D&D General Why do people like Alignment?

[AlViking]

My problem with that take is why even have alignment if you're just describing personal morality or viewpoints? We already do that in real life without the benefit or need for such a crutch. The only way alignment, as a game mechanic, makes sense to me is if it has meaning outside of personally held views. I'd rather alignment be something that can be chosen or is chosen for you through circumstance, and that it have no bearing at all on individual behavior or morality unless it makes sense for it to (e.g. a patron may expect certain deeds, and a god may restrict certain behaviors).

To me, it's far more interesting if you can have a character that can be kind, helpful and seeking to do good, yet is still aligned with evil through no choice of their own (or on the opposite end, is saddled with expectations they can't and don't want to live up to because sky daddy chose them at birth). Separating alignment from personality and morals means - to me - potential for more interesting stories involving alignment as the player leans into or strives against their ties to otherworldly forces, and with mechanics to back it up.

It's not a crutch, it's one of many aspects of why a person acts the way they do. It's not like abilities are particularly accurate, they're a simplified abstraction of a person's inherent abilities. I don't have an issue with alignment being a simplified abstraction of a person's mode of thinking and view of the world.

If a good person is aligned with evil because they are forced to do so, they are still a good person. Deeds do not define a person's alignment to me, but in most cases deeds are driven by a person's alignment if the person has a choice.

 

[Celebrim]

In my games, it mostly only mattered for clerics. I also only allowed detect evil or alignment on beings of strong persuasion and most people were not.

I also allow in my games alignment detection to be resisted by a bluff check (where the strength of your piety is a penalty on the check) which means that if you are good enough at lying you can pass even magical scrutiny about your intentions and character.

And yes, it matters most for Clerics and Champions (my homebrew generic "Paladin" class) since they are actively serving or embodying as a representative some strongly aligned incarnation or personification of an idea that demands you don't stray too far from their own beliefs. And consequently, normally only Clerics and Champions strongly radiate alignment.

Shamans are my generic version of Druids, and their alignment doesn't matter as much as their vows. They are more like warlocks with several patrons and each patron requires a different vow. One of the reasons that Shamanic magic is against the law and shamans are feared in many regions is that you can't tell from a shaman what you are going to get in the way you can a cleric. They are always suspected of witchcraft and black magic, and to be frank often for good reasons.

Everyone else, I just care whether what's written down on their character sheet at least roughly matches what I'm seeing from the character in play. If the play feels CE to me and what's written down is CN, or it feels CN but what's written down is CG then I usually don't bother until it becomes persistent from like six months or a year of play, at which point I start using the bribery strategy I talked about earlier.

If the player doesn't have a strong idea what they want to believe I always suggest neutral and leave it up to personality and backstory why they are risking their lives on fool's errands or crusades.

Chaotic Neutral is the most common alignment I see in play, roughly equivalent to various beliefs in Individualism, Objectivism, Libertarianism, etc. Most players broadly seem to accept things like, "As long as I'm not hurting someone else, I can do what I want." and "I must to my own self be true" and "I have a right to determine for myself what is right or wrong according to the dictates of my conscious", etc. Chaotic Good is probably the next most common, followed by either Neutral or Chaotic Evil. Rarely are players or their character really paragons of piety or strongly motivated by ideology though, and if the player isn't I tend to discourage them from playing a Champion because that almost invariably results in such a caricature of zeal and faith that you can append the 'Stupid' to the alignment. I do find though you can get there sometimes by saying things like, "What would Steve Rogers do?" In general though, I'm skeptical from long experience of most players personifying anything but themselves either in personality or beliefs, or even that most players are really interested in doing so.

 

[Celebrim]

If I think "Project X" is the worst plan ever and someone else enthusiastically endorses it, how do they get to that point? What in their view of the world around them, their concept of right and wrong, gives them such a dramatically different opinion? If alignment is external then the only understanding I get is that they support "Project X" because they belong to group or party Y.

