D&D General Why do people like Alignment?

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mod Note:

Peeps, let’s dial back the hyperbolic rhetoric. Saying “no”- as a player or GM- isn’t tyranny.

Let’s just drop that as an accusation, please.

 

[payn]

I hated that. I have always liked alignment in the way it makes D&D a morally realistic universe, while not actually settling the question of what the "best" way to behave is. It's clear that demons and devils are Evil, essentially; yet it's interesting not every act has to be an evil one. Alignment opens the door for smiting, corruption, blessing, and so forth. I don't like spells or abilities that make detecting an alignment trivial, or the idea a human person could be absolutely assigned an alignment. Categories are for outsiders, fiends and elementals; mortal creatures should be a beautiful admixture.

I changed things slightly in my game. Detect alignment only worked on things that had a strong enough aura. So, obviously outsiders, but you had to be deeply invested into an alignment to detect. Like the type that worshiped alignment aligned deities, used aligned magic spells and items, and were devoted to it. Then, you would detect as the alignment. This was to stop the pally that detects everyone they meet type stuff. (Though, that had mostly disappeared by my late 3E/PF1 days).

 

[pemerton]

I probably shouldn't have said 3.e was the turning point because it was a new edition...it was more that a lot more players were in contact with one another at that time thanks to the internet. Suddenly people were sharing notes about, well, everything.

Just one example of what this brought about: if you could time travel back to those halcyon days, just about any DM advice thread will inevitably lead to "are you running the game as written and observing WBL?", leading a lot of people to think that not running the game as written was wrong.

Suddenly players were arguing with their DM's about their rulings and house rules, and especially "why is my character poor? I should have +1 armor by now!". There are lots of other things going on at this time that threw gasoline on the fire, and players feeling like their DM's weren't playing fair vs. DM's who felt like their authority was being encroached was suddenly very out in the open.

I see this as a type of gameplay mismatch:

* The 3E rules - for better or worse - present themselves as a game for playing combat-oriented, dungeon-assaulting fantasy. The wealth-by-level rules are a component of this. (There are well-known flaws in the design, including the tension between NPC wealth, NPC opponents and player wealth-by-level - even Gygax was aware of this issue back in the D-series of modules! - but the design aspiration is fairly clear.)

* Some (perhaps many) players want to play that game.

* Some (perhaps many) GMs want to play a different game, and in the game they want to play wealth-by-level isn't a big concern.


A lot of digital ink seems to be spilled arguing about who is right and who is wrong in their gameplay desires; as if it's somehow degenerate to expect to play the game the rulebooks present, rather than some other game of "explore the GM's world and/or follow the GM's story".

 

[AlViking]

I think the answer to the thread title's question's has now emerged:

Q: Why do people like alignment?
A: So they can assign Neutral Evil as the default alignment of all DMs.

I thought DMs were Chaotic Evil? Always changing things on a whim with no logic or explanation. They cackle in glee as they ignore the pleas for mercy from their poor oppressed subjects crying out in dismay at another ruling designed to cause the maximum amount of pain. The piteous players should, of course be shackled to the table with no chance to flee, trapped by the ruthless tyrant.

Edit - we all play for different reasons. Can't we just accept that different people have different experiences, outlooks and preferences?

 

[The Sigil]

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying things here, but it's the internet, why not?

I like alignment; however, I think it works best when used in one of the following situations:

1. The Players and the DM are almost always in agreement about what "morality" means so when a character (PC or NPC) commits and act and the character's reasoning is fairly obvious (or can be explained), the players and the DM agree about whether the act is "good" or "evil" or "lawful" or "good" (e.g., a "good" character may justifiably commit "evil" acts in some circumstances, such as being coerced, while an "evil" character may justifiably commit "good" acts in some circumstances, such as deception/building an alibi for later evil acts).

2. The Players and DM trust each other to "play reasonably fair" and when there is a dispute as to whether a character (again, PC or NPC) of alignment X would plausibly commit an act, there is a discussion about the dispute, usually over PC actions, with the resolution being either "the DM agrees the PC would plausibly commit the act" or "the PC agrees that the PC would not plausibly commit that act and an "alignment change" will occur either immediately or in the future if the PC continues with similar acts).

Generally it fails when the Players and DM disagree about "what is moral" and whether acts a character of a certain alignment are appropriate to that alignment... and after discussion are unable to come to an agreement. At its extreme, this manifests as one party or both being labelled "controlling DM fiat" or "obnoxious wangrod rule lawyer player."

I would further posit that "morality (and thus alignment) is a complex/adult subject" and this last situation is less a failure of alignment as a system (since it's almost impossible to legislate morality at the table in a way everyone will agree with) and more a failure of communication between players and DM... in exactly the same way that a game that incorporates other potentially problematic elements such as horror, torture, racism, romance, sex, or other similar complex/adult subject is a failure if an agreement cannot be reached on how the material should be presented... in other words "alignment in your world" can work great... but it is probably one more subject that should be covered during "Session Zero" in order to work properly.

 

[The Sigil]

Peeps, let’s dial back the hyperbolic rhetoric. Saying “no”- as a player or GM- isn’t tyranny.

I don't really want to debate the moderative merits of this point or clash with the Moderators here, that's not what this post is about.

It is about "saying no" in a game. It's not tyranny. If your DM has created a world with, say, no dwarves in it, just because "dwarf" is a race in the PHB doesn't mean you have to be allowed to play a dwarf.

I'm a fan of Mark Rosewater's lessons in game design, and Lesson #18 is: "Restrictions breed creativity." A DM that always says "no" to everything is of course problematic. But a DM that says "no" to certain things isn't stifling your creativity... the DM is simply redirecting it.

As an example, I like to have a conversation with my players during session zero about Counterspell. I point out to them that while it's great fun to Counterspell the BBEG's cool finisher, it's also a feels-bad for them to have their own super spell Countered... and that I believe what's sauce for the Goose is sauce for the Gander... I tell them I recommend that we ban Counterspell and offer them several options (e.g., DC20's Spell Duel system or "Spellcraft check to recognize the spell being cast in order to Counter it" or "no counterspells at all"), so it's not a hard "no" - it's something we agree on - but there are other things I might say "no" to outright (e.g., if I'm DMing a Bronze Age game, I'm saying "no" to gunpowder ... and there isn't going to be a debate; if I'm DMing with someone I know was a victim of sexual assault, I'm going to say "no" to problematic sexual content... and there isn't going to be a debate - mostly to save that person from having to re-live it even in a debate).

If I tell you, "no, you can't do X but you can still do A through W" I don't think it's tyrannical... but if you refuse to try A through W because you want to X and nobody can tell you otherwise, perhaps YOU are the one being tyrannical. Tyranny isn't about "who says no to one thing (or a few things)" but will say yes to many (other) things. Tyranny is about "who will only say yes to one thing" and will say no to all other things.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I don't really want to debate the moderative merits of this point or clash with the Moderators here, that's not what this post is about.

Mod Note:

Your account goes back to 2002- you should know better than quoting moderation posts in thread, which is against the TOS. However, even though you technically violated the rule, your intent was not to challenge moderation- the spirit of the rule.

So I can’t just let it slide without at least clarifying communication and asking you to avoid doing so in the future.

That said, please do as I asked everyone to do here- drop the hyperbolic discussion of “tyranny”.