D&D General IMO, Alignment should be "Fill in the blank"

[Stattick]

There's been several recent threads about alignment. In my opinion, there shouldn't be any preset or predefined alignments. Instead, it should be a space where the player fills in the blank. As to what it is, alignment should be what it is that you are loyal to. It could be a person, an ideal, a philosophy, a religion, or whatnot. The point it, it's something that your character aligns to.

So, you have a Pixie. That pixie might be aligned to the Seelie Court, the Unseelie Court, a particular Fae Noble or Court, themselves, or maybe they're just aligned to playing mean pranks on big folk.

Maybe the party barbarian starts off play with an alignment to his people (The Skullsmash Tribe), but over time, it shifts to Self, and then to The Party. Maybe the party mage starts off with an alignment to the Wizard Academy he attended, but later turns toward an arcane brotherhood he joins.

There could potentially be multiple things a character could be aligned to: Country, King, Clan, Family, Religion, Party, etc.

The way I see it, this would potentially make alignment something useful, especially if you're trying to play in a setting with an actual medieval or renaissance feel to it.

 

[payn]

Any reason this couldn't have been posted in the several recent threads about alignment?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

There's been several recent threads about alignment. In my opinion, there shouldn't be any preset or predefined alignments. Instead, it should be a space where the player fills in the blank. As to what it is, alignment should be what it is that you are loyal to. It could be a person, an ideal, a philosophy, a religion, or whatnot. The point it, it's something that your character aligns to.

So, you have a Pixie. That pixie might be aligned to the Seelie Court, the Unseelie Court, a particular Fae Noble or Court, themselves, or maybe they're just aligned to playing mean pranks on big folk.

Maybe the party barbarian starts off play with an alignment to his people (The Skullsmash Tribe), but over time, it shifts to Self, and then to The Party. Maybe the party mage starts off with an alignment to the Wizard Academy he attended, but later turns toward an arcane brotherhood he joins.

There could potentially be multiple things a character could be aligned to: Country, King, Clan, Family, Religion, Party, etc.

The way I see it, this would potentially make alignment something useful, especially if you're trying to play in a setting with an actual medieval or renaissance feel to it.

Wouldn't this create a lot of overlap with bonds and factions?

This is the thing that has confused me (which is easy!) about most of these conversations. There are those that enjoy writing backstories for their characters, and those that don't (and some prefer long ones and some prefer short ones). There are those that prefer RP options that make you define certain traits of personality (such as 'bonds') and those who don't. The degree to which it is restrictive (or not) is completely up to the table.

Alignment is nothing more than the OG generic trait. Some find it helpful, some don't. I also don't know why we have so many alignment threads going on, but I assume it's the debate du jour.

 

[Quartz]

If alignment isn't useful to you or relevant to your game, just toss it. Like they did in Xoth.

 

[Marc Radle]

Any reason this couldn't have been posted in the several recent threads about alignment?

Agreed!

 

[Marc_C]

Any reason this couldn't have been posted in the several recent threads about alignment?

Agreed!

 

[MarkB]

There's been several recent threads about alignment. In my opinion, there shouldn't be any preset or predefined alignments. Instead, it should be a space where the player fills in the blank. As to what it is, alignment should be what it is that you are loyal to. It could be a person, an ideal, a philosophy, a religion, or whatnot. The point it, it's something that your character aligns to.

So, you have a Pixie. That pixie might be aligned to the Seelie Court, the Unseelie Court, a particular Fae Noble or Court, themselves, or maybe they're just aligned to playing mean pranks on big folk.

Maybe the party barbarian starts off play with an alignment to his people (The Skullsmash Tribe), but over time, it shifts to Self, and then to The Party. Maybe the party mage starts off with an alignment to the Wizard Academy he attended, but later turns toward an arcane brotherhood he joins.

There could potentially be multiple things a character could be aligned to: Country, King, Clan, Family, Religion, Party, etc.

The way I see it, this would potentially make alignment something useful, especially if you're trying to play in a setting with an actual medieval or renaissance feel to it.

It's still a very blunt instrument. It tells you who someone may currently be loyal to, but nothing about the degree of loyalty or the reason for it.

One character may be aligned towards their nation as a dedicated and sworn defender, loyal until death. Another may be aligned to their nation as a general preference, vaguely in favour until a more persuasive offering comes along. But both their sheets will have the same thing written on them.

And, as pointed out, we already have character traits that encompass this - ideals, bonds, factions.

 

[Stormonu]

I have an image in my mind of what each alignment entails (based on the alignment write-ups from 3E, actually). As a DM, when I see it appear on a monster stat block, that helps me attune to how it will act when presented.

My basic breakdown for personally handling alignment

Spoiler

Lawfuls seek organization in the way they look at things and working as a group or unit.
Neutrals worry about themselves.
Chaotics seek independence and freedom and chaff at restrictions.
Good seeks to alleviate pain and suffering; they try to mitigate adverse consequences.
Evil seeks to inflict harm and suffering or simply don't care about consequences.

As a player, it's less useful and I lean on Personality/Ideals/Bonds/Flaws much more, and the alignment is for any spell/game effects - which have been pretty much stripped out of 5E.

 

[Shiroiken]

Any reason this couldn't have been posted in the several recent threads about alignment?

Probably because those threads are several pages deep, and the OP wants their opinion to be visible.

 

[Steampunkette]

The point of D&D Alignment isn't to show what your philosophy is or what nation you're allied with. It's there to represent a foundational cornerstone of a protagonist's or antagonist's moral positioning.

A LE character can be a Kantian Deontologist who just goes against his moral code while obeying laws that are enforced by others. Or a Consequentialist who holds to his moral philosophy regardless of the people harmed along the way. Or he can adhere to Subjective Morality. Or Nihilism. Or be an Existentialist who doesn't care who he hurts because they'll just go to D&D heaven, anyway, so who cares whether they die now or 30 years from now?

By providing that moral positioning, you can develop other aspects of that character.

When I played in 2e I was a kid, so I copied stuff from other materials to develop characters before finding my own voice. One of them was a -clear- Raistlin Majere clone and I'm not ashamed of that, remotely.

By playing a Lawful Evil Protagonist I was able to explore Antiheroic Characters at 13 years old, well before they became a staple of Primetime TV and Cable Television. If that character's alignment had been "To the crown" that wouldn't have let me be a wicked person doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.

Or, at least, not with any sort of formality. And other players in the party would've questioned why my heroic character was doing bad things. But knowing that he was LE gave them a solid anchor on that particular aspect of his personality and direction.

For a lot of people, ignoring alignment doesn't really matter. And some people find other details more useful in defining their characters. And that's cool? Don't use it if you don't like it/want it/need it/whatever.

But it's very useful for some of us. Particularly starting out.