Forked Thread: Alignment *huh* What is it good for?

[Andor]

Simply put,
3.xE alignment system = good as an immersive storytelling tool (both DMs and players) with mechanical functions.

4E alignment system = good as a quick and dirty reason/excuse to kick butt and have fun (both also for DMs and players).

*blink* What impresses me is that you could take the word 'alignment' out of your summary and it would still stand some scrutiny.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Also, it tells you which army to put a mini in for a fantasy wargame. Which is most likely how it started. You only really needed two alignments because there are only two sides in a wargame. Call them good and evil, law and chaos, whatever. Maybe add neutral for figures that can join either side, such as mercenaries.

And that's D&D. The players control the good guys, the DM controls the bad guys. They fight because good doesn't like evil. Get any more sophisticated than that and you're better off dispensing with alignment.

 

[Doug McCrae]

questing gm, you're making a pretty big deal out of changing a 9-personality system to a 5-personality system. It's not like one is the height of sophistication and the other is wallowing in the mud like a pig. They ain't that different and they are both thoroughly stupid.

The great thing about the new system is that mechanics and alignment are decoupled making it easy to avoid the stupid if you want. Or to change back to a 9-alignment system if you prefer a slightly more complicated style of stupid.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I wish they had dropped it. The idea of 'good and evil' doesn't really make sense to me. Many groups that are considered evil in real life think of themselves as good. Most gaming groups can't even unanimously decide where the lines are (hence the millions of 'the paladin in my game did this/should we reward or punish him' type threads all over the internet.)

Everyone has their own individual ideas of what good and evil are. Best to keep alignment out of the game altogether.

Then you didn't understand the 3E alignment system. Good and Evil were actual forces. It didn't matter whether someone "thought" they were Good or Evil (or whatever in between), their actions slotted them into one of those categories.

Really, this is the only way the system could ever have worked. There had to be a singular definition for each of the alignments, otherwise everyone would have their own interpretation of their alignment.

So a truly despicable tyrant very well may have honestly believed he was LG, but in reality was LE and recognized as such by the game mechanics.

Alignment systems work when you lay them out and tell people, "this is how it works." But gamers/people don't like to be categorized and view alignment as a straight jacket. In all my years of gaming one thing I've definitely learned is that most players want to be able to do whatever they want whenever they want, and many times they view the alignment system as getting in the way (when in fact, usually it doesn't but a novice DM tries to force them to behave a certain way rather than the right way of letting the chips fall where they may and having the PC deal with the circumstances after the fact).

Alignment should be presented as, "These are the various factions of the universe. Everyone fits into one of the them. Some fit into them better than others and some are close to the borders. But everyone is slotted in somewhere. If you care where you're slotted, then you need to pay attention to the particular ethos of each alignment. If you don't care, then you'll land wherever you land (and you may change during your adventuring career). Alignment is not your interpretation of a particular ethos. Alignment is, plain and simple. You fit into alignment, not the other way around."

If the game had made it crystal clear that alignment wasn't some system of interpretation that varied by the individual viewer, it would have worked better.

Alignment should be an overarching "aura" rather than something that dictates behaviour. It should be antecedent rather than precedent. And it shouldn't get in the way of the game. You shouldn't be thinking at the table, "I can't do that because I'm LG." That's metagaming and it's not the way the alignment system should work. You should do whatever you want your character to do and then it's up to the DM to sort out the ramifications of that, including consequences. The biggest problem with the alignment system is that you need an experienced and good DM to do the job right. Which, IMO, is a problem since there's probably a heck of a lot more bad/casual DM's than there are good ones so, as a result, the system is set up for failure.

I think alignment very much has a place in the game. How much any DM or group of players wants to use it should be left up to them. But it should be there for those who want to use it. The new system is a (IMO) crappy, "let's split the difference to make everyone happy" middleground.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.

Say it again!

Okay, it had to be said, but that's not my view.

It's useful for reinforcing the underlying theme in D&D of objective rather than subjective good & evil.

It identifies who the bad guys are so you can kill them and still be a good guy. D&D is all about good guys killing bad guys.

