When the DMs interpretation of alignment differs from the players

[ARandomGod]

Then don't. Alignments are broad. If a player can argue out why their particular action is good or whatever, then let them. The thing that matters is they put thought into it

Unless their violating basic tenets of their alignment for no good reason, leave them be. If they are, change their alignment.

This is my preferred approach.

The player puts his alignment down. The player explains what his alignment means. If the DM wonders about an action, the player explains how it fits his alignment. If I've learned anything in my study of alignments in this game, it's that my good and your good do not always match. In fact, sometimes your good is my evil.

And I'm being serious there, I'm not saying my good is bathing in the blood of innocent children. But I have run across things that the "good" members of a party have done that my good character considered a vile and evil act... But they actually did consider it good, and even that they had no choice but to act in this "good" manner.

As long as your good is an actual and consistent worldview, it can fall under the definition of "good". As long as your "lawful" remains what your character defines lawful as, then it's lawful. If the character takesvarying definitions of lawful, if that character does something that he defines as "good" one way and later does something that his previous definition would define as evil and now defines that as good... that's an issue.

But, in the main, different people value things differently. Some consider "that" to be good, some consider it evil.

Now, what does the paladin detect as evil? That's tough. Likely he detects whatever his god thinks is evil as evil, whether or not that character is good.

 

[RFisher]

I generally don't take alignment too seriously. I mostly ignore alignment "infractions". If it ever became a chronic condition with a PC, I might do something, but I'd probably discuss it with the group first.

I suspect its more likely that a player would make a conscious decision to have his character change alignment, & it would be more working together to figure out the consequences, if any.

 

[Desdichado]

What do you do?

There's no way around that problem. I've ditched alignment entirely in my campaign.

 

[Voadam]

I'm starting to discover that my interpretation of how a particular alignments acts is a bit different from that of my players. On one hand I want the players to have fun and I don't want alignment to be a "straight-jacket". On the other hand, I don't want to ignore what I believe in my opinion is an infraction in alignment. However, when my players argue their case, I can see how they came up to why what they did falls within their alignment. I believe the problem is that we all have differing views of alignment.

IMO, alignment interpretations vary a bit. I don't want to enforce my vision of what good/neutral/evil is.

What do you do?

Not sweat it for the most part.

I allow PCs to self identify their alignments and this has some effects on mechanical issues (detect evil, certain feats that target good or only non-good, etc.)

The party paladin would have to do something seriously over the line for me to say "hey, no powers for you." He wants to play an oblivious arrogant self righteous somewhat condescending hero which is fine by me. He loves the alignment restrictions but I'm not going to worry about it unless he starts murdering innocents or otherwise seriously crosses the line.

The exalted druid shifter character actually has more mechanical issues as I ruled he can't shift into evil outsiders or fiendish template creatures without blowing his magical spiritual purity required for his exalted powers. He can act like a hero who is an arrogant jerk with no social skills and nasty personal habits and be fine too IMC.

I'd enjoy providing adventures and roleplaying encounters rather than debating the appropriateness of the PC's actions based on their alignments. In-character debates about right and wrong are fun and interesting roleplay, but DM/PC conflicts are just metagame issues that can be acrimonious and take time away from the good stuff.

If I had the campaign to redesign from the ground up I'd eliminate alignments but keep alignment descriptors for spells, outsiders, and the holy types like clerics and paladins with their auras.

 

[Desdichado]

You really think that's "simple"?

Who takes the 2d6 extra damage from holy swords?

Who does the forbiddance keep out?

What does a paladin detect?

There are scores -- possibly hundreds -- of changes to the D&D rules that would have to follow discarding the alignment system.

Maybe the "simple solution" is to also discard all of the rules that depend upon alignment, but (1) it really would be a substantial chunk of the game, and (2) I actually like many of those rules, despite having no great love for the alignment system.

No, no "simple solution" here.

You make it sound complicated. That doesn't mean that it is. It is simple to run D&D without alignment. Even before I homebrewed up a d20 game that isn't D&D, I still minimized alignment to the point where we forgot it was technically part of the campaign. Never once caused me any trouble whatsoever.

Yeah, that's a simple solution alright.

 

[Voadam]

You really think that's "simple"?

Who takes the 2d6 extra damage from holy swords?

Who does the forbiddance keep out?

What does a paladin detect?

