The "Problem" with Alignments
The first, best thing you can do to better understand alignments is to read the *@#% rules! I mean read the whole PHB and DMG sections on alignment. Parts of it are wrong, unfortunately, but it’s the best way to start. It’s astonishing to see the number of people who say "Alignment should be this, or do that," to which I find I need to scream in reply, "It DOES you dimwit you just didn’t read the book!" Most commonly, the only part of the Alignment sections anybody has bothered to read are the little shorthand blurbs for the nine alignments. These are undoubtedly the worst part to read – certainly without also reading the stuff around them. If you do read the stuff around them you’ll undoubtedly understand that what those blurbs are telling you is precisely what your character believes and how he will act. This is directly contrary to the idea that alignment is NOT meant to dictate what, precisely, your character believes and how, specifically, he will act.
For now, go ahead and read the whole section of both books, but don’t take those blurbs as laws carved in stone as to how your character should act. Instead, come back here and read the following. It’s mostly a rephrasing of what you will have just read (with a bit of my own spin as well), but in all modesty I’ve phrased it much better. Compare what I’ve written and what the rules say. I can only hope you’ll agree with me, but even if you don’t you’ll at least have a FAR better understanding of what alignment is SUPPOSED to be.
What Is Alignment?
It's a role-playing guideline to be used by players as a generalized reference of morals and ethics to assist in deciding on their character's patterns of behavior or specific actions.
It is not meant to dictate those choices - ever - but simply to help keep a character's behavior reasonable and consistent.
It is not the same thing as a character's religion. Alignment and religion play off each other but are not meant to be interchangeable.
It is not a substitute for a character's personality. The player is still supposed to make the character's ultimate moral and ethical decisions for him using the character's alignment as a reference. Alignment doesn't TELL you anything about your character's personality - it only SUGGESTS certain things about it.
Alignment is not a substitute for a characters personal, detailed set of philosophical beliefs. In that respect it’s like religion – alignment has something to say about a character’s philosophy but doesn’t constitute the whole of a characters personal philosophical beliefs.
It is not something for the DM to be hammering over the heads of players at every turn. All the usefulness of an alignment system is wasted if the players hate the very thought of it because the DM is trying to use their alignments to make the PLAYER characters do what HE wants them to do.
Using Alignment
Rule # 1: Actions determine alignment - alignment doesn't determine actions.
Players and DM's may lose the NEED to use alignment, but that doesn't make it any less useful in general, nor does it mean it ought to be dropped. The more experience a player has with his character the better he will know how he wants him to behave because he knows how he’s acted in the past. The longer a player has had opportunity to do this with a number of characters in a variety of situations the less he needs the crutch of alignment for running his character. The moral and ethical decisions for role-playing a character come more easily. Still, even an experienced player can use a little guidance or correction from time to time and alignment should still be there for that.
Players are the ultimate decision-makers for their characters. If the DM feels that a PC action constitutes a violation of alignment then he should first warn the player of the slippery slope he may be on. Even if the player still insists, the DM ought to give a second warning including what penalties are going to be levied. Only then, if the player remains committed to his character’s course of action, should he be allowed to go through with it, but the consequences that the DM warned him of should be applied.
Alignment can and does change. A new character should be given two, perhaps even three levels for a grace period during which the player can adjust his character’s behavior, or adjust his alignment to suit how he’s playing, without penalty. Sometimes a player comes to find that the alignment he chose just doesn't fit the character he's running. Even after this grace period alignments should often be allowed to change as a natural result of events in the game. Remember that alignment is a guide to role-playing. Role-playing the changing morals and ethics of a character because of game events is GOOD role-playing. It makes the game and the character more fun and interesting because the characters are not static but reacting realistically to the world.
Penalties for alignment violations should be adjusted according to their severity. Start with warnings followed by a small percentage penalties to XP if a penalty is necessary. The progression I’d recommend would be 5%, 10%, 25%, 50%, and 100%. This doesn’t mean follow that progression religiously either. I repeat; penalties should be adjusted higher or lower as is warranted.
