D&D General Which edition handled alignment best?

[Wofano Wotanto]

I had a dream last night about an imaginary edition of D&D that mashed up its alignment rules with Gamma World's radiation resistance chart. Everything you did that was contrary to your alignment was pro-rated by the GM as having some level of radiation intensity, causing you to take damage or just outright die and turn into a radioactive undead if it overcame your Con score. In some cases you'd develop a new mutation instead, using the usual GW chart.

This is obviously the best edition ever when it comes to handling alignment.

 

[Voadam]

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.

Are you aware that in 4e's five alignment spectrum the alignment split distinguishing the types goes the other way? Daemons in 4e are CE and grouped in with the CE demons while distinguished from the not chaotic devils.

 

[Ath'kethin]

3rd Edition had the absolute best take on alignments, and I use it to this day.

It straight up described the alignments as aspirational ("Remember that individuals vary from this norm, and that a given character may act more or less in accord with his or her alignment from day to day. Use these descriptions as guidelines, not as scripts.") and provided examples of what a person of a given alignment was likely to believe and how they would prefer to act, and provided a summary of each along with why a character would choose to follow that alignment, i.e. "Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order."

It's the closest a D&D edition has ever come to matching the way I'd seen alignments since I started playing, though I'm not the biggest fan of the default position that Neutrality means being undecided.

Spoiler: The Nine Alignments

The Nine Alignments​

Nine distinct alignments define all the possible combinations of the lawful-chaotic axis with the good-evil axis. Each alignment description below depicts a typical character of that alignment. Remember that individuals vary from this norm, and that a given character may act more or less in accord with his or her alignment from day to day. Use these descriptions as guidelines, not as scripts.
The first six alignments, lawful good through chaotic neutral, are the standard alignments for player characters. The three evil alignments are for monsters and villains.

Lawful Good, "Crusader"​

A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. She combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. She tells the truth, keeps her word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished.

Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion.

Neutral Good, "Benefactor"​

A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them..

Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order.

Chaotic Good, "Rebel"​

A chaotic good character acts as his conscience directs him with little regard for what others expect of him. He makes his own way, but he’s kind and benevolent. He believes in goodness and right but has little use for laws and regulations. He hates it when people try to intimidate others and tell them what to do. He follows his own moral compass, which, although good, may not agree with that of society.

Chaotic good is the best alignment you can be because it combines a good heart with a free spirit.

Lawful Neutral, "Judge"​

A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs her. Order and organization are paramount to her. She may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or she may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government.

Lawful neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you are reliable and honorable without being a zealot.

Neutral, "Undecided"​

A neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. She doesn’t feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil—after all, she would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, she’s not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way.

Some neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run.

Neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion.

Chaotic Neutral, "Free Spirit"​

A chaotic neutral character follows his whims. He is an individualist first and last. He values his own liberty but doesn’t strive to protect others’ freedom. He avoids authority, resents restrictions, and challenges traditions. A chaotic neutral character does not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. To do so, he would have to be motivated either by good (and a desire to liberate others) or evil (and a desire to make those different from himself suffer). A chaotic neutral character may be unpredictable, but his behavior is not totally random. He is not as likely to jump off a bridge as to cross it.

Chaotic neutral is the best alignment you can be because it represents true freedom from both society’s restrictions and a do-gooder’s zeal.

Lawful Evil, "Dominator"​

A lawful evil villain methodically takes what he wants within the limits of his code of conduct without regard for whom it hurts. He cares about tradition, loyalty, and order but not about freedom, dignity, or life. He plays by the rules but without mercy or compassion. He is comfortable in a hierarchy and would like to rule, but is willing to serve. He condemns others not according to their actions but according to race, religion, homeland, or social rank. He is loath to break laws or promises.

This reluctance comes partly from his nature and partly because he depends on order to protect himself from those who oppose him on moral grounds. Some lawful evil villains have particular taboos, such as not killing in cold blood (but having underlings do it) or not letting children come to harm (if it can be helped). They imagine that these compunctions put them above unprincipled villains.

Some lawful evil people and creatures commit themselves to evil with a zeal like that of a crusader committed to good. Beyond being willing to hurt others for their own ends, they take pleasure in spreading evil as an end unto itself. They may also see doing evil as part of a duty to an evil deity or master.

Lawful evil is sometimes called "diabolical," because devils are the epitome of lawful evil.

Lawful evil is the most dangerous alignment because it represents methodical, intentional, and frequently successful evil.

Neutral Evil, "Malefactor"​

A neutral evil villain does whatever she can get away with. She is out for herself, pure and simple. She sheds no tears for those she kills, whether for profit, sport, or convenience. She has no love of order and holds no illusion that following laws, traditions, or codes would make her any better or more noble. On the other hand, she doesn’t have the restless nature or love of conflict that a chaotic evil villain has.

