I was thinking of a way that I could make the alignment system a bit better and more relevant and came up with the idea of rolling all alignments into two.
Lawful
Chaotic
Lawful Alignment:
Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honour tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties. It does not matter if you are Good, Neutral or Evil; if a character fits this description, then they are of the Lawful alignment.
Chaotic Alignment:
Chaotic characters follow their consciences, resent being told what to do, favour new ideas over tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it. LIke the Lawful alignment, it doesn't matter if your character is Good, Neutral or Evil. If they fit this description, then their alignment is Chaotic.
Why only two alignments?
Having only these alignments would allow for better interplay between law and chaos, and I think that it would make the alignment system a bit more true to life. A lawful character might take good, evil or neutral actions, but would still be lawful. Likewise, a chaotic character might take good, neutral or evil actions, but they would remain chaotic. In this, I am recognising that there are good, evil and neutral actions. However; I am also saying, or at least trying to, that a specific act does not an alignment make. Instead, your alignment comes from the philosophy that you use to interact with and understand the world.
Are you Lawful, or are you Chaotic? To which philosophy does your character ascribe? It is the philosophy that is more important here. How you interpret the philosophies or Lawful or Chaotic, may inform your actions, but it is the philosophy itself that informs your alignment.
So, what do you think? Is this an improvement over the 5e alignment system, or have I simplified it too much?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
This reads like Good and Evil has just been rebranded in my opinion. I suppose it would be dependent on the campaign you're in or how the DM corroborates alignments, because feasibly you're already falling under two alignments at a given time (good or evil) and then branded with a sub-alignment based on your, for lack of better words, code of honor or lack thereof (hence neutrality). Typically I will let the actions and social endeavors of my players or the characters I am playing determine what alignment they will fall under, if it even matters, rather than being placed into a category and them or myself feeling there is a restriction on how they should act, which is inevitable in my experiences, independently or otherwise. That is the feeling I get when I read over your suggestion; it isn't oversimplified, it is assigning a different name to a simplified version of an existing system.
So that you don't feel I am attacking you on this, I don't disagree that this is a good way to move forward with the alignment system that is already in place. I like the idea and its intent, and think it is befitting for campaign which can be built according to its structure.
I'm one who feels that the 2-axis spectrum system of 5e is highly oversimplified, but the reduction is necessary to facilitate use in game mechanics which rely on law, chaos, good, and evil. I think turning it into a two-state system of any kind would be rather restricting. At that point, it would be just as easy to omit it altogether. (It is also my preference that player choices determine alignment, not character sheets, but that preference puts even more onus upon the DM rather than upon the players.)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
As far as I can tell, the only game mechanics that actually reference "evil" and "good" or any sort of alignment are the spells detect evil and good, dispel evil and good, and protection from evil and good. And even then, its an "in name only" sort of thing. Those spells all actually have to do with aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead OR magical consecration/desecration.
So... the PC alignment system is a pointless and unnecessary holdover from previous editions. Just drop the whole thing.
Alignments in D&D don't really matter for anything. I'm with Maestrino and just ignore them. The personality traits / ideals / bonds / flaws are much better for developing a character.
If alignment matters in a given DM's game, I'm of the opinion that players don't get to determine their alignment, or even know their alignment outside of the use of specific spells. The player plays, and the DM determines their alignment based on the character's actions. The player can believe their alignment is whatever they think it is, but "alignment" in D&D is not a moral judgment one adopts for themselves, but is instead a physical function of the universe that determines what happens to a given mortal soul after it kicks the farm. In this instance the character's own judgment of their actions doesn't matter for spit - it's the universe itself (a.k.a. the DM) who decides what that character most closely adhered to.
In most typical games these days alignment doesn't matter much, if you never go plane-hopping it's just not likely to come up, but if it does, I highly recommend informing your players that alignment is not theirs to declare, but instead theirs to determine with how they act within the game world. Who knows - such a rule might even keep their Murder Hobo-ing in (some vague form of) check.
