D&D General IMO, Alignment should be "Fill in the blank"

[pemerton]

It describes fascist ideology pretty perfectly.

I don't want to take this too far, for board rule reasons.

Whether it captures the ideology I'll leave to one side - considering whether fascism scorns truth and beauty is important, I think, but inherently political. (I take it as given that fascism quite self-consciously scorns life and the pursuit of happiness as "soft" matters that only soft nations would care about.)

But I think it does capture fairly well the mindset of a sort of person who prospers under that style of dictatorial rule: a petty bureaucrat who enjoys enforcing mean rules; a guard camp; etc. Also some death squad members, although (per Gygax's definitions) some of them will veer into chaotic evil.

A side point: the biggest change in alignment notions I'm aware of between Gygax and now is that truth and beauty have been dropped from the list of values - beauty I think altogether, and truth being associated with law rather than goodness. I personally think this makes alignment less coherent, because it means that there is at least one candidate for goodness (ie telling the truth) that some candidate good people by definition don't value (ie the chaotic good, in a scheme that associates truthtelling with lawfulness). This also produces the oddity of devils who keep their word out of principle rather than out of fear of bucking the hierarchy.

I think it's pretty clear that the order that Gygax's LE are enamoured of is not the normative order of a system of rules, but the social and perhaps institutional order of a system of power-based hierarchy. Which is a happy home for a certain sort of person, as per the first part of this post.

 

[Charlaquin]

I don't want to take this too far, for board rule reasons.

If talking about the ideologies described by the alignment system is too political for discussion, I think that bodes ill for the continued viability of the alignment system as part of the game.

Whether it captures the ideology I'll leave to one side - considering whether fascism scorns truth and beauty is important, I think, but inherently political. (I take it as given that fascism quite self-consciously scorns life and the pursuit of happiness as "soft" matters that only soft nations would care about.)

Well, it is certainly extremely concerned with aesthetics, which could be interpreted as valuing beauty, though beauty by a very narrow definition. Truth I think is unequivocally not valued though. Indeed, disdain for the free media is one of the major hallmarks of fascism. Far from valuing truth, fascism seeks to manufacture narratives that support the state’s agenda and enforce the perpetuation of those narratives as truth, regardless of their actual truth value.

 

[pemerton]

Well, it is certainly extremely concerned with aesthetics, which could be interpreted as valuing beauty, though beauty by a very narrow definition. Truth I think is unequivocally not valued though. Indeed, disdain for the free media is one of the major hallmarks of fascism. Far from valuing truth, fascism seeks to manufacture narratives that support the state’s agenda and enforce the perpetuation of those narratives as truth, regardless of their actual truth value.

A defender of the sort of approach you criticise here (I read you as being critical of fascism, which is not an unreasonable position for you to take!) might try to defend a more general scepticism about a certain approach to, or notion of, truth. I think there is more than a hint of this in some strands of fascist thought - eg an integration of a theory of power with a theory of knowledge, and a resulting scepticism that there is a power-independent "truth" available to be known. (There are also non-fascist philosophies that embody strands a little like this: some forms of pragmatism, for instance; and Foucault.)

The reason I point this out is not to start a debate about the philosophy of truth and knowledge, but to point out that Gygax's alignment definitions rest upon a premise that there is such a thing as truth independent of power. It rests on a similar premise, too, about beauty (ie that beauty is not merely a construct generated by social arrangements).

I think those can be workable premises for FRPGing, though one has to be careful with them because of their capacity to bump into or even feed into other concerns that are quite active at the moment arouind some received fantasy tropes! They do show that keeping alignment is not-zero cost - and is not zero-cost even if we put aside the pratical issues of how it works in play and just think about its intellectual dimension and how it frames and shapes the ideas that are part of the game.

 

[Steampunkette]

In my experience, the people who want alignment to stick around aren’t starting out. And the people who are starting out are saying not only is it not helpful to them, it’s causing them problems.

I wonder if it's an issue of neurodivergence..?

I am neurodivergent in a way where I have issues recognizing social cues and sometimes sarcasm, even in person much less in text.

For me, alignment was very useful in starting out because it helped me create another "Identity Box" where some aspect of a character could be put and help the rest of it make sense. And I still use it, these days, to get an idea of what to expect from characters within a degree of error, obviously. Sparrow and the Honest Man, after all.

