Good vs Evil

[Paradox01]

A discussion in the TiTS gripes/criticisms thread turned to alignments in RPGs and I wanted to talk a little bit more about them without derailing the thread even more.

Some people seem to like alignments while some feel they're too restrictive. Personally, I like the idea of alignments with one caveat: they shouldn't be hard coded to the character.

I see alignments as a way to quickly and easily show the GM and other players a quick snapshot of your PC's values and behavioral pattern. It's shorthand for what other people can expect of your PC given a moral quandary. They exist because more often than not, role-players tend to play characters quite different than themselves, and not just physically. Emotionally and ethically different are also fun skins to wear for a day. If everyone played themselves, it'd be boring as fuck and we wouldn't need things like backgrounds and alignments to tell everyone about our character. "Hey, I'm Jeff, I'm playing a Level 3 Bank Teller named Jeff, I grew up in Poughkeepsie, NY, the son of Laura and Todd, an accountant and a nurse, I like cats and I hate standing in lines and people that don't look behind them to see if they need to hold a door for someone else."

Now, I can only speak from personal experience but I've never had games that went sideways because of alignments. Every GM I've ever had made great pains to explain to someone why their angelic, do-gooder Paladin may clash with a group of mercs and thieves. Everyone can point to that one guy who demands he or she must be allowed to play a hardline good or evil character. You know what we did? We didn't invite that person to play again.

Just like there are no true Good or Evil alignments, there are very few actual Good or Evil choices. A PC foiling a cutpurse's attempt at stealing someone's purse may, on the surface, be a Good act. But what if it's in the service of gaining that NPC's trust so the PC can fleece them out of even more money later on?

My favorite villains are the ones that think they're doing the right thing. Notice I didn't say, "think they're doing good." There's a huge different between "right" and "good". The best villains aren't the ones twirling their mustache and rubbing their hands over a damsel tied to railroad tracks. They're the ones you find yourself - often to your complete surprise - kind of rooting for. The TV show and character "Dexter" is a perfect example. The character - a serial killer who only kills bad people - sums himself up with one perfect question: "Am I a good person doing bad things, or a bad person doing good things?"

Alignments, besides being a starting point, should also be allowed to evolve. Alignments should be a starting point writ in pencil, not stone. The worst characters are always the ones who are stagnant. "Character development" isn't just something a writer does before starting a story. Experience levels and skills shouldn't be the only things to change. Values and belief systems should also be allowed to evolve and the best GMs are the ones that award this type of roleplay.

So, what do you guys think about alignments in RPGs? Good, Evil, Chaotic Neutral?

 

[null_blank]

I just play neutral good or neutral evil characters. Sometime lawful neutral or lawful evil.

Depending on what friends I play with we're either easy-going good guys or easy-going cannibals that like to indulge in mass murder.

I played a paladin once. It was terrible.

As for evolving alignments, it only means so much. So many DM's have no bloody idea how broad alignments can be: neutral good characters can work with lawful good and chaotic good characters but on the other end of the spectrum chaotic evil characters are difficult to work with especially if you're lawful.

 

[Evil]

To be honest, as much as I have enjoyed alignments in games (usually Chaotic Good Fighter here), in recent years, I much prefer evolving alignments, where the players actions end up determining their alignment.

A slightly off base example is in the 40k RPG line Black Crusade, where you play as servants of the Chaos Gods. Only, at the beginning, you're all Chaos Undivided - its your actions throughout the campaign that ends up aligning you to a particular god. This is an instance where it is somewhat better to end up aligned to one god, due to buying abilities with your XP, certain abilities and skills had different costs depending on the god you had given yourself to, for example, increasing your psychic ability was discounted if you served Tzeentch, the god of magic, but cost twice as much if you served Khorne, the god of bloodshed and war.

An evolving alignment has the benefit of the player own actions determining how they would act later on and not punish them for certain actions.

 

[sumgai]

For myself, I've always felt that Neutral Good Bard or Neutral Evil Thief/Rogue gives you just enough leeway to take broad action every now and then. Anyone that takes Chaotic Neutral is just... looking for an excuse to do whatever at the expense of everything else. Kinda like the alignment, huh.

null_blank, was playing the alignment a pain in the ass, or was the Paladin just underwhelming in general? Class tiers are a thing in 3e... or any edition really.

Even the D&D 2e Player's Handbook says that Character alignments are guidelines, not straight jackets. A couple of gaming friends and I hashed it out that while real life morality was ambiguous at best, due to the nature of Fictional Gods, we could say that such and such action falls under Asomdeus, Bahamut, whatever. We also felt that character alignments WERE NOT personalities, but merely moral compasses. With an evolving alignment, there's still the factor of methods versus motives and what not.

The times that a TTG went sideways from my play times, alignments were only used as excuse, not the real underling factor of something being an obnoxious bastard to someone/mutliple people/everyone.

edit: Not related to the topic, but Kender and people that play them as written can go stuff themselves. REEEEEEEEEEEEE!

 

[null_blank]

It's a bit different if you're serving a god that represents a specific alignment. It's basically a requirement that you remain within the allowed alignments.

