Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[Celebrim]

Whereas for me, the point of the pretense is to prompt real evaluative judgements by the participants, on which I expect them to act in playing the game. That action can be very varied: for instance, a player might persist in playing a PC in a way that s/he regards as wrongful, in order to see where it leads and what sorts of responses it provokes in him-/herself and from the other participants. But in engaging with the fiction and thinking about it and playing it, participants aren't expected to subordinate their own evaluative judgements. They're expected to engage them.

That's what I mean when I say the illusion/pretense is not the main thing. It's a means to an aesthetic end in which real values are primary.

I have never understood this criticism at all. This criticism comes up repeatedly, and I've never understood its basis.

Let's begin with the obvious. Does having a 2 axis alignment system force the player to accept the DM's beliefs and subordinate his own beliefs?

Well, no. Obviously, the DM might characterize his own beliefs as being anywhere on or off the two-axis system. Quite obviously the majority of the different approaches to life won't correspond to the DM's beliefs. The DM might have a belief system that requires subordination to a powerful external authority and promotes conformity to a uniform social standard promoting (it believes) universal weal and the greater good. The player may personally believe in a system that holds individual liberty and freedom of conscious as the highest (and even sole) good. Nothing about the D&D system raises to primacy either belief system, nor constrains the player from exploring either belief system in his play. The D&D cosmology is after all presented as a 'great wheel' by default, where nothing is either higher or lower than the other - the image of a round table. One could argue whether this promotes the primacy of neutrality, but that gets into deep and serious questions if you plunge ahead and follow that line of thought.

One could counter that the DM himself might be closed minded and characterize the line of play the player wishes to explore as CE on the basis of his own biases, but this could certainly happen without a framework, but if that happens, so what? Rebellion from social norms in fact characterizes the sort of belief system being explored. If this means declaring allegiance with team evil, well now we are - by the strictures of the campaign universe - still exploring whether 'evil' is really evil and good is really good. Again, no one has to actually subordinate anything.

And of course we can explore all these sorts of ideas whether we agree with them or not, or even if we want to find out for ourselves just how much we do agree with them and how sympathetically (or unsympathetically) or complexly we can portray different ways of looking at the world.

I don't see how alignment isn't in fact engaging with evaluative judgments. As a DM one of the standards I set for myself is making the villain be able to make as compelling of a case for how he sees the world as possible.

But, even within particular alignments, there are all sorts of differing questions that a broad summary of an alignments core values doesn't answer. For example, in my game nominally dominate Lawful Good societies tend to promote what you might call traditional gender roles for men and women and tend to have laws which - while not oppressive necessarily - would (and do) strike modern persons as being rather sexist. The do that for the very lawful reason that the needs of the individual (individual aspirations, for example) are seen as necessarily subordinate to the needs of a social order and society as a whole (strong stable family units). So here we have an open question within the game universe. Are normal gender roles a necessary feature of a Lawful Good societies, or just an incidental one? Can a society value women while forcing them toward a particular and separate role in the world, or does real equality require the end of segregation? I can as a DM note a LG feminist is out of step with the rest of societies norms, but I'm very willing to explore whether a convincing case could be made that the LG feminist is adhering to a higher ethical standard than the one made by the rest of the society - even within and especially within its own terms. Certainly I think it pretty clear that you could make an argument within the Lawful Good framework, that feminism need not be antithetical to the desire for strong stable family units.

For that matter, I can play with this sort of conflict with even less sympathetic social orders. The core LE tenant as I see it could be described as, "The world is inherently about the strong dominating the weak. All denial of that is fundamentally insane. Therefore, no ruler can claim to be truly doing what is in the best interest of his subjects if he does not place as his highest priority the accumulation and enlargement of the collective power of the state. And as the highest priority, the ruler is justified in obtaining this goal through any means necessary. The ultimate goal might well be a state of universal weal, prosperity and peace, but can only come about if the society ruthlessly crushes and assimilates everything that stands apart from it." It's quite easy I think to highlight how a society can have survival and existence and protection of the citizenry from hostile forces as a very legitimate concern, and if a society has that as a legitimate concern how do you resolve the question of moral niceties versus the certainty of say genocide or extinction should societies strength lapse. And in that case, it becomes a very serious question not subordinate to any single interpretation and not subject to easy answers how that viewpoint is flawed. Or in other words, do the ends really justify the means? And if the ends aren't justified by the means, then what possibly could justify them?

