Good examples of using alignment?

[Trevortni]

I see a lot of talk about how Alignment is the root of everything wrong in certain game systems. But surely Alignment is not all - well, Evil, is it?

What are some examples of good uses of the/an Alignment system you have either seen or used yourself to enhance the roleplaying and/or emotional impact in a game rather than detract from it?

Spoiler

Show

I had a female Gnome Barbarian with a penchant for fashion. She was Chaotic Neutral, and instead of playing her Chaotic Stupid (she actually had one of the higher INT scores in the party, at least among non-magic users), I played her Chaotic Aggressively Friendly And Fun-Loving. She befriended the local ice priestess so thoroughly that she ended up teaching GORP (The PHB told me that Gnomes like to use nicknames) her class. Thus, my barbarian ended up spending an entire late-game fight flying around, casting lightning bolts at the water elemental and healing people (unfortunately, while there were a couple other players who had protection from water, I was the only one who had thought to also include protection from lightning).

In an early arena fight with the Designated Bad Guys, she charged in and got KO'd in about one round by the higher level human (male) fighter. When she got revived by a party member, I had to do some fast thinking. Now, as a player, I recognized that having her go one more round with him would be fatal. But there was no way GORP was going to back down from a fight. So.... Well, suffice it to say that after we had won all the DBGs' stuff from them, I claimed his stuff as mine and sent it to him, along with an invitation to dinner.

As the PC-DBG relationship unfolded, I eventually got in touch with their boss, the evil princess, to broker peace. The only common interests between the princess and my barbarian was..... fashion. I brokered peace in exchange for a wardrobe makeover. Ummm. Have you ever summoned an elemental of darkness to make a dress of darkness for a spoilt princess who loves darkness? Even my CN Barbarian/Fashionista had to make a sanity check after that. But the princess loved it!

Anywho.... Eventually the party got into the Plot Device Tower and discovered we were all formerly evil but had lost our memories. We could get our memories back, become evil again, and get gestalted; or we could stay good as regular characters. It was very tempting. The whole group was going to go evil en masse, until GORP got talking and convinced them, all by herself, exactly why it was better to stay good. And then, at the last second of making the decision, she remembered her husband (oh yeah - she ended up marrying the evil underling), and reasoned that if she was evil, she could have more fun being on the "same side" as him. So now she's evil with one or two other people (it was a big group, in a game store).

But - being Chaotic Neutral - wasn't that kind of close enough to evil to begin with? The DM ruled that I kept my Alignment (probably spurred by the backstory I wrote up, where all the gods within one step of Chaotic Neutral wanted an agent in this world where they could not see, that would hit the "reset gods" button in the right way to maintain balance if necessary).

And so GORP finds herself technically in the Evil group, but still on good terms with the Good group. And also - well, there was an absolutely Good prince in this kingdom, to balance the absolutely Evil princess. I decided that they would make the perfect balance of forces to start out the new order of godhood. (Why in the world would I want godhood for myself? Where's the fun in that?) So I talked them both into being cryogenically frozen for safe keeping by my best friend the ice princess, until such time as we had the "reset gods" button.

But being Chaotic Neutral means being subjected to lots of ups and downs. And having your friends fight each other - by this time, I decided that GORP was getting close to a mental breakdown. The first major fight between the Good and Evil party was in a volcano. By this time, GORP was enough of an ice mage to be weak against fire. So I had decided that her first action was to run, screaming, into the lava. But we never made it to my turn, as PvP does not tend to end well, and suddenly there were rules disputes. So I will never know if her friends would have rescued her and/or made peace with each other.

But I'll be darned if that wasn't the single most intense roleplaying experience I've ever had, and the majority of it came from choosing my Alignment. And also fashion.

[Marbled_Thief]

In one fourth edition campaign I played, all of the party members were unaligned (we played it like Chaotic Neutral) except for one, who was Good (Neutral Good). This definitely showed up in roleplaying, as we tended to be more okay with things like stealing or gambling, and his character was more against that sort of thing. I think it created an interesting party dynamic, more interesting to me at least than just having a party of do-gooders.

[Waker]

I could go on about how I dislike alignment in general, but I'll stick to the request instead.
In one of the last games we played, our party was fairly evenly split between neutral and good characters. The neutral characters were far more mercenary than the good guys. The twist (unplanned) were that both of the good aligned characters were rather hedonistic, loving to engage in some hanky-panky with some of the attractive npcs we encountered, or drinking, gambling... the big difference being that the good guys did what they could not to hurt others unduly and help others who needed it.

