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Fighter1000
2013-08-10, 01:25 PM
Lately D&D 3.5/Pathfinder's alignment system has been haunting my nightmares. There's Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, Chaotic Evil!
These are all labels we put on characters. A character's alignment can shift based on his/her actions. I am finding it more and more complicated to label characters with specific alignments. Now I feel like giving up and just trying to do away with the whole alignment system altogether. So, I've been working on a homebrew system with no alignments! You just roleplay your character, without having to worry about alignment straitjacketing.
Has anyone else in the Playground had similar frustrations?
Do you feel like a tabletop rules system needs alignment at all?

Jack of Spades
2013-08-10, 01:42 PM
No, which is why most systems don't have them. Even the systems that do make a big deal about morality (or pretend to) like World of Darkness don't bother with pretending there are 9 neat categories of people in the world.

EDIT TIME: I realized that I should clarify. Most of the systems that decide to shoehorn alignment into things tend to use some kind of sliding rule, and base the measurement on "Honor" or "Glory" or your conviction toward this cause or that instead of saying that folk are either Good or Evil. WoD, which I used as an example, defaults to a sliding-rule system based on a character's moral conviction. You start at 7 points (I think, it's been a while) and that number goes down or up as you do bad things or seek penance. I still tend toward thinking that alignment systems are usually unnecessary (except for a few rare cases where it tends to be one of a small number of dominant mechanics that reverberate throughout the entire design), but sliding-rule is definitely always better than binary.

My suggestion is simple: instead of trying to homebrew up your own system, either change systems or start ignoring the alignments in DnD. It's really extremely easy to do, and most of the folks I've gamed with pretty much do it by default.

Kol Korran
2013-08-10, 01:49 PM
Our group had quit using alignments ages ago. Some mechanics that may rely on them can be ignored or tweaked to your liking.
Quite simple really.

BWR
2013-08-10, 01:50 PM
I'm not evil, I'm Chaotic Neutral
Lawful Good is stupid and often actually evil.

At least these are some statements you will hear around.
Alignment has been a source of contention for people for a long time now. Personally, in D&D games I usually start with alignment and a few odd ideas about build then make a personality from there. In games I run alignment is usually not so important, but there are numerous mechanical effects that key off alignment, so it has to play some role. I'm more of the idea that alignment is a signpost showing what you are rather than an anchor to make sure you don't drift into what you're not. If your character starts out as CN and gradually learns to respect laws and tradition and play by the book, she will end up LN. If you claim to be LN but conveniently ignore agreements and laws when they get in your way, you will lose L pretty quickly.

Since D&D has been so tied up in good vs.evil, Law vs. Chaos it would be odd to remove alignment entirely. It's not just a convenient label, it's a metaphysical marker and innate element of who you are. Not the most important one, but an important one none the less.


Moving beyond D&D there are tons of systems without any sort of alignment system. Nothing new about your idea, I'm afraid.
There are also tons of systems with alignments (if not the D&D type; L5R Honor is an example).

Slipperychicken
2013-08-10, 02:04 PM
Nope. I hate alignment, and "karma-meters" of all types.

AmberVael
2013-08-10, 02:07 PM
Our group had quit using alignments ages ago. Some mechanics that may rely on them can be ignored or tweaked to your liking.
Quite simple really.

I'm in the same boat. I never use alignment if I can help it, as its benefits are far too small to justify how annoying it is. At best it just goes unremarked... in which case, why even bother? Better to just toss it out.

Rhynn
2013-08-10, 02:15 PM
Do you feel like a tabletop rules system needs alignment at all?

That depends on the game.

Elric! definitely needs alignments (Chaos/Balance/Law), because that conflict is central to the world and game.

Adventurer Conqueror King and Dungeon Crawl Classics need aligments (Chaotic/Neutral/Lawful) for the same reason. Some other retroclones (like Lamentations of the Flame Princess) count here, too.