Recourse to the alignment system gives no firm answer on these and many other points. Indeed, when you come right down to it, the alignment system gives no firm answer to the central ethical question: "How ought one to live?"

So how could you possibly say that it forces the player to subordinate his judgment? At the most, and I'm not entirely convinced this occurs all that much since I've rarely seen this particular argument, it forces the player to subordinate his labeling. But the label and the thing labeled are not the same thing.

 

[Celebrim]

...an example I disagree strongly with most of Robert Heinlein's politics, but love his books, particularly Starship Troopers which stakes a position I very strongly oppose

Heinlein's politics are complex and esoteric. As an example of that, I disagree strongly with many of Heinlein's politics, but find I'm somewhat sympathetic to some of the positions staked in Starship Troopers, while strongly opposing the ones taken in Stranger in a Strange Land. What I find particularly interesting about Heinlein is that since no two books seem to have a perfectly coherent set of beliefs despite the fact that each has a strong didactic mode, I can only conclude that to at least some extent Heinlein is exploring not just his own beliefs but potential beliefs in a way that I find very congruent with how I play RPGs.

 

[pemerton]

Does having a 2 axis alignment system force the player to accept the DM's beliefs and subordinate his own beliefs?

Well, no. Obviously, the DM might characterize his own beliefs as being anywhere on or off the two-axis system.

The terms "good" and "evil" are, in ordinary use, not purely descriptive terms. They carry with them an evaluative component. (The correct analysis of this component is obviously a matter of philosophical controversy. But the general point that it is present is not.)

There are uses that are in a certain sense non-standard - eg Satan's "Evil, be thou my good!" Whether this should be interpreted as using "evil" ironically, or in some other rhetorical mode, is a tricky question, but I think it is fairly clearly an atypical usage.

Whereas what you are asking me to do, in using the D&D alignment system, is to treat "good" and "evil" as purely descriptive terms. Besides being a jarring linguistic endeavour, this raises several other problems. First, the rulebooks, from AD&D through 3E and arguably (though slightly less obviously) 4e take it for granted that part of how you work out what "good" describes is by applying your evaluative judgements as a good person. Consider, for instance, these definitions from the d20 SRD:

"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others.​

"Altruism", "respect", "dignity", "help", "oppress" and "hurt" - all of which appear in these definitions - are evaluative terms that can't be applied without making some sort of judgement which can, at least loosely, be called a moral judgement.

Thus, using these as pure descriptors requires treating someone's moral judgement - by default, the GM's - as having authority by fiat. I have to suspend my own judgement at the gaming room door.

I have focused on "good" and "evil" rather than "lawful" and "chaotic" because the latter dichotomy suffers from the additional problem that in their D&D usage they group together both self-discipline and social order, which is a grouping that only makes sense within a certain social framework (if one is thinking sociologically) or within a certain cosmological framework (if one is thinking mythically) that hasn't existed in large parts of the world - including most of the places that D&D is played - for over 100 years, and that most published D&D material fails to adequately explicate in its extremely pseudo-mediaeval worlds. Thus, using these as pure descriptors requires treating someone else's interpretive judgement - by default, the GM's - as having authority by fiat. Once again, I have to suspend my own interpretive judgement (be that an interpretation of the romantic/Arthurian/Tolkienesque world view, or of the similar but perhaps not identical pre-modern Japanese or Chinese world views, as expressed in such films as The Seven Samurai and Hero, or of some other pre-modern outlook that integrates a conception of duty to self and duty to others).

To connect these two points by way of an example: if I choose to play a paladin, I do so because I want to explore and express what altruism and respect might mean within a value framework in which honour and duty are also core values (this is what anchors self-discipline and regard for social order). I don't choose to play a paladin so I can be told, in due course, what the GM thinks that these things require - and thus potentially have my conception of my character, and his/her place within the gameworld, undone by the GM's mere stipulation.

