Alignment System

[Li Shenron]

Most people out there are Neutral. Being truly Good or Evil is an extreme.

...

It's a descriptor for people of extreme conviction. If you don't like it because you don't like having to label every NPC in your game, well... most of them should probably be Neutral anyway, so its not that big a deal. Neutral people are kind and caring to their families, give to charity, help little lost children they find on the street... and at the same time can be ruthless in business, cheat at their taxes, and in extreme cases commit murder in the throes of passion. Neutrals actions depend on the situation, like most people in real life. People with Good alignments are saintly. People with Evil alignments are vile.

Completely agree that Neutral is actually quite the norm. But also it depends on where you put the boundary, where does Good starts and where does Evil starts.

All in all, the 3.0 PHB explanation of alignment still does a good job for those who occasionally take the time to re-read it It actually tells that indeed being Good (as per the standard rules) implies to care for people/beings who aren't your relatives or friends, people you could decide not to bother yourself too much about and still you wouldn't be considered terrible for doing that.

Neutral is what most of use are: caring a lot for those we know personally, but not going to be actively concerned to help strangers if it really costs. Charity does not turn you immediately good if what you give is irrelevant compared to what you've got, and most of us probably do charity as long as it's a reasonably little sacrifice, but how many would leave a profitable job to go working for the salvation army?

I'm still talking about the game, I don't want to start an argument about real life... Just saying that the PHB explains quite well that if you're not really making a sensible sacrifice (losing something valuable, spending your time, or facing risks to your own life and safety) you're not really Good, you're probably Neutral.

But then again, you can shift the border up or down: you don't have to shun all valuable possessions like St.Francis and live pennyless, you could just choose not to be rich if you otherwise could. You don't have to give up your life to save the sinners like Jesus Christ, but you may do so to save the innocent (and not necessarily without a fight...). And in the case of Evil, someone who cares for no one (not even his relatives) could be already in the Evil zone, without the need to be actively causing harm to others.

 

[Psion]

Evil people seem totally normal and some have great charisma and most of us have probably encountered someone truly evil in real life but unless there were extenuating circumstances, you wouldn't ever know their dark hearts and minds.

I like to think of Valmont from Dangerous Liaisons as an example of a "non murderous Chaotic Evil."

 

[Zogmo]

I like to think of Valmont from Dangerous Liaisons as an example of a "non murderous Chaotic Evil."

I haven't seen that movie yet. I have heard it's pretty good.
Is that with John Malkovich?

me/ pulls up netflix queue

Hmm. I love a good evil role.

 

[buzz]

We're totally splitting hairs, now, but that's stuff that I'd call genre material, or setting-ish material that's easily removable when it doesn't fit the specific setting.

I don't consider it splitting hairs. D&D has a strongly implied setting, i.e., a number of default assumptions about the way its universe works. Specific races and classes are really the least important aspects of the implied setting (and are the easiest things to swap out). You're right that alignment is far less disposable; I find its removal from Arcana Evolved to be a much more meaningful change than the new races and classes.

I don't find this problematic, however, as I don't consider D&D "built for a general genre." D&D is its own genre. If anything, D&D does a really lousy job of emulating most fantasy fiction that wasn't specifically inspired by it. Ergo, Alignment, and the objective nature of D&D's moral universe, is something that makes D&D "D&D" for me. If I don't feel like using alignment, I go play something else.

Anyway...

I voted "Yes," and I totally agree with Aaron L's sentiment. 3e Alignment is not the same system as previous editions; failing to understand that will lead to hating the mechanic. It's a moral description, not proscription of PC actions. (It's also the part of D&D that Mr. Tweet said he was most proud of at the D&D celebrity seminar at GenCon '04.)

Consequently, I'm down with Alignment as objective (RAW), not subjective. The latter path is what leads to madness.

 

[EditorBFG]

A lot of people misunderstand alignment and thats what causes problems.

You seem to mean people don't understand your interpretation of alignment. I don't think it is fair to say that people don't "get it" just because they don't like something you like, especially when your reasons for liking it seem to be your own invention.

I think a lot of these people have valid complaints. And that makes sense, given that we're talking about a system for judging human (and non-human) morality that is basically unchanged from the one developed for a slightly augmented miniatures game in the 1970s. 25 years later, many other role-playing games have tackled the same subject in more interesting and sophisticated ways.

 

[buzz]

You seem to mean people don't understand your interpretation of alignment.

