D&D General Do you use Alignment in your D&D games?

[Hexmage-EN]

That’s so wild to me. Maybe your games just have far more complex interactions between different factions than mine, but I can’t imagine alignment being necessary to keep track of that. Even with really complicated webs of alliances and rivalries, I don’t see how alignment would even be helpful for that. Like, is it just that factions/characters that share a alignment on one axis are allied with each other? Wouldn’t that prevent alliances from changing as the story progressed? Or would alignments change if alliances chabged?

Personally I have used alignment before as a basis for what creatures would be more likely to form alliances, what monsters a creature would choose as minions, and what monsters might be forced into servitude but potentially willing to rebel against their masters.

For example, mummies are Lawful Evil undead, which implies to me that something about becoming a mummy makes the creature Lawful Evil. They'd be unlikely to be associated with Orcus, the Chaotic Evil demon lord of undeath, so any mummies used by a cult of Orcus would be forcibly controlled somehow and may actually help fight the cult if freed from domination.

As another example, mind flayers and devils are both Lawful Evil, so that leads me to imagine connections between them. Perhaps they form an alliance so that devils get a person's soul but the mind flayer's get a person's body.

I don’t get it. If the description tells you why they’re Lawful Evil, why do you need it to say they’re Lawful Evil at that point? You know how they behave, what benefit is there on placing a moral judgment on that behavior?

I look at Law and Chaos especially from a Moorcockian point of view. If something or someone is Lawful or Chaotic then they are part of team Law or team Chaos, either as a minor pawn or as a main player. Good and Evil are secondary in importance.

For example, if someone were to try and destroy the Nine Hells (which would have the consequence of demons winning the Blood War and, no longer having a distraction, go on to attack the rest of the multiverse), then forces of Law like modrons and even some angels would help protect the Nine Hells for the sake of keeping the Blood War going and preventing the spread of Chaos across the multiverse that a demonic victory would bring.

As a side note, I went from not getting why demons and devils were enemies and not caring about the Blood War when I first started running and playing D&D to it being one of my favorite parts of D&D lore. If demons are around in the Material Plane I often have devils show up to as "allies" who want to 1) prevent demons from gaining a foothold and 2) find a way to further their own subtle plans. Devils have been recurring NPCs more often than they've been monsters to fight in my campaigns due to their Lawful Evil society, which never would have developed in D&D's lore the way it did without the concept of Lawful Evil being a thing.

 

[Charlaquin]

It's not a moral judgment, at least not any more of one that knowing from the description why they are lawful evil.

Calling it evil is absolutely a moral judgment. What I’m saying is, if the description tells you what behaviors the creature engages in that make it evil, then the fact that it’s evil should be self-evident. Like, if a monster entry says “these things eat babies,” I don’t really need an alignment system to tell me they’re evil. I can work that out for myself pretty easily.

As for why you would do it. Convenience.

I can see the convenience argument if the description doesn’t say why the monster is evil. It saves word count as well as reading for the DM, so while if isn’t my preference, I can see where one who does prefer that approach might be coming from. But if the description does say why they’re evil, as I would prefer, I don’t see how labeling them evil makes any difference.

 

[Maxperson]

Calling it evil is absolutely a moral judgment. What I’m saying is, if the description tells you what behaviors the creature engages in that make it evil, then the fact that it’s evil should be self-evident. Like, if a monster entry says “these things eat babies,” I don’t really need an alignment system to tell me they’re evil. I can work that out for myself pretty easily.

My point is that if the description tells you what behaviors make the creature evil, that's as much a moral judgment as attaching an LE tag.

I can see the convenience argument if the description doesn’t say why the monster is evil. It saves word count as well as reading for the DM, so while if isn’t my preference, I can see where one who does prefer that approach might be coming from. But if the description does say why they’re evil, as I would prefer, I don’t see how labeling them evil makes any difference.

It's far more convenient to remember what LE is than to remember 30+ different detailed descriptions of creatures.

 

[Charlaquin]

Personally I have used alignment before as a basis for what creatures would be more likely to form alliances, what monsters a creature would choose as minions, and what monsters might be forced into servitude but potentially willing to rebel against their masters.

For example, mummies are Lawful Evil undead, which implies to me that something about becoming a mummy makes the creature Lawful Evil. They'd be unlikely to be associated with Orcus, the Chaotic Evil demon lord of undeath, so any mummies used by a cult of Orcus would be forcibly controlled somehow and may actually help fight the cult if freed from domination.

As another example, mind flayers and devils are both Lawful Evil, so that leads me to imagine connections between them. Perhaps they form an alliance so that devils get a person's soul but the mind flayer's get a person's body.

Sure. But, like, the monsters are the same without those labels. Would you not be able to think of those potential alliances and enmities if alignment wasn’t there? Might you think of more potential alliances and enmities if alignment wasn’t there? What about a group of Mind Flayers who are at war with a group of Devils? What about a Mummy who was actually a zealous Orcus cultist? Those could also be cool stories,

I look at Law and Chaos especially from a Moorcockian point of view. If something or someone is Lawful or Chaotic then they are part of team Law or team Chaos, either as a minor pawn or as a main player. Good and Evil are secondary in importance.

For example, if someone were to try and destroy the Nine Hells (which would have the consequence of demons winning the Blood War and, no longer having a distraction, go on to attack the rest of the multiverse), then forces of Law like modrons and even some angels would help protect the Nine Hells for the sake of keeping the Blood War going and preventing the spread of Chaos across the multiverse that a demonic victory would bring.

As a side note, I went from not getting why demons and devils were enemies and not caring about the Blood War to it being one of my favorite parts of D&D lore.

