Alignment System

[JoeyD473]

For Practical purposes I ignore the alignment system. If a character does something that is considered evil in the game world then they are doing evil, and if they do it constantly thenthey are evil

 

[PhoenixDarkDirk]

I'd like it if it had no presence in the crunch of the game, and if no races had any alignment tendencies.

 

[GreatLemur]

What I mean is: should good & evil be metaphysical absolutes, backed by an array of otherworldly powers, or not?

Personally, I think it's absurd to give moral and ethical designations a basis in objective physical reality. Just another fictional trope that I can't really buy into.

Furthermore, I think the specific alignment system of D&D is a sacred cow that should've been killed long ago. It's a crutch at best and a shackle at worst. I think we've all ran into the inevitable absurdly obnoxious Chaotic Neutral character who would never have been played in that way if the CN alignment didn't exist as a justification for such wholly unbelievable behavior. The allegiance system is better, but still looks like kind of a crutch.

I'd rather just see people write up a personality and set of values for their characters, instead, and ditch all the morality-related game mechanics. I do not see why this is something people want a system for.

 

[Aeric]

I'd like it if it had no presence in the crunch of the game, and if no races had any alignment tendencies.

The way I see it, alignment in D&D exists for two reasons:

1) To provide a basic framework for roleplaying; and

2) To provide a game mechanic by which the characters and creatures can interact with certain spells (Protection From Good), magic items (Robe of the Archmagi), and supernatural abilities (Smite Evil).

As for roleplaying, coming up with an actual personality and belief system for your character is much better than simply slapping an alignment label on him. I agree that alignment tendencies for races is uncalled for. Describe how orc society is built around the strong dominating the weak, and the contempt they have for civilized foes, especially elves. That goes a lot farther than saying orcs are Usually Chaotic Evil.

As for the crunchy aspect, I find that to be a self-enclosed system. If you remove alignment and all spells/items/abilities that deal with alignment (or adjust them so that they don't), the game doesn't really change at all. If you really feel the need to keep such things as Smiting and Protection From X spells, just keep the aura system. Paladins and Clerics have supernatural auras of good, evil, law, or chaos. These are characters whose devotion to a system of belief is strong enough for magic targeting those aspects of reality (law, chaos, etc.) will affect them. Outsiders would have the same auras, because they are essentially composed of the raw stuff of chaos/law/etc. I would give particularly ancient and powerful creatures such as dragons and undead auras as well, but on a case by case basis.

 

[Sigdel]

I voted No. I don't like the system as it is. Like the man said, it's a crutch at best and a shackle at worst.
A trait I have noticed far too often in players today is that they tend to not pick good or evil. They have no issues with law or chaos, but good and evil are "lame." Dealing with a party of mostly Neutral PC's is one thing I don't like doing. How do you motivate them? What fire drives them? True Nuetral is the worst. It's like trying to inspire a rock.
But the alignment system is too far intergrated in D&D as it stand and without a revamp of a lot of the games systems, removing it would be a problem. But then again there is always Arcana Evolved.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

(note to self...don't game with sidgel's players)

Personally, I haven't seen that at all. The party we're running through the RttToEE adventure has 8 players...nobody is evil (AFAIK) but there are only 2 neutrals in the party.

And as for True Neutral PCs being hard to inspire...I haven't seen that either.

What you're seeing may just be a play-stile or player-style issue.

 

[Li Shenron]

Is the alignmnet system a good system, or should good and evil be based entirely on character perceptions? (I'll post my opinion later).

I can only say it depends how you play it.

The worst possible way the play alignment IMHO is to make it a matter of factions and nothing else. Like "good" and "evil" are labels, but then good characters behave just like the evil ones, driven only by opportunity and what they can gain from their actions.

The system is a simplification, and this can often cause problems. A fairly common mistake for example is to treat all "good" or "evil" the same, ignoring that there is quite a range to each alignment. One doesn't have to be saint to be good, nor to be a murderous sadistic villain to be evil.

Another bad habit IMO is to treat someone neutral as someone who is "sometimes good and sometimes evil".

And finally, the system sort-of implicitly suggests to treat the law-chaos axis in the same way as the good-evil, but this again it seems to me just wrong. Particularly, there are hundreds of possible behavioural choices which can move you between lawful/chaotic: lying, respecting the law, surrender to vices, keeping your promises, respecting authority, foster tradition... If you treat law/chaos just as good/evil, you may be tempted to think that the behaviour of a character should be consistent with ALL those choices at once. The result is players who for example believe their PC cannot lie because they have chosen to be lawful, or has to lie at least now and then if they are chaotic, thus treating the alignment as the reason rather than the consequence.

But then besides these possible problem, the alignment system can work quite well after all. It depends also on what is the game style you want to have in a certain campaign. If appropriate, it is ok to just ignore the system and adjudicate alignment-based things (like spells) on the fly.

 

[GreatLemur]

If you treat law/chaos just as good/evil, you may be tempted to think that the behaviour of a character should be consistent with ALL those choices at once. The result is players who for example believe their PC cannot lie because they have chosen to be lawful, or has to lie at least now and then if they are chaotic, thus treating the alignment as the reason rather than the consequence.

Oh, Christ, exactly. I think the Law-Chaos axis is actually more troublesome than the Good-Evil one because of this phenomenon. They're even more nebulously-defined concepts than good and evil, and even less effective at describing real world behaviors and motivations. So, instead of being personality descriptors, they end up being used as marching orders, any played to the extremes of their stereotypes.

 

[Sejs]

Echo a lot of what Danny said.

Motivating neutral PCs is simple. Just remember they're people first and foremost, and that their alignment is just a footnote on a page.

So a guy is true neutral. So what? He have hopes? Dreams? Where's he from? Who is his family? Why is he adventuring? How'd he get started and what does he hope to gain from it? What does he love or hate? Etc. Etc. Etc.

Easy as pie.

 

[The Human Target]

No, I don't like it at all.

I remove it in total when I run DnD (which is fairly frequently.

I feel its so abstract and ill defined it causes more harm than good, and in now way provides a good starting point for character development.

I also don't like, from a game running standpoint standpoint, lower level spells being able to "out" pcs and npcs as good or bad. It detracts more from the game than it gives back.

I much prefer the alliance system. Or better yet a player could take ten minutes a day for a week and come up with some more detailed ideas for how a character thinks and feels.