Why Dungeons and Dragons Needs Alignment | Black Lodge Games Podcast
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- Опубліковано 4 вер 2024
- Alignment in Dungeons and Dragons is not something to just tack on to your game as an after thought. This week, Nick and Matt dive deep on what the purpose of alignment is in table top roleplaying games, how it defines the boundaries of play, and how it ultimately improves both the game world and your roleplaying experience.
Even games like Vampire: The Masquerade and Vampire: The Requiem have alignment deeply embedded within the core of their settings and mechanics.
Don't be like Wizards of the Coast and cast it away in favor of a flavorless, post modern hellscape! Use alignment as fuel for the fire of your imagination and the engine of your game world.
Checkout @TheRedRoomChannel. Their alternative to alignment is detailed here: moordereht.com...
Also, don't forget to check out @Tablerunner! Great new channel documenting his experimentation with more immersive roleplaying.
#dnd #dndpodcast #alignment #OSR #ttrpg
executive producer: Paul
Think alignment is too constraining? You're an idiot.
Or you're not trying.
Reminds me of everyone who tells me human fighters are boring while they all are playing every flavor of Tifling Warlock known to man. 😂🦞
Alignment in D&D has no real constraints because it has never been given any!
In the Palladium system, the rules for the equivalent of Lawful Good are
A Principled character(Superman) will ...
1. Always keep his word.
2. A void lies.
3. Never kill or attack an unarmed foe.
4. Never harm an innocent.
S. Never torture for any reason.
6. Never kill for pleasure.
7. Always help others.
8. Always work within the law whenever possible.
9. Never break the law unless conditions are desperate. This means no breaking and entry, theft, torture, unprovoked assaults, etc.
10. Respect authority, law, self-discipline and honor.
11. Work well in a group.
12. Never take "dirty" money, or ill-gotten valuables or goods.
13. Never betray a friend.
14. Never engage in cannibalism and finds it revolting and barbaric.
Note: Dirty money, including property, is money or items that belong to criminals. It doesn't matter how the money or items were gained, the hero will not touch it even if destitute. As far as he is concerned, it is blood money.
@@shallendor yeah it's been done better in other games. It's also been done worse
Alignment in role playing is always an interesting topic, and done well, it would go a long way to reflecting the divine order of the fantasy world in question. I understand the impulse to get rid of alignment, in large part because it's so amorphous. My character is lawful neutral--how is that even meaningful? A much more meaningful statement would be in the gods one venerates. What is their religious tradition? How is that translated into the way societies order themselves? In classical heroic lit, good is defined as whatever upholds and supports the divine order, and secondly what upholds and defends the home civilization, including its ways and customs, and it's always in that order. Evil is defined by what seeks to undermine or harm the divine order, and what seeks to attack the home civilization. This stretches all the way back to the epic of Gilgamesh. Rooting characters in a civilization and a society gives them the kinds of context to develop character world views rather than broad statements of philosophy. From this place, alignment is much easier to determine, and it's a pretty general statement on a character's relationship to their home culture, and how they respond to the rules of civil society. But I might make a player wait to give their character an alignment until they reach fourth level.
@@andrewlustfield6079 absolutely agree
I think most Vampire LARPERS play low humanity very well - because they think of it as a game. This NPC doesn't matter, the GM will create more. I had a Giovanni who absolutely tried to Keep his humanity by working with Charities, Visiting Sick kids in the Cancer ward, and even taking his wife dancing every Thursday.
But as he saw his cortorie do worse and worse things, and refuse to maintain humanity, he started to lose his ability to feel bad - for the cotorie.
alignment works really well when it defines a person's relationship to larger cosmological forces, and very poorly when it's used exclusively as a taxonomy of people. it's come to be interpreted as the latter because as you say, the rules dont support alignment much, and so there's been a movement to remove it.
Yeah exactly. Modern games treat it as an after thought and a code of behavior. It works better when aligned with cosmology and treated as allegiance to various powers
Best example of “alignment” in an RPG in my opinion is in Pendragon. It isn’t a focus on good/evil law/chaos but a breakdown of your character’s personality traits into binaries. Valorous/cowardice, chaste/lustful, Just/Arbitrary, Energetic/Lazy, etc.
Each side adds up to 20. So if you are 12 Chaste, you are 8 lustful. Any time you don’t know how your character would respond, you can roll on the traits and see. If you succeed (roll under) you act that way, and potentially “check” the trait so it becomes stronger. Your character’s traits change as you play them, coming more in line with how you roleplay.
If a trait ever hits 16, it becomes notable. Everyone in the realm knows you for this trait. Gives you passive glory (kind of like xp) but it also means you can’t just choose not to act on that trait. You HAVE to fail a roll if you don’t want to act within a notable trait. Your character’s beliefs and passions are mechanically written out and change as you play them, and they will sometimes act “in character” even if you as the player don’t want them to.
I love it
Wow, thanks for this glimpse into Pendragon! That sounds really ambitious and right out the gate tickles my interest in psychology. I’ll have to look into it.
That is a great use of an Alignment system. Great example!
I am currently in a West Marches-style PF2e server, so the alignment discussion innevitably broke out before and during the remaster dropping. And then, someone came in to stir the pot.