Alignment should be measured over the course of time. An alignment doesn't tell you specifically what a character should do in all situations. It isn't supposed to be able to define a character's behavior down to a 'T' so don't try to make it do that. Alignment is primarily to be measured in the light of trends in behavior rather than specific actions.
DM's should explain clearly BEFOREHAND how they expect characters of certain alignments to behave and why. Waiting for a character to violate his alignment (usually it’s just the DM who thinks he has) and then inflicting severe punishments without warning is unacceptable. Any DM who does so should be flogged. Suppose a player has difficulty with his DM's interpretation of alignment and in his DM's view can't seem to stick with an alignment? If the character is not of an alignment dependent class (such as a Paladin or Druid) then here's a good way to handle it. Have the player simply play what HE thinks is a consistent alignment and let the DM decide what that alignment is specifically according to his personal interpretations. So long as the character's behavior remains reasonable and reasonably consistent then alignment is serving it's purpose for all concerned.
Alignment deviations are common occurrences even for such behaviorally restricted characters as Paladins. Not every deviation needs to be punished, and not every punishment needs to be to the same harsh degree. A correction of or simple acknowledgement of trends is all that is generally needed.
When alignments do change, in many cases they require only a recording of the change on the character sheet, but not a punishment to go along with it. Moving one alignment place at a time over the course of time - especially as a reaction to campaign events - is perhaps even to be encouraged.
Penalties for alignment missteps need to factor in things like the severity of the alignment deviation, the suddenness of it, and the degree to which it is supported by game events as opposed to arbitrary changes. The degree to which the campaign may be needlessly and detrimentally disrupted because of a big alignment change of a character is also to be considered.
Alignment changes by PC's should still be VERY well considered. An alignment-of-the-week character is neither believable nor much fun for other players to have their characters interact with. Also, the player himself risks being unable to ever get a solid fix on how his character should behave.
Misinterpreting Alignment
"Lawful" as an alignment element is NOT to be equated with crime-and-punishment, courts-and-jails, and king's decrees kind of laws. The opposite of Lawful after all is not UNlawful or Lack of Law, but Chaotic. So, what we're talking about here is more generalized. It's a belief in, and often (but not necessarily guaranteed) promotion of order and structure in the universe. The passing and enforcement of laws in a society is perhaps a common outcome of that, but legal systems of pseudo-medieval societies are not that cut and dried. They are rarely, if ever, as comprehensive and codified as modern legal systems. Even if they are, such things are still highly subject to the personal whims and goals of those in power. You just can't be making blanket statements such as that lawful characters believe in laws, live in organized societies, or that they believe the relationships between governments and people exist naturally. Alignment is not that precise and the philosophical doctrines that form the basis for creation of societies are far more complex than that.
Lawfulness implies neither a lack of individualism, nor a particular preference for organized groups.
"Chaotic" as an alignment element is NOT to be equated with bizarre, irrational, nonsensical behavior. It indicates more about how the character sees his place in the world. It would seem to suggest that the character sees little or no consequence for his actions but that doesn't mean that he will then act insanely, without reason, self-direction, or personal control. It is my argument that insane characters have no alignment because they are by definition acting without reason or according to a personal philosophy.
Chaoticism does not mean a character believes in anarchy or imply that he despises all social organizations.
Neutrality is not an independent alignment element, which is separated from the extremes such that the three elements are represented by a triangle each pulling away from the other. Instead, it should be represented as the midpoint on a line segment with the extremes on either end. Neutrality is the middle ground between the extremes, not a completely separate element.
Perceptions of what is good and evil are at least somewhat subject to what the socially accepted norms of those extremes are. It is possible that what is Good in one society would be perceived as evil in another. These are, however, perceptions. For most game purposes, what is good, what is evil and what is in between is fairly fixed and clearly understood. Characters should be able to rest assured in the knowledge that certain creatures are inherently Evil, that often as not they make their own authority, and that creatures who only moments before were doing their best to kill you are no less Evil or executable for having surrendered.
