RealAlHazred
Frumious Flumph (Your Grace/Your Eminence)
I have seen, somewhere, a D&D house rule which used the MtG Color Wheel instead of the standards, with the nuance of two-color "alignments" as well.
D&D General Why do people like Alignment? (+thread)
- Thread starter James Gasik
- Start date
Willie the Duck
Legend
Perhaps splitting law/chaos into ordered/disorganized and law-abiding/criminal?
CreamCloud0
Hero
i think one of the major issues with alignment isn't a problem with alignment as such but in various forms of perception around it, there are three main central ideas i'd point to as the main sources of the problem.
1) as has already been mentioned in this thread i think? (it may have been the conservatism thread) is DnD's game setting and central conceits, this is a game primarily about combat and looting in a high fantasy setting, and as such it shies away from lingering on and acknowledging the morality of what the players are doing, the trail of corpses adventurers typically leave behind as they do their dayjob of breaking into various historical structures and other people's property.
2) is how i think that people tend to underestimate what qualifies someone to be capital G good and start the bar for what qualifies as being evil as too deep into Evil, being Good only seems to require token acts of assistance to those who need it (don't consider that you're being rewarded to do so in the first place) and being polite, while being Evil seems to start at being a blackhearted psychopath who goes out of their way to cause and revel in the suffering of others, rather than being selfish and prioritizing your own wants over others.
finally 3) is what TVTropes refers to as 'Protagonist Centred Morality', the general underlying habit of players to think 'well this is a bad thing we're doing, but it's okay because we're the ones doing it and/or we have a good reason to', all the things we will condemn NPCs and villians for but which get given a pass when the party does them, it's surprising how often players can and will commit various war crimes without batting an eye.
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Bae'zel
Hero
For sure.
Last summer I ran D&D for a bunch of 12 year old boys. I gave them free reign to do whatever they wanted, but tried to show them the impact of their deeds upon the world around them.
At one point I introduced a comic crelief Bullywug knight NPC companion. It was evident from the get-go that he was a member of the Harpers, and despite his cartoonish appearance, was an outspoken goody two shoes.
When the party did their usual "murder everyone, steal everything and laugh as they burned down the world", I described how their favorite frog knight looked utterly appalled and started packing up to leave. The player got upset: not at me, or the story, but at himself for playing such a scoundrel. In character AND in person, he vowed to be a worthy member of the Harpers. His Orc Barbarian became a wrathful, but HONOURABLE character after that.
I wasn't guilt tripping him or anything. For comparison, they also had made friends with a clearly selfish rogue NPC who was a Zhent. THis NPC expressed how impressed they were with the PC warlock who was cartoonishly selfish and evil. So it was mostly balanced.
RealAlHazred
Frumious Flumph (Your Grace/Your Eminence)
For some variation, look no further than the Palladium alignment system. Palladium Fantasy is, itself, basically a mass of house rules grafted onto D&D anyway, so the alignment system is also more detailed.
- Principled (Good)
Principled characters are, generally, the strong, moral character. - Scrupulous (Good)
Scrupulous characters value life and freedom above all else, and despise those who would deprive others of them. This type of hero is typically portrayed in many Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson films; the person who is forced to work beyond the law, yet for the law, and the greater good of the people. They are not vicious or vindictive men, but are men driven to right injustice. These characters will always attempt to work with or within the law whenever possible. - Unprincipled (Selfish)
This, basically, good person tends to be selfish, greedy, and holds his/her personal freedom and welfare above almost everything else. He/she dislikes confining laws, self-discipline and distrusts authority. This is the Han Solo, Star Wars, character. The guy who is always looking for the best deal, associates with good and evil characters, is continually tempted to lie and cheat, and hates himself for being loyal and helping others. - Anarchist (Selfish)
This type of character likes to indulge himself in everything. He is the insurgent, con-man, gambler and high roller; the uncommitted freebooter seeking nothing more than self-gratification. This character will, at least, consider doing anything if the price is right. These people are intrigued by power, glory and wealth. Life has meaning, but his has the greatest meaning. Laws and rules infringe on personal freedom and were meant to be broken. An anarchist aligned person is always looking for the best deal, and will work with good, selfish or evil to get it; as long as he comes out of the situation on top. The anarchist is continually teetering between good and evil, rebelling, and bending the law to fit his needs. Often mercenaries fall into this category. - Miscreant (Evil)
This self-serving, unscrupulous character is out only for himself. Power, glory, wealth, position, and anything that will make his life more comfortable is his goal. It matters not who gets caught in the middle, as long as he comes out smelling like a rose. This person will lie, cheat and kill anyone to attain his personal goals. - Aberrant (Evil)
The cliche that there is "No honor among thieves." is false when dealing with the aberrant character. This is a person who is driven to attain his goals through force, power, and intimidation. Yet the aberrant person stands apart from the norm, with his own, personal code of ethics (although twisted ethics by the standards of good). He expects loyalty from his minions, punishing disloyalty and treachery with a swift, merciful death. An aberrant person will always keep his word of honor and uphold any bargains. He will define his terms and live by them, whether anyone else likes it or not. - Diabolic (Evil)
This is the category where the megalomaniacs, violent, and most despicable characters fall. This is the cruel, brutal killer who trusts no one and has no value for anyone or anything that gets in his way. Aberrant aligned characters find these dishonorable people just as revolting as a good aligned character.
