alignment is bad and you should feel bad

[Max_Killjoy]

If your argument is Star Wars is a bad because Light Side vs Dark Side, it automatically fails.

This is one element that works well both in stories, and in setting up conflicts for players in roleplaying games. People eat it up. You may not enjoy it, personally. But large numbers of people do, and it makes sense to them as Trope.

So no, it's not stupid. Unless you think people in general are stupid? And if you do ... I'm sorry.

Let's just say that it strikes me as a manifestation of something far more disturbing that's larger and deeper than games... that it appeals to people for very unpleasant reasons... and leave it at that.

[Bohandas]

You say it sarcastically, I say it seriously.

"Team Good" vs "Team Evil" is the worst sort of cartoonish simplification... a manifestation of base tribalism, leading to cul-de-sacs such as "well we're the good guys so anything we do is good, they're the bad guys so anything they do is bad". Or the "light side vs dark side" crap, where evidently there's a physical manifestation of "going evil" and a person flips from good-but-conflicted to outright child-slaughtering caricature because their eyes changed color.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hAMYnBEtg4#t=00m46s

[Florian]

Let's just say that it strikes me as a manifestation of something far more disturbing that's larger and deeper than games... that it appeals to people for very unpleasant reasons... and leave it at that.

Naja. I´m a member of a far-left political party and have to deal with some very.. sensitive.. eyes at times and not eve those support that sentiment. Know the saying: Just because it quacks and lives on the water, it also can be a frog, not a duck.

[Tanarii]

Let's just say that it strikes me as a manifestation of something far more disturbing that's larger and deeper than games... that it appeals to people for very unpleasant reasons... and leave it at that.

Ah. That makes sense. It's one of two* often overlooked things humans do regularly that has caused many real world problems. I can see why you might dislike it as a general thing in that case.

*The other being hero worship / idolizing.

[2D8HP]

Okay, unless your playing Pendragon and rolling against passions and traits for behavior, since a PC's actions are decided by players, I'm going to ask again:

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?

What purpose is there in writing down a PC's Alignment?

Is it just a reminder, like writing down the names of a PC's relatives?

There's no more XP lost when a DM deems a PC has "changed alignments", so what exactly is it for?

Once upon a time "Lawful" PC's had to truthfully say there Alignment, which implies that they knew what it was, but I see nothing like that in the current rules.

Many DM's have a "no evil PC's" policy, and it's now a cliche that "Chaotic Neutral" on a sheet means 'evil PC in a "no evil" game'.

So what is the entry for?

[RazorChain]

Many DM's have a "no evil PC's" policy, and it's now a cliche that "Chaotic Neutral" on a sheet means 'evil PC in a "no evil" game'.

So what is the entry for?

The alignment entry isn't needed. The Paladin may as well have a code of conduct or code of honor he must stick to and if he disregards the code he falls.

When I'm playing or Gm a system that don't have alignments the group will decide upon the morality of the group so it doesn't come as a suprise to anyone




We might be anti-heroes that are in it for the money or have other motivations that spur the character on to do the right thing or we might be playing opportunistic bastards. What we try to keep to the minimum is character conflict that splits the group.

At least this way we avoid utterly stupid questions that often gets asked on these forums: Why is my lawful good character traveling with that evil character? He's murdering babies and I don't know what to do?

I've played different systems with different groups and nobody misses or pines for Alignment, the general consensus among the gamers in my circle is that Alignment is a not needed, at all.

I have yet to see what Alignment is good for

[Bohandas]

but I think that adding "Good" and "Evil" to "Alignment" was a mistake

It should be noted that D&D's type of 2 dimensional alignment is a part of some philosophical systems predating D&D, particularly Discordianism

[Max_Killjoy]

It should be noted that D&D's type of 2 dimensional alignment is a part of some philosophical systems predating D&D, particularly Discordianism

Which was, IIRC, a parody religion.

[RazorChain]

Which was, IIRC, a parody religion.

I take offense to that! Hail Eris!

I think I've said enough, Fnord!

[SimonMoon6]

Holy Chao!

