Why I Ditched Alignments

[ptolemy18]

I decided to move this out of the "Typical Player Behavior or Bad Role-Playing" thread...

There's nothing in the alignment system to preclude this. Still, if you want to ditch alignment, that's fair enough.

Actually, the alignment system *does* pretty much preclude the possibility of cutthroat realistic politics, if you think through the implications. The problem is the magic factor. Obviously before any important negotiation or diplomacy there would be "Detect Evil" and "Zone of Truth" and "Detect Lies"-type spells cast on both sides. Clearly if one side is aware that the other side is "evil", they aren't going to trust them. If some politician is "evil", no one is going to vote for him. And while magic works both ways -- i.e., you COULD have people using "Undetectable Alignment" left and right -- it is a lot easier to detect alignment than to conceal alignment, using D&D3.X rules as written.

Basically, you would have to divide the world up into "good" and "evil" governments and the whole thing becomes ridiculous by any real-world standard (although perfectly acceptable for your typical fantasy campaign). In the real world, people *can* be good and faithful to their friends and family, and horribly evil and treacherous and vicious to their enemies.

Frankly, if people are even *aware* of the fact that there is such a thing as an "objective" good and evil, it becomes pretty much impossible for real-world politics and behavior to exist. Of course, people *want* to behave in a "good" fashion, but it's not easy.

(By the way... I know that someone out there reading this thread is going to argue that I'm taking an unnecessarily cynical view of human behavior, so let me pre-emptively say one thing: read a history book. Any history book.)

HOWEVER -- I'm not saying that I think alignments don't have a place in D&D in general. On the contrary. I think they do their job fine. I've run most of my campaigns using alignments, and I think they're perfectly suited for most heroic fantasy campaigns. However, for my current campaign, I wanted a more "realistic" level of backstabbing and betrayal and mixed allegiances. And thus, alignments had to go....

Jason

 

[LostSoul]

It's possible, if Evil is sneaky.

Cleric: "Don't vote for him! My God declares he is Evil!"

Politician: "Don't listen to him! His God is Evil!"

Whom do you believe?

So then the commoner says to himself, "Well, I don't know who's evil or not, but I know that one guy's church healed my wife when she got the pox. So I'll go with them." Of course, the Evil church healed his wife just to pass themselves off as Good. So the commoner sides with the Evil church and they sacrifice the Good Politician to the Gods.

 

[Hjorimir]

I ditched alignment in my game because it utterly fails to encapsulate the complexities of human emotions, desires, ambitions, morals, and actions. Other than that, it is a fantastic mechanic!

Instead, I have what I call mien and it is really only used for characters with divine connections. The miens are: Discord, Grace, Order, and Taint and a character may need to act within those boundaries in order to maintain the ability to channel divine power (i.e. exalted feats, spells, and special abilities).

You see I cannot understand the logic of being beholden to some mystical thing called alignment. But gods, on the other hand, now that makes sense to me.

 

[delericho]

Before I comment further, allow me to just say that I respect your decision to remove alignments, and acknowledge that doing so does change the feel of the game, which is what you intended.

Actually, the alignment system *does* pretty much preclude the possibility of cutthroat realistic politics, if you think through the implications. The problem is the magic factor. Obviously before any important negotiation or diplomacy there would be "Detect Evil" and "Zone of Truth" and "Detect Lies"-type spells cast on both sides.

Three things:

1) Of the spells you named, only Detect Evil is affected by the presence or absence of alignments. I'm not convinced you really get realistic politics with either of the other two spells in effect - Detect Lies in particular is likely to impact on such things hugely.

2) You're making the assumption that the use of these spells is standard. Since the use of such things is pretty obvious, I'm not convinced it would be. After all, the diplomats in the real world don't take polygraph tests as a matter of course.

3) Cutthroat politics doesn't really conjure an image of lots of good people being involved in the negotiations. If all the people at the table are evil, then detect evil is less of an issue. Besides, since when did our diplomats trust one another ?

Clearly if one side is aware that the other side is "evil", they aren't going to trust them. If some politician is "evil", no one is going to vote for him. And while magic works both ways -- i.e., you COULD have people using "Undetectable Alignment" left and right -- it is a lot easier to detect alignment than to conceal alignment, using D&D3.X rules as written.

Basically, you would have to divide the world up into "good" and "evil" governments and the whole thing becomes ridiculous by any real-world standard (although perfectly acceptable for your typical fantasy campaign). In the real world, people *can* be good and faithful to their friends and family, and horribly evil and treacherous and vicious to their enemies.

It's very difficult to make any meaningful comment here without stepping into real-world politics. That said, I shall try.

I'm strongly inclined to the view that a group that is good and faithful to their friends and family but horribly evil and treacherous and vicious to their enemies are, in fact, not Good by alignment standards. At best, such a group is Neutral, but I'm further inclined to believe that Evil is probably a better label.

I'm further inclined to the view that a realistic campaign would not feature many (if any) Good people, creatures or governments. The need of a government to do what is best for their people is almost certain to lead to the sacrifice of the good of other nations, which is not a mark of a Good alignment.

