Hi everyone, this is my first post here, but I've looked around a bit and it seems like a nice place :)
I've been playing D&D and AD&D since the red Basic set (damn I'm old!), and am currently GMing a 3.0 game. I've done a quick search and can't see if anyone has asked this before, so hopefully I'm not bringing up a question you guys have discussed a thousand times!
My question is, what are your opinions on removing alignment from your game? The whole alignment system has never rung true to me ever since I was a kid, and I noticed early on that most players would just pick one because they had to and pretty much ignore it as much as they could. A black and white view of morality like the alignment system bothers me, as it ruins roleplaying (in my opinion).
Real people are not good and evil, they behave in different ways depending on the circumstances they find themsleves in. Someone could donate to charity one day and murder the next depending on what happened to them in between. Not to mention that different cultures have different concepts of ethics. Like many gamers my players are bright people, and were always pointing these sorts of things out...
So in our campaign only Outsiders have alignment. It is assumed that no mortal creature (no, not even a good or evil priest)has the strength of will to register as "good" or "evil" or "lawful" or "chaotic" in terms of the grand scheme of things. This has caused a few problems gamewise but has not been as difficult as I originally feared. I simply made all "Detect(alignment component)" magics function only on Outsiders of the type listed, and "protection from good/evil etc" effects are now a blanket "protection from Outsiders." Holy weapons function against evil Outsiders and undead only. There are no paladins in our campaign, if you want to be a holy warrior who casts spells you have to multiclass.
It has created a much grittier feel we have discovered, and my players appreciate not having a game mechanic governing the way their characters behave. It hasn't made everyone evil either. In fact nothing has changed about the way the PC's or NPC's behave. There are still good and bad people, it's just good and bad aren't objective forces like in a typical D&D game. It has taken away much of the cartoonish element that D&D can sometimes suffer from, I think. An evil wizard is not evil because it is his alignment, he's evil because he consistently chooses to behave in a horrible way towards others, and this makes him even worse.
Has anyone else done this, and if so what sort of problems have you come up against? Has it worked well for you or not?
I've always found the alignment system presented in Palladium's books to be more concise and understandable than what's presented in D&D. Most of the time, I generally follow the Palladium alignment system, as I don't rely too heavily on the D&D alignment schema.
A problem many people have is that they see alignment as a straight jacket.
It isn't. It is a guide. Sure, people do bad stuff, and no one is LG all the time; but I think most people follow a general pattern of behavior, and that can be indicated by alignment.
It's much like a race's behavior: do all elves or dwarves have to act the same? No. Aside from the mechanical side, it is a guide.
Personally, I understand that sometimes PCs may act out of their alignment. All of us have had a moment we are not proud of, or are especially proud of, that is generally outside of our pattern of behavior. That has to be taken into account. If my NG ranger goes too far against evil, but recognizes he was straying, I don't think there is a major problem.
A larger problem, in my opinion, is PCs choosing the wrong alignments. They choose CG, but act CN or N. Fine, just use what fits; it is a guide to how your character generally acts, and is important to an extent, mostly as a tool for the player to roleplay more effectively.
I tend to use alignment primarily withy extra planar creatures, undead, and objects bound to serve an ideal. It gets a little bogged down but then I don't pass out weapons with the holy special property all that often either.
I do think that many "good" characters from their behavior are much closer to evil. And I try to usde chosen alignments to reign in abuses. However, I prefer faith - that is, "Would your diety approve of that?"
But even that kind of comment is rare - it has been mentioned on other threads that one of the joys of the game, is that the mechanics of the world allow, even encourage, players to declare themselves for "good" while still being able to go out kick butt, play the badass, kill things and keep all the money.
I generally don't play like that anymore (though I have), but thats really a choice for the group and the DM specifically.
As a tool for the game I think alignment works fine - it makes detailed character descriptions for more complicated characters a little forced sometimes but again it works as a mechanic for the game. I liken it to non-practicing christians born into "christian" families in the US - they are by many definitions christian, they are part of the culture, even if they don't practice, even if they don't believe, in many ways, unless they choose to actually rebel against their family and their community they are percieved as christian. Thus their "alignment" is christian. I think this is true of the game world as well, and the basic rationale behind the model. Certainly more complicated designations can be developed or the concept ignored. And certainly there are those that would not define the people I described in the example above as christian. But thats my point - unless you asked a lot of questions the would be "perceived" as christian. Thus a detect spell, a tuned weapon, etc would work on them as such.
Anyway thats how I deal with it.
Hope it helps, and if anyone is offended by my using religion ans an analogy for alignment I apologize - no offense was intended, it was merely the clearest metaphor I could think of to illustrate the idea.
Herros of horror presents a few options to the alignment system. Its worth checking out if you are willing to do a little extra work with the tant system.
Director of Narrative
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Alignment is the largest percent of meta-game mechanics I have ever had in my 19 years of playing D&D. And that comes with a reason.
The reason being that alignment is an extremely esoteric concept trying to be a concrete concept. And although I haven't seen/'played in' diferent systems other than the D&D system (and had arguements regardless), I have to say that for as so far as RPG's go compared to 'real life' it does an honorable task of laying it out for novice gamers. It also leaves it somewhat open for a certain DM to rule one way or another. What else can you ask from a role-playing system that has some but few limitations due to alignment?
I mean really, despite what any single person feels is right or wrong, the US is having hearing on whether torture is 'acceptable' if the unified 'right' is achieved. Is that not akin to similar threads run through D&D message boards for years?
