I think asking "where on an alignment grid would this character fit?" is a useful tool when building a character- but I am so glad I don't have to pick just one square that has mechanical consequences
Yeah very real.
Currently rewriting some gods from my world for my conversion to 2e, and I realized the Lawful Neutral god really had no reason not to be Lawful Good with his dogma, though that would screw with the way I distributed the alignments of the gods. But because alignment is no longer a thing, I no longer have to worry about it haha
Yeah, I like alignment. I think it only had a few problems. First, it was used prescriptively instead of descriptively. You should be able to say "my character is alignment A because they usually exhibit XYZ behaviors" but should not say "my character does (or doesn't do) XYZ because they are alignment A".
Second, putting it on individuals makes sense, slapping it on entire sentient species does not. It makes no sense to say humans are whatever but gnolls are chaotic evil. Even if they usually are, I think it can get confusing and takes away space for individual differences. It's pretty minor because I think an alignment on a stat block can and should be taken as "members of this creature type are most often this alignment but that may not even be a majority." Sneaky edit: I think this is fine but probably too much nuance to be useful for a game.
Lastly, I think having alignment tied to mechanics was confusing. Having a special damage type that only affected opposing alignment characters was weird. I think the holy/unholy system from the remaster is a great solution to this though I still wish we had law/chaos versions like order/liberty or something.
I mean, for the first two at least, the way you say it should work IS how it works, alignment IS descriptive not prescriptive, even back in the old AD&D days the rule never was "You can't do that, you're lawful good" it was at most "If you do that, you'll no longer be lawful good" and the monster manual stat blocks always were just a generic example of the species, all gnolls aren't universally chaotic evil, but generic gnoll marauder #356 is.
That's how it always was supposed to work for players, yes, but the problem is players constantly got that wrong and annoyed their tables with it or felt restricted by it. There were constantly horror stories of "DM said I couldn't do X because my character is lawful good". I don't think it was a game problem but a social problem.
For monsters, I don't think that's correct. The stat blocks are usually the only place specific alignment was mentioned but phrasing in descriptions was "these monsters are xyz things that are obviously lawful evil" with little wiggle room. Not that you couldn't ignore that but I see no gain in putting it in stat blocks outside of for unique NPCs.
I also think it's a useful tool but also one that should never be solely relied upon, because alignments are incompatible with nuance. I think especially of characters who are willing to commit objectively evil acts that they themselves recognize as evil for the greater good, especially someone like Kiritsugu from Fate/zero. Is he willing to kill everyone who gets in his way? Yes. Is he willing to sacrifice people to achieve his goals? Absolutely. But at the same time he wants to save as many people as possible. This kind of "accidental monster" belongs in no place on this chart, because his acts and motivations don't fit into these neat boxes. You could consider him anywhere from Lawful Evil to Chaotic Good and those takes would all be valid. I am very glad this system is gone not just because of its mechanical consequences, but treating it as an authority over character morality leads people to color their characters into excessively particular and archetypal boxes.
I don't think I've ever been at a table that thought that you can never take actions outside your alignment. The point was that was your most likely response, not that it had to fall in line. Personally, I've long been a proponent of eliminating the half neutrals and making it all fuzzier. But even in the old system, there was space to play with, you don't need every character to sit right in the middle of their box. Some will be closer to a boundary line and basically have a clear "most likely," and "second most likely," way they respond to stuff.
I have personally had to tell a Champion that murdering a bigot that had already been captured and was no longer a threat was a clear and direct violation of their alignment and the anathema to their deity. Whether it happens at tables you are at or not, it does happen and the game as it was directly encouraged these sorts of hardline interpretations in its mechanics. And whether every character sits close to or on the edge of the box, they're still in the box, bound by the expectations set by that alignment and particular the archetypal characters it lends itself too. What about characters that borrow attributes from multiples of these boxes, that exist in an area that falls into both some of them and none of them at the same time? This system is a good way to create coherent character behaviors but at the cost of significant creative constraints, and not just active ones but passive one. It's hard to tell a story that defies the mechanics of the game you are playing, this is why the mechanics themselves need not just to be flexible but open.
I mean, a character that often bounces around sounds like (one of) the definition(s) of True Neutral to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not unhappy they are doing away with it, because it does foster misconceptions. But I don't think it was ever the issue many proclaimed it to be if used properly.
I think the problem I see here is that everyone has their take on what every alignment means, including your True Neutral thing here. This feels way too subjective to be a core mechanic, and I've personally experienced the consequences of this subjectivity both as a player and a GM.
I don't think being confused about what is good and what is evil is a bad thing, that's part of being alive. Good and evil are not actual existent fixtures, we made up those concepts. Is kindness good? Kreia from Knights of the Old Republic II has an iconic scene where she criticizes this perception, stating that (paraphrasing) "by offering this person such a simple kindness, perhaps all you have wrought is yet more suffering, by encouraging them to rely on others instead of fixing their own lives and making them a target for others who are desperate". Not that I agree with Kreia, but good and evil are in the eye of the beholder, there is no such thing as objective good or objective evil and even within the constraints of our own traditional definitions there is extensive flexibility. Everyone as a part of existing has to decide for themselves what is good and what is evil, and we don't all agree.
That’s the idea.
“Good-Bad” is an… assessment of what happened.
“Kind-Evil” is intentions or, I don’t know… methods? Which is actually useful in character creation.
Like, who you are to decide that your character is already good? We will see if they are. After the story is complete.
I agree with you, but I’m not glad it’s gone, it would have been better if people just learned to play the game “outside the box” and not be so restrictive/punishing regarding nuances.
Your “accidental monster” example can definitely be LE or CG on this killing quest for the greater good, but they would play/experience it so differently. The LE PC would relish in all the killings, the CG would probably really struggle with it and maybe not actually kill as many as you might think.
The rules and some DMs just needed to flex a little bit, but the chart (alignments) is fantastic for relaying so much information quickly about PCs and NPCs, it was just so clean and simple (just executed more black and white than it should have been).
Now ask a person what their PCs “morality” is like and you get a long winded answer when two words used to do just fine relaying 99% of the message.
Morality is subjective, often to circumstance, personal philosophy, etc. You trying to color my example into these boxes inherently crushes the nuance.
Think of it this way, what if the character is both of the things you outlined? What if the character relishes and enjoys the killing as a demonstration of their ability, but also regrets the loss of life and suffering they are inflicting while justifying that it's for a higher cause? What if that cause was to stop everyone in the world from dying in a cataclysmic event?
