Pro-alignment.

Favor the classic 9 (yes I know the 3 is older ).
One of 3e's best bits was giving the N alignments way better descriptions btw.
Law/Neutrality/Chaos on it's own becomes a bit too simple, allthough I can see the point.
The one with 5 in 4e is just dumb, I can sorta see the one with 5 in the 1st Basic (and wich they originally wanted to use in ad&d thus all original MM monsters Being LG, CG, N, LE or CE).

Quote from: mcbobbo;688605I get the hate on alignment, I really do.  But I just think characters with limits (that differ from our own) are more interesting.

Besides, some amount of constraint is probably a good idea when playing make believe.  Otherwise you may wind up playing to the lowest common denominator.

Now, this doesn't apply to YOU, whoever you are who is about to talk about how robust and mature your players' behavior always is.  Just everyone else.

I agree, and characters that are 'selfish whatever I like' are insanely boring, for me anyway.

But Alignment need not be  a restriction. You just play the character, and what you do, and intend to do, paints your alignment.

The Alignment system with associated languages and associated outer planes to me are suggestive of campaign specific rather than generic fantasy rpg rules  - they suggest world view, religion design, everything. It affects everything in a campaign world if you accept it whole cloth.

And I dig it for that reason for running a classic D&D type campaign world, but it is a rather uncomfortable fit for simulating a very different setting, Middle Earth, Elric's Young Kingdoms, etc.

I take to it because its one of the things that really makes a classic D&D campaign different.

Quote from: Bill;688607I agree, and characters that are 'selfish whatever I like' are insanely boring, for me anyway.

Agree, allthough I've played a few - and that can be done in spite of an alignment system; just make your character Neutral (or Chaotic Neutral if he's gonna be totally religious about the "selfish whatever I like" thing ).

But yeah.

With dumb/immature players, no alignment = Chaotic Evil behaviour.
With more mature players no alignment can easily mean Neutral behaviour.
Allthough not necessarily of course.

I like alignment as a guideline and am positive to PCs changing alignment sometimes.

I'm not opposed to alignment changes. I just see it as something you need to work at.  Like diet and exercise.   You want to change your nature, but it doesn't happen overnight.

On those same lines, if your PC is a gluttonous lard ass (like me) and he is trying to lose weight but is offered cake - it should factor in, is all I am saying.

Unless you find a certain cursed magic item, anyway.

Quote from: mcbobbo;688610I'm not opposed to alignment changes. I just see it as something you need to work at.  Like diet and exercise.   You want to change your nature, but it doesn't happen overnight.

On those same lines, if your PC is a gluttonous lard ass (like me) and he is trying to lose weight but is offered cake - it should factor in, is all I am saying.

Unless you find a certain cursed magic item, anyway.

Sure, agreed, that's one of the two ways of voluntarily changing alignment w/o supernatural meddling - the other is not acting your alignment (like a "Neutral Good" character who doesn't give a damn about anyone except himself etc), one of my GMs back in the day (aka high school) was fairly dedicated to the latter wich meant lots of Neutral dudes eventually...:-/

The way you described is rather cooler though (and btw described in the 2e DMHB! Where it cost XP ).

Quote from: mcbobbo;688610I'm not opposed to alignment changes. I just see it as something you need to work at.  Like diet and exercise.   You want to change your nature, but it doesn't happen overnight.

It's something that generally doesn't happen overnight, though some acts could swing you pretty hard one way or the other.  If you're engaging in torture for shits and giggles, you're going to *lose* that 'Good' alignment right off the bat.

Alignment shift can also happen even if it's not something you want, if you're not acting consistent with the alignment.  If you've got Good on your sheet, and rarely if ever do anything that's not self-interested in, eventually you'll shift to Neutral.

A gentle nudge may be appropriate on occasion ('that seems out of character for Bobxor' or even 'if you keep acting in that fashion, your alignment is going to shift to '), but I don't see it as a hammer to be used ('you can't do that!  It's against your alignment!')