A third problem, which also goes to the validity of the PC and of both the player's conception of the PC, and of the PC's self-conception, is this: if the alignment labels are treated as purely descriptive, rather than carrying their standard evaluative content, then any morally passionate character - eg a paladin, a monk, many clerics, some druids - is fundamentally wrong. For instance, if it is not in fact true that duty to self and duty to others are tightly integrated in the way that paladins and monks typically believe - if the universe is in fact indifferent to such things, and if from the point of view of the universe chaos and evil are equally valid choices - then the paladin and monk are in fact wrong in their worldview and their self conception. They are naïve fools.

This is why I regard Planescape as a fundamentally cynical campaign setting and therefore do not particularly care for it. There are ways of elevating this sort of "indifference of the universe to questions of value" beyond cycnicsm - eg with Neitzschean or Russellian ideas about moral self-creation - but those ideas are fundamentally modern, and still entail that the paladin or monk is misguided to the core. In terms of fantasy RPGing this suits a lot of swords and sorcery gaming - eg I think it captures REH's worldview, at least as expressed in Conan, pretty well - but in that case the game should not have paladins, monks or clerics as D&D defines them. (And it is no coincidence that they are absent from the d20 Conan game.)

But of course once we move into this sort of Conan-esque play - and I don't mind it, though by default my instincts incline me towards romantic fantasy - then we still don't need alignment. If the universe is ultimately indifferent to questions of value, and if moral self-creation is what human life is all about, then why do we need the alignment descriptors? At this point they are just a type of personality label, which can be helpful as a shorthand for NPCs but seems redundant for PCs, who don't need a label - they just need players to breathe life into them by means of play.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Heinlein's politics are complex and esoteric. As an example of that, I disagree strongly with many of Heinlein's politics, but find I'm somewhat sympathetic to some of the positions staked in Starship Troopers, while strongly opposing the ones taken in Stranger in a Strange Land. What I find particularly interesting about Heinlein is that since no two books seem to have a perfectly coherent set of beliefs despite the fact that each has a strong didactic mode, I can only conclude that to at least some extent Heinlein is exploring not just his own beliefs but potential beliefs in a way that I find very congruent with how I play RPGs.

Yes,I didn't mean to suggest he was easy to pidgeon hole or didn't develop his beliefs organically over time...i just found My self not in agreement with him with either if Stranger or Starship. Though i found the later much more objectionable in terms of what it advocated (yet I prefer the Starship Troopers to Stranger in a Strange Land largely because he tackles the ideas in an interesting way).

 

[Bedrockgames]

"n outlook that integrates a conception of duty to self and duty to others).

To connect these two points by way of an example: if I choose to play a paladin, I do so because I want to explore and express what altruism and respect might mean within a value framework in which honour and duty are also core values (this is what anchors self-discipline and regard for social order). I don't choose to play a paladin so I can be told, in due course, what the GM thinks that these things require - and thus potentially have my conception of my character, and his/her place within the gameworld, undone by the GM's mere stipulation.
y.

That is interesting and explains why you dislike the alignment system. For me, I am more interested in finding out what the GMs understanding of these things are (usually i ask a bunch of questions prior to play or occassionlly during if i am unclear). I don't usually worry too much about my own conception of what a paladin should be. I kind of view it the same way I approach anything else in the game, where the GM might have strikingly different ideas about how something would function, be structured, or what daily life in a given area is like. I am history buff, but i find I can turn that off and accept the world the GM presents even if that love of history leads me to a different place regarding how A should be in a setting where X,Y and Z are true.

 

[N'raac]

I think this has a couple of ramificaitons for D&D play:

* If you take the realist/Hobbesian approach, no one has a reason to be good rather than evil except expedience. If in fact you think the gods of evil are stronger than the gods of good, and so can give you better rewards, you have a reason to be evil! As I posted upthread, I think this is somewhat how alignment worked in classic D&D, but the game is not normally played in that sort of mode these days. This can also fit with a cynical sword & sorcery style of play, but I think a lot of D&D play is not in this mode either (eg neither FR nor Dragonlance nor Ravenloft is aimed at that style of play).

* If you take the more standard approach, and regard "good" and "evil" as labels not just of behaviour that will be rewarded or punished by certain cosmological forces but also, and primarily, as labels of behaviour that has or lacks certain value and therefore that characters have a reason to perform or to repudiate, then the issues that I mentioned come up: players have to subordinate their own judgements of value to the GM's.