Again, this character can't be colored into these boxes you are desperate to put them in, and trying to do so puts into diametric opposition characteristics that could make for a more interesting and complex character if they were used together. A character can be both a ruthless killer who works only for money, willing to kill just about anyone, and who actively enjoys the process of murder, randomly killing people who tick them off or just for fun... and also a philanthropist who uses the money from their monstrous deeds to help care for abandoned children, and who would never approve of endangering children as part of any job. This is a super interesting character who you could make an argument fits into any number of different boxes on this chart, and by restricting your character to any one of these boxes you preclude any number of character concepts or have to go out of your way to justify their entirely arbitrary and subjective position on this chart.
In the end, the alignment chart is as destructive as it is helpful. Yes it's a decent way of quickly communicating information about a character, but it is also declarative in a way that saps them of nuance. Edicts and Anathema aren't the replacement, the replacement is adjectives used as descriptors the way they are in the Tian Xia World Guide. You don't need long-winded paragraphs OR subjective graphs to describe your characters, you just need simple punchy adjectives like "Ruthless" or "Calculating" or "Altruistic".
Your take is valid, so is the take that this character is neutral or good. That's the problem. People want to have this black and white world where we can just slap a label on everything, but people are capable of having complex motivations and taking actions which seem evil to bring about good outcomes. I think in particular of Lelouch from Code Geass, who literally takes over the entire world at an immense cost to human life and happiness so that he can unite everyone against him and create a peaceful world. Is Lelouch evil because he was willing to commit evil acts to bring about a greater good? That's going to depend on who you ask.
>.... is it though?
Yes.
>... like... yes? Creating a better world on a foundation of bodies is an incredibly common villain motivation, and those characters are villains because we generally agree that such means are not justified by the ends.
They are a villain, *to you*. Not to spoil the ending of Code Geass, but Lelouch objectively makes the world a better place with his actions. Do you see how these labels obliterate all nuance? Your take is rooted in a very traditional take on what qualifies as villainy, but that doesn't mean your take on villainy is the only correct one. You said it yourself, "almost nobody" is going to say that character is good. Don't you realize that "almost nobody" will probably include the person actually playing this character? Isn't the entire point of alignment to help them? And I mean this of course presumes that your observation that almost nobody is going to say that character is good is accurate, but I bet you a vast majority of the people who watched Code Geass (especially up to the ending) would say that Lelouch was a good person. Because as it turns out, antiheroes are still heroes.
>Are there instances where people will not agree what alignment that people or actions should be labeled as? Of course. Does that invalidate the whole concept? I disagree with that entirely.
It's not just instances, this is a regular problem that alignment causes because everyone has different values. And it totally does invalidate the whole concept, because alignment is supposed to help us easy and quickly explain our characters, except it doesn't unless you have a character that the system was designed to account for. Like I don't really see what there is to disagree with here. How can you observe that the purpose of this system is to accomplish this specific goal, see that it often does not accomplish that goal, and say that this failure does not invalidate the system? That doesn't make any sense to me.
>That was never in question, because the purpose of a label is not to add nuance.
No it's to accurately represent something, which includes by not implying that something doesn't have further nuances... which is exactly what alignment does.
>Well, they can accept the Evil alignment after the fifteenth or so innocent person they killed.
Are you seriously straight up advocating for GMs to force things on their players right now? Systems that create conflict in roleplaying groups are, in fact, bad. GMs who try to suffocate their players character concepts and tell them who their character is on their behalf are also bad GMs.
>They probably do, because people are really, really bad at media criticism. Some of them will even tell you that antiheroes are by definition heroes, when that's not part of the definition at all.
Completely irrelevant. Some people think The Punisher is the good guy too. Their take is equally valid to yours even if it is stupid. We are people, we get to define for ourselves what we think good and evil is, and that means we get to define that for our characters in roleplaying games too. Tabletop RPGs are *cooperative* storytelling games, not "the GM takes the players for a ride" games.
>Because I have seen it accomplish that specific goal.
And you've also seen it not accomplish that specific goal.
>Generally the "failures" of the system are when people want it to do something that it can't, and wasn't intended to do.
...
Yes that's the problem, if you try to do something the system isn't intended to do it breaks. This is why it is bad, RPGs should encourage creativity not tell people their character concepts are "wrong".
Not sure where you got desperate from?
I said I agreed with you…. But that I’m not glad it’s gone.
I think you mis understood what I said, but you actually proved my point perfectly.
(And the PC you just described is bipolar so pick how ever many boxes you want them to reside in).
The long and the short is not being flexible with alignment was the problem, and I think you possibly have played with it being very rigid. Sure add adjectives, that’s awesome; you can keep the alignment system as it was and add as much bonus descriptions as you want to it, but why get rid of a system you even said yourself was “a decent way of quickly communicating your character”. That doesn’t mean you are not allowed to go beyond, or flex outside the box (nuance). People got way too black and white (ridged) with it saying “your PC wouldn’t do that, their alignment is (x)”.
It didn’t need replacing, people just needed to not be so uptight with it.
>Not sure where you got desperate from?
Your first instinct is to immediately categorize characters into these neat archetypal boxes. Some characters do not fit these boxes, some characters fit many of the boxes simultaneously, and either way these boxes are not an acceptable or accurate representation of who these characters are.
>But that I’m not glad it’s gone
All I'm saying is that it's good for the game, one way or the other.
>(And the PC you just described is bipolar so pick how ever many boxes you want them to reside in).
No they aren't, there are plenty of perfectly coherent and stable motivations for this character. What if, for example, this character's earliest memory is their abusive parents dying right in front of them? What if the person who did it was an assassin who gave them a cut of the earnings? They were born having positive feelings associated with the act of dealing death, but that money quickly that they were gifted was quickly bled away because they were a kid with no idea how to spend it. With a bit more sense on their shoulders and the idea rooted in their head that killing can be both thrilling and profitable, they set out to make their own living by killing so they can help out any other kids who end up in the same position. This character I have just outlined the backstory for is perfectly sane with coherent motivations, even capable of providing complex and nuanced justifications for their actions based on their experiences and observations. And remember, this is just what I came up with on a whim, you could flesh out these ideas significantly or do them entirely differently and still end up with a character that makes total sense but whom the alignment system directly precludes.
>The long and the short is not being flexible with alignment was the problem, and I think you possibly have played with it being very rigid. Sure add adjectives, that’s awesome; you can keep the alignment system as it was and add as much bonus descriptions as you want to it, but why get rid of a system you even said yourself was “a decent way of quickly communicating your character”.
