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

[pemerton]

Double post deleted.

 

[pemerton]

Triple post deleted.

 

[pemerton]

Quadruple post converted to a tip of the hat to @Charlaquin.

 

[Charlaquin]

I’ll take that as a yes

 

[Scott Christian]

This is why ideals, bonds, flaws, etc. are great for roleplaying. They are the guide.

Alignment is the why or how you might go about doing those things.

It's all useful. I do have a question for @Stattick - do you mean for PCs only or for monsters as well?

PS - You posting this in a new thread is fine. Not everyone here burrows through every single thread written.

 

[Oofta]

You’re literally describing your world’s standard of good and evil here.

So? It's a game, not a masters level philosophy class. It's about as realistic as AC and HP. It's an acceptable level of simplification that makes the game work.

I don't watch Die Hard and have any conflicting notion of whether Hans is evil. The movie tells me he's an evil terrorist so I accept that and grab the popcorn. Everyone knows Superman is LG and the Joker is CE.

Alignment gives me enough information to run an NPC or monster in a manner consistent with others of the same alignment. Barring other details of course.

 

[overgeeked]

There's been several recent threads about alignment. In my opinion, there shouldn't be any preset or predefined alignments. Instead, it should be a space where the player fills in the blank. As to what it is, alignment should be what it is that you are loyal to. It could be a person, an ideal, a philosophy, a religion, or whatnot. The point it, it's something that your character aligns to.

So, you have a Pixie. That pixie might be aligned to the Seelie Court, the Unseelie Court, a particular Fae Noble or Court, themselves, or maybe they're just aligned to playing mean pranks on big folk.

Maybe the party barbarian starts off play with an alignment to his people (The Skullsmash Tribe), but over time, it shifts to Self, and then to The Party. Maybe the party mage starts off with an alignment to the Wizard Academy he attended, but later turns toward an arcane brotherhood he joins.

There could potentially be multiple things a character could be aligned to: Country, King, Clan, Family, Religion, Party, etc.

The way I see it, this would potentially make alignment something useful, especially if you're trying to play in a setting with an actual medieval or renaissance feel to it.

I kinda agree. Something like an explicit demeanor or goals would be far more useful in game than alignment. It causes more problems than it ever solved. It’s a sacred cow that serves no beneficial purpose. If it absolutely must stay, make it work like ideals, bonds, and flaws. Useful for the occasional Inspiration but otherwise completely ignored.

 

[Charlaquin]

So?

So, as I said, morality needs to be objective in a setting for alignment to be cohesive in it.

 

[Oofta]

So, as I said, morality needs to be objective in a setting for alignment to be cohesive in it.

It just has to have a cohesive definition that the player at the table agree to. Everyone I've ever played with has been close enough to agreement that it works.

 

[Malmuria]

It just has to have a cohesive definition that the player at the table agree to. Everyone I've ever played with has been close enough to agreement that it works.

that's amazing. Alignment has only provided endless arguments for my groups (granted, this is mostly playing as a pre-teen, but still)