Alignment: Fall 2022

[Witty Username]

👻
Alright,
This will be the time and place we finally solve the alignment system.
Is it good or bad for the game?

What axises should we use?

What are the pros and cons of alignment?

How do we use it in our games?

Should Paladins always be Lawful Good? YES

[Rynjin]

Is it good or bad for the game?

It's great. Or terrible. Depends on what gets the most arguments.

What axises should we use?

Good and Evil; people have way more opinions on those two than Law and Chaos.

What are the pros and cons of alignment?

Pros:

It's fun to argue about

Cons:

Some people take things too seriously

How do we use it in our games?

To drive conflict between the GM and players, and also players and other players

Should Paladins always be Lawful Good? YES

Since you said YES, I'm honorbound to scream NO

[Hytheter]

Alignment is utterly crucial.

Without it, buildings would fall and books would be a hassle to read.

[Tanarii]

Pros: Player's roleplaying tool. If the associated behavior is used by the player as one of the five personality traits to consider when making in character decisions, aka roleplaying, it's a very handy tool. Especially for beginners, but even for experienced players who have gone down the rabbit hole of backstory with no clearly listed motivations to help when making in character decisions. Even if alignment specifically isn't used, a personality category related to social and/or moral motivations and resulting behavior is often but not always worth including, in a game that overall tends to focus on heroes and villains.
The other four motivations being Personality Trait, Ideal, Bond and Flaw. They should impact and even override the overall behavior as appropriate, in the judgement of the player.

Con1: Straight jacket alignment. This is what tends to lead to players feeling they must have their character take certain actions because of their character alignment, despite it very clearly being stated it's an associated an overall behavior and not required to be consistent. That's especially important when you've got four other motivational traits.

Con2: Descriptive alignment. Otherwise known as an alignment 'score', determined as a result of prior character behavior, There's very little use for this in current 5e, and it especially becomes a problem when the DM, player, and even other players disagree if a characters behavior, or worse specific actions, don't match. The ultimate example of this is when a player is being required to change alignment because of someone else's (usually the DMs) judgement on their characters behavior/actions.

Con3: Outside definitions. Many players and DMs bring non-5e definitions to alignment.
Two most common, often combined:
Individual actions have alignment 'weight' or 'value';
Law, Chaos, Good or Evil have meaning separate (personally defined) meaning from the alignments and their associated behaviors.

[Pauly]

Alignment is a good thing when it is used as intended. i.e. constraint on players to encourage them to have their characters behave in a consistent manner.

Alignment is a bad thing when it is used by GMs as a hammer to whack players for wrongfun. It is a bad thing with players who treat them as loopholes to be exploited (My paladin burns the orphanage to the ground for the greater good, my CE rogue behaves like a saint because it would be inconvenient to show my true nature)

If you are playing D&D then it is a required element of play. Spells like “detect evil” and so on are a core part of the game. Even if you don’t like alignment it is very deeply written into the system, and IMO it is too deeply embedded to be removed.

The 4 axis is as good as any other system I’ve seen. Some tables I’ve gamed at have banned true neutral characters on the basis that they’re too squishy and malleable. The good/evil lawful/chaotic split is easy to understand and apply.

I don’t play much D&D if I can help it. Most of the games I play have motivation, character traits, flaws chosen from a menu. They end up having similar issues with the D&D alignment axes in that their value added to the game depends on how the players approach the system. If they’re seen as a guide to playing a consistent character it’s good, but if they’re seen as a barrier that can be gamed around it’s more hassle than its worth.

[Telok]

In D&D?

Nice <-> *******
crossed with
Plays well with others <-> Squirrel!

Any game with a designer who wasn't blind & dumb? Something actually useful. Varies by game style & type.

[Batcathat]

I believe that alignment is at worst actively harmful in one of several ways and at best completely useless. Either it's specific enough to be a straight-jacket or it's too vague to be helpful. I've yet to see any sort of useful middle ground and if people want a two word description of their character's behavior, I'd prefer if that just came up with them themselves. I suppose it's useful for effects that target specific groups (no Smite Evil if there's no Evil, etc.).

