Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[Dungeoneer]

@Libramarian and @LostSoul have helped me understand what alignment was for in classic D&D: being lawful or lawful good opened up some benefits (eg NPCs are more likely to accept your promises, you get better hireling loyalty, and easier access to clerical healing magic) but also shut down some options (mostly expedient options for dealing with enemies).

That's interesting and I did not know that.

I feel like you could easily achieve the same effects without alignment, though. Say there was a 'Paladin's Oath' which a player could optionally take which served to give them more access to clerical support but bound them from performing certain actions. That would have interesting character implications without trying to impose a clunky moral framework on every other character in the game.

 

[pemerton]

I feel like you could easily achieve the same effects without alignment, though. Say there was a 'Paladin's Oath' which a player could optionally take which served to give them more access to clerical support but bound them from performing certain actions. That would have interesting character implications without trying to impose a clunky moral framework on every other character in the game.

I think this is probably how some of the advantages/disadvantages stuff you see in games like HEROES/Champions got started.

And I agree 100% that alignment is a clunky moral framework. The fact that it bears no resemblance to any actual functioning system of moral analysis (either by philosophers or by ordinary people) is, for me, sufficient evidence of that.

 

[adamc]

I think alignments help weaker roleplayers by giving them some guidelines for their character, but they have little benefit for stronger roleplayers. Alignments themselves are simplistic at best, so I don't put much emphasis on them in my campaign.

 

[Yora]

Generally speaking, it of course depends on whether or not you are playing in a game that has objective cosmic forces of good and evil. If you have such a game, alignment makes kind of sense.

However, I wouldn't want to play such a game and certainly wouldn't run one. And in that case alignment is just a very big obstacle that serves no purpose and instead causes confusion for everyone involved, which in turn leads to characters acting in stereotypical ways and removes all the ambiguities that make the making of tough descisions interesting.
In a world where detect evil exist, there are no tough descisions.

As far as I am aware, there is only a single RPG that ever used alignment. No other RPG that came after it uses alignment. Which probably is the case for very good reasons.

Alignment doesn't improve anything. It only takes away.

 

[howandwhy99]

Alignment is a score represented within the game's mechanics. It is crunch, not fluff. Like Ability Scores it isn't an attribute to be "role-played", but a feature of the game, so don't worry if you aren't being Lawful Good enough or not. Take actions in the game and your PCs alignment changes. What that Alignment is on any turn, point in time, alters potential interactions in the game including what you can and can't do, or must roll to do. Alignment works the same for everything else in the game too.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The problem is of course all that baggage...

Not to me. I like all that baggage in my D&D.*









* if/when addressing this post, please do read the last three words in that second sentence.

 

[ArmchairReactionary]

I don't mind alignment/allegiance systems, but I keep them (objectively) amoral. I don't believe in good and evil, but interdimensional monsters playing games with the memetic tropes/heuristics of stupid apes proclaiming themselves 'good' I'll buy. It's just religion/politics with support powers at that point.
Which id's what alignment was in OD&D and Moorcock. It want until later that it was moralized/Tolkienized (a similar shift happens with religion and mythology in the Axial age, people just can't help wanking about their value conceits).


Mod Note: A small reminder to folks - discussion of real-world religious beliefs is not appropriate for these boards. Thanks! ~Umbran

 

[Scorpio616]

Alignment is great, rather than having to bring RL options and belief's into the game, alignment gives an in game measuring stick on what is Good, Evil, Lawful or Chaotic. Oh, wait, every edition of D&D has fudged up and failed to give a concise codifying of each. Kind of a major problem since Alignment defines a fudgehuge chunk of the Metaphysics.


But still, Alignment is a useful tool, even if it is only to keep presumably good characters from having undead minions & lower the survival rate of evil parties (that whole good is better at healing thing).

 

[Dwimmerlied]

I am challenging the general concept of alignments and the way they are used in most OGL settings and games. I do understand where they come from. And I realize their importance when a new player is introduced to rpgs. But what do they offer to an experienced player?

Hi fagura, interesting topic! Here's my thoughts; they might not be popular because I think the arguments against the d&d moral compass are a little overstated given the context.

