Why I don't like alignment in fantasy RPGs

[korjik]

I dont think anyone would think that a mugging is lawful.

I dont think anyone would think attacking a city because they wont take some refugees is good.

Which are both things that came up in the thread that inspired this one.

Believe it or not, there is a reason he is called a Dungeon Master instead of Dungeon guy who does all the work and dosent actually get to play. He is the one who adjudicates the rules of the game. To take Umbran's example, the DM is the one who asseses the damage for falling just as much as whether or not a paladin is acting acording to his code. If you dont like the DMs assessing those penalties, dont jump off cliffs and dont play a class that is specifically designed around a specific alignment.

 

[shadzar]

What governs the paladin's behaviour is the player's conception of what is lawful and good. Not the GM's. If you assume that your players can't be trusted in this respect - that they have no interest in actually playing an honourable holy warrior - then (in my opinion) you have problems at your game table which alignment rules won't solve.

I have zero clue where you get the idea that trusting the players or not trusting them has anything to do with alignment.

All choices of the players are their own. even as in the real world, what people feel is right or wrong is the individual to decide. The problems then come with what society views those actions to be.

The GM must decide if that lawful or good changes because they are the one controlling not only the society, but the deity that grants to or takes away those gifts from the players.

When you start playing you accept the GM has the right to make those decisions as with many other things in order to provide the game to you.

Alignment isnt hard and I never really understood what problems people had with it. You just have to realize which side of the looking glass you are on as you decide which action comply or counter parts of an alignment.

Engywook: Next is the Magic Mirror Gate. Atreyu has to face his true self.
Falcor: So what? That won't be too hard for him.
Engywook: Oh, that's what everyone thinks! But kind people find out that they are cruel. Brave men discover that they are really cowards! Confronted by their true selves, most men run away screaming!

 

[Krensky]

Personally, I like Fantasy Craft's system.

Alignments are specific to a belief system or organization.

So in my Rise of the Runelords game the Priest of Iomedae has Alignment (Iomedae) rather then Lawful Good.

The effect of this is that it determines, some of his class skills, his ritual weapon, what Paths he has access to, and what he summons if he takes that ability. I'm also using the Warring Universe quality, so they also get an insight bonus against NPCs of Alignments she's opposed to.

I've found less debates about a specific power's doctrine (would Iomedae approve of this course of action?) then I had over the ethics or morality of any given choice (is this action lawful or good?).

As an example, here's the (reformatted) line from my notes for Iomedae:

Alignment: Iomedae
Skills: Athletics, Investigate, Search, Tactics
Paths: Good, Heroism, Light, Order, War
Weapon: Longsword
Avatar: Guardian Angel
Opposed Alignments: Asmodeus (although I keep debating this, hasn't come up yet), Lamashtu, Norgorber, Rovagug, Urgathoa, Zon-Kuthon

 

[Mallus]

Alignment is one of those tools in the D&D toolbox I never had much use for. I prefer to create my characters personalities, motivations, and belief systems outside the kind of abstract, semi-formalized framework that alignment represents. It's not that I find alignment to be an impediment to creating interesting characters, just unnecessary.

I currently play a paladin in 4e. He considers himself "Good", though most of the inhabitants of the setting, and for that matter, at least one of the our DM's, probably consider him "Evil". C'est la guerre. Either way, he's an amusing piece of work, and, at least by the traditionally low standards of a D&D campaign, he's a good fictional character. Which is what I'm after when playing RPGs: creating good fictional characters that I use to overcome in-game challenges and beat up imaginary monsters (or heroes).

Alignment systems don't help me do this. Though I understand for other people, they do, and that's cool.

Another thing I dislike about alignment systems is they ask players to figure out their characters moral outlook before they play them. I like to develop my PC's 'alignment' as I play, as my character interacts with the game environment. Sure, I have some inkling about who they are and what they believe at the start, but inevitably that changes over the course of the campaign, and I can't for the life of me see the benefit of discouraging what amounts to character development (not that the more recent incarnations of the game do this, but AD&D did, at least by the RAW. For example, an evil AD&D PC would lose XP by playing our their redemption).