This may seem like I'm making your point for you, but my main objective is to show that alignment is a concept for an RPG to keep things in the character of that certain RPG to represent it's culture. And in the D&D world it is spread out into nine different 'philsophies' of alignment. What gets all muddled up is the 'psychologies' of alignment.
Something I have been doing with my characters is giving them a little slip of paper at the start of the game with their XP from last game along with an 'alignment map' not unlike the "+10pts toward 'good'" as shown in many computer games. To dispose of the min/max gamer aspect of it all, I have told my group that it is not a quantitative aspect of alignment, but rather a qualitative view as I see it. Nothing to be argued or debated, but rather something to be thought of and reflected on. (A rare chance in the 'real world')
As far as alignment in the D&D world goes to describing our modern real world, I feel that a large amount of the world is NE. All self-caring and self-motivated. And that's just my opinion.
For one, I think that if you get caught up in moral relativism then this debate has no value. Why even discuss it if nobody can be wrong? (Besides, where's the fun in that?)
I find the alignment system to be perfectly okay. We can talk "real world" all we want, but the game is fantasy and there is magic, and there are monsters made out of pure evil, and the gods take a much more "active" role in the lives of everyone. There are moral absolutes in D&D and "good" and "evil" are palpable forces in the universe (as are "law" and "chaos"). But I do agree with the earlier post: these are guides. The only time it really comes into play in my campaign is if a divine spellcaster starts going against his deity or alignment - there are consequences.
But there's always Rule 1: DM makes the rules.
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As a philosophical point, there is possibly a major difference between the "real" world we live, work and die in and the game worlds our characters occupy: there are real gods (sorry to any Christians/Muslims/Hindus/Buddhists etc. - this isn't a dig at you) that can be objectively demonstrated to exist, interfere with real event and personify particular "moral" and "ethical" ideals - as set out in the alignment system. Also, being of a particular alignment has, in the game as it is set out in the rules, game effects - see the spell Dictum, and so on. So the alignment you have connects you with the universe as it exists in the game world - the universe has explicit moral facets which don't exist in the real world. So you can't be a moral relativist in a basic D&D world, because the concepts of Good, Evil, Law and Chaos absolutely can be demonstrated to exist, and to affect you as an individual.
Moral relativism arises from the erosion of the belief in gods and subsequent retribution in this and the next life following the general decline in religious life and the rise of rationalism over the last couple of hundred years. However, I would suggest that, as humans, we tend to like to see things in moral terms generally (we all like happy endings in books and films, for example) and the alignment system builds out of the cross-fertilisation of fiction and role-playing to entrench that in the rules.
This comes with the caveat, of course, that nothing forces you to use an alignment system. I'm just pointing out that I don't think moral relativism works under the current rules where gods define the various alignment types, and the planes of existence have alignment traits, and clerics must be of certain alignment to have their faiths, and so on - it doesn't make sense in that context. But you can, of course, dispense with alignemtn for all parties, including gods, should you wish.
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I also think that the alignment system helps ward against some boring player behaviour. A lot of stuff can degenerate into a selfish "kill the mosters and take their stuff" mentality. Alignment is a good hook to base a character concept upon - something that has interesting role-playing ramifications. You run the danger of having every character as a money-grubbing mercenary unless you have very role-playing-aligned (no pun intended) players without an alignment system to back up their behaviour.
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As far as alignment in the D&D world goes to describing our modern real world, I feel that a large amount of the world is NE. All self-caring and self-motivated. And that's just my opinion.
I'd say LN, for what it is worth. I would reserve NE for the actively evil out there - psychopathic work colleagues and the like (not that I have any..).
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I have considered removing alignment for a while now, partly because of evil-detecting, trigger-happy paladins, and partly because I wanted to establish better party cohesion wherein players get along because they don't have different alignments. I would rule that only outsiders, undead, clerics, and paladins would have alignment auras. The only problem I foresee is that certain spells such as Protection from Evil and Holy Word would lose much of their usefulness. In the long run this might hurt the cleric.
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One of the best things 3.X did for alignment is remove the penalties for changing alignments.
I let the players put whatever alignment they want on their sheets, and let them profess their beliefs to each others and NPCs, and when they do something blatant that is in contravention of their 'professed alignment' I ask for their character sheet, and put a new alignment on their sheet.
That's it -- no fuss, no muss. I had a player who had an elven rogue that went from being NG to N to CN very shortly. It motivated that player to get back to being 'good', so he started doing good deeds, and even commissioned a local temple to make him an intelligent good sword (he basically bought himself a conscience!). Now he's NG again and enjoying it ...
I think alignment also stems to some extent from a "medieval" feel in the game--in other words there are ritual dimensions to alignment, as well as moral ones. Think about medieval Catholicism. Pious people saw themselves as either being right with God (having confessed their sins to a priest, done penance, and taken communion) or as being in a state of sin. People recited one of the various "credos"--ritual statements of faith and belief--which had the psychological effect of indoctrinating them into the basic orthodox beliefs espoused by the religious authorities. People had to be baptized to signal their entry into the religious community, and needed to confess their sins and receive extreme unction before death to be assured of going to heaven. Priests and other special members of the religious community went through ordination ceremonies. Certain acts (such as a man and woman living together) required rituals or they put one in a state of sin. Certain types of people (lepers, executioners, gypsies, pagans, etc.) were fully or partially excluded from the community due to the nature of their occupation, birth, or an incurable disease. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and various pagan religions all offer examples of ritual regimes that keep one in the good graces of the gods and spirits and protect one from the influences of evil spirits (undead, evil fey) and fiends.
