Alignment in RPG campaigns is a contentious issue that has
been debated over and over throughout the decades. Many people complain alignment is used as a straight-jacket
to restrict player actions, isn’t flexible enough, or is generally ignored in the play of the
game. I myself advocate it’s use
Alignment at the very core serves as a device to establish
sides or factions within a campaign, that’s how it worked in the first version
of the game with Lawfuls on one side and Chaotics on the other with Neutrals
either having no part in the conflict or selling out to either side. Using
Alignment as a faction indicator is a simplistic device but it works.
Alignment as a guide to personal and spiritual behavior
starts mucking things up a bit by implying limitations to behavior. D&D added Good and Evil to the mix of
alignments during the genesis of AD&D and folks were arguing about what
each alignment has meant for years (“Lawful Evil”, “Chaotic Good” what? I’ll
make my character Chaotic Neutral so I can do whatever I want). The second
version Basic D&D took the more general alignments of Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic
and explained them as choices of morality and behavior that many saw as
restrictive instead of suggestive. I feel a lot of people mistook guide to
behavior as a restriction a very inflexible restriction. Part of the confusion
for the AD&D alignments was likely because while they appeared in 3
rulebooks initially the three rulebooks treated them separately, the most comprehensive
treatment was in the Dungeon Masters Guide in a section most players would have
never bothered to read (I suspect many a DM also just skimmed it), many of the ambiguities
and uses of alignment were actually cleared up there but the game and hobby at
large didn’t seem to notice.
Evil is objective, well at least it is in the worlds of
D&D when we can point at something and go “This is evil” and it’s not a
matter of opinion, yes Virginia Asmodeus is Evil and it isn’t a matter of
opinion. Many a fantasy world has pretty overt and obvious embodiments of evil
running about the landscape or restricted (for now) in a Black Tower or some
other dread locale. Some make the
pretense to say their fantasy campaign is different it’s full of shades of grey
with no extreme polarities (and yet many still used demons and other vile
creatures that are clearly evil). How solidly objective evil reigns in a campaign
is clearly up to a DM but it’s there and takes a fair bit of work to exercise
cleanly in a world full of good guys and bad guys. The grey of the ashes of a
sacked city fuelled by the fat of burning infants tossed spear to spear until
left bubbling in the pyre is very different from the grey of an overcast
morning. There is evil in fantasy worlds, that’s part of the whole point of
myth that RPG is dealing with, it’s part of each hero’s personal struggle to
rise above the quagmire of evil and achieve greatness or to revel in
vainglorious deeds as one wallows in their own deeds and the rot of evil and it’s
all put on a tarnished platter as example.
Alignment being inconsequential to the majority of the game
is claim brought up by some critics. This criticism ignores the objective
realities in the game expressed in a handful of magical spells only accessible
or only in effect against evil entities. Clerics as a class make the struggle to
maintain ones self and be true to their spirit and goals are an embodiment of
how alignment isn’t inconsequential (and why many don’t like clerics in
play). Some magical items will strike
down those of the contrary alignment to which they were purposed or simply
refuse to function at all, others will bend ones spirit as a punishment for a
characters avarice. Alignment has some mechanistic
consequences and I myself think the role of alignment in the game would be
boosted by increasing the frequency of such instances within a campaign.
Alignment as restriction is misplaced and often poorly
played. The worst way a DM can handle alignment is by telling a player “You can’t
do that you are Lawful Good”. There are mechanisms in the game such as reducing
the experience points earned for a player not embodying the role of the character
they have chosen to play (as per the original DMG) or simply having NPCs react as
is appropriate to their alignment which need not motivate foolish or dangerous
actions but may lead to the henchmen and allies of a Lawful Good murder abandoning
them, brigning them to justice, or helping them to repent. Another mechanic is
to simply redefine the characters alignment by a few steps away from their professed
alignment towards the alignment actually embodied and let the player deal with
those consequences. When a player acts contrary to their alignment a lot of
good play can come in dealing with the consequences and the personal reaction. “Gee
why does Sir Branard the White donate 90% of his plunder to the orphanage ?” maybe
because he feels awful for slaying that mother with the baby in hand three
years ago. Alignment should direct but
not restrict action n play and while at times there can be a stern and overt mechanical
reaction to an “alignment violation” there should be a reaction among PCs and
NPCs dictated by personality and circumstance of such characters that may indeed
lead to much more memorable play.
Each DM should read the rules carefully and see alignment as
a means to define and explain the campaign as opposed to a way to restrain and
inhibit players. For years I favored the three alignment spread of Lawful,
Neutral, and Chaotic because it embodied all I really needed in my campaigns
which often took place in fairly grim medieval worlds. These were however
medieval worlds so all Lawful people were not on the same team Lawful people
would strive to live up to their ideals seeing order and method as important as
improvement and goals, while the Chaotic sought change and passion over stasis
and morbid tradition with Neutrals seeking the best means to prosper and
survive without making the world worse; good and evil in such a scheme can
remain very personal and it leaves lots of room to explore a character while still
taking sides in the cosmic struggle. The subjective nature of evil in much fantasy
fiction has an allure for me as well a does a desire to have more than two
factions defined often by their resistance to each other. Being aware of what purpose a DM wants alignment
to serve within the game and making sure to maintain that in a campaign and not
relent to criticism of those that feel slighted, bored or give in to the
laziness by not wanting to track another of numerous statistics will serve a
campaign well.
Alignment has a place in the game to define heroism, to identify
vileness, to establish factions, to establish patterns in the working of magic ,
and to enable more dramatic play than swinging swords and counting coins.
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