Do Countries have D&D type alignments

[heyheysg]

I would imagine from all the historial fiction about empires that they are mostly Lawful Evil, The Three Kingdoms, Roman Empire, Mongols, Hitler's Reich.

What alignments would today's countries have, would an Iranian or a North Korean citizen claim to be Chaotic Evil? Or does any country that has assasinations, declared wars be automatically considered Lawful/Chaotic Evil?

Only a handful of small countries could be considered Neutral, Switzerland for e.g.

 

[Diablini]

Maybe. Your idea is interesting. Japan lawful evil?

 

[Jirlond]

I suppose they do but in different ways - D&D alignments are how the world perceives characters whereas country alignments depend on what country you are in i.e. friendly, hostile alignments

 

[Kollega]

I think they do. Switzerland is True Neutral. Nazi Germany was Neutral Evil. Dictatorships in general are Lawful Evil. Democracies are Lawful Neutral. And so on. But it's much harder to asess than with individuals.

 

[Baggie]

I think Russia would probably be as close to Chaotic Neutral as you can get.

 

[DannyBoy451]

The D&D alignment scale doesn't even work for describing people in the real world, much less countries.

 

[Skeleon]

There are very few people who'd consider themselves evil.
We could only apply our views based on our own values and experiences.

That said, personally, I'd say that both North Korea and Iran would qualify as Lawful Evil, because the evil acts are performed by the state, not some chaotic force or large group of the actual population.

 

[Graustein]

The D&D alignment scale doesn't even work for describing people in the real world, much less countries.

Not only this, but countries, as a general rule, have laws. That's pretty much the major point of a nation-state. That puts the Lawful descriptor on the vast, vast majority of nations, since a Chaotic one would simply fall apart. The net result of this would be that nations are simply labelled on the Good-Evil axis, which is something entirely subjective.

 

[mugetsu37]

All today are chaotic neutral. Good and evil alignments are brought on by how the character perceives their own actions. As far as Iran and North Korea are concerned, Iran sees itself as doing right by adopting a more fundamental (do not read fundamentalist) approach towards religion and culture, while North Korea sees itself as trying to survive an reunite a people.