There are scores -- possibly hundreds -- of changes to the D&D rules that would have to follow discarding the alignment system.

Maybe the "simple solution" is to also discard all of the rules that depend upon alignment, but (1) it really would be a substantial chunk of the game, and (2) I actually like many of those rules, despite having no great love for the alignment system.

No, no "simple solution" here.

Here is an easy way to eliminate PC and creature alignment entries.

Alignment is for descriptors only, give undead the Evil descriptor and keep auras of good and evil.

So holy sword smacks undead, [Evil] outsiders, and evil clerics. Mechanical change, an evil non-cleric can now pick it up without the negative level, and the holy blasting is restricted to supernaturally evil, relatively minor change.

Forbiddance keeps out only appropriately descriptored creatures, a little less useful but no big deal.

Paladins detect supernatural evil, not mean, nasty, evil people. Not as broad a power but sharper focus means sometimes a little more useful (He's either a demon, undead or champion of an evil god, I don't have to worry about targeting schmoe evil commoner).

Heck even gods can keep their alignments and have them affect cleric spell selection.

Clerics must choose positive or negative energy for turning as if they were neutral.

It's not that tough to keep in alignment lite but remove judgments and labels on the appropriateness of PC actions.

 

[Belen]

I give the players until level 5 to finalize alignment. At the end of that time, we talk about the character and I tell the player how I feel they have acted and the player gets to reply.

I usually make the final ruling regarding alignment. Personally, I feel a lot like Gary did about alignment. It is general path for most to follow. It is meant as a rule to help someone role play if they get into an odd situation.

Most people do not have any alignment. Period. A petty thief may not be evil, a honest guard may not be good. A strong alignment is someone who exemplifies that alignment. Most people are just not that powerfully aligned including most PCs.

 

[Henry]

My personal opinion is that you need to discuss with your players what constitutes alignment for each (lawful good to chaotic evil) , and write it down. Give them your take on what EACH one of these alignments would do in certain situations; then, let them change their characters' alignment retroactively to what they feel suits them best. One thing is clear - you need to have a benchmark, and make sure all the players know what that benchmark is. That will cut out 90% of the arguments there.

If you've said beforehand

--Lawful characters believe in the importance of order. However, their moral code (good, neutral or evil) will strongly influence their adherence to the local order of things.
--They have a personal code that is mostly inflexible.
--They tend to control their emotional responses to a situation.
--They will generally obey laws unless these conflict with their moral code.

And then you say

--Chaotic characters believe that order should take a back seat to making things right.
--They have a personal code that is mostly flexible.
--They tend to be rather emotional in their responses to a situation.
--They will obey laws when it is no inconvenience on them to do so.


(Those are just examples) then you have a strong definition to point to and say, if you fall into this category three or more times, then you are that alignment. If they lose powers because of it, then that's part of the hazards of picking a class with such constraints. So if you have a highly emotional paladin who is flying off the handle often, or if you have a chaotic neutral character who has someone violate his personal space without batting an eye, and promising slow, exacting revenge later, silently to himself, then there is precedent that he's not behaving in a manner you previously set down.

Ditching alignments is not a bad idea, but there is a lot of work involved deciding the triggers for alignment based effects, without making them less effective. If, for instance the only thing that affects Holy weapons are undead and outsiders, that's a FAR less effective weapon than it used to be. Only affecting evil clerics, or clerics of evil gods? how does one decide what's evil and what's not?

 

[dreaded_beast]

Great responses everyone!

I think the best thing for me to do is speak to my players about what my vision of alignment, their own, and then come up with some guidelines for alignment to follow. I'm mainly worried about the "normal playable" alignments, not the evil ones.

I think for a start, we will go over the alignment descriptions in the SRD or PHB and use that as a starting point.

 

[Philip]

It's not that tough to keep in alignment lite but remove judgments and labels on the appropriateness of PC actions.

Depends on the party composition as well. In our campaign the Cleric and Pal/Sor use Holy Smite and Purified Fireballs to good effect when the rest of the PCs is in melee with the baddies.

Suddenly blasting your fellow PCs would not be a welcome change.

We had the problem with shifting alignment as well. Would a fellow PC be suddenly incinerated by a Purified Fireball after shifting from good to neutral after several levels?

Or your cleric who has just shifted from LE to LN and finds a Book of Vile Darkness. So now reading the book jolts him?