Is alignment really that rigid?

[taliesin15]

The most frequent area where alignment comes into play IMC with low level characters, given that most players tend to be somewhere in the Chaotic Good to Neutral nexus, is what to do with prisoners, even if they are kobolds and suchlike. If they are captured combatants, the party has less of a moral problem with slitting their throats, but let's say its a kobold they have released from a torture rack in a section of a dungeon dominated by hobgoblins (a bunch of whom they have just vanquished). They are also troubled about letting such a creature, obviously suffering subdual damage and half-starved, go off on his own into the wilderness unarmed. The neutral PC says "to hell with him" but the Good PCs are very troubled about this.

However, as several have pointed out, alignments aren't necessarily intended to be strictly followed. I can think of scores of Evil characters in fiction and myth that were capable of and did indeed perform Good acts on occasion. Much of the time these acts had selfish ramifications down the road. OTOH, the same can be said for Good characters. I've always found it a bit odd that Paladins, oh so goody two shoe knights they are, are so martial in their bearing and equipment.

As a DM, I find alignments extremely useful in developing major NPC personae and even civilizations. The major human civilization (the one that speaks the "Common" tongue) is Chaotic Good--the ethos of this civilization is Freedom and Personal Liberty being the best approach to bring Good to all. That said, the urban centers aren't disorganized, there are indeed laws, but not very structured bureaucracies. There are courts and taxes, but they are very simply enacted. There are soldiers in the militia, but every man and woman fit enough to wield a spear has one.

One of the rival civilizations is Lawful Evil, and this is the Slave Kingdom. Seems to me that LE and slavery goes hand in hand.

IMHO, only Good characters would do acts of kindness without any personal selfish motive. And only Evil characters would perpetrate acts of cruelty which would seem capricious to non-Evil characters. I also like to use themes like the Nature of Evil (or other alignment) IMC.

 

[Mallus]

No.

Neither is it particularly useful.

Except as a conversation starter.

Then conversation ender.

 

[Desdichado]

I don't play with alignment as too rigid, but apparently plenty of people do; it's a commonly discussed problem.

Then again, if you don't have some rigidity (too much, for my tastes) then alignment becomes kinda a waste of time. A "why bother?"

So I tend not to bother. I don't think alignment has any place at my table anymore. I don't outright ban it, but I certainly do ignore it.

 

[Celebrim]

The most frequent area where alignment comes into play IMC with low level characters, given that most players tend to be somewhere in the Chaotic Good to Neutral nexus, is what to do with prisoners, even if they are kobolds and suchlike. If they are captured combatants, the party has less of a moral problem with slitting their throats, but let's say its a kobold they have released from a torture rack in a section of a dungeon dominated by hobgoblins (a bunch of whom they have just vanquished). They are also troubled about letting such a creature, obviously suffering subdual damage and half-starved, go off on his own into the wilderness unarmed. The neutral PC says "to hell with him" but the Good PCs are very troubled about this.

My experience with tables without alignment is that characters all end up as unaligned/neutral by default. If there is no in game reminder and no implicit ethical contract with the DM, then players take one of several ultimately similar positions. Either they think, consciously or unconsciously, "Alignment has no role in this game. Hense, the proper way to play is to maximize my chances of success and reduce my difficulties without regard to particular ethical concerns." Or else they think, consciously or unconsciously, "My character obeys certain standards of behavior, but as thier is no particular consequence to failing to obey those standards I can always treat them as mere whims and discard them if they are ever burdensome in a particular situation. If necessary, I can always rationalize this to myself and others by saying that realistic characters are never entirely predictable. Afterall, its not like we are playing in ones of those games were alignment is a straightjacket."

I'm sure there are exceptions and that there are tables without alignment where because everyone is such a skilled roleplayer and has drawn thier characters beliefs so clearly that they are willing to accept difficulties and burdens for the sake of continuing to portray thier character according the characters stated ethical nature, despite the fact no simple marker for that nature exists. However, I've never encountered one.

Invariably, every player and table I've ever encountered that whined about alignment, the argument about alignment was a proxy argument for, "I want to use my character as a game peice which helps me win the game. I don't want to have to have my roleplaying potentially impact my success in the game." Which if you think about it, is very similar to an alignment position itself.