For instance, suppose a GM decides that (say) inadvertantly killing someone in a context of defence of others is not evil. And then a paladin PC inadvertantly kills someone, and the player of that PC takes a different view from the GM (s/he has a stricter view about the impermissibility of various forms of non-intentinal homicide, either for real, or as part of his/her conception of his/her PC). Now there is a gap between the value framework within which the player is conceiving of his/her PC, and the value framework that the GM is applying - the player expects that his/her paladin should be subject to divine sanction, but the GM doesn't deliver. How is that improving the play experience or the depth of either character, or player's engagement with the game?

Why can't the Paladin actually judge himself more harshly than his deity does? I suggest that "Good is about altruism and respect for life". The taking of a life is, in itself, an evil act, one which the Paladin would, or at least should, strive to avoid. The defense of other is altruistic, and highly consistent with the tenets of Good. To accomplish that Good, our Paladin has been forced to do Evil. His deity, in the context presented, considers the Evil done by the Paladin to be supported by the Good by which it was motivated, and which it accomplished. Our Paladin friend, however, expects more of himself he seems to feel that he should have found a way to protect those innocents WITHOUT resorting to causing the death of another person.

I've historically adopted the view that a "Paladin's Dilemma" cannot really exist. Where there is no "right answer" for the Paladin to take ("let one die or a hundred perish"), there can be no "wrong answer" (the Paladin cannot take any action which is clearly Good, so he must make his best judgment about the Greatest Good, and would not be penalized for his decision). If there is a campaign standard "right decision", clearly his training should make him aware of that, but the Real World, even in a fantasy game, is seldom so clear cut. Either decision will carry some Evil, and some Good.

"Hurt not where holding will suffice. Maim not where hurting will suffice. Kill not where maiming will suffice. The greatest warrior is he that need not kill." seems a fine code for an order of Lawful Good Paladins. Yes, it is sometimes necessary to compromise absolute Good, undertaking an Evil act (in this case, causing a person to die) for the greater Good (the protection of those innocents). This is unfortunate, but necessary. It seems like Paladins would recognize this - if they do not, why would they train so diligently to become better warriors - better killers?

It seems like great role playing could easily arise from the Paladin's reconciliation of his standards with those of his Deity. Does he strive to understand these moral lines? Does he nevertheless expect more from himself than his deity does, and come to accept that striving to do even better than the minimum standards of his deity is the appropriate way to live his life? Does he instead lower his own standards, adhering to only the minimum required by his deity, and possibly jeopardize his status by letting his standards fall too far? Does he seek a new religion, one which better matches the higher standards he has set for himself? Does his own belief he has failed and merits punishment which does not come cause him to abandon his faith and fall from Paladinhood of his own volition?

It doesn't seem like this situation needs to be a game-wrecker by any means. It may be, perhaps, that the player is so inflexible as to be unable to run his character if there is any challenge to his preconceived notions, but I don't find that a sign of a great player by any means.

The above example is not purely hypothetical - it came up in my game. Because I don't use alignment, as GM rather than imposing my own moral judgement I followed my player's lead and made the character's response to (what he took to be) his PC's moral error a focus of play in that particular session.

So really, then, there is no challenge to living up to the Paladin's Code as the player's vision, however harsh or lax it may be, will automatically be presumed to match that of his Deity's.

Here's another example from actual play. The player of a paladin (and the other players as well), in the course of the game, form the view that the ancient pacts that had been reached between the gods, the demons and the lords of karma in order to bring stability to the heavens amounted, in effect, to an unfair sacrifice of the interests (in life and wellbeing) of present-day mortals. So they took it upon themselves to disregard the pacts, to ally with the one god who had been exiled from the heavens for taking a similar view, and to use an artefact borrowed from that god to rewrite the heavenly and karmic order to produce a new solution to the cosmological problems that also ensured that the mortal realm did not suffer as it otherwise would have.

My own view is that nothing would have been added to that arc of play (which unfolded over several years) by having me, as GM, assign an alignment to the gods (and thereby foreclose the issue of whether their decisions and agreements were good or bad) and then judging the behaviour of the PCs (including the paladin PC) by reference to that labelling of cosmological forces.