AD&D doesn't really need alignments at all, but it's not like they get in the way much. D&D 4E doesn't need them either. D&D 3.X needs them for mechanical reasons - a huge amount of spells and effects depend on them - but that's about it. Most D&D editions, at least past OD&D, don't really pay much attention to these conflicts anyway. Planescape is the big exception, and wonderfully mostly focuses on the Chaos-Law conflict (many factions range from Good to Evil, but tend to be pretty dang set on the Chaos-Law axis).

Chivalry & Sorcery and HarnMaster don't really need the Morality (Alignment) systems, either, easily disregarded as they are; but it's useful shorthand for NPCs for the GM.

I can't really think of other RPGs that have alignments. They're a relatively rare thing.

Berenger
2013-08-10, 02:35 PM
Most of the time, I don't find alignments useful at all.

If such a label mechanic is necessary (because "Detect This" or "Smite That" exist) I prefer Allegiances (http://www.d20resources.com/modern.d20.srd/basics/allegiances.php). This way I can label the demon from hell als "chaotic" and "evil" if I wish to do so, but the "typical roman soldier" gets an allegiance of "IX. Legion" (or "IX. Legion | Honor | Mithras" for multiple allegiances) instead of some arbitrary alignment of "Lawful Neutral".

Marcus Amakar
2013-08-10, 02:57 PM
While alignment's definitely not necessary, I find that in the campaign I'm DMing currently, it definitely adds something.

The Cleric of Pelor never feels more like a Champion of Good than when using spells such as Magic Circle against Evil, and an opponent feels more like the antithesis of the party when using Smite Good.

I guess it could just be that I've been lucky with my group who cooperate and uphold camaraderie, despite differing alignments.

Fighter1000
2013-08-10, 02:59 PM
Don't forget that there are plenty of classes in D&D 3.5 that require your character to be of a certain alignment, which is annoying.
Like, "I want my character to be an Assassin, because Assassins are so cool! Oh wait, my character has to be evil!? But he's not evil, he's good! Well, so much for that idea. Looks like you'll be a rogue from now" :smallsigh:

Jay R
2013-08-10, 04:23 PM
Our DM will never stop a PC from doing what the player wants to do. He has changed the alignment of exactly one PC based on those actions. (When he announced that my Neutral Thief/Wizard was now Neutral Good, my comment was, "I know.")

But it rarely matters, unless the Paladin is Detecting Evil, or we're facing an evil priest.

Frozen_Feet
2013-08-10, 04:27 PM
Alignment is useful but minor distinction in the game I mostly use (LotFP). Law and Chaos (as defined as fate versus otherwordly forces) is easy to grok and fits my setting well.

In AD&D, I find the nine alignment to be a good basis to give new players a hint in that there are in fact more than one ways to play a character, as they usually just default to murder hobos. Alignment also gives a good way of pointing out, and punishing, becoming murder hobos. :smalltongue:

LotR RPG doesn't use alignments per se, but the corruption system and general tone of the rules make it abundantly clear you are supposed to play a morally upstanding character (and makes pretty clear what kind of morals those are), and also has clearly defined penalties from failing to do that. It serves to set the tone of the game very heavily; without such rules and guidelines, it would be just 2d6 D&D.

Yora
2013-08-10, 04:28 PM
In 15 years, I've never seen a game in which alignment really ever had any relevance.
In the games I am running myself, we don't use alignment at all and insteady use Allegiance.

valadil
2013-08-10, 08:37 PM
I like alignments as a thought exercise. I want to see which buckets my character fits into, or if he breaks the system entirely. If so, it doesn't really bother me. Basically I view figuring out my character's alignment with the same respect as figuring out Robin Hood's - it can be a fun argument if I'm in the mood for it, but has little to no bearing on actual game play.

The only time I've seen alignment matter in a game is when spells affect it. One of my GMs is fond of Blasphemy.

JusticeZero
2013-08-11, 02:04 AM
Alignment is important when urban divine spells are being thrown around. (cleric, paladin, inquisitor, oracle, favored soul or what have you) my campaign doesn't have any divine spellcasting, or even anything that would connect to the alignment planes where such things are relevant - thus, I don't track alignment at all. If my game was full of clerics and Incarnam jockeys, I would be very careful to track alignment, because it has major game effects for those. However, I also stress that alignment is an arbitrary universal constant that doesn't affect a character's behavior, save for the fact that many characters abilities work differently if they don't follow the guidelines in their physics textbooks for the alignment of their build.