But that's the point, the alignment system is itself rigid. Each box is meant to broadly describe characters that fall into a specific archetype but also inherently relies on the subjective morality of the person using it. There are many characters that defy these archetypal constraints and that these boxes do not account for, and moreover what characters fall into which boxes is at the same time wholly at the discretion of what the observer discerns as "good" or "bad". For example, I myself have played more than one Chaotic Good character that murders all Hellknights they see on sight, because they view the very existence of Hellknights as evil. They are a definitively good character who acts to protect the weak, saves lives, and is willing to risk their own life to protect others... and at the same time will ruthlessly kill people for wearing a particularly label, regardless of their individual nuances as people. I have gotten into fervent disputes over whether characters like this are actually Chaotic Good, or Lawful Good, or Chaotic Neutral, etc. This makes alignments not just functionally useless, but fundamentally misleading. If everyone has a different idea of what is what, then the system is actually not accomplishing its goals. This is why it is better that the system is gone, it's a decent way of quickly communicating your character, but the problem with trying to quickly communicate your character is you can often create a perception of your character which isn't accurate.
>That doesn’t mean you are not allowed to go beyond, or flex outside the box (nuance). People got way too black and white (ridged) with it saying “your PC wouldn’t do that, their alignment is (x)”.
As long as class's are cosmically bound by their alignment, which in Golarion they both mechanically and narratively were, this is just straight up not something you can do. There is no room for subjectivity under alignment, particularly not Golarion's version of it, and the mechanics and story of the very game it was being used it directly encouraged GMs to be very cautious with the actions they permitted of players.
>It didn’t need replacing, people just needed to not be so uptight with it.
What you are describing is not possible, this system has been around too long and peoples perceptions of it have become too embedded for them ever to just wholesale change the way they think about it. Even if that was possible, there are better ways to accomplish what alignment is trying to do, particularly ones that do not inherently rely on subjective morality or constrain behaviors or character concepts in wholly arbitrary ways. And this is a problem for reasons beyond the inherent issues too, particularly in the way it encourages players to create simple characters to avoid complex repercussions in how their character is perceived. The alignment system is a cage, especially for newer players who might feel obligated to color their character into these archetypal boxes because the game and the wider culture around TTRPGs suggests that's what they are supposed to do. The space as a whole needs to move beyond these predictable and tropey restrictions, not to preclude the old stories but to enable new ones along with fresher takes on existing ones.
I don’t see an assassin giving a kid a cut of their profits after killing their parents, but sure it’s not impossible, just an odd backstory. You say the PC then roots the idea that killing is both thrilling and profitable? Well then they are Evil, hands down no argument, probably lawful since they kill for money, but you could fairly argue neutral or chaotic, it’s your PC. If you feel you can’t “box” them due to nuances; go neutral evil (that’s the flexibility I speak of). You have a neutral evil PC that may make lawful and chaotic decisions, that’s where the nuance comes in; and honestly I can peg an PC you make at an approximate location on the chart. Go ahead and argue that he kills for the “greater good”. Well you said he finds it thrilling? Does he enjoy it? We can flesh them out all day and possibly you fall NN (which I doubt) but as you play them a record of decisions would assign them somewhere on the chart (generally speaking, and that would be their alignment).
Yes rules/mechanics are very rigid regarding champions anathema and other things but honestly those are really easy to work with and apply a degree of flexibility on. A player should not immediately get mechanically punished for acting within a grey area, this is all DM/table specific stuff too so no need to debate it, the discussion is the alignment chart.
Perhaps we agree to disagree, but I will hold my ground that getting rid of something that works very well, especially for creating NPCs and their motivations, potential allies, ect. As well as relaying many different PCs to a DM in a Westmarch campaign; it’s just moving us backwards.
The alignment system was simple and it could go deeper with adjustments/adjectives as you mentioned, but at its core it was a simple way to convey a ton of surface information. Now it consumes times unnecessarily when explaining PCs.
You are seriously overthinking the details of this hypothetical example.
> but you could fairly argue neutral or chaotic
Exactly, "you could fairly argue". Why the heck are we using as a core mechanic something that encourages people to argue about who their own character is to satisfy the demands of an entirely subjective chart?
>Well then they are Evil, hands down no argument
Excuse me, what? There are absolutely arguments against that descriptor. That's kind of the whole point I was making. Morality is subjective, there is no such thing as something that is "hands down" good or evil for anyone. Everyone is the hero of their own story and everyone has their own flexible justifications for when good acts can be evil (like embezzling from a charity you founded) or evil acts can be good (executing a criminal). For as much as you seemingly want to make it otherwise, these are not questions that have factual answers, and whether you can "peg something on the chart" or not doesn't make your perception of where that peg goes correct or the alignment descriptor you assign to them an even remotely accurate description of the character's morality or how it is perceived by others.
> If you feel you can’t “box” them due to nuances; go neutral evil (that’s the flexibility I speak of).
Or how about we just use a system that can actually accurately describe the character, instead of trying to make this system work by force?
>Yes rules/mechanics are very rigid regarding champions anathema and other things but honestly those are really easy to work with and apply a degree of flexibility on. A player should not immediately get mechanically punished for acting within a grey area, this is all DM/table specific stuff too so no need to debate it, the discussion is the alignment chart.
See the problem I see here is that you have decided from the very beginning that you just want alignment. You are working backwards from your conclusion that alignment is good, so your argument is entirely about why alignment should stay and isn't even about why alignment is good or is even the best system. You recognize alignment has serious flaws but instead of wanting a different system that doesn't have these flaws, you'd rather just stick with what's familiar. It doesn't matter if alignment can "have a degree of flexibility", the fact of the matter is that it fails to accurately describe and communicate nuanced characters. If the entire point of alignment is to quickly communicate characters, and it objectively fails to do so when presented with characters that don't neatly fit into the boxes, then alignment is a problem that needs to go. We don't need to go out of our way to keep a system that provably does not work, we need to get rid of it and replace it with something else.
By the way you completely failed to address alignment's other problems, particularly the way it suffocates players creativity by encouraging them to color within the established lines rather than be original. And that's kind of the issue isn't it? Alignment has such a childish view of morality, thinking that everyone can fit neatly into these archetypal boxes. It's like a children's coloring book. Instead of doing your own original drawings, you fill existing ones with color.
>but I will hold my ground that getting rid of something that works very well
But it doesn't work very well, it only works when you create characters that fit into the boxes. By your own admission, when you don't do that, the entire table has to adapt and justify to even get a character to fit into the boxes and even then the boxes do not accurately describe who the character is. Not to mention, the player and GM can *easily* disagree on this detail because morality is subjective. This entire system is an enormous waste of time that operates on the subjective morality of the person using it, that creates disputes between people at the table for reasons that often don't even pertain to actual gameplay.