(I also find the idea of objective morality inherently absurd, but that's admittedly a subjective opinion that doesn't influence the game one way or the other).

Pros:

It's fun to argue about

Heh. This is very true.

[animorte]

The important thing to remember is that your PC is not who they are because of their alignment. Their alignment develops because of who they are and what they do. It must represent your past before it can predict your future.

[MoiMagnus]

Is it good or bad for the game?

Often bad. IMO it's too often given more importance than it should.

What axises should we use?

Having two axes is important in order to affirm that there are more than one way to be Good and more than one way to be Evil, and that there can be infighting even within Good and within Evil.

The current two axes are good enough, even if personally I've added changed the Good/Evil to: Vigilante/Altruiste/Neutral/Egoist/Destructor

(Making it so that the middle 3 alignments are common while the other two are usually considered troublemakers. Note that Lawful Destructor is possible, but in general the Destructor alignment is not a sign of good mental health.)

What are the pros and cons of alignment?

It can help players who struggle to play something else than themself to force themself into another way of seeing the world.

It also contribute to characterise the world (alignment of gods/extraplanar/afterlife) and give to it a D&D vibe.

On the other hand, it's pretty much the equivalent of (explicitly) including politics into your games, it can easily starts conflict between players and GM if they fundamentally disagree on some point.

And it encourages interference of the GM on the players and "how they should play" for reasons that are arbitrary. A player having a CN character but behaving as CE is not a problem by itself, and if the behaviour is actually problematic then changing the alignment to CE won't solve the core of the issue: the player shall not be a jerk witg other players even if their character is a jerk with other characters.

How do we use it in our games?

I use it mostly as a world building tool.

Should Paladins always be Lawful Good? YES

Definitely and absolutely NO. Removing alignment restriction on paladin is one of many reasons why 5e paladin is the best paladin. (And I'm not sure any other class is at its best in 5e).

Admittedly, I don't care particularly for the name, so the class could be renamed to "zealot" (or something else) and the name paladin reserved to "lawful good zealots". But both LE (or LN) and CG (or CN) versions of the paladin are very interesting to have as PCs or NPCs.

[Millstone85]

I love the Great Wheel and the option to have characters align with the various planes of Law, Good, Chaos and Evil.

Otherwise, I guess alignment is not that important.

Con3: Outside definitions. Many players and DMs bring non-5e definitions to alignment.
Two most common, often combined:
Individual actions have alignment 'weight' or 'value';
Law, Chaos, Good or Evil have meaning separate (personally defined) meaning from the alignments and their associated behaviors.

Ha ha, well, I do recommend ditching 5e's definitions of LG, CG, CE and LE in favor of combinations of LN, NG, CN and NE.

Lawful good (LG) creatures can be counted on to do the right thing as expected by society.

Useless.

Lawful neutral (LN) individuals act in accordance with law, tradition, or personal codes.

Neutral good (NG) folk do the best they can to help others according to their needs.

Much better. And the character may further try to abide by both in all situations (Mount Celestia's way) or typically prioritize one over the other (Arcadia or Bytopia's way).

[Vahnavoi]

👻
Alright,
This will be the time and place we finally solve the alignment system.
Is it good or bad for the game?

What axises should we use?

What are the pros and cons of alignment?

How do we use it in our games?

Should Paladins always be Lawful Good? YES

You posted this in the general roleplaying game section; this means there's more than one game, and more than one system, to consider. It's not possible to "solve" it, because for any analysis of a system, a new system can be build that acknowledges that analysis and then does something to break it.

"But is it good or bad for the game?"