Quote from: Bill;688453Ok, do you support Alignment in DND?

Arguments for or against?

Yes, I support alignment in D&D.

Alignment makes for a convenient shorthand of motivations & approaches for PCs and NPCs. It allows for a slew of interesting spells and their uses in game. If used correctly, it provides a help to DMs in running their games.

Alignment also provides an excellent source of near endless debates on the subject.

Love it, but someone else is going to have to search and link my arguments for it, alignment languages, et al. For I am chaotic lazy and now going to take a nap.

Don't care for it, just doesn't ring true to me. Used it in Planescape but more as a political/alignment/theological position. Mostly ignored it otherwise.

I'm kind of torn on the subject. I don't mind them (and as noted, there is a case of Planescape where they fit greatly), but I also like to think of them more as guidelines rather than absolutes, something that's interpretable by setting's Gods and Powers, so to speak (to a degree, of course). And there is also the issue of how do the ragtag bunch of grave robbers fit into the whole black & white morality.

The theme song for this thread if it goes past first 5 pages (come on now, what's with people playing nice on ALIGNMENTS debate):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAwWPadFsOA

Alignment is THE single stupidest, illogical and anti-roleplaying concept with which the wargamers who invented this hobby stuck us.

Even in the cookie-cutter campaigns where everyone plays - or claims to play -  just as the module authors design ... ten times more people than actually play to any consensus concept try to argue, sometimes fantastically so, why their actions and roleplay really are in tune with their pet alignment. (And that almost always involves trying to justify a Good alignment. Why is that? How many times do you hear the Chaotic Evil fellow argue angrily that those weren't really *good* acts he was doing, and you shouldn't penalize him for it?)  It's caused more in-game arguments than all other mechanics combined.

You can't come up with an all-encompassing code that defines every least little aspect of human behavior and morality under an umbrella of Good and Not Good ... even if you sort through the circumstances under which it is Good and Not Good to kill puppies, can you also arrive on a universal consensus concerning criminals?  Outlanders?  Slaves?  Orcs?  Anyone who gets in your face?  How about just maiming them?  Okay, the Powers That Be say the purity of your race and the safety of your country depends on eliminating those rapist subhuman greedy orcs, and that is for the greater good.  Most fantasy campaigns would sign off on that, I expect.  Delete the word 'orcs' from that sentence, substitute 'Jews.'  How do you feel about that now?

You won't find many people who will agree as to how free spirited you have to be to be officially Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic.  How many laws do you have to break to stop being lawful?  Fifty percent?  Twenty-five percent?  Five percent?  Just one, ever?  How about you, do you agree with that percentage?  And are we talking about biggies, like you're no longer Lawful if you commit treason or murder, or will jaywalking or mouthing off to your parents suffice to make you Chaotic, and how many streets do you have to cross outside the walk to make you as Chaotic as a regicide?  (Or failing to do your lawful duty and eliminate those Jews previously cited.)  And whose laws?  The local lord?  The local church's?  Oregon and seven other states say it's lawful to grow marijuana for medical purposes, and the United States government's position is that they will throw you in prison for trying.

•  In similar fashion, does law = black-letter legal code or does law = acknowledged social custom, and what happens when social custom and your legal code conflict?

I have never heard an adequate explanation of why it is necessary to stick RPGs with this system, nor why it can't be deleted from the vast majority of them.  But I’ve heard a lot of INadequate explanations ...

* Let’s start with the “moral compass” rationale, that it’s necessary to give beginning players a notion of what’s acceptable or not.  But those players don't come to the table without knowledge of right vs. wrong. They're products of our 21st century culture, and regardless of their personal beliefs, they can't be unaware of the codes professed by our societies and our religions. The most case-hardened gangbanger, no matter how much he might scoff, knows that our society regards stealing, murder, lying and violence as wrong and decrees punishments for them. Now individual DMs might run their campaigns differently from the norm - the NastyBad NPC race there is de facto Evil, so it's "Lawful Good" to exterminate them on sight - but you're not going to learn that from a two-letter tag anyway; you need to learn that from play, just like anyone else.  I’m seriously bewildered at the premise that in order to roleplay distinguishing “good” from “evil,” you need a gamewriter to define it for you ... which, as to that, they almost never actually do.

