Good, Bad, or Indifferent

I'm a fan of Alignment, to be honest. But I think that's because I use it very differently than most GMs. I always liked the concept, but never the implementations that I had found in OD&D and later versions. So I worked on my own system, which I started in 1978.

For me Alignment is useful as a back end tool to help me world weave my back story coherently. But you'll really not hear me in-game describing anything in terms of it's Alignment. There may be reflections of it, for instance 'the flag with the Red Eagle and gold fringe' contains symbols that reflect alignment oriented messages. There's all kinds of hints about Alignment that I can give without ever mentioning the alignment involved. You won't hear me saying things like "You're Character is lawful good, so...", or "The item you sense is evil". I avoid stats-referential descriptive narrative. Instead you would hear me say things more like "the dagger is bleeding a black shadow onto the coffin lid as you approach..." That indicates a sufficient mood to suggest alignment, but I don't want to use alignment overtly. For one thing it tells too much that most characters can not possibly know.

I find alignment very useful as a guideline (rather than a policy). I treat it as optional and with some flexibility.

It also fits into my Cosmology. In my world the Gods are mapped directly to the Alignments, and there is one God per Alignment, who is the personification of that Alignment. But to the Players this is very unobvious. I don't force them to follow their alignment, but rather I watch their behavior and over time notice their alignment, and it's changes. I can do this in my system with a good deal of precision as I have a game mechanic that allows the GM to assign points to actions according to their metaphysical (law vs. chaos) and moral (good vs. evil) axises. So someone who attains Lawful Good would have an alignment perhaps of (3,2). And over time as they do deeds in the world according to the motive, and the lawfulness or chaoticness of the deed, their alignment shifts. So alignments of characters in my world evolve over time according specifically to the characters actions and motives. It's a pretty efficient system for me, and I don't make a harsh rule of always applying alignment. I really use it under two circumstances - the Players are striving to make their characters a specific alignment (such as a cleric who wants to achieve the heights of lawful, lets say), or I find that something the character does is of particular significance in terms of their alignment. Such as the character who slays the beggar. That's significant. And the Elkron take notice of those sorts of events as well. So knowing which Elkron responds how to which alignments also helps to keep my worlds internal coherency intact. Although I haven't gone into enough detail for you to understand necessarily my alignment system itself, I think the essential point is that there are ways to use Alignment that may be working for other GMs out there. While I have nothing against alignment-less systems like FATE, I am still nevertheless intrigued by alignment myself, and have found a happy home for the concept in my world.

Interesting. I can see how that could make for a game to have a more fluidic dynamic throughout the roleplaying. I'm going to see if I can work something like this into my current campaign. I'm not 100% sold on this method to increase the number of fate points though. My players tend to be very easy going with their inner-party interactions.

Good (or wicked, depending on your definition) post! :)

I like Fate mechanic. I think it is a very cool idea for players to be able to gain a flexible Fate point by role playing their character the "way they should be played" and it results in some sort of sacrifice. Then you get a Fate point. I like it. Adjudication required, of course, but it's still quite good.

The other thought I have is that it would be cool to use both, for me. I like the Fate idea, and I also am a fan of my Alignment system. I don't see any problem using them side by side. In fact the Fate could apply just as easily to an Alignment based circumstance as a personality one. The mechanic of Fate would not be effected, and the way I see it, the personality attribute is interchangeable with the alignment. I think there are probably a number of attributes that could be used with the same Fate point mechanic. It just depends on what values you're trading points for.

I cross-posted your post to the Literary RPG Society of Westchester (LRPGSW). I have some posts on there where we've discussed topics touching on the Fate system, if you're interested you can look up LRPGSW on yahoo groups. I also wanted to say thanks for an interesting post.

FATE is a lovely and flexible system. The aspects are quite fun but crafting them is a true art.

I have not been a fan of alignments for many of the reasons you mention. People are just too complex to be easily boxed off.

Brilliant. For my game, I've been running a "luck point" system as a reward for good roleplaying and storybuilding. Well, it's really more of a deal than a "system" -- I grant a reroll-token to a player when they improve a session through roleplay or I feel they have taken special action to validate the campaign world and their character's place in it. This "aspect" approach from FATE will give me better guidelines to do that, and I have a feeling it will go over well with the players.

Thanks!.

I understand where you are coming from. I have mixed feelings about the alignment system going away in 4e. I like having an alignment system that offers a type of guidance to PCs. In the past I have tried to ensure that alignments are suggestions that show how moral questions are not simply black and white. i.e. Alignment should be an illustration, not a mandate for approved behavior. I agree with you, though, in that alignments tend to be more constricting than guiding and in doing so, lose much of their value.

And now, a big digression....
One of the interesting things about playing a role-playing game in our modern times is that we get to explore current moral crises in a different, more benign setting (in many cases, one we might consider less civilized). When I say "more benign" I simply mean that the PCs we play can make decisions that we might not necessarily make in "real life" and we would also not have to suffer any "real life" consequences for our PCs doing so in the game.

On one hand this is freeing, as it allows us to explore concepts or actions that may be morally ambiguous to us personally. We can help refine our thoughts and feelings about those morals and apply what we've learned to our "real lives." Or we might ponder the consequences of not acting/reacting with respect to a moral question in game. Or at the very least, we would have a fun time exploring some moral ambiguity for a while.