[Mastikator]

I once played a very short lived but fun evil campaign in D&D. We all did different versions of evil and generally had a blast at just racing to the bottom. We were just goofing off and it was extremely fun.

[D+1]

If alignment has to draw attention to itself in order to work then it's failing to work/be used properly.

[ObnoxiousKender]

I think that a lot of people use the alignment system as a restriction on characters and that's why people don't like it. It doesn't have to be that way, you simply choose a starting alignment and then play your character. The only time alignment should be restricting is selecting a class/prestige class, spells, feats, and lawful characters. And even with Lawful characters you can choose to just say "screw this!" and go with a different character path.

[Coidzor]

I think that a lot of people use the alignment system as a restriction on characters and that's why people don't like it. It doesn't have to be that way, you simply choose a starting alignment and then play your character. The only time alignment should be restricting is selecting a class/prestige class, spells, feats, and lawful characters. And even with Lawful characters you can choose to just say "screw this!" and go with a different character path.

Why should it be restrictive there, either, when you get right down to it?

[Beta Centauri]

In one fourth edition campaign I played, all of the party members were unaligned (we played it like Chaotic Neutral) except for one, who was Good (Neutral Good). This definitely showed up in roleplaying, as we tended to be more okay with things like stealing or gambling, and his character was more against that sort of thing. I think it created an interesting party dynamic, more interesting to me at least than just having a party of do-gooders.

Interesting to see a 4th Edition example, since alignment was much less of a deal in that edition, lacking alignment restrictions on character options and alignment-related mechanics for spells and items.

In this example, I wonder if the alignments were picked because of the kinds of characters the players wanted to play, or picked and then played to and those were the personalities that arose. In the former case, it seems like alignment wouldn't really by necessary to bring that about.

Anyway, it's clearly very telling that this thread is so short.

In my 3.5 games, alignment tended not to be an issue, because I tended not to care about it. In one short-lived game, though, some of my players picked evil alignments and it worked surprisingly well. During the first encounter, they slaughtered two mooks in the street. During the second encounter, one character stumbled across a drunk during a chase, and killed him, out of sight of the others (who probably wouldn't have cared anyway). I don't think I had a problem with any of those actions in any case, but it was sort of nice to be able to say, "And hey, that makes sense too, since you're evil." There was no need for the player to say "But I'm evil," in response to me threatening to punish him, and no intra-party strife. So, it's not so much that alignment really enabled this situation, so much as that the usual problems of alignment just didn't come up. I suppose the player's choice to kill the drunk was unexpected, but in the end not all that interesting.

[endur]

I think having a rule against pvp is important, whether alignment or some other system is used

[Beta Centauri]

I think having a rule against pvp is important, whether alignment or some other system is used

I tend to agree, but I don't see how alignment is a rule against pvp. Alignment differences often bring about pvp. It can happen even if there's a rule requiring compatible alignments (and if anyone is aligned the same way anyway, what's really the point?).

Maybe what we need is an understanding of what people think alignment is. endur sees it as preventing pvp situations. Others see it as a restriction and find it unpleasant. Still others see it as a restriction and find that pleasant. I know some people see it as a useful guideline. I think some people see it as a form of balance and (like those who see it as anti-pvp) as a way to make sure players don't mess up the story the GM is trying to tell. "They're all lawful good, so none of them will try to kill my NPCs...."

[Knaight]

I've never seen this. I've seen variation in character morality make games much more interesting. I've seen non-alignment mechanics to that effect drive games in interesting directions. Alignment? That I've never seen help. Even the example in the first post could easily have happened without alignment ever being involved.

[Beta Centauri]

I've never seen this. I've seen variation in character morality make games much more interesting. I've seen non-alignment mechanics to that effect drive games in interesting directions. Alignment? That I've never seen help. Even the example in the first post could easily have happened without alignment ever being involved.

It makes me wonder how alignment keeps making it on the books. Sure, people can largely ignore it if they want, but you'd think the rules would offer some explicit warnings based on the history of the game. Even rust monsters got a warning sidebar in 4th Edition.

[theNater]

It makes me wonder how alignment keeps making it on the books.

The Giant makes a good case for it:

...D&D is basically the "training wheels" of roleplaying. If there's a system that can help train new players about how to roleplay, it should be in there.

Really, that whole post is a good read.

[Beta Centauri]

The Giant makes a good case for it:

Really, that whole post is a good read.