I don't think there is anything wrong with a simplified moral system, because I reckon it probably works for most gamers out there. From my own experience, deeper explorations haven't been necessary, and I've managed to tell interesting and compelling stories without the need for modification. I don't believe great DMing, immersive, or compelling stories and commitment to exploration of definitions of good and evil are mutually exclusive. Philosophy hasn't yet answered these questions, and humanity has been around for a long time, so I don't expect it from my story-telling vehicle. And you know, if d&d can posit a system of theology and afterlife that is obviously a conditional tool available to gamers, why is the alignment system so vilified?

Further, I honestly think that many of your questions could actually be rationalized within the simplified d&d alignment quite easily without any breakdown of suspended disbelief or taking away from the immersion. The devil's advocate would play a mean fiddle against my contentions, sure, because I think things can often be more black and white but for the want of an interesting debate.

The woman who was forced to choose could not be considered evil, though whoever forced her into the decision would be. No number of lives lost can be weighed against any other number in terms of degree of goodness. Depending on the law of the land, she might be considered non-lawful though.

Is a person with schizophrenia evil? Depends on the actions they wreak. A thought or intent doesn't cause grief, so not all schizophrenics are evil; not even the acts themselves are evil, but the intent behind them is; an action executed for the purpose of causing loss or suffering would be evil. It is the primal essence of these actions that cling to the soul, so although good deeds might be performed the next morning, detect evil, or a god's interest in or abandonment of a character depend on this. Detect evil spell can even tell you the strength of evilness that emenates (sp.) from the subject, so when you answer this question for your players, you can give them a guage, if that makes sense? Someone who truly atones and genuinely seeks to correct their own ways is not evil.

Indeed mentalities are changeable, but the alignment system allows for this and DMs are encouraged to monitor this.

A character wants to commit a very evil act. Nevertheless, he never does it. Was it because he never got the chance? Was it because sth internal stopped him every time?

That's up to the DM. So the DM knows.

Is he evil already?

No. He never hurt anyone thinking.

Does he become evil the moment he does it?

The moment he intentionally proceeds to execute an action that will bring about sorrow, fear and pain himself? Yes.

Fourthly, there is a big chapter in human behavior that is called Motivation. The same action made to serve different motives might be totally evil, totally good or very shady. Let's take the previous example. That woman killed a 1.000 people tribe. This is certainly an evil act. Her alignment though might be evil if she did it just for fun, shady if she did it to save her family and even good if she believed that was the way to save humanity. Are we to discuss the motivation behind all characters' actions to determine what tab to put them under?

I find your suggested alignment outcomes here reasonable

Especially in terms of much gaming, I think the simplification is fine and generally makes sense, but I do agree that if you wanted to develop a compelling story which really wanted to explore the shades of grey, or play with the commonfolk's flawed ideas of morality it would require either a little house-ruling, or a discussion with the game group, or whatever. I'm not yet convinced that working with, modifying or completely abandoning alignment will cause the mechanics to collapse completely where slight redefinitions or explanations can easily be used to ensure it all still works, and I strongly disagree with the contention that the alignment system is a crutch for the inexperienced and more advanced gamers are likely to become lost when they inevitably find the need to abandon it.

Anyway, just my own reflections on the topic!

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

Generally speaking, it of course depends on whether or not you are playing in a game that has objective cosmic forces of good and evil. If you have such a game, alignment makes kind of sense.

However, I wouldn't want to play such a game and certainly wouldn't run one. And in that case alignment is just a very big obstacle that serves no purpose and instead causes confusion for everyone involved, which in turn leads to characters acting in stereotypical ways and removes all the ambiguities that make the making of tough descisions interesting.
In a world where detect evil exist, there are no tough descisions.

As far as I am aware, there is only a single RPG that ever used alignment. No other RPG that came after it uses alignment. Which probably is the case for very good reasons.

Alignment doesn't improve anything. It only takes away.

I completely disagree with your last sentence because it's 100% subjective. Alignment is like a race or a class. It presents you with a criteria that you are supposed to follow. You wouldn't choose an elf if you wanted to be a dwarf would you? Alignment is a challenge to the game. Del's first post had it spot on. The moment a "player's" characters alignment gets in his way, he wants to drop it. The challenge is to stay with in that alignment and do what that "character" would do, not what the player himself would do.

Alignment adds depth to a character.