There are at least eight recognized aesthetics of gameplay. Of these, alignment can be made to serve at least six:

Fantasy: Game as make-believe
Narrative: Game as drama
Challenge: Game as obstacle course
Fellowship: Game as social framework
Discovery: Game as uncharted territory
Expression: Game as self-discovery

Fantasy, in that alignment allows for study of hypothetical moral frameworks, as well as application of existing morals to hypothetical scenarios. Narrative, in that alignment codifies conflicts and roles in conflict familiar from other forms of drama. Challenge, in that you can require strategy or make a puzzle out of acting morally. Fellowship, in that precepts of alignment can be used to explain and enforce pro-sociality & co-operation and to create a shared understanding of why things are done. Discovery, in that a player can use it to find out what other people (both the real ones around the table and fictional ones in the game) think about right and wrong. Expression, in that making moral philosophy an explicit part of the game encourages players to express their own views on game events.

It's not given any system can serve all of these all the time, or in equal amounts. For example, a system build for challenge may dissatisfy players who are mainly interested in expressing their own values, or vice versa.

"What axes should we use?"

Depends on what aesthetics you want to prioritize and what kind of a setting you wish to use.

A single axis system works best when there's a clear-cut dichtomy at the root of the game's primary conflict. Law versus Chaos is an example, but systems that define these differently also work differently. Some examples:

Classic: Law stands for civilization of man. Chaos stands for untamed wildnerness and forces of nature. In other words, man versus nature.

AD&D: Law stands for large, organized groups. Chaos stands for the sovereignty of the individual. In other words, collectivism versus individualism.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Law stands for inevitable and unmoveable perfection of God. Chaos stands for unending change and limitless possibilities. Neutral is for people who have no horse in this supernatural race.

Cosmic horror: Law stands for seeking to destroy or bind the Great Old Ones. Chaos stands for seeking to release and exploit (and be exploited by) them. Neutral doesn't want anything to do with them.

Ancient Domains of Mystery: Law stands for giving to those in need, abiding by laws of community and preserving stability of the world. Chaos stands for taking from the weak by force, acting on your own will and seeking the upheaval of status quo. Neutral stands for striking a balance to maintain ecological balance of the natural world.

In such a system, players are either fighting as a group on one side against the other(s), or fighting against each other. The dichtomy is at the root of the conflict, so different alignments don't mix (and aren't meant to mix) well.

AD&D's biaxial system is an evolution of these. It's still mainly interested in dichtomous relationships, but by allowing gradients within categories, it allows for more nuanced grouping of characters, as well as conflict within groups. AD&D's system is a fuller image of morality, but to make use of it, people need to be able to distinquish which axis does what, which in practice they often fail.

You can go outside both models to do, say, virtue ethics in style of Ultima, where there are as many axes as there are virtues in play. The main trick is figuring out how to efficiently keep track of a larger number of variables.

"What are the pros and cons of alignment?"

This is the same question as the first one.

"How do we use it in our games?"

I already covered the aesthetics. Here's some specific ideas of what you can do with alignment, that often go under-appreciated:

Spot the Traitor: Players only know alignment of their own character. Some player characters are of radically opposing alignments seeking to undermine each other. Players have to use game tools to figure who is on who's side.

Discovering the Real You: Players don't know their character's alignment - only the game master does (see AD&D and Ultima-style graphs, above). Players do what they will with their characters, if they want to know where their alignment stands, they have to deduce it from reactions of non-player characters or use some game tool.

All aboard the blame train: Alignment is rated openly and by everyone. Every player has a face-up version of their character's alignment graph (again, see above), and every other player can give them points based on their own opinion whenever a character does something noteworthy.

Historical use: the player, upon character selection, pledges to play some alignment. The game master serves as a referee and rates how well the player is doing. Hence, the alignment of a character reflects how the game master and, by extension, every character played by the game master judge that character.

For a game master, alignment is straigtforwardly a guideline for how to play different characters, and how those characters relate to the player characters. That is, a game master decides how non-player characters act based on alignment; for player characters, it's the other way around, with a game master deciding alignment based on how a player plays their character.

In this paradigm, alignment is chiefly about how a player character's action look to the outside. Player characters are held to a standard - with Paladins beholden to the Church, Clerics beholden to their gods, Thieves and Assassins beholden to the Thieves' Guild, Druids beholden to their druidic circle, Monks beholden to monastic order, so on and so forth.

"Should Paladins always be Lawful Good?"