TheOOB
2013-08-11, 02:27 AM
Alignment is difficult to remove from D&D, but I don't think it is essential to the experience, and it *can* be used well if you remember a couple of things

1) Alignment is a quality of a creature that determines how certain supernatural effects affect them, nothing more, nothing less.

2) Alignment is objective and in no way subjective.

3) It is rarely relevant to know if a specific action is a certain alignment, only if a creature is.

4) Roleplaying should inform alignment, not the other way around.

5) Alignment is never an excuse for you to break party unity.

jedipotter
2013-08-11, 02:28 AM
I have always used alignment, and alignment has always been a big part of my game.

Vitruviansquid
2013-08-11, 02:39 AM
Alignment systems can be great for getting players into a mindset to roleplay a character that has a different view on morality than they do.

They're not necessary for every game or every setting, but they can do a lot for the right games and the right settings.

Xzeno
2013-08-11, 03:50 AM
Yes, alignments are part of my games for reasons others have mentioned.

People like alignments. It helps get them into the roleplaying frame of mind. D&D's alignment system is easy to understand and people are intellectually interested in it and like playing with it. It helps people get in the game and most players I've ever played with like it. Like it a lot in fact. So it's popular.

The second reason is personal interest. I DM most of the time. Almost always actually. And I DM games I find interesting with themes and motifs I'm capable of talking about. Besides gender issues, which I have no interest in exploring in tabletop games, ethics is just about the only area of philosophy I have respectable academic understanding and knowledge of.

And I just don't find the idea of getting rid of alignment compelling. I want my players to think about what is right and what is wrong. Here's a game where we freely label things good and evil. So what does it mean to be good? What is evil? Relativism doesn't open the door for compelling discussion, so I like to push players to think about moral philosophy.

To me saying "oh that person or creature is just like that and my character is like this and we just have different teams" is profoundly uninteresting. Alignment provides a framework to analyze both presented views and make normative judgments about them. Without normative judgments, character motivations become boring. I find alignment's strong claims encourage thinking about these things.

So in summary, I find morality interesting and like to make morality a theme of my games. So I use alignment.

jedipotter
2013-08-11, 08:44 AM
So in summary, I find morality interesting and like to make morality a theme of my games. So I use alignment.

You also run into the problem that without Alignment, anything goes. What is good or evil or right or wrong. Unless your game has an Offical Cosmic Answer, then there is No Answer. And then anyone can do anything.

I've always tossed around morals and other such things, using alignment. It's more then enough to compare ''modern good'', with ''Ye Old Time good''. And such things.

Renegade Paladin
2013-08-11, 08:48 AM
Don't forget that there are plenty of classes in D&D 3.5 that require your character to be of a certain alignment, which is annoying.
Like, "I want my character to be an Assassin, because Assassins are so cool! Oh wait, my character has to be evil!? But he's not evil, he's good! Well, so much for that idea. Looks like you'll be a rogue from now" :smallsigh:
Good people don't go about hiring themselves out as contract murderers? :smallconfused:

At any rate, alignment doesn't define a character's personality; personality defines alignment and alignment itself is only important mechanically. If one of my players were to ever say "I do X because my alignment is Y," I'd tell him he has it backwards; if he does it, his alignment is Y because he does things like X. The same range of personality types that exist and have existed in the real world are all still perfectly possible in D&D alignments notwithstanding; the alignment must be matched as closely as possible to the personality, not the reverse. If it's done that way, it really isn't a problem.

jedipotter
2013-08-11, 09:09 AM
I'd tell him he has it backwards; if he does it, his alignment is Y because he does things like X. .

I've always done it this way. For the first game or two a character is unaligned, until they show a strong choice for a side. And often a character might slide an alignment or two for the next couple of games.

I don't like saying ''your evil you must do this or that'', but more like ''if you do that it is good''.