Discussing character ideas, the topic came out, and they started an overblown fight on the server for over 2 hours, since according to them "alignment did not give room for nuance", which is weird since the neutral alignment exists in *both* axies.
My regular group and I were laughing our asses off on our private chat over the ammount of mental gymnastics in that discussion
2E Planescape was all about alignments attached to the various Outer Planes and as a result the related factions. 5E Planescape didn't bother with factions and their alignments so that the anarchist faction could have LN members.
Great video. Thanks for the shout-out!
Thanks for watching!
Slight counter point, you say that no one can really play other races because they are too foreign to us, but I felt that Cate Blanchette who played Galadriel in LOR really implanted in my mind what a 1000+ year old elf would act like( granted that is a movie and not a dnd elf). I feel like if an alignment system had a sub system per species then playing different species could work.
Yeah it's not that you *can't* it's that I prefer these other races to differ more significantly than humans. Mr Max has a good video about this where he says if you're going to play an elf who wants to be an adventure they should probably be viewed by other elves as a sort of try hard/cringe youngster as their perspective on life is much different than humans.
Mostly I like elves as inscrutable agents of fae chaos though, so in that case they should not be playable imo
@mOuThitUpZ I totally agree that in the LotR movie Cate Blanchette's Galadriel brought a deep resonance of unearthly, immortal power to the representation of elves - so much that you could suspend your disbelief that she could have ever been a dropout, Aussie, goth girl changing sheets and vacuuming carpets in a nursing home.
Trouble is she's not just an amazing theatre performer with movie star looks and even bigger screen presence: her support from costumiers, make-up, set designers, lighting, DP, editing and digital effects were world-class; not to mention the heaven-sent script writing and directorial team-up. Even the quite large TV budget and not inconsiderable talent of Morfydd Clark fail to make Galadriel look much more than a posh human princess most of the time in Rings of Power - and they still had a script team.
So when you and your friends get together to play some D&D (even if your personal grooming is perfect and your fingers aren't covered in flavouring dust from your favourite snacks), you're definitely not going to be improvising Walsh and Boyens (channeling JRRT) lines off the cuff etc…
I do think you're right, elves (etc…) are there to be played (and fair play to you even if it's Galadriel), but the guys have a good point for their own game. All the species portrayed in your D&D game (unless you've one or more participating CGPT avatars) are gonna be humans pretending - like Trek with the variety of ridgy and spotty headed aliens. I understand how that suspension of disbelief can be tough, especially when you're really wanting to explore and embody that character rather than just 'display' it.
Thanks for the great comment. It really got me thinking.
I think the major issue players and DMs have is something Guildmasterdan said a few years back in his Alignment Done Right videos:
1. That alignment is descriptive, not prescriptive.
2. That alignment isn't what players think of themselves but how they appear to others as well as where they stand in the greater conflict between these primordial forces.
3. That Alignment is fluid and shouldn't be used as an excuse for a character to do or not do something, which allows much more flexibility in roleplay without ignoring Alignment all together.
Another thing he did that I adopted in my games is re-label the Alignments to cut down on confusion and to side-step messy debates on subjective morality. Good and Evil replaced with Selfless and Selfish respectively and Law and Chaos replaced with Principled and Unprincipled respectively.
Really recommend everyone to at least take a look to help get a better understanding of Alignments.
1. Agreed, but there should also be consequences for not acting in an orientation toward alignment for certain characters (clerics/paladins for instance). Alignment can change based on your actions, they don't limit and define what your choices are.
@@blacklodgegames Agree but it should be defined by the oaths they swear since we don't want to have Paladin locked behind ‘Lawful-Stupid’ again. (Love my LE Tyranny Paladins!) Same with the religious tenants of a Cleric. Even a Lawful Good Paladin/Cleric can unknowingly lose the favor of their deity if they mistakenly go against their will and the rules should facilitate that.
Also agree. Alignment should change if a character makes enough choices or does something major against their alignment. But that's up to the GM to keep track of those changes which allow the players to focus on playing their characters rather than playing their alignments. Plus, it's quite disheartening for a Paladin or Cleric who thinks they are doing everything right only to stop hearing from their deity and lose their spellcasting. And makes for an amazing adventure for the party to help their friend get it back.
@@blacklodgegames This is also an interesting point--In D&D, the classical or common approach is more henotheistic rather than a polytheistic one. And in most published campaign settings, the origins of the world and the gods leaves a lot to be desired, especially if you're wanting a polytheistic approach. Taking the Greek pantheon for an example, while you might have a priest who is serving in the temple of Athena, that priest would still call upon Hades to turn undead, or ask Apollo for healing, or pray to Demeter for a good harvest. So all the gods of the tradition have their place and are venerated, even if for a time you are serving in the temple of one of them, learning the secrets and deeper mysteries of one particular deity in the pantheon, and yet you still approach the god you have business with when asking for favor.
And just because your home tradition is Greek based in this example, it does not necessarily mean the gods of other traditions are false or evil. It means the priest or paladin has not developed a relationship with those powers. I'm reminded of an exchange between Vorenus and Pullo in HBO's Rome, where Pullo was ridiculing Egyptian gods, and Vorenus warned him not to do that. "These gods are very old and powerful, and were here long before Rome existed."