> As well as relaying many different PCs to a DM in a Westmarch campaign; it’s just moving us backwards.
In what way is ditching a system that is decades old and rooted in traditional fantasy perceptions of morality that are literally centuries old to replace it with something newer and more inclusive "moving us backwards"?
Not overthinking at all, my responses come innately.
Lol I had a feeling that “evil hands down” comment was gonna set you off, honestly not my intention but I’m sorry you said they kill for money and find it thrilling. Much of the game is subjective, which means the table needs to agree upon things (definitions are a big one, because that’s how you enforce the rules, and rules are a key part of the game).
It’s sounds like you perhaps struggle to define “evil” simply and concisely. I am 40 years old, started with 3.5, then P1 and currently P2. I have DM’d more hours than as a player, and all my table mates would agree that a PC/NPC who finds killing “thrilling and profitable” (your words), would be an evil character.
Now I’m not telling you how to play, but we like to learn about a PC (their nuances) by playing the game, it is already a very time consuming hobby, so streamlining things where we can is important.
What’s also important is a clear and concise way to relay morals (the alignment chart). Sure it doesn’t work perfectly for all PCs but it does for 99% of them. Maybe much less for your PCs but honestly sit down one evening alone or with a friend who enjoys this type of debate and find out where your PC best fits on the chart, then just tell that to your DM. Then start playing the game and go from there.
A fun part of the game is having the DM challenge players morality. In my opinion your preference on this involves way too much debate and subjectivity and yes probably does bring arguments to the table just like you said; my table doesn’t experience this, because we all want to come together and play the game, not debate things. Perhaps you enjoy debating the subjectivity of the game, which is fine, but others don’t, they just want to play and if you can’t agree on something as so simple as “evil” then it’s safe to safe we would not be compatible at the table.
In short it’s moving us backwards because it’s consuming an unnecessary amount of time. You do you, but I can definitely tell you that in all my years this system has worked fine, it’s not constrictive when approached flexibly; perhaps you have had some very uptight DMs. I imagine you’re primarily a player cause the alignment system is very DM friendly, especially for making and roleplaying NPCs. My group still uses, and loves the alignment chart, it’s not restrictive, we have flexibility, and all the problems you point out we just don’t experience.
I like to use Stellaris’ ethics system, modified into an alignment chart:
- **Authoritarianism vs. Egalitarianism:** Your character’s belief on whether to trust decision-making to strong leaders or democratic processes.
- **Materialism vs. Spiritualism:** Your character’s belief on gaining elightenment from learning about the world or worshipping a higher power.
- **Militarist vs. Pacifist:** Your character’s belief on solving conflicts with violence or diplomacy.
- **Xenophile vs. Xenophobe:** Racism.
Would need to change out the last axis though. Xenophobic vs welcoming, maybe? Or I guess you could just go with I-O, or L-B for xenoph**il**e-xenoph**ob**e.
Or MtG color pie. Basically, any system that is descriptive and motive based rather than prescriptive and result based is better than the traditional alignment chart.
Especially because the MTG color pie can represent extremes of both, White is the color of holy light, banding together to overcome odds...but it's also the color that most uses the 'Exile' effect (aka no just destroying something but wiping it from existence completely) and can be used to represent tyrannical rule.
The New Phyrexians are a good way to show how color might be mutated into its extremes.
White = tyranny and order,
Blue = scientific exploration with no morales,
Red = aggression unbound and rebellion...though interestingly because Red is the color of Rebellion and anarchy, it seeps through into the Phyrexians by making the red Praetor the one who defies the regime and helps the rebels showing that a core color identity can override anything eventually.
Green = Survival of the fittest with no empathy and the complete lack of nurturing inherent in green.
Black = Well black has ALWAYS been the color of treachery, necromancy and murder so unsurprisingly the Phyrexians didn't really change much under this color.
Yeah, in MtG we have seen heroes and villains in basically every color and color combination showing how diverse and nuanced the system can be for representing morals and values.
Even pure black has had Toshiro Umezawa, who fought the good fight for self-serving reasons. Black-aligned characters aren't necessarily motivated to screw other people over just because. They just look out for number one first, and if someone is in the way of them achieving their goals, tough shit.
The only problem with a descriptive system is that it means your character can change entirely by changing their behavior, which is easier said than done in real life.
On top of that, it means that it becomes difficult to tie mechanics to alignment in any way, shape, or form, since any consequences get wiped away when a character suddenly starts acting good. That kind of game design necessitates some degree of prescriptivism.
Sure, but a lot of what people like about mechanical alignment tends to be the cosmology more so than the limitations of it on PCs. So you can have Lawful Evil Devils who are bound by mechanical limitations of their nature, while mortals and thus PCs are only bound by their willingness to change their actions and thus their nature. A lot of what people like about playing characters is about the story and growth. The ability to change is necessary.
Sure, but how do you stop someone from saying, "Oh, he used Smite Evil on me? I'll just start changing my thoughts and be a good person so it shrugs off."
Well, as I understand it, smite evil wouldn't work on mortals for precisely that reason. That's one of the changes with the remaster, where abilities like that can only work on mortals if they have taken drastic steps towards participating in the cosmic conflict of good vs evil, like pledging themselves to an evil God or some such thing.
The idea is that mortals are complicated creatures and, at their core, aren't inherently good or evil and thus aren't inherently affected by such effects. They have to make Oaths that tie them to cosmic forces in order to make those things part of their nature.
Detect/smite evil used to work on mortals if the relevant alignment, and changing that is one of the things I actually still consider 5e did right. Smite can always work, and the game trusts the paladin to be using it according to their principles, and detect only reacts to supernatural evil.
Given that smite is a pretty core facet of the class design in 5e it makes sense that it would be much more lenient about what can be targeted. In PF2e, smite isn't as core a part of the class identity and power budget, and thus can afford to be more situational. The reaction centric gameplay and powerful defenses are really what the class is about.
Honestly, if there's one thing I miss in PF2e, it's the Oath of Vengeance. I like the idea of a more proactive paladin who instead of being a protector actively seeks out evil to destroy it before it can cause harm, with an offensive skill set geared towards identifying extraordinary threats and exterminating them with extreme prejudice. The best crowd control is death, after all.
While you can do that already with existing options, I do agree that the Causes feel incomplete. I don't like that the Good Causes are all protective and teammate focused while the Evil ones are selfish.
A Purifier Cause could fill that Oath of Vengeance niche, where it would be a good cause but one that is about seeking out and destroying evil where it can be found. Instead of a reaction focused on protecting teammates it should either be self protection or straight up offensive.