I can agree with that to an extent. Even as a perfunctory structure regardless of how the alignment system is presented for quests and their completion, such as in Waterdeep: Dragonheist, the alignment of a character just allows them more opportunity to perform tasks for various guilds or power-groups, based on the experiences I had with that partiular campaign. Outside of that none of the DM's I've played under truly stick you to an alignment threshold, and I don't think that is something I would do. The transient function of alignments, generally speaking and in my opinion, just aren't something that should dictate gameplay and character development, or exist without forcing someone to feel like they're having to sacrifice a portion of who they want their character to be with little-to-nothing in return.
I actually love this idea and think it's much more interesting than good care evil. Very few people are actually evil. They might do a few things that are evil but I tend to think most people are some variation of neutral, leaning towards good. A person might act selfishly but that doesn't make them a bad person. That same person might also donate time and money to a worthy cause, but that doesn't make them good. Perhaps that person thinks that helping people is ethical and sometimes that means helping yourself. What does matter is the ethic by which he or she makes those decisions and those decisions affect ones sense of self. A person can feel they are good by living in accordance with their own ethic. That may very well be in conflict with another person's ethic and that person may view the other as immortal. Who is objectively right? Probably neither because ethics are inherently grey most of the time. Is murder good? No. Is killing to defend another person or yourself? Maybe. Depends on your ethic.
Letting players choose how they want to make decisions for their characters without limiting them to feeling like they need to make evil, neutral, it good decisions is a much more interesting and freeing system. I think most tables ignore alignment as is and this could be an interesting alternative.
I think what you've developed is a simple ethical system that is easy enough to fit in a game for normal people (meaning not philosophy nerds like me) yet interesting enough to actually influence how a player plays. I personally love the idea of creating an ethical system for a character to follow without limiting their actions to be good or evil. Good and evil is way too binary for how grey ethics is. Your system still gives players an interesting hook for how a character might think without actually limiting choices. It becomes a method of how to think like ones character without removing the player's existing sense of morality. I think it's a great idea and something I'm going to incorporate in some way for next character.
The end result of this article offers sixteen different "alignments" - save that they're not really alignments at all and a character doesn't adhere to them, nor is judged on them based on a cold, impersonal universe deciding the fate of your soul based on factors outside your control. Instead, it's a very useful tool for understanding motivation, what drives a character to act and the sort of world they're hoping to create with those actions.
That was originally the goal of the nine-box alignment grid, but as Easydamus points out, the traditional nine-box grid is the Alignment system...as described by a Lawful Good person. Every alignment outside of LG in the classic grid is seen as "less good" the further away it gets from LG, and furthermore the less tolerable that character gets to be as a PC.
A dual-axis system that simply regards characters as Lawful vs. Chaotic is simpler and easier to implement, but I don't know how useful it would be save to determine who's more or less likely to piss off NPCs. Even the two options given sound as if they're being described from the Lawful perspective, rather than a neutral or Chaotic one. Chaotics are described as oathbreakers who resent authority, whereas a Chaotic would say "I follow my own code and conscience, I don't let let law get in the way of justice, I'll swear myself to even impossible causes if they're the right causes to take up, and I do what's best for me and mine in the moment, when it matters". And could easily categorize Lawfuls as:
"Lawful characters hate lying, avoid giving their word out of fear of being unable to keep it, decry audacity, stifle innovation, and judge those who fall short of their rigid expectations. It does not matter if you are Good, Neutral or Evil; if a character fits this description, then they are of the Lawful alignment."
The classic descriptions of the nine-position grid being heavily biased in favor of LG is a huge part of the eons-long Alignment Wars. Heh, getting rid of that bias is the first step towards alignment actually being meaningful in your game.
The end result of this article offers sixteen different "alignments" - save that they're not really alignments at all and a character doesn't adhere to them, nor is judged on them based on a cold, impersonal universe deciding the fate of your soul based on factors outside your control. Instead, it's a very useful tool for understanding motivation, what drives a character to act and the sort of world they're hoping to create with those actions.
That was originally the goal of the nine-box alignment grid, but as Easydamus points out, the traditional nine-box grid is the Alignment system...as described by a Lawful Good person. Every alignment outside of LG in the classic grid is seen as "less good" the further away it gets from LG, and furthermore the less tolerable that character gets to be as a PC.
