D&D General Which edition handled alignment best?

[Minigiant]

I dont understand the words coming out of your post, but I think II get the gist. Everything is contextual, but alignment isnt a deep dive into a personality. Its a top level view of the character's philosophy of society and methodology within it. Alignment doesnt force a character to do anything. The best part of alignment is how characters choose to act in the face of contrariness when the situation is pressing.

Im not even going that far.

I'm saying in the most basic way, all D&D games are about fighting opponents.

So the best form of alignment is on that handles that core common aspect: determining who your PC will most likely fight

Once you are thinking about a character's top level philosophy, you are also likely to be past the limited description of the alignment unless it is a throwaway NPC

 

[payn]

Im not even going that far.

I'm saying in the most basic way, all D&D games are about fighting opponents.

So the best form of alignment is on that handles that core common aspect: determining who your PC will most likely fight

I mean, all my characters will fight anyone when a conflict reaches the level. Lawful against lawful, good against good. My point is that alignment doesnt determine my character's foes/allies, the situation does.

Once you are thinking about a character's top level philosophy, you are also likely to be past the limited description of the alignment unless it is a throwaway NPC

Not at all. I find alignment has been instrumental in allowing me to get out of my own headspace and examine things in way an author would when creating characters. It's limited description as you say, is a feature. It allows you to build any number of character personalities within an alignment, yet provides a overlaying philosophy in which to lens any given situation.

 

[Voadam]

My point is that in play that difference isn't oblivious unless your DM or World Builder forces it via a major plot point.

If the king is mostly seen as good, you don't see the NG and CG guys as very different unless you force a niche issue, a special action, or make one of them fanatical. Both say the King Edd is good unless you make the CG guy say "BUT I HATEZ KINGS".

Same with LE and NE. NE is often the mercenaries who mostly honors contracts but doesn't care about from whom or the villains who hide their evil in the darkness or the outskirts until the final stages. So 90% of the time, you can barely tell the difference between LE and NE.

And since most NPCs and monsters are used only once or twice, the difference between LE & NE or NG & CG never show up unless the DM or WB forces it

Therefore you only need LG and CG separations from good and evil as they are most obvious in a single interaction.

It sounds like your pain point is neutrality in which case 4e is perfect for you, it even turns neutral into don't really care unaligned.

I and others have no problem seeing LE as different from CE and NG as different from CG or LG and the two axis nine point grid makes sense. Taking devils away from cosmic Law in 4e D&D seemed kind of narratively weird while having law only be for Bahamut and such classically good god guys (at the same time freeing up angels and paladins to be any alignment).

 

[Scribe]

I dont understand the words coming out of your post, but I think II get the gist. Everything is contextual, but alignment isnt a deep dive into a personality. Its a top level view of the character's philosophy of society and methodology within it. Alignment doesnt force a character to do anything. The best part of alignment is how characters choose to act in the face of contrariness when the situation is pressing.

That simple.

 

[Willie the Duck]

i think it's a real shame there are so many people saying things to the effect of '5e does it best by not doing anything with it'

I would vote 3E as I liked various spells and items that keyed of alignment, but I have PTSD from various people playing Lawful Stupid paladins, so vote goes to 5E for ability to ignore it 100%.

i also think that alignment and it's mechanics are very interesting and have a long history of being integral to many of the kinds of stories that DnD tries to embody, the kinds of ideas like 'the blade only a hero pure of heart can wield'

I think there are plenty of gamers who saw powerful game arcs with qualities of those stories that DnD (sometimes*) embodies. I think there are also plenty of gamers who saw lawful stupid paladins or incredibly vicious playgroup arguments over whether an specific fictional act was good, evil, not-ungood**, or the like. I think which of these people saw (or saw more of) probably strongly influences how much use they think DnD alignments have.
*DnD also being an amoral-treasure-hunting game alongside an epic-tales-of-yore-emulator being a confounding factor
**for characters with various must-not-violate rules

I suspect that's the real crux of alignments -- not any specific edition's rule set, but that it shined a spotlight on different ideas about ethics, people's individual (often still developing, given the age many of us first started gaming) moral reasoning. Plus some rather thorny questions the game's setting give rise to that are otherwise pretty theoretical to many of us like just war, use of force, redemption, surrender (under hostile conditions), and so on. We can go about our lives vaguely aware that all our friends don't share our positions on whether a murderer can find redemption or the like, but rarely is the situation pushed to the forefront, and even more rarely does one said friend get to critique out reasoning and impose (even in-a-game) mechanical consequences.

Not to mention how many debates on morals and ethics it sprung during the years. It becomes specially grating when player and DM have different opinions on borders between alignments (or morals in general).

Which is weird since D&D describes how each alignment functions.

i think alignment definitions are actually really quite clear in the modern definitions(although i recognize they have not always been quite so), i find the issue was always more that people were trying to 'interpret' the meanings, one way or another.