On the other hand, it sometimes offers a bit of an incongruity in game, causing us to draw lines between what we know about the game world and how it differs from the "real" world. As an example, let's think about slavery. One might run a role-playing game in a world in which slavery is acceptable. Some cities or regions may count slavery as one of their most prosperous types of trade. As such, it may account for the biggest portion of taxes collected by the government to keep the place running. Assuming everyone understands this premise, is slavery wrong? Under what circumstances should a 'lawful good' PC in the game react to slavery in a way suggesting it is immoral? How would the local populace react to that 'lawful good' PC's objections? Would the person be accused of treason or sabotage, or worse? Perhaps the PC would be seen as a trouble-maker or rabble-rouser that shouldn't be trusted. Would the PC come to conclusion that all members of the merchant class and all slave owners cannot possibly be good aligned due to their support of slavery (an obviously distasteful activity)? It would be up to the GM and the players to determine how far they wish to push this particular situation.

In real life, I don't know a single person that would try to convince me that slavery is a good thing. So I consider this as sort of a moral dead-end question to put into the game. So how does that help us refine our thoughts about moral questions? It doesn't. How does the 'lawful-good' PC benefit from this scenario? He/She doesn't. How does the game-world become enriched through the response of the 'lawful-good' PC? It probably doesn't. The situation I have set up is a no-win situation for a lawful-good PC who believes slavery is wrong. The 'lawful-good' trait attached to that PC is supposed to provide insight into how that PC would react in situations just like this. That is why traditional alignment systems fail - the required range of reactions is usually very rigid.

In fact, no large scale moral question like slavery can be effectively explored via traditional alignments. The reason for this is the same as in real life: there is disagreement regarding what is evil and what is good. The question isn't black and white, and there will not be a consensus on what actions fall into which category. This is life. This is being human.

Ultimately our responses depend upon our personalities and how we perceive a situation. Everything comes down to personality and how we let that affect our perceptions and, in turn, how we respond to the things we witness. This is why, in "real life," people talk about others' personalities, not others' alignments. You never hear a woman talking about their children like this: "Bill Jr. is just a treat to be around, he's obviously Lawful-Good!" But you do often hear, "Bill Jr. is so sweet, he has a great personality!"

So why should our game have alignments instead of personality traits? No good reason I can think of.

"Dude, just play Chaotic Neutral"

Yeah, that's what I was told in a certain group that I played with for awhile. They said to play Chaotic Neutral because it was the "best" and it wouldn't upset the party harmony.

Yeah whatever.

Alignment ist still around and it's even more simple than it ever was. Basically, you're either good or you're evil, but we all know that. I don't mind that as a very rough scale on how to judge a character, on which side to put her.

Yes, my games are a little four-color-comics like. The players are supposed to be the good guys, the enemies are the evil guys. Deviations from that scheme can exist, but they are not normal. That said, I don't pay very close attention to the alignment scheme. For example, in one group I play in I have a good character (who, what an interesting twist, follows an evil deity) who took part in slaughtering a whole gnoll village. The gnolls of course worshipped Yenoogu. They did poison the land and kill villagers. But there were also helpless children and elderly people in the gnoll society and I suppose that should not sit well even with a good character. It's quite somewhat itty-gritty. But one action is barely enough to make the scales swing, right? But if a character would constantly behave like a giant *beep* to almost everyone I would have a nice little chitchat with the player. After all I do have a vision of a game I master or a group I want to play in. I'm just sick of all the shades of grey I so easily get all around.

That said, I am quite happy that alignment-detection spells are gone. Back in those days alignment was far too limiting.

Of course the lack of such a strong mechanism can lead to problems. One commenter above describes using alignment in descriptive hints rather than mentioning it outright. "The dagger bleeds shadow on the coffin" - that does set a mood, allright. But if my character were a Shadar-Kai or an assassin, I wouldn't take such hints as to something being an evil weapon. I might think: Oh, a weapon with necrotic and shadow powers. That sounds cool!
I might pick it up only to discover I am stuck with something, that doesn't really suit me later on. So the lack of alignment doesn't necessarily make everything easier.

Finally: I love the ideas of Fate's aspects. I might think of introducing them into our game for allowing rerolls and boni. It needs an experiences group though and the will to keep a close eye on things. Aspects can be too limited or broad, creating a new unbalancing element in the group. And the last thing I'd want is another race for spotlight. I am pretty happy that 4e does such a good job at helping spotlight distribution.

Hi Sarah! Gratz for the excelent post. In my campaings I use personality traits to describe a character and guide his actions. It's more simple and funny for us. See ya. (sry for bad english =)

The Legends of Anglerre RPG is what you get when D&D-style fantasy is combined with FATE's system.
http://www.cubicle-7.com/legends/legends.php

In my 4th Ed D&D game, I took an idea from Monte Cook's Book of Hallowed Deeds and ran with it; I created a set of universal "values" to use as guideposts for character (PC and NPC) personalities/actions.

http://wp.me/pRa8r-24
http://wp.me/pRa8r-29

"the use of personality traits and a character's personal moral code rather than alignment."

Those are really the building blocks of alignment. Same thing.

Whatever problems there were with alignment in the past, they've gotten worse by providing fewer options. I think they should leave it the way it was, or just eliminate it altogether.

For example. Chaotic Good. There is nothing like that now. How does one be the "Robin Hood" type of character now? The character who is good, but lacks respect for the often unjust laws that exist. or Lawful evil, the nasty character who schemes and betrays but never technically do anything wrong. Those types of characters are no longer supported in the current alignment scheme.

Point being, if they're going to bother having alignment at all, there should be a good amount of options, because like you say, you just can't encapsulate all that makes a PC tick with just a single word.