How is this:

It's also a good way to keep beginning players on the general sort of path of heroics without them burning down the village for kicks.

accomplished in a "good" way? "Keeping" them from doing it, veers us into restriction territory. It also gets us away from honestly saying "I don't want you to do that because it makes the game less fun" and into saying "If you do that, I will make the game less fun for you."

[Trevortni]

Even the example in the first post could easily have happened without alignment ever being involved.

Well, I will say that the character was, at least in part, a reaction to my annoyance at the "Chaotic Stab-My-Friends-In-The-Back" school of playing Chaotic Neutral. Not sure whether that refutes or supports what you're saying, however.

[Jayabalard]

It also gets us away from honestly saying "I don't want you to do that because it makes the game less fun" and into saying "If you do that, I will make the game less fun for you."

There are people who play D&D (and other rpgs) that are not mature enough to handle communication done in the former method but respond to the latter.

[Beta Centauri]

There are people who play D&D (and other rpgs) that are not mature enough to handle communication done in the former method but respond to the latter.

Then if D&D is the "training wheels" of roleplaying, it should be training players to be mature enough to handle communication done in the former method, instead of encouraging people to get the experience they want entirely via the rules.

[Tragak]

Then if D&D is the "training wheels" of roleplaying, it should be training players to be mature enough to handle communication done in the former method, instead of encouraging people to get the experience they want entirely via the rules.

Exactly. Alignment doesn't cause problems any more than race, class, level, feats, skills, or equipment do.

[Beta Centauri]

Exactly. Alignment doesn't cause problems any more than race, class, level, feats, skills, or equipment do.

Yes, it does. Race, class, level, feats, skills, and equipment are player choices that give the player some control over the experience they want in the game. Alignment doesn't give the player any real control, anymore than the character's hair color does, but it's used by others to get the kind of game they want. Race and class can be used that way, too, for good or ill, but those things at least provide inherent, rules-based benefits.

And this thread isn't about alignment not causing problems (which it most certainly does, even if it's not the proximate cause), it's about alignment actually doing good when it's used. I would expect examples of players being unsure what their character, and then checking their alignment and having and interesting way forward suddenly made clear, or of players receiving useful guidance for playing characters different from themselves, or of alignment driving an interesting story element. I'm not seeing much of that.

[Jay R]

In a debate over what the party would do, my character answered another one's by saying, "Well, sure. You're a Paladin, sworn to do what's Lawful, and what's Good. I'm a Thief - free to do what's right."

[Hiro Protagonest]

In a debate over what the party would do, my character answered another one's by saying, "Well, sure. You're a Paladin, sworn to do what's Lawful, and what's Good. I'm a Thief - free to do what's right."

I don't see how that's good, that's an example of alignment restricting what a character can do.

[Beta Centauri]

I don't see how that's good, that's an example of alignment restricting what a character can do.

It's a pretty good line, though.

[Tragak]

Yes, it does. Race, class, level, feats, skills, and equipment are player choices that give the player some control over the experience they want in the game. Alignment doesn't give the player any real control, anymore than the character's hair color does, but it's used by others to get the kind of game they want. Race and class can be used that way, too, for good or ill, but those things at least provide inherent, rules-based benefits.

As you too have said, OOC communication works better for "control over the experience" than mechanical choices do.

And this thread isn't about alignment not causing problems (which it most certainly does, even if it's not the proximate cause), it's about alignment actually doing good when it's used. I would expect examples of players being unsure what their character, and then checking their alignment and having and interesting way forward suddenly made clear, or of players receiving useful guidance for playing characters different from themselves, or of alignment driving an interesting story element. I'm not seeing much of that.

Kind of like I didn't know how to role-play "What Would Ragnar do?" but then I asked "What Would a Ranger Do?" and got an amazing idea for what I should have Ragnar do, or I'd always thought that Wizards worked with Wizards and Druids worked with Druids, but then I played a Druid in a party with a Wizard and we worked together against other Druids/Wizards, things like that but with alignment instead?

Sounds easy enough. Just treat it the way you treat everything else in the game.

[Tragak]

I don't see how that's good, that's an example of alignment restricting what a character can do.

Or an example of one character sharing his opinion about his own alignment being better / less restrictive than another's

[Jayabalard]

I don't see how that's good, that's an example of alignment restricting what a character can do.

Class restricts what a character can do. So does race. And many other game mechanics that you choose.

