5e Alignment "Guide" & end-of-2017 argument thread

[Naanomi]

Just out of curiosity, what books are these from? I doubt Gygax had anything to do with it, given his religion.

Various 2e Planescape stuff, probably the guide to the Upper Planes. The child thing is backed up in the 3.X adventures involving ashardalon... though I think the ‘animal spirits go to the Beastlands by default’ has been around a long time, pre-Planescape I think

[Tanarii]

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Unless I have a lot of history and trust with the others at the table, my reaction to these kind of "moral dilemma" scenerios, is to pick up my character record sheet, and walk out the door, as I really don't find that sort of thing fun, nor have time for it, unless (of course) it's to mock that sort of thing in a webforum.

Yeah. Frankly I lose interest in Alignment discussions (or more accurately arguments) when they start going down the path of these so-called moral dilemmas. Because they aren't interesting. Not even in a literary sense. They're just extremist nonsense put forth in an attemot to justify an argument. The ultimate straw man.

Well written moral dilemmas as fun to read. PCs can even find themselves in interesting in-game moral dilemmas in game. Especially if they use Alignment behavior as a motivation, because then it can easily come into conflict with other personality traits in any given in-game situation.

The "Paladin faced with no win choice by a Demon" or "LG character regularly murders, rapes, and tortures then picks up a Talisman", or other ridiculous contrivances, are neither well written nor interesting. They're just positing an invented & not-actually-real player or DM, or more commonly both, that aren't treating Alignment in good faith.

[Naanomi]

Interestingly, the demon situation is very close to the classic fantasy ‘dragon demands virgin sacrifices’, and everyone knows the ‘right’ fantasy hero answer to that is either kill the dragon, or get stronger then kill the dragon (or... save the plot relevant virgin then kind of forget about the whole thing, depends on the type of fantasy setting)

[Temperjoke]

Now that it's 2018, I vote we replace the 9-alignment grid with the mcdonald's alignment triangle, where your character has one of three responses to children yelling "McDonalds! McDonalds! McDonalds!"

1. "We have food at home"

2. Would pull into the drive-through as the kids cheer, then orders a single black coffee and leaves

3. Shouts "McDonalds! McDonalds! McDonalds!" with the kids

Yes it's a meme, and yes I'm joking, but at the same time I think it does a good job of describing how your character acts/reacts.

[2D8HP]

Unfortunately I stopped playing games in 1993 and didn't start again until a couple of years ago, so I never played 4th edition, but I did glance at it and note that 4e was back to a 5-point of Alignment sort-of like

Spoiler: the 5-point system of the 1977 "bluebook".

Show

CHARACTER ALIGNMENT

Characters may be lawful (good or evil), neutral or chaotic (good or evil). Lawful characters always act according to a highly regulated code of behavior, whether for good or evil. Chaotic characters are quite
unpredictable and can not be depended upon to do anything except the unexpected -- they are often, but not always, evil. Neutral characters, such as all thieves, are motivated by self interest and may steal from their companions or betray them if it is in their own best interest. Players may choose any alignment they want and need not reveal it to others. Note that the code of lawful good characters insures that they would tell everyone that they are lawful. There are some magical items that can be used only by one alignment of characters. If the Dungeon Master feels that a character has begun to behave in a manner inconsistent with his declared alignment he may rule that he or she has changed alignment and penalize the character with a loss of experience points. An example of such behavior would be a "good" character who kills or tortures a prisoner.

which was my introduction to "Alignment", my DM's "Little Brown Books" just had Law/Neutrality/Chaos though.