The Sigil
Mr. 3000 (Words per post)
I like the idea of the cosmic wheel and a campaign where moral forces can be capitalized - a few creatures (outsiders) are avatars/incarnations of a particular supernatural expression of a moral force and can be "capital letter" Good or Evil or Lawful or Chaotic (or Neutral), but for the vast majority of mundane creature, alignment is good or evil or lawful or chaotic or neutral - a useful shorthand for "motivation" (be it selfish, individualistic, altruitstic, group-focused, etc.) but not one that carries mechanical weight. In the same way "level" can mean a lot of different things in different editions ("a fifth level wizard, who is limited to casting third level spells, might encounter a second-level monster on the fourth level of the dungeon") I think alignment should be understood as having different meanings; a being actively committed to a particular moral force has Alignment (which can carry mechanical consequences), while a being not actively committed to a particular moral force has alignment (which is a general shorthand for "motivation" but does not carry mechanical consequences).
Let's take as an example a "holy" weapon that deals extra damage against evil-aligned creatures. I would read that as "Evil-aligned" creatures so a demon (incarnation of Evil, thus is actively committed to Evil) takes extra damage when struck; the evil (small "e" alignment) orc does not - the "evil" there is "motivation shorthand" and not "active commitment."
This reading DOES mean, however, that I am in favor of "thou shalt not act thusly" restrictions on a paladin (and some other classes)... specifically because the character's power is derived from devotion to a particular supernatural expression of a moral force. To me, it's pretty much ANY divine caster (so clerics, too) though one could argue depending on power sources, Warlocks might fall under this as well... because your power is not your own; it's owned by another being which is Aligned with a moral force and can be revoked because you are not acting in a manner your sponsor agrees with (it's not revoked because you "violated your alignment" per se independent of your sponsor, it's revoked by your sponsor because you acted outside of the parameters your sponsor has set for accessing their power). This also means that clerics dedicated to an Evil god would be considered Evil-aligned creatures and take extra damage from holy weapons.
I suspect the reason alignment has fallen out of favor with most players is that the DM is generally the arbiter of what is "Good" and "Evil." There are vestiges of the "adversarial" relationship between DMs and Players which means there is an Ancestral Memory of the DM trying to set up moral dilemmas not as a way to explore complex questions of morality, but instead as a means to "take away your player's powers if you make the wrong choice" (with "wrong" defined as "what the DM expects") - i.e., DMs abusing the trust of their players. On the other side of the coin, there is also the Ancestral Memory of players that wanted to play a LG paladin for all the "kewl powarz" they got but with absolutely no intention of acting either good nor lawfully and then rules lawyering or complaining about loss of powers - in other words, players abusing the trust of the DM and other players.
In my opinion, it is unfortunate that the solution to "trust gets abused" was not to reinforce "having a discussion about expectations before the game" so the DM knows the player of such a character may not want to be handed a constant stream of "do the right thing or lose your powers" scenarios - they want a campaign cast in clear moral shades of "Good" and "Evil" and the player knows that there will be a certain level of standard of behavior their character will be asked to live up to as someone that has committed to an alignment... but instead to lose the discussion entirely by adopting a "there are no rules, there is no Good and Evil, everything is gray, anything goes." Any power we stripped from bad faith actors by taking away the "I'm just acting my character's alignment" abuse of trust is offset by the power we stripped from the rest of the table to say, "that's not consistent with the way you the player agreed your character should act."
(There are other behaviors that are problematic, like the loner that doesn't WANT to adventure with a group or an adversarial group of players that think "player agency" means that when the DM sets out a clear plot hook East, another plot hook North, and a third plot hook West and askes the players to choose from among the plot hooks, the players pick "South" as a "screw you" to the DM's preparation... but by taking away alignment and the discussion that should result in Session Zero about what can be expected in the game, how much shades of gray we want, what a "good" aligned character will do, and so on, we reduce our ability to talk about differences in expectation prior to running afoul of those differences in game when feelings have already been hurt.)
