Quote from: Mishihari on April 28, 2023, 05:36:31 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 28, 2023, 05:28:41 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on April 28, 2023, 03:22:44 PMUsing more words to explain a very simple idea doesn't make you any more right; it just makes you a bad writer.

I've played with alignment for decades without any of the problems folks talk about.  So have most other D&D players I know.  Therefor the problem isn't with alignment itself, it's with what some few people are doing with it.

Alignment doesn't necessarily put anything in the game that I can't do without, but it's an intrinsic part of D&D.  Other games are just fine without it, but if I want a D&D experience, there's gotta be alignment.

"I personally never experienced it, therefore it never happened."

Iron tight logic there, except that isn't how logic works. Just because you never experienced something personally that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. And all those words you fail to address are concrete explanations of some of the pitfalls of alignment, rather than making vague claims or tautological assertions that insist that something is the case, because you say so.

And alignment is not intrinsic to any game. I have easily played D&D without minding alignment for decades without the game falling apart. Alignment is one of the easiest thing to ignore, if you're on the DM side of things.

Did you really just say that then criticize someone else's logic?  I didn't say that it never happens.  I said that it works fine in the vast majority of cases I know about.  Which strongly suggests that the problem is with the people having the problems, since if it were an issue with alignment itself then most everyone would be having these issues.

People have been arguing about alignment since the hobby started. This forum alone has numerous threads either about alignment or where the topic of alignment has come up, which implies that far more people have been having these problems than you're willing to admit. Or they wouldn't be arguing about alignment for the entire history of the hobby. And I've provided specific examples where alignment doesn't logically work even on this very post you're replying to. But rather than addressing those or pointing out how they're wrong you're just dismissing it as "it must be other people's problem, not the 'tool' that people have been arguing about for DECADES itself".

Quote from: SHARK on April 28, 2023, 04:38:38 PM
It has never been a problem for me, however. As a GM, I'm fine with Alignment. As a Player, I LEAN INTO the religious standards and expectations. The stricter, the more devout, even the more seemingly outlandish and absurd--I embrace it fully. The Gods have decreed I sinned? That's fine! I now have an opportunity to go on heroic quests to atone or otherwise seek my redemption. All kinds of fun and adventure await me, even if my character is in error or has sinned and fallen short of proper obedience.

Well said, Shark. I'm quoting this bit because it's worth repeating. When a player takes alignment seriously, it can really lead to interesting and fun sessions. It can push people past their boundaries and help them discover totally new characters or new aspects of familiar characters.

Clerics/priests are a fantastic example! Lots of people just want to fight and cast spells. In my view, they're missing out big time. The #1 concern of a cleric character should be his god and his god's alignment. Yeah he might be out for treasure too, but his god should factor into most of his decisions. And yeah, if he displeases his god, then penance time baby! Which means more adventure and cool situations to discover.

When someone says "Alignment, who needs it?" my answer is "Have you ever really tried it?"

Quote from: rytrasmi on April 28, 2023, 06:16:05 PM

Quote from: SHARK on April 28, 2023, 04:38:38 PM
It has never been a problem for me, however. As a GM, I'm fine with Alignment. As a Player, I LEAN INTO the religious standards and expectations. The stricter, the more devout, even the more seemingly outlandish and absurd--I embrace it fully. The Gods have decreed I sinned? That's fine! I now have an opportunity to go on heroic quests to atone or otherwise seek my redemption. All kinds of fun and adventure await me, even if my character is in error or has sinned and fallen short of proper obedience.

Well said, Shark. I'm quoting this bit because it's worth repeating. When a player takes alignment seriously, it can really lead to interesting and fun sessions. It can push people past their boundaries and help them discover totally new characters or new aspects of familiar characters.

Clerics/priests are a fantastic example! Lots of people just want to fight and cast spells. In my view, they're missing out big time. The #1 concern of a cleric character should be his god and his god's alignment. Yeah he might be out for treasure too, but his god should factor into most of his decisions. And yeah, if he displeases his god, then penance time baby! Which means more adventure and cool situations to discover.

When someone says "Alignment, who needs it?" my answer is "Have you ever really tried it?"

I've played lots of religious characters in many different systems, but that has zero to do with alignment. In my experience, imposing alignment has either done nothing - or made the religious characters more boring. It's a lot more interesting to have religious beliefs for themselves, rather than trying to shoehorn them into generic good vs evil or lawful vs chaotic.

I think of, say, the conflicts of my Bohemian-but-newly-devout-Catholic PC in a long-standing Call of Cthulhu campaign -- and what he thought about a more Protestant plan to save the world. To him, it seemed like draining all the life out of the world in the process of saving it from Lovecraftian monsters. Think of Puritan social mores encompassing the world, wiping out colorful expression like Mardi Gras and the Sistine Chapel.