Kiero
2013-08-11, 09:18 AM
Totally unnecessary. I'm running ACKS right now, which even has simplified Alignments (Law/Netural/Chaos), but they're completely irrelevant in a game with no magic, monsters or non-humans.

Frozen_Feet
2013-08-11, 09:18 AM
The disconnect comes from the fact that people's real-life perspective on morality differs from that of D&D alignment. When they hear "good", they assume their good. But D&D morality is fairly specific and not compatible with all real-life moralities. Failure to realize this causes the disconnect. Complaining you can't be a "good assassin" or "evil paladin" is seriously not legitimate, because those two classes represent fairly specific archetypes - within D&D, said archetypes are both cause and result of the alignments they represent, so trying to decouple them from those specific alignments misses the point, hard. It's like not realizing "Wizard" and "Sorcerer" have distinct meanings in D&D and are not synonumous like they are in common English.

jedipotter
2013-08-11, 09:48 AM
The disconnect comes from the fact that people's real-life perspective on morality differs from that of D&D alignment. When they hear "good", they assume their good. But D&D morality is fairly specific and not compatible with all real-life moralities. Failure to realize this causes the disconnect.

This is so true. People want everything to be everything. Ask anyone what they think is good or bad and you will get lots of answers...and people will change thier answer all the time(oddly, so that they can take advantage of it, go figure).

valadil
2013-08-11, 11:30 AM
You also run into the problem that without Alignment, anything goes. What is good or evil or right or wrong. Unless your game has an Offical Cosmic Answer, then there is No Answer. And then anyone can do anything.

I don't see that as a problem.

1. I like seeing players be good for its own sake. Risking their lives to help an NPC's family just because it's right is more interesting to me than doing the same risk to avoid an alignment shift.
2. External societal forces should be plenty to keep the PCs in line. I would hope that the desire to not be arrested or hunted down by paladins is enough to keep the players from burning down orphanages. If an alignment shift is the only thing keep you from treating D&D like GTA, it sounds like the game is boring or unrealistic. In game consequences should be sufficient to influence the PCs' chocies.

Frozen_Feet
2013-08-11, 11:43 AM
I don't see that as a problem.

It's not necessarily a problem. It all depends on what kind of game is being played. If you want your heroes to play heroes (or villains, for that matter), then you need to define what being a hero means. You can't just leave it hanging in the air and expect people to follow suit.

On the other hand, if it is not really important what role the PCs play in the game, or if the situation forces certain kinds of actions on its own, you can leave it much more open.


If an alignment shift is the only thing keep you from treating D&D like GTA, it sounds like the game is boring or unrealistic.

Meanwhile, here you just misassign the blame. If a player only plays nice due to a mechanical penalty, then the problem is with the player in 80% of the cases. It is the player's inability to feel empathy towards game characters that causes them to treat them like crap. (It is also very common trait of new players to be like this regardless.)

valadil
2013-08-11, 11:53 AM
If you want your heroes to play heroes (or villains, for that matter), then you need to define what being a hero means. You can't just leave it hanging in the air and expect people to follow suit.



Still disagree. I find it more compelling when heroes emerge in an alignment-free world than when the heroes are just playing the hand they were dealt. I don't subscribe to everything Joseph Campbell says but one of the ideas I do like is that the hero is the one who rises above the cogs if society. If the PCs ate behaving just like their alignment says too, then they're just more cogs.

I do agree that there are misanthropic players who won't empathize with NPCs. While I think it's possible for them to roleplay someone with empathy I haven't seen it happen often. See: Cartman asking Jimmy for help acting genuinely nice.

Frozen_Feet
2013-08-11, 12:14 PM
It's not misantrophy. It's being drunk with power. I've run RPGs to 7-year-old scout girls, and without any prodding from my part, they defaulted to robbing merchants and fighting against the police.

It's just how people are wired. Humans have capacity to treat rock like a child, but they also have capacity to treat child like a rock if it feels fun and they can get away with it. And in the unreal realm of games, they can almost always get away with it, since the consequences befall not on them, but their characters.

jedipotter
2013-08-11, 12:56 PM
1. I like seeing players be good for its own sake. Risking their lives to help an NPC's family just because it's right is more interesting to me than doing the same risk to avoid an alignment shift..