To me, that's also a much less interesting campaign and especially diminishes the role of the divine, the cosmic wheel, and anything else that is Alignment-based. The game becomes purely an exercise in "Power" with almost no ability to have a grand "Good versus Evil" or "Law versus Chaos" theme, and I think the game suffers for it (not that you MUST have those themes in your game, but I think a game is richer when the span of POSSIBLE themes in the game includes those). I have to deal with questions of "are we the bad guys" often enough in real life, I'd rather relax that muscle in my games and know for a few hours that yes, I am the Good Guy.
Let's take as an example a "holy" weapon that deals extra damage against evil-aligned creatures. I would read that as "Evil-aligned" creatures so a demon (incarnation of Evil, thus is actively committed to Evil) takes extra damage when struck; the evil (small "e" alignment) orc does not - the "evil" there is "motivation shorthand" and not "active commitment."
This reading DOES mean, however, that I am in favor of "thou shalt not act thusly" restrictions on a paladin (and some other classes)... specifically because the character's power is derived from devotion to a particular supernatural expression of a moral force. To me, it's pretty much ANY divine caster (so clerics, too) though one could argue depending on power sources, Warlocks might fall under this as well... because your power is not your own; it's owned by another being which is Aligned with a moral force and can be revoked because you are not acting in a manner your sponsor agrees with (it's not revoked because you "violated your alignment" per se independent of your sponsor, it's revoked by your sponsor because you acted outside of the parameters your sponsor has set for accessing their power). This also means that clerics dedicated to an Evil god would be considered Evil-aligned creatures and take extra damage from holy weapons.
I suspect the reason alignment has fallen out of favor with most players is that the DM is generally the arbiter of what is "Good" and "Evil." There are vestiges of the "adversarial" relationship between DMs and Players which means there is an Ancestral Memory of the DM trying to set up moral dilemmas not as a way to explore complex questions of morality, but instead as a means to "take away your player's powers if you make the wrong choice" (with "wrong" defined as "what the DM expects") - i.e., DMs abusing the trust of their players. On the other side of the coin, there is also the Ancestral Memory of players that wanted to play a LG paladin for all the "kewl powarz" they got but with absolutely no intention of acting either good nor lawfully and then rules lawyering or complaining about loss of powers - in other words, players abusing the trust of the DM and other players.
In my opinion, it is unfortunate that the solution to "trust gets abused" was not to reinforce "having a discussion about expectations before the game" so the DM knows the player of such a character may not want to be handed a constant stream of "do the right thing or lose your powers" scenarios - they want a campaign cast in clear moral shades of "Good" and "Evil" and the player knows that there will be a certain level of standard of behavior their character will be asked to live up to as someone that has committed to an alignment... but instead to lose the discussion entirely by adopting a "there are no rules, there is no Good and Evil, everything is gray, anything goes." Any power we stripped from bad faith actors by taking away the "I'm just acting my character's alignment" abuse of trust is offset by the power we stripped from the rest of the table to say, "that's not consistent with the way you the player agreed your character should act."
(There are other behaviors that are problematic, like the loner that doesn't WANT to adventure with a group or an adversarial group of players that think "player agency" means that when the DM sets out a clear plot hook East, another plot hook North, and a third plot hook West and askes the players to choose from among the plot hooks, the players pick "South" as a "screw you" to the DM's preparation... but by taking away alignment and the discussion that should result in Session Zero about what can be expected in the game, how much shades of gray we want, what a "good" aligned character will do, and so on, we reduce our ability to talk about differences in expectation prior to running afoul of those differences in game when feelings have already been hurt.)
To me, that's also a much less interesting campaign and especially diminishes the role of the divine, the cosmic wheel, and anything else that is Alignment-based. The game becomes purely an exercise in "Power" with almost no ability to have a grand "Good versus Evil" or "Law versus Chaos" theme, and I think the game suffers for it (not that you MUST have those themes in your game, but I think a game is richer when the span of POSSIBLE themes in the game includes those). I have to deal with questions of "are we the bad guys" often enough in real life, I'd rather relax that muscle in my games and know for a few hours that yes, I am the Good Guy.
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The Sigil
Mr. 3000 (Words per post)
There's more truth to this than we'd like to admit, and unfortunately I think in too many instances we see players that want to play "themselves, but divorced of consequences for actions they know would carry consequences in the real world."
Sword of Spirit
Legend
I like alignment because:
1) It expresses the cosmological nature of the Planescape / Great Wheel cosmology which I love.
2) It is indispensable to me as a DM, and much easier to use than any alternative.