If there are consequences, and I agree there should be, what character actions would necessitate this kind of reaction from the gods?
@@andrewlustfield6079 I think that's highly dependent on the setting and gods in question. Also matters how much of an active role the gods take in the game world. Are they aloof abstractions, forces of nature, or actively appearing to their followers in the flesh etc.
The fun part is deciding all of that and how it should play out.
@@andrewlustfield6079 I would say it should be something commensurate to what the player’s done.
If it's something minor and not public, they should only get the occasional dream telling them that they could do better. If it's a very bad or very public violation, they might get a visit from a representative of the god telling them they need to straighten up and fly right with an equally equivalent reminder of what the consequences would be before leaving. If they don't stop, then they slowly start losing their powers to the point they can't even feel it anymore. And in that case, only completing a dangerous quest for repentance and some sacrifice worth a lot of gold or maybe a wish spell 50% of the time can restore their lost powers.
6:24 that`s the WHOLE of Michael Moorcocks characters summarized. Yet, people stil can`t (or refuse to) understand and go along with it. The current zeitgeist of "hur dur I hate religion" is annoyingly strong in millenials to the point they even can`t play "make believe" with this concept. Their refusal to accept religion even in a game is oddly... religious.
Thank you so much for the mention at the end of this week's podcast. It is generous of you to mention a channel as new and small as mine!
Wouldn't it be great if my videos can convince someone else out there to take the risk and change? Immersive roleplaying is so much better than just an "option" mentioned briefly as an afterthought in a GM Guide.
I'm still in the early days of this effort to turn around my own habits and those of my group. And in spite of the occasional hiccup, everyone is catching the vision of what we have been missing.
Your videos are a huge help and I hope that more join this renaissance that you (and others) have helped launch in the hobby.
Really enjoy your videos, looking forward to more.
@@blacklodgegames you are both very generous. Thank you for watching and commenting on my videos. You show great character to take the time to interact with my small channel when it is probably better for the growth of BLG to interact with larger audiences.
@@Tablerunner we prefer quality over quantity. We could probably grow much faster if we leaned in to culture war stuff or covered rpg industry drama more, but we aren't really interested in that on a day to day basis. We like the ideas about games and people who talk about them
@@blacklodgegames Of course it helps that you know the righteousness of your mission!
@@Tablerunner so true king
BIG fan of alignment. It’s no surprise to me since I started my fantasy journey with stories like Dragonlance. Btw big fan of the channel, I’ve been binge watching your streams since the J Scott Garibay video. 🍿 So there’s a little light in the dark of whackos out there. Congrats on 400 subs btw.
Thanks! Very much appreciate you tuning in.
As an old school player, Alignment has diminished all the time.... remember we had the alignment languages, that was "interesting"
Exactly. If the game doesn't take it seriously, players have no reason to either.
I always thought of Alignment Tongues in BECMI as something similar to Thieves Cant, not a language on it's own but rather a particular way of speaking through a combination of tone, body language, and innuendo beneath the spoken words that would reveal the character's true nature. When players speak with their Alignment Tongue they are speaking a their main language (Common, Elvish, Dwarfish, etc.) and choosing not to hide their nature. Everyone around them hears the same words, but others of different alignments will subconsciously perceive what was said as somehow being "off" while those of the same alignment would subconsciously perceive what was said as having a "vibe" about it. It's not the listener agrees or disagrees with the speaker, but rather the listener (upon hearing the Alignment Tongue) feels or doesn't feel that they are fully understanding and connecting with the speaker.
Alignment language - in accordance with Gygaxian holy writ - is a misunderstood concept, mainly because people didn't read the DMG p.24 - It is supposed to encapsulate the 'special set of signs, signals, gestures, and words which intelligent creatures use to inform other intelligent creatures of the same alignment of their fellowship and common ethos', e.g. how early Christians would trace the symbol of a fish on a surface with their finger if they suspected they were talking to another Christian, or lawyers have a jargon to discuss liability and sentencing in a court hearing. Gygax says 'alignment languages are of limited vocabulary and deal with the ethos of the alignment in general, so lengthy discussion of varying subjects cannot be conducted in such tongues' - so apart from discussing 'the precepts of the alignment', alignment language 'will permit only the most rudimentary communication with a vocabulary limited to a few score words'. That makes relative sense to me as a concept - the problem is that the word 'language' implies being able to converse in another language like French or Latin, but the DMG is more referring to formulaic greetings, canting codes like Cockney Rhyming Slang and the technical jargon of a particular ethos.
I (mostly) jokingly made a video shitting on alignment. Tbh, it definitely does have its place, even if I don't like it. I would never run DnD without it, simply because it would be a huge pain in the ass houseruling all the alignment based shit and either changing it or removing it. And that said, I think it can be affectively used for good roleplaying, so long as you play with the meanings of Law, Chaos, Good, and Evil a bit.
This helped me get my head around alignment. Thank you.
Hey guys! Love the pod. Quick question, where do you get your ideas from?