That doesn’t answer my question though. I mean, sure, you can focus on law vs. chaos over good vs. evil, but the fundamental question of what the alignment “Chaotic (whatever)” tells you that a description of what they do that makes them Chaotic wouldn’t? If you have the description, why do you need the label too?

 

[Charlaquin]

My point is that if the description tells you what behaviors make the creature evil, that's as much a moral judgment as attaching an LE tag.

If the description tells me a monster eats babies and doesn’t tell me it’s evil, I’m making a moral judgment if I decide that means it’s evil. I would prefer the book leave me (and everyone else) free to make that judgment rather than making it for me.

It's far more convenient to remember what LE is than to remember 30+ different detailed descriptions of creatures.

Right, great, but then why do you care if the description is there? Like I said, I understand why someone might prefer a simple label over a detailed description, even if I don’t prefer it myself. What I don’t see why someone who wants the detailed description would also what the simple label. It doesn’t seem to bring any additional utility, it’s just superfluous at that point.

 

[delericho]

Sort of.

I've removed the alignment box from the character sheets we use, and likewise those for Bonds, Flaws, etc. Instead, there's a single box for players to put all that stuff. And if they want, one of the things they can put there is a statement of their character's alignment and what that alignment means to them - which may have absolutely no correlation to what it says in the book.

Mostly, though, I'm of the opinion that when 4e got rid of the last mechanical effects of alignment they should have dropped it entirely, that 5.5e (or whatever it's called) should get rid, and that if we could go back and start over it's one of the things that would be better off left out.

 

[JEB]

I used alignment as a convenient shorthand for coming up with monster and NPC behavior, when I didn't have (or want to bother with) a full personality writeup. But never felt obliged to hold any particular monster or NPC to the alignment in their statblock if I had a better idea. Besides, I'm another in the "alignment is descriptive, not prescriptive" camp.

As for PCs, alignment was brought up during character creation in our 5E group, and most picked one, but we never required a player to choose one. A few players had that space blank on their sheet up until the campaign was offlined by Covid. The only guideline we had alignment-wise was that you couldn't choose neutral evil or chaotic evil as your alignment, for reasons of party cohesion. (Lawful evil was acceptable if the character was a team player.) However, background traits were emphasized much more, in practice.

 

[CleverNickName]

That’s so wild to me. Maybe your games just have far more complex interactions between different factions than mine, but I can’t imagine alignment being necessary to keep track of that. Even with really complicated webs of alliances and rivalries, I don’t see how alignment would even be helpful for that. Like, is it just that factions/characters that share a alignment on one axis are allied with each other? Wouldn’t that prevent alliances from changing as the story progressed? Or would alignments change if alliances chabged?

I'm not really sure I could explain it effectively. Like I said, it works more like a very basic Renown mechanic, but with four compass points instead of a single number. It works to my liking, but explaining it would probably be better suited to another thread. There is certainly no downside to ignoring alignment and using some other system of tracking the attitudes, preferences, and reactions of all the NPCs in town, if that's what you prefer.

 

[Lyxen]

Alignment isn't prescriptive. If your DM was playing it that way, he was wrong.

Just to confirm, there is this very clear sentence in the PH: "Alignment is a tool for developing your character’s identity. It is not a straitjacket for restricting your character."

Followed by: "Each alignment represents a broad range of personality types or personal philosophies, so two lawful good characters can still be quite different from each other. In addition, few people are completely consistent."

 

[Lyxen]

Sorry if I've given offence, that definitely wasn't my intention. I didn't see it as derogatory

Using words like "children's cartoon" is not usually considered nice...

because I don't think you can really compare a game system to a real world religion. There are many religions around the world that disagree quite a bit on what defines a good person. That's actually why I find it a bit too simplistic to clearly define as a tangible force in a game with many different people playing it, because it relies on everyone agreeing on what "pure good" would actually be.

My point about the religions was that for most religions, there is that invisible "counter" that decides what happens to you when you die (heaven, hell,. karma, etc.). The only thing that D&D does (because it's magic) is to allow spells and powers to divine things about that counter. That was my point about religions, not specific descriptions of good and evil in a world where there is no proof.

Now, about pure good and evil, honestly, it's never been that hard, especially considering that alignement has always been fuzzy guidelines, non-prescriptive and descriptive only, and that people have never been expected to be absolutely consistent with their alignment, except possibly the paladin in 1e, hence my reference to Galahad. But note that, even then, a paladin was alway free to commit an evil act, it was not prescriptive. What it did, however, is record what had been done and there were consequences, as is normal with all acts, although quite drastic in the case of a paladin.

As for the definitions, you can use what works in your game, but good is simply caring about the welfare of others, possibly above yours, and evil is about not caring at all or even purposefully hurting others.

I must also say that the 5e definitions of alignement have been so streamlined as to make them practically useless, but you can still find it there. The ones from 3e are not bad at all:
Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit.
“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. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing
for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

After that, these are the ones that work at our tables, you are absolutely free to create your own at your tables.

You make a really good point about Galahad and the Grail and the whole concept of only the "worthy" being able to find some magical item being an aspect of fantasy. But if something like that were to appear in my game, I'd personally rather have it come as a result of actual deeds the PCs did to show they have the qualities the magical item is looking for. Even Thor's hammer isn't a measure of goodness, exactly, it's a measure of who is worthy to wield that specific weapon (which means, as I've seen one person put it, being noble but also willing to smash some skulls with a great big hammer).

It's a matter of taste, but note that the alignment restrictions might be LG for the Grail, but might actually be CG/CN for Mjolnir, because of where Asgard is on the Great Wheel. You might also go the way of the Weapons of Legacy, where specific acts done please or displease the weapon/object, allowing you to wield it or not, and/or develop powers. The possibilities are endless, and choosing the right one for your table is really a matter of taste.