Emphasis added. Are Good people (even deities) incapable of making mistakes? Do they never compromise their ideals for expediency, or for what they perceive to be the Greater Good? A great characterization of Mephisto in a comic a few years back had him comment that he puts a lot of effort into Red Cross and similar life-saving organizations. Why? Well, if people die young, they have less exposure to the temptations of the world, and less opportunity to damn their souls. By keeping them alive longer, they get more exposed to the temptations of the world. There's plenty of those, and you people come up with more every day, and better ways to make them available. Keep people alive long enough, and they'll damn themselves with no extra effort anyway. Is preserving those lives Good? I suggest it is a Good act undertaken for Evil purposes. If a tyrant donates to charity to make himself look better and hold on to power he continues to use to oppress his people, does that somehow make him Good, or is the motivation for his actions relevant? I don't think you can measure whether anyone is Good or Evil by a single action in isolation, with no understanding of its greater context. An evil, vile tyrant may be protective of his people (a Good trait) while carrying out atrocities to defend them (Evil).

In circumstances where the gap between the PC's convictions and the moral truth is narrower, or once we get into territory where there can be reasonable moral disagreement (eg the example above about the wrongdoing involved in inadvertant defensive killing), then I wouldn't necessarily expect the player's and GM's judgements to overlap. But as a player I want to be free to react according to my own evaluative judgement, and to play my PC according to my own coneption of him/her (be that as a good person, if I'm playing my paladin, or as a fallen person, if I'm playing my KGB agent). I don't want to simply abandon my own evaluative perspective and find out what it's like to share my GM's value scheme as expressed in his/her campaign world; and when GMing I don't want my players to abandon their values and simply play their PCs in accordance with my judgements as to what is right or wrong within the fiction. That's simply not what I'm looking for in an RPG, either as GM or as player.

I would have thought that challenge to the character's beliefs made for a stronger game, not a weaker one. You are setting out a case that those beliefs should never be challenged - that our hypothetical Paladin cannot be a viable character unless his deities are 100% in lockstep with his beliefs or, alternatively, that the Paladin's mortal beliefs are 100% consistent with those of his deity, as though he has a direct hotline to, and is nothing more than a pawn of, his deity, a mere extension of that deity's will.

For example of play to which an alignment system would be an impediment, see the two provided earlier in this post.

Can't agree with that - it seems like the challenges to the character's belief can easily facilitate great role playing, rather than impede it.

I certainly agree with that, but the flip side of this in my experience is that removing the system doesn't in fact encourage greater complexity but less complexity. A simplified system is often more nuanced than no system at all. While in theory PC's made with no alignment system at all might be more nuanced complicated characters, in practice I find the reverse is true. First of all because there is no inherent reason why characters made with a system can't be nuanced and complicated, and in practice its never my most committed Thespian sorts that balk at providing a nominal alignment descriptor. Without an alignment system there is an even greater impetus than the usual to perceive characters as being merely game pieces being advanced toward some goal, and even less impetus to consider them as real flesh and blood people with wills and motivations that are their own. Now, I agree that there is no particular reason that the two alignment system is necessarily better at this task than some other system that is more or less complex depending on the conventions of the genera (see for example Pendragon for greater complexity), and people are free to devise more complex alternatives if that is what they like. But I absolutely reject the notion that replacing the simple system with no system at all, which is almost invariably what is done, is motivated by a desire for less one-dimensionality. Rather, in my experience, it's pretty much invariably motivated by a desire to go one dimensionality to no dimensionality.

I see similar results. I seldom find those with a great conception of their character's personality are constrained by the alignment system. Rather, they have their personality in mind first and foremost, and then assess which alignment the character most logically fits in. Where the call is tough, they sit down with the GM and go over this so they're on the same page. What they don't do is insist on shoehorning a highly Chaotic character into a Lawful alignment so the character can be a Monk, or a selfish, greedy opportunist into a Lawful Good alignment because they want the special abilities that come with Paladinhood. Rather, their character conception leads them away from classes with alignment restrictions that aren't consistent with the character's outlook and personality.

For those who balk at that LG alignment for their Paladin imposing any constraints, they will similarly argue against any enforcement of a Paladin's code imposed with no alignment system, or assert that their psychological limitations in a game where these are the hallmark of the Paladin mindset are being interpreted too restrictively, or complain bitterly when the GM uses their Pendragon system traits to their detriment on occasion. They want their "holy warrior" to be free to use dirty, underhanded tactics whenever this is most expedient, and not to have their character live up to his supposed ideals.