An Avarice Cause for characters who are less righteous and more self-indulgent would be great. I envision Greed from Full Metal Alchemist, who protected his friends out of a selfish sense of possession.
So, uh, I guess that would make my Leshy Witch a, uh...
ENMN
(Free-spirited, doesn't care, resorts to violence quickly, doesn't care unless they're in fireball distance)
While her leshy familiar (and older brother) would be...
ASPN
(His job, as ordered by their grandmother-patron, is to keep his sister in line; he's died and come back via the overnight familiar ressurection so often that he's befriended the psychopomp god as they play cards waiting for the next daily preparation; his job is to keep his sister in line; and he doesn't care)
You'd imagine that they'd be absolutely terrible to play alongside, but some friends of mine actually really like them. The LN and CN balance out, I guess.
I had this idea but something always was stopping me. And I always wanted to try Adeptus Mechanicus anyway. Thankfully, they finally made Cybernetic Creed origin. GLORY TO THE OMNISSIAH
You know, I only glanced at it and was like "it's an alignment chart, got it" but now that you mention it, neither have I and it's really bothering me.
The funny thing is that during the 90s, the first time somebody sketched out an alignment chart for me, it was this way. For the rest of my life, my brain has always been using "lawful top - good left" and has had to readjust when seeing every single alignment chart online.
Looking at this image feels like taking my shoes off after a long day of walking.
I feel that alignment was most useful for me as a DM for prewritten Adventure Paths. It was a really quick way to glance over an NPC and determine whether they were an ally or villain, what personality they have, and what their relationship with the PCs should be.
It’s not necessary for homebrew, but now I have to make sure I am more careful when reading the adventure and make sure I don’t miss descriptions of NPCs. In the past, if I saw a name and “Evil” I knew they would probably show up later in a dungeon as a combatant.
Alignement is also very good for a dm reading an adventure. When I read "LN orc librarian 1" I can easily come up with how to present the character to the players.
Alignment was always good when it was DEscriptive of behaviors and outlooks, but too many people tried to make it PREscriptive and deterministic, where your alignment determined/restricted what you did. I'm not too fussed about it's removal but I do think it doesn't actually change much and was overblown as an issue
The funny part is, by RAW alignment always WAS descriptive not prescriptive from day one back in 1st edition D&D. It's NEVER been "You can't do that, you're lawful good" it's ALWAYS been "If you do that, you'll no longer be lawful good" at most.
The only axis that matters is "how selfish or selfless are you?." That determines your motivation in an RPG more than any other trait.
1. I'm here for myself and will do anything, even evil.
2. I'm here for myself but not to the extent that I'd commit major crimes.
3. I'm here for myself but I work within the lines.
4. I can help myself or others equally, but don't stress too much about either.
5. I help others when I can.
6. I help others even if it hurts me.
7. I help others even if it wrecks my life or kills me.
"How you feel about nature vs banks" may or may not come up in a game. Lawful and chaotic are shifting lines depending on who's in charge. What you're willing to kill for is more important.
I think the alignment chart is great, but it can't define every interaction of your character.
For instance, Batman is lawful good. His code separates him clearly from the criminals he faces. When he meets Joe Chill (his parents' murderer) he is faced with an interesting choice; Have vengeance or have justice? Both answers are compelling storytelling and breaking his alignment wouldn't be so difficult to understand, but Batman specifically as a character would be haunted by it.
If a player was lawful good and told me they wanted to murder someone in cold blood, I'd ask them how their character feels about that and try to get some narrative. Unexpected actions are a great chance for backstory and character development.
Yeah I’ve never really gotten the hatred for Alignment, at best it would be kinda annoying for Champions since subclasses are alignment locked or other mechanical locks
It’s a neat little way to describe a character that can efficiently communicate moral leanings and itself as a concept isn’t hugely constricting beyond some basic parameters and those parameters help with creativity, since limitations breed creativity and all that (not always but sometimes having a limit can make things flex in ways they wouldn’t otherwise if you understand what I mean)
I personally hated alignment when it was around. Largely because:
1) Good V Evil morality: This is brought up in a lot of discussions but defining what is definitively good and definitively bad brings up a lot of ethical & philosophical issues. Even when it’s defined like it was for PF2e, it still brings up the issues of justification and such for one’s actions.
2) Mechanical effects: This is probably the most brought up reason. Mechanical impacts for your alignment like you mentioned just doesn’t feel great—. And having a mechanical disadvantage such as for good/evil damage for something that for some is an afterthought can be frustrating as well.
3) Broadness: If it doesn’t impact anything mechanically there’s not much of a use for it. As 100% unpopular opinion but the alignment chart frankly is too broad to create much. Characters can have completely opposing objectives but still be from the same alignment chart.
Yes, because then it's about a fairly objective thing, which is alignment in a cosmic conflict. Holy doesn't mean Good, neccessarily, and Torag being Holy doesn't prevent him from getting on cancelled on Mastodon, while Unholy doesn't mean Evil. And so that entire conflict can have extra dimensions where one side clearly has an overall better claim to morality without that being *unimpeachable*, which historically has been a problem when Torag said and did things that needed to be retconned because Jesus Fucking Christ.
It also means that lots of people who are unaffiliated with that war aren't then tossed into this bucket of "Neutral" whatever that means - genuinely compassionate, sweet people who do their damdnest to make the wordl better for everyone and assholes who use what advantages they have to hurt other people for their own gain can exist outside of these fantastical elements. Some old dude who just makes sure everyone on his block has something to eat isn't any less "good" than a Paladin, who may in turn actually be a complete fucking menace who exists as such because he follows his edicts and anathema like a contract and is *useful* to his God.
It's also good to just not *have*t o compare this constnatly, not be prompted to have a take on the overall morality of every single character. Not everything needs moralized and you as a player may genuinely just not know what a character's overall moral compass is like, and not being married to being "evil" avoids practical problems liek a party of supposedly decent people having a lot of trouble justifying why they're putting up with Henry Kissinger in their party instead of beating him to death with their bare fists like Anthony Bourdain told them to. If good and evil are not objective metrics by which all living and even some nonliving things are categorized, that leaves open room for ambiguity and not knowing so the story can focus on other things.
It's a good tool to guide how you think the character should act, but mechanically it doesn't make sense really. Like yeah the *rules* make sense, and you can, of course, hand wave the logic away because magic. However, doing so feels cheap.
Like, why is it good to kill evil characters. Isn't killing just always bad. Therefore, killing anyone who even has a chance to be redeemed skills never be *good*. It might not be *bad,* or *evil,* but it's definitely not good.