The same place we get our news: cryptic symbolism in our dreams
That's some great takes, honestly. From my experience, most of the problems people have with alignment, especially in d&d-esque systems, come from people misunderstanding alignment completely. Which isn't really a problem with alignment. It's a problem with bad players. If someone commits random completely out of character acts of violence/other crime saying that his character is chaotic evil/chaotic neutral or whatever, that's just really bad roleplaying. You don't commit certain acts because you are of certain alignment. You are of certain alignment because you commit certain acts. Alignment is, well, just what the name suggests. Alignment with the flow of tangible cosmic forces. It means your actions have real implications and consequences in the greater scale of things. As such it's a really interesting concept far better and further reaching than simply categorizing your character by some arbitrary values and forcing people to stick to that. People change. Characters change. You have your own set of values at some point but normal people can and should change their minds and values. Alignment reflects and allows that.
I actually prefer allegiance to alignment, it's more flexible and better for story telling. It still leaves law, chaos, good, and evil as allegiance options; but it also allows for many other things too.
For me alignment is very much the distilled personality of your character. A chaotic neutral character isn't 'lol so random' but rather one that feels no connections to anywhere or anyone, beholden to their own whims. A neutral evil character would sell out their mother if it meant they could profit in a way that they value. Neutral good is someone who wants to do good but is hampered by a desire to not get so involved that a lack of investment would have negative consequences. So on, so forth. At the same time, the Planes need alignment as they represent the will of the gods who rule those Planes. Why would a lawful good god suffer minions that don't follow their tenets and leanings or act according to their will when out in the multiverse?
I have a warlock character that’s Chaotic Good at heart, but he agreed upon his pact without knowing who he was making a pact with. Periodically he gets an uncontrollable urge to kill an innocent person, and he has. When he isn’t killing innocents though he uses his warlock powers to help people and ultimately is going to use them to save the world. I’ve loved thinking about alignment with this character because I know what the character would do, but is he truly good when he has killed innocent people and knows that if he continues living more innocents will die? Probably not. Deep down though he does mean well and wouldn’t hurt anyone with his own will. It really makes you think about “the greater good” and stuff like that. I’ve found playing this character has made me think about philosophy of all things quiet a lot. Every decision has become a moral quandary. Very fun at the table.
I always found alignment to be an interesting idea. Law vs Chaos was more fun. Law can change in different times and nations. I mean look at Anibellum USA, slavery lawful, Elsewhen or where its bad. You can do so much fun roleplaying on Lawful vs Lawful. I mean MY lawful considers your lawful amoral.... have at you.
I also prefer the single axis of law and chaos
Back in D&D 2e, alignment was used quite well in the Planescape campaign setting.
One thing I like about Temple of Elemental Evil video game is how it makes you to chose an alignment for the party as your first choice. Every starting party member has to be at least one step away from it so you get a fairy cohesive party in terms of alignment. But also your choice effect how the game starts. Pick NG, you are going to inform local church about the murder of their canonness. Pick CE, you are killing villagers and then decide to pay Hommlet a visit because someone came and looted them before you. I think more D&D games should do something similar. GM can create a starting hook much easily if party is centered around an alignment and don't have to tailer every character's motivation into the story. They can even run two games with same starting point with different alignment hook and see where both party goes differently.
While 2e of Chronicles of Darkness have overall great changes, I was a bit dissapointed with Awakening's wisdom still being mostly "doing magic for good" morality trait. They could have made it act more like Forsaken's stat which acts as being balanced between two worlds. Or at least they could have added touchstones between mundane connections and mage's obsession that pulls them between each other.
I have been playing a TTRPG made in Japan, translated, and tried out in English. The game assumes you will play a good person, as any Japanese RPG is about heroes, never about the ability to choose to play good or bad people. Thus, there is no alignment system, but I still feel that it's a lot more interesting to see a true alignment in any system, even if it's not there.
One of the players I GM'd for in that system was a self-serving thief who was hiding his background to the other players. A perfect Chaotic Neutral sort of character. We had a lot of fun making half-meta jokes about how this character *must* be a merchant, because how else did he get that pocket watch that he's selling? He must have bought it at market; after all, he can't be a thief!
But what made it so special was at the end, where he demanded money for services leading the NPC friendly character, and at the very end the amount of money he demanded... was a single gold coin. Me as the GM, along with all of the players, went nuts at the implication because even if the characters had not known he was always this self-serving, the players all saw the change that had happened. Alignment isn't there to bog down character development and force your character into a box, it's there to show the players just how much a character *can* change over time.
Other things that are important is; what if you have four players who want to play a group of good/neutral characters, and suddenly you get the fifth player who wants to be a murder hobo coming in. Suddenly everyone is fighting and no one is feeling happy. Having the ability to say "This will most likely revolve around good/evil characters" gives players the ability to know what they're getting into when it comes to setting up a campaign.
While I don't believe that it needs to be in every rulebook of every TTRPG and has to have specific names to avoid copyright issues... I think it's important that we have and understand these concepts, so that we can use them even without a specific rule outright stating it exists. Talking about how your character is "Neutral Evil" should not be a nasty term that should go the way of the dinosaurs, it's a way for players to understand what they're getting into when interacting with your character, so the *player* isn't blindsided, regardless of whether or not the *character* is.
