D&D General Why do people like Alignment?

[Clint_L]

If one plays with bad faith players, then I suppose you can't trust them to interpret their character correctly, especially their alignment, so then I guess it's up to the DM...who I assume is never acting in bad faith and has some measure of infallibility.

How can a player interpret THEIR character anything but correctly?

 

[Pamphylian]

Having Good and Evil as tangible forces is a fun, flavorful, gameable thing. You can detect it, of course, but I think its at is most impactful when a PC or NPC's alignment is forcibly changed, through behavior or magic. It's fun to have mechanics to lay on top of that sort of stuff and see the consequences play out. Is it a sophisticated model of human morality, maybe not, but it is fun to figure out what precisely what good, evil, order and chaos mean in your setting, and I don't see any evidence of morality becoming more sophisticated or interesting in systems that have moved away from alignment. It's easily ignorable if you don't need it, but fun and easy if you do.

 

[CreamCloud0]

How can a player interpret THEIR character anything but correctly?

by being too close to be an objective evaluator.

 

[kermit4karate]

If one plays with bad faith players, then I suppose you can't trust them to interpret their character correctly, especially their alignment, so then I guess it's up to the DM...who I assume is never acting in bad faith and has some measure of infallibility.

Or how about...all humans are flawed creatures who at times act in bad faith? Yes, this includes DMs, but we still have sheriffs and police in real life, right?

I think even among a group of well-intentioned people there has to be someone in the group whose responsibility it is to keep the peace and adjudicate decisions (here we call them "mods").

I know you didn't say otherwise so I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but I bet we both would agree that good people sometimes commit crimes and act in bad faith. They aren't a different breed of human.

 

[Eric V]

How can a player interpret THEIR character anything but correctly?

Don't ask me, I'm not the one saying they can't. Apparently we just have to trust our DMs, because we are in danger of not knowing better (a flaw they are not prone to as much, it seems).

 

[Eric V]

but I bet we both would agree that good people sometimes commit crimes and act in bad faith. They aren't a different breed of human.

Agreed. I just think DMs are likewise not a different breed of human, and so the idea that they have final say over the character, even if the rest of the group see it differently is...interesting.

 

[kermit4karate]

Agreed. I just think DMs are likewise not a different breed of human, and so the idea that they have final say over the character, even if the rest of the group see it differently is...interesting.

Because the DM's role is different, right? They effectively are the judge, jury and (figurative) executioner. Even in a creative endeavor like a sketch comedy show (let's say SNL), there's still going to be someone like Lorne Michaels who oversees things. Otherwise, it's chaos.

I'm not saying a group of people can't all come to consensus on their own sometimes, but I am saying that they won't come to consensus all the time without a DM.

 

[pemerton]

it's a gaming psychology thing i think, people tend not to consider the real consequences when they go about killing and stealing in games, video or tabletop, in real life you don't go into people's houses, rummage through their cupboards and take their stuff home with you, you don't try to strongarm shopkeepers for deals, you don't murder muggers in cold blood on the street if they try to take your stuff, but people overlook these acts because they are playing a game and it is expected of the genre, they don't tally these acts on their moral scales and can be pretty bad people without even beginning to consider themselves 'evil'

I don't see any evidence of morality becoming more sophisticated or interesting in systems that have moved away from alignment.

I don't think alignment contributes any sophistication to moral thinking in play, for the reason that I already posted in this thread: it characterises all the major moral outlooks/approaches as good, and hence has nothing to say about disagreements between them.

In my own play experience, I found that abandoning GM-adjudicated alignment did open up space, in play, for more sophistication in how players thought about what might be the right thing for their PC to do.

I would never, not in any of my games, ever allow the players at the table to determine another player's alignment based on a vote or collective rule. That's not how I operate. As the GM, I would listen and observe, take opinions under advisement, but the table isn't a democracy in my world. Sometimes a few players may agree with each other and say, "Ooh! Yeah, that sounds great. We decide that Grog is now chaotic neutral."

Yeah, no, sorry, haha. That's funny but I don't. Grog remains chaotic good. Now, everyone, roll initiative.

what a PC says and how the PC plays aren't necessarily in alignment (haha, couldn't resist). If the PC is clearly roleplaying Jorgund as a chaotic good ranger, just straight down the line according to the definition, just because Jorgund's PC and his pals around the table like the sound of "chaotic neutral" doesn't mean they're playing Jorgund that way.

If alignment is going to matter, it has to actually mean something, and ultimately what it means is up to the GM at each table to determine.

The scenarios described here seem pretty strange to me - the players are making up that Grog or Jorgund is chaotic neutral because "that sounds great" and they "like the sound" of it; yet the GM is seriously adjudicating the meaning of alignment. That seems to be a pretty big mis-match in approaches to and expectations of play!

by being too close to be an objective evaluator.

But why do we need objective/impartial evaluation? Why does it matter how a character's alignment is classified? (I know why it mattered in D&D/AD&D as played 45+ years ago; but I don't think that approach is very common today.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Or how about...all humans are flawed creatures who at times act in bad faith? Yes, this includes DMs, but we still have sheriffs and police in real life, right?

If the GM is guaranteed to occasionally act in bad faith, should we not prepare for that inevitability, rather than shrugging and saying, "What can we do?"

I think even among a group of well-intentioned people there has to be someone in the group whose responsibility it is to keep the peace and adjudicate decisions (here we call them "mods").

Who is the person with the responsibility to keep the peace and adjudicate decisions in a married couple? Who is the person with the responsibility to keep the peace and adjudicate decisions in a group of three friends who play a video game together on weekends? When going to a restaurant with (say) four friends to celebrate, whose responsibility is it to keep the peace and adjudicate decisions about who will eat what dish?

This assertion requires the idea that all relationships have a hierarchy. That's simply not correct. Some do not--and they address concerns in a different way. Plenty of ways people interact with each other do not have a hierarchy, but they manage to survive and even thrive without an absolute authority dictating things for everyone else. We can, in fact, do something similar in TTRPGs--even if we do allow one person more authority than others.

I know you didn't say otherwise so I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but I bet we both would agree that good people sometimes commit crimes and act in bad faith. They aren't a different breed of human.

Nor are GMs. Entrusting them with absolute authority, then, is simply inviting them to use it in the--as you yourself allege--completely inevitable event that they act in bad faith.

Because the DM's role is different, right? They effectively are the judge, jury and (figurative) executioner. Even in a creative endeavor like a sketch comedy show (let's say SNL), there's still going to be someone like Lorne Michaels who oversees things. Otherwise, it's chaos.

Again: there are myriad forms of human grouping where we don't have this, and yet life isn't constantly beset by "chaos". It's just not true that it's "otherwise chaos". People can and do work out their differences. And if they absolutely can't--if consensus is truly completely impossible--then what makes you think a single person shouting everyone else down would somehow guarantee a fix anyway? If cohesion is already breaking down, what makes the fact that one person wears the pointy hat (crown, viking hat, whatever) magically able to get folks to calm down? You still have to have that foundation of agreement to cooperate--which means your protection against "chaos" already required a foundation of consensus anyway.

I'm not saying a group of people can't all come to consensus on their own sometimes, but I am saying that they won't come to consensus all the time without a DM.

I'm not saying that a single leader can't enforce decisions on a group sometimes, but I am saying that they won't be able to enforce decisions all the time without consensus first.

Two can play at this game--and it is the simple fact that government derives its power from the consent of the governed.

 

[soviet]

I wish there were any current events that showed the problems with giving one person ultimate power but I'm struggling to think of any examples.