I strongly suggest that you make a distinction between an alignment of Neutral/Neutral and True Neutral. True Neutral alignment is really a distinct interpretational subset of a NN alignment. It essentially says that the four extremes of Law, Chaos, Good and Evil are, or should be, perfectly balanced. While this is obviously possible under NN it is neither the definitive definition of NN, nor the interpretation that necessarily need be used by Druid characters.
Alignment does not dictate the laws, customs, or attitudes of a society. The most it can do is imply and suggest – and that only to a limited degree. The alignment of a society is only a VERY rough average of the alignments of the people in it with the alignment of its ruler factored in as well. Because of this I prefer to say that a society doesn’t really have an alignment and applying alignment rules to a society, as a whole must only be done on a highly superficial basis. Past history can affect societal attitudes too. Consider a society constantly at war with its neighbors. Citizens might be quite nice to each other implying one alignment, but act very differently to outsiders implying another.
Because of the aggregate nature of a societal "alignment" it’s quite obvious that the extremes of alignment are seldom if ever going to be reflected by an entire society. Again, though, a ruler will tend to give his nation the veneer of his own alignment. The "alignment" of a society simply cannot dictate what type of government it is comprised of or how it is run. There are too many variables; too many very different alignments playing off each other on a large scale to make logical predictions. And remember that alignment in and of itself is a very generalist guideline in the first place.
Alignments within a society, region, even within a given city will often Balkanize to a greater or lesser degree so that there are variations within them. Not every nation or society can even be adequately "defined" by an alignment.
Alignment is taken from the viewpoint of the character. So, characters from different societies may be of the same alignment yet be diametrically opposed to each other on many things.
Abusing Alignment
Knowingly introducing a PC into a party who has an alignment that is diametrically opposed to others in the party is possible, but is a very bad idea for reasons that should be obvious. A player who attempts this is always (in my experience at least) simply being an ass. They are looking for kicks by creating trouble, or attempting a power trip through being able to have their character "permitted" to misbehave. Nobody has the right to needlessly disrupt the game this way. It is not an unwarranted restriction on the players to insist that they be reasonable about their choice of alignments. Playing a game with severe PC alignment conflicts can be done of course, but unless all concerned are mature people as well as experienced role-players it's not worth it.
Players must be made aware that just because their character's alignment allows certain behavior doesn't mean that they should go through with it. Even if character A can kill character B because his alignment is suitable is not a good enough reason to disrupt the game by needlessly killing of another players favorite PC. While inter-PC alignment friction is almost inevitable (and a certain amount makes a more interesting game) players MUST understand that screwing up the game for one player, much less for everyone on such a shallow, pathetic excuse is not acceptable.
Even behaviorally restricted characters like Paladins should not be obsessed with alignment - their own as well as others. Some people play paladins by doing little more than constantly examining all the other character's behavior as compared to their own and in turn compared to their alignment. This hyperfocus on alignment is bad for two reasons. First, it replaces the character's personality with his alignment as if that alone determines who the character is. Second, it mistakenly attempts to use alignment to dictate what the character's actions should be. Paladins ARE quite often inserted into settings where there isn't an appropriate background that gives them a proper foundation for their strict code of behavior. Chivalry, knightly orders, and even genuine feudal governments all help to establish a setting where they belong and where their strict behavior doesn't require such constant justification through alignment.
Choosing a new alignment out of the blue is tolerable but punishable. It should be discouraged unless the old alignment is more disruptive to the game than the new one.
Having a character’s alignment forcibly changed, such as by a cursed item, is NOT an alignment violation of any kind. Punishing the character further for being unable to affect things that are by definition beyond the control of the character as well as the player is stupid.
Alignment Definitions
Lawful-Neutral-Chaotic comprises the ethos/ethical alignment factor, Good-Neutral-Evil comprises the moral factor. Morals and ethics are words that have very closely related definitions. Morals has more to do with accepted notions of what’s right and wrong and conforming to established sanctioned codes of behavior. Ethics involves more subtle or difficult questions of what’s fair and equitable, and impartiality. Given this, I suggest the following "definitions" (remember, alignment is a fairly vague concept) for differentiating between alignments.