A note on Humanity in V:tM; I feel like you brush up against the point of the Humanity list, but something maybe you don't get or you just gloss over in your distain for it is that the humans who do kill and do other things at the low end of the Humanity list are not aping the morality of humans the way that Vampires are. Humans are humans, they don't need to follow Humanity, or what I call the Path of Humanity, that which the Camarilla follows in their maintenance of the Masquerade. These actions on this list are not just sins. They are the things that a Vampire, and SPECIFICALLY a vampire who is following this morality path, cannot do if they don't want to lose themselves to the Beast. This is why the Sabbat paths of enlightenment don't have these same sins, or at least not in the same order. They follow different morality, and that morality allows them to keep the Beast at bay in other ways while still indulging in some of those very base actions.
Interesting, I think we covered paths of enlightenment in this episode but I don't quite remember. Agree with your thoughts here though
@@blacklodgegames You do. It's around the half hour mark. It's similar to their explanation of Torment in Demon: the Fallen, and I wonder if they used that opportunity to finally explain that humans don't have to worry about falling to Torment (or the Beast, implicitly) since they are human, and have Humanity. Torment (and the Beast, implicitly) are things for Demons (and Vampires)
Haven't picked up the new editions tho, so I have no basis for comparison. The WoD is something that lives only in the 90s for me and I can't bring myself to crack the 5th ed, weep at all the woke and pay them for the privilege.
And incidentally, sorry for the necromancy, UA-cam is recommending all of your old videos for some reason so Im going back and watching them as they do.
@@kdolo1887 check out our review of Vampire 5th edition, I think you'll like it. V5 is flawed but still has some good stuff in it and you are 100% correct about the time capsule nature of vampire and wod
I'd advise (OSR) DMs to try and have their players roll a d6 when they make their character. Only on a 6 do they get to make a non-human and/or a magic user of any sort. I find that just that helps A LOT with making these elements, of even the most generic of settings, feel more special.
That's a good idea
It also alleviates some of the type casting of high INT=wizard and so on. Though that may or may not be a good thing depending on the system you use.
Great video guys, I really enjoy your content. I agree that human-centric is best for a setting but the examples you gave (elves from LOTR) for how we, humans, can't RP other species seems strange to me as they were successfully roleplayed by the human actors, lol.
I personally never use them, and when I NEED to use one, it's true neutral. But I can see it's benefits. It's not a system that I want to be gone, but definitely could be improved upon.
So says, the LE character.
YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT
One of the “problems” with alignment is that it doesn’t feel “realistic” to people. Well… it’s not. But neither is the rest of the game, in many ways. Law/Chaos, Good/Evil, these are concepts in our world. In many fantasy realms, they are not just concepts, they are Forces. We can point to agents of Chaos, not just chaotic beings, etc. As such, when we describe a character in these terms, we are not necessarily describing personalities, but actual being in alignment with primeval forces. Will these inform the personality and behavior of an individual? Probably, but it is much more than that in many fantasy settings. A Chaotic character should serve Chaos, not just act chaotic. If your world doesn’t include such cosmology, than, no, alignment, per se, doesn’t make as much sense.
Morality systems will always be constraining. As they will always be viewed through the lens of the game designers and DMs.
Limitations breed creativity! Constraints are a good thing as long as they aren't straight jackets
In my experience alignment isnt liked because players really just want to play themselves in a fantasy setting. Hell, they do this in real life. Confusing real life with fantasy as an excuse to moralize doing what ever they want. (Which is by definition...evil).
Alignment is percieved as dictating morallity rather than informing a character. Also like real life.
Conflating morality with a specific religion rather than an inate character or personal code is why people today reject the notion.
It is the emotional reaction created by a lack of education and understanding.
Oh.
?
@@Lobsterwithinternet Yes.
Also, total side bar but have you guys looked at the vtt, alchemy, I’m curious what you all think about some of its features.
Not yet. We generally don't use VTTs but we could check it out
IMHO, by & large in early 1970s, when D&D was starting out, Gygax, Arneson, etc., had a clear concept of good & evil, law & chaos, from their conventional 1950s upbringing. Describing Alignment was not difficult then, because the system *presupposed a clear, firm understanding of human morality by the Players*.
This is now absent.
Many children grow up with little, no, or defective understandings of moral behavior today. Such are many of the Players now, and they believe Alignment is antiquated, irrelevant, and superfluous.
They are wrong, but that is what many believe. Peace.
This is 100% correct. It's a product of the dominant philosophy of the current era.
That’s cartoonishly hyperbolic. The current culture has no concept of morality at all? You old men need to find some clouds to yell at.
What are your thoughts on implementing a reputation score ranging from -3 to 3? This value would affect both enemy morale checks and reactions from unknown NPCs. The more negative your reputation, the greater the chance of intimidating enemies into fleeing. However, it also reduces the likelihood of encountering friendly faces among the townsfolk and vice versa for positive reputation.
I think you should give it a try at your table and see what the results are.
I actually like removing alignment for PCs and for most NPCs. A lot of alignment mechanics only effect other planar creatures anyways and the whole concept represents the inflexible nature of those creatures very well. That actually makes alignment a choice of action. Alignment is a huge part of the setting, you can see how badly it suffers for its removal in the spell jammer rules. The interaction of creatures bound to inflexible rules of behavior was a huge part of the world building and they just abandoned the whole concept
Alignments are best as languages, Gygax was right.
