D+D -I hate the alignment system

[Harkovast]

Gary Gygax was a truely great man, who accomplished amazing things.
He changed the lives of millions of sad teenagers who struggled to get girl friends.
But he did make one fundamental mistake when he wrote dungeons and dragons.
The alignment system.
WHAT
THE
HELL?!
A system where everyone ticks of box when they are born to decide if they are good or evil?! Yes because that is how life works!
In a story, I would say someone who changes over time, becomming more evil or more noble was showing character growth and was more realistic.
Not so in D and D (and the hundreds of other games that bizzarely borrow this ridiculous rule), where you are penalised for this sort of thing! You lose masses of exp if you dont behave in exactly the same way everyday!
Utter crap!
Try imagining all your friends and work out what their alignments are. The answer, of course, is it varies!
Everyone in the real world follows some rules and breaks others. Everyone is good sometimes and bad others.
"Oh no" the alignment defenders cry "But alignment is what your character aspires too, even though he may not always live up to it"
Bullshit!
Hitler aspired to be good and worked hard to do what he saw as the right thing. He only killed people he thought were the bad guys after all.
And he was good at organising things and like rules and uniforms.
So I guess he was lawful good.
Let me reiterate my key point- BULLSHIT!
As hitler proves, everyone, even the msot twisted of villians, aspires to be good. No one sets out thinking "I will be an aweful person today!". Everyone thinks they are the hero in their own story.
Why do we even need this lable in the game?!
When I watch a film I dont need lables next to their names to say who is good or bad! Cant characters be a little more complex?!
What about (as happened in a game we are playing) my good wizard captures the final bad guy and is so angry at the guys (many many) horrific crimes that he badly injures the bad guy after he has surrendered.
At the time it seemed really dramatic, that the wizard had been pushed too far after witnessing the villians crimes and had crossed the line.
In rule terms I should lose exp for not playing it "good enough".
Bollocks says I!
Alignment is a left over from earlier editions that should have been killed off a long time ago.

"I WROTE THIS IN CHAOTIC EVIL ALIGNMENT LANGUAGE, SO ONLY THOSE AS EVIL AS ME WILL UNDERSTAND."

[Arashi]

One thing you should do Harkovast is NOT PLAY COMPLETELY BY THE BOOK! DnD has allowed people to ameliorate the rules to their liking. They're malleable to the point where you actually create your own game while utilizing some of the fundamental rules of DnD, you're definately not limited to sticking to the specifics in the books. In fact, this is an even better way to play; it requires more creativity, wit, and imagination.

As for the alignment system, I've never had much of an issue with it and I've actually used it for games of my own. It can be a little odd how it works and it's definately not perfect, but I found it to be a good way to arrange one's ethics and loyalties lay.

I have, however, had much difficulty figuring where my alignment is. I'm either Chaotic Good or Chaotic Neutral. : \

[Harkovast]

In real life everyone is neutral, because we sometimes do good, sometimes do bad.
But no one is true neutral because that is the joke alignment that makes no sense and is unplayable.

I almost never play completely by the book- actually the current game we are playing of completely straight old school d +d is the first time I've payed something completely by the book in years.

But though I can ignore any feature of any game I like, that is no excuse for the games designers to leave in crap that should obviously have been removed long ago.
They cant print tat and then say "change it if you don't like it". If I am going to change the whole thing, why did I buy the game in the first place?!?!

Personally, I still consider games without any rules to be superior, since they avoid all the power gaming and unrealistic nonsense (like going up levels and hit points) that all rule systems end up introducing.


"DOWN WITH DICE!"

[Ironscarfs]

Ah yes, me and my friends used to play that game with no rules and no dice and no points, but we used to call it "hanging around outside Woolworths, waiting for something to happen".

Sadly, it seems the board for this game will soon go out of production.

[Harkovast]

Power old woolies!
Everyone is sad to see it go, even though none of these sad people can honestly say they actually shop there.

"THE SHEEP AND DOG FROM THE ADVERTS WILL NOW BE PUT DOWN!"

[Stain]

The way I see it, the alignment system makes sense when you apply it more to their intentions rather than their actions. For example, if somebody accidentally saves the princess from an evil dragon when really he was just trying to rape his sister, he's still evil.

As far as everyone being neutral goes, I thought that over for a while... Then I stumbled upon a picture of Mother Teresa arm-wrestling Adolf Hitler...