If multi-classing for humans is allowed, Paladin is redundant as a class - mechanically, a Paladin is a Lawful Good Fighter/Cleric. If such combinations are already allowed, there is no need for a Paladin class.

Thematically, the Paladin as pitched in early days of D&D is a very specific creature, with specific fictional precedents. It should always be Lawful Good. Most of the alternate Paladins lack such precedents and are artificially constructed just to fill a corner of the alignment graph. Most alternate Paladins could be comfortably modeled by the actual base class for holy warriors of varying ethos: Cleric.

A question you didn't ask: "Why did post-1st edition takes on D&D alignment suck?"

Because come 2nd edition, TSR had made a conscious decision to market their game to children, with all the corporate nonsense this entailed.

A lot of the horror stories you've heard of alignment not working in play? They happened because the players were literally 12, with exactly the amount of understanding about moral philosophy as you'd think, trying to use a watered-down version of a system that WAS NOT made with children in mind. AD&D 1st Edition's take on alignment (nevermind the game as a whole) draws from a bunch of authors who were not writing for kids.

WotC has not done much better in this regard and there are parallels you can draw with how things were and how they are now. But even if you forget WotC's direct contributions to the mess, a fact is that more people (think they) know alignment from memes and tabletop stereotypes than from actually reading the rules or giving them a fair go.

Based on every review I've read, 5th edition alignment system is from people who hated 3rd edition alignment, to people who hated 3rd edition alignment. It primarily exists for product identity reasons - that is, D&D continues to have it because past editions had it, not because the designers know how to make a good game around it. If you want a use case for 5th edition alignment specifically, ask Tanarii or someone else who plays with those rules. I don't.

[Anonymouswizard]

Whenever I've played in a game without Alignment I've never missed it. D&D's alignment is also very vestigial, even back in the oft-worshiped days of 3e it mostly mattered for certain spells.

I like Alignment when it's more like Victoriana 3e*. One axis with multiple steps and major mechanical effects, specifically in Victoriana it changes how spending Fate Points work (Order gives bonus successes, Chaos gives bonus dice) and difficulty in using magic or technology. Interesting orcs are Order-aligned by default. But the point is that alignment matters, an orc with a revolver is not someone you face lightly (as they're likely slinging three automatic successes).

* Maybe earlier editions as well? I only own 3e.

[Vahnavoi]

Orcs were Lawful in AD&D 1st edition as well. They got moved to Chaotic somewhere along the way. It's part of a larger trend of re-imagining orcs as whatever fits the theme of day.

[GloatingSwine]

👻
What axises should we use?

Cheese - Chocolate and Cake - Biscuit.

Only these can truly capture the full breadth of reality.

Also arguments about what a chocolate cheesecake with a biscuit base should count as are a lot tastier than the usual D&D alignment arguments.


Alignment is a hook to hang other mechanics on, it doesn't really do anything by itself. The overwhelming majority of the mechanics that are hanging on alignment can be just as gracefully hung elsewhere.

[KorvinStarmast]

For the OP: What game system are you referring to? In Empire of the Petal Throne, the evil and good gods and cohorts manifest that aspect of the game differently than the two-axis model (which began as a continuum, a polar plot) that has turned into the nine-idiot-box shorthand that D&D has degraded into.

Pros: Player's roleplaying tool...The other four motivations being Personality Trait, Ideal, Bond and Flaw. They should impact and even override the overall behavior as appropriate, in the judgement of the player.

The better answer, however. My only disagreement with you is that alignment can change as a consequence of a player's choices for their character. A key tenet of role playing is that decisions and choices have consequences. The players can grow during play; the question isn't "who are you?" (which is rather static) the question is "who will you become during the course of your adventures?" Discovering "who you are" is a part of the discovery pillar of the game. (Social, combat, and discovery being the three pillars, with exploration as a subset of discovery).

Con3: Outside definitions. Many players and DMs bring non-5e definitions to alignment.

Yeah, that's a problem.

The important thing to remember is that your PC is not who they are because of their alignment. Their alignment develops because of who they are and what they do. It must represent your past before it can predict your future.