I suppose it waa inevitably when Greyhawk added Paladins that were "continual seeking for good" but I think that adding "Good" and "Evil" to "Alignment" was a mistake, and it was better the way the predecessor of D&D, Chainmail had it as:

"GENERAL LINE-UP:
It is impossible to draw a distanct line between "good" and "evil" fantastic
figures. Three categories are listed below as a general guide for the wargamer
designing orders of battle involving fantastic creatures:

LAW
Hobbits
Dwarves
Gnomes
Heroes
Super Heroes
Wizards*
Ents
Magic Weapons

NEUTRAL
Sprites
Pixies
Elves
Fairies
Lycanthropes *
Giants*
Rocs
(Elementals)
Chimerea


CHAOS
Goblins
Kobolds
Orcs
Anti-heroes
Wizards *
Wraiths
Wights
Lycanthropes*
Ogres
True Trolls
Balrogs
Giants *
Dragons
Basilisks

* Indicates the figure appears in two lists.
Underlined Neutral figures have a slight pre-disposition for LAW. Neutral
figures can be diced for to determine on which side they will fight, with ties
meaning they remain neutral."




Clear that it's sides in a wargame, not an ethics debate.

Wisely the 1981 "Basic rules" went back to Law/Neutral/Chaos, which was retained in the

Spoiler: 1991 "Rules Cyclopedia"

Show

Alignment
An alignment is a code of behavior or way of
life which guides the actions and thoughts of characters and monsters. There are three alignments in the D&D® game: Law, Chaos, and Neutrality. Players may choose the alignments they feel will best fit their characters. A player does not have to tell other players what alignment he or she has picked, but must tell the Dungeon Master. Most Lawful characters will reveal their align-ments if asked. When picking alignments, the characters should know that Chaotics cannot be trusted, even by other Chaotics. A Chaotic character does not work well with other PCs.
Alignments give characters guidelines,to live by. They are not absolute rules: characters will try to follow their alignment guidelines, but may not always be successful. To better understand the philosophies behind them, let's define the three alignments.
Law (or Lawful)
Law is the belief that everything should follow an order, and that obeying rules is the natural way of life. Lawful creatures will try to tell the truth, obey laws that are fair, keep promises, and care for all living things.
If a choice must be made between the benefit of a group or an individual, a Lawful character will usually choose the group. Sometimes individual freedoms must be given up for the good
Lawful characters and monsters often act in predictable ways. Lawful behavior is usually the same as "good" behavior.
Chaos (or Chaotic)
Chaos is the opposite of Law. It is the belief
that life is random and that chance and luck rule the world. Laws are made to be broken, as long as a person can get away with it. It is not important to keep promises, and lying and telling the truth are both useful.
To a Chaotic creature, the individual is the
most important of all things. Selfishness is the normal way of life, and the group is not important. Chaotics often act on sudden desires and whims. They have strong belief in the power of luck. They cannot always be trusted. Chaotic behavior is usually the same as behavior that could be called "evil." Each individual player must decide if his Chaotic character is closer to a mean, selfish "evil" personality or merely a happy-go-lucky, unpredictable personality.
Neutrality (or Neutral)
Neutrality is the belief that the world is a balance between Law and Chaos. It is important that neither side get too much power and upset this balance. The individual is important, but so is the group; the two sides must work together.
A Neutral character is most interested in per-
sonal survival. Such characters believe in their own wits and abilities rather than luck. They tend to return the treatment they receive from others. Neutral characters will join a party if they think it is in their own best interest, but will not be overly helpful unless there is some sort of profit in it. Neutral behavior may be considered "good" or "evil" (or neither).
Alignment Behavior
Take this situation as an example: A group of player characters is attacked by a large number of monsters. Escape is not possible unless the monsters are slowed down.
A Lawful character will fight to protect the
group, regardless of the danger. The character will not run away unless the whole group does so or is otherwise safe.
A Neutral character will fight to protect the
group as long as it is reasonably safe to do so. If the danger is too great, the character will try to save himself, even at the expense of the rest of the party.
A Chaotic character might fight the monsters or he might run away immediately—Chaotics are, as always, unpredictable. The character may not even care what happened to the rest of the party.
Playing an alignment does not mean a character must do stupid things. A character should always act as intelligently as the Intelligence score indicates, unless there is a reason to act otherwise (such as a magical curse).
Alignment Languages
Each alignment has a secret language of passwords, hand signals, and other body motions.
Player characters and intelligent monsters always know their alignment languages. They will also recognize when another alignment language is being spoken, but will not understand it. Alignment languages have no written form. A character may not learn a different alignment language unless he changes alignments. In such a case, the character forgets the old alignment language and starts using the new one immediately....

