D&D General Why do people like Alignment? (+thread)

[James Gasik]

Modern versions of D&D and it's "D&D-alike cousins" seem to veer further and further away from the alignment system- I can admit, I don't really miss it, as I've never had a positive experience with it as a mechanic. Even in older versions of D&D, while the cracks in the system were never officially addressed, you'd often see NPC's with "tendencies" towards an alignment other than their own, showing that people are often more complex than can be placed on the C/L+E/G axes. Yet on the player side, mechanics were very firm that thou shalt not act outside of one's alignment, like a commandment from on high, from xp penalties to the loss of class abilities!

The first time one sees a session fall apart due to a debate over fake fantasy ethics (which alignment was never supposed to be, as I understand it- it's more of an allegiance to cosmic forces beyond mortal ken), you'd think people would instantly shuck the system out the door- especially when game designers weighed in, tried to tie alignment to some kind of morality system, and made some quite dubious statements about what a given alignment can/cannot do (the 3.x era had some of the worst examples of this).

Then 3.x and it's imitators thought it would be a wonderful idea to make magic effects that cared about alignment, which seemed more designed to punish the players than enforce any cosmic agenda- many foes were annoyingly neutral, making "anti-evil" powers unreliable, and the first time you get dinged by an unholy word for having the utter gall to write "good" on your character sheet, well, I stopped writing alignment on my sheet at all, unless the DM insisted, at which point I'd simply write "Neutral" and let my actions in-game speak for themselves.

But despite all of this, I keep seeing people wax nostalgic for alignment, wanting it back in the game, even to the point of once again binding character abilities to following some esoteric code of conduct that no two people seem able to agree upon!

So I'm asking people to explain their point of view as to why they see alignment as a good thing. It's a + thread, so I expect people to disagree, but let's not fight about it- everyone is entitled to their own point of view!

 

[Zardnaar]

Its a fairly big D&Dism that makes it a but more unique.

Its also based on the old Law vs Chaos thing via Elric.

Going as far as 3.5 doesn't need to be done but if you updated some of that stuff an extra effect or disadvantage on saves would be fine.

 

[TiQuinn]

I think as a shorthand for an NPC’s personality or view of the world, it was a useful tool. It was much less useful and active source of conflict when it was applied to PCs.

 

[Reynard]

Alignment started out simply as Faction. In AD&D it morphed into a moral and ethical description, which later got subsumed into an attempt to describe personality. It is important to remember what was happening in the broader TTRPG world at the time: more and more games were claiming (sometimes succeeding) to deliver on the ROLE-playing part. Even the original Fantasy Heartbreaker Palladium built their alignment system specifically around beliefs and personality traits. One need only go back the Dragon magazine forum pages to see how different people understood and used alignment differently.

I was never a big Planescape fan, but I think that setting helped re-establish Alignment as primarily about factions. Alas, PS was late in 2E after its death, 3.0 seemed to double down on the moral, ethical, and descriptive aspects of Alignment. By 5E, alignment is neutered mechanically and pretty strongly reviled, or at least ignored.

I prefer alignment to represent one's place in the metphysical universe -- kind of like a zodiac sign. I think it should come with some real mechanical weight for it to matter, to. But as it is, we mostly ignore it in our 5E games.

 

[Voadam]

I liked 3e alignment as pure descriptors and cosmic forces.

So animate dead to create undead has the evil descriptor not because it is icky, but because it is tapping into a cosmic force of evil. I leaned into this in house rules giving undead the Evil descriptor, fey the Chaos descriptor etc.

I divorced the descriptors from moral alignment and did not police PC morality but leaning into descriptors brought in cosmic force alignment in ways that D&D alignment usually does not actually achieve.

 

[el-remmen]

The very 3.x rules regarding some spells and alignment the OP mentions is something I miss and wrote back into my 5e homebrew rules, except only on the law vs. chaos axis (what evil and good might be is arguable) as a built in part of my setting. And I specifically wrote it being “neutral” can be the most dangerous choice (though most common people are neutral and are never in a position to get blasted by such a spell).

But yeah, I have moved away from alignment as an ethical frame and more of a cosmic alignment that people approach differently along the good/evil axis to accomplish associated goals.

 

[Voadam]

I found moral alignment useful as a guide in portraying a monster or NPC.

Just a possible hook to riff off of.

So CE 3e orcs were generally rowdy marauder lawbreakers.

LE AD&D orcs were bullying thugs who worked for a boss.

It did not matter if different people would interpret those alignment portrayals differently, they were just prompts.

 

[Reynard]

The very 3.x rules regarding some spells and alignment the OP mentions is something I miss and wrote back into my 5e homebrew rules, except only on the law vs. chaos axis (what evil and good might be is arguable) as a built in part of my setting. And I specifically wrote it being “neutral” can be the most dangerous choice (though most common people are neutral and are never in a position to get blasted by such a spell).

But yeah, I have moved away from alignment as an ethical frame and more of a cosmic alignment that people approach differently along the good/evil axis to accomplish associated goals.

IMO that Law vs Chaos axis is most interesting and works best as a (meta)setting rule when those forces themselves are morally and ethically neutral. That is, LAw is about Order in all things, to the point that at its extreme there is no choice or freedom. And Chaos is Disorder and Entropy and ultimately offers no choice in its extreme because there is no coherence.

 

[AlViking]

I find alignment useful for a general starting point on personality and viewpoint. For a lot of enemies it's a good starting point or frequently all I'll need. After all a lot of enemies don't even get 15 minutes of fame.

Meanwhile I can also use alignment as a general predictor of behavior for not just individuals but entire organizations. I just keep in mind that it's not a straightjacket.

It's a handy simplification much like ability scores, HP or AC.

 

[Aldarc]

Not a fan of Alignment as D&D Myers-Briggs. I like Alignment as cosmic factions with whom players actively align themselves.