[jojo]

I take offense to that! Hail Eris!

I think I've said enough, Fnord!

Forget you not her Saint Bokonon. Busy, busy, busy is the Foma we call Alignment.

This I say as one genuine and authorized pope to another...

[Mechalich]

I've played different systems with different groups and nobody misses or pines for Alignment, the general consensus among the gamers in my circle is that Alignment is a not needed, at all.

I have yet to see what Alignment is good for

Alignment is a mess because the impact of moral choices on the game world unfolds in an idiosyncratic way due to how D&D was put together. Your position on the pie chart determines which class of Outsiders hates you but otherwise only matters for a small portion of characters to whom alignment questions are tied - like Paladins. The case for retaining alignment would be stronger if the mechanical effects extended to every class.

If you're going to have a morality statistic in a game you need to meet two requirements:

1. The setting must have an objective moral system.

2. Interaction with that moral system must have meaningful effects in play.

D&D theoretically meets both of these, but the problem is that the moral system is crazy and bears little to no resemblance to the lived human experience of the players, and that the meaningful effects are scattershot and tangential to the core gameplay experience of running around in dungeons killing and looting everything you see.

Star Wars, however, meets both requirements with ease. The Force represents an objective (though rather opaque) moral system and the influence of the light side versus the dark side absolutely matters in gameplay. And as a result pretty much every Star Wars game ever made - including more video game versions - has possessed some sort of light/dark meter.

Many game settings will fulfill only one of these two requirements. For instance, the Wheel of Time hits 1 but not 2. There is an objective moral system - there's a Light-associated Creator and a Dark One source of all evil - but characters don't interact with the moral system in play (Rand al'Thor does, but you aren't playing as him). This is actually fairly common in modern fantasy epics which tend to has a form of vague monotheism in place. There are also game systems that fulfill 2 but not 1. Call of Cthulhu does. Morality certainly matters in play - since losing all your sanity eliminates your character - but it's pretty much the opposite of objective.

The benefit of a moral statistic is that it allows the game to offer non-societal consequences to moral choices. This is particularly useful in games where the characters are difficult or impossible for society to punish - such as any game in which the characters are effectively super-heroes. The horrific excesses of Exalted - which lacks any sort of moral restraints on characters who hit the god-level - are an example of why it can be a good thing to offer an in-game restraint.

[Bohandas]

Alignment is a mess because the impact of moral choices on the game world unfolds in an idiosyncratic way due to how D&D was put together. Your position on the pie chart determines which class of Outsiders hates you but otherwise only matters for a small portion of characters to whom alignment questions are tied - like Paladins. The case for retaining alignment would be stronger if the mechanical effects extended to every class.

If you're going to have a morality statistic in a game you need to meet two requirements:

1. The setting must have an objective moral system.

2. Interaction with that moral system must have meaningful effects in play.

D&D theoretically meets both of these, but the problem is that the moral system is crazy and bears little to no resemblance to the lived human experience of the players, and that the meaningful effects are scattershot and tangential to the core gameplay experience of running around in dungeons killing and looting everything you see.

The in game effects of the moral system vary by campaign setting. In Eberron they're practically nil, but in Planescape or Ravenloft they can affect a lot.

[Bohandas]

Which was, IIRC, a parody religion.

The theology is a farce; the philosophy is valid.

[Arbane]

FNORD

The benefit of a moral statistic is that it allows the game to offer non-societal consequences to moral choices. This is particularly useful in games where the characters are difficult or impossible for society to punish - such as any game in which the characters are effectively super-heroes.

So it lets the GM slap down unruly players when the NPCs can't. Nice.

The horrific excesses of Exalted - which lacks any sort of moral restraints on characters who hit the god-level - are an example of why it can be a good thing to offer an in-game restraint.

It can be argued that the whole POINT of Exalted is that Power Corrupts. Most likely the Solars would've become insane tyrants even without the Great Curse. And one of the most common in-game ways for the Exalted to flip out is if they try to go against their morality. (Defy your Virtues, get Limit.)
Edit to add: Alternately, the central premise of Exalted is 'Okay, you can do anything. So, what sort of person ARE you?' And those wimpy Vampire players think they know anything about 'Personal Horror(tm)'....