Unfortunately 'Law' was "usually "Good"', and 'Chaos' was "usually Evil", but "not always".

I still see the point of Alignments in the Monster Manual, but now that D&D has dropped ""Alignment Languages", I'm not sure what the point is of players writing one on their character record sheets, as "Ideals", "Flaws", "Bonds", etc. seem to replace "Alignment" as a role-playing aide.

How does writing it down on the sheet help?

[Luccan]

-snip-

Unfortunately, 4e had a similar problem to the Law-Chaos problem you bring up. That is, rather than a system with nine defined but somewhat malleable points, it was a specific scale, where the most Good was Lawful Good and the most Evil was Chaotic Evil. As far as I'm aware, Neutrality only existed as "unaligned" and Law and Chaos sat firmly on the Good and Evil ends of the spectrum, respectively. In the end, the biggest advantage of 5e's alignment system is you can completely ignore it. This arguably makes D&D less distinct as a system or setting,but at least things won't fall apart if you do that in 5e.

Edit: Also, having alignment would ideally help people understand your characters general moral and ethical inclinations, but people are really complicated and don't agree on a lot, so it's usefulness is arguable.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Edit: Also, having alignment would ideally help people understand your characters general moral and ethical inclinations, but people are really complicated and don't agree on a lot, so it's usefulness is arguable.

As an example of the bold section--

My current setting doesn't have alignment as a mechanical thing, but right now I have a fight going between the party (who'd I'd classify if I had to as NG/CG (with two far to the CG side and the other two more neutral) and a purely LG (but extremist) dragon who wants to create an judged afterlife (paradise/hell) for the people so their souls don't just vanish a short time after death. It's not really the ends they disagree about, but the means.

[2D8HP]

Can anyone think of any pitfalls of choosing a 5e PC's "Ideal" first, and then choosing an "Alignment" that fits the PC's Ideal?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Can anyone think of any pitfalls of choosing a 5e PC's "Ideal" first, and then choosing an "Alignment" that fits the PC's Ideal?

I personally can't. I tend to treat all of those personality factors as a self-referential choice (each part modifies the other parts), so as long as they're reasonably self-consistent it doesn't matter which order you pick it in, they're all going to adjust to fit each other.

[Tanarii]

Can anyone think of any pitfalls of choosing a 5e PC's "Ideal" first, and then choosing an "Alignment" that fits the PC's Ideal?

That's the way I did it for every single character I played in AL.

Edit: one potential pitfall, based on responses in a different alignment thread, may be a tendency to always pick the corresponding Neutral to go with an alignment. For example, LN for a Lawful Ideal, NE for an Evil ideal.

Although that may be an artifact of the way some people think you have to be E-vile to be evil. So a LE character with a Lawful Ideal, for example, may not push the Evil button enough for them.

[DanDare2050]

Has anyone besides @Naanomi, experienced much interaction with the "Alignment Mechanics" at all?

I don't DM alignments quite as described in 5e, so my answer is "sort of". First, I push my players to consider alignments as follows in some of my campaigns:

Law: Seeks to obey rules and acts to enforce, preserve or alter rules as a focus.
Chaos: Ignores rules, tries to tear down rule systems, and aims to behave unpredictably.
Good: Cares for others and seeks outcomes that produce least harm.
Evil: Enjoys others suffering and likes seeing them harm each other.

With that I have, in those campaigns, lots of magic items that boost people of some alignments and act like cursed items for other alignments. Lawful Evil is the pinnacle of nasty in those campaigns.

In the end its just a choice for a particular type of focus in the game. I am just as happy in campaigns where alignment is basically tossed out. The ones described in the PHB don't do much for me either way and the given mechanical effects are too light to even feel much.