D&D General Do you use Alignment in your D&D games?

[payn]

What I've found useful in describing characters (PCs or NPCs) is to use three adjectives. So my current 5e character is described as "independent, charming, reckless."

What I really like about alignment is being able to quickly envision the characters methods and their general goals. I only get the former from your set. Though, I do like having a compass that informs me about my character. Alignment has been that north star for me.

 

[Malmuria]

So CG/CN?

No, I didn't say she was necessarily unhinged, rebellious, impulsive, berserk, sentimental, free-spirited, disorganized, lawless, solipsistic, or...you get the point. chaos, law, good, and evil are fine adjectives, but not the only ones!

 

[Bluebell]

Well. First, it would be nice for the language to be so derogatory. Moreover, this is the principle for actual religions on this planet. Whether you choose to believe or not, still, billions believe it. Finally, you might not like it, but at the same time, it's the essence of some types of fantasy. Why was Galahad allowed to find the Grail ?

Sorry if I've given offence, that definitely wasn't my intention. I didn't see it as derogatory because I don't think you can really compare a game system to a real world religion. There are many religions around the world that disagree quite a bit on what defines a good person. That's actually why I find it a bit too simplistic to clearly define as a tangible force in a game with many different people playing it, because it relies on everyone agreeing on what "pure good" would actually be.

You make a really good point about Galahad and the Grail and the whole concept of only the "worthy" being able to find some magical item being an aspect of fantasy. But if something like that were to appear in my game, I'd personally rather have it come as a result of actual deeds the PCs did to show they have the qualities the magical item is looking for. Even Thor's hammer isn't a measure of goodness, exactly, it's a measure of who is worthy to wield that specific weapon (which means, as I've seen one person put it, being noble but also willing to smash some skulls with a great big hammer).

 

[Charlaquin]

No, not really. If players want to write something down on the alignment line on their character sheet because they think it helps them roleplay their character, I won’t stop them. But it doesn’t really matter, because there are no mechanics that care about it. Monsters and NPCs behave how they behave, and players can form whatever moral judgments they want to. Whether I write “chaotic evil,” “typically chaotic evil” or nothing at all in a monster’s stat block is completely irrelevant because I’m going to play it the way I’m going to play it, and the players are never going to see the start block.

 

[CleverNickName]

I used to game with a group of folks who absolutely detested the concept of alignment...didn't want to have anything to do with it whatsoever, would write vulgar expletives in the Alignment blank on their character sheets (this was back in the 3E days). However, I depended on alignment as a tool for running the hundreds of other monsters and NPCs in the game. I needed that mechanic to help differentiate friends from foes.

So I tried to keep track of which factions and monsters would get along with others, and then make adjustments as the story progressed. That quickly became a mess, so I finally just assigned a single alignment to the party as a whole, in my notes. They were basically Neutral Good, but their alignment would drift from Neutral to Good and back, or between Lawful and Neutral and Chaotic, depending on the deeds they accomplished and the friends they made. The players insisted they didn't have an alignment, but I knew that as a group they behaved Neutral Good.

I never shared those notes or reported their "party alignment" to the players; they were pretty adamant about not wanting to have anything to do with it. (And besides: I knew that they would fight and disagree with whatever alignment I gave.) It was just a tool that I used to help me decide which NPCs would be friendly and which ones would be standoffish, what kind of reputation they had in certain parts of town, that sort of thing. It really made tracking the social tier a lot easier. Looking back on it, I guess you could say I was using a rudimentary "Renown" system for the group...except it used the LC/GE axis instead of a numerical score.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Outsiders have Alignments. Mortal creatures, even “mortal” creatures like dragons, do not.

 

[Malmuria]

I really hated the Paladin's detect evil ability in 3e.

 

[payn]

I really hated the Paladin's detect evil ability in 3e.

As somebody who loves alignment, I hated a lot of the mechanical stuff of 3E.

 

[beancounter]

IMO, for PCs, only Paladins should be held to the restrictions of an alignment.

After all, what is a Paladin if they don't have a guiding principle.

Without a guiding principle, they are just an OP fighter...

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Another reason I use alignment is because I really like Michael Moorcock's stuff, which was a big influence on early D&D and focuses on a war between Law and Chaos where the ultimate embodiments of either force are inimical to life and existence.

Notes for the original Known World (later known as Mystara) campaign similarly described the "Prime Alignments" of "High Law" and "High Chaos" thusly:

ABSOLUTE ORDER (High Law) - The only tolerable form of existence is with everything in order and in its place. It is necessary that uniformity be imposed upon the world so that perfect control of all actions can be accomplished, thus eliminating all disruption and discontent.

ABSOLUTE RANDOMNESS (High Chaos) - The ideal is the co-existence of all possibilities, which will come about when the bonds of Law (and Time, which is a Lawful concept) are broken. The ultimate goal is a return to that condition of total randomness that supposedly existed before the imposition of Law.

Bill Wilkerson's Original Known World documents - Google Drive

drive.google.com

Sure, most Lawful or Chaotic PCs aren't going to be on board with the extremes of their alignment, but it's fun to think that Primus and Ssendam might be laying low while the other forces of the multiverse unwittingly play out a war between Law and Chaos in various forms and theaters. I also find I have more fun as a DM having the conflict in a campaign be between forces of Law and Chaos because it's more ambiguous who the PCs should side with versus a conflict of Good and Evil.

EDIT: As a side note, understanding better what Law and Chaos mean after reading Moorcock made me finally appreciate the separation and conflict between demons and devils, the Blood War, and the primeval War of Law and Chaos mentioned in certain 2E and 3E materials.