D&D General So how about alignment, eh?

[Aldarc]

Mod Note:
The snark and insult is not going to do anyone any good. It will, however, get posts reported and have moderators give you the hairy eyeball.

I am pretty sure you don't want the hairy eyeball, so how about... just not doing it?

My intent was not snark and insult.

 

[Lanefan]

I (at least) am talking about the differences between what is Good and what is Evil, and what is Lawful and what is Chaotic. Then there is the sub-section that asks, "are we using todays standards? or standards of 1250AD (or whatever era we're playing)?

For me that last one's pretty easy: I try to go with something that seems vaguely appropriate (even if not necessarily accurate; I'm not a historian and don't really want to become one) to the era-culture the game is set in.

 

[ThorinTeague]

You could try an alternative alignment system, more like "who" you're aligned with--e.g. Alignment: Cormyr or Alignment: Rohan or Alignment: Tempus etc...

Might provide a little bit more nuance without just dumping the whole idea. You could also simply just exclude it. I don't think it really matters a great deal. Although I do have to say, 100% of the characters, whose players I've ever DM'd for, fall into one of the 9 alignments.

 

[ThorinTeague]

My intent was not snark and insult.

Yeah that happens to me all the time but also how it hits others matters.

 

[Vaalingrade]

For me that last one's pretty easy: I try to go with something that seems vaguely appropriate (even if not necessarily accurate; I'm not a historian and don't really want to become one) to the era-culture the game is set in.

~pulls out peasant-beating stick, waits for one to say something cross to me so I may do Good.~

 

[Vaalingrade]

You could try an alternative alignment system, more like "who" you're aligned with--e.g. Alignment: Cormyr or Alignment: Rohan or Alignment: Tempus etc...

Pretty much how it started before it was corrupted into a weird personality test and also what D20 Modern did.

 

[Lanefan]

You could try an alternative alignment system, more like "who" you're aligned with--e.g. Alignment: Cormyr or Alignment: Rohan or Alignment: Tempus etc...

Doesn't that just move the definition of alignment one layer away from the characters?

Because now you have to define what "Cormyr" means as an alignment, or "Rohan", or "Tempus", etc.

Bonus points if you can do this without using the words good, evil, lawful, chaotic, or neutral.

The advantage, though, would be that you could easily end up with more or less than 9 "alignments", and they'd be somewhat setting-specific.

 

[ThrorII]

~pulls out peasant-beating stick, waits for one to say something cross to me so I may do Good.~

We played a game about a decade ago, where I was a Lawful Good Paladin....but in that campaign, LG meant feeding the poor, protecting the weak, and smiting all opposing religions no matter what alignment they were. For the One True Church!!!!!!

 

[CreamCloud0]

The problem is in who gets to decide what 'good' is.

That's where we get into morally judging our friends for no worthwhile benefit.

See this need for people to personally question and interpret ‘well what really is good when you get down to it?’ and all the rest of the individual alignments is one of the major obstacles in actually using alignment, but to answer your question: The player’s handbook! If the game tells me that good is defined by being selfless and benevolent putting others needs before my own then by jove for this game of DnD that’s what I’m going to qualify being good as!

It’s a clear enough outline to use, and I don’t need to clearly pin every act a character does onto my metaphorical alignment tracking board perfectly precisely but I’ll probably have a vague idea of where each act goes as well as it being the average moral weight of all their actions taken together that I’ll use to determine my assessment of their alignment rather than individual actions, plus this is something we should have hashed out in session 0 what sorts of things qualify as what alignment but if I feel a player is drifting away from their stated alignment id hope to have a chat with them and ask some stuff like ‘hey I noticed you’ve committed quite a few unnecessary stabbings lately would you agree with that?’ And go from there to discover if this is an intentional character choice or not, what were their character motivations or intents with those actions or if there’s a mis-match in our understandings of the alignments or what.

 

[Gradine]

My intent was not snark and insult.

Not to contradict moderation in-thread, but I will add that I didn't take it as snark or insult either.