What Did Alignments Ever Do For D&D?

[hafrogman]

Back in the early days before moral relativism it justified the slaughter of countless orc babies, stopping the D&D worlds from being over-run by massive litters of orclings.

Remember, B'ahb Barr-Qar says 'Spay or neuter your orc!'.

 

[fanboy2000]

We use alignment languages.

Out of curiosoty, what version of D&D are you playing?

Their design really is up to the DM. I think of them as behavior that expresses the alignment held by a PC. That includes strategies and tactics. It isn't a natural language.

I figured it wasn't a spoken language. The impression I got reading the Rules Cyclopedia was that you could communicate things to people of the same alignment without people of different alignments understanding. Is that how you've played?

They are useful in determining enemies, allies, and neutrals. But more difficult than simply using the spell Know/Detect Alignment.

Interesting, so could someone tell what someone's alignment is by watching them "speak" their alignment language, or is it just by watching them act in general? Cause that's radically different from anything I've ever seen played before in AD&D 2e, 3.x, and 4e.

Alignment is a huge part of D&D to my understanding. It outlines the predetermined actions of the NPCs and behaviors of everything else in the world with an alignment. Which is, well, everything.

It's definitely a larger part of older editions. One of the problems I've encountered is people wanted to apply relativistic morality to the game and alignments.

Many years ago I was playing 3e and I had a friend who wanted play a Pale Mater, a prestige class that gave wizards more abilities to control undead. The class required a non-good alignment. I don't allow evil alignments in my game, and the player chose chaotic neutral. Things were going along fine until, at the request of a very bad efreeti (not that the PC or the player knew that), the PC killed a helpless innocent person. The player and the PC both knew he was helpless and innocent. Afterwords, outside of the game, I was talking to him that it was an evil act. He was surprised because, to his character, it wasn't evil. I explained to him that good and evil in the campaign world were real forces in this world and were objectively identifiable. This shocked him.

A co-worker overhead this and said the idea of good and evil being forces of nature was unrealistic, he could see law and chaos being forces of nature, but not good and evil. I told him it was fantasy world. I'll never forget his sardonic response "And a very fantastic world it is."

 

[OchreJelly]

Alignments were a system designed to engender nerd arguments until the internet could be invented. Once the internet was widely established, nerds could easily transition to online culture thanks to years of alignment disputes.

I kid, I kid, but really IME there was a revolutionary time in my gaming career when I realized ditching alignments didn't really break the game.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I'd like to hear more about alignment language too. From what howandwhy99 says, it sounds like Disney character cueing: you know character X is a good guy because he walks straight and proud and smiles, and you know character Y is a bad guy because he stoops over and twirls his mustache. Am I off?

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Alignments made EN World a more interesting place. All those wonderful Paladin threads, and Detect Evil threads never would have been if there was no alignment system.

I've always appreciated alignments when used as general guidelines for PC behavior, but disliked them when used as a straightjacket for roleplaying.

 

[howandwhy99]

Out of curiosoty, what version of D&D are you playing?

It's Diaglo's OD&D. OD&D has 3 alignments: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. They are designations of factions in the whole games, the multiverse, from the deities on down.

I figured it wasn't a spoken language. The impression I got reading the Rules Cyclopedia was that you could communicate things to people of the same alignment without people of different alignments understanding. Is that how you've played?

I still haven't decoded what they are in the OD&D game, but I play them as part of all human behavior/expression. Certain tactics and strategies express certain alignment leanings. Behaving/expressing an alignment not one's own may eventually shift a PC to an unplayable alignment, Chaotic, and as an NPC they would keep expressing as such until converted. Sort of like resurrecting a PC to be played again, but they aren't dead in the mean time.

Interesting, so could someone tell what someone's alignment is by watching them "speak" their alignment language, or is it just by watching them act in general? Cause that's radically different from anything I've ever seen played before in AD&D 2e, 3.x, and 4e.

Well, yes. But the players are deciphering what that means in the particular game. In general, if a creature is being destructive, they are expressing chaos. If constructive, then lawful. And more self serving lies in the realm of neutrality.

snip

Yeah, but we don't have good or evil or bad behaviors as alignments in the multiverse. These are loosely defined as some spells can detect such, but that detection is mostly about malevolent or benevolent behavior towards the individual caster/user. If you attempted to attack a party member, protection from evil would kick in assuming the spell was in place. This is regardless of one's intent. An attack to harm is harm and falls under evil to the person. And similar magics with evil in the descriptor follow suit. It's different from AD&D and other systems.