A dual-axis system that simply regards characters as Lawful vs. Chaotic is simpler and easier to implement, but I don't know how useful it would be save to determine who's more or less likely to piss off NPCs. Even the two options given sound as if they're being described from the Lawful perspective, rather than a neutral or Chaotic one. Chaotics are described as oathbreakers who resent authority, whereas a Chaotic would say "I follow my own code and conscience, I don't let let law get in the way of justice, I'll swear myself to even impossible causes if they're the right causes to take up, and I do what's best for me and mine in the moment, when it matters". And could easily categorize Lawfuls as:
"Lawful characters hate lying, avoid giving their word out of fear of being unable to keep it, decry audacity, stifle innovation, and judge those who fall short of their rigid expectations. It does not matter if you are Good, Neutral or Evil; if a character fits this description, then they are of the Lawful alignment."
The classic descriptions of the nine-position grid being heavily biased in favor of LG is a huge part of the eons-long Alignment Wars. Heh, getting rid of that bias is the first step towards alignment being meaningful in your game.
I have never thought about it this way. Thinking about it now, if we were to write alignments from the perspective of Lawful or Chaotic (whatever), then the alignment descriptions would say the same things, just in different ways.
Perhaps it would be best to put ourselves in the place of a hypothetical "true neutral" individual and ask ourselves how they would describe each alignment.
I think that such an exercise might prove to be beneficial, and I might engage in such an activity for my two alignments. Writing down points that stand out for each alignment type, and then how a character could turn those points into actions that affected the world.
It might also be worthwhile considering where these alignments originated and whether or not adjustments can occur. Are lawful characters able to become chaotic and vice versa? Thinking about from where they come, would answer this question, along with several others.
More work to do, but I am going to field test this in a few one-shots and see how players like it and what they do with it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
How important is alignment in your game? What do do you want to improve? Personally I think alignment is a DM tool for all the inconsequential characters I have to play. Every once in awhile it's helpful for players who need a boost to get in someone else head, ×as× more often it's an excuse to act like an ass. However, I am now fascinated with running characters through a Briggs-Myer internet quiz.
Edit: This is also why I'm a huge fan of inspiration. Play your character and be rewarded.
Your descriptions do not account for the individual who follows their conscience AND keeps their word. It does not account for the individual who resents specific laws but follows it anyways because it is the pragmatic thing to do, while still trying to influence change. It does not account for the individual who only resents being told to do when the orders are wrong, and who will also respect authority when they earn respect.
It especially does not account for the individual who holds each of the above morals as their value system.
When I describe lawful and chaotic aspects of alignments, I try to define them without any tie-ins to the other axis of good/evil. I want the descriptions to be wholly independent of each other. That’s why I say that lawfully aligned believe in the power of societal infrastructures and institutions, and chaotically aligned believe in the power of individual actions. Each of those types of power can be hitched to good as readily as evil. When you definite the two axes this way, they are truly independent of each other, describing different things altogether.
I am DMing a game where half the players are adults and half the players are young teens. Everyone (save me) is effectively new to D&D. I would not want to eliminate one axis of the alignment grid because people are still learning, and it provides a language around which to describe behaviors. When people are first learning this game there is a great deal of social phenomena that is fairly unfamiliar - differentiating between a character being thoughtless or selfish vs. the player behind that character can be really difficult. It’s especially hard to navigate this social territory given the discrepancy in life experience around my game table. I can really understand why people who have played awhile and developed a more nuanced understanding would like a more flexible system, however for those at the beginning of the learning curve, I believe the extra framework is helpful.
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I’m a gamer. I’m in my 50s. I’m female. And Iblog about it. I also have an instagram devoted tophotos of dice.
In 1st edition, there was only Chaotic/Neutral/Lawful.
The 1st edition Hardbacks (branded Advanced Dungeons and Dragons) did have nine alignments. The Basic set (the one in the red box) only had the three you mention.