Frankly, if people are even *aware* of the fact that there is such a thing as an "objective" good and evil, it becomes pretty much impossible for real-world politics and behavior to exist. Of course, people *want* to behave in a "good" fashion, but it's not easy.

I disagree. For many centuries of our history, the notion that there might not be a single God was considered outlandish, and at times punishable by death. People simply accepted the existence of an objective measure of godd and evil. The only element that was missing was a reliable measure of detecting 'good' and 'evil'. And yet this obviously did not hinder the development of realistic politics.

(Moderators: I hope that's acceptable comment. I've refrained from commenting on the *correctness* of such a view. Still, if I've overstepped the line, I apologise.)

(By the way... I know that someone out there reading this thread is going to argue that I'm taking an unnecessarily cynical view of human behavior, so let me pre-emptively say one thing: read a history book. Any history book.)

I have. I didn't see a lot of evidence of Good, especially in governments.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Clerics of Crebar in my world call detect chaos "detect evil". The church of Ethi in general opposes, on grounds of personal liberty, the use of detect alignment and detect thoughts; there's no agreement on their absolute meaning. Some LG orders make no distinction between detect evil and detect chaos.

I just don't see how alignments are a problem.

 

[ptolemy18]

1) Of the spells you named, only Detect Evil is affected by the presence or absence of alignments. I'm not convinced you really get realistic politics with either of the other two spells in effect - Detect Lies in particular is likely to impact on such things hugely.

2) You're making the assumption that the use of these spells is standard. Since the use of such things is pretty obvious, I'm not convinced it would be. After all, the diplomats in the real world don't take polygraph tests as a matter of course..

Those are both good points. I guess "Detect Lies" and "Zone of Truth" and the other mind-reading spells are just as important. Then it becomes more like a war of technology, though (which side has the most powerful magician who can detect or obscure detection?).

As far as what's standard or not, I'm assuming a fairly "standard" 3.X level of magic use, which makes it seem, to me, that any really powerful person would have access to mid-level magic (in the form of henchmen & allies if not their own magic).

In terms of what kind of historical setting I'm trying to replicate, I'm going for an Ancient World/Greece/Alexander the Great/Rome sort of thing.

Jason

 

[delericho]

As far as what's standard or not, I'm assuming a fairly "standard" 3.X level of magic use, which makes it seem, to me, that any really powerful person would have access to mid-level magic (in the form of henchmen & allies if not their own magic).

Sorry, just to clarify: when commenting on what would be standard in negotiations, I wasn't necessarily referring to the availability of detection spells, but rather their use. It strikes me that opening negotiations with a casting of Detect Lies would be akin at asking a modern diplomat to wear a lie detector - it's possible, but it's just not done. At best, it would be considered terribly insulting.

 

[LostSoul]

What is Detect Lies? Discern Lies won't really work so well - nobody will be aware that you've got it up and going (unless they have Arcane Sight or something similar), but the duration is hardly long enough for negotiations.

I imagine that there would be some kind of treaty/tradition worked out for these things. Maybe both sides would agree to working in an Anti-Magic Field. No Detect Thoughts or Zones of Truth or any magic of that kind at all.

[Hmm... you could use proxies for negotiations using the Message spell. Two nobodies talk to each other, then Message what the other guy said back to the real diplomat.]

Of course, people would always be trying to circumvent these things.

 

[Nyeshet]

I removed AL, but I added in Sanctity / Taint - with the former associated with deities (regardless of what their AL would be in a system using AL), and the latter associated with fiends, aberrations, and some undead (ghouls, vampires, and others curst with a need to consume life essense). It works pretty well, and it does make things both more realistic and more complex.

My main problem with AL was its ambiguity. It left a lot of room for GMs to state it one way or another. One GM I played under stated that my NG character should probably be LG - despite the character's often disregard for local laws. I just happened to play that character as following a set of principles absolutely - regardless of whether they were in line with (or even counter to) local law. Another GM I played under was strongly into another view of Law / Chaos - Law was not a matter of personal order, but instead a matter of focus upon societal traditions, solidarity, and heirarchy.

Still another GM I played under told the paladin-player (not me, another player) that his Detect Evil was seeing shades of gray in just about everyone around him. The player was worried until he was told that these were mostly minor sins: cheating a customer a bit, not attending a local religious festival, that type of thing. If any had been dark gray or black he would have cause to worry, he was told. Another GM I played under had a very absolutist view of Good / Evil: you simply were or you were not, shades of gray did not exist.

It just seemed to me that there was too much room for personal views to cloud the issue.

 

[sword-dancer]

Basically, you would have to divide the world up into "good" and "evil" governments and the whole thing becomes ridiculous by any real-world standard (although perfectly acceptable for your typical fantasy campaign). In the real world, people *can* be good and faithful to their friends and family, and horribly evil and treacherous and vicious to their enemies.

How many roman empereors would you call good?
Augustus? Tiberius? Domitian?