Alignment: a flawed system?

[Xuldarinar]

No system is perfect. As much as I enjoy discussions about the system and where things would fit, there is one discussion I've yet to notice. Character concepts that wouldn't work/fit under the system. Individuals that pegging what alignment they would be is difficult at best, for one reason or another.

So, is there anything you can think of that due to the nature of the 9 alignment system and the assumptions it makes, wouldn't work?

[Grod_The_Giant]

For a quick sample, see literally any thread ever posted about alignment.

[daremetoidareyo]

No system is perfect. As much as I enjoy discussions about the system and where things would fit, there is one discussion I've yet to notice. Character concepts that wouldn't work/fit under the system. Individuals that pegging what alignment they would be is difficult at best, for one reason or another.

So, is there anything you can think of that due to the nature of the 9 alignment system and the assumptions it makes, wouldn't work?

Barbarian monks are definitely unserved by the alignment system. As are bard/monks.

[Cosi]

Alignment is dumb. If you're going to use real world terms (like "good" and "evil"), they shouldn't be terms people can't agree on the meaning of (like "good" and "evil"). Either use terms that are "fake" (for example, the Force in Star Wars or the Colors in MTG), or ones that have actual meaning (like "anarchist" or "kantian").

For alignment to be in the game, it needs to mean something. D&D alignment currently doesn't, so it needs to either not be in the game or start meaning something.

[AvatarVecna]

Alignment is a complex mess, because real-life philosophy/morality is a complex mess. The alignment sub-system is an attempt to shoehorn every possible combination of values, vices, philosophies, and beliefs into a 3 by 3 grid. It can't work like that, real life is too complex to fit neatly into that grid. In-game, there's entire species that can be assumed to be always whatever alignment...and when I say always, I mean it: I'm talking demons being the physical incarnation of Chaotic Evil, Inevitables being hte physical incarnation of Lawful Neutral, etc. But what that means for how demons act depends on how the people playing the game define "evil" among themselves. Is a druid who eats animals Neutral Evil, because they're intentionally bringing animals to pain, or are they Lawful Neutral for adhering to the natural laws of "eat or be eaten" and "survival of the fittest"? Why can't there be True Neutral clerics of Nerull who dedicate themselves to shepherding lost souls to the afterlife? Is intentionally bombing a city in order to save the world a Good act, an Evil act, a Lawful act, or none?

My general advice is to build a well-rounded character, with motivations and goals and personalities and philosophies, and then figure out which alignment you think they best fit, rather than choosing an alignment and building them around it. Treating alignment as a very general guideline is what's usually worked for me and my IRL group.

[Flickerdart]

There is only one correct way to use alignments, as written, which doesn't result in tons of stupid.

Step 1: Make your character's personality without looking at alignment rules.
Step 2: Pick any one alignment you want that could fit with the character's actions and personality.

This helps you consistently establish how alignment-dependent spells and abilities affect your character, without straightjacketing your concept into one of nine buckets. It's okay if your character does not fit 100% into one alignment. Just pick the best fit and keep doing your thing.

[OldTrees1]

Alignment works as a beginner's vocabulary for discussing and thinking about ethics/morality using the game as a situation generator. Whether I think my character is X and whether the rules say my character is X is not important. What is important is that I can ask/think about "What is good/evil in this case?" and "What are the merits of various chaotic/lawful perspectives on this case?". Not only can I ask those important questions, I can even ask them from the perspective of various characters which serves not only to widen my vision of the questions but also is fundamental to understanding those characters to their fullest (it is an RPG after all).

Remember Alignment is not a 3x3 grid of labels but rather a family of 2 dimensional questions.


As far as temporarily assigning labels for mechanical reasons, Flickerdart said it well.

[Endarire]

Alignment is such a flawed system that I scrap it for my games. I replace alignment-based spells and effects with (sub)type-based effects, like protection from type, which functions as protection from evil except for a specified creature type or subtype at cast time.

For holy word, et al, I'll talk with my players as prudent. There are certain things this spell series (dictum, etc.) is meant to do and certain creatures it's meant to affect.

[Xuldarinar]

Well, for instance; Lets say an individual has a strict code that enforces random or otherwise chaotic behavior. They use complex elements or random methods to determine their course of action, and must follow the course set out before them by it.

What would you peg that as?

[Milo v3]

Well, for instance; Lets say an individual has a strict code that enforces random or otherwise chaotic behavior. They use complex elements or random methods to determine their course of action, and must follow the course set out before them by it.

What would you peg that as?

Sounds like an inevitable, specifically that one in Sandstorm that seems chaotic to everyone.

[Seto]

Well, for instance; Lets say an individual has a strict code that enforces random or otherwise chaotic behavior. They use complex elements or random methods to determine their course of action, and must follow the course set out before them by it.