But as for the topic at hand; I personally don't have a quibble on the nine alignments and their definitions. As a player its a nice reminder compass on how I would generally act, if I am not thinking about it. But, its a starting point from a perspective of "Based on all offscreen behavior until game start." Then it is going to change based on actions, and nowadays modified by the bond/ideal/flaw system in place (which I don't find very compelling personally, but that's a personal quibble because I haven't see it well used). A well developed character (or villain ) should be more complex and interesting. Many villains don't see themselves as evil, but make horrid choices based on what they think is right. Of course you still do have mad cultists, which there isn't any nuance about.
It really is a more useful tool for a DM, to look at a published monster and say "how does this creature act?" Might makes right, or follow a strict hierarchy? Are atrocities part of everyday behavior, or will they lend a hand to others? Its a shorthand, and probably best used that way.
As a very long time player, Alignments have helped me, as a DM, to make sure the players are getting on with business. The core nine alignments are excellently defined, it's our own idea that bends that. Alignments can be seen as one of two options:
1. Your alignment is what you play: this is fine if the players take it seriously (seriously enough, but you get my meaning), the player that wants to add a little role-play. This player knows the character is a member of a Thieves' Guild, and has a set of rules, including professional courtesy to other thieves (think Danny Ocean or one of those guys). Sure, a scoundrel, but one with a code. Wild West type gunfighters were similar, 'The Code of the West' and that sort of thing. These all sound like Lawfully aligned traits, and we're off to the races;
2. Alignment is in the eye of the DM. This is the guy that made the universe you're playing in, so the DM gets to make the rules how alignments work. This where, as the DM, you give the players a wide berth on their behaviour, but cosmic forces will bring them into line. The dream where the Shaman is listed by the pantheon to remind him/her of the vow that was made, and that cosmic consequences are inevitable if the character strays from the path. Again, there needs to be some agreement that people are going to play it all straight.
All of the alignment talk in the world means nothing if the DM allows a Paladin to massacre children. We need to look a little deeper if examples are going to be made, when Lancelot fell for Guinevere, he didn't really lose his Paladin status, when he had an affair, his Paladinhood was lost but could have been regained with some atonement, finally, when he killed one of his friends to save Guinevere from trial - Paladin status lost forever.
Over the years many people have had discussions over this character to that character's alignment. I can put up a list of how I, as a DM, place the Alignment chart, and I often talk to the players about how they want their character to behave and be regarded - whether it's a Dirty Harry (for those of the old school) kind of Good, or Punisher (Marvel) kind of Good, or Mal Reynolds (Firefly) kind of Good. All of these characters are Good and might be reflective of Lawful Good, Chaotic Good, and Neutral Good. Sure, Superman is also Lawful Good, but sometimes so is Batman (depending on the version of course).
Like all things, the DM has to be willing to do the job and work with the players. If everyone wants to show up and roll dice to do 40+ damage, then as long as everyone is having fun, what does it matter?
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Hi, everyone
I was thinking of a way that I could make the alignment system a bit better and more relevant and came up with the idea of rolling all alignments into two.
Lawful
Chaotic
Lawful Alignment:
Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honour tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties. It does not matter if you are Good, Neutral or Evil; if a character fits this description, then they are of the Lawful alignment.
Chaotic Alignment:
Chaotic characters follow their consciences, resent being told what to do, favour new ideas over tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it. LIke the Lawful alignment, it doesn't matter if your character is Good, Neutral or Evil. If they fit this description, then their alignment is Chaotic.
Why only two alignments?
Having only these alignments would allow for better interplay between law and chaos, and I think that it would make the alignment system a bit more true to life. A lawful character might take good, evil or neutral actions, but would still be lawful. Likewise, a chaotic character might take good, neutral or evil actions, but they would remain chaotic. In this, I am recognising that there are good, evil and neutral actions. However; I am also saying, or at least trying to, that a specific act does not an alignment make. Instead, your alignment comes from the philosophy that you use to interact with and understand the world.
Are you Lawful, or are you Chaotic? To which philosophy does your character ascribe? It is the philosophy that is more important here. How you interpret the philosophies or Lawful or Chaotic, may inform your actions, but it is the philosophy itself that informs your alignment.
So, what do you think? Is this an improvement over the 5e alignment system, or have I simplified it too much?