3) It feels very D&D-y, and I like my D&D to be very D&D-y, and my other role-playing games to be not-D&D-y.
Notes on how I use alignment:
-I don't like major alignment based mechanical restrictions. Monks have to be lawful; barbarians can't be, etc. What I would do, is if a devotion paladin is consistently role-played as committed to duty and order, but isn't noticeably more altruistic than the average person, I wouldn't take away their paladin powers, but I might switch them to oath of the crown to fit their actual role-play. The multiverse knows what your alignment is so I'm fine with magic being able to interact with that. I'm also fine with 5e's version of most mortal magic not really being able to detect alignment.
-I rely on 3e's definitions of what the alignment elements (good, evil, neutrality (GvE), law, chaos, neutrality (LvC)) and the nine alignments mean. Edition is key here. 3e's definitions are far and away the best ever published for the game. I often think that many people who don't like alignment are using the inferior definitions from other editions, so we aren't really even talking about the same thing. If Gary Gygax were still alive, I'd debate him on how 3e alignment is better than his original 1e, and I think I might have a chance of convincing him.
-Alignment is a better method of giving a DM useful D&D relevant role-playing guidance about NPCs and cultures you may come across than any other system I've seen. LE, NE, and CE are distinctly different.
When Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft left out alignment, it made it harder to interpret the motivations and methods of the monsters they put in there. Yeah, I could see something was clearly evil, but what was its approach likely to be? Without alignment it put more strain on me as the DM to have to figure that stuff out. With alignment, I'd know at a glance.
This is also the major practical reason I immensely dislike removing alignments from humanoids (redefining humanoid as essentially refering to bipedal creatures with human-identical psychology). When I first ran into the harengon, without alignment I didn't have a baseline to understand their culture. Okay, so they can be any alignment. But the NPCs you are running into happen to be CE. This gives me very little to work with to have an idea of their society. (I eventually decided their society was probably CN.)
Knowing that dwarves tend strongly towards Law and mildly towards Good, and that elves tend strongly towards both Chaos and Good immediately tells me actionable info as a DM that is frustrating when it isn't there.
-I have also assumed that individuals can vary, and tendencies are just that. We've always assumed that goblins, orcs, dwarves, and elves are all people (albeit, alien people, not humans) and that they aren't all the same, and it isn't morally justifiable to kill an alien person just because there is a tendency towards evil attitudes and behaviors amongst them as a whole. I don't know why anyone can't get this. It seems so obvious, but it seems like there is some sort of way of seeing things needed that isn't doable for everyone.
-The perfect is the enemy of the good. Most objections to the use of alignment as unrealistic or coming from faulty premises, etc, are failing to realize that it's good enough for D&D usage. Heck, I think of friends and family members in real life in terms of alignment sometimes! Does it fully express their individuality? Of course not. Is it accurate enough that it could be used for legitimate predictive ability? Absolutely! Lots of people take "alignment quizzes" and feel like the answers fit them pretty well. So the objects that since it isn't perfect we shouldn't use it, are not at all persuasive to me. Telling me Baron So and So is LE and Duchess Such and Such is CN immediately give me useful information if they suddenly need to be on the scene and I haven't had time to study their backstories. Telling me goblins tend towards NE immediately gives me an idea of how a randomly rolled group of 5 goblins in a forest is likely to interact with an adventuring party. (All I need to do is decide in real broad terms "Why are they here?" and unless I want to specifically make them unusual, that's enough to role-play interactions. Spoiler: They probably aren't going to attack, and are likely to converse and then go their own way if the party isn't obviously aggressive.)
-Other than occasional magical stuff, alignment is less important for PCs than for NPCs. I tell players that if they significantly deviate from their written alignment, it might end up changing in my notes, and ask if they want to be told if that happens. The only likely consequence is what plane they end up at when they die and/or how a worshiped deity might react to them. And this might come up!
1) It expresses the cosmological nature of the Planescape / Great Wheel cosmology which I love.
2) It is indispensable to me as a DM, and much easier to use than any alternative.
3) It feels very D&D-y, and I like my D&D to be very D&D-y, and my other role-playing games to be not-D&D-y.
Notes on how I use alignment:
-I don't like major alignment based mechanical restrictions. Monks have to be lawful; barbarians can't be, etc. What I would do, is if a devotion paladin is consistently role-played as committed to duty and order, but isn't noticeably more altruistic than the average person, I wouldn't take away their paladin powers, but I might switch them to oath of the crown to fit their actual role-play. The multiverse knows what your alignment is so I'm fine with magic being able to interact with that. I'm also fine with 5e's version of most mortal magic not really being able to detect alignment.