* Alignment defines "good guy" and "bad guy?" Oh please. If the players are too stupid to figure that out without a glowing two-letter symbol hovering over the foreheads of the NPCs, they're hopeless.  People make snap decisions on ally vs enemy on many more reasons than abstract and unidentifiable notions such as "good" or "bad." Be the wrong skin color or have the wrong accent, a lot of people'll perceive you as an enemy. Wear a Yankees or a Lakers shirt around my neck of the woods, a lot of people'll perceive you as an enemy. Walk around the wrong neighborhood wearing clothes well outside the neighborhood’s social station, a lot of people'll perceive you as an enemy. Be athletic, well-spoken and/or good looking, a lot of people will want to perceive you as a friend.

* Define the PCs' roleplay? Players manage to roleplay perfectly well in unaligned game systems.  D&D players surely aren't so much more inadequate at roleplaying than (say) GURPS or Traveller players, are they?

* "Allegiance to a cause?" Allegiance to what, precisely, since most games aren't based around Alignment Wars, most PCs don't define their gameplay around (say) Defending Neutrality To The Last, and most gamers can't agree on what exactly the alignments MEAN?

* It’s necessary for “Detect Good/Evil” spells?  Let’s leave aside the self-justification argument.  The obvious solution is to change or drop any such spell.  Many systems and campaigns have “Detect Ethos” or “Detect Enemy” spells, where someone opposed to your religion, or with hostile intent towards you, is red-flagged.  

* There's an objective standard ordained by the Gods?  Um ... riiiight.  Like almost all fantasy worlds, yours isn't monotheistic.  According to your myths, your gods can't agree on who's supposed to be sleeping with whom or on what kind of clothing priests should wear, and they're all marching in lockstep over infinitely complex issues of morality?  Exactly who put THAT one over on Paradise, and why are the other gods standing for it?

Beyond that, the only practical use of alignment is as a stick to beat people for "violating" it. Why?  People do what they do, act how they act, and take - or duck - whatever consequences arise. If I decide that while my character plans to be nice to my friends and to non-offensive strangers, petty rules really don't concern me, what makes my decisions and gameplay more valid or less so just because a DM hangs a "CG" tag on me?

No. Alignment doesn't help roleplay; someone who wanted to play a nasty solipsist rogue would do so without the numbers, and someone who wants to play a hack-n-slash munchkin will pay the letters lip service at best. For everyone I've heard say how wonderful alignment is I've heard fifty bitter screeds from people feeling they've been screwed because of differences over the definitions.  The best way to game is ditch the entire concept. Even D&D works quite well without it, and doing so pulls a perpetual and poisonous bone of contention from many campaigns. Judge people on their actions and beliefs -- or, alternatively, don't bother to "judge" them at all! -- not on how closely they adhere to an arbitrary two-letter label upon which few ever agree.


{*} - This was written several years ago, as you can tell.  Funny, that ... our laws have changed.  So ... do you flip your stance on drug use, all you Lawful Good types, because the government has?

Quote from: jeff37923;688637Yes, I support alignment in D&D.

Alignment makes for a convenient shorthand of motivations & approaches for PCs and NPCs. It allows for a slew of interesting spells and their uses in game. If used correctly, it provides a help to DMs in running their games.

.

this.

Caveats
Alignment language is just plain stupid.
If a PC moves alignment I have no issue unless their alignment is tied to a diety, if they consistently move alignment I will question their roleplaying.
Detect Evil / good should really be kept for powerful forces of same so planar creatures, paladins, Black priests etc .
And a lot of class based alignment restrictions are daft. Assassins don't need to be evil. The idea that taking money for killing things is Evil would cast an evil pale on all the world's armed forces. Rangers don't need to be good, a particular order of rangers might require that, but being good at following tracks and knowing where to sleep in the forest doesn't mean you have to be a paragon of virtue.

Quote from: Ravenswing;688690
You can't come up with an all-encompassing code that defines every least little aspect of human behavior and morality under an umbrella of Good and Not Good

It's an RPG.  It doesn't have to be realistic, only functional.  So, to that expectation you in fact can.

Quote from: Ravenswing;688690I have never heard an adequate explanation of why it is necessary to stick RPGs with this system, nor why it can't be deleted from the vast majority of them.

Nobody says it can't.  Lots of things can.  Like bards and Kender.  Knock yourself out!

Quote from: Ravenswing;688690Let's start with the "moral compass" rationale, that it's necessary to give beginning players a notion of what's acceptable or not.

Obviously everyone who plays an RPG is a person.  But this doesn't mean they will act that way.  Many players would do things with a character that they would never, ever do in real life.  Like, say, murdering transients.  So this point is immediately pretty weak.

For a better example, check this out - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

Those people all started off with the same social norms you're referring to.  If they hadn't the experiment wouldn't be valid.

Quote from: Ravenswing;688690Alignment defines "good guy" and "bad guy?" Oh please. If the players are too stupid to figure that out without a glowing two-letter symbol hovering over the foreheads of the NPCs, they're hopeless.

This I do agree with, except to say that it isn't really a problem unless people are playing their Detect Alignment stuff incorrectly.  It typically requires 4 HD for anyone to register.

Quote from: Ravenswing;688690Define the PCs' roleplay? Players manage to roleplay perfectly well in unaligned game systems.  D&D players surely aren't so much more inadequate at roleplaying than (say) GURPS or Traveller players, are they?

Let me just direct you to the WEG d6 rules for the Force.

Quote from: Ravenswing;688690There's an objective standard ordained by the Gods?  Um ... riiiight.  Like almost all fantasy worlds, yours isn't monotheistic.

That's actually a solid point, but it reflects more poorly on the setting designers than it does the alignment system.  In a world where these are forces of nature, each god would be a paragon of their alignment.  There wouldn't be any grey areas.  Designing in grey areas isn't compelling, it's genre-breaking.

Quote from: Ravenswing;688690Beyond that, the only practical use of alignment is as a stick to beat people for "violating" it.

Wrong!  Alignment is something the player chooses at character creation, and is something they can typically change.  Paladins aside, the only players who caution a beating are those who get psychotic, in alignment terms.

Quote from: Ravenswing;688690No. Alignment doesn't help roleplay; someone who wanted to play a nasty solipsist rogue would do so without the numbers, and someone who wants to play a hack-n-slash munchkin will pay the letters lip service at best.

It's a source for roleplaying opportunities.  The lack of people rising to them is hardly an indictment of the concept.

Quote from: Ravenswing;688690For everyone I've heard say how wonderful alignment is I've heard fifty bitter screeds from people feeling they've been screwed because of differences over the definitions.

Sample bias.

Quote from: Ravenswing;688690The best way to game is ditch the entire concept. Even D&D works quite well without it, and doing so pulls a perpetual and poisonous bone of contention from many campaigns.

Again, knock yourself out.  Let us know if the alignment police knock down your door.

Quote from: Ravenswing;688690Judge people on their actions and beliefs -- or, alternatively, don't bother to "judge" them at all! -- not on how closely they adhere to an arbitrary two-letter label upon which few ever agree.

Again, the player picks their own alignment, so this isn't some kind of unfair partial treatment.  It's just a facet of the rules.

There's also the issue of clerics, druids, paladins, and the like being expected to follow alignments as a function of class balance.  If you take away the behavioral restrictions, then you may also want to consider letting wizards wear armor, too.  Or at least let your druids wear metal.

As a side note, doing in-line quotes with that Navy color is a total pain in the ass.

Quote from: robiswrong;688590[Alignment is] descriptive, not prescriptive, and can change over time.

This.