 

[Alzrius]

For people looking to remove alignment from their Pathfinder game, I wrote a three-part guide on how to do so over on my blog:

Removing Alignment From Pathfinder - Part One: Classes

Removing Alignment From Pathfinder - Part Two: Magic

Removing Alignment From Pathfinder - Part Three: Monsters

 

[Wiseblood]

So in my Rise of the Runelords game the Priest of Iomedae has Alignment (Iomedae) rather then Lawful Good.

I've found less debates about a specific power's doctrine (would Iomedae approve of this course of action?) then I had over the ethics or morality of any given choice (is this action lawful or good?).

Chicken and the egg here. Anything not covered by writings about Iomedae, the divine alignment would likeley be consulted. Wouldn't it?

 

[prosfilaes]

This is exactly the position I am objecting to. In practice, it means that a divine PC (at least where that divine power is dependent on the goodwill of the gods - a notion that 4e, for example, expressly abandons, and that is not very prominent in Rolemaster) is partly played by the GM - because the GM plays the gods, and the divine PC has to comport with the gods' (=GM's) wishes to avoid being mechanically hosed.

So in fact it's not a case of the player getting to play his/her PC. S/he has to share with the GM.

That's part of the flavor of a D&D priest, and it's independent of alignment; Eberron did away with it, and you can certainly do away with alignment without doing away with it. Frankly, it's part of the fun part of playing a priest to me. You actually are playing someone connected to a god, and well "There is one thing / I mean everything has a price / I really hate to repeat myself / But nothing's free". If you don't want to play a true worshiper of the flower fairy god, or the god of suffering, then don't.

And it's part of the world that sometimes you have to behave in certain ways to get NPCs to work with you; if the king sends you on a quest to get his daughter from the orcs, he may not reward you if you killed every peasant between here and there, or if you traded a major artifact to the orcs in exchange for the girl.

 

[The Human Target]

Why 3? Good and Bad is all that is needed. Even animals can be divided between Noble and Sinister in settings where The Conflict is the main driving force in the world.

I like a campaign world in which most people are just trying to get through the day without leaning to far towards good or evil.

Like the real world IMO.

 

[Krensky]

Chicken and the egg here. Anything not covered by writings about Iomedae, the divine alignment would likeley be consulted. Wouldn't it?

I'm not sure I follow. Maybe I didn't explain it well enough.

If I ever had need to stat up a honest to goddess actual avatar of Iomedae (rather then a servant or proxy, which is what that Avatar entry there represents) I'd give her the NPC Quality Interest: Alignment (Iomedae). I might even 'cheat' (since you're only supposed to have one Alignment) and give her Alignment (Aroden) as well.

In Fantasy Craft terms, for this campaign, there is no Law, Good, or Lawful Good Alignments. Just the deities and other appropriate powers or philosophies.

If it's not covered explicitly by the dozen or so pages on The Inheritor, there's more then enough to figure it out.

Also, there's alignments aren't proscriptive. You only take an alignment if you want one or if you're playing a class that requires one, ie a Priest, a Paladin, a Monk, a Spirit Singer, or a Sage that takes the appropriate Priest abilities for Cross-Training, or an Arcane caster who wants to use the Spell Conversion: Alignment feat. If you don't spend the Interest on an Alignment, it doesn't effect you. You don't gain any of the benefits (typically none), but you also don't suffer the drawbacks (typically more then none) either.

If you don't 'follow' your Alignment, what happens then is a discussion between the player and GM and potentially a Crisis of Faith subplot.

 

[pemerton]

If the GM is doing the job properly, the player knew pretty darned well what the GM's take on alignment was before taking the class - so the player agreed to use the GM's conception and take it as their own.

<snip>

If the players don't understand the moral rules the GM is using, that's kind of like them not knowing how falling damage works. The player should know what the consequences of a moral action will be as well as he'd know about a similarly common physical action.

Two things - first, as Exploder Wizard said, comparing moral laws to physical laws shows that one cannot be stated as explicitly as the other. In particular, projection onto new cases of laws stated in the natural language of evaluation is not much like projecting the falling damage rules onto new cases of pit traps or ledges.

Second, it is still insulting to someone to tell them that their conception of goodness/heroism is in fact evil/unheroic. No amount of GM ranting about it being his/her world changes this fact that this applying alignment against a player's wishes is dismissing that player's own evaluative judgement.