D&D 5E How do you measure, and enforce, alignment?

Alignment is more of a description of how you act, not a requirement. A lot of players use it as a guideline to help them make in-character decisions, but it shouldn't be a straight jacket.

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ehren37 said:

It IS utterly false that you need alignment to tell a grail story or Jekyll/Hyde. They were written without alignment.

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Good and evil could not be more explicitly real and tangible concepts in those stories. What more are you looking for? Stevenson to actually write the line "Mr. Hyde possessed the Chaotic Evil alignment"? What do you think alignment is, that it's so bad, and why do you think that's what it is when it can be so many other things?

ehren37 said:

If you don't think a character's alignment doesn't impact or derive from their personality, I honestly don't know what to say.

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A person's political affiliation might impact or derive from their personality, but "He's a Libertarian" is not a full description of a personality and is hopefully not intended as such.
Religion might impact or derive from their personality, but "She's a Catholic" is not a full description of a personality and is hopefully not intended as such.
Local culture might impact or derive from their personality, but "He's a New Yorker" is not a full description of a personality and is hopefully not intended as such.
And yes, D&D alignment might impact or derive from their personality, but "She's Lawful Neutral" is, you guessed it, not a full description of a personality and is hopefully not intended as such.

All these things are influenced by personality, but none of them is "shorthand for a personality", which was the term you originally used. Please don't play bait-and-switch with your assertions. And I don't know you very well, so maybe you're just as down on political affiliations and religions and local cultures as you are on alignments. But I'm going to guess you're not.

Saeviomagy said:

[MENTION=6683613]TheCosmicKid[/MENTION] : I really have no idea what you are arguing, because by my reading you contradicted yourself repeatedly throughout your last post. What I do gather is that you don't have some amazing insight into the alignment system that will make it work for me, nor is my argument that it is counterproductive compelling to you, so shall we just agree to disagree?

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A contradiction is not a matter of subjective interpretation. Either I asserted both P and not-P, or I didn't. That's something we can, in principle, sort out together. But if you prefer, we can leave it there. In short, my "insight" (amazing or otherwise) is this: You seem to have a very fixed and definite idea of what the alignment system does. You should re-examine that idea totally, and ask what else it can do.

ehren37 said:

It IS utterly false that you need alignment to tell a grail story or Jekyll/Hyde. They were written without alignment. So alignment isnt even required to tell the stories Cosmic Kid claimed they were.

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WTF? I mean that. Seriously. Obviously stories written a century or more before alignment was written down are not going to reference them. [MENTION=6683613]TheCosmicKid[/MENTION] never claimed otherwise.

ehren37 said:

Alignment is only shorthand for a personality, and BAD shorthand at that. If other games can have heroes/villains without 2 letters written on the character sheet, what does that say about the necessity of alignment?

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I don't know of anyone other than you on this thread claiming otherwise. A few people now and then try to justify being jackasses by saying "But I'm Chaotic Neutral". But that's a tiny, tiny minority.

Concepts of good and evil? The idea that some people are righteous and good while others are depraved and evil? Old as mankind.

Alignment is one tool we use to describe characters, npcs and monsters, much like height or weight (although those are a bit more concrete for most people). No single attribute, trait or flaw of a character defines that character.

For people, it can be a little fuzzy but for some creatures such as demons and devils it goes to the core of what they are and how they interact with the world.

As I said in my first response, which was in line with what the OP was asking, I view alignment as helping define how people see the world. Based on how they see the world you know how they are likely to respond. That's all.

TheCosmicKid said:

A contradiction is not a matter of subjective interpretation.

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Sure, once you boil things down to maths. There's entire fields of computer science, law and literature about just how hard that is to do.

Either I asserted both P and not-P, or I didn't.

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P

You said that the Grail, visible only to the pure of heart was an alignment call: those with 'Good' written down see it. There's no need to ask the character's player or make a judgement call.

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That is not what I said at all. I can, in fact, go back and quote multiple instances where I recommend asking the player's character or making a judgment call.

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Not-P

And yet, somehow, I maintain that there's a difference. Jekyll is not good; the paladin is. So when you say there isn't, you're not "following [my] arguments to their logical conclusion"; you're putting words in my mouth. Please realize that this is what you're doing, stop, back off, and come at this topic again with a more charitable attitude.

Again: this is using alignment. Asking if a character can see Grail is the same as asking if they are good. Judging if they can see it is the same as judging if they're good.

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See how I'm confused?

That's something we can, in principle, sort out together. But if you prefer, we can leave it there. In short, my "insight" (amazing or otherwise) is this: You seem to have a very fixed and definite idea of what the alignment system does. You should re-examine that idea totally, and ask what else it can do.

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This is just re-stating "you are wrong", without any actual reasons.

Saeviomagy said:

See how I'm confused?

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I'm honestly having a really hard time seeing this. Are you interpreting the bolded text to be a statement that you shouldn't ask players or make judgment calls? Because that's... not what it says.

Saeviomagy said:

This is just re-stating "you are wrong", without any actual reasons.

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Yet again, this response baffles me. It's not a matter of "right" and wrong", it's a matter of "works" and "doesn't work". You have ideas about alignment that make the system not work for you. This is not in dispute: we surely both agree on it. Why on earth would you want to stand your ground on ideas that don't work? Isn't the fact that they don't work more than reason enough to take a critical look at them?

I do not enforce alignment and if I require to measure, then I look at a character's deeds throughout the campaign, and/or asking the player questions about the character as well as any input offered by the table.

Currently I am secretly using alignment to determine if an artifact responds favourably to a PC.

Oofta said:

WTF? I mean that. Seriously. Obviously stories written a century or more before alignment was written down are not going to reference them. [MENTION=6683613]TheCosmicKid[/MENTION] never claimed otherwise.

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Huh. Because THIS sure as hell looks like he's arguing that point.

TheCosmicKid said:

It lets you run all sorts of plots, from the Grail Quest to Jekyll & Hyde.

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Which is entirely untrue. You can tell those stories without an alignment mechanic to bog down table time with needless bickering over if Bob's NG character should use poison or what not. Because Lawful, Good, etc mean something different to everyone at the table.

So why are these pointless and arbitrary labels kept around? When we can reach a consensus on what alignment various complex characters are, I'll believe it serves a use.

ehren37 said:

Huh. Because THIS sure as hell looks like he's arguing that point.



Which is entirely untrue. You can tell those stories without an alignment mechanic to bog down table time with needless bickering over if Bob's NG character should use poison or what not. Because Lawful, Good, etc mean something different to everyone at the table.

So why are these pointless and arbitrary labels kept around? When we can reach a consensus on what alignment various complex characters are, I'll believe it serves a use.

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So we can't use examples from popular culture and fiction to discuss a game mechanic?

We don't have to come to a consensus. As a DM, I and my table come to a consensus. You don't see a need for it? Move on. Nothing to see here.

I'm so glad I put this disclaimer in the OP....


Also, I’d like to keep this as a conversational, pleasant thread – So if you’re intending to rubbish someone else’s viewpoint directly or through inference (e.g. “I find the whole Law-Chaos thing dumb, pointless, and ruins games”, which infers that anyone who really likes the Law-Chaos distinction is a bit of an idiot), or the alignment system in general. I can’t stop you, but I’d kindly ask you to keep your thoughts to yourself, and go start your own post.

Seems to have worked a charm.......