Apologies if this is in the wrong category, I'm happy to repost it somewhere more appropriate.
Full disclosure, I've been thinking about alignment a fair bit recently because of a discussion somewhere else and it reminded me of a gaming anecdote I want to share. I do have a point though I swear, bare with me.
OK, when I were a lad I was playing a game of AD&D (this was the 2000s, btw, I'm younger than this makes me sound) in a fairly low magic world based on the Roman empire (It was awesome, except for the tendency every character I played to die right before they'd be useful to the party). Wizards were uncommon, elves and gnomes weren't PC races and outsiders were basically myths. Even the existence of Gods was open for interpretation. (None of this would have sold the game to Lil' Gug, but it was worth it just to see the GM role play the strange looks our MU got for trying to swallow live fish every time he cast identify)
In a setting like that, our GM didn't feel the need to have us select our alignments during character creation, as a lot of the rules that depend on it wouldn't be coming up a lot. We went about our adventuring lives in a fairly mercenary fashion. I was going through a phase of favouring Thief/fighter half orcs, so fairly gleeful with the backstabs ect. and everything was fine. Then we were making a deal with someone we didn't know we could trust and our cleric (who alone amongst us was obviously LG) decided to try 'Detect Evil' for the first time. We all nodded at what a good plan this was, then stopped and looked at each other with growing concern. There was a moment of quiet, until finally the GM asked us each to write down what alignment we THOUGHT we were on a slip of paper and hand it to him. We each stared at our scrap in silence for a while, before one by one my party mates wrote two letters, folded their paper and handed it to the GM. I honestly had no idea what to write. I obviously wasn't Good, exactly, but how 'not good' was I? Did the thing with the kobolds count? I mean they were evil though, right? Wait, this character wasn't alive when we collapsed the mine. Maybe I'm Neutral? Though there has been a lot of theft and deception, maybe CN? I'm definitely not CE, but NE? I could see the argument. People were waiting on me, so I ended up just writing all three and a question mark.
There was another long silence as the GM read each of our answers in turn, then looked at the player, down to his notes and back to the player, weighing our character's actions with what the scrap said. It was like having died, and finding out there really was a reckoning at the end of it all. Whatever the ruling was would have sever repercussions for our party; it's one thing to know your friend isn't the sweetest cherub in the world, but another to know they were in the same category as assassins, monsters and fiends. It's a hell of a thing to know about yourself. We all shared one last nervous look as he turned to the cleric and answered. "You sense one evil presence." I wasn't the only one to shout "From where!?"
The point is, I never felt alignment mattering more before or since. When I'd written it down in the past, it had ceased to be very important and I didn't think about it; So long as I didn't do anything excessively evil, I was comfortably Neutral Good and it wasn't a concern. This was the first time I realised how different alignment looked from the other side of the sheet, the first time it felt less like something you just were and more like something you Earned. I'm not gonna pretend it made me a better person or anything, but it definitely made me a better role player.
So yeah, what I'm saying is unless its vital straight off the bat, maybe try not having your players pick alignment next time they create characters. Obviously not as a system wide rules thing or something that'll work on every table, but it created one of the most memorable moments in a already memorable campaign and can have some really interesting results with the right group.
Sorry if this ran on too long, but 'Maybe leave Alignment till level 5ish? It's neat, try it.' didn't seem like it got my point across.
I have messed around with this idea for a Game.
The results of 'hiding' or 'withholding' the Alignment usually was met with negative results when I told my friends the idea.
All the players would be allowed to pick any Alignment they wanted. However, and told ahead of time, they would also end up being shifted over to True Neutral at the start of the game due to Amnesia.
They'd be free to again go as evil or as good as they wanted but also would have to interact with people that know what alignments they were at before the game started proper.
So maybe a Paladin shows up to Smite evil your butt only to go "Wait you're not evil anymore".
Sometimes it takes approaching the alignment issue from another perspective to actually get a firm understanding of what it is. Good and Evil, Law and Chaos are not just how one perceives themselves. Those concepts are already predefined (by the rules) and the very Universe that the characters exist in.
The interesting thing with your story, Gug... That is really how the NPCs and creatures of the D&D world handle the day to day issues with alignment. They don't get a confirmation of their alignment unless something can reveal it to them. They only get glimpses of how benevolent someone is, or how nasty that person is.
It is an amazing bit of narrative when the players actually bond with an NPC and only find out at level 5+ that the NPC they love so much is very much deep in the alignment pool (Evil). Yet, that NPC has displayed very little sign of it aside from being somewhat short, gruff, and complaining a bit. My players in the Ironfang Invasion are STILL oblivious to the alignment of a certain NPC they rescued from the raid, and they have a Paladin in the group. The NPC has never given them reason to doubt their dedication to the cause, though this stems more from the hatred of the enemy, rather than their alignment.
That is a good story, Gug. I like the effects it had on the players in your group and I like that it's something new it brought to your gaming experience.
I know that alignment is intended to be a guide, not a restriction, but thanks to so many different interpretations of how certain acts are interpreted differently by different people, alignment is too often a hindrance to fun play for me to really care about utilizing it.
Usually, when I create a PC, I leave alignment blank. I'd rather see how the PC develops and responds to situations and let that factor into what semi-arbitrary designation I assign. If it becomes important to know, and if my PC doesn't obviously fit into an alignment stereotype, I'll just ask the GM what they think my PC is -- since it's their interpretation of my PC's actions that really matter -- and go with that.
Unless a character is specifically restricted by their class( In which alignment stands to make a significant impact on the character of the character you're playing.) I tend to put my alignment down as N, and shift it as I feel my character genuinely develops into an appropriate alignment.
Thread title is five words too long. : )