Alignment-to be or not to be?

Xeviat · March 25, 2007, 04:33:25 PM

Wow, it seems that I'm one of the few here who uses D&D alignment as is. I've never seen it as a restriction on players, just as a mechanical representation of how you intend to play your character. For my players who have a hard time with alignment, and when I'm running a character driven game, I have them describe their character to me and then we discuss their potential alignment. I eyeball character alignment after big events and discuss with them if I think they've been playing a different alignment than what they stated.

But, depending on your cosmology, I could easily see using a different system. L5R uses honor and taint, True20 uses virtues and vices.

Most of all, try to think of alignment as a mechanical representation of how you play your character, not as a rule for how you have to play your character. Play them how you want, and have the DM assign an alignment.

Epic Meepo · March 26, 2007, 04:37:16 PM

What Xeviat said.

And besides, you can't entirely do away with the existing D&D alignment axes. Without the existing D&D alignments, how is one supposed to engage in endless "What alignment is so-and-so?" debates. They're just not the same without law, chaos, good, and evil.

Hibou · March 26, 2007, 06:19:24 PM

Snakefing, that system of contrasting qualities looks kind of like the Virtues/Vices part of the NWoD game. But I don't think it's quite the same (haven't looked at the book in a while).

SilvercatMoonpaw · March 26, 2007, 08:14:27 PM

Just an interesting thing to think about in having objective alignment that applies to all people is that you could play it up. Tell the players that their characters have free-will, but they will still be judged based on what side the universe thinks they land on, few or no grey areas, not caring about intent. Of course, this is probably the sort of thing that gets so many people in alignment right now, but if the players were okay with it you might be able to get some interesting stuff out of it.

Tangential · March 28, 2007, 12:29:08 AM

I've got to go with Meeps and Xev, with the addition that I use the DF Grid that add "tendencies" to the normal amount. I use alignment in games set in the Known Multiverse where it is the defining force. In other worlds using the d20 rules I often find it unnecessary.

khyron1144 · March 28, 2007, 02:32:08 AM

Some non-D&D games have done interesting things with alignment-like systems.

Elric! from Chaosium has a system of three forces: Chaos, Law, and Balance. A character can earn points of allegiance towards one of these forces by his actions, for example, using magic is nearly always worth some Chaos points. Actively trying to court one of these forces and swear allegiance to it can have varying benefits.

Pendragon also from Chaosium makes use of virtues in a way that I don't really understand after trying to run a PC in a game but without owning the rules myself about five times. In order to be a Christian Knight, a character must have certain minimum scores in traits like Chastity, Mercy, and Loyalty.

Marvel Super Heroes from TSR and DC Super Heroes from Mayfair both use points rewarded to heroic PCs for good deeds; these points were the basis of the equivalent to the experience point system and also luck points that coud be spent to gaurantee success on various actions. Marvel called it Karma and DC called it Hero Points. Both games had strong rules to encourage heroic behavior by rewarding good deeds with Karma/ Hero Points. Both games also discouraged naightiness, like killing the bad guys, by imposing Karma/ Hero Point penalties. If a Marvel PC, like Spider Man, killed a bad guy, like Green Goblin, the hero lost all current Karma points. If a DC PC, like Bat Man, killed a bad guy, like Two Face, he forfeits whatever his Hero Point reward would have been for that adventure.

I don't know if there's any way to adapt any of those to D&D or if it would be rewarding.

A basic D&D (as in Basic Rules red box - Master Rules black box) game where the Elric! system is added to its already existing three alignments system sounds interesting. D&D alignment was ripped from the Elric books anyway. Unforutnately, I think every PC would go Chaotic for the access to magic, if the system wasn't adjusted a little first.

MBene · April 01, 2007, 01:48:01 PM

I've never had too hard a time keeping my players within the realms of acceptable alignment behavior, though I always let them know that I have the right to slap them with a new alignment if they're consistently acting outside of their written ethos. Nothing peevs me off more when there's a paladin-player who fights tooth and nail to say that his alignment is LG, but consistently acts chaotic or something.

Most of the games I've played in recently (all too few) have stressed alternate systems like Honor or Reputation or something, instead of alignment. I think a lot of people, my players especially, have an easier time wrapping their heads around a linear system, instead of something that functions on an actual grid.

SilvercatMoonpaw · April 01, 2007, 05:40:14 PM

Dump it. I don't like alignment, nor how it labels things. I don't agree with its definitions of good and evil, and I don't agree with the alignment line in monster descriptions.

Tybalt · April 03, 2007, 03:33:58 PM

What don't you like about it?

Personally I don't enforce alignment that much but the fact is it is a matter of cosmology more than anything. For instance: if you were running a game set in say Arthurian Britain then frankly you have to have certain things written in stone in your character to get the Holy Grail, rescue the princess from the fiery prison, etc. If in your game it is more like say "A Song of Ice and Fire" or R E Howard's Hyperboria then you don't really need alignment but perhaps a system of reputation points might be in order.

snakefing · April 03, 2007, 05:21:46 PM

Alignment doesn't really bother me that much. It's not that bad, it's not that great. There are a couple of factors that bother me a little:

First, some players use alignment as a substitute for actual characterization. This is most common among younger players, for obvious reasons. But I would prefer something that at least gave a nudge in the direction of something more interesting.

