D&D 5E What kinds of design space is there in alignments?

[Scribe]

welcome to that old future shock.

Almost every day at this point.

 

[Vaalingrade]

a) this looks like my sister's side of the internet.

Your sister is good and correct then.

b) is it official as I am seeing a lack of a dc logo on it, who was the them in question?

This is an official DC product, yes.

c) assuming the above is yes how do you want the toe shipped as flesh through the mail is difficult on a good day?

I will come for it at a time and moment of my choosing.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Your sister is good and correct then.

This is an official DC product, yes.

I will come for it at a time and moment of my choosing.

b) well that is odd.
c) do you need an address or do you have that solved under some sub-category of mystical powers?

 

[Vaalingrade]

b) well that is odd.
c) do you need an address or do you have that solved under some sub-category of mystical powers?

Mystical powers.

Toe sense.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

It is hard to find things for high level PC's to do, so I figure alignment types focus on high-level PC's to convince them to sign up "or else"; that bar tab you signed back when you were level 3 was really a contract with Mechanus and now you have to be LN or they will repossess your magic items....

Slightly more seriously, you could have alignment add spells to spell lists like Ravinca guild spells for those with spell casting abilities or maybe let you cast certain spells once a long without a spell slot (good even if you aren't a caster). Likewise there could be fighting boons for noncaster classes (for example, the "purity" of your LG-ness lets you do one extra die of damage to fiends or undead or you get temporary hit points when you kill something when you are CE). If you change alignments, your spells or boons change.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Mystical powers.

Toe sense.

do I or you get to pick which toe also how does toe sense come about?

 

[not-so-newguy]

To this day I remain fascinated by the entire idea of alignment languages.

A secret language that the Lords of Order and the Lords of Chaos use to communicate with each other and their allies that is completely unintelligible by their foes? A way of using tone and body language that only folks who are of the same alignment will truly understand? A mechanic that made sense when it was a simple little dungeon crawling game where alignment basically designed to indicate what side the players were on and who it was okay to kill that made less and less sense as the game moved from being a dungeon crawler and into a more generic fantasy simulation game?

I fell down an alignment rabbit-hole a month or two ago

Here's an article on alignment language that you might find interesting:

Moldvay Basic: Character Alignment

A blog about adventures and campaign settings from the early days of the Dungeons & Dragons game.

osrgrimoire.blogspot.com

Here's another article on alignment:

Dispatches From Kickassistan

Dispatches From Kickassistan. Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

www.kickassistan.net

 

[Jer]

I fell down an alignment rabbit-hole a month or two ago

Here's an article on alignment language that you might find interesting:

Moldvay Basic: Character Alignment

A blog about adventures and campaign settings from the early days of the Dungeons & Dragons game.

osrgrimoire.blogspot.com

Interesting article - the discussion of alignment as an indication of your actual aligning with one side against another (Law vs. Chaos) is exactly how I always understood alignment - which is why the AD&D 9 point grid version never had much appeal to me. And then as it became less and less a statement of "what side are you on in the cosmic battle" and more "here's a shorthand for a personality" I just slowly stopped using it in my games. I'll bring it back sometimes as a "Law/Chaos/Balance/Unaligned" system for settings where it makes sense - I do love having a cosmic battle that isn't about Good vs. Evil.

 

[Reynard]

I have mentioned this before, but I think Alignments work exceptionally well as something analogous to zodiac signs. You aren't evil, but you were born under the Chaotic Evil stars, which is wrapped up in your fate and how you connect to the magical world and which gods have an interest in you, and so on. If you do this, you can include alignment mechanics while not lashing players to certain play behaviors. A paladin can be born under an evil star -- maybe that is why they became a paladin in the first place -- and counts as "evil" for spell and other magical effects.

 

[Endroren]

Like a lot of rules, I think alignment is useful as a mechanic in a game where not every person is an equally gifted storyteller. A GM may not be great at describing the traits, thoughts, or hints that identify an evil opponent, but a trait called "chaotic evil" a wizard can detect is an excellent stand-in that keeps the story moving and helps the players to understand what to expect from a world that exists only in their imagination. It's also a handy tool from a GM point of view in that with two words you can define the intended behavior of an NPC/monster without a bunch of extra text. It's the difference between "This creature is relatively strong but not exceptionally so. Carrying more than a fully packed rucksack slows this character down a bit, and they'd struggle to flip a table over in the bar. They are okay at climbing and do fair damage if armed with a good weapon." VS "STR 10"