Of course there are many people who just go through the motions of such rituals and only rise to the high expectations of the deities they pay lip service to on rare occasions. Such people could be N or LN members of a LG church--and they really don't get punished for their moral laxity until they die and have to spend time in some sort of Purgatory--unless they are divine spellcasters (and lose their spells) or members of a religious order that maintains a tight discipline (when their sins are found out they receive sanctions from their superiors). The vast majority of people are LN, N, or CN--perhaps with a greater tendency toward good than toward evil due to social pressures and the indoctrinating effects of religious ritual. Alternatively, you could rule that even humble commoners who are in the good graces of their deity receive some sort of mild "protection" effect that reduces the chance of contracting a horrible disease, being possessed by a ghost, or victimized by a magical curse.
An inventive DM (or PC) can use this kind of ritual system to mark alignment changing events. A religious PC should know their deity's "ten commandments" or "seven deadly sins" or the equivalent, and have to perform an atonement if she commits one of them. More chaotic deities probably don't codify rules like this, but do have some general principles--a Chaotic Good character might find it justified to steal under certain circumstances, for example, but would still follow the Golden Rule. (Robin Hood would be an archetype for this sort of behavior).
We often depict our villains engaging in heinous rites involving human sacrifice, etc. and binding themselves to evil beings in exchange for power, but we forget that "good" religions also have their own rites--the sacrifices may be animals, incense, tithes, alms, good deeds, etc., and the methods used involve more teaching and social pressure than coercion or deception, but the basic idea is the same.
Of course if you're not interested in bringing the religions of your fantasy world to life (and I notice not so many fantasy authors do much to create life-like religions--perhaps not surprising in a secular age), I can see why alignment might be somewhat superfluous to your campaign, and you might try one of the approaches posted above to limit the role of alignment in your world.
Since the world of gods and religions is not very well fleshed out (with good reason I think) in the core rules, I can see why good, evil, law, and chaos feel very cardboard to some players. This can be remedied by reading about different religious systems and inventing ideas about how to incorporate them into the campaign world and/or PC personality. There must be some good books out there that would stimulate the imagination in this regard--one that pops into mind is Katherine Kurtz's Deryni series.
Sorry, another long post.
Peruhain the Pontificator
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I find it hard to compare religion in our world with that of the D&D realm. Gods make their prescence known in D&D on a daily basis. Certain gods work well with other gods and their worshippers follow suit. In the real world Christianity tried to wipe most other religions from the face of the earth to prove that their's is the one true religion. Wars were waged (and still are) but there is no working together. I don't count Methodists and Catholics as different religions. Man interpretted things differently and splintered into all the strangly similiar religions IMO. I find it hard to envision the way the D&D pantheon works because there is no real world parallel for comparison. I like the fleshing out of religion practices and maybe notes could be taken from Greek/Norse/oriental mythos and older religions.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I've heavily deemphasized alignment in some campaigns (particularly my theives guild campaign). I frequently apply your approach in limiting the alignment based abilities/spells/etc to outsiders or other creatures with an alignment subtype and it has worked just fine.
Is the alignment system too simple to present everything in real life when it comes to morality? Yes.
Should it be scrapped? No.
For one, it does a pretty quick job of letting us know when new monsters and the like are shown up what role they are suppose to occupy in the campaign.
And remember that alignment is generally what you are, on average. A lawful good person isn't lawful good constantly, every moment of their life. But it is what they are for the majority of the time. A player of mine asked me about playing an exalted character, and the way I explained it to him is that his character, a lawful good cleric, should be lawful good likely about 75% of the time. An exalted character is suppose to be their alignment about 99% of the time.
I actually really liked the "alignment points" that they had in the Green Ronin Advanced Player's Manual. Basically, it shows alignment in statistical terms, so that a character might move a point toward chaotic, for example, but has to shift 13 points before he hits the "neutral" part of is alignment. Its hard to explain the whole system here, but basically its an alignment tracking chart, and it shows that two lawful good charcters might have very different values on their lawfulness and goodness scores, but both are still, on average, lawful good.
I find it hard to compare religion in our world with that of the D&D realm. Gods make their prescence known in D&D on a daily basis. Certain gods work well with other gods and their worshippers follow suit. In the real world Christianity tried to wipe most other religions from the face of the earth to prove that their's is the one true religion. Wars were waged (and still are) but there is no working together. I don't count Methodists and Catholics as different religions. Man interpretted things differently and splintered into all the strangly similiar religions IMO. I find it hard to envision the way the D&D pantheon works because there is no real world parallel for comparison. I like the fleshing out of religion practices and maybe notes could be taken from Greek/Norse/oriental mythos and older religions.
Wow, thanks for making a massive generalization here. I must make sure to talk to my priest about how he isn't emphasizing enough in his homilies how we should be focussing on destroying other religions and how we can best prove our superiority. He spends way too much time talking about giving to charity, voluntering, and making sure we raise our kids right.
I'm so glad to know that this is actually a precept of our religion, and not just what happened due to some that might have been overzealous in their notions superiority. Its great to know that Christianity wasn't just used as an excuse used by some rulers to justify their conquests, but that Christ somewhere (though oddly enough, not in any scriptures I can find) taught us to go forth and subjegate and destroy.
