime and corruption on his world to near-zero, improving efficiency and bringing hope]] to his world, he was NOT a good person, no matter what he was attempting to argue.
*The '''Organians''' again; Though only in [[/v/|video games]] where they have given up the non-violent approach and decide to force everyone into peace by [[derp|declaring war on them]].
* Stannis Baratheon, from the show adaptation of [[A Song of Ice and Fire]]. He keeps on committing morally dubious and sometimes even downright villainous acts, such as sacrificing his own daughter to a fire god, in order to save Westeros from a bunch of evil elves, their zombie minions, and their Darth Maul lookalike leader; all at the behest of a crazed priestess who can't see that Stannis is NOT the chosen hero of yore, which she has fooled both herself and him into believing. In other words, he's a more well intentioned Macbeth who will end up with the same fate.

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Alignment]][[Category:Stupid Alignments]]