What would you peg that as?

Lawful Neutral (and kind of weird). To me the indicator of lawful/chaotic behavior is not so much what you do as how important your code/principles/values are to you, and how (un)willing you are to deviate from them or adapt them. If you submit to the self-given rule "randomize your actions", and never deviate from it, that's perfectly Lawful.
Besides, randomization, paradoxically enough, is an scientific way of eliminating chance (in experimental psychology for example) : if you randomize a great enough number of items (people or in our case, choices), you're making sure it'll even out in the end. So randomness is not incompatible with thoroughness.

Contrary to a lot of people, I quite like alignment. I do think it's flawed, mainly due to the inconsistency of sources (conflicting manuals by different designers with different philosophies), but I' m willing to put in the effort and thought requirdd to make it work, because I find it enhances my experience of fantasy worlds.

To answer the original question, I'd say the characters that alignment has the most problems with are :
- characters who change often and fast, because alignment change is not supposed to happen often.
- characters whose intentions are evil and whose actions are good, because RAW can't make up their mind whether intentions or deeds are more important.
- Similarly, characters whose side in the cosmic conflict between L and C or G and E is inconsistent with their individual behavior, because RAW can't make up their mind whether alignment is a marker of cosmic significance or a marker of moral character.
- Creatures of pure Good/Evil/Law/Chaos who change alignment, because how the hell can you explain it.
-Similarly, consider the following thought experiment : a Demon is innately and irreedeemably Evil. Killing a fiend is always, under any circumstance, a Good act. Meet Kiazmi, a Demon born in a layer of the Abyss where the Blood War rages. He fights and eventually dies. His whole life consisted of nothing but Good acts (killing Devils), and he didn't commit a single Evil act. Still he's CE. Do you think it makes sense, or no ?
- Good-aligned characters using poison, because the "poison is Evil" rule is stupid.

To use alignment to its full effect, it needs reworking, decisions where RAW is inconsistent, and overall it needs to be able to work in the problematic cases I've mentioned. This is what I'm trying to do in my homebrew setting, make sense of alignment and make it fool-proof.

EDIT : Oh, I forgot morally irresponsible characters (such as those afflicted with certain mental conditions). Alignment definitely doesn't know how to handle those.

[Arbane]

For a quick sample, see literally any thread ever posted about alignment.

What he said. For the uselessness of alignment, consider that both Sam Vimes and Carrot Ironfoundersson can be classified as 'Lawful Good'.

(ISTR some D&D-esque game where ALL alignment indicated is which Elder God liked you best. As a result, it was largely irrelevant to non-spellcasters.)

[Fouredged Sword]

I only have one setting that I consistently apply the alignment system strictly. It's one where heaven and hell are stuck in a truce and good/evil are not defined by actions but are rather literal fealty to heaven or hell. Chaos is defined by seeking to restart the war, law by preventing it.

And even then I drop class alignment requirements.

[Milo v3]

Personally, I see issues with the alignment system like, I have the personality and mentality of a Chaotic Evil individual, but commit more good than I do evil simply because of circumstances.

[Garktz]

I believe that the system itself is good, it open enought to short all types of characters in a simple grid defining them by their motivations.
What is totally flawed about the alignment are all the "sub-rules" about it and that is what kills it.
I think it should be just about why you do whatever you do rather than what you do as the act itself.
Like the othe examples othe guy gave, killing demos its allways good? not for me, it is all about why you are doing so (see the blood war as an example) or the act of using a poison, to me, the act itself can or cannot be evil, but its no always evil, jus depends on motivation

[Milo v3]

I believe that the system itself is good, it open enought to short all types of characters in a simple grid defining them by their motivations.
What is totally flawed about the alignment are all the "sub-rules" about it and that is what kills it.
I think it should be just about why you do whatever you do rather than what you do as the act itself.
Like the othe examples othe guy gave, killing demos its allways good? not for me, it is all about why you are doing so (see the blood war as an example) or the act of using a poison, to me, the act itself can or cannot be evil, but its no always evil, jus depends on motivation

But then you end up with people who commit horrible, horrific acts, with good intentions and believe themselves good.