And finally, its comforting to know that no other rulers from other cultures have used religion as an excuse to conquer others and control them. Christians should feel special.
In the real world Christianity tried to wipe most other religions from the face of the earth to prove that their's is the one true religion. Wars were waged (and still are) but there is no working together.
Wow, thanks for making a massive generalization here. I must make sure to talk to my priest about how he isn't emphasizing enough in his homilies how we should be focussing on destroying other religions and how we can best prove our superiority. He spends way too much time talking about giving to charity, voluntering, and making sure we raise our kids right.
I'm so glad to know that this is actually a precept of our religion, and not just what happened due to some that might have been overzealous in their notions superiority. Its great to know that Christianity wasn't just used as an excuse used by some rulers to justify their conquests, but that Christ somewhere (though oddly enough, not in any scriptures I can find) taught us to go forth and subjegate and destroy.
And finally, its comforting to know that no other rulers from other cultures have used religion as an excuse to conquer others and control them. Christians should feel special.
Knight that was a little harsh. FH was just using an example from history, nobody mentioned that all christians wanted to kill everyone else, and nobody mentioned that christianity was the only religion to institute religious wars.
I like alignments. IMO they are there to reflect how a PC behaves, they do not predetermine how a PC behaves. Just like a physics equation does not dictate reality it is mearly a model for reality.
I think that alignments are necessary, although the absolute importance can be argued. If outsiders and gods have an alignment why would they not expect their priests (whom they grant spells to) to follow their teachings and philosphies. By removing alignment you remove the one way to measure how closely the PC is following the ideals of their god. If they stray too far there should be repercussions - no new spells per day, or worse! And then there are the exalted and vile darkness books. How are you to determine if the PC are 'good' or 'evil' enough to take feats etc from the books. The game mechanic exists so that a 'neutralish' PC cannot pick from both books.
Alignments, IMO, are a necessary part of high fantasy.
igi
I find it hard to compare religion in our world with that of the D&D realm. Gods make their prescence known in D&D on a daily basis. Certain gods work well with other gods and their worshippers follow suit. In the real world Christianity tried to wipe most other religions from the face of the earth to prove that their's is the one true religion. Wars were waged (and still are) but there is no working together.
I could buy what you are saying if he hadn't said Christianity. Someone did indeed say Christianity as a whole, not some Christian leaders or rulers, but Christianity, as a whole. But hey, why would I defend my faith when an attack is made on it in an attempt to explain rules in a game people play as a hobby. I should really get my priorities straight.
Palladium alignments in my opinion are much more fun guidelines to use in a game than the D&D system. I also really like Monte Cook's system, no alignments. Demons could be good, angels self interested and the hafling rogue is still gonna try to pick your pocket.
If anybody has a copy of the old Paladium alignment "Karmic" I would be grateful for a copy. I lost my old versions of RECON and haven't been able to find it since.
I could buy what you are saying if he hadn't said Christianity. Someone did indeed say Christianity as a whole, not some Christian leaders or rulers, but Christianity, as a whole. But hey, why would I defend my faith when an attack is made on it in an attempt to explain rules in a game people play as a hobby. I should really get my priorities straight.
Please, don't be bitter. I would hope that a good Christian wouldn't let another person's ignorance (sorry, FH) drive them to saying the sorts of vituperative, hurtful, and condescending statements that give Christians a bad name in the first place. From a semantic standpoint, Fake Healer's statement is correct. Please just take it at face value and move on. I enjoy the messageboard community, and I'd hate to see people start fighting.
I'd say LN, for what it is worth. I would reserve NE for the actively evil out there - psychopathic work colleagues and the like (not that I have any..).
I would say most people are neutral and follow the golden rule "do unto other as you would have them do unto you." To put this into my perspective a good person would say "Just do what is right.' and evil would say "I do what I like"
More than one person has brought up the Palladium alignments in this argument. You know what? Those rules, like many made by Palladium, basically suck.
The alignments are kind of hasilty thrown together, and overlap each other in some ways as to be totally unuasble; like many other Siembieda-spawned works, it is more intent on making a dig at other RPGs (D&D specifically) and presenting its own "coolness."
Furthermore, the Palladium alignments still have the basic problem that is being discussed here. They give a set of guidelines to behavior, exactly like in D&D (but actually more detailed and restricitive; there are actual numbered rules!), and suggest characters adhere to them.
Over and over again people are getting caught up in the straightjacket effect. Let alignment be a guide; for yourself, and for PCs. And realize that in a medieval-flavored fantasy simulation (read DMG II for the scoop on avoiding too much realism), Good guys slay bad guys, and save good people, and evil guys do bad stuff. Don't let it ruin your game.
I find it hard to compare religion in our world with that of the D&D realm. Gods make their prescence known in D&D on a daily basis. Certain gods work well with other gods and their worshippers follow suit. In the real world Christianity tried to wipe most other religions from the face of the earth to prove that their's is the one true religion. Wars were waged (and still are) but there is no working together. I don't count Methodists and Catholics as different religions. Man interpretted things differently and splintered into all the strangly similiar religions IMO. I find it hard to envision the way the D&D pantheon works because there is no real world parallel for comparison. I like the fleshing out of religion practices and maybe notes could be taken from Greek/Norse/oriental mythos and older religions.
Sorry for the thread-napping but...
As a professional who teaches Church history I believe that there are indeed some sweeping genralizations made in previous posts.