I think it would be a mistake to think that everyone of the same alignment agrees on every issue or that everyone of different alignments have different views on an issue. In fact, some alignments are such that disagreements with members of your own alignment are probably more common than disagreements with members of other alignments. In the case of LE and CE, your own worst enemies with the strongest disagreements with you are probably other members of the same alignment. Lawfuls because you can have two hierarchies that broadly agree on the same thing like ("We should rule the world") but each contain a different set of members ("LE Dwarf Supremacists vs. LE Goblin Supremacists), and chaotic because it's every man for oneself and the most aggressive and ambitious and ruthless people you encounter are going to be other CE's who want the same things you do (climb to the top of the ladder, have the most toys, etc.).

Everyone with an alignment in a broad sense believes in the same ends and means, but the path to getting there could vary greatly depending on ideological differences that are lower than the broad overarching level of alignment. You can very much have two NG characters, one of whom believes strongly in protecting the innocent and the weak from evil in any form, and another who sympathizes with that but also believes that violence against natural living beings or persons is never the way forward and only increases the net evil in the end. And the two can recognize that the other is honorable, and respect them very deeply, and still passionately disagree with each other (in a compassionate, loving, respectful manner).

If you deal with something concrete like, "Should we have a minimum wage? And if so what should it be?" (and please don't debate this here, it's just an example where hope this disconnect should be obvious) the things that motivate a desire for society to have a minimum wage can be broadly disagreed over or broadly in common - for example a LE society might believe in basic equity to its members and a CN society might believe I shouldn't be taken advantage of and so if I shouldn't then others being persons shouldn't as well - but even if everyone involved agreed on the basic weal that was trying to be achieved, there would still be broad disagreement even between say LG's and other LG's and CG's and other CG's over whether such a program was wise and actually helped to achieve the desired ends of helping people. You could legitimately want to help people and not think such a program actually did so. To get into such fine distinctions we can't get there with just 9 alignments. We can from 9 alignments get into the motives behind what they want to achieve, but you could legitimately have a NE character that believes in a very high minimum wage because they believe (rightly or wrongly) that such a program would cause "the world to burn". And again, I don't want to debate here whether that character is right or wrong in their assertion, I just am trying to point out how I think your attempt to relate alignment directly to endorsement of specific courses of action overly simplifies things. Different people can come to different conclusions for any number of reasons as to what a particular course of action is actually going to achieve, just as different coaches might have different plans for how to play football doesn't imply some of them aren't trying to win the game.

 

[AlViking]

I think it would be a mistake to think that everyone of the same alignment agrees on every issue or that everyone of different alignments have different views on an issue. In fact, some alignments are such that disagreements with members of your own alignment are probably more common than disagreements with members of other alignments. In the case of LE and CE, your own worst enemies with the strongest disagreements with you are probably other members of the same alignment. Lawfuls because you can have two hierarchies that broadly agree on the same thing like ("We should rule the world") but each contain a different set of members ("LE Dwarf Supremacists vs. LE Goblin Supremacists), and chaotic because it's every man for oneself and the most aggressive and ambitious and ruthless people you encounter are going to be other CE's who want the same things you do (climb to the top of the ladder, have the most toys, etc.).

Everyone with an alignment in a broad sense believes in the same ends and means, but the path to getting there could vary greatly depending on ideological differences that are lower than the broad overarching level of alignment. You can very much have two NG characters, one of whom believes strongly in protecting the innocent and the weak from evil in any form, and another who sympathizes with that but also believes that violence against natural living beings or persons is never the way forward and only increases the net evil in the end. And the two can recognize that the other is honorable, and respect them very deeply, and still passionately disagree with each other (in a compassionate, loving, respectful manner).

If you deal with something concrete like, "Should we have a minimum wage? And if so what should it be?" (and please don't debate this here, it's just an example where hope this disconnect should be obvious) the things that motivate a desire for society to have a minimum wage can be broadly disagreed over or broadly in common - for example a LE society might believe in basic equity to its members and a CN society might believe I shouldn't be taken advantage of and so if I shouldn't then others being persons shouldn't as well - but even if everyone involved agreed on the basic weal that was trying to be achieved, there would still be broad disagreement even between say LG's and other LG's and CG's and other CG's over whether such a program was wise and actually helped to achieve the desired ends of helping people. You could legitimately want to help people and not think such a program actually did so. To get into such fine distinctions we can't get there with just 9 alignments. We can from 9 alignments get into the motives behind what they want to achieve, but you could legitimately have a NE character that believes in a very high minimum wage because they believe (rightly or wrongly) that such a program would cause "the world to burn". And again, I don't want to debate here whether that character is right or wrong in their assertion, I just am trying to point out how I think your attempt to relate alignment directly to endorsement of specific courses of action overly simplifies things. Different people can come to different conclusions for any number of reasons as to what a particular course of action is actually going to achieve, just as different coaches might have different plans for how to play football doesn't imply some of them aren't trying to win the game.