Or a lot of the religious characters I had in Harnworld, where we had one campaign where all the PCs were missionaries of Ilvir -- and one of my PCs was from a splinter sect of Agrik in another game. Both of these were typically viewed as evil, but it was interesting for us to develop a theology where we thought of ourselves as good.

Playing a religiously inclined character as pious and devoted to their beliefs =/= "playing alignment". It just means that you're taking an actionable element of your character (their religion) and using it to guide your role-playing, which has nothing to do with alignment per se or even their class (my main character for years was a devout follower of Eilistraee, and she was a mage/sorcerer). And the underlying precept of a character's religion is to follow their god's ideals and what they represent, not play their alignment per se.

In my character's case she tried to set a good example by standing up for the weak and defenseless and helping others, not because she was "good" aligned (she technically/arguably was, though the Good/Evil axis is not my main problem with D&D alignment), but because her goddess aimed to bring acceptance to the drow and guide them to the surface world, so she tried to help the weak, foster an atmosphere of cooperation with other races and live a heroic life with the aim to offset the negative reputation her race had amassed. She was also flirty, sensuous and artistically inclined, given to wild parties and dancing, particularly during celebrations after a successful adventure, because her goddess was also the goddess of song and dance, and patron of bards, and their religious celebrations involved dancing naked or wearing see-through clothing under the moonlight.

None of that last stuff has anything to do with alignment, but it ties to her religion and background growing up with followers of Eilistraee. You don't need alignment for any of that. You just need to know what your character's religion is about and use it during play if it's important to your character.

Quote from: Baron on April 19, 2023, 12:56:53 PM
I blogged about this:

https://themichlinguide.wordpress.com/2022/09/08/alignment-in-role-playing-games/

Alignment hearkens back to Anderson and Moorcock. Overt conflict between universal forces fought in our world. D&D's alignment system is a tool for incorporating those struggles in our own game worlds. Plenty of games out there without it, only a few with it. I think it lends greater depth and meaning to our RPGs, but it doesn't need to be in every game. It's one particular element of the genre.

I've played in campaigns where alignment wasn't used. We didn't miss it.

Alignment is best used to describe how someone or something will typically behave -like intelligence. Anything else is an open invitation for sandbagging your game.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 28, 2023, 05:28:41 PM
This doesn't really explain anything, but rather just hints at alignment requiring some sort of deeper understanding of "pre-modern thinking" (whatever that even means), without explaining what you mean by any of this, and how it relates to alignment.

Thanks for reinforcing my point.

If you'll go back and read it again, you'll see that I also said that anyone wanting to understand would need to educate themselves.  A game can't do that for you, and we can't do it here. 

Don't get me wrong.  It is in no way necessary for someone to gain this understanding. They can have a blast with all kinds of RPGs without it.  They can use other systems for some of the same thing that alignment is steering towards. It's merely that when the start talking about alignment, they'll have a huge blind spot.  You know how blind spots work.

Ah, so only the enlightened who self-educate, an elite class of people, can understand the great blessings of alignment compared to the unwashed multitudes.

Gnosticism isn't just for religions, kids.

Quote from: Chris24601 on April 29, 2023, 07:34:40 AM
Ah, so only the enlightened who self-educate, an elite class of people, can understand the great blessings of alignment compared to the unwashed multitudes.

Gnosticism isn't just for religions, kids.

No.  Only people who have put in a little effort can get it.  In exactly the same way that a random person on the street can't just pick up a few tools and build a nice bookcase from scratch.  It's not rocket science, and anyone that wants to can do it, and you can buy "assemble yourself" versions that will work just fine, and you can even buy fine pieces that someone else has done that exactly match your personal tastes instead of trying to take a hacksaw to an existing piece.

However, if for some reason you really want to "build a bookcase from scratch" there is some level of ignorance that has to be overcome first.  You can sneer about "elite" all you want, but there is a huge gap between "ignorance" and "elite" for people to work.  Moreover, others can't "talk" or "educate" you out of that ignorance, not entirely.  It can certainly help, and is almost necessary in some aspects, but mostly it's getting your hands dirty.  There is a huge part of "learn what the wood wants to do" instead of trying to force it all the time into your preconceived ideas.

I did say one thing wrong.  It is theoretically possible that someone could have a conversation with Vision Storm and eventually get the idea across to him.  However, that person is not me, because I lack the patience to have that conversation with someone who shows no signs of wanting to understand. and has so many preconceived misconceptions in place.  What I should have said instead is that it is unlikely to be a productive use of anyone's time, including his.