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
This reads like Good and Evil has just been rebranded in my opinion. I suppose it would be dependent on the campaign you're in or how the DM corroborates alignments, because feasibly you're already falling under two alignments at a given time (good or evil) and then branded with a sub-alignment based on your, for lack of better words, code of honor or lack thereof (hence neutrality). Typically I will let the actions and social endeavors of my players or the characters I am playing determine what alignment they will fall under, if it even matters, rather than being placed into a category and them or myself feeling there is a restriction on how they should act, which is inevitable in my experiences, independently or otherwise. That is the feeling I get when I read over your suggestion; it isn't oversimplified, it is assigning a different name to a simplified version of an existing system.
So that you don't feel I am attacking you on this, I don't disagree that this is a good way to move forward with the alignment system that is already in place. I like the idea and its intent, and think it is befitting for campaign which can be built according to its structure.
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I'm one who feels that the 2-axis spectrum system of 5e is highly oversimplified, but the reduction is necessary to facilitate use in game mechanics which rely on law, chaos, good, and evil. I think turning it into a two-state system of any kind would be rather restricting. At that point, it would be just as easy to omit it altogether. (It is also my preference that player choices determine alignment, not character sheets, but that preference puts even more onus upon the DM rather than upon the players.)
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
As far as I can tell, the only game mechanics that actually reference "evil" and "good" or any sort of alignment are the spells detect evil and good, dispel evil and good, and protection from evil and good. And even then, its an "in name only" sort of thing. Those spells all actually have to do with aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead OR magical consecration/desecration.
So... the PC alignment system is a pointless and unnecessary holdover from previous editions. Just drop the whole thing.
Alignments in D&D don't really matter for anything. I'm with Maestrino and just ignore them. The personality traits / ideals / bonds / flaws are much better for developing a character.
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If alignment matters in a given DM's game, I'm of the opinion that players don't get to determine their alignment, or even know their alignment outside of the use of specific spells. The player plays, and the DM determines their alignment based on the character's actions. The player can believe their alignment is whatever they think it is, but "alignment" in D&D is not a moral judgment one adopts for themselves, but is instead a physical function of the universe that determines what happens to a given mortal soul after it kicks the farm. In this instance the character's own judgment of their actions doesn't matter for spit - it's the universe itself (a.k.a. the DM) who decides what that character most closely adhered to.
In most typical games these days alignment doesn't matter much, if you never go plane-hopping it's just not likely to come up, but if it does, I highly recommend informing your players that alignment is not theirs to declare, but instead theirs to determine with how they act within the game world. Who knows - such a rule might even keep their Murder Hobo-ing in (some vague form of) check.
Please do not contact or message me.
I can agree with that to an extent. Even as a perfunctory structure regardless of how the alignment system is presented for quests and their completion, such as in Waterdeep: Dragonheist, the alignment of a character just allows them more opportunity to perform tasks for various guilds or power-groups, based on the experiences I had with that partiular campaign. Outside of that none of the DM's I've played under truly stick you to an alignment threshold, and I don't think that is something I would do. The transient function of alignments, generally speaking and in my opinion, just aren't something that should dictate gameplay and character development, or exist without forcing someone to feel like they're having to sacrifice a portion of who they want their character to be with little-to-nothing in return.
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Chief Innovationist, Acquisitions Inc. The Series 2
Successfully completed the Tomb of Horrors module (as part of playing Tomb of Annihilation) with no party deaths!
I actually love this idea and think it's much more interesting than good care evil. Very few people are actually evil. They might do a few things that are evil but I tend to think most people are some variation of neutral, leaning towards good. A person might act selfishly but that doesn't make them a bad person. That same person might also donate time and money to a worthy cause, but that doesn't make them good. Perhaps that person thinks that helping people is ethical and sometimes that means helping yourself. What does matter is the ethic by which he or she makes those decisions and those decisions affect ones sense of self. A person can feel they are good by living in accordance with their own ethic. That may very well be in conflict with another person's ethic and that person may view the other as immortal. Who is objectively right? Probably neither because ethics are inherently grey most of the time. Is murder good? No. Is killing to defend another person or yourself? Maybe. Depends on your ethic.