That's how I have tended to apply it.

{Snip most of a very good answer to a badly phrased question}

Nice examples.

Classic: Law stands for civilization of man. Chaos stands for untamed wildnerness and forces of nature. In other words, man versus nature.
AD&D: Law stands for large, organized groups. Chaos stands for the sovereignty of the individual. In other words, collectivism versus individualism.
Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Law stands for inevitable and unmoveable perfection of God. Chaos stands for unending change and limitless possibilities. Neutral is for people who have no horse in this supernatural race.
Cosmic horror: Law stands for seeking to destroy or bind the Great Old Ones. Chaos stands for seeking to release and exploit (and be exploited by) them. Neutral doesn't want anything to do with them.
Ancient Domains of Mystery: Law stands for giving to those in need, abiding by laws of community and preserving stability of the world. Chaos stands for taking from the weak by force, acting on your own will and seeking the upheaval of status quo. Neutral stands for striking a balance to maintain ecological balance of the natural world.
- In such a system, players are either fighting as a group on one side against the other(s), or fighting against each other. The dichtomy is at the root of the conflict, so different alignments don't mix (and aren't meant to mix) well.

AD&D's biaxial system is an evolution of these. It's still mainly interested in dichtomous relationships, but by allowing gradients within categories, it allows for more nuanced grouping of characters, as well as conflict within groups. AD&D's system is a fuller image of morality, but to make use of it, people need to be able to distinquish which axis does what, which in practice they often fail.

{Emphasis mine}. Too right.

For a game master, alignment is straightforwardly a guideline for how to play different characters, and how those characters relate to the player characters. That is, a game master decides how non-player characters act based on alignment; for player characters, it's the other way around, with a game master deciding alignment based on how a player plays their character.

Nice distinction that is frequently missed by the modern player. Also, a lot of folks overlooked the 1e DMG discussion on Atonement. (pg 25 and 42, as well as the spell in the PHB). And as ever, 'use your judgment' is broad guidance that was IMO well placed.

A question you didn't ask: "Why did post-1st edition takes on D&D alignment suck?"

Because come 2nd edition, TSR had made a conscious decision to market their game to children, with all the corporate nonsense this entailed.

A lot of the horror stories you've heard of alignment not working in play? They happened because the players were literally 12, with exactly the amount of understanding about moral philosophy as you'd think, trying to use a watered-down version of a system that WAS NOT made with children in mind. AD&D 1st Edition's take on alignment (nevermind the game as a whole) draws from a bunch of authors who were not writing for kids.

FWIW, the decision to market to children was made about a decade before that, with Basic Set, which was soon followed by B/X, and later what became BECMI, explicitly boxed and distributed in toy stores along side other games in colorful boxes. The book "The Game Wizards" does a nice job of describing that marketing evolution. With AD&D 2e, that was amplified as you describe.

... more people (think they) know alignment from memes and tabletop stereotypes than from actually reading the rules or giving them a fair go.

Players not bothering to become familiar with the rules is an ongoing problem.

If you want a use case for 5th edition alignment specifically, ask Tanarii or someone else who plays with those rules. I don't.

It's usable, but Tanarii does a better job of describing it since what I do is a combination of L/N/C as the baseline with a plot of how characters behave being maintained by the DM.

Orcs were Lawful in AD&D 1st edition as well. They got moved to Chaotic somewhere along the way. It's part of a larger trend of re-imagining orcs as whatever fits the theme of day.