I'd like to hear more about alignment language too. From what howandwhy99 says, it sounds like Disney character cueing: you know character X is a good guy because he walks straight and proud and smiles, and you know character Y is a bad guy because he stoops over and twirls his mustache. Am I off?

Sort of, but personality usually really isn't alignment in this case. No good or evil archetypes fall under it. Allies could appear mean and nasty, but still be allies with lawful or neutral alignments - even if they behaved malevolently to another while following the law. It's more about the tactics used in play. Did they burn down the town after clearing it of goblins? They're expressing chaotic tendencies/chaotic alignment language. Those fortifications could have been repopulated for one's self and allies, but now those resources have been destroyed. I think it's far more about the scripted actions used by NPCs, than PCs. And as players don't know those scripts necessarily they learn the alignment languages as they go along.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

To copy-paste from paizo:

I've gratefully and happily killed it in my games.

It survived for x editions because of tradition. Flat out. A lot of things in D&D exist purely on inertia, because for some people "it just wouldn't be D&D if it was gone. Hell, alignment was originally just "Hey I really like Moorcock" and had only lawful and chaotic, serving no purpose other then to declare "HEY GUYS I READ ELRIC!" Later it went into the nine squares, but even then it was more about being on a team then any actual morality - alignments had languages. Eventually it settled on being about morality, though it didn't really do it well. The 2e PHB talks about alignment, and it's probably the biggest "don't use this" ever that could be given. THe idea of chaotic neutral characters jumping off a bridge, or chaotic good characters more or less just being "bad guys but they kill other bad guys" can be found in those pages, along with the idea that neutral characters should literally attack their own team if they start to win (Yeah, that would make for a fun party). Then 3e came along and, while the nine square grid remained, what the alignments MEANT changed this time.

So why has it changed so much? Because developers feel they need to keep it. Tradition. Because they feel it's what maeks D&D "D&D," though if you gathered everyone who says this and ask them a question about alignment each would give you two different answers.

So yeah, I've axed it, and I have to say, I've yet to miss it.

Your blog - and this thread - asks "What did alignments do for D&D?" The problem is, your example only seems to state "Well, it almost starts stupid arguments in real life, and does start really stupid arguments in game." I'm...not seeing the positive, there.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Sort of, but personality usually really isn't alignment in this case. No good or evil archetypes fall under it. Allies could appear mean and nasty, but still be allies with lawful or neutral alignments - even if they behaved malevolently to another while following the law. It's more about the tactics used in play. Did they burn down the town after clearing it of goblins? They're expressing chaotic tendencies/chaotic alignment language. Those fortifications could have been repopulated for one's self and allies, but now those resources have been destroyed. I think it's far more about the scripted actions used by NPCs, than PCs. And as players don't know those scripts necessarily they learn the alignment languages as they go along.

Oh, I was expecting these 'languages' to be...I dunno, something grandiose. I'd call what you're describing as 'in-game actions,' unless I'm missing something important here. Calling in-game actions a 'language' is rather misleading. Who thought of that label?

To copy-paste from paizo:

I've gratefully and happily killed it in my games.

It survived for x editions because of tradition.

No doubt there's a healthy dose of tradtion involved, but that's not the whole story. I'll get into that with my next post.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Consider that in older editions, changing alignment actively hurt your character. You were punished for it.

Think about that.

Look at just about any good story in which the protagonists change and grow as they adventure. Anti-heroes turning more hopeful, idealistic characters slowly becoming more cynical, then turning back to good. Villains are shown to have good roots, but have fallen into evil, be it from good intentions taken to far or a final moment in their life changing them forever.

In essence, characters are three dimensional.

The alignment system actively discourages this.

 

[howandwhy99]

Oh, I was expecting these 'languages' to be...I dunno, something grandiose. I'd call what you're describing as 'in-game actions,' unless I'm missing something important here. Calling in-game actions a 'language' is rather misleading. Who thought of that label?

I'm thinking Gygax created them. If you recall, this was all an extension of wargaming. So alignment language probably originally referred to a common tongue all the allies on one side of the war used. One's alignment is a designation of allegiance to a group in that war.

Big table top mats, the need to communicate troop movements via semaphore or some other code/language to minis troops and the desire to keep it secret from enemy troops. So alignment languages were born. That's my best guess for his reasoning.

It was not "how one should behave when playing the game" for the players, but it became that.

As to calling it a language? Computer coding is done in languages. Morse Code is a language. So is mathematics.