But alignment is not a straitjacket for PCs (or anybody else) – it’s a reflection of their beliefs and their deeds. I don’t say “Bob is good; why is he kicking those puppies?” I say “Bob is kicking those puppies, so he might be evil.”

One of my players argues that good and evil are the same thing wearing different masks (slaying tons of orcs is OK, slaying tons of humans is not), but my view, as far as the game is concerned, is that this happens because the two different cosmic forces are being interpreted by the same divine and mortal beings.

The Books of Vile Darkness and Exalted Deeds do a pretty good job of laying out what acts constitute evil and which are good in D&D, and it’s quite useful in game terms, so I just roll with that.

Players then pick their patron god and they must be one step from that alignment (Neutral Evil god means you are Lawful Evil or Chaotic Evil).

It actually works well, but only because I forced the issue. Personally, I don’t care for it much. Mostly I don’t care about 3rd editions extensive use of spells and items that require alignment. I would rather have holy weapons of X instead of holy weapons of Good.

4th edition D&D at least goes with a more keyword concept and that should help keep the alignments more in check.

In short, I would say ignore alignment unless you have powers related to it — then declare it based on past character performance. I especially like the above comments that the GM chooses the alignment of his players.

Essentially, if you really do believe in an ethos so strongly that it’s burned into your soul, and you’d even make counter-intuitive decisions because your alignment pushes you a different direction, take the alignment. Doing so gives you access to WotC/SRD material, including spells and some classes. If you *don’t* have such beliefs, you’re in the AE system of magic, classes, etc…

It would probably be an unpublishable mess if I ever tried to document the thing fully, but with good understanding between all involved, and a willingness to house rule on the fly for anything I didn’t think of in advance, it’s been a lot of fun so far.

If I ever had to pick pure alignments or pure no-alignments, I’d drop them in a second.

~ John

In games like Shadowrun or the World of Darkness games, alignment would hamper the game. These are games that explore a “grittier” world where morality is subjective and everyone’s behavior falls into some shade of grey.

However, in a high fantasy game like D&D, Good and Evil are real, quantifiable things that have definite impact on the world the players inhabit. In this context alignment is almost a necessity.

This is not to suggest that alignment, even in D&D, should ever be used like a mental prison for the players. A good character can certainly, in a moment of fear or anger, commit an evil act, or an evil character can save the life of an innocent or donate to charity without having to immediately shift alignments.

I have seen a number of alignment like systems that do work. Pendragon’s Virtues and Personality Traits do an excellent job of constraining roleplay in a positive way, reminding you that knights [and citizens] have a different morality than today. Straight White Wolf morality (humanity) can work well for telling the tales they intend– but Paths just encourage shopping for the least restrictive constraints. Similarly, Nature and Demeanor give solid guidelines for roleplaying consistency and hint at more than surface motivations.

The big problem with Alignment is that it’s too many things. Is it a secret society, with a language (like 1e)? Is it a way to build intra-party conflict like White Wolf’s clans (so a Paladin questioning the assassin is intended)? Is it to ensure that only “good” heroes can wield holy weapons? Or to give the GM another excuse for throwing out experience point penalties and trying to drag the players to his ideal version of roleplaying?

Most systems, once they figure out what they’re trying to do, find a more tailored tool than alignment. Blue Rose’s conviction, Taint (shadowlands or Wheel of Time versions), Madness (DRYH or CoC versions), codes of conduct, etc. A game that does a good job of investigating conflicting moral codes is paladin.

To start with the seemingly most innocuous of the aligned spells, Detect Evil, in many of its incarnations has often been a problem for me, both in its ability to direct the PC’s towards that bad guys and in it’s often overzealous application by… well mostly by misplayed paladins.

As a player, I once got in a fight with one of those paladins over a nice magic weapon one of my lawful-neutral characters had, because it happened to have a daily use power of “Detect Good”. Apparently the weapon had a faint aura of evil about it. Fun.

As a DM, it’s always been the bane of my existence. From the thrice cursed detection spells, to the darned overpowered higher level aligned spells every cleric worth her salt always loaded up on, they’ve always been trouble. During the past few years, I’ve taken great pains to remove or replace any trace of alignment or alignment based spells from my game. Alignment has always been intertwined with the rules and while the effort of removal was worth it, it’s always a thorn in my side.

I like the 4e implementation of alignment. Mostly what I like is that it’s off in its own little section that can easily be ignored completely without having to cut off tendrils creeping into all parts of the game.

The first part of http://deviousplot.blogspot.com/2008/08/five-of-my-house-rules-that-4e.html is my praise for 4e’s alignment rules. Not that I think the 5 is better than 9.

I like whitewolf’s nature and demeanor system better because it allows a multitude of options, but in the end it is the same type of thing.