Yes, it does. Race, class, level, feats, skills, and equipment are player choices that give the player some control over the experience they want in the game. Alignment doesn't give the player any real control, anymore than the character's hair color does, but it's used by others to get the kind of game they want. Race and class can be used that way, too, for good or ill, but those things at least provide inherent, rules-based benefits.

I don't see a difference in how race class and alignment are used. They all give the players options and limitations. They're all used to force players to pigeonhole themselves in some way or another.

And this thread isn't about alignment not causing problems (which it most certainly does, even if it's not the proximate cause), it's about alignment actually doing good when it's used.

Those are kind of the general advantages of the system

• Giving immature players a reason to learn how to work together as a group (I've found it especially useful for kids under 15)
• Giving inexperienced role players some ideas on how to flesh out their character beyond "guy who hits things with a stick" .. there are other methods I like better, but few of them are as simple as alignment.
• Helping inexperienced players separate their desires as a player from what their character would want.
• Giving GMs a broad idea on how a particular npc or monster should be played without requiring deep thought into it.

More experienced players and gms tend to form a more nuanced view of alignment. The only time I've really seen any problems was with an experienced player who didn't realize how inexperienced his GM was.

I would expect examples of players being unsure what their character, and then checking their alignment and having and interesting way forward suddenly made clear, or of players receiving useful guidance for playing characters different from themselves, or of alignment driving an interesting story element.

As an example: I was playing a Balance aligned innate magic user, there were several cases where it was useful to draw on how the various alignments (Elder vs Kotothi, Sidh vs Kotothi, Law vs Chaos, Shamanic Elder vs Law and Chaos) interacted to determine how I should treat various NPCs, and where I could best serve the Balance. The party (as I recall) had members who were Balance, shamanic elder and Sidh aligned, but it's been so long I don't remember a lot of specifics.

I seem to remember convincing my party to not aid a Law NPC Wizard as he fought some the Kotothi forces... the Sidh member of our party was livid, but we convinced him that we could always come in later and take on the Kotothi forces after the Law Wizard had softened them up, thereby weakening both Law AND Kotothi

[Jay R]

I don't see how that's good, that's an example of alignment restricting what a character can do.

It's an example of alignment being used by a player as an aid to making his point. It made for instant communication.

[Beta Centauri]

As you too have said, OOC communication works better for "control over the experience" than mechanical choices do.

Equivocation. The issue is the experience as it's modified by others' behavior, and controlling that behavior by telling players that someone of a given alignment wouldn't do such a thing, or that if they do such a thing their alignment will be forcibly changed (possibly impacting the usefulness of their class, or other features). One can have a personal opinion on how a given class or race would act, but there's not much leverage directly in the rules for making someone act a given way due to their race or class.

Sounds easy enough. Just treat it the way you treat everything else in the game.

If it's easy, then why aren't we seeing more personal examples. Why aren't you providing any? You're still just implying that alignment is no more troublesome than any other element, when it clearly is.

Class restricts what a character can do. So does race. And many other game mechanics that you choose.

Via specific rules, not value judgments. One can say "Hey, your dwarf wouldn't get along with his elf," but there's no rule against that, and no in-system grounds or means for taking away the character's race because they're playing it in a way that bothers someone else.

I don't see a difference in how race class and alignment are used. They all give the players options and limitations. They're all used to force players to pigeonhole themselves in some way or another.

But the rules due the pigeonholing, not anyone's opinion of what those options mean. The GM doesn't have to tell the fighter that the fighter can't choose to cast a spell, because that's just not an option for the fighter. There's no in-game mechanism for the GM punishing a player who decides to cast a spell, because it's just not an option. If the fighter does it anyway, then there's an out-of-game conversation about following rules.

The GM can tell the evil assassin that he can't save an innocent's life, because while that should be an option for the fighter, the GM may decide that it shouldn't be. If the assassin decides to do it anyway, there are in-game provisions for punishing that assassin, and diminishing its effectiveness in the game, despite the fact that the action in question is completely unrelated to character effectiveness or game balance.

Now, those are just the rules, and if that happens then it was the player's choice, right? No cheating or disruption was involved, right? The rules worked, didn't they? Yes, but whatever disruptive behavior that disincentive was meant to prevent still happened, and now the game is distrupted and the player has a cruddy character.

Or, the GM can just express their preference for how the game goes, and get buy in.