FWIW, Orcs were on the side of Chaos in the original game, but they could also be neutral. Goblins and Kobolds were always chaotic. Likewise (C and N) were Giants, Chimerae, Dragons, Ogres, and Lycanthropes). In AD&D 2e they were Lawful Evil. (I just checked, and that checks out with AD&D 1e. The picture in the 2e Monstrous Manual departed from the boar snout picture in 1e MM, but it well fits the description of "a species of aggressive mammalian carnivores that band together in tribes to survive by hunting and raiding." The D&D 5e book has them as Chaotic Evil, so we can blame WoTC for this change. ("Often Chaotic Evil" is what is in the SRD for 3.5e). IMO, one of the few good things 3.5e did was retain/recapture the discomfort with sunlight, being 'dazzled' in bright sunlight or within the radius of the daylight spell, which if we look at how Tolkien used darkness and light as deep motifs since that's where 'orcs don't like the light' comes from, reflects thematically on their alignment description.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Alignment is only helpful insofar as it helps players describe their characters. Beyond that its utility is basically nil. Mechanics like Fate's aspects or Exalted 3e's intimacies are much more interesting.

If I had to point to a good axis system, I'd probably go with Divinity: Original Sin 1's traits mechanic--and that's really more like nine different axis for individual aspects of your personality. You have an Altruistic <-> Egotistical alignment, Blunt <-> Considerate, Pragmatic <-> Romantic, and so on; choices you make in the game give you points for one side of an axis or the other, and you get a minor mechanical bonus depending on which side you've committed to more.

[Theoboldi]

I think Alignment serves a useful purpose in games that have actual supernatural, cosmic forces that represent the opposing ends of the alignment spectrum. Beings of pure good or evil, spells that call upon their power and work differently against beings of varying alignments, and magical items that serve these forces and seek to enforce their power.

It serves as a good framework to illustrate how these forces and their followers behave, how to arbitrate where a given character's allegiance falls and which beings will accept him, and how the mystical powers of these cosmic forces affect an individual. There's a good opportunity for the mechanics to reinforce the setting here, making for a more cohesive world.

Mind, this is mostly true for high-fantasy and very magical worlds, which luckily is what most D&D worlds are.

Conversely, I don't think it's a particularly impressive roleplaying aid, about on par with just being told to establish a few personality traits of your character up front. But then again I am not very much into most explicit roleplaying mechanics, as I prefer to decide what my character does and feels in a more freeform manner. There is utility in using it as a way to get everyone in a party on the same page, however. Saying "I want all characters in this party to be of good alignment." does immediately lay down some clear expectations about what kind of behaviors and personalities are acceptable and which ones are not.

I fully agree on the matter of paladins, though.

[Tanarii]

The better answer, however. My only disagreement with you is that alignment can change as a consequence of a player's choices for their character. A key tenet of role playing is that decisions and choices have consequences. The players can grow during play; the question isn't "who are you?" (which is rather static) the question is "who will you become during the course of your adventures?" Discovering "who you are" is a part of the discovery pillar of the game. (Social, combat, and discovery being the three pillars, with exploration as a subset of discovery).

Alignment as a player roleplaying tool by providing motivations doesn't mean it can't change. It's actually very easy. The player erases the old alignment, writes in the new one, and starts using the new associated but not constantly required behavior as a motivation moving forward.

This also works fine with forced alignment changes (planar effects, lycanthrope), it just requires player good faith buy-in.

Also, this works fine with the character believing they are a good or evil or lawful or chaotic person, but actually not being, with player good faith buy-in. The player writes down the actual alignment and associated but not constantly required behavior as a motivation, and uses that to base in-character decisions on. But they also have the character espouse that act-chewly they're some other alignment! As long as the player doesn't try to claim they're using another alignment as the basis for their decision making, which would be bad faith use of the alignment system, the disconnect between what the player knows to be the true alignment and what the character believes in-universe isn't an issue. Except possibly for other creatures in-universe, which may feel compelled to call the character on their BS.

[KorvinStarmast]

Except possibly for other creatures in-universe, which may feel compelled to call the character on their BS.

Nice point.
Your points on the good faith buy in, which usually requires a conversation or two between player and GM, get a bit yes out of me.

[LibraryOgre]

I've often found alignment to be useful to defining general trends of behavior, both for individuals and for groups.

Hobgoblin society tends towards LE. Therefore, that society should be hierarchical and self-interested, if not malevolent. Individual hobgoblins might differ from the societal alignment, but that's because societal alignment is the aggregate of the alignment of individuals, as individual alignment is the aggregate of actions of the character.