... Okay, so I made that last part up. But the point I'm trying to make is that some people dedicate their lives to a cause... Some causes are good, some are evil. Are you going to tell me that Ghandi and Hitler were neutral aligned?!

[Arashi]

I don't think Ghandi or Hitler would be neutral-aligned. Nor would Mother Teresa.

I would love to see Mother Teresa kick Hitler's ass, though.

But yeah, I agree with Stain, who is better at explaining DnD related issues than I am.

[Harkovast]

But why do I need an alignment system at all?!
Bad people can do good things some off the time and vice versa.
Also Stain, if we are going on intentions- as I mentioned in my first post, Hitler intended to do good and believed he was eliminating the bad guys. So if we go by intentions, even hitler gets good alignment.
But if we go by results, not intentions, it means someone who does something bad on accident is just as evil aligned as the worst sort fo villian.
Either way it makes no sense but more importantly, it is completely pointless!
Why put in this silly rule, that makes no sense and does nothing to improve roleplaying (in fact it heavily limits your characters, meaning they have to be one dimensional and never change over time, unless you want to earn 0 exp).

"IT SERVES NO PURPOSE, LIKE STAR TREK ENTERPRISE!"

[Arashi]

Wait, then by what you're saying the whole alignment system is subjective. For instance, if Sephiroth saw what Hitler was doing, to Sephiroth, Hitler might be good. To most sane people, however, Hitler would be evil.

I doesn't the alignment system further the role playing value. You can always ignore it, it's not an integral part of the game, but I think it just spells out and clarifies what a person's intentions are.

Of course, don't consider what someone's alignment is to be immutable, nor consider it to be concrete. Players' deeds can cause their alignment to shift and even good characters can do bad things as bad characters can do good things.

[Harkovast]

Arashi, you make an excellent point about how subjective alignment is.
Everyone has a different deffinition of who is good adn who is evil.
We dont even have to go as far as hitler and seph (wow, thats practically a sitcom right there!).

Real world examples-
American soldier in iraq- To the americans he is good alignment, since he fights for freedom.
To muslims he is evil alignment because he is an invading soldier, following the orders of a corrupt government and showing diregard for civillian life.

or

Young woman wants an abortion, is she good because she is doing it so her other children can have a better quality of life, or is she evil for callously ending an unborn childs life?!

Now, you can argue that absolute objective morality exists in the universe, but if it does we have no way to prove what it is, so all morality is effectively subjective.

Alignment does not function when different people have a different view of what is good and evil (and EVERY facker seems to have a different opinion on this one).
When the orcs in the dungeon argue that they are the good guys becuase adventurers keep comming into their home (ie dungeon) to kill and rob them, I want to have a better come back than "Well your alignment says you are the abd guys so killing you is okay!"
Alignment sucks, it hinders good roleplaying, and should be disgarded.

"USING ALIGNMENT MAKES YOU LAWFUL STUPID!"

[Arashi]

Good examples, Harkovast. Better than what I could come up with.

In the realm of DnD, I think that one's alignment is more lucid and based less on perspective than in real life. Being a very polytheistic world, there are worshipers of gods who consider themselves and their followers of evil, such as Lolth and Erythnul (sp?!) while others strive for peace and the well-being of others. In the situation that you mentioned about the orcs in the cave with a treasure, I would consider the adventurers to be Neutral, Chaotic, and/or Evil aligned (as opposed to Lawful Good) unless their purpose was for something more vindicative than gold (e.g. a rescue mission, defeating an expanding evil cult, etc.).

The alignment system does have its flaws, that's incontrovertable. In a way, I consider it to be a handicap for people who aren't experienced in role-playing. It definately helps me give personality to my characters, since I have so many, and it's kind of fun to experiment and play with.

[Harkovast]

When I want to make my character interesting....I tend to just try and think of an interesting personality.
If I get stuck I copy someone off television or free associate a few words and concepts till something sticks.

"DIE ORC DIE!"

[Arashi]

That seems pretty close to my method, too.

[Harkovast]

Or the old classic-
Start talking in a funny accent and do what ever personality comes naturally while doing that accent.
Try it for yourself.
It is hard not to get into character while doing a silly voice!

"MY CHARACTER IS LAWFUL FRENCH!"

[Stain]

Dec 5, 2008 8:25:25 GMT -5 Harkovast said:

It is hard not to get into character while doing a silly voice!

I agree with you there, as it happens to me in regular conversation all the time...

... Seriously. It does. I like to do impressions during conversations.