PS: I rather like one of the Elric/Stormbringer BRP games' approach to 'alignment' - they actually had a list of what deeds would make a given deity like or dislike the PC, and kept percentage tracks of their divine brownie points. (Get enough, and you could possibly get a Divine Intervention, or just cash them in for a boost to your magic stat.) And they weren't mutually exclusive, except that Law and Chaos gods _mostly_ wanted opposite things.

[Florian]

PS: I rather like one of the Elric/Stormbringer BRP games' approach to 'alignment' - they actually had a list of what deeds would make a given deity like or dislike the PC, and kept percentage tracks of their divine brownie points. (Get enough, and you could possibly get a Divine Intervention, or just cash them in for a boost to your magic stat.) And they weren't mutually exclusive, except that Law and Chaos gods _mostly_ wanted opposite things.

Black Crusade has an interesting variant of it. Basically, during game you earn XP which you can spent to gain more skills, skill ranks or talents. Now each of those is aligned with one of the four chaos gods and you keep track how many points of XP have been invested in the associated things (*). You start "unaligned" (+/- 0% percent discount/penalty) and once things start becoming lopsided by favoring one god over the other, the discount/penalty starts rising (up to +/- 50%), making it inviting to follow down that slope, but also an option to resist. So the all-out Khorne Berzerker can pile on combat abilities for cheap, but has a hard time advancing Tzeench related abilities.

(*) You also track how you gained the XP, so killing in the name of Tzeench with an Khorne-associated ability doesn't lead to a disfunction.

[Mordaedil]

You say it sarcastically, I say it seriously.

"Team Good" vs "Team Evil" is the worst sort of cartoonish simplification... a manifestation of base tribalism, leading to cul-de-sacs such as "well we're the good guys so anything we do is good, they're the bad guys so anything they do is bad". Or the "light side vs dark side" crap, where evidently there's a physical manifestation of "going evil" and a person flips from good-but-conflicted to outright child-slaughtering caricature because their eyes changed color.

Ah yes. Such cartoonish simplifications would never happen in real life. Just ignore history and how people even today are just outright evil.

[Black Jester]

If you're going to have a morality statistic in a game you need to meet two requirements:

1. The setting must have an objective moral system.

2. Interaction with that moral system must have meaningful effects in play.

That's another problem I have with alignment: It is never objective. It is always, inevitably based on the judgements of the gamemaster and his specific views and preferences and as such, they are probably going to be subjective morals for the most part.
There is only a very generic part of actions that probably anyone (that is anyone sane) would declare clearly immoral and those are so obvious (murder, rape) that you don't need any label for them that indicate, yes, that is evil. It's like asking someone if they knew that rape was bad. Everything else is, depending on circumstances, open to debate - and debate is good and can be productive in an RPG, especially when it becomes an in-character talk. I can almost guarantee you, such a heartfelt in-character talk can be one of the most memorable moments of any campaign.

Now, I as a gamemaster don't have all that many iron rules or principles, but one is "never tell the players how they are supposed to feel". And that doesn't work very well with a system that would obligate me to act as the final moral arbitter.

[Morty]

See what I said to Max_Killjoy, above. Moral ambiguity can absolutely exist in a game that uses alignment. Just because an absolute moral standard exists on a cosmic/universal level, doesn't mean that all living creatures in that reality are aware of said absolute lines, or that they only adhere rigidly to the textbook examples of the alignment that they are judged to be. Nothing about alignment precludes serious moral ambiguity in a game.

So what's the benefit of using alignment when running a game with moral ambiguity? If I'm doing that, then slapping objective "good", "evil" and "neither" labels on things seems pretty counterproductive.

The benefit of a moral statistic is that it allows the game to offer non-societal consequences to moral choices. This is particularly useful in games where the characters are difficult or impossible for society to punish - such as any game in which the characters are effectively super-heroes. The horrific excesses of Exalted - which lacks any sort of moral restraints on characters who hit the god-level - are an example of why it can be a good thing to offer an in-game restraint.

