How to vote on alignments?

[Jon_Dahl]

It seems that there are no two people who understand alignments 100% in the same way. In most other cases this would be just fine, but for a number of reasons it can lead into confusion and/or hurt feelings when the DM has a completely different understanding of alignments than the players. I know that a vast majority of people don't understand how I view alignments. Everything I have seen online about alignments is crap.

This why I have considered voting for my players to see how alignments work. The result of the vote will determine how alignments work in my games. I want to have three things:
1. Clarity. After the vote, everyone will understand how alignments work, what they are and what they are not.
2. Quick and easy voting. Yes/no questions that are not in the least ambiguous.
3. Compatibility. The vote and its questions are relevant to the game.

Now I just need questions. I would like you to suggest questions for me. The campaign world and my game are irrelevant, since I want to use these in the future with the same players but with a different setting. In this case, the alignment system exists in a vacuum - no context provided.

[Telonius]

1. Should alignment (moral, ethical, or otherwise) have any mechanical effects in the game?
2. Can you objectively determine a creature's alignment (either by the creature itself or by an outside party)? Can you be sure you're Good or Evil?
3. Which alignments should be considered (Law/Chaos, Good/Evil, something else entirely)?
4. How should these alignments be defined?
5. When determining a creature's alignment, should actions be the only standard of judgment, or should a creature's intent be taken into account?
6. Are there any actions that are always Good, Evil, Lawful, Chaotic, etc?
7. Should Outsiders have the freedom to choose to act against their alignments (i.e. is redemption possible for a fiend, or is a Fall possible for an Archon)?
8. Is a single action ever enough to change an alignment?


4 and 6 kind of fail for the three criteria you want, but I don't see how you can have alignments without hashing out exactly what the alignments are going to entail.

[OldTrees1]

@Telonius your #2 should be split IMO. Ability to self evaluate can be independent of ability to evaluate others(I usually use the latter but exclude the former).

1) Is alignment related to concepts(This Angel is Evil because it behaves immorally or This Angel is Good because they like Pie more than Cake) or to allegiance(Angels are Good because they are on team Celestial)?

2) If alignment is concept based, is it based on the concepts of similar names(Good/Evil is based off morality) or is the name branding for some other concept(Those that like Cake are described as Evil despite Cake not being immoral)?

3) If alignment is based off the concepts of similar names ... here is where the "fun" begins ... are Good and Evil based off a Moral Theory that looks at all 3 of intent, action, & consequences?

[Duke of Urrel]

It seems that there are no two people who understand alignments 100% in the same way. In most other cases this would be just fine, but for a number of reasons it can lead into confusion and/or hurt feelings when the DM has a completely different understanding of alignments than the players. I know that a vast majority of people don't understand how I view alignments. Everything I have seen online about alignments is crap.

This why I have considered voting for my players to see how alignments work. The result of the vote will determine how alignments work in my games. I want to have three things:
1. Clarity. After the vote, everyone will understand how alignments work, what they are and what they are not.
2. Quick and easy voting. Yes/no questions that are not at least ambiguous.
3. Compatibility. The vote and its questions are relevant to the game.

Now I just need questions. I would like you to suggest questions for me. The campaign world and my game are irrelevant, since I want to use these in the future with the same players but with a different setting. In this case, the alignment system exists in a vacuum - no context provided.

I think voting to clear up alignment conflicts at the game table is a GREAT idea, Jon_Dahl. Here is how I would run with it.

I think the general descriptions of the nine alignments are good as an introduction, but not enough to create any consensus about what any alignment means in any specific case. Characters are individuals, not types. So when you look for table-wide approval about somebody's alignment, I advise you to avoid the general descriptions of the alignments altogether. The descriptions are good guidelines – and they should be familiar to everyone – but they're not good for making fine distinctions or resolving conflicts.

Here's how I would use voting to get table-wide approval for alignment choices. (1) Have each player create a detailed role-playing personality sketch for his or her character. (2) Then let this player and everybody else at the table cast a vote for one of the nine alignments for this character.