Those are kind of the general advantages of the system

• Giving immature players a reason to learn how to work together as a group (I've found it especially useful for kids under 15)
• Giving inexperienced role players some ideas on how to flesh out their character beyond "guy who hits things with a stick" .. there are other methods I like better, but few of them are as simple as alignment.
• Helping inexperienced players separate their desires as a player from what their character would want.
• Giving GMs a broad idea on how a particular npc or monster should be played without requiring deep thought into it.

What is the reason to work together? If they don't, what happens? Doesn't their alignment just change, and the game go on? But aren't people expected to work together despite different alignments?
Why is it important to separate their desires as a player from what their character would want? Why not just help them pick an alignment that lets them do what they want? And what's the incentive not to just do what they want? Change of alignment?
I've never seen alignments presented in terms of how one should play monsters of those alignments. If they did, I would agree that they were somewhat useful.

Do you have examples of any of the above?

More experienced players and gms tend to form a more nuanced view of alignment. The only time I've really seen any problems was with an experienced player who didn't realize how inexperienced his GM was.

Look around the forum, though. Or ask anyone about problems they've had regarding alignment. Maybe you've lucked out, but alignment has mired a lot of people, even experienced ones. It has a lot to make up for, unlike most other game options (even the paladin isn't troublesome, once alignment concerns are dropped).

As an example: I was playing a Balance aligned innate magic user, there were several cases where it was useful to draw on how the various alignments (Elder vs Kotothi, Sidh vs Kotothi, Law vs Chaos, Shamanic Elder vs Law and Chaos) interacted to determine how I should treat various NPCs, and where I could best serve the Balance. The party (as I recall) had members who were Balance, shamanic elder and Sidh aligned, but it's been so long I don't remember a lot of specifics.

I seem to remember convincing my party to not aid a Law NPC Wizard as he fought some the Kotothi forces... the Sidh member of our party was livid, but we convinced him that we could always come in later and take on the Kotothi forces after the Law Wizard had softened them up, thereby weakening both Law AND Kotothi

Okay, cool example. I don't know what those alignments mean, except for maybe Law vs. Chaos. But the way your example reads, I feel I could substitute anything.

I seem to remember convincing my party to not aid a Drow NPC Wizard as he fought some the goblin forces... the duergar member of our party was livid, but we convinced him that we could always come in later and take on the goblin forces after the Drow Wizard had softened them up, thereby weakening both Drow AND goblins.

But D&D alignment doesn't interchange with race or class or anything else that way. I've never seen anyone talk about "weakening Chaos AND Evil." That's a cool idea, and if D&D alignment was played that way, I might dig it, but it's not. Even back when there was just Law, Neutrality and Chaos, and Protection from Evil defined evil as "an alignment other than yours," Chaos was very clearly the "immoral" alignment, and players were to be discouraged from playing it, and their characters taken away if the GM felt they'd reverted to it.

[Knaight]

Then if D&D is the "training wheels" of roleplaying, it should be training players to be mature enough to handle communication done in the former method, instead of encouraging people to get the experience they want entirely via the rules.

I'd also contest D&D being the training wheels of roleplaying. It happens to be the system most people enter through because it's very well known, the actual applicability of it to new people is debatable. The advice for new people starting new groups is terrible, D&D has a history of being explicitly designed to be learned because someone already in teaches you, ever since AD&D it's been a pretty rules heavy game, so on and so forth.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Via specific rules, not value judgments. One can say "Hey, your dwarf wouldn't get along with his elf," but there's no rule against that, and no in-system grounds or means for taking away the character's race because they're playing it in a way that bothers someone else.

Exactly. When you're a fighter, and you say "I move and attack", nobody goes "you can't do that, you can only full attack". When you roll the dice to see if you hit, there is no confusion about it, and if there is, you just have to quickly re-calculate to make sure you're getting the bonuses right, it still has a definitive ruling. Meanwhile, alignments have no mechanical effects aside from tags and effects on certain spells.

We could decide to replace "good, evil, law, chaos" with "blue, orange, green, red" and remove all the flavor text and it might actually be an improvement. Except for the part where it doesn't say how many times you have to use a spell with the "orange" tag before you aren't blue any more, or anything like that.

[Beta Centauri]

We could decide to replace "good, evil, law, chaos" with "blue, orange, green, red" and remove all the flavor text and it might actually be an improvement.

Yes, because at that point it would be apparent how meaningless the whole thing is.

Except for the part where it doesn't say how many times you have to use a spell with the "orange" tag before you aren't blue any more, or anything like that.

But at that point, who would even care?