Absolutely not. Exalted intentionally portrays a distinctly amoral setting where might makes right and righteousness is defined by those powerful enough to enforce it. The default protagonists have already almost destroyed the world and are just as likely to do it again as they are to save it. Trying to introduce any mechanic saying "don't do this thing, it's evil" would miss the point spectacularly. You're not supposed to restrain Exalted PCs. They're free to use their massive power as they see fit and then deal with the consequences. A far better example of a restraint that actually works is the game's ban on resurrection and time travel. Thus enforcing a "you break it, you bought it" effect.

Using alignment to punish PCs for rampaging around using their power is a pretty D&D-specific thing, because D&D is completely unprepared to handle the power it hands to the PCs once they're past level 5 or so. If you make your PCs powerful, either own up to it or simply say "this is a game about superheroes and not supervillains". Telling the players what the game is about is better than leaving it open but punishing them for playing a particular way.

[ImNotTrevor]

Ah yes. Such cartoonish simplifications would never happen in real life. Just ignore history and how people even today are just outright evil.

But that's not his assertion. He never claimed that no one is evil.

He simply stated that things are very rarely so simple as two sides being homogenous in their good or evilness

[Mechalich]

Absolutely not. Exalted intentionally portrays a distinctly amoral setting where might makes right and righteousness is defined by those powerful enough to enforce it. The default protagonists have already almost destroyed the world and are just as likely to do it again as they are to save it. Trying to introduce any mechanic saying "don't do this thing, it's evil" would miss the point spectacularly. You're not supposed to restrain Exalted PCs. They're free to use their massive power as they see fit and then deal with the consequences.

Yes. That is correct, and that is why Exalted is stupid. Everyone is awful, there is no reason to be nice - because the gods themselves are awful - and the entire setting is an exercise in pointless grimderp.

If you have characters who have power such that society is incapable of controlling their actions - which is what most superhero settings have - the natural evolution of the setting is into a grimdark dystopia where the strong take tyrannical rule over the weak and crush them forever. And that's what Exalted's setting is, with the additional wrinkle that the strong are themselves divided into numerous sub-layers all struggling to see who gets to hold the tyrannical ruler baton.

In a superhero universe like the DC Universe, Earth evades becoming a grimdark dystopia only because Superman is good (because reasons) and he's powerful enough to stop anyone who gets in his way. In effect, he's the benevolent god who imposes moral consequences upon everyone else. Now, because a setting in which evil characters get beaten down by an all-powerful good and just authority figure tend to be kind of boring (which is why DC is endlessly pushing Superman out of the picture from time to time) most fictional settings place the judgment after you die.

If you have a setting wherein there are individuals who can crank the GTA wanted level all the way up to 5 stars but still face no chance of death, then you need an answer for why said characters don't 'boot on face forever' the world. Slight aside - the most internally consistent D&D world is Dark Sun where the answer to that question is 'they did.' Having a greater power that fights for goodness and a game mechanic to represent this is one option.

[Morty]

There's nothing stopping anyone in Exalted from being good and just, same as there's nothing stopping them from being evil. If you don't like this setting premise, that's one thing, but would you mind explaining how adding an arbitrary morality meter would make it any different or better? Or an arbitrarily powerful force of good that smacks down anyone who's too evil and too powerful for the society around them to stop them? Come to think of it, what's the cutoff point for power and wickedness?

If you want a superhero setting (or its fantasy equivalent) that's not a might-makes-right dystopia, you have to suspend your disbelief and assume that the heroes and villains exist in a sort of equilibrium and foil one another. That's fine, since fantasy requires suspension of disbelief anyway. But enforcing it using a system of objective morality is like dousing a fire with gasoline.

[Tinkerer]

Using alignment to punish PCs for rampaging around using their power is a pretty D&D-specific thing, because D&D is completely unprepared to handle the power it hands to the PCs once they're past level 5 or so. If you make your PCs powerful, either own up to it or simply say "this is a game about superheroes and not supervillains". Telling the players what the game is about is better than leaving it open but punishing them for playing a particular way.