The nine alignments are languages. They are like individual dialects of Latin. They are used for crafting enchanted items, relics, and artifacts. To use any enchanted item, one must speak the dialect of the Alignment Language used to craft it. Enchanted items crafted in true neutral dialect are the most common and do not require any alignment language to operate.
Alignment Languages are revealed by a combination of the following three spells, Detect Magic, Comprehend Languages and Identify. Across the multi-verse, all factions seek and destroy artifacts and relics in opposition to its belief system. However, neutral, common, and simple items of magic are widespread and easily available across the multi-verse.
WoTC is not getting rid of alignment. The most recent Planescape set of books actually reinforces alignment. That means it's going to be a permanent fixture going forward.
I play non human characters, in the end, to reflect upon humanity.
I might play a tiefling in a D&D campaign to explore concepts like being labeled "the other" and getting isolated, fighting against prejudice etc. In real life, I'm a bog standard white straight cis male. Somehow, though, it would feel wrong or too real to play a, let's say, black trans woman. Partly because I don't want to ask my GM to play NPC's that are racist, sexist or homophobic, but also partly because I feel our game table can't truly get into such a deep, difficult discussion. And because I feel that I couldn't really connect with that reality - it would feel banale and grotesque to try, compared to the real lives people live in the real world. So, I can interact with those themes one step removed by playing a fantasy species.
Just as well, I could play an elf to try to interact with the concepts of longer life spans, the perspective changes that would bring, and perhaps faith in a larger cosmic order (re: Tolkien's elves and their understanding of the Valar, Eru, and the mysterious forces of Arda vs the much more simplistic world understanding of most 3rd age humans).
Or, play as a vampire (the Requiem or the Masquerade) to reflect on immortality, inhumanity, predation, emotional distances etc. Why would playing a vampire be different to playing, say, a tiefling? After all, the player can't be a vampire any more than they can be a rock gnome. And, after all, you could just play a human character looking at vampires by using the base WoD rules.
These are, to me, ways to simulate the experience of something else, and to reflect on my own humanity and that of others.
The only use I ever had for Alignment for better or worse was in the case of Clerics and Paladins and which god they followed and thus their basic power, worship and spiritual connection. Yes!! Getting rid of alignment is WoTC showing a sign of the times. I agree with that completely. One need only look at modern Disney Star Wars on Star Trek and see how modernity wants to either shed or utterly shred the concept of good vs evil and douse everything in morally ambiguous grey sludge. There are times when moral ambiguity can be interesting as a story tool but not as the totality of the story.
They're getting rid of alignment? I guess I called it. sigh. I'd also like to know what they're doing about the Planes and certain magical items when they do this.
That description of humanity and the low stages of it , is exactly what its supposed to be. Charecters fail to react to the things normal humans would. Or in a humane way
Yeah exactly. Less about becoming a beast than ceasing to be a man
We need alignment!
The main reason alignment does not work today is because it is based roughly on Christian morality concepts. Since the Christians demonized the game and mostly removed Christians from the rpg experience, that no longer stands and most of the people playing today see alignment from a different perspective; morality is seen to be relativistic and hard coded morality like the alignment axis makes no sense to these people. The only game that uses an actual alignment system that comes close to making sense in today's world is the Pendragon Personality Traits and Passions system. Which is ironic since the focus of that game is wholly based around Christian principles of the idealistic early medieval knighthood vs the pagan traditions of the old ways.
Imo alignment can at the least be a useful tool for players who need a beacon to foster proper immersion.
I don’t mind it.
The radical reactions by more progressive/conservative players come down to moral relativism vs. absolutism.
No camp is ever going to win this argument, because it’s all about world view.
In the bigger picture I can relate to both and see dangers in both, but this is a game. Let people play it the way they want.
Personally I find it much more interesting and realistic to have good guys with horrible, morally justified views, like a genocidal paladin of virtue or bad guys with a lot of mislead integrity and moral.
I appreciate that you guys like your categories more clear-cut, but I like my fiction more multilayered and less dichotomous. It’s a matter of taste and philosophy. That’s why I would also wholeheartedly disagree that foregoing alignment necessarily impoverishes a game. It can swing both ways.
Nah! You can challenge people's acting chops with personality charts if you want but a lot of people fail at keeping to allighnement.
They are often given no reason to
Really enjoyed this. You made plenty of good points. And I'm one of those woke, leftist soyboys, as I believe the term goes, so it's reasonable to assume we have some different perspectives across some of your videos, which I have been watching.
Some of those examples of alignment ideas mattering I'll have to look up because they sound awesome. I've seen bits of the various Chronicles of Darkness stuff that seemed cool, but just never ended up getting round to getting a copy of one and reading it through. For other systems making alignment matter I do quite like Legend of the Five Rings with honour. In practice it is subjective with biases and regional values, societally people care and often know if you are honourable or not, and cosmically it is fundamental with corruption of spirits and the world a real problem.
I've heard the Palladium alignments are really cool too but I've never played their games. Glad you like the content and aren't too turned off by political differences, we are happy to find other people with good taste in RPGs.