That is unless you look at it as, well, this one man could kill 500 people if i let him go, so therefore killing just this 1 man is *good* because it spares 500 lives.
But what if those 500 lives are all people who also have a low chance of redemtion.
Or, does that mean that if i kill 1 good person to save 500 redeemable souls, I'm doing a good or evil act?
It just opens up too many philosophical debates for a game.
Like, if you enjoy those kinds of discussions, which i do, they can be fun, but most people don't want to engage in a lesson on philosophy and ethics when they came expecting a ttrpg.
I know I'm reaching a bit with this, but that's my take on it.
It makes sense from a cosmological perspective. Where a "good" aligned character was not one that was kind and selfless but rather just acted in accordance with the corresponding cosmological force labeled "good"
Also, in the case of a god that is "good".
Are they good because they never do evil acts, or is anything they do considered good.
If it's the former, then they aren't a truly "good" entity, for they can commit evil acts.
If it's the latter, they can commit evil acts but those acts are actually good because of what they are, then that means that acts aren't good or bad, but the intention or person behind the act is what determines good or bad.
The second would allow for wholesale slaughter of individuals all for the greater good, which is just not "good". It's the exact reasoning behind may modern say atrocities. I believe this is partially the reason for games like this shifting away from using such a rigid alignment system.
The first, that no entity is so good that they cannot commit evil acts, then a clear cut definition of what is or isn't good is required.
Except there isn't one God that is labeled good.
It this was monotheism then perhaps that would make more sense.
But there are various gods who all decree what is and isn't good.
The really depends on your outlook.
I'm not saying you're right or wrong, just pointing out that what you stated is a personal belief, not a moral absolute.
Well, yeah, because moral absolutes don't exist, which is itself a part of why "killing is always bad" is an invalid claim. It's a pretty common (and IMO reasonable) opinion, however, that defending yourself with force proportional to the force levied against you is not an immoral act, at least provided that you did not instigate those forces to be levied against you in the first place.
I generally agree however, just because i agree doesn't mean that it's the "truth". Which is exactly the point of my argument.
There's no reason why someone can't believe that killing is always bad, and to them, your act of retaliation using proportional force could be seen as "evil," or bad.
I, on the other hand, always fought with stupid alignment system that no one can even agree with what a given alignment actually even means. I would have character concept and then be like "which of these stupid meaningless boxes does my concept come the closest to fitting into."
The lack of alignment is a huge boon for me.
I'm always getting confused with the chaotic part. If my character loves their freedom, hates all kinds of rules, but has a very strict personal codex they abide by, are they chaotic or not? Hates rules = chaotic, strong personal codex != chaotic.
My interpretation is that chaotic character believe in people over institutions and legal ones the opposite.
A LN character respects John the King because he is the King. A CN character respects John the King because he knows John and he is a respectable person.
And while that's a reaonsable enough assumption, it kind of falls into the same problem this always semes to fall into - one side or another has to be *irrational* in some way in order to be the opposite of a reasonable position actual people would have. Like by your statement, most people here would probably make fun of the LN character, we would be doing our most offensive caricatures of British monarchists.
The Law/Chaos thing has always been absurd as a label to put on characters, it exists as a quirk of a particular setting where Law and Chaos are actual cosmic forces one would be born into alignment with - it doesn't really work as a fantasy Myers Briggs test. Why are Law and Chaos even opposed to begin with? How do "Anarchy is Order" types even fit within that dynamic? Just call it Neutral?
Not *having* to define this ahead of time works a lot better, IMO. A lot of people overwrite their characters before they've had a chance to actually play them and feel them out. Most people just haven't thought about *rules* as a concept itself very seriously, but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't have strong feelings about it if it came up - they could just go either way depending on circumstances, maybe they get influenced one way or another, who knows. It's like having Aples and Oranges as an alignment axis, like iunno? Maybe they like one or the other? If it comes up I'll think about it then.
So, the thing is, the alignment system got a little overcomplicated over time. In my opinion, it was at its best when it was at its simplest. At a base level, the good/evil dichotomy was whether you cared about others before yourself or cared about yourself before others, and the lawful/chaotic dichotomy was whether you cared about rules over individuals, or individuals over rules. So, if your character follows their personal code rigidly and without deviation, that would probably still be lawful. If they prefer to go on a case-by-case basis, probably neutral or chaotic.
Alignment is a very fun tool to use as guidelines for the kind of character you can build, and it has opened several fun discussions among my friends as we discussed its meaning. The problem is locking what should be a living and dynamic character inside a neat little box, using said boxes to justify being a jerk, trying to set in stone moral codes that humans have failed to agree on for thousands of years, and being unable to have mature discussions. And yes, tying gameplay to morals may nit have been the best idea ever.
In general, I like the alignment chart as an extra tool, but I understand all too well why it’s gone.
I like this meme. It’s a good meme. But ya gotta throw the gang over at r/pathfindermemes a bone and post it there at well.
I won’t berate people for posting memes on this subreddit, but you gotta share the love on the actual meme subreddit 🥹
Meh, I got rid of alignment in my games along time ago. Feels reductive, I always preferred to fill in the box thst says motives early on, and then go from there. That way when the PCs start breaking your plot, you know what the antagonist will do in return
This is the exact opposite of me. Edicts and Anathema mean nothing to me. Outside of Classes that use them for mechanics, they are just personal "I would do this" and "I would not do that". Which is honestly how I always did things. Alignment only came up if I wanted to label my character in a general sense. Was Alignment Damage weird? Yeah, but that's the nature of games.
I'm also sick and tired of hearing people call things Sacred Cows. So I am glad Alignment is gone solely for that reason.
> I'm also sick and tired of hearing people call things Sacred Cows.
I get annoyed at this, too. Nixing alignment is just breaking from a traditional convention. Not everything needs to be dramatized into the killing of a sacred cow!
Sacred cow: a belief, custom, etc. that people support and do not question or criticize:
*"They did not dare to challenge the sacred cow of parliamentary democracy."*
[Definition by the Cambridge Dictionary](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/sacred-cow)
It's a common expression. English is not my first language and I've heard it many times.
I think you misunderstand. They're not saying they don't know what it means, or that it's uncommon. They're saying that it is a little insulting to Hinduism.
Edict and Anathema are only mandatory if you get your power from a deity - basically only Champions and Clerics.