It's just a matter of taste. You want characters to be able to do anything with no effects. So they can help a family, kill them, save them or whatever.




2.If an alignment shift is the only thing keep you from treating D&D like GTA, it sounds like the game is boring or unrealistic. In game consequences should be sufficient to influence the PCs' chocies.

I see it as more cosmic. It is your immortal soul a character should be thinking about, not being put in jail. Now, granted it is unrealistic to worry what might happen to a character's soul forever, but it is more fun.

But how do you handel no consequences? Character's can do all sorts of evil and not even come close to getting caught. So how does society even efect them. It is not like there is a CSI:D&D.

valadil
2013-08-11, 01:34 PM
It's not misantrophy. It's being drunk with power. I've run RPGs to 7-year-old scout girls, and without any prodding from my part, they defaulted to robbing merchants and fighting against the police.


Sure. Most new players go through a phase like that at some point. That's how we played back in middle school. For the most part people get over it, but some never do.


It's just a matter of taste. You want characters to be able to do anything with no effects. So they can help a family, kill them, save them or whatever.

But how do you handel no consequences? Character's can do all sorts of evil and not even come close to getting caught. So how does society even efect them. It is not like there is a CSI:D&D.

Who said there's no effects or consequences? Why can't there be CSI:D&D?

The way I run my games is that the PCs aren't special. There are other forces in the world that are more powerful than they are. There are other adventurers in the world too.

I've put my players in charge of some ridiculous investigations. They're pretty creative and have huge amounts of magic to apply to impossible tasks. There's no reason why the rest of the world wouldn't have these same resources. If the players go on a crime spree, someone is going to react to it. If they spend weeks planning the perfect crime spree, they might get away with it. But the more perfect crime sprees they commit, the more attention they'll garner until the crime isn't so perfect anymore.

Seriously though, this hasn't been a problem in any of my games. I let the players make whatever choices they like and the world reacts appropriately. When the world behaves that way they tend to take their choices seriously.

I'm also strongly of the opinion that characters are not aware of their stats. Whether or not that's a fair assumption is beyond the scope of this thread (although I'm happy to talk about it elsewhere if you want to start a thread for it), but my opinion on it influences how I feel about alignments. D&D characters are (to my understanding) aware that they live in a universe with gods, but that doesn't meant that they know about their own alignment or even have an alignment, much less how certain actions will affect their alignment.

NichG
2013-08-11, 03:00 PM
I don't generally use alignments, running D&D or otherwise. Even when running Planescape I tend to treat alignments as less important for mortal ('non-exemplar') characters and more having to do with the beliefs and energies of their associated planes, where Bytopia's flavor of Good and Celestia's flavor of Good will behave and interact differently.

When its in play I find its too often either used as an excuse or that players feel like they have to play 'an alignment' rather than playing a character. At the same time as a DM, it seems alternately pointless (it doesn't have much mechanical effect), or overly punitive (... except if class features are tied to it) to shift a character's alignment in response to their actions. Its also pretty invasive into the player's own view of their character, and may often engender an OOC argument of 'but my character isn't (evil, usually)!' that eats up time.

I'm not even that fond of WoD's Humanity meter and the like.

That said, I've used a system of cosmic taints that I stole from another GM and that has been pretty fun. The idea there is that there are energies associated with various places that can build up in the soul, and each energy does something (has a mechanical effect); the energies don't accrue automatically from actions or characterization but instead actions can create watershed moments where you can choose whether or not to take in some of the energy.

For example, an evil person wouldn't have Hell energy per se. But a demon might say to them 'I like the cut of your jib, so I'll make you an offer: Hell's gift, if you're smart enough to accept it.' Then the person might get a few points of Hell, which would tend to make demons friendlier to them, might allow them to interact differently with cursed items, etc.

In the same vein, someone could have Mystery, or Karma, or Wild, or Eternity, or any number of other energies (and in general players will treat these like trading cards, seeking ways to shuffle them around and get exotic ones, so it makes for a fun sub-game).

kidnicky
2013-08-11, 09:07 PM
We have them,but honestly I couldn't tell you what anyone's were without getting out the character sheets. I assume lawful good,all of us are well into adulthood.

