D&D 5E What do you think should be done with alignment?

[Hexmage-EN]

How does it help me roleplay? If I know the personality traits of my character, what is accomplished by counting whether 60% of them are chaotic or lawful? I already know how my character behaves based on those personality traits.

My previous Chaotic Neutral character was interested primarily in novelty and affecting the world through his actions. He disliked the rich establishment because they represented a stagnant status quo and gave large amounts of coin to poor NPCs not out of the goodness of his heart but because he was curious what they would do with it. He'd also frequently try to get other characters out of their comfort zones and try new things.

All of this was inspired by the Chaotic Neutral descriptor. He wanted change to happen for the novelty of it and knowing he contributed to it.

 

[Aldarc]

Oh this is EXTREMELY good! I'm using this for my next campaign.

Flattered. As I said before, I'm not a fan of Alignment as D&D's MBTI. I prefer it as something cosmologically meaningful as well as impactful for players, but not as a GM's disciplinary rod. I want Alignment to be far less "what's your personality type?" and far more "whose cosmological agenda is your PC actively trying to further?" and "whose favor are you trying to court through your PC's actions in this campaign setting?" This gives it a bit more of a sandbox approach, where it's about players pursuing their agendas.

I haven't even begun toying with such a mechanic, but there is a lot you could hypothetically do with it. For example, it's not simply a matter of being the correct alignment to use a magic weapon. You also have to attain a certain Alignment faction/piety level to use it. As through your deeds and the like, you become suffused with the essence of these cosmological forces. And how you react to artifacts of the opposing alignment may also depend on your Alignment score.

But this also may create conflicts of interest between players. A Law player may gain points for trying to destroy a Chaos artifact, but it's in the interest of a player invested in Chaos to stop them so they can wield it.

I would make it clear, however, about what particular actions and the like result in furthering the Alignment score/track. I would say it should be less about vague behavior (e.g., be good, don't do evil, etc.) and more about defined actions (e.g., kill demons, etc.) that are part of write-ups with the Alignment so the players have clear, measurable goals and objectives.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Yep. Not that it matters. Having traits outside of your primary alignment is normal and doesn't alter your alignment. Your alignment is where most of your traits broadly fall. If you have 100 traits and 40 of them are chaotic, 15 of them are lawful, 15 of them are neutral and 30 of them are good, you're Chaotic Good.

That is exactly the same way I have had astrology described to me.

 

[Maxperson]

That is exactly the same way I have had astrology described to me.

Millions of people find great meaning and use in astrology, even if you don't. But in any case, alignment is not astrology. I reject your False Equivalence for what it is.

 

[michaeljpastor]

I feel Myers-Briggs is a less helpful analogy because the point of Myers-Briggs is that each location is equally valuable.

By contrast, the alignment system is inherently hierarchical and literally judgmental, saying Good is good and Evil is bad.

The alignment system is more like political quadrants: Good (freedom), Evil (tyranny), Lawful (collectivism), Chaotic (individualism).

Sorry if this has been addressed already elsewhere in the thread. I am a qualified Myers Briggs trainer and there is some interesting research and writings about Myers Briggs and politics in that there is significant overlap, I've done presentations to our professionals group about politics and type during presidential elections. It's very participatory and a lot of fun actually, even when the political climate is quite heated.

It is too complex to go into on a forum post especially if I try to point out the correlations to alignment. Perhaps I will do a blog post some point and post the link here instead.

I know that there is a lot of criticism about Myers-Briggs but I usually see significant misunderstanding of the theory in most of these criticisms. I am not interested in debating the validity of the mbti as I do have my own criticisms of it. But it's ability to describe differences in a coherent and systematic way is worth examining, especially because the debate about alignment is the same thing really. There are also a few variant models of Jung's psychology and sometimes they work better.

Both systems, alignment and psychological type, are models; and all models are inherently merely the map and not the terrain; and therefore inherently flawed. Examining a parallel model description can be nothing if insightful into the one you really talking about. I believe it's valuable to look at both systems as philosophies as opposed to actual moralities or psychologies and it makes the conversation much more civil because no one's trying to be "right.". It helps to approach it if one looks at them as descriptive as opposed to prescriptive. And now I really must sit down and start writing this blog post because it's really filling up my brain right now LOL

 

[Quickleaf]

I tend to treat alignment more or less interchangeably with "reputation."