It creates consequences for moral choices. You killed everyone in the village 'cause that guy insulted you? Okay, but good luck getting raised by a good cleric.

It's useful to decide what alignment you are when defining your character's personality, along with other questions such as where did you grow up and why are you an adventurer.

I've never ever been in a group that had a problem with it. The problems I've seen have come from groups where

a) The Dm said "You're this alignment so you have to act this way." That's backward

b) Players wanted to act evil and not suffer an consequences.

c) Players had a problem with the idea of objective good & evil. (I believe in objective good & evil in RL so that's no problem for me)

d) Players didn't like alignment because it oversimplified their character's complex personality. No kidding. D&D is a game, not RL, everything has to be simplified. If you take alignment as an "overall impression" there's nor problem.

e) The player would be evil-aligned if he was in D&D and doesn't like to have that pointed out.

That said the game runs fine without alignment too. I've always been very interested in alternative loyalty schemes.

 

[questing gm]

questing gm, you're making a pretty big deal out of changing a 9-personality system to a 5-personality system. It's not like one is the height of sophistication and the other is wallowing in the mud like a pig. They ain't that different and they are both thoroughly stupid.

The great thing about the new system is that mechanics and alignment are decoupled making it easy to avoid the stupid if you want. Or to change back to a 9-alignment system if you prefer a slightly more complicated style of stupid.

I was stating out the differences between the 2 systems and really wasn't intending to 'dump down' the 4E as being 'stupid'.

Ultimately, the choice of which system to run with (or lack thereof) is up to the group and campaign style. If you wanted characters to be well developed from the onset because the group is playing in a political intrigue campaign, I would say that the 9 alignment system would be a better indication of character motives, agenda and objectives.

4E design does not seem to have the 9 alignment system in mind because it catered to players who wanted characters to kick butt. There is simply not much point of having a real abstract foundation of character personality when the same goal comes down to XP and treasure (in terms of design).

Also, with the 5 alignment system, I'm hoping to see less alignment threads in this forum because it's no longer such an issue as it was in the 9 alignment system.

It's a matter of preference and using the right tool to each their own uses. My previous post was not intended to hand out malice and contempt against one over the other (I like them both equally, as tools)

If I really wanted to run a political campaign added with butt kicking goodness elements that 4E provides, I would put the 9 system alignment back in (much to the chargin of my group, however)

 

[Ravellion]

Many groups that are considered evil in real life think of themselves as good.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO5WoLnOOlU[/ame]
(Humor)

 

[rounser]

If you got rid of it, you'd have to communicate the purpose of a monster or NPC somehow, without having to fish through the descriptive text.

A tag like "Villain" or "Ally", or "Protagonist"/"Antagonist", or something, maybe. But that's still an alignment system of sorts.

Throw away alignment and you'll be doing a lot more inconvenient reading to work out the role of each character in the game's narrative. Alignment is just a shorthand for that.

 

[questing gm]

If you got rid of it, you'd have to communicate the purpose of a monster or NPC somehow, without having to fish through the descriptive text.

A tag like "Villain" or "Ally", or "Protagonist"/"Antagonist", or something, maybe. But that's still an alignment system of sorts.

Throw away alignment and you'll be doing a lot more inconvenient reading to work out the role of each character in the game's narrative. Alignment is just a shorthand for that.

That's it, at least in 4E.

 

[Mallus]

If you wanted characters to be well developed from the onset because the group is playing in a political intrigue campaign, I would say that the 9 alignment system would be a better indication of character motives, agenda and objectives.

It was running a political intrigue campaign that first got me to ditch alignment in the first place, way back in 2e. Games like that, where more complex and nuanced motives, agendas, and objectives make the the nine-point alignment system looks like a bunch of simplistic and ultimately meaningless (or perhaps 'useless' is more accurate here) labels. A view I've held since.

I really don't see how the old alignment system serves as a useful shorthand for complex motivations, when there's a call for actual actual complex motivations.

Labeling Iago CE isn't much help. You still need quite a bit of text to describe him.

On the flip side, labeling a rabid dog or a hungry lion CE , or N, or whatever, only clouds the issue. They're going to bite. A few words sum them up perfectly well.