I just didn't like the paladin in AD&D or 3e. In 3E the paladin is skill loadout just isn't that impressive to me. I simply don't like lawful good, it's extremely limiting when you want to commit crimes and personally I like having that option there even if I'm playing a good guy.

 

[Evil]

Well yeah, that makes sense, if you're something like a Paladin of Bahamut, you have to act in a certain manner.

Otherwise, alignments used to limit yourself too much, or even the DMs. I remember one older DM was telling us about this time he ran a campaign, the party had to break into the mansion of this Earl who had committed unspeakable atrocities onto his own people. So at this stage, the Paladin in the party is already wary, but goes along with it. Eventually the party gets into the Earl's vaults, retrieving what they were sent to get. Unfortunately, everyone is already near over-encumbered and so the Paladin is asked to carry a couple of pieces. That decision cost the paladin his powers because he was stealing.

Admittedly, the DM should have let them go on that, he's even admitted that in his younger days he was too much of a stickler for the rules. In truth, alignments by themselves are pointless, they need a guiding hand. If the deed itself leads to a greater good happening, for example, saving a starving village by buying them food, it should mitigate the minor criminal act of stealing the Earl's wealth.

 

[Aelana]

Oh yeah, I love this thread. I like talking about the DnD alignment system, but that's also the problem: Talking about it is so much more fun than actually using it.
In my recent campaign, I quietly dropped alignment. 5e has done it too, it just pretends to still have it.

For players IMO it is both too strict and too lose at the same time. The current reddit consesus is: "Alignment is descriptive, not prescriptive." Yeah, No. If you google explanations to the different alignments, you get examples of: "A lawful good character never betrays a person. It always follows the law, etc.". IDK, if that ain't prescriptive I don't know what is. It is too strict, because the whole system never really accounts for context. If we just stay at the 'lawful' part of the alignment, most ideas about it are 'you follow the rules. If you don't follow the rules, you are not lawful'. As an exampe, are whistleblowers lawful or not? They are not lawful, because they obviously broke the rules of 'don't publish stuff about (for example) the NSA'. But they are also lawful, because the NSA has obviously broken privacy laws. NOT whistleblowing would let the NSA getting away with breaking the privacy laws.

So, in this case, a character has to decide which law to break. Now choosing which law a character breaks, that's where role-playing happens. That's the choice I care about, and that's where I want players to think about what their character values. Saying: 'I'm lawful, I keep quiet.' is something I do not want to happen. I want them to think about the context. You can become a whistleblower because you want to damage the organisation, or because you saw that the organisation broke the laws. IMO the alignment tries to focus too much about what a character chooses, not why.

Also it lets your dickhead players off the hook. Hiding your dickish actions behind 'I am not a dick, it's my alignment'. To which I always say: 'No, you love playing as a dick, and I am telling you to stop it.

And for the why, I would suggest looking at ethics 101, and philosophy in general. An anarchist and a Libertarian, people with widely different values, may come to the same decision depending on the context.

 

[Evil]

I just want to point out how shameful it is that no one has said that this is a topic of Good vs Me.

And honestly, I'm more disappointed in myself than anyone.

 

[Paradox01]

I just want to point out how shameful it is that no one has said that this is a topic of Good vs Me.

And honestly, I'm more disappointed in myself than anyone.

I thought it would have been too obvious for me to do so in my original post, but I did leave the door wide open.

 

[LonelyHydra]

Ah yes, paladins. If we can think outside of games for a minute, there's this otherwise average anime I watched that revolves around one. He works because starts to feel an enhanced sense of empathy for people, beyond what would be average for the setting. I'll won't say what anime it is, as an exercise (hint: only left out one major detail), and cause it'd be off topic.
The point is that to have paladins even resolve moral delemmas presumes that they'd be the moral backbone to the party, if not the setting. This risk making the campaign/story all revolve around them, which could have been the source of many arguments on the table.

I do think it's a mistake to conflate paladins with lawful good in general (sorry). They can also be servants, builders, constructivists, the like. It's a tougher alignment to get your head around than what you would assume at first, but rewarding to play and watch if done right.

My favorite villains are the ones that think they're doing the right thing. Notice I didn't say, "think they're doing good." There's a huge different between "right" and "good". The best villains aren't the ones twirling their mustache and rubbing their hands over a damsel tied to railroad tracks. They're the ones you find yourself - often to your complete surprise - kind of rooting for. The TV show and character "Dexter" is a perfect example. The character - a serial killer who only kills bad people - sums himself up with one perfect question: "Am I a good person doing bad things, or a bad person doing good things?"

Actually, I think villains work better if they're less sympathetic and more unapologetic yet effective in their evil, at least in gaming. There's nothing more satisfying than either being a bastard getting away with shit, or finally taking down whatever smug asshole who's been getting away with shit.
Then again, has anyone ever actually role-played that kind of amoral character, not just someone who's off kilter with their morals?