Letting players choose how they want to make decisions for their characters without limiting them to feeling like they need to make evil, neutral, it good decisions is a much more interesting and freeing system. I think most tables ignore alignment as is and this could be an interesting alternative.
I think what you've developed is a simple ethical system that is easy enough to fit in a game for normal people (meaning not philosophy nerds like me) yet interesting enough to actually influence how a player plays. I personally love the idea of creating an ethical system for a character to follow without limiting their actions to be good or evil. Good and evil is way too binary for how grey ethics is. Your system still gives players an interesting hook for how a character might think without actually limiting choices. It becomes a method of how to think like ones character without removing the player's existing sense of morality. I think it's a great idea and something I'm going to incorporate in some way for next character.
.
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum: Easydamus' "Real Alignments" Article
The end result of this article offers sixteen different "alignments" - save that they're not really alignments at all and a character doesn't adhere to them, nor is judged on them based on a cold, impersonal universe deciding the fate of your soul based on factors outside your control. Instead, it's a very useful tool for understanding motivation, what drives a character to act and the sort of world they're hoping to create with those actions.
That was originally the goal of the nine-box alignment grid, but as Easydamus points out, the traditional nine-box grid is the Alignment system...as described by a Lawful Good person. Every alignment outside of LG in the classic grid is seen as "less good" the further away it gets from LG, and furthermore the less tolerable that character gets to be as a PC.
A dual-axis system that simply regards characters as Lawful vs. Chaotic is simpler and easier to implement, but I don't know how useful it would be save to determine who's more or less likely to piss off NPCs. Even the two options given sound as if they're being described from the Lawful perspective, rather than a neutral or Chaotic one. Chaotics are described as oathbreakers who resent authority, whereas a Chaotic would say "I follow my own code and conscience, I don't let let law get in the way of justice, I'll swear myself to even impossible causes if they're the right causes to take up, and I do what's best for me and mine in the moment, when it matters". And could easily categorize Lawfuls as:
"Lawful characters hate lying, avoid giving their word out of fear of being unable to keep it, decry audacity, stifle innovation, and judge those who fall short of their rigid expectations. It does not matter if you are Good, Neutral or Evil; if a character fits this description, then they are of the Lawful alignment."
The classic descriptions of the nine-position grid being heavily biased in favor of LG is a huge part of the eons-long Alignment Wars. Heh, getting rid of that bias is the first step towards alignment actually being meaningful in your game.
Please do not contact or message me.
I have never thought about it this way. Thinking about it now, if we were to write alignments from the perspective of Lawful or Chaotic (whatever), then the alignment descriptions would say the same things, just in different ways.
Perhaps it would be best to put ourselves in the place of a hypothetical "true neutral" individual and ask ourselves how they would describe each alignment.
I think that such an exercise might prove to be beneficial, and I might engage in such an activity for my two alignments. Writing down points that stand out for each alignment type, and then how a character could turn those points into actions that affected the world.
It might also be worthwhile considering where these alignments originated and whether or not adjustments can occur. Are lawful characters able to become chaotic and vice versa? Thinking about from where they come, would answer this question, along with several others.
More work to do, but I am going to field test this in a few one-shots and see how players like it and what they do with it.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Alternatively you could describe each alignment from it's own perspective. That'd be a fun exercise.
How important is alignment in your game? What do do you want to improve? Personally I think alignment is a DM tool for all the inconsequential characters I have to play. Every once in awhile it's helpful for players who need a boost to get in someone else head, ×as× more often it's an excuse to act like an ass. However, I am now fascinated with running characters through a Briggs-Myer internet quiz.
Edit: This is also why I'm a huge fan of inspiration. Play your character and be rewarded.
In 1st edition, there was only Chaotic/Neutral/Lawful.
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Your descriptions do not account for the individual who follows their conscience AND keeps their word. It does not account for the individual who resents specific laws but follows it anyways because it is the pragmatic thing to do, while still trying to influence change. It does not account for the individual who only resents being told to do when the orders are wrong, and who will also respect authority when they earn respect.
It especially does not account for the individual who holds each of the above morals as their value system.