Waker
2013-08-12, 12:26 AM
I have always disliked the alignment system. The only creatures that have an "Alignment" are those that possess one of the alignment subtypes. I removed or altered any special abilities or spells that specify alignment as well. Smite Evil is just Smite and so on.

GungHo
2013-08-12, 08:43 AM
No.

I do have protection spells and weapons that specifically hurt good/evil things, but those are for use against outsiders or the few human paragons that exist (think of a ruler like Lord British who is tied to the land in the Athurian sense or of a truly dastardly, supernatural character like the Dracula from DaVinci's Demons). I also have paladins and the like, and they have to follow their codes and if they don't follow their codes, they fall... but I don't say they have to be lawful... they just have to follow their code, which happens to be written like they were supposed to be "lawful" and "good", rather than lawful good, if you know what I mean.

elliott20
2013-08-12, 09:46 AM
My current game kept alignment mostly out of posterity of the system rather than really wanting to use alignment. I generally don't pay too much attention to it because of how I feel it is often constraining.

However, one of my players actually came up with an idea on how we can use it a bit more effectively by taking a page from the burning wheel books. He asked everyone to write a couple of goals / beliefs that ties into your alignment and how it manifests itself. That way, you at least have a better definition as to WHY you're lawful good / chaotic evil, and it doesn't for you to act like a social robot to maintain alignments, as what you write down generally becomes the most important thing you pursue in game. (We reward action points by playing to the beliefs/goals you wrote down)

It also means that mechanics like paladin's fall from grace, or other alignment shifting mechanics now have a lot more nuance, and can even help spur more narrative possibilities.

Slipperychicken
2013-08-13, 05:02 PM
It is not like there is a CSI:D&D.

Actually... (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=296363) Investigating crimes in D&D is a lot easier than you might think.


Simply having 5th level Wizards and Clerics aiding an investigation yields classics like Speak With Dead, Detect Thoughts, and Discern Lies. More in the thread I linked, but the point is that proper use of magic and skill checks (Sense Motive, Heal, Gather Information, Track, Bluff, Disguise, etc) can make investigations quite easy, and pretty much impossible to fail once the right suspect is in custody.

Felhammer
2013-08-13, 05:27 PM
Alignments are good markers helping a person define their character. However they are just a tool to be used to create a better character. All too often people use alignment as a straight jacket.

hamishspence
2013-08-13, 05:47 PM
Alignments are good markers helping a person define their character. However they are just a tool to be used to create a better character.

Indeed. Which is pretty close to what the PHB actually says.

Frozen_Feet
2013-08-14, 10:15 AM
I have long ago concluded "alignment is a straitjacket" is not something that has ever actually been a reasonable interpretation of the rules, and is instead a myth born from some ancient misreading, and perpetuated by people who have never actually read the alignment rules. :smalltongue:

Rhynn
2013-08-14, 01:40 PM
I have long ago concluded "alignment is a straitjacket" is not something that has ever actually been a reasonable interpretation of the rules, and is instead a myth born from some ancient misreading, and perpetuated by people who have never actually read the alignment rules. :smalltongue:

If you read old Dragon magazines, especially the Scale Mail sections (and Sage Advice), you'll find that people did, indeed, treat alignment as a straitjacket. AD&D rules even reinforced that with horrible XP penalties for changing alignment.

meleemage
2013-08-14, 09:01 PM
I think alignment is great for character creation and it helps people find their characters voice. After that the player shouldn't worry about their alignment anymore than their character would, a LG cleric should think about his actions from the perspective of would my god agree with this. but if the lawful good fighter ever says "well my character probably is that desperate at this point but i want to stay lawful good..." it is the dm's duty to smack the player in the head.
players assuming their characters do not like each other based on alignment is another big problem. In one game my CG Orc anti paladin was best friends with the NG half-orc cleric. although I often remarked on how he "smelled lika elf" <my explanation on my detect good ability>