Alignment. Who needs it?

[Aaron2]

Well are group doesn't use aligment. Not that i think it is bad but I find in my personal experince it hinders more than it helps. example

Say the local mayor acts nice, helps the PC's ect. But in reality he is the major villian behind everything he is helping the PC's to keep tabs on them. Now the first time he does something suspicious often groups will pop a detect evil spell and then know he is a villian he is evil. personaly as a player I find that boring, I find it far more interasting to not know and have to slowly figure it out. As a GM I like to run games that are heavy on intrige so you never know who is on who's side, the problem with aligment is once the PC's know so and so is evil they will never trust him even if he isn't opposed to them ect.

Using alignments and having character's alignments being magically detectable are two different things. You can have one without the other quite easily. I can easily see removing Detect spells or modifying them to only detect inherent evil beings such as demons etc.

However, back to the example. So the mayor radiates evil, but why? Maybe he found an evil relic that he thinks is a good luck charm. Maybe he's really a demon whose trying desperately to mend his ways and make up for all the bad things he's done. Maybe he's a sexual predator or rascists. Just because someone radiates evil doesn't mean he's the evil mastermind out to thwart the PC's plans. What if the PC's lack of trust prevents them from succeeding at their quest? Finding out why some seemingly nice guy radiates evil and, possibly, helping him to overcome it, is an adventure in and of itself.


Aaron

 

[Stone Dog]

Now the first time he does something suspicious often groups will pop a detect evil spell and then know he is a villian he is evil.

That is one of the things that I actually like about alignment. It makes a fine red herring. Evil does not equal villian and villian does not equal evil.

Let us say the King's advisor registers as evil to the paladin. Traditionally that would make him the villain of course (especially if he is a vizir and has a big hat), but his loyalty to the throne can still be unquestionable, but he might be ruthless to the point of cruelty. He would be evil, but not the villain. Of course, if the PC are devoted to the queen who the advisor believes is a threat to the crown then the advisor could become the villain no matter how good he is. Then you might as well just play Musketeers and be done with it though.

I am hungry. I will go get a taco.

 

[hexgrid]

Demons and devils are evil. They aren't misunderstood by do-gooders, they're Evil. Angels and other celestials are good, not just because they oppose Evil, but because they are Good. In D&D Good and Evil exist outside the perceptions of the characters (and the players).

Right- demons are Evil and angels are Good.

But I like the idea that normal player characters, as mere mortals, aren't nearly "pure" enough to make so much as a blip on the Align-o-meter.

Alignment might work for some, but it never did anything to enhance the game for my group. Mostly it just caused argument over why someone with alignment x would be in a group with alignment z, and that sort of thing.

We're running our first alignment-free campaign now, and nobody misses it.

 

[Psion]

Thats by far the best reason in favor of aligment in my oppinion, I just in IMO find that limits things more than adds to them. You can have the same good vs evil, law vs chaos conflicts with out aligment. But each to their own.

In the type of universe he describes, where morality is a palpable force? No, you really can't. In order for you to make a determination of how these tangible ethical forces react to you -- be it holy words or evil swords or detect chaos spells -- you have to know what alignment you are. Like I said earlier, it's a magic mechanic.

Some people take a step away from this and only have tangible alignment only apply to outsiders or other creatures with the alignment subtype. That's fine if that's what you want, but some of us are concerned about whether the human female can ride the unicorn or if the pure hearted can pull the sword from the stone, not just demons and angels.

 

[Dark Mistress]

Aaron2 yes you can. but my point was that aligment wasn't required to accomplish the same task. If you remove the detect/protect ____ then you remove a reason for using aligment.

Aligment is used as how the person is most of the time. Evil does not mean he never does good only that he does evil most of the time. No that doesn't mean he is the main villian or even would be a adversay to the PC's. But my example was what if the main "good" guy is actually the villian. He acts nice and good ect but when he does a few suspicious things and someone uses detect evil on him then the PC's know much of how he has been acting is a lie. They would then keep a eye on him, to me that gives away to much of the plot or you have to avoid setting up such a thing.

Stonedog I see your point I just disagree. To me it circumvents RPing, you use a game mechanic to learn about someone and react to it that is more based on their personality. For you this may be a good thing and you may totally see it diffrently. That is just how i see it and in my view and how I like to play the game I feel it hinders the game more than helps.

I am not saying my way is better, only saying I like my way better(obviously). Also I feel aligment adds little to nothing and can often get in the way of aspects of RPing I do enjoy the most.

 

[Stone Dog]

I am not saying my way is better, only saying I like my way better(obviously). Also I feel aligment adds little to nothing and can often get in the way of aspects of RPing I do enjoy the most.

I completely agree with you there. There is no alignment in the real world so why have it in your RPGs? It is just a flavor thing.