Yes, some Christians have misinterpreted scripture, become overzealous, and made mistakes. Fewer have gone so far and abused their power and authority on many levels. Many heretics were ex-communicated or "purified" by violence but with the sheer number of Christians throughout history we must understand that it is indeed a small number who acted with such violence. So by saying that all of "Christianity" committed these acts really is an illogical falacy.
I'm pretty sure that the "wiping out of other religions to prove that Christianity is the one true religion" is a bit much. Many political leaders wanted unified peoples becuase it made their rule easier. Same laws and same values usually leads to less arguments. Throughout most Christian history there was no seperation of Church and State. Therefore Church law and Civil law were virtually one and the same (they pretty much still are when you get right down to it). It was your patriotic and therefore civil duty to follow the Church's teachings.
Methodism and Catholicism are similar but not entirely the same thing. Currently there is a call to ecumenism (bring all the churches back into one Church) but there are indeed fundamental differences in the various churches. Religion has experiential elements and as experience is subjective it becomes harder for us to judge truth (subjective) vs. Truth (objective: in this case a divine reality).
As for real world comparisons, the Greek and Roman pantheons are great examples. Polythestic communities are usually extremely open to other forms of worship because they acknowledge that there are other divine powers. This explains why the gentiles of the Greek East so readily accepted Paul's message, why Constantine accepted Christianity (although never truly converted), and why many (but not all) pantheistic cultures responded positively to Christian missionaries (like the Jesuits). Many times Christians offer philanthropy, education, and a message of salvation.
All in all I think the world's major religions are Lawful Good. They offer a strict code of living and at the very core of this code is: love. Love God, love self, love others. If we look at human history we see people who do not follow this message. But we don't see that many divine consequences for people not living up to this message. People are attracted to religions for different reasons: the answers to big questions, the acceptance, the love, and even the power, the control, and other selfish reasons. Try and incorporate these motivations into your PC's and NPC's.
How can I bring this back into the thread's original purpose? As I said earlier, I find that the alignment system is a great guide for roleplaying.
Wow thanks for the excellent responses. It's good to hear others have done the same thing as I have and not had too many problems, I was a bit worried I'd accidentally removed an essential part of the game with my mad tinkering.
I guess what I am saying is that removing alignment for mortals seems to have made my game better. My group are bigger on roleplaying and storytelling than they are on making unbustable videogame-style PCs, and removing alignment has made my adventures better. Instead of just sitting down and thinking "OK there's an evil wizard outside of town the PC's have to defeat" I have to think of why people think of this man as evil, what has he actually done to deserve this reputation? It's not enough just to say he's NE on the alignment chart, watch someone use a spell to confirm it, and then start rolling initiative.
I can see the arguments for why it should be used, basically being faithful to the genre, but I think personally that it's been over 40 years since the Lord of the Rings and closer to a century since Conan, and my modern players don't buy heroic good vs. evil fantasy like that anymore. Uh, not that Conan was really very moralistic anyway. In fact Conan morality is pretty much what my players want. They want bravery and audacity to be more respected than goodness, basically to be rogues and wanderers who are fmaous heroes even though they aren't squeaky clean.
But thanks for the replies, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't walking into a whole mess. One thing did bother me though, someone (sorry I can't remember who) said that if gods have alignments they would expect their priests to share them. This seems logical, so is a bit of a worry for me... maybe I could say that the gods are impersonal and anyone can tap into their power by doing the right rituals?
Instead of just sitting down and thinking "OK there's an evil wizard outside of town the PC's have to defeat" I have to think of why people think of this man as evil, what has he actually done to deserve this reputation? It's not enough just to say he's NE on the alignment chart, watch someone use a spell to confirm it, and then start rolling initiative.
I see your point and raise you mine:
Having motivations for 'evil' NPC villains really should be considered a must for most DMs that wish a good roleplaying environment for their players.If the 'evil' NPC is doing bad things then it should be relatively simple to determine why the townsfolk hate the 'evil' NPC. And the townsfolk should be able to persuade the PCs that the villain is 'evil'.
IMO I think that anyone who makes a villain with NE as its defining alignment characteristic is not really into roleplaying - a villain needs a backstory. So scrapping alignment is not the answer, fleshing out ideas and making rounded, believable NPCs is the key.
One last thing that I have to emphasise (sp?) again: you shouldn't be controlled by your D&D alignment, it should reflect what you are doing. There is no need to scrap alignment, just realise that it is not in control of your, you are in control of it. Ask not what your alignment makes you do, but what do you do that makes your alignment.
igi
I guess what I am saying is that removing alignment for mortals seems to have made my game better.
And that's what it's all about. The beauty of D&D is that you can do it. Alignment is like any other D&D rule: if the group functions better by changing it, change it. What works for you won't work for me, but the wonderful thing is that you can change it.
This kind of discussion also exmplifies what the boards should be used for. Discuss your ways of doing things, and get ideas from others.
On the topic at hand, however, I would ask: what do you for alignment based classes (Paladin, Druid) and for alignment based spells and items, without alignment? Do you wing it, or judge by how they tend to act?
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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But thanks for the replies, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't walking into a whole mess. One thing did bother me though, someone (sorry I can't remember who) said that if gods have alignments they would expect their priests to share them. This seems logical, so is a bit of a worry for me... maybe I could say that the gods are impersonal and anyone can tap into their power by doing the right rituals?