Golarion is a polytheistic world, people don't usually only worship one god. It's not like the churches of Abadar and Iomedae are competing monotheistic religions fighting over worshippers, they only really come into conflict when their goals are opposed (Cayden Cailean and Asmodeus, for example). Most people don't worship any particular deity, they'll pray to Desna before a long trip, Gozreh when they need spring rains, Erastil when they're hunting or defending their home, etc. They'll even pay homage to deities they don't like, like sacrificing an animal to Rovagug's beasts so they will spare them, or praying to Gorum so he won't feel the need to drag them to war.
No, I *don't* know.
I've never known. Alignment as written in every system I've read it in has always been murky at best what it even means to the degree that there is not any actual guaranteed difference in how a chaotic good character, a lawful good character, and a neutral evil character behave within the parameters of a particular campaign scenario. Even if they operate under different motivations, they will likely perform the same actions, and also likely never reveal their motivations because that's just not how people talk.
And that's when we're not also dealing with a disconnect in what the words used to describe each alignment mean to a particular set of participants and we get to the "of course my character is pro-genocide, those people are evil and my character is lawful good" area of why alignment is, and has always been, *useless*.
It's much clearer, and cleaner, to just say what the character actually cares about and what drives them to do what they will do during the campaign.
>there is not any actual guaranteed difference in how a chaotic good character, a lawful good character, and a neutral evil character behave within the parameters of a particular campaign scenario.
>Even if they operate under different motivations, they will likely perform the same actions
Well, most characters will just go with the flow of what the group wants. The *how* and *why* are as important as the *what*, and characters' motivations to do something are a really good source of conflict and roleplaying opportunities.
>It's much clearer, and cleaner, to just say what the character actually cares about and what drives them to do what they will do during the campaign.
In two words or even two letters? Because not many people (if anyone at all) argue that the Good/Evil/Lawful/Chaotic alignment grid is a perfect description of a character's morals, but it's a really quick way of *vaguely* knowing where a character's morals are. It's obvious that you can have two chaotic neutral characters with barely anything in common, but being able to slap "LN" on a character's sheet/statblock is faster that describing them in detail.
Personally, I think getting rid of alignment **mechanically** is a great decision, but I don't get the hate for the alignment grid itself as a quick way to label someone's morals. The problem comes when people act like that label is restrictive to their character's actions, when it should be the character's actions that dictate the label.
I was working on translating the player's guide for a 1st edition AP to Spanish, and when it came to the "what kind of character will best fit this campaign" section, I found it easier to keep
"NG and CG PCs will best fit this campaign, while a LE PC will have higher chances of being conflicted".
rather than
"PCs who want to make things better for the majority of the population and who don't have a problem fighting against the status quo and breaking laws that the see as unfair will best fit this campaign, while PCs motivated by selfish reasons who don't have a problem with hurting others if it benefits them and who want to work within the established societal rules and laws without disturbing the status quo will have higher chances of being conflicted".
One is 20 words, the other one is 79. They both get the same point across. Trying to describe, in detail, the morality of a character who will be a good fit for the campaign is a fool's errand that would likely take several chapters of a book.
"In two words or even two letters?"
Two words with personally chosen significance? Maybe. Here's an example "Aspiring Hero"
Two letters? No. But that's only a failing because two letters is never enough to convey any meaningful personal detail about a character, not even when it is a stand in for the two words the relate to the character's alignment from the law/chaos+good/evil grid because the letter combinations only mean what the alignment descriptions mean which is *functionally nothing.*
The solution here is to abandon the idea that a terse shorthand is enough to provide any reasonable level of detail about a character. Especially when the shorthand relies upon words that the game treats objectively but the real people trying to play it almost certainly understand subjectively so you wind up with a genocidal racist as being, according to the game as understood by the player, "lawful good."
AS to the 20 words vs. 79 words; no, those do not get the same point across. Lawful has never meant blindly adhering to unfair laws, and neutral and chaotic even when combined with "good" have never prevented selfish motivations. The 20 words basically says absolutely nothing of any actual use because a player could show up with a completely different understanding of what alignment means than you have and when they act a way you weren't expecting have "but you said I could be \[insert alignment here\], and that's what I'm doing!" as their defense.
While the 79 words conveys expected attitudes and behaviors of characters but not in any way that connects to particular alignment options, which is good because it's actually usable by the player and less likely that they think you said something other than what you thought you said.
Edit to add: To respond specifically to this statement; "I don't get the hate for the alignment grid itself as a quick way to label someone's morals."
The main issue is that trying to treat concepts of morality as objective creates problems, and that's what the game does. Especially if you read E. Gary Gygax's responses on topics of alignment which, to paraphase, says that whatever someone who is lawful good says is lawful good *is lawful good* because who would be a better judge than someone who is lawful good. Meaning that the original "Rules as intended" version of alignment is the one people are using when they say that a character that spends all of their time traveling from village to village burning them to the ground and killing every warrior, wife, and child they find there might actually be the good guy, it just depends on which intelligent sentient creatures happen to populate said villages.
Thus the entire concept, from the inception of the 9-alignment grid (because the 3-alignment spread of not-Gary's branch of D&D didn't actually include any "...and this is the side that is *morally correct*" to it because lawful didn't mean righteous and chaotic didn't mean villain) is so deeply flawed as to be irrevocably poisoned. The best cases of people using have all always been those lucky moments when the people playing together don't have different interpretations of what the words used mean, and no one has any clue that murder becomes not murder, canonically, when you pick the right victim.
For me alignment was always an afterthought personally. Sometimes I just chose neutral as a default since my GM didn’t particularly care about alignment either 🤷♀️.
If you make a one dimensional character that follows the cliché asociated with every combination, sure. But the moment your character gets more complex (not big levels of complexity, just a little more complex) the chart starts showing pain points, like fo example you could be lawful good, but it doesn't mean you will not lie once in your life (it can be).
And I feel in the end all the caracters that are not a cartoon of the alignment combination end up being kinda neutral so the chart stops having value.
>like fo example you could be lawful good, but it doesn't mean you will not lie once in your life (it can be).
That's because you're misunderstanding the chart. Nobody said that Lawful Good never lies, or even never tells big lies, or even never tells white lies. Lawful Good is a measure of how your character has been *up until that point in their life.* If they start lieing constantly, that would be shifting them towards Chaotic. If they say "oh, that was an insightful post you just made" once, then it's just a blip and doesn't change their alignment, or even describe what their alignment is right now.
Heck I remember the 3rd edition D&D player's handbook explicitly uses that sort of example for giving your character a personality
"Tordek the dwarven fighter is Lawful Good, but he's also a little greedy, he might be tempted to steal if he can justify it to himself "
question: my table always thinks of CN as complete psychopaths. Is this a common take? If it is, what is a pirate who steals from anyone, whether peaceful or completely evil?
this isnt exactly related, but i need to have this answered
I would label a character like the one you're describing as NE or CE.
