D&D General Players' Poll: Which Alignment(s) Have You Played?

[Ruin Explorer]

As a player? All of them. It's perfectly easy to make Chaotic, Neutral and Lawful Evil PCs who "play well with others", you just need to look at various TV series, half the fantasy and sci-fi shows out there have people equivalent to CE/NE/LE who work either are on the main cast or frequently work with them, and are not horrible idiots or random murderers. Evil is about what you're willing to do, not what you necessarily do on a day to day basis, too. I mean, you could be mild-mannered and friendly day-to-day, but still be CE if you were willing to kill someone just because it benefited you personally. You don't have to be a raging psychopath, an edgy loner, needlessly cruel or any of that.

All that said, about 60-70% of my PCs are Neutral Good lol.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Cg & cn are bit of an antisocial ME-first set that actively harm the game with ce just dialing it to 11

They absolutely do not have to be. There's nothing about those alignments which compels you to play them in any way antisocially (to the rest of the party, at least). It's trivial to think of examples of totally obnoxious LG and even NG PCs, and friendly and helpful CE ones. There's a ton of advice on this on the internet, for example: How to play Chaotic Evil and be the Party Favourite

You're confusing correlation and cause, in the end. Players who want to play antisocial or difficult characters often pick Chaotic alignments because they (mistakenly, in my view) perceive them as an opportunity to be be antisocial/difficult based on the vague/limited descriptions of those alignments. Some editions of D&D have been much worse at describing alignments, too, of course. Anyway the alignment is merely an excuse for behaviour, not a cause of it.

Equally, players want to player a character who is antisocial in a bossy, pushy and/or bullying or pigheadedly stubborn way (often correlating with their RL personality to a greater or lesser degree) often pick the Lawful alignments, particularly Lawful Good, which combined with who Paladin rules used to work, lead to a lot of "Lawful Stupid".

(When I reflect on the worst behaviour I've seen in person in D&D groups, where alignments was cited as an excuse, it's LG and CN. LG because people want to be totally pig-headed (why isn't it like, mule-headed? Surely they're less cooperative? Mulish is a thing I guess) and anti-cooperative, CN because some people believe it gives them an excuse to be sO r4nd0m LoLzzz and just do whatever ridiculous thing comes to mind. Almost all of it was from players under 20 I note!)

 

[R_J_K75]

you just need to look at various TV series, half the fantasy and sci-fi shows out there have people equivalent to CE/NE/LE who work either are on the main cast or frequently work with them.

the original Dr. Smith from the original Lost In Space comes to mind. IIRC he was somewhat on the evil bent, at least when the chips were down.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

the original Dr. Smith from the original Lost In Space comes to mind. IIRC he was somewhat on the evil bent, at least when the chips were down.

Yep, that's a good example. Supernatural has Crowley (a very powerful demon), who is pretty much straight-up Neutral Evil (he starts as Lawful Evil with his "I always honour my deals!" attitude but eventually becomes so capricious and keen on detonating underlings and ignoring his duties that that's no longer really the case), but is, in practice, extremely cooperative and helpful, just totally down to do whatever incredibly Evil thing to ensure his goals are met. He often subordinates himself to plans which are more "Good" than he might like simply because he knows that's a way to reach his goal, even if it's messier or harder work than his preferred way, and he couldn't do it alone.

It does take some work from the player, to either pick a very cooperative personality, or to spin their Evil a bit so it works well with others, but honestly Good can be like that too. I mean I play a ton of Neutral Good, and if you don't spin it a bit, you risk ending up being a dreadful stick-in-the-mud, because the party isn't always going to go with the most perfectly Good-est thing.

 

[R_J_K75]

I've played them all as far as I can remember. Success depends on both player/party buy in and the DMs capabilities to run the game as well as the person playing the alignments understanding/interpretation of it . Definitely not something you want to do is show up with one of the more polarizing alignments and expect to be readily accepted in the party or make it out alive. Its something that should be discussed beforehand. I've played evil characters and most of the times they worked, but a few times they were justifiably killed by another party member for some transgression or another. I was totally fine with it, even expected it, because the way I see things at some point an evil character is probably going to do something that reveals their true nature; whether they get caught or not is what matters. I got caught.

 

[Mad_Jack]

Evil is just never as much fun as I think it's going to be.

Like Ruin Explorer said, Evil takes a lot more work than a lot of people realize, or are willing to put into it.

 

[CleverNickName]

Like Ruin Explorer said, Evil takes a lot more work than a lot of people realize, or are willing to put into it.

It's the "willing" part for me. I agree it's a lot more work; but it's the kind of work that wouldn't be all that rewarding for me. I understand the draw, I know that it can be really fun to safely act out certain power fantasies without harm or consequence. It's just that my no-consequence power fantasy is being able to help other people in ways that I can't here in the Real World.

 

[R_J_K75]

It does take some work from the player, to either pick a very cooperative personality, or to spin their Evil a bit so it works well with others, but honestly Good can be like that too. I mean I play a ton of Neutral Good, and if you don't spin it a bit, you risk ending up being a dreadful stick-in-the-mud, because the party isn't always going to go with the most perfectly Good-est thing.

I think it all depends on the party make up to have things work. That one party member with the outlier alignment from the others can cause a lot of problems. When Paladins were restricted to LG up until the end of 2E, I saw alot of players who were drawn to the class powers but had no idea how to adhere to the moral code, social restrictions & piety of the class let alone the alignment in general. I actively discouraged players from the class unless I knew the player could pull it off.

 

[R_J_K75]

It's the "willing" part for me. I agree it's a lot more work; but it's the kind of work that wouldn't be all that rewarding for me. I understand the draw, I know that it can be really fun to safely act out certain power fantasies without harm or consequence. It's just that my no-consequence power fantasy is being able to help other people in ways that I can't here in the Real World.

I find evil characters work better in shorter campaigns and one-shots.

 

[R_J_K75]

I don't know where I got this or who wrote it, but I found it online years and years ago. I found it helpful and would give it to players to help them cultivate their personality based on their alignment.