Might I ask how alignment is used to punish PCs? Assuming you aren't a paladin of course. People keep using that phrase but I don't get it.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Theoretically, alignment is supposed to aid in determining two things (as well as specifying teams):

1) How a character should act (this is only a partial contribution--other things also matter here)

2) How the world (including the planar realms) reacts to your actions. A "Good" NPC should recoil in horror at the sight of a PC gleefully wallowing in blood. A "chaotic" NPC should resent the party bringing the strong arm of the law into things. Etc.

Is its purpose meaningful? Sure. Does it fulfill its purpose? Eh. Not convinced. I've seen too many "I'm CN (but act like CE)" players in "evil forbidden" games. Fortunately in 5e it's mechanically much weaker so I've removed it entirely as a mechanical force without needing significant surgery. Doing that in 3e would be painful.

[hamishspence]

Might I ask how alignment is used to punish PCs? Assuming you aren't a paladin of course. People keep using that phrase but I don't get it.

In past editions (Moldvay 1st ed, for example - a prototype of AD&D with 5 alignments rather than the 3 of "standard D&D" or the 9 of "AD&D")

- there was a "If your character is not acting according to their alignment, the DM can penalize them by withholding XP" principle.

3e took the "if character is not acting according to what the DM thinks is appropriate alignment, the DM can change their alignment to the correct one, because the player made a mistake when writing it down" approach.

This plays havoc with paladins - but other classes could have issues too.

Changing a monk's alignment to non-lawful - cannot take any more Monk levels.
Changing a druid's alignment to one without a Neutral component - loss of powers.
Changing a cleric's alignment to one disallowed for their deity - loss of powers.
Changing a barbarian's alignment to one with a Lawful component - loss of Rage ability, cannot take any more barbarian levels.
Changing a bard's alignment to one with a Lawful component - cannot take any more bard levels.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I generally don't use alignment to come up with a character concept. I'm willing to see what fits afterwards, it can be nice to have proper mechanics for smiting evil people in a setting where good and evil are real and absolute. I feel like this approach remedies much of what's wrong with alignments.

[Tanarii]

Star Wars, however, meets both requirements with ease. The Force represents an objective (though rather opaque) moral system and the influence of the light side versus the dark side absolutely matters in gameplay. And as a result pretty much every Star Wars game ever made - including more video game versions - has possessed some sort of light/dark meter.

And pretty much every Star Wars game ever made has proven that this is a terrible approach to 'Alignment'. Light/dark meters, where single actions move you towards one or the other, are inevitably failures that cause stupid arguments. Same with Alignment meters in D&D.

The thing that causes Alignment to fail is:
- tying it to individual actions instead of broad behaviors
- tying it strongly to resolution mechanics

In other words, the exact things you claim are what make it work, are what in fact make it not work at all. This is why 5e Alignment is the best D&D Alignment system so far, and 3e's was one of the worst.

[Aliquid]

Question to everyone for context

How often do you play in games where anyone actually pays attention to alignment?

We all have an opinion on alignment, and what it should mean.. but how often does it actually come up in game? I can go on about what is evil vs what is good (in theory for "in game")... but to be honest, I would say that in 90% of the games I have played, people choose and alignment during character creation and then never speak of it or think of it again for the rest of the campaign.

I have had plenty of debates about alignment on boards like this, or while sitting around and talking about alignment as a concept... but I can't remember one time where I had a debate about alignment during a game.

[kyoryu]

The theology is a farce; the philosophy is valid.

Indeed, and the understanding of the Illuminatus! Trilogy is rather useful, after you get past people fornicating with fruit.

[Max_Killjoy]

Ah yes. Such cartoonish simplifications would never happen in real life. Just ignore history and how people even today are just outright evil.

I didn't say that there was no evil in real life, or that there are no evil people.

I said that reducing everything to "team good" vs "team evil" is a cartoonish oversimplification.