Purpose of Alignment

[Turanil]

Whether it was its primary intended purpose or not, alignments are there to prevent players to kill everything around the corner, and occasionally restrain the paladin so make it more challenging to play. Aside from this, I only saw once a player really intent on playing alignments. One DM also made a point that playing alignments was very important to his campaign, but nobody cared really, only doing the minimum so the DM wouldn't be angry...

I believe that the alignment system has been invented for imposing a little roleplaying on the players who would otherwise simply hack and slash...

Myself I much prefer the Allegiance system, which by the way can encompasses alignments if need be. So you can have a LG paladin (character with allegiance to Law and Good), a mage without alignment but allegiance to her guild, and two characters who don't care at all and take life as it come.

 

[Thanee]

No, the primary point of alignment is to have some guidelines for roleplaying the character.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Nifft]

I think it's a dual role rule.

Role 1: Roleplaying hint to player and DM. Broad strokes about the directions that the game will take. A party of Chaotic Neutral PCs should play very differently from a party of Lawful Good PCs (or Lawful Evil PCs).

Likewise, alignment is a hint to DMs about how NPCs and monsters will tend to act.


Role 2: Game mechanic. The code of a Paladin, the restriction against Bard/Monks and Paladin/Barbarians, spells like holy smite and unholy blight, spells like holy word and blasphemy, and items like the Holy Avenger and Blackrazor.


The "excuse to kill stuff" falls under both aspects -- the DM should portray evil critters as unsympathetic in Heroic Black & White (tm) campaigns, and more confusingly in Shades of Grey (tm) campaigns.

But the point is: In D&D, role-playing and mechanics are both aimed at killing things and taking their stuff, and this is not an accident. It's a design decision. And it's a good one.

-- N

 

[Umbran]

. Aside from this, I only saw once a player really intent on playing alignments.

Well, from my point of view, that's fine. Because you don't play an alignment - you play, and your character's alignment arises from that play.

The purpose of alignment, I think, is to create certain moral forces in the game-universe that don't exist in our own world. This does not, in general, make it any easier to kill creatures without debate. Much the opposite, because how and why you act may actually have impact upon you.

 

[EricNoah]

I think its primary purpose is to give players a bit of a hook to place their character's personality or "reason for being" on.

Sometimes it's a bit too simplistic, and some people treat it like a straightjacket rather than an opportunity.

I would like to see a well-thought-out alternative that has some game mechanics and some role-play aspects to it and is yet simple.

I would also like to see something where alignment is something you earn and strive for, instead of something you just "are". So maybe everyone is neutral by default (with some inherent benefits and penalties) but if you want to be chaotic good you have to go out and do chaotic good things in order to attain that status. And when you get there, you get some benefits.

 

[Vague Jayhawk]

In a fantasy world where angels and demons walk on the material world and gods interfere and manipulate the events of the material world, alignment makes sense. Which side are you on. In a more modern world setting I prefer allegiences also. However, half of the fun of fantasy is the epic struggle between good and evil.

 

[el-remmen]

For me alignment is about having a convenient shorthand for knowing how NPCs handle things and their attitudes (to a certain degree).

Nice and simple.

Then again, I have ruled that Detect Evil only notes immediate evil intent, or consistant interaction with and use of powerful evil (i.e. a mid to high level priest of an evil god, a fiend, etc. . )

For PCs, alignment only matters if they are playing a class where there is some alignment requirement (priests, paladins, barbarians, monks)*





* I house-ruled away the bard's alignment restriction - and also made up a "lawful" variant of the barbarian.

 

[The Thayan Menace]

True Dat!

For me alignment is about having a convenient shorthand for knowing how NPCs handle things and their attitudes (to a certain degree).

Agreed; that's my basic take on it too.

-Samir

 

[Hypersmurf]

Instead, we can tacitly acknowledge that we've all read the MM and know that orcs are irrevocably evil. Out with the dwarven waraxes.

Er... I can acknowledge that I've read the MM and know that 40-50% of orcs are Chaotic Evil, but exceptions are common.

Are we reading the same MM?

-Hyp.

 

[Pbartender]

It exists now because it existed in the game's 1st edition.

And it existed then because way back thirty years ago Uncle Gary needed a simple and definitive way to distinguish bewteen the Good (Lawful), the Bad (Chaotic) and the Ugly (Neutral).

Ah yes, the Good Old Days when there were only three alignments, wholly unsullied by the roleplaying interpretations of a player-character's personality.






Aaaaand... Cue Diaglo.