I mean this in a totally snark-free way: Have you read the current alignment rules? They're not the same as they were, afaik, and they're quite clearly written. I tend to agree with Aaron L because, in most of the alignment debates I've been in, I find that people tend to say things that might have made sense back with 1e, but that don't seem to jibe with the current RAW at all.

Honestly, I think that alignment, especially with people who started with previous editions of D&D, tends to be a subject about which a strong opinion has been formed based on early exposure to interpretations rather than a fresh look at the text. E.g., some DM of theirs early on used a half-assed alignment-like mechanic as an arbitrary means of player smack-down.

People need to spend less effort interpreting alignment and more actually reading the dang book.

 

[I'm A Banana]

You seem to mean people don't understand your interpretation of alignment. I don't think it is fair to say that people don't "get it" just because they don't like something you like, especially when your reasons for liking it seem to be your own invention.

No, I think it's fair to say that those who have the biggest and loudest complaints with alignment tend to fall into the camp of people who also don't quite understand the alignment rules as they exist today (which is a far cry from where they were 25 years ago, that's for sure!).

I think a lot of these people have valid complaints. And that makes sense, given that we're talking about a system for judging human (and non-human) morality that is basically unchanged from the one developed for a slightly augmented miniatures game in the 1970s. 25 years later, many other role-playing games have tackled the same subject in more interesting and sophisticated ways.

There are valid complaints about alignment. But it is not a system for judging morality, nor is it meant to simulate any real human approximation of the thing, and has gone through many fairly drastic changes in 25 years.

A game that emphasises heroic good vs. evil conflict (and some conflicts within good and evil) doesn't need a sophisticated morality system. And 3e's current descriptive system, where you play your character and then happen to fit an alignment, is one of the easiest to adjuicate for those who don't get caught up in needless technicalities.

The real disconnects, I feel, is when people either try to apply it as a prohibitive mechanic, or when they start applying it too tightly to the real world.

Alignment doesn't tell you what you can and cannot do. It describes what you *do* do. There is no longer a penalty for not playing your character correctly according to their alignment, nor is there a price to pay for change. You get to play your character however you want, and leave the alignment issues to the DM.

Alignment also isn't a mirror for the real world. In the real world, everyone believes they're doing something Good, more or less. In D&D, there are no real delusions about who is doing Good (unless illusion and deception are part of the action), and Evil is not something to be avoided. They are different paths to walk, each with their own descriptions and rewards. There is no absolute eternal punishment for not being nice in D&D. Indeed, it can lead you to more ability to be not-nice. There's nothing WRONG with not being Good.

The necromancer-king doesn't usually believe he's doing Good. Maybe he believes it's for the best, maybe he believes it will benefit people, maybe he has himself convinced that it's nessecary, but he can look in the mirror and tell that he's Evil. He just probably doesn't care -- if his behavior is Evil, so be it, it is still his actions and his choices and his motives behind it.

There are valid complaints about alignment, but I don't see many of those. Instead, I see people who give up on the issue before they even really understand it because of some misguided desire for moral relativism in their games, and then criticize the system for failings that it doesn't actually have.

(that is, generally speaking this is what I see, not specific to anything in this thread)

 

[buzz]

The real disconnects, I feel, is when people either try to apply it as a prohibitive mechanic, or when they start applying it too tightly to the real world.

Alignment doesn't tell you what you can and cannot do. It describes what you *do* do. There is no longer a penalty for not playing your character correctly according to their alignment, nor is there a price to pay for change. You get to play your character however you want, and leave the alignment issues to the DM.

...

There are valid complaints about alignment, but I don't see many of those. Instead, I see people who give up on the issue before they even really understand it because of some misguided desire for moral relativism in their games, and then criticize the system for failings that it doesn't actually have.

QFT.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

I'm not bothered by Law, Good, Chaos, and Evil as cosmic forces. I'm more bothered by the fact that mortals can interact with those forces. I would rather see Alignment kept as descriptors and DMs left to judge their character's morality and actions. It lets players play the characters they want and makes for a much more interesting game.

I voted No because the current system is a rigid crutch and at the source of the sillier alignment discussions on these boards. Give me an interesting character over a shoe-horned NG dude any day.

 

[buzz]

I would rather see Alignment kept as descriptors and DMs left to judge their character's morality and actions. It lets players play the characters they want and makes for a much more interesting game.

I voted No because the current system is a rigid crutch and at the source of the sillier alignment discussions on these boards. Give me an interesting character over a shoe-horned NG dude any day.

I think this post is a good example of exactly what Kamikaze Midget and I are talking about. No offense intended, GoodKingJayIII.