D&D 5E Alignment, Good Fun and Unnecessary Evil

Because I hate myself, I wrote an article about Alignment. Yes, another one to add to the pile. But since the game is ever changing, it is natural to update that kind of thing.

Link

Here is the TL;DR

• Alignment historically is born from the embedded fight between Good and Evil in Greyhawk, then Faerun.
  • It was considered key to the game
  • Paladins had it hard.
• Alignment is strong as a meme. we love it.
• Alignment sows discord as an objective and prescriptive mechanic
  • What matters for factions aren't their alignment but their name. That's the tag, the thing that links us to its morals.
  • It is hard to have alignment be objective and prescriptive because people disagree about what's wrong and right. Also known as Orc Babies. And we love Orcs now, so that's a problem.
  • Alignment also hide the true moral conflict, which isn't an argument about the nine labels, but a discussion of what is at stakes and the values of everyone. Alignment is getting into way of the fun here.
  • Alignment being prescriptive means the DM has to enforce character's alignment. This is also getting in the way of fun.
• Alignment is ok as a short-hand descriptive mechanic.
  • But then, you do not need to limit yourself to the nine labels. You can just invent new ones to express the subjectivity of your character, if in the first place everyone agrees the player is in control, and alignment is subjective.
• We are all moral beings (and I feel this is a new argument, not discussed enough).
  • Therefore, we don't need Alignment to do our moral thinking for us. Between fictions and our own education, we have more than enough experience to do some.
  • We are all moral beings, and that is so natural to us, that we kind of forgot. If we had that in mind when we looked at Alignment, we would have seen that it is not needed.
• Other TTRPgs: they are fine without it!
• Legacy: it's alright to have legacy systems for the old players, but legacy mechanics should not be anti-fun.

Conclusion: Alignment is some good fun when you use it as a meme, but otherwise it is an unnecessary evil (it creates conflicts, it occults the true debate about the morality of a situation, and other systems do perfectly fine without it).

Yes, the TL;DR is long, but so is the article! I hope you enjoy your read. Follow me on twitter and check out my other articles and homebrew on Dreams&Pixies

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My house rules are:

Adding allegiance (race, tribe, religion, country, faction..) to the alignment, and sometimes opposite are allowed, for example a chaotic character with allegiance law could be a sheriff who breaks the rules to defend the order.

Powers with key alignment can hurt enemies with same alignment but different allegiance, for example drow cleric vs orc shaman.

Chaotic means to be attuned to primal forces or Nature, or behavior with characters from different allegiance.

DreamsAndPixies said:

Conclusion: Alignment is some good fun when you use it as a meme, but otherwise it is an unnecessary evil (it creates conflicts, it occults the true debate about the morality of a situation, and other systems do perfectly fine without it).

Click to expand...

It really depends on how you prefer to view morality in the game. Originally, the game had a static morality, which fit the original concept of medieval Europe fantasy. Law and Chaos were absolute concepts, with most creatures naturally fitting into one of the three camps. Good and Evil were added in AD&D, expanding the nuance to a 2 axis setup. Evil creatures were evil because they were inherently evil, so killing orc infants was not inherently evil. Good creatures were good because they were inherently good, so killing a unicorn was inherently evil, unless maybe in self defense. Most PCs in this environment were not expected to be absolutes in their axis point (Paladin and Druid were an exception), but simply tried to keep to their alignment as best they could. Deliberate violations could change alignment, with a loss of level in penalty.

Modern gaming has moved towards a relativistic morality, mostly I believe, because society has become more accepting of things that would have been considered "evil" not that long ago. In such a setup, alignment does not serve much purpose, because Law, Chaos, Good, and Evil are relative terms. Creatures are not inherently tied to an alignment, even if the majority follow that path. Thus killing infants can be considered evil, even those of an evil race, because they are not necessarily evil. Other settings have found better methods of determining relativist character morality.

In 5E, alignment has little to no meaning. I've played characters without bothering to define an alignment until after a few sessions, because I wanted the character to define itself, rather than the other way around. However, because alignments exist, a DM could very easily incorporate static morality in 5E, setting limitations to fit their style of game. This is the best approach IMO, since it doesn't really hurt either style of play.

Even if you play a Black&White game, you do not need alignment.

What you need are factions (in this case, Good and Evil). And what characterizes a faction is its name, not its alignment. E.g. "Orcs" are evil, raiders, etc.

Alignment is a tool, it can be useful but if it spoils your fun it should be ignored. Kudos to WotC for not integrating alignment much with the mechanics of the game.

It should be noted tho, that also NOT using alignment can spoil the fun, in particular if this is interpreted by some player as "I can do whatever I want and should get away with it", which may sometimes lead to annoying characters.

If you use Alignment, it is up to the DM to enforce consequences.

If you don't use Alignment, it is up to the DM to enforce consequences.

Not using Alignment can't spoil the fun, as I said in my last point, we're all moral beings, and when we are confronted with a situation in d&d, we know how our character feel morally about it.

DreamsAndPixies said:

Alignment historically is born from the embedded fight between Good and Evil in Greyhawk, then Faerun.

Click to expand...

Wasn’t it Law and Chaos?

Most of players don't want a simple manicheism, but too gray isn't right, and sometimes stories about bad guys and worse ones aren't so fun.

What is evil alignment? when somebody do a serious injustice or crime against the Natural Law, respect for human dignity, or innocents with no mitigating circumstance of guild. When transformers are fighting within a city, destroying buildings and causing collateral damages, they are hurting innocent people, but they aren't bad, but they really want to save humans.

I use alignments because my opinion is characters of bad actions and with "bad karma" should can be punished by powers with alignment key.

My short version:

For players alignment is a record: how often did they honor their word when it wasn't convenient, how often did they follow local rules and traditions, how selfish have they been?

For creature types/societies it is useful shorthand: how rigidly are contracts enforced, are there laws that last beyond the reign of the current ruler, are the people generally willing to aid others for no reward or are they always just looking for their own gain?

For outsiders it is law: they are to a large extent made of these abstract concepts so instead of a trend or guideline it is inescapable selfless to them.