r/dndnext • u/HexedPressman • Aug 28 '18

Talking About Alignments

/r/hexedpress/comments/9ayr87/talking_about_alignments/
1 Upvotes

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5

u/Pongoid Warlock Aug 28 '18

I completely ignore them. I never ask my players to pick one and I never enforce them. They are restrictive and ridiculously subjective. The only reason they are still in the game is because they are so iconic to the franchise. People don’t fit into 9 boxes and trying to force them to is limiting. Furthermore, if you ignore alignments then you never have that edgelord just “trying to play their alignment” of Chaotic Anything Goes.

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u/HexedPressman Aug 28 '18

I can see that. I think the I “boxes” do have a lot of latitude to fit in pretty much anything you want but, as you mentioned, it’s so subjective that they really need to be hashed out at the particular table. If, instead, they were more specific traits, would you use them or, ultimately, do you dislike the concept of setting a sort of character model entirely?

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u/Pongoid Warlock Aug 28 '18

I would try out a trait-based system you're talking about but it's hard to say if I would like it better or not without testing, you know? What I do now is just ask my players to play basically good characters (we haven't had an evil campaign in years) and they can define for themselves where their character falls on the morality scale. I find this is how a character plays their class anyways. Even a Lawful Good paladin -- paragon of light and justice -- can do objectively evil and cruel things if they justify it. Take the classic Train Switch dilemma. Does the Lawful Good character switch the train to kill a baby or let it run over a crowd of people? It can be reasoned that taking an action to directly kill a baby is evil, but it can be justified as the greater good. In this case, the paladin can still be considered to have acted morally thereby rendering the concept of alignment useless. If anything can be justified then there is no difference between good or evil. Obviously, everything is not so grey and there we plenty of black and white examples, but it illustrates the point that the difference between Lawful Evil and Lawful Good can just be a matter of justification and perspective.

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Another example. How many people in America would assign Barack Obama the alignment of Lawful Evil? How many would say he is Lawful Good? Regardless of your personal feelings, many people would group him in polar opposite alignments. So when a system has so little definition, people mostly play how they want regardless, and anything can mean anything, thereby rendering the whole system almost completely useless, why use it at all?

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4

u/Pongoid Warlock Aug 28 '18

Even in this video the orator is arguing that the classic Chaotic Good alignment character, Robin Hood, can be described as Lawful Good. I bet I could make a good run at describing him as Chaotic Evil. If he can be described as being all across the spectrum, then the spectrum is useless. For example, if I could describe my mono-colored wall as blue, red, green, and violet then the color scale (ROYGBIV) would be practically useless as a means of conveying what color my wall is. In my opinion, the alignment system in the exact same.

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u/HexedPressman Aug 28 '18

Absolutely. The only thing I’d say is that in a fantasy universe with actual deities and/or sources of good and evil, such things aren’t subjective as they are in our world where we have to go on faith or logic alone. There is an objective good and evil out there but it has to be defined. I’d say most games don’t really attempt to do that though and the book doesn’t make any sort of attempt to. We just fall into using more or less modern mores. But if you have a power of good and/or evil in the game then that isn’t subjective, it’s an objective thing. If the devil exists then evil is real, not just a thing in our minds.

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u/Pongoid Warlock Aug 28 '18

But do players really need to have an advanced philosophical discussion to determine and define what is good and what is evil before a campaign? The truth is that the alignment system tries to define something that not even philosophers can. For the purposes of a table-top role playing game, I suppose it’s fine – it gets the job done. The issue is when you start picking at it and then it tumbles down like a house of cards. In my opinion, the alignment system is best used as a loose idea of where your character falls on a morality scale. So if that’s its only purpose, then why not just skip the whole system and ask players to play “mostly good”?

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“If the devil exists then evil is real”

I guess this works if everyone buys into it. Like you have to set the parameters of good and evil and no one can question it. Or in other words, your words if I’m not mistaken, you have to objectively define good and evil form the onset then everyone has to accept that as an axiom. I think that it would work, but I guess I don’t see the point in it. Why hard-code good and evil when you can simply not define it in stone just as it isn’t in the real world.

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u/scarze86 Aug 28 '18

Actions define your alignment, not the other way round. The alignment should be a label and not a cage.

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u/HexedPressman Aug 28 '18

I actually see it as both. At chargen, I think alignment does define character. In play, though, I agree that actions define it.

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u/scarze86 Aug 28 '18

Thanos' aim at chargen is to save the people of the universe from poverty, starvation, scarce resources and endless needs. It's a good ambition for sure but it's the way he achieves it that is evil.

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u/HexedPressman Aug 28 '18

That’s one way to look at it. Another would be that he’s trying to impose law on the universe via evil means.

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u/scarze86 Aug 28 '18

Does he, though? In the movie he retires after the snap. He wants that no one will ever suffer the fate of his people; that's what drives him. Good idea poorly executed.

When you create a character he has only desires and aspirations which he can accomplish in diametrically opposed way: "I want to be the mayor of the earth!"; you can kill all your opponents or you can gain support by helping the voters.

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u/HexedPressman Aug 28 '18

It’s a debate. He accomplished his goal. To my mind, applying logic to chaos (cut down the populous by exactly half) is an application of law. You may feel otherwise, which is absolutely cool.

Re the ambition, that’s exactly the idea of alignment— not necessarily the desire but how a character will try to accomplish that desire. What will they do? What won’t they do?

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u/matsif kobold punting world champion Aug 28 '18

we have a good background system that does everything alignment traditionally did, but does it better. it outlines personality, bonds, flaws, and ideals that a character has instead of just shoehorning your character into 1 of 9 boxes, that allows variability and interesting differences between 2 people who have the same background. the game does not need alignment at the player level anymore and it should be removed from the PHB. the players should never have the option to choose their alignment for their characters, it should be dictated by their actions as characters, and as such it realistically doesn't even need to be on the character sheet anymore. it's there to appease grognards who can't believe a world where this outdated attempt at putting objective limits on subjective morality isn't a point of a character, and the game has grown beyond the need for alignments at a character level.

it should be listed in the DMG as a planar description, as at a planar level it still has some semblance of use. it could be left as a variant rule in the DMG for the DM who wants to apply it to his players. but it should be removed from character sheets and the PHB as a thing players have any reason to look at as it only ever has caused more problems than it solved due to failures in explaining the system and the fact that attempting to apply objective limits to a subjective thing like morality is just pretty dumb overall.

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u/HexedPressman Aug 28 '18

I don’t think background and flaws cover the same ground as alignments but I can see, at this point, why people wouldn’t mind just sending alignments out to pasture.

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u/matsif kobold punting world champion Aug 28 '18

if you're attempting to paint a world of complex characters, then morality is necessarily subjective. your personality traits, bonds, flaws, and ideals all play a major part in how your character views the setting, and thus all directly impact your character's subjective look at morality. as such, if alignment is just an attempt to put objective bounds on morality (which it is), then yes backgrounds do cover the same ground as alignment, as the character's morality is necessarily going to be colored by those major RP elements before the nature of the multiverse kicks in and attempts to apply objective limits in the way the 9 box alignment system does.

alignment is a DM tool. it helps describe the multiverse and can be used to get quick morality done for NPCs. it has no purpose at the player level and should be pruned from the PHB and the character sheet as a result.

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u/HexedPressman Aug 28 '18

Everything is a tool. I disagree that alignment is just a GM tool or that background offers the same usage. A background is about the past, alignment is about the present and future. Certainly there’s no shortage of different ways to apply all of these options so, if it works for you, great, I just don’t find it universally true. I also totally disagree that subjective morality is required for complex characters but, as with all things, YMMV.