The example of supporting Project X was just that - a simple example. I don't think everyone of the same alignment agrees on everything any more than they have a common language. But there's a difference between someone in Evil Kingdom of No Good that fully supports the government and someone who is trapped there. Both may do many of the same things, the former thinking it's their glorious privilege and the latter hating it and looking at ways to subvert it. A third may hate the government because it interferes with the own evil agenda while a fourth may just not know how evil and no good their government truly is.

It's understanding why they respond as they do that I find potentially interesting, not what they do when they may only be doing it because they see no other option.

 

[Celebrim]

To me, it's far more interesting if you can have a character that can be kind, helpful and seeking to do good, yet is still aligned with evil through no choice of their own (or on the opposite end, is saddled with expectations they can't and don't want to live up to because sky daddy chose them at birth). Separating alignment from personality and morals means - to me - potential for more interesting stories involving alignment as the player leans into or strives against their ties to otherworldly forces, and with mechanics to back it up.

So alignment is always separated from personality to a very large degree. Mistaking alignment for personality is one of the most common mistakes of thinking about it. I mentioned earlier the miserly shop keeper that pinched every penny, never gave store credit, and weighed every grain and charged for it as being an example of a personality that seemed to imply alignment but doesn't in fact, but we could have a longer discussion on that if necessary. You can have personalities that are at odds with the stereotypical expectations of the alignment. There is nothing wrong with an obsessively meticulous and organized CN for example, or a slovenly scatterbrained LN. There might be internal tension between members of that alignment because the person isn't outwardly living up to the stereotype, but that is just interesting and not proof the person isn't of that alignment.

However, even more interesting to me here is your double use of the word "alignment" to mean two things - allied with (or serving) and in congruence with (or exemplifying).

I firmly believe that "alignment" in D&D terms means the latter and while I agree with the idea that you aren't always serving your own alignment is interesting, I don't think it's necessary to even document that much less that that is the intention of alignment on the character sheet.

Belkar Bitterleaf is an evil little git, but he happens to be broadly allied with the good guys. This does not make his alignment "Chaotic Good" just because he's working with team good. Rather, for personal reasons of his own (and all of Belkar's reasons are personal reasons of his own) he just wants to spite certain groups or individuals and save the world for himself. There is no reason why a CE individual should be naturally allied with other CE individuals, and indeed there is every reason for one CE individual to hate and fear above all others another CE individual because in their own mind those are the ones that "get it" and are hardest to trick, use, and exploit. Those are the ones nearest to the top of the heap or who will make it to the top of the heap whom you'll end up in most competition with.

Likewise from the perspective of a deity, you can very much have pawns on the board that don't represent you or don't believe you or follow you who are nonetheless manipulated into doing your work whatever that happens to be. A character could legitimately believe, "I'm doing this to serve myself" and only discover that not only did what they do not profit themselves, but in fact ended up ironically profiting others more than themselves. That wouldn't be surprising and you wouldn't need to write that down on a character sheet even if you could imagine how to document that sort of complexity.

Thus while I agree that the stories you want to see play out are interesting, I don't agree that that means alignment on the character sheet needs to refer to anything but the morals or ethos of the character.

 

[Celebrim]

It's understanding why they respond as they do that I find potentially interesting, not what they do when they may only be doing it because they see no other option.

At a very broad high level, if they are doing things because they see no other options they are probably neutral.

 

[AlViking]

At a very broad high level, if they are doing things because they see no other options they are probably neutral.

Being told "Do this or your entire family dies in front of you and then you die as well" can be pretty convincing. Then again, I don't look at alignment as being a hard limit on what people will do, it's a general viewpoint and some will be more driven by their alignment than others.