Second, the game mechanics sometimes intrude. What would you say of the alignment of a character who carefully observes the letter of the law, even the trivial ones, but is more than willing to take advantage of it when advantageous, to push the boundaries, or to flout the unwritten codes of his culture? My answer is, who cares? I've got a perfectly good (partial) characterization there, no need to label it. But then someone comes along and casts Detect Evil/Good/Chaos/Law and wants to know what the results are. All of a sudden the mechanics are kind of forcing me to pigeonhole the character, put him in a box, and suffer the mechanical consequences. Ugh!

That's where I came up with my preference that the mechanical aspects only touch on some kind of deep metaphysical alignment, which is more permanent and concrete than behavioral traits. Now that character can be treated as generally neutral in all respects, regardless of his behaviors, unless there is some specific reason to think he is aligned with some great cosmic force.

Xeviat · April 08, 2007, 03:52:03 AM

I'm wondering where so many people got the idea that alignment is a restriction on players. No where in the PHB does it suggest penalties for players playing "out of character", and the DMG does discuss changing alignments. As far as I can tell, the RAW way of handling alignment is playing your character the way you want to play them and deciding what alignment fits them.

As for tendencies, here's a character I am about to play and my ideas for his tendencies and his alignment:

Simon Farthing is a cleric of Boccob. He is True Neutral, and believes that knowledge is the ultimate reward. Before he began adventuring extensively, he lived and studied in a large library dedicated to Boccob. He believes that knowledge should not be hidden, that the fruits of study are meant for all humanity to benefit from (thus, he despises Vecna's teachings, being the god of secrets).

He dislikes his knowledge being used to cause the deaths of mortals; he would turn down an evil group's asking him to find out the weakness of a good group just as quickly as he'd turn down a good group's inquiries about an evil group's weaknesses. Death is wrong, in his eyes, no matter the cause. He tends to sway towards Lawfulness, as Chaos tends to be more destructive than law, but he has disdane for martial deities and their followers, even Cuthbert.

While he is true neutral, he tends to side with good over evil. To him, killing is always wrong, even if it will save lives. He will use evil to further his goals (his general goals being the uncovering of knowledge), such as summoning devils to question. He believes in imprisonment for wrongdoers, though he has no qualms of killing outsiders, elementals, or other "non-living" creatures.

See, while one could say that he has Neutral Good tendancies, he is decidedly TN. There are things that could sway him; if it weren't for his wisdom, he could possibly be corrupted by devil's, or otherwise drift towards Law (right now, the main thing keeping him from a Lawful alignment is the generally millitarisic attitude of lawful deities and sects).

Túrin · April 09, 2007, 09:24:50 AM

Quote from: XeviatI'm wondering where so many people got the idea that alignment is a restriction on players.

detect alignment[/i] spells are 1st-level spells). In the kind of campaigns I run, I do not want my characters to figure people out so easily. If they have to figure out who's in an 'evil' cult, I wouldn't want a simple 1st-level spell to be able to rule out 80-90% of the population. Note that this feature of the alignment system is exactly what Epic Meepo's system counters: when someone detects as evil, he hasn't necessarily committed evil acts in the past.

Secondary, I dislike the idea of alignment restrictions on classes. This is where the alignment system actually is a restriction on players. The paladin code is vital to the nature of their class, so they still lose their class feaures when they don't behave according to their (self-imposed!) code, and clerics have to keep at least some connection to their church, but I can see no reason why a barbarian has to uphold some universal idea of chaos to be able to use his rage ability.

Túrin

Tybalt · April 11, 2007, 10:28:17 AM

The solution however is to do what really makes sense and is rarely the case in the rather manichaean world view presented in D&D; make almost everyone neutral. In my game alignment rarely yields much. Most human beings are neutral and indeed most sapient creatures too.

Recently reading "A Song of Ice and Fire" I found that I would state that overwhelmingly most of the characters in spite of the cutthroat politics and constant fighting are neutral. What's interesting to me is that I would say that even of those with some evil tendencies. Exceptions would be a very few characters indeed, because when you think of it people who are absolute in their views are rather rare.

So for me alignment is more of a way of identifying how characters start to turn out. I don't insist on alignment designation unless a character wants to follow a particular god or something. It has turned out in my current game that one character is lawful neutral, one is lawful good, one is neutral good.

Bradford Ferguson · April 17, 2007, 09:24:04 AM

I'm starting a new campaign based off of the activities of INVESTIGATION and BOUNTY HUNTING... That kinda thing. I told the players flat out that Detect Evil does not work and alignment affecting spells only affect those characters who are inherently evil (good, etc) and do not affect the kinda evil.

I also find AT WILL Detect Evil to be very annoying. So, I will likely give any paladins a different ability. Or maybe I will scrap the paladin and go with holy warriors (from either "Pantheon and Pagan Faiths" or "Book of the Righteous", I may not even develop much religion since the players are not interested in religious stuff).

RedBullBear · April 17, 2007, 11:55:40 AM

I prefer to use the Virtue/Vice system from nWoD and True20.

As for good/evil specific magic, I follow D20 Modern's idea of replaceing 'good/evil' with 'opponent' or 'adversary.'

:cool:

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Alignment-to be or not to be?

Xeviat

Epic Meepo

Hibou

SilvercatMoonpaw

Tangential

khyron1144

MBene

SilvercatMoonpaw

Tybalt

snakefing

Xeviat

Túrin

Tybalt

Bradford Ferguson

RedBullBear