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    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Goblin

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    confused Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    Hey everyone, been making a chronicle to run with friends for some time now.

    Some of them are kinda new to the game and thought that the alignment system is kind of confusing and difficult to follow. The good news is that we already homebrewed our own setting distinct from D&D or Pathfinder which our game is based on. However, I'm still curious whether or not alignment has other properties that make it too important to discard in a good game.

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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    Yes.

    Although, you can expect players and characters to still have beliefs about moral/immoral and act upon those beliefs. It is rare to avoid that influence.

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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    If you're using D&D 3.5/PF rules, alignment has specific game effects that you need to look out for. If you're playing D&D 5e, not so much. In that version, alignment is basically just a tool to help define your personality. If you're following the rules of any other game besides D&D/PF, alignment probably isn't even a thing at all.
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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    Pathfinder has alternate rules/recommendations for running a game without alignment, if you want something to start with.

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    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    It is easy to play without it. It is what most systems do. D&D has it mostly due to tradition.

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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    Quote Originally Posted by Cap'n Gravelock View Post
    However, I'm still curious whether or not alignment has other properties that make it too important to discard in a good game.
    To start, almost any game that isn't D&D doesn't feature alignments (they are exceptions, but the point is not having alignment is the norm). It adds little to the game that simply defining your character's ideals or beliefs doesn't.

    So the answer is that a good (or great) game doesn't need alignment. Many of us play games that don't mention it, or any similar system. I have occasionally played games with an honour system or something similar, but that easily gets complicated (does it measure how honourably you act, or how honourably you're perceived to act? I tend to go for the latter, but few games make it clear). There's also sanity systems, the merits of which we can discuss on their own.

    That said, in 3.X you've got to work out how to replace alignment rules-wise if you're not using it. I think the simplest I've seen is that alignment is based on plane of origin, so Celestials ping as good, Demons ping as Chaotic and Evil, but every human pings as Neutral.

    Alignment is also a useful tool for new players who are character building, but only if they 'get' alignment. In your case forgetting about it seems simple enough.
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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    PCs don't benefit from having alignments so you can skip all mortals having alignments.
    Spells might benefit from having an "evil" or "good" tag, but you're better off replacing it with a faction system, instead of "smite evil" it's "smite member of opposing faction/supernatural entity forbidden by my faction".
    Outsiders and cosmology can also be factions instead of alignments, factions can have ideologies.

    Alignments are just a training wheel that quickly becomes an obstacle you have to work around.
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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    Quote Originally Posted by Mastikator View Post
    PCs don't benefit from having alignments so you can skip all mortals having alignments.
    Spells might benefit from having an "evil" or "good" tag, but you're better off replacing it with a faction system, instead of "smite evil" it's "smite member of opposing faction/supernatural entity forbidden by my faction".
    Outsiders and cosmology can also be factions instead of alignments, factions can have ideologies.

    Alignments are just a training wheel that quickly becomes an obstacle you have to work around.
    I strongly disagree with most of this, but will agree that alignments are a tool, and not every tool; whether they're a good tool or not depends on how you use them. Either way, they're not an indispensable tool, so you don't have to use them, and indeed, as pointed out, many RPG systems that aren't DnD or based off of DnD don't use them. If you want to dispose of them in a game system that does use them, you'll likely need to make some adjustments to other rules, but exactly what needs to be adjusted depends on the specific system, the setting, and your and your players intent/preferences.

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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    Quote Originally Posted by Cap'n Gravelock View Post
    Hey everyone, been making a chronicle to run with friends for some time now.

    Some of them are kinda new to the game and thought that the alignment system is kind of confusing and difficult to follow. The good news is that we already homebrewed our own setting distinct from D&D or Pathfinder which our game is based on. However, I'm still curious whether or not alignment has other properties that make it too important to discard in a good game.
    Are you the GM? Yes, do whatever you want. Why would you think you can?

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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    Only use for alignment I've used is to make sure everyone is on the same page in terms of tone and characters do we don't have the cutthroat necromancer in the same party as the paladin...Again. If you feel this is a good use of alignment for you, I suggest simply stating that your game is a game of heroes/anti-heroes/anti-villains/villains and to be clear on the tone you want.

    Also, if your setting has no universal cosmic forces of good, evil, law, chaos or whatever, then alignment makes no sense in your setting and feel free to ditch it. Mechanics based on that assume that this weird force exists, so it gets weird really fast if there is no 'good' to detect for instance.
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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    No, it is totally impossible. Even though you try to run the game without alignment, alignments still exists.