When I describe lawful and chaotic aspects of alignments, I try to define them without any tie-ins to the other axis of good/evil. I want the descriptions to be wholly independent of each other. That’s why I say that lawfully aligned believe in the power of societal infrastructures and institutions, and chaotically aligned believe in the power of individual actions. Each of those types of power can be hitched to good as readily as evil. When you definite the two axes this way, they are truly independent of each other, describing different things altogether.
I am DMing a game where half the players are adults and half the players are young teens. Everyone (save me) is effectively new to D&D. I would not want to eliminate one axis of the alignment grid because people are still learning, and it provides a language around which to describe behaviors. When people are first learning this game there is a great deal of social phenomena that is fairly unfamiliar - differentiating between a character being thoughtless or selfish vs. the player behind that character can be really difficult. It’s especially hard to navigate this social territory given the discrepancy in life experience around my game table. I can really understand why people who have played awhile and developed a more nuanced understanding would like a more flexible system, however for those at the beginning of the learning curve, I believe the extra framework is helpful.
I’m a gamer. I’m in my 50s. I’m female. And I blog about it.
I also have an instagram devoted to photos of dice.
The 1st edition Hardbacks (branded Advanced Dungeons and Dragons) did have nine alignments. The Basic set (the one in the red box) only had the three you mention.
But as for the topic at hand; I personally don't have a quibble on the nine alignments and their definitions. As a player its a nice reminder compass on how I would generally act, if I am not thinking about it. But, its a starting point from a perspective of "Based on all offscreen behavior until game start." Then it is going to change based on actions, and nowadays modified by the bond/ideal/flaw system in place (which I don't find very compelling personally, but that's a personal quibble because I haven't see it well used). A well developed character (or villain ) should be more complex and interesting. Many villains don't see themselves as evil, but make horrid choices based on what they think is right. Of course you still do have mad cultists, which there isn't any nuance about.
It really is a more useful tool for a DM, to look at a published monster and say "how does this creature act?" Might makes right, or follow a strict hierarchy? Are atrocities part of everyday behavior, or will they lend a hand to others? Its a shorthand, and probably best used that way.
As a very long time player, Alignments have helped me, as a DM, to make sure the players are getting on with business. The core nine alignments are excellently defined, it's our own idea that bends that. Alignments can be seen as one of two options:
1. Your alignment is what you play: this is fine if the players take it seriously (seriously enough, but you get my meaning), the player that wants to add a little role-play. This player knows the character is a member of a Thieves' Guild, and has a set of rules, including professional courtesy to other thieves (think Danny Ocean or one of those guys). Sure, a scoundrel, but one with a code. Wild West type gunfighters were similar, 'The Code of the West' and that sort of thing. These all sound like Lawfully aligned traits, and we're off to the races;
2. Alignment is in the eye of the DM. This is the guy that made the universe you're playing in, so the DM gets to make the rules how alignments work. This where, as the DM, you give the players a wide berth on their behaviour, but cosmic forces will bring them into line. The dream where the Shaman is listed by the pantheon to remind him/her of the vow that was made, and that cosmic consequences are inevitable if the character strays from the path. Again, there needs to be some agreement that people are going to play it all straight.
All of the alignment talk in the world means nothing if the DM allows a Paladin to massacre children. We need to look a little deeper if examples are going to be made, when Lancelot fell for Guinevere, he didn't really lose his Paladin status, when he had an affair, his Paladinhood was lost but could have been regained with some atonement, finally, when he killed one of his friends to save Guinevere from trial - Paladin status lost forever.
Over the years many people have had discussions over this character to that character's alignment. I can put up a list of how I, as a DM, place the Alignment chart, and I often talk to the players about how they want their character to behave and be regarded - whether it's a Dirty Harry (for those of the old school) kind of Good, or Punisher (Marvel) kind of Good, or Mal Reynolds (Firefly) kind of Good. All of these characters are Good and might be reflective of Lawful Good, Chaotic Good, and Neutral Good. Sure, Superman is also Lawful Good, but sometimes so is Batman (depending on the version of course).
Like all things, the DM has to be willing to do the job and work with the players. If everyone wants to show up and roll dice to do 40+ damage, then as long as everyone is having fun, what does it matter?