I hear that Eberron addresses that problem by doing away with the alignment restriction for clerics and having churches with general beliefs (not owning any Eberron products, I cannot absolutley confirm this). I do think you can safely scrap that rule.
Plus, the rotten clergyman is a staple of midevil myth/literature (Robin Hood, the 3 Musketeers [yes, they're not midevil, but close enough]).
On the topic at hand, however, I would ask: what do you for alignment based classes (Paladin, Druid) and for alignment based spells and items, without alignment? Do you wing it, or judge by how they tend to act?
Well there are no paladins in our campaign, we have holy warriors but they are multiclassed. Druids are an important part of the campaign, and the way I handle druids is have them as a very coherent secret society. If a druid behaves in a way that other druids think is not befitting the aims of the druids as a whole then he or she is punished. The druids are essentially eco-terrorists, they put the safety of nature ahead of that of humanoids. This means neutrality is now not really an issue, but respect for nature is what makes a druid. Everything else is unimportant; some druids are honest and kind, others are murderous nutcases, but as long as they put nature ahead of civilization they are OK by the other druids.
I note that Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved has not been mentioned. Monte Cook completely eliminated Alignment from Arcana Evolved and I think that it works fine in that campaign setting.
Personally I've always been of two minds on alignment. To a great extent I find that I agree that it can have some cartoonist elements and that really well thought out individuals are often difficult to pigeon hole into the Alignment system (anyone who has read the first few books of The Black Company series would be very hard pressed to give the characters D&D alignments - they are to complex for that. On the other hand the game has alignment built into it and its hard to remove unless one removes some of the sideline elements. My home brew very much revolves around a struggle between Good and Evil. Every God has unique Holy Warriors for example, so removing alignment is not really much of an option. I actually thought quite a bit about trying to do so before deciding that it was more problematic then it was worth. In a campaign less about an epic struggle between Good and Evil its probably not nearly so difficult to pull out however.
I think this has been said a few times, but we just use the alignment as a guide. It isn't too strict and usually is just used alot in regards to what spells you can use and what ones you can't use, as well as what items can and can't be used. Alignment can never be nailed down on one character, and as some people have said it does change. But i guess it is part of game and it is up to us to decide to take it or leave it.
there is my two
Later
A.
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I note that Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved has not been mentioned. Monte Cook completely eliminated Alignment from Arcana Evolved and I think that it works fine in that campaign setting.
They did the same thing with Iron Heroes, which is the system my group just started using. So far its going good. Personally, I am relieved to not have to worry about alingment.
Hi everyone, this is my first post here, but I've looked around a bit and it seems like a nice place :)
"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy."
Obi-Dan-Kenobi
This has been an interesting thread and I do hope we can keep our detachment and not take personal offense over posters' negative stereotypes of particular religious beliefs, or the instinctive emotional response when one feels one's own group has been unfairly labeled. I think we have to accept that not everyone will share or understand our own beliefs and loyalties in a public forum like this--so it's good if we can both be sensitive to others' feelings and thick-skinned about their misunderstandings of our own. :) (Listening to Muslim friends in China, who often have very strong negative views about Americans and Christians, has taught me this important principle, and upholding it has, I hope, helped to dispel these friends' stereotypes.)
Anyway, further thoughts on the actual thread here-- I wonder if there is a workable half-way point between eliminating alignment from the game mechanics and limiting its effects? Like some earlier posters, I too find that some of the alignment-focused spells being used on ordinary mortals who happen to tend toward evil/good/law/chaos to be a bit too much--the paladin's detect evil being used to decide who is a worthy target of violence is a good example, as is the fact that Protection from Evil, Chaos Hammer, etc. can target ordinary opponents of the opposite alignment. Looking at folkloric traditions of abjuration magic, such spells tended to work primarily on beings of specific categories: demons, undead, fey, etc.--but not against ordinary human murderers. Fantasy novels that incorporate such elements tend to work in similar fashion--e.g. wards set by Aes Sedai in Jordan's Wheel of Time novels can exclude shadowspawn but not ordinary human darkfriends. This is one reason why demons, etc. need to recruit mortal cultists to do a lot of their dirty work for them. Clerics, paladins, etc., might have an aura comparable to such special beings, but your average LG or CE fighter shouldn't be affected by a Protection from Law/Chaos, etc. Likewise, a trapped door that uses Holy Word or Dictum should be a good ward against demons, but not against a CE human rogue. Or, a paladin can detect a vampire, but not its human thrall. Obviously this changes the balance of the game a bit, but only by changing the usefulness of certain spells. And, I think, it keeps alignment designations as a stimulus to character development and roleplaying without making them so restrictive or meaningful in terms of game mechanics.
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I could buy what you are saying if he hadn't said Christianity. Someone did indeed say Christianity as a whole, not some Christian leaders or rulers, but Christianity, as a whole. But hey, why would I defend my faith when an attack is made on it in an attempt to explain rules in a game people play as a hobby. I should really get my priorities straight.I find it hard to compare religion in our world with that of the D&D realm. Gods make their prescence known in D&D on a daily basis. Certain gods work well with other gods and their worshippers follow suit. In the real world Christianity tried to wipe most other religions from the face of the earth to prove that their's is the one true religion. Wars were waged (and still are) but there is no working together.