 

[aurance]

Either they think, consciously or unconsciously, "Alignment has no role in this game. Hense, the proper way to play is to maximize my chances of success and reduce my difficulties without regard to particular ethical concerns." Or else they think, consciously or unconsciously, "My character obeys certain standards of behavior, but as thier is no particular consequence to failing to obey those standards I can always treat them as mere whims and discard them if they are ever burdensome in a particular situation. If necessary, I can always rationalize this to myself and others by saying that realistic characters are never entirely predictable. Afterall, its not like we are playing in ones of those games were alignment is a straightjacket."

Isn't it the job of the DM to produce logical consequences for character actions regardless of alignment?

I'm sure there are exceptions and that there are tables without alignment where because everyone is such a skilled roleplayer and has drawn thier characters beliefs so clearly that they are willing to accept difficulties and burdens for the sake of continuing to portray thier character according the characters stated ethical nature, despite the fact no simple marker for that nature exists. However, I've never encountered one.

Either this isn't as difficult as you make it out to be, or I've been exceedingly fortunate, as in all the groups I've encountered, people enjoyed role-playing their characters self-consistently according to whatever character concept they had, regardless of "difficulties and burdens" (by which I assume you mean taking damage or losing items or some such game penalty).

Invariably, every player and table I've ever encountered that whined about alignment, the argument about alignment was a proxy argument for, "I want to use my character as a game peice which helps me win the game. I don't want to have to have my roleplaying potentially impact my success in the game." Which if you think about it, is very similar to an alignment position itself.

I've not much to say other than my experience is completely different.

 

[Mallus]

I'm sure there are exceptions and that there are tables without alignment where because everyone is such a skilled roleplayer and has drawn their characters beliefs so clearly that they are willing to accept difficulties and burdens for the sake of continuing to portray their character according the characters stated ethical nature, despite the fact no simple marker for that nature exists. However, I've never encountered one.

You've been unlucky.

My experience has been that players inclined to create interesting and relatively consistent in-game personae do so, those that aren't do not. The presence or absence of alignment has no bearing on it.

 

[Desdichado]

I agree that you've been spectacularly unlucky, Cel. I've never seen alignment be a problem.

At the same time, the reason its not a problem is because its completely superfluous. In my opinion, alignment either causes problems, or if it's not causing problems its because its not really being used.

 

[Psion]

At the same time, the reason its not a problem is because its completely superfluous. In my opinion, alignment either causes problems, or if it's not causing problems its because its not really being used.

IME, alignment works well in a high fantasy Capital-G vs. Capital-E environment that it was created for, and if it's a problem it's because someone is obsessing over some little point (be it GM or players).

 

[Celebrim]

At the same time, the reason its not a problem is because its completely superfluous. In my opinion, alignment either causes problems, or if it's not causing problems its because its not really being used.

But I could say the same thing about the absence of alignment.

In my opinion, not using alignment either causes problems, or else if it's not causing problems its because its really being used and enforced implicitly. So this gets us nowhere.

The obvious rejection of my argument is, if it were true, the it would be true that you'd only see consistant RPing in D&D - which is clearly spectacularly false. But I would counter that in systems without explicit alignment, the setting either like CoC or Chill creates an explicit 'us vs. them' alignment which supercedes pretty much anything else in actual play, or else has some other mechanism for creating a character contract which is roughly as constraining as alignment - Paranoia's secret societies, WoD's natures and demeanors, Star Wars light and darkside points, Rifts single axis alignment system, CoC's sanity points, and so forth.

 

[Mallus]

...or else has some other mechanism for creating a character contract which is roughly as constraining as alignment...

Well that's just it Cel, a 'character contract' should exist between the player(s) and the DM. It's a metagame agreement. Something that's settled outside the game.

The question isn't "what's moral"? D&D campaigns are woefully ill-equipped to answer that. The question should be "what kind of game do we want to play?" A rule system can't answer that (or, at least, a broad system like D&D can't. More tightly genre-bound systems like CoC or Chill can go farther in answering that question).

People get caught up arguing alignment interpretations vis a vis their characters actions when they really should be discussing basic ground rules for the campaign; what constitutes acceptable in-game behavior.