(How) did you ditch alignment?

[Mercule]

I just use this.

http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/msrd/msrdallegiances.rtf

It is a handy way to just jot down what a character believes in and is motivated by.

Ditto. The only options really promoted are Good, Evil, Law, Chaos, and Neutrality, but others exist. The effect is to make all the alignment "zones" much smaller and leave room for non-aligned people.

My game currently has one Chaotic, one Good, one Lawful and Good, and three unaligned people.

 

[Black Spiral Dancer]

I chose "something else". Right now we are using alignment, but in a couple campaign settings I have floating about in my head, alignment will not be used.

 

[The_Universe]

I use the whole system, but in my campaign, the law/chao axis is definitely less important than the good/evil axis - my only restriction for party members is "non-evil," which should hint at the fact that the primary conflict in the story is going to be between good and evil.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

When I DM, I don't use alignment, nor do I use the core d20 spell and magic item systems.

When I play, I encourage the DM to do the same. Failing that, I encourage him to dump codified alignment and have alignment spells apply to creature subtype only.

 

[Wombat]

I was never very fond of alignments, especially as they are both guidelines and absolutes at the same time (guidelines for PCs, absolutes for monsters, spells, and abilities).

My current campaign is based on Monte's AU, so I have no problem dropping alignment altogether as there is nothing in that ruleset that deals with alignment. In my last two D20 campaigns, one used a heavily variant alignment (a sliding scale based on character actions, with a baseline of Neutral/Neutral) and the other one had no alignment (we had no paladins, and dropped most of the alignment-based spells and abilities, replacing them with other spells/abilities if necessary).

Realistically, I never saw the use of alignment in the game. I know a lot of people like it, but having played in campaigns with alignment, it seems to make very little difference other than having easy access to certain spells that light up villains (or opponents, in the case of Detect Good by an Evil individual) as someone to trounce on. I don't mind it in other people's games, because that is there choice. In my own games, I find it is more useful to simply have characters judged by their actions without worrying about specific labels (any more than characters are identified by their class, their level or any other game mechanic).

 

[Michael Morris]

I use my own system

 

[Staffan]

I use alignments the way they're described in the books, but emphasising that alignment is an effect, not a cause (at least for mortals - outsiders are a bit different). In other words, you don't help people out because you're Good, you're Good because you help people out.

 

[Michael Morris]

Realistically, I never saw the use of alignment in the game. I know a lot of people like it, but having played in campaigns with alignment, it seems to make very little difference other than having easy access to certain spells that light up villains (or opponents, in the case of Detect Good by an Evil individual) as someone to trounce on. I don't mind it in other people's games, because that is there choice. In my own games, I find it is more useful to simply have characters judged by their actions without worrying about specific labels (any more than characters are identified by their class, their level or any other game mechanic).

My alignment system can't be used that way. A character of any of the five alignments can be evil or good. At best, you get a clue for what a character holds important and what they'll disdain based on alignment - but it's unlikely to give you a clear indicator on how folks will behave.

The main function of alignment is that it affects spells - both the access to them and how well you resist - how vulnerable you are to them.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I pretty much ignore alignment in my games, I expect players to conduct their characters according to some developed background. For classes such as the Paladin, where alignment is critical, I instead require the character to obey a "moral code" which will be very similar to alignment.

 

[LathanM]

My group reevaluated alignment when we started our Eberron campaign. The focus has shifted from good and evil to law and chaos mainly because of the nature of Eberron. The structure of the game is more political with each of the houses working like corperations or sydicates. So the players have been spending alot of time dealing with good and evil actions depending on whos side they are on. It is kind of like history where the victor is always good and the looser is always evil. Of course the victor is good, loosers don't get to write the history.

Having the PCs focus on law,chaos and justice gives them more room to do things that are sligthly against the grain without worrying about alignment shifts. Having a LG character be able to drag a guy over a bar or lean heavy on him for information is sometimes necessary in the information gathering process. With a strict good/evil code the risk are too high to pull off those sorts of things. Think of it like the difference between Batman and Superman. Batman, while one of the good guys, does alot of scary things to get his point across that Superman would never dream about trying. Both characters follow the law to an extent but justice is the true deciding factor in there actions.