Right on the money (and good post steenan). @steenan's post is very much like Beliefs in Burning Wheel and Milestones in Marvel Heroic RP (first thing I thought of), and to a lesser extent, like Dungeon World (and I agree with steenan that the feedback in Dungeon World is less provocative). The facets of such a system are very different than classic alignment in D&D. You have:

- Transparent, codified, non-negotiable trigger mechanism requiring no real adjudication.
- Immediate, positive mechanical feedback.

Pemerton, I think, mentions "being good only because it leads to the greatest rewards". It seems like this places the player/character in a similar position - behaviour consistent with your alignment will always generate positive mechanical results, so there is no disadvantage, no sacrifice, required to be a stalwart defender of the Right striving to exemplify the ideals of Law and Good.

 

[Dungeoneer]

Thus, using these as pure descriptors requires treating someone's moral judgement - by default, the GM's - as having authority by fiat. I have to suspend my own judgement at the gaming room door.

Good thoughts, Pemerton.

Apart from any moral or philosophical arguments, what constitutes "Lawful Good" and "Chaotic Neutral" are going to be judged by a human at the table, and that human is the DM. What constitutes "lawful good" behavior? DM fiat. In some cases the DM's preferences and the players' may align closely, and I suspect those are the tables where people have no problem with alignment. But in many cases they will not. And even when they do, I expect the player is in for some "surprises".

Several people here have argued that alignment is just another mechanical system; just another set of rules. Well, no, it's not, really. Alignment says, "Paladins should behave in a way that is lawful good," and then fails to give the player specific guidelines as to what constitutes Lawful Good. It's as if the book said "Rangers must be elves," and then gave no stats for elves. The only way to find out for sure if you are following the requirements is for the DM to slap your hand and say "Paladins wouldn't do that."

Alignment isn't a mechanic, it's a mind-game.

Like I said, at some tables the DM and the players are clearly on a wavelength (especially tables where they have played together for literally decades) and the fact that alignment requires the player to read the DM's mind is not a problem because the player more or less can. But those tables are rare and exceptional and should NOT set the rule that other tables play by.

Alignment needs to either have explicit, objective steps a player can take to cement their alignment status (Like "save three kittens a day" or something) or it needs to be dropped. Or at the very least, relegated to the optional 'rule' it pretty much has become.

 

[Ratskinner]

Count me as one who finds alignment to be a mostly useless mechanic. If you want to put some representation of characters' morality and/or drives in the game...there are just so many more methods available nowadays that accomplish that goal so much more effectively. If there's one area that D&D could benefit from oft-maligned "modern game design" it would be in adopting some of these mechanics and jettisoning the archaic alignment system. But, y'know, sacred cows.

Is alignment actually harmful to the game? I think that depends on how you fall on paladins running around slaughtering orc babies. Seriously, I think that's it. If you want orcs to be profoundly, inherently, irredeemably evil, such that massacring an undefended village of their females and young is a good act, then alignment is for you. The only consistent impact I've seen alignment have (other than cause arguments about itself, including this one) was to divide the game-world into 9 teams with different logos, colors, hairdoos, etc. that were otherwise fairly indistinguishable in the way they treated each other.

Now, that's not to say that that's an inferior playstyle or position. There are plenty of people IRL who, if asked to defend why their moral/religious position is "good" would simply reply "that's what it says on the tin" (or effectively that). One can hardly say that such folks shouldn't have the opportunity to play in a world where such beliefs are more clearly reflected than the real world.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Seriously, I think that's it. If you want orcs to be profoundly, inherently, irredeemably evil, such that massacring an undefended village of their females and young is a good act, then alignment is for you. .

I think very few people here support alignment because they want their paladins to kill orc babies with impunity. In most games i play in, the consensus is the paladin is the guy who should be arguing against killing the orc baby.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Why can't the Paladin actually judge himself more harshly than his deity does?

According to some Christian theologians, that is exactly what happens when we sin- the divine does not withdraw its favor from us, we distance ourselves from the divine. It just so happens that in the case of the Paladin, this has direct and immediate results...