Some neutral evil villains hold up evil as an ideal, committing evil for its own sake. Most often, such villains are devoted to evil deities or secret societies.

Neutral evil is the most dangerous alignment because it represents pure evil without honor and without variation.

Chaotic Evil, "Destroyer"​

A chaotic evil character does whatever his greed, hatred, and lust for destruction drive him to do. He is hot-tempered, vicious, arbitrarily violent, and unpredictable. If he is simply out for whatever he can get, he is ruthless and brutal. If he is committed to the spread of evil and chaos, he is even worse. Thankfully, his plans are haphazard, and any groups he joins or forms are poorly organized. Typically, chaotic evil people can be made to work together only by force, and their leader lasts only as long as he can thwart attempts to topple or assassinate him.

Chaotic evil is sometimes called "demonic" because demons are the epitome of chaotic evil.

Chaotic evil is the most dangerous alignment because it represents the destruction not only of beauty and life but also of the order on which beauty and life depend.

 

[Azzy]

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', with beings that are inherently tied to these fundamental energies and gain power from it, or stuff like slaying a chaos lord with the lance of order, 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.

Yeah, but many of us don't feel that a mechanical element to a personality trait is fun or rewarding. Especially AD&D where "alignment is not a straightjacket", but you were penalized for no good reason for switching alignment. I'll take 5e's method of leaving alignment as a roleplaying guideline that has little to no mechanical impact over AD&D's alignment.

 

[JamesLFlowers]

What version had the best take on Alignment is going to depend on how much roleplaying your group does. If you DM runs a hack-n-slash game, alignment isn't really gonna matter much..... party good, monsters evil. If your DM run a more roleplay based games, it could matter much more. I played Basic through 3e pretty much hack and slash, skipped 3 through early 5, then picked up back in 5 with a DM that really stresses roleplay. Never really cared about the subtly until I started playing a Lawful Evil character and had to actually think about what he would do. So I like 5e's more open handed way of handling it.

 

[Maxperson]

And that's my point.

Alignment is too basic for in depth personality roleplay.

Only if you misuse alignment as a straightjacket, which it has technically never been and actually never been since 3e.

 

[Maxperson]

This is big one, DM's interpretation vs players interpretation of what is too far or how many times is too many times. Pair it with decent chunk of classes and prestige classes that have alignment restrictions, spells and items that target specific alignments or require them to use and for good measure add races with "always evil or always chaotic evil" and you can see where this can lead to ( using Geneva convention as toilet paper). It's not good system for developing nuanced and complex characters that will do in the same day great acts of altruistic goodness and then commit war crime or two.

It was a big one until 3e. Then it was a fairly small one until 4e. And then not at all.

 

[Clint_L]

What version had the best take on Alignment is going to depend on how much roleplaying your group does. If you DM runs a hack-n-slash game, alignment isn't really gonna matter much..... party good, monsters evil. If your DM run a more roleplay based games, it could matter much more.

This, I strongly disagree with. I think alignment is anathema to good roleplaying because people don't actually behave like that. Best case scenario is entertaining caricatures like the paladin in Honour Among Thieves.

Actors and writers don't create characters using "alignment."

 

[I'm A Banana]

System-wise, 5e did it best, understanding alignment as a rule for roleplaying. It's a little anemic, but that's nothing new. I was kind of enamored of 5e's Flaw/Bond/Trait/Ideal system as adding texture to it, though that was also a little underbaked.

Though my honest answer is a little bit of a cheat, because I think alignment was handled best in Planescape. Complex moral and ethical philosophies competing against each other, fiends and celestials that were characters before they were monsters, an understanding that Good and Evil were just teams and that virtue and sin can find any thinking creature...it was the setting that made me aware that anyone who proclaimed alignment as harmful to roleplaying was throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Deep down, you could play a game with fairly complex moral and ethical philosophy, using alignment in a nuanced way.

That was the exception rather than the rule, though, and I wouldn't say that 2e overall handled alignment in a great way.

 

[Clint_L]

System-wise, 5e did it best, understanding alignment as a rule for roleplaying. It's a little anemic, but that's nothing new. I was kind of enamored of 5e's Flaw/Bond/Trait/Ideal system as adding texture to it, though that was also a little underbaked.

Though my honest answer is a little bit of a cheat, because I think alignment was handled best in Planescape. Complex moral and ethical philosophies competing against each other, fiends and celestials that were characters before they were monsters, an understanding that Good and Evil were just teams and that virtue and sin can find any thinking creature...it was the setting that made me aware that anyone who proclaimed alignment as harmful to roleplaying was throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Deep down, you could play a game with fairly complex moral and ethical philosophy, using alignment in a nuanced way.

That was the exception rather than the rule, though, and I wouldn't say that 2e overall handled alignment in a great way.

That sounds like calling ideology alignment, rather than actually doing something interesting with alignment.