 

[Paradox01]

Actually, I think villains work better if they're less sympathetic and more unapologetic yet effective in their evil, at least in gaming. There's nothing more satisfying than either being a bastard getting away with shit, or finally taking down whatever smug asshole who's been getting away with shit.
Then again, has anyone ever actually role-played that kind of amoral character, not just someone who's off kilter with their morals?

I didn't mean to imply bad guys who are evil for the sake of evil can't be effective. The baddies with morals are just way more interesting. Honestly, there's nothing more satisfying than taking down a maniacal psychopath who eats babies and kicks puppies, but the Tragic Villain makes for much better story telling.

 

[Evil]

Honestly, there's nothing more satisfying than taking down a maniacal psychopath who eats babies and kicks puppies

So funny story. Pathfinder has Iconics, characters who embody the class they represent, Valeros the Human Fighter, Merisiel the Elven Rogue and so on. Except the Anti-Paladin. He has no name, no real background, but essentially lives to troll Lawful Good characters.

There's artwork of him kick a...weird....humanoid-piglet thing...

And artwork of him trolling the Iconic paladin. Does she capture the villain or save the burning orphans?

So it just shows that evil gets to have a lot more fun.

 

[LonelyHydra]

I didn't mean to imply bad guys who are evil for the sake of evil can't be effective. The baddies with morals are just way more interesting. Honestly, there's nothing more satisfying than taking down a maniacal psychopath who eats babies and kicks puppies, but the Tragic Villain makes for much better story telling.

Not if it's easy for the psychopath to fall. For example, as the lynchpin of an Evil Empire. If the writer answers the question of how a villain gets away with shit, moral ambiguity seems unnecessary to me. It just shifts the focus to the setting, rather than the villain.
For a Tragic Villain to work, the important question for the writer to answer is how he is not the hero of anyone elses' story but his own, demonstrating his wrongs as well as his rights. *Otherwise, you'd only get half of the title.
In both cases, the writer can give well-thought and interesting answers, or dumb and cliche ones.

 

[Grimoire]

I used to play a DnD session as a Lawful Evil Warlock. Being in a party was fun for me and the GM was keen on keeping me for nefarious reasons and our encounters always end up with my party wondering: "you know, maybe it isn't a good idea having a warlock serving Mephistopheles serving as our guide on our quest after getting raped in our last campaign by said Infernal!" To which my GM said, "Nah, it'll be okay. TRUST me"

Three sessions in, I'm more powerful than our fireball happy mage, who thought every solution required more fireball. Made my character too good at being a utility character. Elderich Blast, anyone? I love my cantrips with little cooldown. Hadar Arms pissed off our trickster rogue so much she lost her shit mid-game because she wanted the kill.

I think alignments are great but not be the Be-All-To-End-All thing that makes a campaign or story seem restrictive. If I had to follow the "Lawful" tag every time I had to sneak off to rip souls out of the dead to please my dark masters, I'd get NOTHING done to keep him from ripping my soul out. Lawful doesn't mean a city's laws, it can also mean personal laws like Tieflings and Archdevils who make contracts and abide to their laws that don't sit well with the laws of mortals.

Principles also play into that on a case by case basis, so alignments can be more of a "Suggestion" and nudge players to play that particular way. But it shouldn't stop players to an extent that it becomes less fun to mess with people who do. I sure as hell loved sharpshooting my elderich blast to hit a apple off my party's crusader after one to many Smite spells backfiring on the party. Natural 20's baby, he got off easy and stopped rushing into dungeons and played it cool.

I miss DnD

 

[king of tentacle]

I tend to play the character over the alignment so evolving I guess
the method I use though is dependent on the starting point example:if we begin at the characters home town and they are about 6 or 12 or have lived a very sheltered life then they start neutral (out of ignorance rather than choice i.e innocence) later on their actions would then determine which alignment they would lean toward generally in relation to the values they develop along the way which would be constantly in flux depending on setting and character interactions. very fun doing this in a crpg and seeing where you end up by the end of the game (some one as pure heartedly innocent as season 1 finn can end as doctor doom because of how far they are willing to go to protect a friend or loved one, literally taking on the world for some one they care about I mean great power requires great sacrifice and taking on the world requires great power indeed)

the thing is it would be more interesting to see settings and worlds where rape cannibalism and outright depravity and degeneracy were the social and moral norms and not engaging in them was considered highly suspect and amoral! creating an alignment system with that in mind would be interesting especially for people who play hardlined good characters

 

[qwerty]

so i went on one of them what alignment are you websites...I answered every question with the honest to god truth. does this make me an evil person irl?
https://media.discordapp.net/attach...03996076112/unknown.png?width=1204&height=677

 

[Yuria]

Evul! Always evul!
If i can be evul - I'm gonna' be that one evul bitch.
Basically every game you get nowadays "Save those people, heal dem folks .. Free captives.. Be a hero .. Do not bang the princess because that'd be wrooong..." ..
No.
There is too much "You have to be the good guy" going on. I want freedom, i want to make my own decisions!
I don't like it when games force me to be "Good". Don't get me wrong, it's not bad to be good, lol, but it's getting .. Boring? .. Boring after a while.