Lawful/_?
Implies a character whose views are of a more orderly world – that the universe has certain "rules" and that there are consequences associated with breaking or going against those rules. Common reflections of this belief might be an organized society, code of laws, or membership in an association that attempts to establish or follow along with a regulated universe. He may feel that the world is NOT ordered and simply seeks to make it that way.Chaotic/_?
The opposite of Lawful, this would be a character who sees little or no order in the universe, and few or no consequences to ones actions. Such a character doesn’t necessarily believe that this is the way it should be (although that’s possible). He doesn’t necessarily try to advance and further the level of Chaos in the universe. More likely he simply sees this as the way the world IS, and that such things as codes of law, and other such personal and social organization are relatively pointless, or simply ineffectual.Neutral/_?
The ethically Neutral character is in between the above two extremes. The world is neither eminently ordered as a Lawful character might believe, nor is it random and haphazard as a Chaotic character might think. It’s somewhere in between so his ethos is likely to contain elements of both; that there is some order and consequence for actions but there are random elements to the universe too, so occasionally the consequences are disproportionate or nonexistent. He may think that social conventions are generally a good idea but that they often don’t work or have unintended effects. Such a character may actually feel that the world ought to be different but that this is the way it IS.?_/Good
There are all kinds of adjectives that might be associated with Goodness: honorable, virtuous, just, kind, benevolent. This is not to say that a Good character MUST be all of these things. Perhaps it’s best to say that a Good character believes that these are attributes to be striven for and maintained as best as can be managed. This leaves leeway for good characters to be brash or annoying, temperamental, stupid, or in general to simply fail to be what he could be or feels he should be.?_/Evil
There are just as many adjectives for Evil: dishonorable, deceptive, abusive, cruel, immoral, and more. As before, an Evil character is not necessarily at his worst, most foul and antagonistic behavior at all times. Only that the capacity for these things is always there and that they know no limits to the depth of their depravity. This means that an Evil character can be charming, cooperative, and for all appearances a nice guy. But it’s a façade that is not likely to last long unless the character is particularly determined and capable of maintaining such a deception.?_/Neutral
As with the other form of aligned Neutrality, this is not a third extreme but a middle ground between extremes. There is no particular implication of selfishness. If anything it’s an Evil character that is most likely to be selfish, but a Neutral character is more likely than a Good character. Instead, this is a character who might see those attributes of a Good character as being just as laudable, but impractical or not worth the effort.
Wrapping Up
I won’t go into further detail for each possible alignment combination. It would not only be tedious, but you should be quite capable of combining the above into descriptions for each of the nine alignments. There’s plenty of room for individuality among like-aligned characters yet sufficient differentiation for each specific alignment combination to stand out from the others. Combine this with the rest of the notes above about how to use and NOT use alignment and your difficulties with the alignment system should be over. If there’s something I’ve missed that isn’t covered here please drop me a line.
If, after all this, you remain unconvinced of the usefulness of alignment then there’s generally two approaches. Dropping it altogether is the first and probably most reasonable course. As I said, good players don’t have as much of a need of an alignment system because they are more likely to be able to restrict their character’s behavior to what is reasonable and consistent without a written reference. Their past experience as players with a variety of characters and situations provides all the reference they need - provided they are responsible enough to stick to it. After all, plenty of other RPG’s make do without anything resembling alignment. Just don’t be surprised if you get a player who simply can’t or won’t run a consistent character. It’s going to be far more likely to happen in a game without an alignment system than with one.
Expanding or replacing the system altogether is the more mystifying approach to me. Unless the intent IS to use it to dictate what a character may or may not do in certain situations, a highly accurate and comprehensive system of morals and ethics is a waste of time. If the intent is to do what alignment is already intended to do – to act as a guideline for behavior – then why do your guidelines need to be so comprehensive and fiendishly accurate? They are only guidelines aren't they? You’re not trying to make the players choices for them are you? High accuracy in an alignment system has no purpose other than to do just that.
Edited and converted to html by: Lord Alcarius Blackdrake