[Red Fel]

Despite my recognized ability to express my favored alignment to the world in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, I have always held that alignment itself is a hideously flawed system. Grod the Giant makes the general point, but let me give a few specifics.
For something explicitly stated to be "not a straightjacket," alignment is a straightjacket. Even if you accept that alignment describes how you act, rather than limiting how you are permitted to act (something not all DMs accept), it still necessarily limits you. Certain classes and abilities are alignment-locked. The Paladin's Code is the worst offender; not only does the class lock the alignment of the character, it locks the alignment of the party, because playing an Evil PC in a Paladin's party is inviting an implosion!
It is disgustingly binary. An action is either Good or non-Good. It is Lawful or Chaotic. It is this or that, in an absolute. Arbitrary alignment is arbitrary. Certain actions are considered "always Evil" or "always Good," except when they're not. For example, cold-blooded, premeditated murder is Always Evil. Except when the target is an Evil Outsider, because killing them is Always Good. Or if they're a tyrant, because freeing the oppressed people and stopping the war is Good. Except when it's not, because murder is still Evil. And there's no in-between; you are or you aren't, you're angel or devil. It's obnoxious and lacking nuance.
Good is favored. So is Law. Let's face facts, later editions make it plain - LG is the "best" alignment, CE is the "worst." The system was written with this bias in mind. If you are a person devoted to personal freedom (C) and the acquisition of power (E), then you're the worst kind of Evil, full stop. Because arbitrary alignment is arbitrary.
It is internally inconsistent. Okay, so we can all agree that Mindrape is disgustingly Evil stuff. So, taking the soul of somebody you like, imprisoning them in a gemstone for a year, and forcibly altering their mental state is... Exalted Good? Preaching at them every week until they cave and yield to your beliefs is... Exalted Good? And these horrific compounds, made from the blood of holy creatures in what has to be some barbaric ritual, which burn and ravage like poison, are... Exalted Good? The list goes on. Negative Energy is Evil because Evil, except when perhaps it isn't? Mindless Undead, despite being incapable of moral choice, are Evil, because Negative Energy? A Succubus Paladin is simultaneously Lawful, Good, Chaotic, and Evil, because as a demon she is instinctively Chaotic and Evil and incapable of being anything but that, except that she has the ability to choose Law and Good?
The system is bad and should feel bad. The entire notion of arbitrary morality is a flawed one.

... Just because I'm good at playing it doesn't mean I need to appreciate it.

[Necroticplague]

The main problem I ever see with it is that people (including some of the writers) take the alignment system way too seriously. In character, Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are merely physical forces in the world, so having a bit more of one than another shouldn't be significantly notable. All the afterlives I can think of have at least some good parts. And each of the alignments have a philosophy to them that actually sounds fairly admirable. The problem is when people start tossing baggage onto things. It started with when they used Good and Evil as the names of those two (where the philosophy of good and evil are honestly more like communism and capitalism). And got worse when they made the Paladin. And got even worse when they made the BoVD and BoED.

[OldTrees1]

Despite my recognized ability to express my favored alignment to the world in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, I have always held that alignment itself is a hideously flawed system. Grod the Giant makes the general point, but let me give a few specifics.[list]

-snip-

... Just because I'm good at playing it doesn't mean I need to appreciate it.

I think it is important to notice that your points 1, 3, & 4 are problems with the content and not with the system. While a very good criticism of the content, it does not critique the system of talking about a 2 axis alignment chart.

Problem 2 sounds foreign to me. I have a feeling that this might also be a content issue but maybe it is a problem with DMs using discrete rather than continuous axes?

Example: I am running a fundraiser for the poor, I siphon off 15% of the charitable donations and give the remaining 85% to the poor. Is this a case of a binary action? I would say no. In this one action we have examples of immoral(fraud), morally permissible(selfish), and morally supererogatory(charity) behavior. Even when we ignore the kind of part and only look at the magnitude of the part we still end up with 3 examples of widely different scales.

Example 2: Next year I decide to reduce my share to a reasonable amount and make it transparent to the donors. Compare and contrast the moral character of myself from the 2 time periods. There is a difference but not enough to throw around a new label.

From your explanation of your problem 2 I think you can come up with similar examples. However I ask you, is there anything about the 2 axes system that inherently prohibits/contradicts the DM from applying these nuances in game as a result of having continuous axes and examining the parts of an action? (One reason I ask is because I do DM using a 2 axes system and I do represent those complexities)

[Zanos]

There is only one correct way to use alignments, as written, which doesn't result in tons of stupid.

Step 1: Make your character's personality without looking at alignment rules.
Step 2: Pick any one alignment you want that could fit with the character's actions and personality.

This helps you consistently establish how alignment-dependent spells and abilities affect your character, without straightjacketing your concept into one of nine buckets. It's okay if your character does not fit 100% into one alignment. Just pick the best fit and keep doing your thing.
Pretty much how I feel.

The biggest problem I've had with players and the alignment system is people who think that Evil only applies to the most heinous of characters.

[daremetoidareyo]

I think it is important to notice that your points 1, 3, & 4 are problems with the content and not with the system. While a very good criticism of the content, it does not critique the system of talking about a 2 axis alignment chart.

Problem 2 sounds foreign to me. I have a feeling that this might also be a content issue but maybe it is a problem with DMs using discrete rather than continuous axes?