I am a Roman Catholic. Just thought you may find that interesting. Just because something isn't in scriptures doesn't mean it didn't happen. The Crusades were a horrible time in church history. The Vienna Boys choir also has a very disturbing past if you care to research the mutilation of the young boys up until recently(historically speaking). I was/am not attacking the church, merely stating that my god has been fairly quiet of late and as a result HUMAN clergyman have taken advantage of the vagueness of scriptures at times for personal or political gain. God (whatever one anyone chooses to follow) is Perfect. Humans are not even close. 'Cept maybe Ultradan;). I am ashamed of many things that the church has done in the past but that doesn't ever affect my perception of God. Don't mistake my disgust in some people for a hatred towards god.
Good thinks that its good is the best good evil justifies what it does. Keep or drop it but never forget the first two rules of the game.
1.The DM is always right.
2.If the DM is wrong see rule number 1.
If it works for you use it if not drop it you're the DM, see rule number 1.
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Anyway,.....sorry about the semi-rant guys. I just want to clarify that dark times for the church were some bad church leaders fault, and do not negate all the good done by the church. I was only stating how it is hard to use real world modern religions as a template for D&D religions. I knew i would, but I didn't want to offend anyone.
FH
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So, in regards to the purpose of alignment and alignment-based magic, a hypothetical: Bob the Paladin is walking down the forest road. he meets up with a shifty-looking dude and, being a mildly rude fascist, checks him out with the Detect Evil. Sure enough, Shifty is one bad mother. So, At this point, one might assume that Shifty's toast. However, Bob hasn't actually SEEN him do anything wrong, he's just got a bad vibe. Laying down the rightous smiting would then result in an alignment infraction, and possibly cost him his cool god-stuff. Actions have consequences, and the alignment system helps to codify the rules for these consequences.
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Like some earlier posters, I too find that some of the alignment-focused spells being used on ordinary mortals who happen to tend toward evil/good/law/chaos to be a bit too much--the paladin's detect evil being used to decide who is a worthy target of violence is a good example....
Maybe it is just me, but I have always had a certain ambivalence about the paladin class. Supposedly holy warriors (well, definitely holy warriors) who roam about looking for evil-doers to, er, kill. Isn't killing, in most contexts, a bit, you know, wrong? Almost, sort of, evil?
I don't know if this is cultural - and please, any Americans (I'm British) please don't be offended by this, as it is a question more than a comment - but is this association (at least in the modern game of D&D, rather than the historical contect of Charlemagne) connected with ideas of gun-culture and the basic American-ness of the game? I appreciate that guns in the home are more often associated with hunting than homicide (hunting, by the way, is pretty anathema to most British, as a predominately urban society). But conversations I have had (with an admittedly small sample of US citizens) does seem to consider self-defence with lethal force to be pretty acceptable under a lot of circumstances I wouldn't. It puts the notion of what is an acceptable level of violence quite a few notches higher than I would ordinarily. (If you feel I'm out of line on this one, please feel free to flame me - I'm not armed.)
Now, I now D&D is just a game with certain conventions. And it is fun to rub out bad guys in the game precisely because we don't do it in real life. But to associate a guy handing out summary justice (again, a possible distortion of how lots of people play their paladins, I'm sure) with the LG alignment always made me squirm a little. Is there anyone out there with a view on this?
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Re: Eberron
The class restrictions for paladins and druids are still in place, but yes, a cleric may be of any alignment and wosrhip any deity.
As an unofficial aside, Keith Baker (creator) noted that he would make the ability to turn/rebuke lie soley on the deity, not the clergy member, as a LE priest of a good deity may still believe he is loyally serving the chruch's interests, he's just doing so with torture and extortion against its enemies (or innocents he believes are enemies)- if a cleric of a good god suddenly rebuked undead, instead of turning, it could be a tremendous rupturing of his beliefs and an obvious metagame method of rooting out the "dark" clergy members...
Additionally, it was recommended that a holy weapon function based on the characters strongest aura, which for a full-classed cleric will always be that of their deity's alignments, not their "creature HD"- thus the evil cleric of Pelor can pick up and easily wield the holy avenger, while an evil fighter 4+/cleric 1 is going to register as evil due to his non-cleric HD.
Hope that helps the discussion.. I do find alignment to be best for clergy/paladins and outsiders myself, but agree with other posters on the difficulty in implementing the alignment-based spells...I'm all ears if someone works that particular nuance out.
Real people are not good and evil, they behave in different ways depending on the circumstances they find themsleves in. Someone could donate to charity one day and murder the next depending on what happened to them in between. Not to mention that different cultures have different concepts of ethics. Like many gamers my players are bright people, and were always pointing these sorts of things out...
Read the germane portions of the core textbooks and some of the accessories - especially the Book of Exaulted Deeds. There are sections of these books that suggest two different ways of approaching alignment in a campaign. The current version indicates using a "black and white" approach to implementing and utilizing alingment in a campaing setting for ease. There are also sections regarding what are considered good/evil acts for determining stat block penalties or otherwise adjusting black and white alignment statistics.This creates the ability to make clear-cut decisions regarding the actions of a PC.
The second approach that is not encouraged is the "grey" idology that you speak to in this thread. It is cautioned that while perhaps more realistic, the group must be willing to defer stat block ruling issues to the judgement of the DM. So, while potentialy more rewarding to the role-player, this system detracts from a group understanding of how the game mechanic works in deference to the DM's personal interpretation on potentially sticky subjects of social, philosophical, and moral dilemmas.As ever,
ACE
So, in regards to the purpose of alignment and alignment-based magic, a hypothetical: Bob the Paladin is walking down the forest road. he meets up with a shifty-looking dude and, being a mildly rude fascist, checks him out with the Detect Evil. Sure enough, Shifty is one bad mother. So, At this point, one might assume that Shifty's toast. However, Bob hasn't actually SEEN him do anything wrong, he's just got a bad vibe. Laying down the rightous smiting would then result in an alignment infraction, and possibly cost him his cool god-stuff. Actions have consequences, and the alignment system helps to codify the rules for these consequences.