Quote from: jhkim on April 28, 2023, 06:51:19 PM

Quote from: rytrasmi on April 28, 2023, 06:16:05 PM

Quote from: SHARK on April 28, 2023, 04:38:38 PM
It has never been a problem for me, however. As a GM, I'm fine with Alignment. As a Player, I LEAN INTO the religious standards and expectations. The stricter, the more devout, even the more seemingly outlandish and absurd--I embrace it fully. The Gods have decreed I sinned? That's fine! I now have an opportunity to go on heroic quests to atone or otherwise seek my redemption. All kinds of fun and adventure await me, even if my character is in error or has sinned and fallen short of proper obedience.

Well said, Shark. I'm quoting this bit because it's worth repeating. When a player takes alignment seriously, it can really lead to interesting and fun sessions. It can push people past their boundaries and help them discover totally new characters or new aspects of familiar characters.

Clerics/priests are a fantastic example! Lots of people just want to fight and cast spells. In my view, they're missing out big time. The #1 concern of a cleric character should be his god and his god's alignment. Yeah he might be out for treasure too, but his god should factor into most of his decisions. And yeah, if he displeases his god, then penance time baby! Which means more adventure and cool situations to discover.

When someone says "Alignment, who needs it?" my answer is "Have you ever really tried it?"

I've played lots of religious characters in many different systems, but that has zero to do with alignment. In my experience, imposing alignment has either done nothing - or made the religious characters more boring. It's a lot more interesting to have religious beliefs for themselves, rather than trying to shoehorn them into generic good vs evil or lawful vs chaotic.

I think of, say, the conflicts of my Bohemian-but-newly-devout-Catholic PC in a long-standing Call of Cthulhu campaign -- and what he thought about a more Protestant plan to save the world. To him, it seemed like draining all the life out of the world in the process of saving it from Lovecraftian monsters. Think of Puritan social mores encompassing the world, wiping out colorful expression like Mardi Gras and the Sistine Chapel.

Or a lot of the religious characters I had in Harnworld, where we had one campaign where all the PCs were missionaries of Ilvir -- and one of my PCs was from a splinter sect of Agrik in another game. Both of these were typically viewed as evil, but it was interesting for us to develop a theology where we thought of ourselves as good.

Enforcing alignment is one thing. A player leaning into his character's alignment is another.

Of course, good play of religious characters involves reading about your deity and taking action consistent with your deity's teachings. Alignment is just useful metadata. E.g., Instead of studying all the other deities, I can use alignment as a shortcut as to how my character would treat their followers. I follow a Lawful god and here is a cult to a Chaotic god? Kill 'em all.

The character is alive in the world 24/7 and absolutely would have time to study and decide his opinion of followers of other deities on the merits, rather than resorting to metadata. But I, as the player, have a day job.

In that context, alignment is like a reaction roll. Is it always used? No. Can it be a helpful shortcut? Yes.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 28, 2023, 06:52:55 PM
Playing a religiously inclined character as pious and devoted to their beliefs =/= "playing alignment". It just means that you're taking an actionable element of your character (their religion) and using it to guide your role-playing, which has nothing to do with alignment per se or even their class (my main character for years was a devout follower of Eilistraee, and she was a mage/sorcerer). And the underlying precept of a character's religion is to follow their god's ideals and what they represent, not play their alignment per se.

In my character's case she tried to set a good example by standing up for the weak and defenseless and helping others, not because she was "good" aligned (she technically/arguably was, though the Good/Evil axis is not my main problem with D&D alignment), but because her goddess aimed to bring acceptance to the drow and guide them to the surface world, so she tried to help the weak, foster an atmosphere of cooperation with other races and live a heroic life with the aim to offset the negative reputation her race had amassed. She was also flirty, sensuous and artistically inclined, given to wild parties and dancing, particularly during celebrations after a successful adventure, because her goddess was also the goddess of song and dance, and patron of bards, and their religious celebrations involved dancing naked or wearing see-through clothing under the moonlight.

None of that last stuff has anything to do with alignment, but it ties to her religion and background growing up with followers of Eilistraee. You don't need alignment for any of that. You just need to know what your character's religion is about and use it during play if it's important to your character.

That sounds like good role play.

How would your character react to the followers of a god that she was only vaguely aware of? They have knives drawn and don't speak your language. You're character knows something about this other god, but you as player don't. I'd argue that alignment would help decide how to role play that.

Quote from: Elfdart on April 28, 2023, 10:10:25 PM

Quote from: Baron on April 19, 2023, 12:56:53 PM
I blogged about this:

https://themichlinguide.wordpress.com/2022/09/08/alignment-in-role-playing-games/

Alignment hearkens back to Anderson and Moorcock. Overt conflict between universal forces fought in our world. D&D's alignment system is a tool for incorporating those struggles in our own game worlds. Plenty of games out there without it, only a few with it. I think it lends greater depth and meaning to our RPGs, but it doesn't need to be in every game. It's one particular element of the genre.

I've played in campaigns where alignment wasn't used. We didn't miss it.