-I rely on 3e's definitions of what the alignment elements (good, evil, neutrality (GvE), law, chaos, neutrality (LvC)) and the nine alignments mean. Edition is key here. 3e's definitions are far and away the best ever published for the game. I often think that many people who don't like alignment are using the inferior definitions from other editions, so we aren't really even talking about the same thing. If Gary Gygax were still alive, I'd debate him on how 3e alignment is better than his original 1e, and I think I might have a chance of convincing him.
-Alignment is a better method of giving a DM useful D&D relevant role-playing guidance about NPCs and cultures you may come across than any other system I've seen. LE, NE, and CE are distinctly different.
When Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft left out alignment, it made it harder to interpret the motivations and methods of the monsters they put in there. Yeah, I could see something was clearly evil, but what was its approach likely to be? Without alignment it put more strain on me as the DM to have to figure that stuff out. With alignment, I'd know at a glance.
This is also the major practical reason I immensely dislike removing alignments from humanoids (redefining humanoid as essentially refering to bipedal creatures with human-identical psychology). When I first ran into the harengon, without alignment I didn't have a baseline to understand their culture. Okay, so they can be any alignment. But the NPCs you are running into happen to be CE. This gives me very little to work with to have an idea of their society. (I eventually decided their society was probably CN.)
Knowing that dwarves tend strongly towards Law and mildly towards Good, and that elves tend strongly towards both Chaos and Good immediately tells me actionable info as a DM that is frustrating when it isn't there.
-I have also assumed that individuals can vary, and tendencies are just that. We've always assumed that goblins, orcs, dwarves, and elves are all people (albeit, alien people, not humans) and that they aren't all the same, and it isn't morally justifiable to kill an alien person just because there is a tendency towards evil attitudes and behaviors amongst them as a whole. I don't know why anyone can't get this. It seems so obvious, but it seems like there is some sort of way of seeing things needed that isn't doable for everyone.
-The perfect is the enemy of the good. Most objections to the use of alignment as unrealistic or coming from faulty premises, etc, are failing to realize that it's good enough for D&D usage. Heck, I think of friends and family members in real life in terms of alignment sometimes! Does it fully express their individuality? Of course not. Is it accurate enough that it could be used for legitimate predictive ability? Absolutely! Lots of people take "alignment quizzes" and feel like the answers fit them pretty well. So the objects that since it isn't perfect we shouldn't use it, are not at all persuasive to me. Telling me Baron So and So is LE and Duchess Such and Such is CN immediately give me useful information if they suddenly need to be on the scene and I haven't had time to study their backstories. Telling me goblins tend towards NE immediately gives me an idea of how a randomly rolled group of 5 goblins in a forest is likely to interact with an adventuring party. (All I need to do is decide in real broad terms "Why are they here?" and unless I want to specifically make them unusual, that's enough to role-play interactions. Spoiler: They probably aren't going to attack, and are likely to converse and then go their own way if the party isn't obviously aggressive.)
-Other than occasional magical stuff, alignment is less important for PCs than for NPCs. I tell players that if they significantly deviate from their written alignment, it might end up changing in my notes, and ask if they want to be told if that happens. The only likely consequence is what plane they end up at when they die and/or how a worshiped deity might react to them. And this might come up!
Clint_L
Legend
I utterly, completely reject this. Been playing for more than forty years, run innumerable games, and have run the D&D Club at a high school for years where I teach beginners how to play. The vast majority of players love inventing characters and concepts and trying out new ideas and perspectives. They are excited to try different things and use their imagination.
People have a lot of capacity!
Celebrim
Legend
So, I should make it clear if I had not made it clear that by "playing anything but themselves" I was referring solely to the relationship of alignment between the player and the character. I say that because your response to me in completely rejecting "this" makes absolutely no assertions to the contrary of what I said, or at least certainly doesn't make clear in its response that you understood the core of my statement or were giving anything like a rebuttal.
Also, I have been playing for more than 40 years, ran innumerable games, have taught numerous people who to play, and have among other public exposure ran weekly open D&D tables at a local fantasy gaming store involving dozens of players, so if we are really disagreeing (and it's not obvious to me that we are), then it's bizarre from such large sample sets that we'd draw such divergent conclusions unless we were underneath really talking about something different.
I'm not talking about personality or character concept, although even on those measurements there are relatively few role-players out there. And one of the reasons it is even rarer in players, is that participants capable of animating widely different characters with divergent personalities and belief systems typically end up becoming full time GMs. Although, I've had a pretty decent GM before whose weakness ultimately came down to his inability to play anyone but himself extended to his personification of NPCs which meant any character driven game or narrative with him fell really flat.
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