But I also don't think that's exactly it, because I know neurodivergent people for whom it -isn't- useful at all, and who find it a stressful or pointless addition to a character sheet. So it's not universal across neurodivergence. Is it significantly varied among neurotypicals?

Because I can only speak from my position, I'll instead ask all the neurotypicals around here: Is Alignment useful or useless to you?

If it's as varied among neurotypicals maybe there's some other aspect of personality that shapes whether alignment is or isn't useful.

 

[jgsugden]

Alignment with an organization or group is a different definition of alignment - and is ALREADY IN THE GAME. This is the Bonds section of the character sheet.

I've never been a huge fan of alignment. I eliminated it from my games in the 1980s, then brought it back in the 2000s at the request of players newer to my group. Since then, I keep it in the game, but it has shockingly little impact on the game. During character creation, I ask people for their alignment and then give them a few scenarios around that description to see if they really mean it - but I don't tell them to 'correct' their alignment, and there are no mechanical events in my game tied to the alignment on a description of PC or monster. It is a tool for inspiring thought about the PCs, and a shorthand for monster descriptions to give me an idea of how they might act ... but that is it. And that works fine.

 

[Aldarc]

In my experience, the people who want alignment to stick around aren’t starting out. And the people who are starting out are saying not only is it not helpful to them, it’s causing them problems.

For what little it's worth, this mirrors my experience as well. But I can also say that the people I gamed with here in Austria also typically didn't start with D&D, but, rather, other games: e.g., The Dark Eye (Das Schwarze Auge) or 7th Sea 1E. However, they said that they found alignment in D&D to be unnecessary and unhelpful for their roleplaying and/or running the game.

 

[the Jester]

Because I can only speak from my position, I'll instead ask all the neurotypicals around here: Is Alignment useful or useless to you?

If it's as varied among neurotypicals maybe there's some other aspect of personality that shapes whether alignment is or isn't useful.

NT here. I find it useful, and I have been playing D&D for forty years.

I'm pretty sure there are plenty of other NT folks who find it useless, but that's a gut feeling not backed by evidence.

I prefer alignment as a descriptive, rather than prescriptive, tool. It helps me run npcs consistent with their goals and personalities. And I like it as a tool for helping me decide when to award inspiration.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think those can be workable premises for FRPGing, though one has to be careful with them because of their capacity to bump into or even feed into other concerns that are quite active at the moment arouind some received fantasy tropes! They do show that keeping alignment is not-zero cost - and is not zero-cost even if we put aside the pratical issues of how it works in play and just think about its intellectual dimension and how it frames and shapes the ideas that are part of the game.

That’s the thing about alignment! In order for it to work as a cohesive part of the setting, the setting needs to have objective morality. It doesn’t have to be the one Gygax set up - it could be decided on by the DM, or by the group together. But one way or another, you need a standard by which it can be objectively determined what in the setting is good, evil, lawful, and chaotic. When you try to use alignment in a setting with a more postmodern outlook on morality, you run into a lot of problems.

 

[Steampunkette]

NT here. I find it useful, and I have been playing D&D for forty years.

I'm pretty sure there are plenty of other NT folks who find it useless, but that's a gut feeling not backed by evidence.

I prefer alignment as a descriptive, rather than prescriptive, tool. It helps me run npcs consistent with their goals and personalities. And I like it as a tool for helping me decide when to award inspiration.

OH! Absolutely.

Alignment should never be proscriptive. I don't actually think there's ever been a version of D&D that made it so. I think 2e made changing your alignment difficult, and costly, but it was still descriptive rather than proscriptive, it just took a toll to take the time to examine your life and change your path which is kind of neat if a little heavy handed.

But yeah. Descriptive, like all character aspects.

 

[Umbran]

Like someone who holds Deontology as their philosophical beliefs, and does evil within the "Law" anyway, with either malice or indifference to the various interpersonal rules of goodness they break. Or a Consequentialist more concerned with the "Good of the Kingdom" than any of it's people and holds -that- consequence above any consideration.

So, you seem to be describing someone who claims to hold a philosophical belief, but doesn't actually do so.

How would this be different if the character claimed to be Lawful Good, but didn't put that into practice?