D&D 5E Players voting on each other's alignments?

[Krachek]

Surely not a fan of commit to alignment.
Alignment is a good way to paint itself into a corner for character development.

i would rather use a npc, a bard, a law enforcer, or some other rulers to share with the party the alignment they show based on rumors, past actions.

 

[R_J_K75]

Alignment is antiquated. I don't care about it and don't use it anymore as a DM. It has no bearing on the game as it did in early editions up until 3E. ICR but I don't think 3E even had rules about breaking your alignment and if Paladins and Druids had the strict alignment prerequisites of editions prior. Looking back on it now it's actually a pretty ridiculous concept as most people IRL aren't that rigid in their beliefs and actions. I would not be surprised if at the very least alignment is made an optional rule for players in 1D&D, and will be used only as a guideline in the MM moving forward as it already is. So to answer the question of the OP, this is not something I would do as a DM and would probably push back if I was playing in a game that the other players/DM wanted to do this.

 

[bloodtide]

This does not sound that fun.

Alignment is just too abstract for most players to "get". After all the typical player read alignment in a book once and sort of remembers sort of what was written there...maybe. Though worse are the players that went online and found something that said "alignment", read it, and now take that to be everything about the topic.

Worse a typical adventure might not highlight alignments enough....unless the DM railroads or "linear paths" the alignment into the fabric of the game. And that puts a lot on the DM.

And even worse is most alignment actions are extreme....but you don't "have" to do them. A Chaotic Evil does not "have" to slaughter innocent prisoners....they might just choose to leave them and move on with life. A Lawful Good person helps those in need, but they don't need to abandon the adventure and game to get EVERY stray NPC home safe.

The end result is just endless arguments. Is that fun?

 

[CreamCloud0]

So that second sentence, the one from your original post, is why people think that.

There’s a difference between your alignment dictating what actions your character should take, forcing you to do things and the decision to actively lean into a certain character mindset

 

[Oofta]

Internet discussion board debates do not necessarily correlate to individual groups. I've never had an argument in my group.

But that may be because I'm a Lawful Evil DM and they wouldn't dare challenge my adherence to the traditional alignment system in my games.

Isn't being LE a requirement for being a DM? Or was that only Gygax's law?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Interesting... I specifically included that sentence to show it wasn't a forced decision. To me it would go something like:

Group votes on Chaotic Good.

Me: Huh, I had originally thought of my wizard as Neutral Good.

Group: He seems very anti-establisment.

Me: You're right, I think I want to play more into that. (Changes alignment to Chaotic Good.)

OR

Me: I think I'm going to lighten up on that and focus on his altruism. (Keeps alignment as Neutral Good.)

Yeah I think this is a "phrasing" issue.

Words like "commit to" and "adjust their roleplaying" in this context make it sound like people are being forced to do that, especially as you only gave apparently negative examples/wording.

It's like, from this quoted post it looks more like you just want people to give others "notes" like this was an improv class (which is riskier than you might think lol, especially around a topic like alignment!), but the wording made it seem more like "The tribe has spoken. You have failed to portray NG correctly. Now hand me your torch... Er I mean, decide on whether you will rejoin the NG tribe and not screw up again, or journey to CG beach!".

I particularly personally question the entire notion of "committing to an alignment" though. You commit to a character when acting/doing improv (which is what RP is, essentially). Their alignment should be informed by their character, not vice-versa, imho. With some people it'll be really obvious, others less so. D&D has actually used this idea for a long time - the Complete Book of Villains, for example, was very much "character-first".

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There’s a difference between your alignment dictating what actions your character should take, forcing you to do things and the decision to actively lean into a certain character mindset

Sure, but it's still questionable. Why lean into an alignment, specifically, which historically have been poorly-defined and not entirely believable, when you could lean into a character and let their personality inform the alignment? I feel like that's a real question which needs to be answered. If your game is somehow "about" alignment it might make more sense, but in the general context of D&D it doesn't make a whole lot, on first glance anyway.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Here's the scenario I foresee (because I've seen it happen):

"Hey Bob, I think your character is evil."

"How do you figure that?"

"He does X. X is evil."

"I have him do X because X is Good."

"Nope. X is evil."

"My family does X. That is literally our family business. X is a deeply and reverently held tradition for us. Also, you do realize most people do X. The DM did X right before we started the game. Gary is doing X right now!"

"Welp... I'll just let that accusation hang in the air. Hope everyone isn't feeling attacked or uncomfortable right now and the game isn't poisoned by this knowledge of how I see all of you hanging over our heads."

 

[Maxperson]

Interesting... I specifically included that sentence to show it wasn't a forced decision. To me it would go something like:

Group votes on Chaotic Good.

Me: Huh, I had originally thought of my wizard as Neutral Good.

Group: He seems very anti-establisment.

Me: You're right, I think I want to play more into that. (Changes alignment to Chaotic Good.)

OR

Me: I think I'm going to lighten up on that and focus on his altruism. (Keeps alignment as Neutral Good.)

Alignment isn't a box, though. There isn't a "Play original or adjust to new" choice here. Someone who is CG is just mostly in that box, but can be significantly outside of it with various behaviors. Say someone is 55% CG, 25% NG and 20% LN(has a personal code), that person would be CG, but with significant amounts of his personality that fall outside of CG.

If someone is playing 100% of his character inside a single box, that isn't a very realistic depiction of a person. It's pretty cartoonish, really. People just don't work that way. They are complex beings with behaviors that are all over the map, even if most of their behaviors can be boxed into one category.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Here's the scenario I foresee (because I've seen it happen):

"Hey Bob, I think your character is evil."

"How do you figure that?"

"He does X. X is evil."

"I have him do X because X is Good."

"Nope. X is evil."

"My family does X. That is literally our family business. X is a deeply and reverently held tradition for us. Also, you do realize most people do X. The DM did X right before we started the game. Gary is doing X right now!"

"Welp... I'll just let that accusation hang in the air. Hope everyone isn't feeling attacked or uncomfortable right now and the game isn't poisoned by this knowledge of how I see all of you hanging over our heads."

I am desperate to know what X was in the context of the example, but I suspect most of it won't be stuff like this, but rather people getting into really circular/pointless arguments about the L/N/C alignments or trying to argue the toss about whether something is actually "Good" or not.