Comments on: Why I Hate Alignment

By: Nyghtmaer13

Nyghtmaer13 — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 19:28:11 +0000

Vanir, you are awesome. I agree completely. Alignments are especially annoying when D&D fans insert them into things that don’t use them, like The Elder Scrolls. TES is pretty much anti-alignment down to the lore behind the games. It’s just…really strange. When I first heard about D&D, I thought it was neat and all, but the alignment deal put me off.

The point is, you took the words right out of my mind. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

By: Justin

Justin — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 19:07:27 +0000

“However new 4.0 alignment is even worse IMO.”

Not to me. Anything that reduces the crazy amount of alignments in D&D is a good thing; all the crazy number of alignments did was act as pornography for people obsessed with lists and categorization (not to mention start meaningless debates).

Overall I agree with the article: alignments aren’t needed.

By: rainbowspryte

rainbowspryte — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:25:00 +0000

Good article, wise words. I remove alignment from many games.

However new 4.0 alignment is even worse IMO.

Hey BTW can we please refrain from using the term "retarded". I work regularly with folks who are labeled with that kinda term. It's hurtful.

Not trying to be ultra PC just saying it's a antiquated and harsh term for some of those less well off people out there.

Thanks guys.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:12:00 +0000

Back when I started playing D&D (when the rules were in several saddle-stapled booklets), the gaming group I played with treated the two alignment axes differently; the lawful/neutral/chaotic axis represented the character or creature’s adherence to a standard of ethics, while the good/amoral/evil axis (using ‘amoral’ to avoid confusion) represented whether or not the character or creature’s actions were constructive or destructive of social order.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 21:20:00 +0000

Alignment is a relic from D&D's war-gaming roots. The PCs and NPCs are automatically “good”, the monsters and enemies automatically “evil”. Everything that assigned moral or ethical values to good and evil came later. Skeletons are “evil” for the simple reason that they are monsters the players can kill. The Law/Chaos stuff is from Michael Moorcock, and was added for fantasy flavor. It also has little to do with ethics or morals, and instead refers to whether the player is fighting for the forces of Chaos or the forces of Law, in the eternal battle between these forces. Thus, unless you're doing hack-and-slash, Good/Evil is meaningless, just as Law/Chaos is meaningless outside a Moorcockian campaign.

Planescape’s organizations and planes have, in addition to alignment, very well articulated philosophies and goals. Thus alignment becomes unnecessary.

However, I would say that alignment should be kept in-game (there's too many spells/effects that use it) but it should not affect roleplaying. Reinvent alignment as "dweomer" or something. It only affects spell-casting and has no affect on player personality. So, a paladin with a black, fire-aspected dweomer becomes possible, but would cause some hassle when the party casts Protection from Black.

By: Doug Hagler

Doug Hagler — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 20:26:00 +0000

I wrote about this too a while ago. i basically think that alignment is almost impossible to use in such a way that it adds to the game consistently. What I suggested was to have a character’s alignment simply be their center of value – what they align themselves with. So this could be their home country, or someone they love, or their greed, or whatever. Alignment is just primary motivation, basically, but it doesn’t have to fit into an absurd view of morality if you don’t want it to. I definitely have the Detect/Protect Alignment spells just detect Outsiders (if they show up at all). The Alignment-based spell Domains are fine because those are aspects of a particular deity’s ethos – and for Clerics, their Alignment is almost always their deity anyway under my house rules system.

By: Myers

Myers — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 05:14:00 +0000

@ chattydm: I think I have a friend whose alignment is Chaotic Stupid. Thank you so much for helping me finally put a name to his personality. That was brilliant. Best laugh of my day!

By: ChattyDM

ChattyDM — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 04:24:00 +0000

For what it's worth, Planescape was written in the mid 80's where TSR was looking to compete with White Wolf's very flavourful settings. They worked with what they had, which was Gygax' Planar chart in the PHB 1st ed and Jeff Grubs' Manual of the Planes.

While the alignment's philosophy is very strong, they also created a large number of Planar-philosophies that are alignment inspired but not that constraining.

The various authors also explored the themes of 'deviant planars' like Chaotic Modrons (Usually Lawful Neutral sentient constructs), Fallen angels and risen Devils.... etc.

Finally, you might want to have a look at Monte cook's Book of Hallowed might which tackles Alignments with a twist. Each aspect of the 2 axes (Law/Chaos etc) are now numbered 1 to 9 which represents intensities in the alignment philosophy .

So If I want to play a very strict but only slightly do-gooder monk, I make him :L7G2 A Paladin that champions protecting others but has no great attachment to order can be L1G8.

It's a step away from Lawful Stupid and Chaotic Jerkism...

By: Myers

Myers — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 03:10:00 +0000

Alignment has always bugged me. I often wonder if it was meant to provide a framework for the DM to evaluate how well someone was roleplaying their character.

Hmm… let’s see… didn’t follow the letter of the law while helping the miller and his family rebuild their home. Yep, that’s Chaotic Good! Nice job!

Why not just choose three or four adjectives like greedy, sentimental, and flatulent? Now that’s some character motivation!

By: Vanir

Vanir — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 22:22:00 +0000

@ phil: Yeah, I think what you’re saying might make more sense if I’d ever messed with Planescape. But it sort of sounds at first blush like somebody based a whole roleplaying setting on alignment, which to me is approximately as appealing to me as Carrot Top.

@ dave: let’s not forget the Evil and Good spell domains. Like anything that uses negative energy is inherently Eeeevil. Sorry, but I think chopping somebody’s legs off with a battleaxe or roasting them with a fireball is just as “evil” as casting Eyebite on them. (And, on a side note, that spell doesn’t even involve EYES!)