If you're a player and you've just created your own character sketch, you may choose to cast your vote before or after everybody else does, depending on how strong your opinion is about what your character's alignment should be.


If you're the dungeon master, you may make your vote weigh as much as two players' votes, or you can go democratic and let your vote weigh the same as any player's vote. It all depends on how strong your opinion is about how the various alignments differ and how they work in your world.

After the vote, if no single alignment has clearly beaten all the others, ask the player to add more details to his or her character sketch and then have everybody vote again until one alignment is the clear winner at the table.

POSTSCRIPT: If you want to geek out on super-efficient democracy, use instant-runoff voting and allow players to vote by ranking their preferences.

For example, I might think my character's alignment (or yours) is most likely (1) Lawful-Good, but may also be (2) Lawful-Neutral or (3) Neutral-Good. I can vote by ranking LG as my first choice, LN as my second choice, and NG as my third choice. Here's how to proceed.


When you use instant-runoff voting, you count everybody's first choice first. If there is a clear winner, you can stop right there.


If nobody's first choice gets an absolute majority, keep all the votes except for the ones cast for the last-place loser. Transfer each vote for the last-place loser to the second choice of the voter who voted for the last-place loser. Then add these votes to the original election results.


If there is still no absolute-majority winner, transfer each vote for the new last-place loser to the voter's next lower-ranking choice, as before. Repeat until one alignment choice wins an absolute majority of all votes.

When you use instant-runoff voting, nobody has to rank their choices, but keep in mind that if you limit yourself to only one choice and you choose a loser, your vote will simply be thrown away rather than transfered to a less optimal choice.

Democracy is time-consuming. However, if you can use voting to avoid thorny alignment conflicts later in the game, maybe it is well worth your time.

[Quertus]

It seems that there are no two people who understand alignments 100% in the same way. In most other cases this would be just fine, but for a number of reasons it can lead into confusion and/or hurt feelings when the DM has a completely different understanding of alignments than the players. I know that a vast majority of people don't understand how I view alignments. Everything I have seen online about alignments is crap.

This why I have considered voting for my players to see how alignments work. The result of the vote will determine how alignments work in my games. I want to have three things:
1. Clarity. After the vote, everyone will understand how alignments work, what they are and what they are not.
2. Quick and easy voting. Yes/no questions that are not at in the least ambiguous.
3. Compatibility. The vote and its questions are relevant to the game.

Now I just need questions. I would like you to suggest questions for me. The campaign world and my game are irrelevant, since I want to use these in the future with the same players but with a different setting. In this case, the alignment system exists in a vacuum - no context provided.

FTFY.

Does alignment have any value? (if "yes", I would like to know what that is, so as to try to make an alignment system that actually addresses that perceived value, but that is outside the scope of your questions)

... Not knowing the game, or why anyone might find alignment valuable, I don't think I can suggest any more questions that actually meet your criteria.

Sure, you can have trick questions, like, "should alignment be determined by the GM, or by player consensus" - and use this to determine the player's alignment. But unless they're going to be playing themselves, I don't see where this buys you anything.

EDIT: ok, questions like, "is alignment descriptive or prescriptive", or "is alignment affected by actions? Intent? Outcome? Team?" might help

[Seto]

I think Telonius' suggestions are good. I would also add some of my own:

- Does alignment indicate how you think, does it indicate who you give allegiance to, or does it indicate what agenda you further?
- Is an aligned action inherently aligned, or is it aligned because of its results? Or can it be both, depending on the case?
- Should only willful actions be taken into account when considering alignment, or can you change alignment by acting under coercion?
- Do neutrally-aligned actions exist, or is a neutral action only one that is not significant enough to be aligned?
- Are most people True Neutral (default D&D stance), or are people equally divided between alignments? (Eberron stance)

I'd like to emphasize Telonius' point 5 again, because intent is a big one.

Also, as someone who devoted time and effort to write about alignment, I think I also speak for my colleagues when I say...

Everything I have seen online about alignments is crap. is not to my liking would be appreciated :smallbiggrin: