I just realized alignment is in this game.

How does it work? Do the PCs *have* play a certain alignment? How strictly should behavior be enforced? Normally alignment has no actual teeth in D&D, so I'm wondering how it fits here.

Are the PCs supposed to play in alignment or are they just going to do whatever it takes to survive in the character funnel?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;873402I just realized alignment is in this game.

How does it work? Do the PCs *have* play a certain alignment? How strictly should behavior be enforced? Normally alignment has no actual teeth in D&D, so I'm wondering how it fits here.

Are the PCs supposed to play in alignment or are they just going to do whatever it takes to survive in the character funnel?

Alignment is important in DCC, but it's not very strict.  There are only three alignments, and things like "playing your alignment" are mostly left up to the Judge and players.

The biggest impact of alignment is on healing magic - Clerics are best at healing those of the same alignment as themselves, and are almost guaranteed to get into trouble with their deities if they're healing people of opposed alignment without a VERY good reason (in my campaign, this has even led one Chaotic character to renounce his evil ways and become a Lawful worshipper of the Cleric's deity).

There are some other effects as well - the Thief class gets different bonuses depending on alignment (Chaotic thieves are the best at backstabbing, etc.) and some spells have alignment effects.

It hits a comfortable spot for me, personally - the alignments are broadly defined, do little to restrict a PC's behaviour, and have a minor but meaningful impact on the game.

So does that mean Clerics go around asking people if they're Chaotic before doing anything? Is "Law" and "Chaos" even a thing in-universe instead of a metagame concept?

Also how well does DCC work for campaigns? Does it have longevity or is it more of a 1-shot thing?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;873603So does that mean Clerics go around asking people if they're Chaotic before doing anything? Is "Law" and "Chaos" even a thing in-universe instead of a metagame concept?

Also how well does DCC work for campaigns? Does it have longevity or is it more of a 1-shot thing?

My DCC campaign has been running for about three years now (since may 2013).  It's worked very well. In fact, tomorrow we'll be playing adventure number 36, which is something like session number 75. That would be about 600 hours of play.

In my game we break the 4th wall a lot so we have not just alignment but stuff like levels or sometimes even hit points talked about as though they were objective things inside the game.  That's just because its probably the most gonzo campaign I've ever run.

I also changed the alignment system. There are two axes now: Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic and Boyscout/Freak/Asshole

Isn't that just the same as D&D. Lawful = Boyscout, etc.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;873898Isn't that just the same as D&D. Lawful = Boyscout, etc.

Yes, but more Gonzo!

I kind of like how DCC handles it, for DCC.

Lawful = fights for humanity
Chaotic = fights for himself

With all the extraplanar horrors constantly threatening to spill over and dominate the mortal world it adds an epic scale to it. Makes it feel like Warhammer 40k.

I like it too. My 'extra alignments' are mainly for humorous effect.

Here's another question. What's the DM supposed to do for patrons? I don't see anything about them.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;874622Here's another question. What's the DM supposed to do for patrons? I don't see anything about them.

There are a few sample ones in the rulebook... but I'd generally assumed GMs were meant to make up their own to suit their game worlds.
Still, there are a number of them out there. Some on the Goodman Games forums, some in the various DCC zines like Crawl, Crawljammer, Crawling Under A Broken Moon, etc. , others in the DCC modules... more on gaming blogs like Wrathofzombie's. There's also a whole book of them, Angels Daemons and Beings Between that I think is pretty decent.

It would be nice if those patrons specified what kind of alignment they were for. I actually bought that book today to check it out but a lot of them seem kind of in-between in terms of what they'd qualify for.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;874640It would be nice if those patrons specified what kind of alignment they were for. I actually bought that book today to check it out but a lot of them seem kind of in-between in terms of what they'd qualify for.

The way I see it is that it's YOUR game, you get to make those decisions... how rigorously to come down on issues of Alignment and such.
A Cleric might avoid Patron beings altogether as being in conflict with their other devotions... but for the average man on the street, looking for whatever edge he can get... things are probably a lot more elastic. I don't micromanage the whole Alignment thing... except regarding Cleric and healing.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;874622Here's another question. What's the DM supposed to do for patrons? I don't see anything about them.

There's a few good ones in the main book: the frog demon, azi dahaka, sezrekan, the king of elfland, the three fates.  There are more in supplements. I made up some of my own. In my DCC campaign some of the Daemons available as patrons include a false angel, a killer rabbit, the daemon of hedonism/deviancy, and Alan Moore.