    It's like saying you are going to run a game without good and evil, it can't be done. Morality will always exist in some shape and form and we all know and recognize alignment as the ultimate yardstick of morality.
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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    Extracting them from the mechanics of some editions of some games can take a bit of doing. There are certain extant published settings which would fall apart a bit without them (that you're clearly not using). Those two reasons form a pretty much comprehensive list of difficulties with running a game without alignment; it's not a necessary mechanic by any means.
    I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.

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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    I've done it, so I suspect it's possible to do.

    The set of overly-specific protection spells Protection from Evil / Good / Chaos / Law / Annoying Neutrals / Sea Gulls / Mondays becomes a single spell (Protect Person, which is like Charm Person except nicer for humanoids instead of worse). It protects against summoned enemy monsters of any type, and Outsiders of any type. It protects against mental control from any source. Etc.

    Magic Circle applies to any Outsider / Elemental / etc.


    I would suggest keeping [Evil] and [Good] as descriptors for Outsiders, and treating spellcasters who delve too far into spells with those tags to eventually get a descriptor. That's how you'd get a good Necromancer who pings as [Evil]. Conversely, if you use unaligned spells to do horrible things, you might get a wicked Enchanter who does not ping as [Evil].

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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    It gets slightly tricky if the character in question gets his power from another entity. Something like a 3.5 Cleric, if the fluff is that they're asking their deity for power, it would make some amount of sense for the deity to care how that power is going to be used. In 3.5, they handle that in kind of a shorthand, in that Clerics can't be more than one step in alignment away from the deity, and can't grossly violate the deity's priorities. If you remove alignment altogether, you've removed the shorthand. The result would probably be pretty close to the same, but it would be more individualized to the deity rather than to the alignment. Obad-Hai will keep providing the spells as long as the Cleric doesn't start regularly burning down forests.

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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    It's all I ever do. Alignments are a hindrance at best, and a bad excuse at worst.

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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    Quote Originally Posted by Honest Tiefling View Post
    Only use for alignment I've used is to make sure everyone is on the same page in terms of tone and characters do we don't have the cutthroat necromancer in the same party as the paladin...Again. If you feel this is a good use of alignment for you, I suggest simply stating that your game is a game of heroes/anti-heroes/anti-villains/villains and to be clear on the tone you want.

    Also, if your setting has no universal cosmic forces of good, evil, law, chaos or whatever, then alignment makes no sense in your setting and feel free to ditch it. Mechanics based on that assume that this weird force exists, so it gets weird really fast if there is no 'good' to detect for instance.
    Quote Originally Posted by RazorChain View Post
    No, it is totally impossible. Even though you try to run the game without alignment, alignments still exists.

    It's like saying you are going to run a game without good and evil, it can't be done. Morality will always exist in some shape and form and we all know and recognize alignment as the ultimate yardstick of morality.
    Quote Originally Posted by Mastikator View Post
    PCs don't benefit from having alignments so you can skip all mortals having alignments.
    Spells might benefit from having an "evil" or "good" tag, but you're better off replacing it with a faction system, instead of "smite evil" it's "smite member of opposing faction/supernatural entity forbidden by my faction".
    Outsiders and cosmology can also be factions instead of alignments, factions can have ideologies.

    Alignments are just a training wheel that quickly becomes an obstacle you have to work around.
    Quote Originally Posted by dps View Post
    I strongly disagree with most of this, but will agree that alignments are a tool, and not every tool; whether they're a good tool or not depends on how you use them. Either way, they're not an indispensable tool, so you don't have to use them, and indeed, as pointed out, many RPG systems that aren't DnD or based off of DnD don't use them. If you want to dispose of them in a game system that does use them, you'll likely need to make some adjustments to other rules, but exactly what needs to be adjusted depends on the specific system, the setting, and your and your players intent/preferences.
    Quote Originally Posted by FreddyNoNose View Post
    Are you the GM? Yes, do whatever you want. Why would you think you can?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Knaight View Post
    Extracting them from the mechanics of some editions of some games can take a bit of doing. There are certain extant published settings which would fall apart a bit without them (that you're clearly not using). Those two reasons form a pretty much comprehensive list of difficulties with running a game without alignment; it's not a necessary mechanic by any means.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nifft View Post
    I've done it, so I suspect it's possible to do.

    The set of overly-specific protection spells Protection from Evil / Good / Chaos / Law / Annoying Neutrals / Sea Gulls / Mondays becomes a single spell (Protect Person, which is like Charm Person except nicer for humanoids instead of worse). It protects against summoned enemy monsters of any type, and Outsiders of any type. It protects against mental control from any source. Etc.

    Magic Circle applies to any Outsider / Elemental / etc.


    I would suggest keeping [Evil] and [Good] as descriptors for Outsiders, and treating spellcasters who delve too far into spells with those tags to eventually get a descriptor. That's how you'd get a good Necromancer who pings as [Evil]. Conversely, if you use unaligned spells to do horrible things, you might get a wicked Enchanter who does not ping as [Evil].
    Quote Originally Posted by Telonius View Post
    It gets slightly tricky if the character in question gets his power from another entity. Something like a 3.5 Cleric, if the fluff is that they're asking their deity for power, it would make some amount of sense for the deity to care how that power is going to be used. In 3.5, they handle that in kind of a shorthand, in that Clerics can't be more than one step in alignment away from the deity, and can't grossly violate the deity's priorities. If you remove alignment altogether, you've removed the shorthand. The result would probably be pretty close to the same, but it would be more individualized to the deity rather than to the alignment. Obad-Hai will keep providing the spells as long as the Cleric doesn't start regularly burning down forests.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen View Post
    It's all I ever do. Alignments are a hindrance at best, and a bad excuse at worst.
    Thank you everyone, I've already made a post in Homebrew called [Soulfinder] Changes which addresses the changes I've made so far. It essentially sums up the issues I have that me and my players are trying to solve.

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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    more like can you run a game WITH alignments, amirite?
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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    You can, but be prepared to deal with players who want to play murdering thieving psychopaths. They would have anyway saying their character is Chaotic Neutral to give themselves license to do what they want and not have to deal with the stigma of an E on their character sheet, but without alignments they are freed from any supposed restrictions on behavior. It's cynical, but it's true. They won't necessarily disrupt the game, but campaign plot goals are an afterthought.

    This is not universally true of every player. I only mean keep a look out for these type of players and have a way to deal with it. They'll want to grab anything they think is treasure and betray NPCs they're supposed to help. Gygax help you if they have a bag of holding.

    Why yes I do have one of those fellow players in a game I'm currently in. Why do you ask?
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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    You can, but be prepared to deal with players who want to play murdering thieving psychopaths. They would have anyway saying their character is Chaotic Neutral to give themselves license to do what they want and not have to deal with the stigma of an E on their character sheet, but without alignments they are freed from any supposed restrictions on behavior. It's cynical, but it's true. They won't necessarily disrupt the game, but campaign plot goals are an afterthought.

    This is not universally true of every player. I only mean keep a look out for these type of players and have a way to deal with it. They'll want to grab anything they think is treasure and betray NPCs they're supposed to help. Gygax help you if they have a bag of holding.

    Why yes I do have one of those fellow players in a game I'm currently in. Why do you ask?
    Not seeing what this issue has to do with alignment. The kind of player who'll commit countless violent crimes while insisting they aren't evil won't behave any differently if the alignment box on their sheet says "CN" or "n/a."

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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysiume View Post
    Not seeing what this issue has to do with alignment. The kind of player who'll commit countless violent crimes while insisting they aren't evil won't behave any differently if the alignment box on their sheet says "CN" or "n/a."
    The lack of alignment would be the excuse for their behavior, using the DM's own campaign set-up against him.
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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    The lack of alignment would be the excuse for their behavior, using the DM's own campaign set-up against him.
    In my experience these players are vastly more common in games with alignments than those without.
    I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.

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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    You can, but be prepared to deal with players who want to play murdering thieving psychopaths.
    D&D-style murderhoboing is not restricted by alignment.

    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    They would have anyway saying their character is Chaotic Neutral to give themselves license to do what they want and not have to deal with the stigma of an E on their character sheet, but without alignments they are freed from any supposed restrictions on behavior.
    Buwhah? You're saying that without writing 'I do whatever I want' on the sheet, they'll do whatever they want?

    Have you really never played a game without D&D alignments? It's not like there's any shortage of them.

    Quote Originally Posted by Knaight View Post
    In my experience these players are vastly more common in games with alignments than those without.

    Ohhhh yeah. The ever-popular (with themselves and nobody else) Just Playing My Character jerk. "But I wrote 'Evil' on my character sheet, I had to set the orphanage on fire!"
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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    I dunno why people think alignments are such a difficult sell.

    Just ask your players if they consider personal liberty or a lawful society are better, and if they'd be willing to give up their own for others or if they only look out for number one.