Not to harp on the topic, but alignment helps solidify the fantasy feel of D&D for me even more than magic and monsters do. The idea that these four forces pull at the hearts and souls of mortals in palpable ways is strange to think about since that (arguably I am sure) doesn't happen in our world.
That is one of the reasons I liked Planescape so much. The alignments aren't just abstract concepts that don't mean much, they are right over there and you can wander around in a plane that personifies them. It just drives home that this is not our world and things don't work the same.

On the other side I do enjoy alignmentless games. GURPS, HERO, Fading Suns and more with undetectable character traits are very satisfying to a different degree than D&D is. About the same level all things considered, but just different.

 

[Monte At Home]

Yeah, Monte's silly rant against alignments* is the main reason I decided to never buy another Malhavoc product again. Up until them I bought them all. Without Detect and Smite-like abilities alignment doesn't matter much, but it doesn't hurt.

Are you referring to this "rant":

Alignments may be unrealistic ways of looking at people, but they are extremely useful for categorizing groups of creatures when you need to. For example, one new class in the book is the champion. The champion isn't really just one class, though, it's many -- depending on what you're the champion of, two champions can actually be pretty different in abilities and approach. For example, there are champions of life, death, light, darkness, and freedom. Now, with alignments, it would be easy to give the champion of freedom powers that work against lawful evil creatures (oppressive, freedom-hating types). Without alignments, that becomes trickier. But that's good, in the end, because it forces me to be creative. Now, I'm not 100 percent anti-alignment. In fact, for a certain type of game, I think it's a great tool. However, it can become a designer's crutch. It's just too easy -- sometimes -- to give someone a +1 bonus against a particular alignment.


Without alignments, I have to remind myself that concepts like "good" and "evil" are still around, they're just relative. That means that, while they don't work their way into the game's mechanics, they still have a place in the flavor of the implied setting. For example, there are still demons around, and some people make human sacrifices to appease their demon lords. That's still clearly "evil," at least from the point of view of most of the people who live in the campaign world. The difference is, the villains doing the sacrificing probably don't consider themselves evil. And if those committing the sacrifice believe that what they are doing will actually save lots of lives in the long run by appeasing the demons, who won't then bring a famine to the land, well, no one has to puzzle out how that affects the paladin's detect evil ability -- in this book there are no paladins and no detect evil spells. If you want to know whether someone's evil, you'll have to puzzle it out for yourself.

That's from the design diary here.

Or the line in AU where I say: "In this world, characters make their own decisions--and they must live with the consequences. They have no game system to dictate their actions (and reactions), so they muyst take responsibility for their own behavior."

Or something else? (Honestly, I might be forgetting something.)

*He wrote the DMG, he should understand the rules. He actually said that with alignments, you "must shoehorn your character's outlook". I mean, come on. That logic wouldn't last 5 minutes on r.g.f.d.

LOL! But isn't that true of any logic and r.g.f.d.?

Yeah, I understand the rules. I also am just chaotic enough to be able to recognize that no matter how many times you tell people behavior dictates alignment, a huge percentage still play the other way around. It would be nice to be reminded of where that quote comes from, though.

 

[BASHMAN]

and without alignment, what happens to my protection from or smite evil abilities?

 

[Professor Phobos]

It is easy enough to say "This thing is supernatural evil" and this thing is "supernaturally good" without an alignment system, especially without one for humans, who are only "Good" or "Evil" in certain genres.

 

[Wombat]

I think my largest problem with alignment in D&D is that it works both ways, as an average of behaviour and as an absolute.

On the one hand you have angels and demons; the former are all GOOD, the latter all EVIL, in the absolute. They represent these stances and come from Planes that, if carried to their logical extreme, would only allow for that single alignment and its permutations. They have no choice in the matter -- they are Good (or Evil) and cannot derivate. The same cases could be made for Law, Chaos, and both flavours of Neutral.

Equally there are several spells, feats, and items that are inherently Good or Evil themselves

On the other hand you have mortals. Mortals are how they act, rather than an absolute. Most people would end up rather mushily Neutral because they could not truly maintain a Good, Evil, Law or Chaos stance for very long. This would mean that Protection from Neutral would be very useful in most areas...

Then again, the truest druid, would be Neutral, not out of mushiness, but out of determination to hold to a Balance that requires neither good nor evil nor law nor chaos to reign supreme (yet most players treat this as a form of Neutral Good, if truth be told). This would be seen, if carried out, as Militant Neutrality, meaning it is far different from the Don't Give Enough Of A Hooey Neutrality of Joe Peasant.

Now let us come back to the Detect/Protection from (Alignment) spells. Are they keyed off of Absolutes (like Angels) or Tendencies (like mortals)? Are there "ranges" of alignments, whereby once you act in X manner more than Y number of times you become Alignment Z?

So for players alignments are supposed to be labels attached to characters due to actions, yet for monsters, spells, and planes alignments are unchanging absolutes. I find this an untennable situation to maintain.

Food for thought. No personal attacks meant and if any appear implied, I apologize in advance. I mean for this to be food for discussion rather than a flamethrower...