In other words, someone may be lawful good for the most part or they may be LAWFUL GOOD TO THE MAX. But few people are absolutely one thing or another similar to how in D&D strength can really have many aspects but the game just has one number.

 

[AnotherGuy]

My problem with that take is why even have alignment if you're just describing personal morality or viewpoints? We already do that in real life without the benefit or need for such a crutch. The only way alignment, as a game mechanic, makes sense to me is if it has meaning outside of personally held views. I'd rather alignment be something that can be chosen or is chosen for you through circumstance, and that it have no bearing at all on individual behavior or morality unless it makes sense for it to (e.g. a patron may expect certain deeds, and a god may restrict certain behaviors).

To me, it's far more interesting if you can have a character that can be kind, helpful and seeking to do good, yet is still aligned with evil through no choice of their own (or on the opposite end, is saddled with expectations they can't and don't want to live up to because sky daddy chose them at birth). Separating alignment from personality and morals means - to me - potential for more interesting stories involving alignment as the player leans into or strives against their ties to otherworldly forces, and with mechanics to back it up.

I believe there is value in these ideas for storytelling some of which I'm testing out in our campaign...fleshing out the rules as I go.

Chaotic Good aligned, PC agreed to be placed under a Geas by a dragon which spell requires from him to perform 5 great acts of Good.

PC agreed to enter into a contract with the devil, does this activate the Geas? Their perceived alignment has not changed.
I decided it wasn't a good act (table agreed) but I did not want to decide if that activated the negative condition of the Geas.
Instead I'm leaving it to the dice (we haven't rolled yet).
So, we have 1 questionable act, PC will roll a 1d20. On a roll of 1 the negative actions of the Geas will kick in and his PC will take the damage.

PC made the deal by signing on the contact, the contract being a Damned Wretch (BG: DiA), which is also not a good act.
So, PC is now up to 2 questionable acts (table agreed), roll a 1d20, on a roll of a 2 or less the negative actions of the Geas will kick in.

So, the idea is the more questionable acts they perform the greater the chance of the Geas punishing him.
My thinking is the only way to decrease this counter would be to start performing these great acts of Good.

But what does this do for the PC's alignment?
Nothing I suspect. The PC is still Chaotic Good.
How many questionable acts can one do before it affects one's Alignment?
Perhaps instead of Alignment the effects are carried over to one Traits, Bonds, Ideals or Flaws?
I'm still mulling over the mechanical interplay that should exist. I do not have answers I'm happy with yet.

What I do not want to do is become the sole arbiter of right and wrong as per the earlier editions. I prefer the table input.

 

[payn]

Being told "Do this or your entire family dies in front of you and then you die as well" can be pretty convincing. Then again, I don't look at alignment as being a hard limit on what people will do, it's a general viewpoint and some will be more driven by their alignment than others.

In other words, someone may be lawful good for the most part or they may be LAWFUL GOOD TO THE MAX. But few people are absolutely one thing or another similar to how in D&D strength can really have many aspects but the game just has one number.

Yeah, gun to head moments are interesting in a sense of testing a character and their alignment. They are not interesting if the GM is doing it to screw somebody with morality gotchas.

 

[payn]

For some time ive been examining my interest in RPGs in general and how I may relate to the average gamer. I am not a forever GM, although I love to GM. I also love to be a player too. I have a strong interest in characters in a wide variety and how they interact together. Culture, factions, politics, settings, etc.. For many players, they want to inhabit a single character and live a fantasy as that character. where as I tend to focus more on interacting with the world through a character. Im more interested in changing the face of politics and uncovering vast conspiracies and inner workings than I am gaining individual power or living out a fantasy. Which is why I lean on human and "Tolkien" like species as im not really that interested in being a cat man or butterfly person. Im not in search of out of body experience, more of out of body agency experience.

I think thats part of why I love alignment so much because its an examination of culture and individuals part in it more than a personality dive. As a GM im always considering how the players will take the stage, interact, react, be proactive, etc.. This drive manifests in my play too. Where some GMs have a problem with their players not doing anything with their characters, as with me they have the problem with me not being satisfied with the amount of things my character can do! Alignment is a big picture philosophy to me, and not a personal behavior dictator but at best a predictor. The internal struggle may be real, but my interest lies in the external experience. YMMV.