D&D 5E How do you measure, and enforce, alignment?

[Oofta]

One of our players is quite funny.He's said things that make everyone laugh. And his PC tried to play practical jokes on the dwarf. I didn't see that he crossed the line into griefing and I told both of them that if players wanted to have some kind of interparty conflict like a practical joke or gambling that the players could invent whatever rules and resolution techniques they wanted and the results only stood if all parties agreed.

Playing practical jokes on someone would be fine, locking the door behind you and trapping another PC alone with a pissed off troll is not.

It's not that the PCs can't disagree or even have different goals, it's just that those goals can't be completely irreconcilable. For example if Bob wants to protect the kingdom at all costs while Sue wants to bring it down, those goals are incompatible and eventually it's going to lead to PVP.

That may be perfectly OK in some games, it's just not something I want to deal with. Unless of course I can come up with some twist where Bob and Sue change their goals as new information becomes available.

 

[schnee]

The paladin fall from grace mechanic is something I’ve only used twice in all my years of gaming. In the one, the PC decided to challenge a good-aligned deity (Helm, I think). The other incident involved a player that brought a preexisting character with 18s in every stat into my game (in hindsight, I should’ve just told him “no” and made him re-roll, but I was 14 or 15 at the time).


These days, I feel it better left in the dustbin of past edition rules alongside percentile strength and weapon speed. There are better ways with dealing with people not playing their character or keeping their vows than stripping them of their core concept.

Oh yeah, not saying all DMs of that era were bad, by any stretch. Those sound legit. (And that is the perfect age for those kinds of shenanigans.)

But... where I'm from... D&D was the dumping ground for people distinctly lacking social skills and big chips on their shoulders from the results of that. (Myself included.) We were not very good to each other for the most part.

And, agreed - the old school Paladin isn't 'bad' per se, but it demands a lot from the group to really pull off, in terms of shared cultural touchstones, enjoying a game played in earnest, enjoyment of ethical dilemmas as part of gaming, stuff like that. I don't think it's a good general purpose mechanic.

 

[Mallus]

(Just a standard few: Myers-Briggs, Voight-Kampff, etc).

"It’s your birthday. Someone gives you a calfskin wallet. How do you react"
"I take the wallet, kill the person who gave it to me, then take their wallet."

"You’ve got a little boy. He shows you his butterfly collection plus the killing jar. What do you do?"
"I steal the butterfly collection. How old is my boy?
"Umm, eight?"
"I put his head in the jar until he falls unconscious. Then I run away before he wakes up. Wait, I also take the jar."

"You’re watching television. Suddenly you realize there’s a wasp crawling on your arm."
"Roll initiative!"

 

[Mephista]

In general? I don't. Or, rather, I let the PCs say whatever they want about their PCs. Then, I take out a note book, and jot down what I feel is closer to the truth, and go with that. Then, have all NPCs react accordingly.

Fun thing about alignment. Alignment, when all is said and done, is really just a measure of how the world views you, be it a divine artifact or a monster. And, as the GM, I get to decide what that view is, not the PCs. NPC views are my domain, not the players'.

 

[akr71]

I don't & I don't. The player chooses that as an aid toward role playing their character.

For clerics and paladins (or any character for that matter) who wish their faith to be part of the character's identity, I will suggest that they choose something in line with their diety. If they stray from their diety's ethos and teachings bad things may happen...

If they play murder hobo-ish, especially in urban environments, consequences will follow. A lot of the time I don't know my players character alignments.

 

[Illithidbix]

To add to the chorus:

I don't enforce Alignment, mostly because I gut it like a fish from any game I run.*

I find the idea of the DM telling a player that they're playing their character wrong to be a very odd concept from the expectations I have of gaming.
I likewise don't see how in character punishment for behaviour that is disruptive to the game is a healthy relationship.

As a roleplay guideline (esp. for newer players) I find the personality, ideals, bonds and flaws system to be far superior, and entirely able to replace Alignment in that regard. I found the same in 4E with their principle of listing 3 tenets for the worshippers of deities.
I also find it very hard to pigeonhole almost any contemporary, historical or fiction neatly into any of the nine alignments, so why should characters be any different


When I gen a character I also don't give myself an alignment, I think if it comes up, then the DM is in a better place to judge it based upon how my character has behaved in the game.

(Whilst not quite 4E's lack of mechanical implications, I've manged to isolate most of 5E's here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?474120-5E-The-few-mechanical-implications-of-Alignment)

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I also find it very hard to pigeonhole almost any contemporary, historical or fiction neatly into any of the nine alignments, so why should characters be any different

If you find this very hard, while other people (like me) find it pretty easy, have you considered that perhaps the problem lies in your application of the system rather than being intrinsic to the system? If we both look at Robin Hood, and you say "I can't tell what alignment this guy is supposed to be" but I say "Oh, he's clearly CG", we're obviously doing something different with the alignment system. Whatever you're doing with the system is making it break, and whatever I'm doing with the system is making it work, so doesn't it seem reasonable to try to figure out what it is I'm doing? At the very least, for fairness' sake, shouldn't we evaluate the system in its most functional state? When we take a car for a test drive, shouldn't we make sure its tires are pressurized and there's gas in the tank?

 

[Ath'kethin]

This is another conversation I love. So.manys eem to have strong opinions, mostly negative.

I use alignments. They're useful for helping players develop characters. I think my favorite approach is still the one I developed when helping an 8 year old learn the game:

What kind of person do you want your character to be? A person who tries to help others and help organized? A person who likes to help out other people but isn't always good at it? A person who wants to help people but doesn't always try to do it? Etc.

I run low magic S&S type games, and many make a case for eliminating alignment - there are no heroes in these scenarios, only those who profit and those who don't. But I LIKE alignments. I think they serve as a really useful tool for determining what kinds of actions a character might take.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

In my campaign, there is a cosmic good and evil. This primarily covers extraplanar creatures (fiends, etc) along with magic items. This is alignment that is actionable (protection from evil and good, etc.).

For most mortal creatures, it isn't powerful enough, although some are evil enough by their nature (orcs, etc.).

Evil is a force that corrupts though, and my campaign uses it much like the way "Adventures in Middle Earth" does. Evil acts can taint a being.

Characters aren't really an alignment other than "not evil" although most people in the world have a philosophical point of view and alignment can be used to describe that. It becomes a role playing tool if they want to use it, although it's not strictly enforced. Clerics and paladins have more defined oaths than just alignment.


Sent from my iPhone using EN World

 

[jasper]

A ruler and frying pan.
I tell you up front what you can do if you alignment x,y, or z.
If you don't follow it I beat you to within an inch of your life with a frying pan.
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Never mind I was have mean mother flashbacks.
Even back in 1E I was telling people to make their alignment third or lower on how to play their pc. Of course I had people who on a 3 minus would kill the fish monger just because their alignment was Crazy Nutz.