I don't know that anyone who is even passingly familiar with Planescape could claim that Alignment "isn't integrated into any setting".
I don't think we claimed that and certainly not about the older D&D settings. There is an entire segment of the video talking about how important alignment is to Dragonlance and how removing it would rip the heart out of the setting.
@@blacklodgegames 2:14 you literally said just that, verbatim.
Said as an argument that could be levelled against Alignment, that you both held and that is common in the community.
I'm simply saying that no-one with any familiarity of the Planescape setting could make that claim with a straight face.
In Planescape Alignment is as real and concrete as the compass directions.
It is an objective reality that can be aligned with by the mortal races (hence the name) that was imposed upon the universe at the moment of it's creation.
Additionally there's this "The work/thought just hasn't gone in to take it to it's logical conclusions and make it meaningful or impactful"
The entire setting is an example of just this.. there are cults and factions in the Planes that embody philosophies linked to the Alignment/ Planar system.
It is explained - at length, described - in detail, and advice/ assistance given both for Players and DMs.
Yes it's an old setting but far more modern than Dragonlance and is probably one of the best known settings as it acts as a meta-verse that can encompass all the rest.
@@Quotheraving I guess you missed the part where we talking about *later editions* of games.
@@Quotheraving you are also talking about an outlier setting in terms of quality. We obviously aren't levying that criticism about Planescape. We are talking about modern products and how it is a mistake for WotC and new players to get rid of alignment *because* it adds to the game in potent ways.
@@blacklodgegames "I guess you missed the part where we talking about later editions of games."
I did not and it doesn't wash for several reasons.
Firstly you can't use "later editions" as a qualifier to bound an argument and then use Dragonlance as a rebuttal.
At best it's setting up a straw-man, at worst it's incoherent.
Secondly neither Dragonlance, nor Planescape, (nor Forgotten Realms for that matter) are necessarily bound to editions and the majority of the material that has been produced for them is neither edition dependent, nor updated with each new edition.
Nor does it need to be since it already exists and is readily available to anyone with a PC.
I am of course referring to people, places, ideas and such rather than stat-blocks and rules-- which are updated. Slaad & Gith for example.
If you don't think there's value in finding "human" characteristics in fantasy creatures, and that all non-humans must necessarily be inhuman and unknowable, I really don't know why you play or pay attention to D&D at all. There's plenty of room to roleplay a fantasy creature beyond simply treating their fantasy nature as a costume while not portraying them as totally alien.
As to alignment and hard-coded morality systems in general, if players are interested in exploring morality through tabletop roleplay, they will do so regardless of whether there are explicit rules concerning good and evil. If they are not, then the game having unavoidable morality systems is actively harming their fun. In either case, I see no value alignment can possibly offer *except* as an afterthought label. Any system that actually captured morality in a robust, authentic, entertaining, and gameplay-compatible way would be unrecognizable compared to anything D&D has ever called alignment. Many of the other systems you describe invite a very specific approach to morality simply by their central conceit. D&D, however, has a far too broad premise to incorporate such rich morality systems into its rules; doing so would make it impossible to tell many stories D&D currently supports. Therefore, D&D's alignment system has got to go. You can want a morality system, but that doesn't make keeping a bad one better than having no system at all.
Wrong.
@@blacklodgegames OK dude, I'll continue having fun in spite of your misgivings.
One could argue that WoTC has made their game more chaotic, having removed any labels of order.
Correct
Wrong
Acceptable.
Why not just let your character be defined by their actions?
That's precisely what alignment is. Your actions are oriented toward certain parts of the physics of the world. If you don't have a game world with strong philosophy or metaphysics woven into it, the game will be less interesting.
@@blacklodgegames I guess I don't understand what you mean by metaphysics woven into the world. When I play a character (and I'm more of a narrative/story gamer) I tend to pick something I want to be able to do, my characters motivation and just go from there.
@@blacklodgegames Or they just want to play a low-fantasy game but want to force it into a high-fantasy system.
Almost as frustrating as watching people make 5e into a murder mystery game when Gumshoe is right there! 🦞👉
@@k9ine999 We talk a bit about this in the video. Take Lion & Dragon as an example. The alignment axis is on Law -> Chaos.
This doesn't simply describe the actions of the characters, it describes the themes of the world and how the world operates. The more war and political turmoil you have, the more the (literal) effects of chaos can be seen. Cults devoted to demons sprout across the country, monsters become more numerous and aggressive.
It makes the world more interesting.
@@blacklodgegames I guess that makes sense but then wouldn't that mean the players have to basically team up with one side or the other? If so then they might end up on different sides or both sides in some situation. I guess some games have mechanics related to this but in most games I've seen its just sort of a guidline.
Imagine...no difference...no opposition...no opinions.....sounds like fun.
...'frustrated...she flips the paper over'
Fun sounds like.....opinions on...opposition on...difference on...Imagine.
'Happy with herself...she smiles'
"There...i fixed it."
Alignment-lite games for total newbs.
And post modernist weirdos
@@blacklodgegames that too!
"The monotheistic religions view the world very differently."