Example: I am running a fundraiser for the poor, I siphon off 15% of the charitable donations and give the remaining 85% to the poor. Is this a case of a binary action? I would say no. In this one action we have examples of immoral(fraud), morally permissible(selfish), and morally supererogatory(charity) behavior. Even when we ignore the kind of part and only look at the magnitude of the part we still end up with 3 examples of widely different scales.

Example 2: Next year I decide to reduce my share to a reasonable amount and make it transparent to the donors. Compare and contrast the moral character of myself from the 2 time periods. There is a difference but not enough to throw around a new label.

From your explanation of your problem 2 I think you can come up with similar examples. However I ask you, is there anything about the 2 axes system that inherently prohibits/contradicts the DM from applying these nuances in game as a result of having continuous axes and examining the parts of an action? (One reason I ask is because I do DM using a 2 axes system and I do represent those complexities)

The mechanics being tied to the alignment are the worst part for me.

1.) it makes for lazy writing. I hate the DR/lawful or +1d6 vs. evil type feats and class abilities. How terribly droll. Those options are boring and lame. Especially for Chaotic. Chaotic doesn't seek to be the opposite of lawful, it just wants to do it's own thing without other things getting in the way. Chaotic rarely defines itself about how lawful it isn't.

2.) Where protection from evil/good/chaos/law fails, the spirit shamans definitions for "spirits" succeeds. It defines the types of otherworldly maladies that can be addressed. The lack of specificity in the "protection from..." series just reinforces the lameness of the binary. Protection from law should affect lawful outsiders, as well as any constructs, protection from chaos should affect chaotic outsiders as well as any undead.

3.) Why are barbarians chaotic at the individual level? We can train men to be wizards but we can't imagine disciplined and systemic barbarian men and women? What about monks makes them so lawful? Every real world example of a monk that I've encountered has a pretty strong element of "go screw yourself" to lawful decrees that hurt them and those things that they care about.

[P.F.]

I find that with liberal use of the Stewart Test the alignment system works fine in my games. It rarely comes up, really ... I'm playing an evil druid in our current game and no one has even noticed that I'm evil :smallamused:

[OldTrees1]

The mechanics being tied to the alignment are the worst part for me.

I am not sure why you quoted me. Yes, WotC can't write even mediocre content for an alignment system. So I don't judge the alignment system by the content WotC wrote for it. What connection am I missing?

[SangoProduction]

Well, for instance; Lets say an individual has a strict code that enforces random or otherwise chaotic behavior. They use complex elements or random methods to determine their course of action, and must follow the course set out before them by it.

What would you peg that as?

Unlike what the terms suggest: chaos does not imply randomness. It merely is a lack of respect for order and rules. This guy respects a set of rules entirely, even unto randomness. That's lawful behavior.

[Amon Winterfall]

I think Alignment is going to have very few defenders as it exists today. It doesn't help that the seminal works on alignment, the Book of Vile Darkness and the Book of Exalted Deeds are subpar in trying to explain the "why" it works. There is even less material on Law and Chaos alignments.

The creators themselves can't stay consistent on what alignment means.

Baalzebul is the Archdevil, exemplar of Lawful Evil, and he's famous for...Betrayal.
The Slaadi are Chaotic Archetypes, and both the Death Slaadi and the Epic Level Black Slaadi are Chaotic Evil.
The Book of Exalted Deeds has a sacred vow of Obedience. As well as a Vow of Celibacy.

Alignment is probably defensible as a video game mechanic. Video Games don't have to worry about Holy Word wiping out children, or why Murderhobos get to roll around with a "TN" Alignment.

So I take a different approach to alignment; there's no real getting away from it as most Outsiders are fundamentally tied to it--but my campaign is much more about political aims and confrontations as opposed to good or evil. And there are real bastards on your side, noble heroes on the other side.

De-Emphasizing alignment means that it goes in the direction of things like Galactic Civilizations--and becomes much more a matter of choices and decisions instead of the overarching focus of the world. Don't care? You're neutral. Want to be good aligned? Better go the extra mile and help those in need without worrying about the bank account.

Character actions should dictate alignment, and it should be a soft scale, but I'm really tired of Chaotic Evil sorts trying to pretend like they're Chaotic Neutral, or people claiming good alignment without raising a finger to earn it. And while I'm sympathetic to players having a choice with their characters, I believe that they simply shouldn't play classes they can't conform to. Can't take orders? Don't play a monk. Can't be imaginative or creative? Don't play a Bard.

Finally, I would try a back-end cleaning of really dysfunctional problems with alignment, like ensuring that Holy Word doesn't kill children, and Archdevils of Betrayal don't exist. I might even consider the 10th alignment - Unaligned - as a serious answer to fix a lot of these powers too.