It is a shorthand which describes broad strokes. As mentioned above, it requires player buy-in, but also a degree of conscious definition... what is good, what is bad, what is law, what is chaos? Some actions won't neatly plot on that, due to a complex mix of motivations, means taken, and outcomes... if I did a good thing in a bad way, did that actually help? If I am Team Rocket, and I do a bad thing so incompetently that it results in a good outcome, am I good or evil? That some of this is difficult to plot isn't that alignment is necessarily flawed, it's that it's wibbly-wobbly, morally-worally kind of stuff... situations are complex and you can't always see the big picture at the details.

[J-H]

Varies by campaign

I don't want to see it deleted, and I think it can add some fun dynamics at a table as long as everyone is buying into it and playing the same game.

Empirical observations:
5e, ran an in-person Castlevania game (Castle Dracula to avoid copyright issues, along with a few other name changes). Kill vampire, kill undead, etc. Half the party showed up with neutral alignments. I had one negative effect (Good creatures entering an Unhallow area had to save against something minor) and one alignment-locked item (Mithril Cross, anti-necromancy protective item). The party interrogated an enemy monster and then dropped the fellow into some acid. They also negotiated successfully with a couple of NPCs of questionable morality (if it eats people, it's probably not Good).

Alignment was generally just a mechanical effect, and I hadn't even asked what alignment characters were until like session 15 when it came up.


5e, continuation of some of the same characters, campaign log is around here. They are definitely desecrating bodies to avoid Resurrected enemies. The party Paladin is LG and has prevented a couple of minor warcrimes, and is currently trying to change the alignment of a sword made from a fragment of a dead god that may divinity-drain itself back into godhood. Alignment matters some, dependent on the player's willingness to play to it. No mechanical effects anywhere in the campaign.
Not sure what alignment some of the PCs are even now. Pragmatic good-ish?


Next campaign will be Baldur's Gate II. For those unfamiliar, 1-2 PCs will be children of Bhaal, a CE god of murder (currently deceased), and will carry a bit of him around inside. They will need to choose to indulge in those impulses, or resist them. By late game, this will impact some powers available to them, as well as some permanent self-buffs. The other PCs will have varying backgrounds, which may include "accidentally half a vampire," where snacking on people will lead them down one path, and going all Blade will lead them down another path of power.
Alignment WILL matter for character development.
Properly foreshadowed PC vs PC conflict will be on the table.
There are 2 or 3 possible NPCs (4 PC + 1 NPC of their choice party) who they can cause alignment changes for, including one who wanted to be a LG paladin but doesn't quite have the temperament or maturity for it yet.
Some items will be alignment-locked, although not many.
This will all be discussed in session 0.

[Kurt Kurageous]

Good and Evil in 5e is totally subjective.

A good elf/dwarf/human does good for elvin/dwarvish/human society, and perhaps for all good-aligned races.

A good orc does good for orcish society...but we call them evil.

Good and Evil in 5e is totally subjective. Imagine what I think of Neutral. It cares not for all organized humanoid life.

[Millstone85]

Good and Evil in 5e is totally subjective.

A good elf/dwarf/human does good for elvin/dwarvish/human society, and perhaps for all good-aligned races.

A good orc does good for orcish society...but we call them evil.

Good and Evil in 5e is totally subjective. Imagine what I think of Neutral. It cares not for all organized humanoid life.

You could just as well say that Neutral cares for neutral humanoid life, such as githzerai, lizardfolk, thri-kreen, etc.

[Luccan]

Should Paladins always be Lawful Good? YES

As far as Paladins: Yes*. I'm coming around to the idea that if you've got a class based game in the D&D mould then archetypes are important

*You can and maybe should have paladins of any alignment, but they should adhere to their alignment as much as the classic LG pallys

[Millstone85]

You can and maybe should have paladins of any alignment, but they should adhere to their alignment as much as the classic LG pallys

Yes, you could have paladins of...