    If they consider anything in between or neither, they are neutral.

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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    Quote Originally Posted by Mordaedil View Post
    I dunno why people think alignments are such a difficult sell.
    I can only speak for myself, but I dislike alignments very much, so selling me on them is rather difficult. I'm very much in favor of dumping them altogether in any game.

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    Quote Originally Posted by RazorChain View Post
    No, it is totally impossible. Even though you try to run the game without alignment, alignments still exists.
    Does it, though?

    Alignment, in the meaning being used by D&D, is a position of agreement or alliance. "Alignment," in that sense, when it comes to the cosmic morality forms, is not, in fact, necessary. Who's to say that my idea of "good" matches up with some super LG angel's, after all?
    It's like saying you are going to run a game without good and evil, it can't be done. Morality will always exist in some shape and form and we all know and recognize alignment as the ultimate yardstick of morality.
    You're conflating morality with alignment. And your statement on alignment being the "ultimate yardstick" is, in fact, the problem. A system with objective morality is both bizarre and bad from a game design perspective. Not only is the RAW text in D&D almost always nonsensical at best, there's no reason to believe that everyone at the table has the exact same set of values, and a disagreement there can go bad places.

    In other words, Alignment only really works when either everyone at the table subscribes to the exact same set of values and likes the idea that those sets of values are objectively true with no ambiguity at all, or you want to roll with the idea that cosmic-level Good and Evil are entirely divorced from human ideas, and essentially boil down to the color of your laser beams, rather than any actually reasonable ethical system.

    To the OP: As everyone else said, you can but it takes work. The simplest solution I've found is that alignment is simply the color of your laser beams, so people who aren't hooked into some cosmic force, that is clerics or outsiders mostly, register as neutral for alignment-based effects, but cutting out every alignment-based spell and effect works just as well. That said, doing it either way is a vastly superior option, IMO, to leaving alignment in, for obvious reasons.

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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    The lack of alignment would be the excuse for their behavior, using the DM's own campaign set-up against him.
    If alignment is the only thing keeping your players from murderhoboing, you have a player problem, not an alignment problem.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Delta View Post
    I can only speak for myself, but I dislike alignments very much, so selling me on them is rather difficult. I'm very much in favor of dumping them altogether in any game.
    Hot take, alignments are descriptive, not prescriptive. They don't inform you on how your character will act, but how he might act. If you use them any other way, they immediately became straight-jackets that enforce a certain way of roleplaying.

    Then again, if you ask me, I don't have much a problem with alignments, but I have a huge pet peevee with alignment restrictions, such as bards and barbarians must be non-lawful or monks must always remain lawful. They should perhaps be the ideal of the class, but I don't like tying class abilities to behavior of character.

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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    Quote Originally Posted by Mordaedil View Post
    Then again, if you ask me, I don't have much a problem with alignments, but I have a huge pet peevee with alignment restrictions, such as bards and barbarians must be non-lawful or monks must always remain lawful. They should perhaps be the ideal of the class, but I don't like tying class abilities to behavior of character.
    That can be handled with codes of conduct in case the source of power/abilities truly requires it. A code of conduct can moreover be much more interesting to play to and better targeted fluff-wise than generic alignment.

    Eg a monk might need to follow certain life regimen in order to access his Qi. So his code might include thing that you wouldn't find under Good, Evil, Law or Chaos, like avoiding alcohol and meat, regular meditation, etc.

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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    Quote Originally Posted by Knaight View Post
    In my experience these players are vastly more common in games with alignments than those without.
    Quote Originally Posted by Delta View Post
    If alignment is the only thing keeping your players from murderhoboing, you have a player problem, not an alignment problem.
    No kidding.

    The point is lack of alignment just becomes another excuse which can be harder to refute because it's the DM's own premise working against him. Such a player hears "no alignment" and thinks it's DM permission for anything goes.
    Quote Originally Posted by OvisCaedo View Post
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    Default Re: Can You Run A Game Without "Alignments"

    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    No kidding.

    The point is lack of alignment just becomes another excuse which can be harder to refute because it's the DM's own premise working against him. Such a player hears "no alignment" and thinks it's DM permission for anything goes.
    Maybe this applies to stripping alignments out of a game that has them, but that implicit permission definitely doesn't exist in the context of alignment just not being there. Even in the excision case I haven't seen this - the common reading seems to be that alignment is getting pulled at least partially because the game will focus more on nuanced conflicts and less on the simple adventure that black and white morality facilitates, which tends to get in the way of violent caricature PCs.
    I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.

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