I feel like there's plenty of space for disagreement in most, if not all, of the different alignment rules. Certainly when looking at an individual action a character might take and deciding if it supports their stated alignment or might be seen as contrary to it, I think two people might come to different positions. Honestly it'd be kinda surprising if there wasn't, given the amount of debate that existing IRL moral frameworks can engender.

i think there is alot of fun to be gained from having strong alignment mechanics, it's just a matter of not also tying them to a bunch of unfun things too, like penalties for drifting across the grid.

Yes, I think that's the part that put a lot of people off.

And that's my point.
Alignment is too basic for in depth personality roleplay.

"Only good" for your table. Many of us use RAW alignment just fine

I think it is clear to most people reading the thread that people are expressing their personal positions or opinions.

Oh wow. The edition that is both current and popular among users of this forum is the one folks think did it best.

I am shocked. Shocked! ...well, not that shocked.

FWIW, the people that have been commenting on what they like about that edition have been referencing a quality (includes but does very little with) that it mostly shares with your own oft-attested personal fave.

 

[Voadam]

I think there are two general positive views on 4e and 5e alignment taking out most alignment mechanics but having alignment for PCs and monsters.

One is having a dislike of alignment and so the huge downplaying of it is preferable to having alignment mechanics for classes and spells and monster mechanics and magic items and planes and such or having it as descriptors for PCs and monsters at all. Having it just as narrative descriptors makes it entirely easy to ignore entirely in practice.

The other is liking having alignment being narrative only, a hook that players can use for character portrayal and roleplaying if they want and DMs can use for roleplaying or giving a hook to monster characterization.

Definitions of law and chaos and even good and evil are vague and ambiguous and can be done many different ways. Having your own interpretation and going with it means your CE orc society might be different from someone else's CE orc society when they are running, but it gives both of you a quick hook you can use to differentiate them from a LE hobgoblin society in your games. The same for a CG good character who might be focused on treating people like individuals and avoiding prejudices or on being anti-authoritarian.

4e and 5e took out the player mechanics like Paladins falling if they did an evil act where there can be conflicts between a DM and player on what constitutes an evil act and requires DM policing and judging of player choices which requires players to consider how the DM might react to their player action choices instead of focusing on how they feel they should or want to play their character according to their own understanding of a good warrior champion. Leaving in alignments for PCs and monsters means that if a player wants to use classic LG champion as their paladin hook they have some defined definitions to base their characterization off of. Some like to play off the sheet and try to base their characterization off the character creation details (stats, alignment, BIFTs, background, race, class, etc.). While I prefer roleplaying going off of internal concepts or what comes out and develops in play regardless of what the sheet says I am perfectly fine with choosing to use one or some or all of the sheet stuff as a basis for roleplaying.

 

[Theory of Games]

I went with 2e. I would say anything from 2/3/3.5/PF1 would work for people who actually are looking to use Alignment, instead of want to ignore it.

As would AD&D 1e

Im not even going that far.

I'm saying in the most basic way, all D&D games are about fighting opponents.

"ALL"? You mean "all your experiences" because no one knows how all D&D groups play.

So the best form of alignment is on that handles that core common aspect: determining who your PC will most likely fight

Once you are thinking about a character's top level philosophy, you are also likely to be past the limited description of the alignment unless it is a throwaway NPC

That isn't even how Alignment works. In any edition. It provides zero combat advantage, but, can sometimes be useful in social situations (talking rather than fighting).

 

[Minigiant]

It sounds like your pain point is neutrality in which case 4e is perfect for you, it even turns neutral into don't really care unaligned.

I and others have no problem seeing LE as different from CE and NG as different from CG or LG and the two axis nine point grid makes sense. Taking devils away from cosmic Law in 4e D&D seemed kind of narratively weird while having law only be for Bahamut and such classically good god guys (at the same time freeing up angels and paladins to be any alignment).

My point is in a fight the LE of a devil or the NE of a daemon is nearly indistinguishable. Unlike the CE of a demon.

Even is a short conversation or the initial reaction, the LE of a devil or the NE of a daemon may not appear. Likely only during a deep conversation would the differences appear. And fiends are the extreme example.

Basically
If the PCs don't talk to the NPC, I don't need NG, CG, LE, NE, CN, or LN.

IF the PCs really talk to the NPC, I need more than NG, CG, LE, NE, CN, or LN.

 

[overgeeked]

Alignment has been around from the beginning of D&D, but has varied a lot over its 50 years.

So which edition did it best?

B/X. Hands down. Keep it simple and streamlined. Law vs chaos. Like Moorcock intended.

 

[Theory of Games]

I feel like there's plenty of space for disagreement in most, if not all, of the different alignment rules.

I don't. It's all been very cut & dry since AD&D 1e

The Alignment System

The most comprehensive description of the Dungeons and Dragons alignment system available online.

easydamus.com

I think it is clear to most people reading the thread that people are expressing their personal positions or opinions.

Except for the people who type "all" as if they are speaking for all people, which is what I was addressing