Justice	Mercy	Liberty
Institution	Balance	Volition
Tyranny	Malice	Ferocity

Or someting like that. 5e initially went a bit in that direction, by telling you that the Oath of Devotion usually produces LG paladins, the Oath of the Ancients cares about goodness but not for law or chaos, etc.

[J-H]

Good and Evil in 5e is totally subjective.

A good elf/dwarf/human does good for elvin/dwarvish/human society, and perhaps for all good-aligned races.

A good orc does good for orcish society...but we call them evil.

Good and Evil in 5e is totally subjective. Imagine what I think of Neutral. It cares not for all organized humanoid life.

Illithid devotion paladin?

[KorvinStarmast]

Illithid devotion paladin?

No. But a Githyanki devotion paladin makes a lot of sense: devoted to destroying illithid. (Wait, is that vengeance paladin? )

[Witty Username]

To clarify some things:
The idea of "solving" alignment was a joke, as is the title, that this is a continuation of the perpetual discussion of alignment. I don't get blue text on my phone, so I just sotra hoped. That being said if you think you can your welcome to try and tell us about it.

D&D is the system I am personally the most familiar with, but I don't feel the need to limit the discussion to D&D, anything that has an alignment system you have opinions on is welcome to the discussion. Like say, comments to the effect of how the star wars rpg has pros and cons with using instead of good or bad, a dark side point tracker to measure in game terms the corruption of the dark side. Fair game for this.
Or heck, rpgs that work/don't work for you because they distinctly don't have alignment type stuff, talk about it.

[gbaji]

I'm going to second the notion that alignments work well as some sort of base cosmic/whatever concepts in a game world that affect things like what deities/spirits/whatever are on which side of whatever grand conflicts are present in the game. So being "aligned" with a faction within this sort of conflict works. And can certainly have some influence perhaps on broader concepts associated with said alignment (whatever it is).

I do think the concept of alignment becomes problematic when it becomes about defining character personality traits. I get that some consider this an aide to roleplaying, but in many cases it can become a crutch that in yet more cases can become stifling. Character personalities should be more complex and nuanced than what can fit into a simple (one or two axis) alignment system. And if you have more axis of alignment in a game? Too complex for the game system to manage. Better to let the player decide character personality and leave what alignment may exist more as a "what side are you on in the grand cosmic battle for whatever". Good/evil, law/chaos; if these are just sides in a conflict then you can pick sides, and presumably are somewhat in the region of your "side" personality wise, but otherwise can act as you feel fit.

And historically D&D has really suffered from their alignment system precisely because the game writers have never quite been able to reconcile the inherent differences between alignment as an external association and alignment as an internal personality component. This is seen most strongly on the law/chaos axis, of course. If someone is chaotic, it can mean that they engage in random actions/decisions (internal personality) *or* that they refuse to comply with "rules" set by others (habitual lawbreaker, which is an external factor). This has the same problems that "lawful" characters have in that whether you are acting lawfully or chaotically changes depending on the laws of where you are (which is, frankly, ridiculous). Sadly, despite this being incredibly difficult to manage in any consistent and rational manner, they keep on trying, edition after edition.

Good/evil isn't much better. Is "good" determined by what the character thinks is good, or an external observer? There are many characters who would think what they are doing is "good", but who would be considered "evil" by others. The idea of the lawful good paladin finding nothing wrong with going to a dungeon occupied by monsters and killing them all (even sentient "monsters"), as long as said monsters were assumed to be a hazard to "good folks" is a common example of this problem. If you are conflating being on the "good" side versus the "evil" side, then you can absolutely rationalize objectively "evil" acts being performed in the name of "good".

It's just a mess IMO. I think you can have the "sides" or the "personality traits" in a game, but really shouldn't have both.

[Batcathat]

Hobgoblin society tends towards LE. Therefore, that society should be hierarchical and self-interested, if not malevolent.

Wouldn't it be easier to just describe Hobgoblin society as "hierarchical and self-interested" instead of having to go through the extra step? That's one of the reasons I find alignment mostly meaningless – if it's not a straight-jacket it means that I still have to figure out how these particular Hobgoblins are LE or how this particular paladin is LG.