Purpose of Alignment

[Pbartender]

In my games, alignment is about being able to kill stuff without moral debate. It helps to mentally categorize things into "evil" and so get around pesky moral conundrums. It serves other roles too, sure. But my D&D games are very simple, black & white, affairs - and having alignment helps me achieve that. I'd like to think it also helps in making things more epic, more good vs. evil. (Somehow, Libertanian vs. Equalitarian doesn't quite have the same umph to it...)

I love to engage in moral debate off-game, or in other games. But not in my light-hearted D&D games, thank you. In a way, my games are "fantasy" in the "sexual fantasy" meaning - only instead of "sexual", I fantasize about "moral"; my (D&D) games are a way to act out moral fantasies, which are just as unreal and rediculous and unprofound as sexual fantasies. The heroes are shining and righteous, the cultists vile and malevolent, and so on. You can't have moral debate in this genre, it ruins the mood.

You, sir, are my Hero of the Day.

 

[Umbran]

Really, I do not see it that way at all. Seems very black and white to me, and i like a bit mroe of shades of grey when dealing with good/evil, though i am very black and white about what evil and good are. Automatically fighting with all evils and automatically getting support form all goods seems very shallow to me.

I read it as describing the DM's first pass over the monster in question - not an "automatically"
but more of a "generally". It is important to know what the base expectations are before going into the subtleties.

 

[Lanefan]

There's 2 overlapping ways of looking at alignment. One is an objective universal view that says some acts are good, some evil, lawful, chaotic, etc. and that builds a being's alignment as a sum of actions. Two is a subjective view from the being of how that being thinks, as well as what it does...the Kobolds probably think the PC's invading their lair are evil, for example, while said PC's probably think the same of the Kobolds.

Where it gets interesting is when there ends up being a wide variance of alignments within the same party, due to what the players happen to have as their PC's at the time.

Where it gets annoying is when players (and DM's) don't allow for shades of gray, and assume that because someone professes to be a certain alignment they will always behave a certain way, usually exactly what is described in whatever edition PH is being used at the time...sigh.

Lanefan

 

[Arnwyn]

I don't know why alignment really exists (to know that, I'd have to hear it from the game designers' mouths), but I can tell you why it exists for me:

Alignment exists to give the DM and players a nice, quick two word (or even two letter) notation as to how a particular character sees the world, and avoids a bloody over-long mess of character description(s) and disposition(s).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Alignment does for D&D what the media does for western society - divides groups and behaviours into pigeon-holes that we can react to automatically instead of considering on their merits.

The media does that? Boy, religions, ethnic divides, political divides, economic divides and geography really must have been slacking lately.

People have divided themselves up into "us" and "them" back when "them" meant "the tribe in the next cave over."

Blaming the media is just a convenient way of washing humanity's collective hands of something that's an inherent part of being a social animal: tribalism.

As for the OP's question, I really believe Gygax just wanted a way for paladins and the like to be able to spot demons and other bad-to-the-bone types without having a million fiddly different powers for each specific type, and also to have broad "smash the bad guy" powers.

D&D works fine without alignment; people do it all the time. It also can be made to work, as well. Certainly it's a lot better nowadays than in previous editions with "alignment language" silliness.

 

[Voadam]

I think it is mostly to provide DM's with a clear distinction between good guys and bad guys.

 

[starwed]

I would say that the alignment system is there for people who don't really want to think about the moral aspects of the game. If the simplistic nature of it bothers your group, then you've already surpassed the need for it.

Of course, things get more complicated if the DM and players have differing takes on things...

 

[Rhamphoryncus]

I'd just like to say thanks to all of you that participated in this poll/thread. You've given me a lot to think about. Maybe if I mull it over long enough I'll come up with some useful conclusions.