I agree with this point. There are many people that are likely evil, but have never "sealed the deal" by commiting an evil act. If a good character is as good as they are lawful, they in their mind there must be at least a bit of thought that goes into this saying, "something may happen before this person manages do actually do evil that may turn them." In fact, if they detect evil in this case, they might actually be more inclinded to find out what exactly about their "target" is tainted by evil.
Of course, this reminds me of the DragonLance maxim about good, "good redeems its own."
With respect to paladins and the whole smiting evil b/c its evil:
Remember law and chaos. A paladin should/must obey the law or at least some sort of internally consistent guidleines.
IMO (influenced from Exalted Deeds) if you are a paladin and you find a muderer in a city you don't kill the murderer. You knock them out and hand them over to the local authorities for trial and possible execution/prison time/hand cutting, etc.
Anyway I think I am close to running this thread off its tracks if we start talking about what a paladins job is. Just my 2c.
igi
Now, I now D&D is just a game with certain conventions. And it is fun to rub out bad guys in the game precisely because we don't do it in real life. But to associate a guy handing out summary justice (again, a possible distortion of how lots of people play their paladins, I'm sure) with the LG alignment always made me squirm a little. Is there anyone out there with a view on this?
Agreed. I have always thought the behaviour of a typical paladin is more like what I would imagine as LN than LG. To my mind the coneptions of good in D&D don't take into account the idea that a central part of being good by most definitions includes nonviolence. I think if a character is violent then that violence should taint them a little, and they should be regarded as a little scary by everyone around them. A paladin is like a holy avenger; they are mandated by their church or god or whatever to go out and destroy things and people. I think this should preclude them from personally being LG, though of course the priests of the church they serve would be. That's why they have paladins. LG people can't justify violence to themselves as a response.
I always thought the alignment system seemed to exist solely to justify violence against some creatures, so that a player could kill (evil) things and still feel "good." I don't see what is so wrong with making anyone who kills habitually (like a fighter or paladin) for whatever reason a neutral. It makes more sense to me. If there were such things as moral absolutes (as there are in standard D&D)then surely "good" would include never perpetrating acts of violence.
Sorry to double post but I'm still learning my way around these boards and I've just discovered that I can't edit my post after a certain time has passed...
So anyway, I just want to add that maybe there is something to the idea that violent good guys are very American. I am Australian and have always found the idea of a paladin strange, and now it has been articulated for me. They are very gunfighter like, they resort to violence easily which is not what I think of when I think of a "good" person. Anyone who doesn't agree with this should ask why a paladin is a warrior in the first place if he doesn't believe in violence as a solution. They are made for it.
So if I had to use alignment, I would say that there are many "good" people in the D&D world, but very few of them are adventurers or warriors, and if they are it is by necessity. Good people (in my alignment terms) are average peasants who choose to lead a peaceful life and raise a family, and help out their neighbours when they are in trouble. Most people who choose to lead a violent life would in my conception be a bit morally amibiguous. I guess that's where my whole dissatisfaction with alignment comes from, I don't buy the easy justification for violence it gives PC's. I never realized until now. The beauty of message boards eh?
You're probably getting at something here.
The USA is known for doing what it perceives as good with its military. Our culture seems to have a belief in good being achived through violence, as if that justifies it. Sometimes, I think it does. I am American, though.
I think the concept of the paladin is not based purely on an American outlook though. I would look back at the Knights Templar, who acted lawfully and orderly to achieve what they perceive as good. The Paladin is not good at violence so he can us it to solve problems; he is good at it to defend those who can't defend themselves, and to take it to evil forces who pose a threat to others.
Alot of this goes in your interpretation of the paladin. I have done a lot of reading on the Christian militant orders, and so my outlook may be colored by that.
Either way, I don't think alignment is the cause of this problem with violence. You seem to be assessing alignment as justifying violence. It doesn't. Alignment is a way to gauge how your character tends to act. There seems to be a lot of anxiety over it, and it is quite simple.
a paladin surely considers violence AN option, just not the ONLY option. my dm is quite skittish about letting players play paladins, and primarily for the reason that they are supposed to be something of a paragon of alignment. anyone can be lawful good, paladins are lg++, if you understand. as for me, i think of it quite a bit more like alot of people have already posted... without reason to act with violence (esp. in an urban campaign), they most assuredly should not. thats why they have things like diplomacy on their class skill list. they should be good speakers and offer peaceful means out of a combat. of course, they should also be able to defend themselves against attacks meant to slay them.
as for the "violence" solution... these are the guys that get sent to destroy marauding undead, slay corrupting fiends, and generally beat down clerics of evil. they bask in their gods glory (or divine glory, for those with no deity) every time they defeat evil, and players should take their character's deity into account if they have one, and play properly. example: a paldin of rao (greyhawk) should almost universally attempt to defeat encounters through diplomacy. a paladin of heironeous (also greyhawk) will usually not have a reason to keep a cleric of hextor out of a grave.
well, thats how i see it, anyway.
tog