I disagree completely. They all believe that life is a morality test on which they are being judged by a singular omniscient, omnipresent being who will reward/punish them in an afterlife based on their subservience to and faith in a divine moral code. They all believe that their code is the only real truth and path to a good outcome/experience. They all believe in a divine justice: an idealized moral absolutism. They are all fundamentally fearful of the unknown and death, and yearn for a cookie-cutter explanation for natural events, and a dualistic alignment/orientation system to determine/explain the purpose and meaning of their lives, usually clinging to human-exceptionalism and the notion of an enduring soul identity to assuage these fears and provide security of certainty. Or at least they err on the side of caution and stick to a belief as the safest option for possible divine rewards, and against divine punishments.
And the polytheistic religions are virtually the same, only with many beings representing the different aspects/characteristics/personalities of a divine presence.
Adherents also usually lack the self-awareness to realize what has driven them to adopt their religious beliefs, rationalizing the basic fear impetus as a magical/mystical/holy revelation... a justifying narrative woven of cherry-picked coincidences... or just never question it because it's their familial/cultural norm.
If you think a southern Baptist, Brooklyn Jew, or Qatari Muslim view the world in the same way then you are crazy.
This would've been a much more interesting and compelling video had it been a proper discussion from both (or all) camps.
Instead, what we have here, is an echo chamber.
Alignment is an outdated and archaic system that does nothing for roleplay and only serves to constrain player imagination and agency.
If you must insist on some form of "alignment", at least use something like Wheel of Time's "Beliefs" system, which is actually conducive to roleplay and storytelling, which is kind of the whole point of the game.
Please refer to the pinned comment
As far as setting fluff goes, alignment is great. As a tool for character creation and motivation... it's trash.
An infinitely better tool I use instead is the Color Pie from Magic the Gathering. No moral or philosophical arguments where chuds who don't understand basic human decency use edge cases and faulty anecdotal definitions to justify their idiocy.
These are the five elements everything is made of. These are the principles and motivations tied to each element. These are the outcomes when you pair two or three elements together.
Infinitely better system.
Giga chud here, edge cases matter in philosophy so they matter in game. You don't escape that by simply moving to a color pie
And that demonstrates the biggest problem with alignment: People don't understand how it actually is supposed to work.
1. It's descriptive, not prescriptive.
2. It’s not how a character or player sees themselves. It's how the characters fit into the vast struggle between Law vs Chaos and Good vs Evil.
3. Characters aren't meant to stick rigidly to one or two moral alignments but are fluidly moving between all 9 alignments in their interactions with the world.
Though one problem I agree with is how limiting and subjective the terms are which is where a lot of the moral arguments and confusion come from.
I actually take my answer from Guildmasterdan and retitle them to remove the moral ambiguity. Principled and Unprincipled for Law and Chaos respectively and Unselfish and Selfish for Good and Evil Respectivly.
@Black Lodge Games You don't lose the philosophy by moving to the color pie. You lose the pedantic bickering, toxic "it's what my character would do" arguments, and DM fiat fights over what the words lawful, good, and evil mean.
I knew I was getting dipshit chud vibes from this channel. Don't know why it popped up in my recommendations.
@@CitanulsPumpkin Which is why I don't use those terms at all so I can avoid the whole subjective morality thing.
Also, anytime I have a player tell me ‘its what my character would do’ just because of the alignment on their sheet, I tell them “Then come back when you can make a character who doesn't do that.”
@@Lobsterwithinternet I used to fall into the camp that thought changing the words to selfless, selfish, dogmatic, and shameless was the best solution. Realistically, if you're gonna change the subsystem that much just to force it to work then you're better off without it all together.
In actual gaming terms the only people alignment helps are brand new players that have no concept of what character motivation means and need the most basic and juvenile hand rails to prop up their role play.
Alignment is to D&D what training wheels are to bikes.
From day one people weren't using it as the developers of the game intended. Gygax himself defined alignment as the language your PC learned in "Sunday School."
Up until mid 4th edition the only time alignment came up in games was when the DM wanted to punish a cleric or paladin player, a paladin wanted to punish the entire rest of the playgroup, or when someone put a trap magic item on and lost half their levels or their entire character.
Alignment, as it has been implemented in actual gameplay mechanics, has been a shitshow. It's dead weight holding back the game.
If you really need two arbitrary words on your character sheet to remember how broken their moral compass is, you have bigger problems than the inevitable shedding of broken subsystems from the game.
I listened to a minute of this rambling, hoping that was just a clickbait title, and it was nothing short of appalling... But no, alignment in rpgs is a ridiculously outdated concept, which only people who only ever play D&D or any game as if it was D&D, or has always lived under a rock and has no concept of how diverse the roleplaying game world is beyond D&D, would think is relevant (either because they don't know any better, or out of some rabid brand loyalty). To flatten a character personality to forcefully fit into one of nine stereotypes is absolutely ridiculous, and has always been.
We actually prefer character personality being flattened into one of three stereotypes, not nine.
This is just something Evil people say instead of facing their Evil.
There are only three stereotypes and always has been.
Somebody doesn't understand the definition of the word "neutral."
Also, total side bar but have you guys looked at the vtt, alchemy, I’m curious what you all think about some of its features.
We haven't as we generally don't use VTTs. We like theatre of the mind a lot so a video call is generally good enough to run a game for us