It's a descriptor about how others perceive the characters and to which beliefs/groups they are typically aligned with.

For me, that's the ultimate descriptive but not proscriptive approach.

It would be just as valuable for a player to write it "once effective, now a drunken mess", and that would be the lens through which many of my NPCs would view that PC.

 

[michaeljpastor]

I'm primarily looking at 5e. Sure, if you go back to 1e and 2e where there were rules for changing alignment and other mechanical limiters, things were different. Right now, and I assume for 4e, alignment is just a broad help to roleplay. That's it. It's a tool, not a beat stick.

And the first image that I thought of reading the last sentence was a nun with a ruler. Whom I sure thinks is being lawful good but not in the lens of today I'd hope.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I was never happy with alignment throughout the editions. I always chose chaotic neutral so I could ignore it and just play my character without the Dungeon Master harassing me*. But at the same time, I recognize the usefulness of good and evil in Dungeons and Dragons (law and chaos--no). It is one thing I liked about fourth edition with its paired down alignment system, and the option to be unaligned. In the past I've experimented with adding a third dimension to alignment spanning the gamut from Fanatic to Apathetic. In that system one could choose something like Lawful Good Apathetic, "I subscribe to and support the tenets of law and goodness, but I don't go out of my way to adhere to those tenets." The fanatic end of the axis is pretty much what gets bullyragged across the Internet.

One thing I have always found alignment useful for, though, is the general tone and character of a city, country, or settlement. It's a nice shorthand useful in stat blocks and gazetteers of stat blocks. Then again, I have never taken alignment all that seriously; it's always been a mere guide for me--For Me.

* Whether that works or not is a completely different point, which means you're missing The Point.

 

[michaeljpastor]

I was never happy with alignment throughout the editions. I always chose chaotic neutral so I could ignore it and just play my character without the Dungeon Master harassing me*. But at the same time, I recognize the usefulness of good and evil in Dungeons and Dragons (law and chaos--no). It is one thing I liked about fourth edition with its paired down alignment system, and the option to be unaligned. In the past I've experimented with adding a third dimension to alignment spanning the gamut from Fanatic to Apathetic. In that system one could choose something like Lawful Good Apathetic, "I subscribe to and support the tenets of law and goodness, but I don't go out of my way to adhere to those tenets." The fanatic end of the axis is pretty much what gets bullyragged across the Internet.

If you look at the Great wheel and see the planes as the fanatical extremists and the outlands being the center apathetics it really makes a lot of sense. That's a great dimension. as I said in another post there's some overlap between psychological type and political type and alignment and the main point of the politics with Myers-Briggs was that theirs at least three dimensions to political thought and there's a good case to be made for fourth and 5th. When you dive very deeply into Myers-Briggs it's at least four dimensional. There's a Great Alignment to alignment out there. We just haven't found it yet.

 

[teitan]

The only problem with alignment is people who treat it as a straight jacket without nuance. Is it a necessary part of the game? Nah but it is iconic. It's also a good short hand. It's only when you treat it as a straight jacket or catch all and people start debating the implications of it as a monolith instead of as a tool that you get into a hairy situations with it. I treat it as something very real but also a gray area. When mechanics revolve around alignment and you are saying "all drow are lawful evil, no take backsies" then you have a problem. Mechanics revolving around alignment should be considered based on alignment as a cosmic principle like the Paladin's Lawful Good status in relation to the Holy Avenger, which is a Lawful Good aligned weapon requiring a LG character. These sorts of things can be played without Alignment though.

I personally would keep it. Pathfinder kept it, Starfinder kept it. They brought it back after two books without it. The controversy about alignment is really kind of silly in my opinion. People who get mad it is taken out are silly, people who get mad it is there are silly. 1. you can add it back in and 2. you can take it out or ignore it. It's YOUR game, you don't need Wizards of the Coast telling you what alignment your Orcs, Drow, Gnolls, Giants, Dragons, etc are because you can even make Forgotten Realms YOUR world and no one is going to come and take your stuff or tell you you can't play anymore because you were a very naughty person and broke the rules.