Alignment is best used to describe how someone or something will typically behave -like intelligence. Anything else is an open invitation for sandbagging your game.

That's how we did alignment in our homebrew. We use Law, Balance, and Chaos, along the Michael Moorcock lines of Order, Mix, Possibilities. We specifically say Law does not mean Good and Chaos does not mean Evil. My wife took her character's chaos alignment and become a recruiter for her chaos god. She also incorporated it into the rest of her character mechanics -- cast a spell? Roll (chaos) to determine the Element the spell uses. It was pretty cool.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 28, 2023, 07:52:16 AM
Alignment is pre-modern.  So it's unsurprising that those with only modern views should struggle with it, and telling also of the modern/post-modern divide.  Modern can see it, through a glass darkly.  For post-modern, it's completely alien. 

The real issue with alignment is not that it's confusing, however, but that it is not necessary to those that get it.  For a modern, the struggle with alignment is one way to get to a point to understand pre-modern thinking, and as soon as the person does, they don't need it anymore.  The post-modern can't bridge that gap without remedial education best pursued outside the game--and unavailable in most traditional institutions.

D&D alignment originally came out of modern science fiction writers Poul Anderson and Michael Moorcock with its primal forces of Law vs Chaos. AD&D alignment is an original development out of these. I find both OD&D and AD&D alignment to be heavily rooted in a combination of a modern Abrahamic viewpoint and science. Having just read Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, I found it very close to the core of D&D. There's scientific interpretation of medieval concepts -- like dragon thermodynamics, radioactive cursed gold, and ultraviolet sensitivity explaining aversion to sunlight -- and its cosmology is also a sci-fi based. It does elevate medieval views and Carolingian paladins, so I'd think it's fair to say that it isn't Modernist or Pre-modernist in style, but it's certainly post-Romanticism.

It's very different than most historical views, especially non-Abrahamic religions but even medieval Christianity. There isn't anything like "Alignment: Lawful Evil" in a medieval bestiary.


In practice, I find it is harder for players to accept pre-modern historical practice if it is labelled as absolute good. For example, in a viking game, it's easier for players to accept "our people practice slavery" -- but it's harder for them to accept "slavery is Good aligned".

Quote from: rytrasmi on April 28, 2023, 06:16:05 PM
When a player takes alignment seriously, it can really lead to interesting and fun sessions. It can push people past their boundaries and help them discover totally new characters or new aspects of familiar characters.

Clerics/priests are a fantastic example! Lots of people just want to fight and cast spells. In my view, they're missing out big time. The #1 concern of a cleric character should be his god and his god's alignment. Yeah he might be out for treasure too, but his god should factor into most of his decisions. And yeah, if he displeases his god, then penance time baby! Which means more adventure and cool situations to discover.

Quote from: jhkim on April 28, 2023, 06:51:19 PM
I've played lots of religious characters in many different systems, but that has zero to do with alignment. In my experience, imposing alignment has either done nothing - or made the religious characters more boring. It's a lot more interesting to have religious beliefs for themselves, rather than trying to shoehorn them into generic good vs evil or lawful vs chaotic.

Quote from: rytrasmi on April 29, 2023, 12:46:58 PM
Of course, good play of religious characters involves reading about your deity and taking action consistent with your deity's teachings. Alignment is just useful metadata. E.g., Instead of studying all the other deities, I can use alignment as a shortcut as to how my character would treat their followers. I follow a Lawful god and here is a cult to a Chaotic god? Kill 'em all.

I don't think it's at all difficult to conceive of a handful of different religious attitudes. In my current campaign, I rely on a bunch of shortcuts because the basis for the religion isn't familiar, but it's been easy to get at least a little attitude.

It's not hard for a player to conceive of either a religious missionary who wants to convert people; or a zealous crusader who wants to kill all heathens. A handful of words can convey these, and then you immediately have two different reactions to Lawful vs Chaotic, compared to your shortcut.

Quote from: jhkim on April 29, 2023, 01:52:15 PM
I don't think it's at all difficult to conceive of a handful of different religious attitudes. In my current campaign, I rely on a bunch of shortcuts because the basis for the religion isn't familiar, but it's been easy to get at least a little attitude.

It's not hard for a player to conceive of either a religious missionary who wants to convert people; or a zealous crusader who wants to kill all heathens. A handful of words can convey these, and then you immediately have two different reactions to Lawful vs Chaotic, compared to your shortcut.

So you use shortcuts, too. One of the several that I used is called alignment. Are we agreeing or disagreeing?

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 29, 2023, 07:51:30 AMNo.  Only people who have put in a little effort can get it.

I hear the same sort of prattle from people that discuss slice-of-life moe anime.

"See the length of her skirt emphasizes a heartfelt devotion to her friends and the way that her underwear is green symbolizes an ecological devotion.
No Im not a creep, you just don't get it"