What Did Alignments Ever Do For D&D?

[Tequila Sunrise]

This type of stuff is what alignments did for D&D. Is it necessary for the game? No. Is it worth the alignment debates? Probably not. But I liked it.

Thanks. Quoted!

 

[prosfilaes]

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 quote Gary Gygax:

As for alignment language, I assumed that it was akin to Latin in regard to use. Clerics would be fluent in their use of their alignment language, the devout and well-educated nearly as able, and at the middle and lower end of the spectrum only rudimentary communications could be managed.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/121380-gary-gygax-q-part-viii-2.html#post2046299

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So many good posts for me to agree with...

For me, alignment was...

• Not a straitjacket but a guide, unless you happened to be a Paladin or similar class, and in those cases, the alignment restrictions generally made sense.
  
• Something that gave the game a feel for things we see in film or read in literature (especially the literature that formed the library of reading sources for the game's original designers): people who sense the presence of evil; people whom evil cannot touch or even face directly; evil so palpable that even the dullest of senses scream at its approach. And in doing so, it gave everyone a lever to exert force against: the brandishing of a symbol or performing a ritual that caused beings of a certain ethos to behave in a particular way...or cease behaving in a certain way.
  
• Something that set D&D apart from nearly every other FRPG, contributing to its unique charm. Sure, there are games that don't use alignment that have holy men turning demons, but to me, those PCs always felt flat; the why and how of such power seemed...unexamined. Don't get me wrong- I loved some of those games, but I always felt that D&D handled it better.

Like many, the only time I ever saw alignment crop up as an issue- as in, a problem big enough to cause any real argument- was when some players tried to do things that their PCs really shouldn't/wouldn't do; things radically at odds with the expressed PC concept or the way the PC had been played up to that point.

Such as a guy who wanted his Paladin to torture a prisoner who had surrendered to him. The DM told him he could do so at the cost of losing his status as a Paladin, becoming forever after a Fighter. For some reason, the player thought this unfair. Then he tried to convince another player to have her PC do the torture, to which the DM responded with the same ruling, and the player thought this was even more unfair.

(The DM in question was a medieval studies major, the player one of his HS drinking buddies...)

 

[prosfilaes]

It's funny; the only argument I can remember about alignment was in GURPS, where the player was surprised by a weak Pacifism disadvantage stopping him from killing a prisoner already in jail.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Alignment has given us many "Lawful Stupid" stories and the ridiculous 3e PHB description of Chaotic Neutral. Good laughs.

That being said I don't pay much attention to it. Unfortunately it IS in the game mechanics. There are ways around it though.

eg: When it comes to enforcing it for characters like Paladins I try to take a pretty broad definition of a particular alignment. Also I allow Paladins for all alignments so if someone DOES fall there's no mechanical penalties. Also see eg3. below.

eg2. For Angels and Demons I actually consider their extra-planar status to be the defining factor in whether spells like Dispel Evil work on them.

eg3. For Clerics I consider their God's personality/portfolio to be the important defining factors as to whether they transgress. I once GM'ed a LG Cleric of Clanggeddin who tended toward the brutal slaughter of racial enemies. (ie: genocide.) This is perfectly in keeping with how we had defined Clanggeddin so the cleric suffered no penalites for the slaughter on non-combatants.

So I'd have to say that Alignment doesn't add anything that can't be added in another way. Of couse Alignment allows it to be done in a quick and easy 'one size fits all' sort of way. Handy if you don't want to muck about too much and don't mind the inevitable arguments that arise from poorly fitting alignments.

cheers.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Well, holy warriors of differing alignments is pretty common. Most I've seen kept consequences for actions not in accord with the class' alignment...though which actions qualified differed, of course.

A non-alignment based command over beings like angels or devils- instead based on their extraplanar nature is certainly feasible, but absent a bit mire detail, it leaves unanswered why a good cleric should have power over the extraplanar servants of good (assuming that power includes being able to banish them against their will).

As I've said a few times in those Paladin threads, for godly types slaughtering the innocent, I always chalk things like that to what I call the "Old Testament/New Testament" dichotomy: in the OT, there is a lot of slaughter; in the NT, it's virtually absent. (Relax, this is about themes, not theology.)

Part of the reason is that one of the virtues most highly held is mercy, whereas the OT narrative contains a lot of judgement and revenge. In the latter, humans are sometimes directed to slaughter every man, woman, and child by God; this is thus a positive because the victims were judged to be irredeemably evil. In the former, the main slaughter of innocents is seen as an evil because it's targeting the hero of the narrative, who extolls mercy, love of enemies and peace.

And both types of themes, each ethos they describe, can be found in tales of holy warriors from myth, legend and fables of antiquity to modern fantasy novels.

In that situation, it's less about the god or the PC's alignment, and more about the interrelationship between worshipper and worshipped; about sects. If you look at RW religions one sect may see only the dark side of their faith, others only the light, and others see the gray, each with variations in what they believe their faiths condone or condemn.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Alignment has given us many "Lawful Stupid" stories and the ridiculous 3e PHB description of Chaotic Neutral. Good laughs.

2e, man

2e was more or less the edition that was the absolute worst for alignment. True Neutral was described as being someone who would turn and attack the party if they were winning because they had to keep "balance." CN got their description as lunatics and madmen. The example of alignments working together was truly awful - NG was cast as a group of cowards, LN is a grou of hyper-obsessives, and there was a very obvious assumption that lawful good was the "most good" of them all.

 

[Aurumvorax]

2e, man

2e was more or less the edition that was the absolute worst for alignment. True Neutral was described as being someone who would turn and attack the party if they were winning because they had to keep "balance." CN got their description as lunatics and madmen. The example of alignments working together was truly awful - NG was cast as a group of cowards, LN is a grou of hyper-obsessives, and there was a very obvious assumption that lawful good was the "most good" of them all.

2e had a good writeup of alignment but it had to be taken as a whole (but yes, that example was truly terrible). True neutral in AD&D is difficult because you're literally impartial to the very definition of the word. Yes, real true neutral people are jerkasses. Chaotic neutral people are very much insane.

What's important about 2e is how it defined good and evil. Instead of it being defined by thoughts, 2e defined it as intentions + actions and it also says society can determine what's good and evil with conflicts arising. You can have good intentions with evil actions (slaughtering all goblin babies; maybe you stopped goblin Hitler but you still killed babies) as much as you can make good actions that have evil intentions (burning down a plagued village). Your enemy would appear evil to you (as detect magic/know alignment state) because he has evil intentions towards you even if he's not truly evil in of himself.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Yeah, if I still played 2e I might have a very low opinion of alignment. But disliking alignment because it was terribad in 2e doesn't make any more sense than disliking Georgia because it used to have slavery.

 

[SkidAce]

When I think of alignments, I tend to think of things like the wizard creating a circle of protection to keep the raging demon away from the party. I think of the righteous knight being unable to wield a tainted sword because it is so thick with evil he cannot even hold it without getting searing headaches.

This type of stuff is what alignments did for D&D. Is it necessary for the game? No. Is it worth the alignment debates? Probably not. But I liked it.

That's the stuff!