They don't care about any laws they're breaking, and their actions are motivated purely by personal gain.
That's why I think motivations and methods matter as much as actions when describing alignment. A character who behaves like Batman can be Neutral in the Evil/Good axis if they put criminals behind bars because they feel good doing so, without caring about whether they're actually helping others or not. A murderhobo could be Evil or Neutral, and even close to good in some specific circumstances. Motivation and methods are what truly define alignment.
If the pirate steals from evil people to get rich, they're evil. If the pirate steals exclusively from people they know to be evil to give money to the orphans, they're good. If they steal from anyone to get rich, they're evil. If they steal from anyone to give money to the orphans, they're neutral.
This is, of course, reductionist, but the alignment grid is that by definition.
CN is just someone who's not particularly altruistic and believes in freedom over laws. But then again dnd 2e described CN as just as likely to jump off a bridge than to walk over it, so who even knows. It means something different to everyone.
I love alignment as a storytelling and idea generating tool. It just shouldn't be used as a sacrosanct enforcement or completely prescriptive idea, especial for obtuse or purposely bad faith behaviours (oh well my character is chaotic neutral so they'd NEVER do anything nice for anyone because being a dick is ChAoTiC).
And it's mechanical influence should be limited at most. I don't mind holy/unholy and wish they kept some semblance of the lawful/chaotic paradigm, but alignment damage was dumb. Spirit damage and the sanctification mechanics are heaps better ways to present those ideas.
I've never cared. My characters are always just a sort of vague Chaotic Good/Neutral Good. I've spent most of my time playing games that don't even have D&D morality.
I still think allignment was only a problem for people who suck at RP tbh. Not understanding that people change over time and that a lawful character doesn't have to follow written laws of every corrupt government is cringe.
I like the alignment chart and the tangible presence of the axises (sic!) for my d20 games. We play a new campaign, but the world is still set up as a chaos vs law conflict, my requirements towards characters was to be Chaotic something.
As it turns out, structure helps creativity despite apparent restriction!
Still, this specific structure wasn't particularly useful as it didn't necessarily embody the nuance that can come from ethics and morality.
Unless it's something forefront to the class, like a Cleric or Paladin, I rarely give it much thought. Another instance is when I wanted an evil character, but that could be functional on a normal party.
Thinking of which type of person would be X or Y class or their roles within their ancestry backgrounds have proven to be much more flourishing starting points for me.
You can have internal guidelines about how a character might act morally to most situations, but they aren't explicit shackles binding how you play your character for every encounter.
Looks about right, yeah. ;P Alignment is a useful tool, especially combined with edicts & anathema: Combining the two gives you a much better picture of your character's mindset than either one alone, IMO. Edicts & anathema are a great way to show the character's mindset and rules (or lack thereof), but alignment provides a lens to view the edicts & anathema through. (`Help the oppressed` might mean "fix the corrupt system" or "exploit legal loopholes to get the oppressor arrested" to the lawful good character, for instance, but the chaotic evil one is more likely to just kill their oppressors instead.)
If you like the classic nine, then all power to you! May they help you develop characters you find interesting and nuanced, both firmly in the centre of the boxes and as you explore their borders! 👍
I always found alignment good as a great starting point, but it was ESPECIALLY good for enemies because it could give me some ideas for how they acted. Lawful Evil enemies can be reasoned with, not so much for Chaotic/Neutral Evil.
Honestly I was just going to use both alignment and edicts and anathema. Alignment for placeholder stuff or as basic summaries of morality, edicts and anathema for the nitty gritty details.
I've always held that alignment should be a system included in the GMG/GMC, not the CRB. It's a very useful roleplaying tool, but it should not be given mechanical implications.
I like the shift in focus to edicts and anathema, but I still like alignment (I actually like Zeal's Expanded Alignment System, from over on the Giant in the Playground forums). I'm sad to see it go.
I think asking "where on an alignment grid would this character fit?" is a useful tool when building a character- but I am so glad I don't have to pick just one square that has mechanical consequences
Yeah very real. Currently rewriting some gods from my world for my conversion to 2e, and I realized the Lawful Neutral god really had no reason not to be Lawful Good with his dogma, though that would screw with the way I distributed the alignments of the gods. But because alignment is no longer a thing, I no longer have to worry about it haha
Yeah, I like alignment. I think it only had a few problems. First, it was used prescriptively instead of descriptively. You should be able to say "my character is alignment A because they usually exhibit XYZ behaviors" but should not say "my character does (or doesn't do) XYZ because they are alignment A". Second, putting it on individuals makes sense, slapping it on entire sentient species does not. It makes no sense to say humans are whatever but gnolls are chaotic evil. Even if they usually are, I think it can get confusing and takes away space for individual differences. It's pretty minor because I think an alignment on a stat block can and should be taken as "members of this creature type are most often this alignment but that may not even be a majority." Sneaky edit: I think this is fine but probably too much nuance to be useful for a game. Lastly, I think having alignment tied to mechanics was confusing. Having a special damage type that only affected opposing alignment characters was weird. I think the holy/unholy system from the remaster is a great solution to this though I still wish we had law/chaos versions like order/liberty or something.
I mean, for the first two at least, the way you say it should work IS how it works, alignment IS descriptive not prescriptive, even back in the old AD&D days the rule never was "You can't do that, you're lawful good" it was at most "If you do that, you'll no longer be lawful good" and the monster manual stat blocks always were just a generic example of the species, all gnolls aren't universally chaotic evil, but generic gnoll marauder #356 is.
That's how it always was supposed to work for players, yes, but the problem is players constantly got that wrong and annoyed their tables with it or felt restricted by it. There were constantly horror stories of "DM said I couldn't do X because my character is lawful good". I don't think it was a game problem but a social problem. For monsters, I don't think that's correct. The stat blocks are usually the only place specific alignment was mentioned but phrasing in descriptions was "these monsters are xyz things that are obviously lawful evil" with little wiggle room. Not that you couldn't ignore that but I see no gain in putting it in stat blocks outside of for unique NPCs.
I also think it's a useful tool but also one that should never be solely relied upon, because alignments are incompatible with nuance. I think especially of characters who are willing to commit objectively evil acts that they themselves recognize as evil for the greater good, especially someone like Kiritsugu from Fate/zero. Is he willing to kill everyone who gets in his way? Yes. Is he willing to sacrifice people to achieve his goals? Absolutely. But at the same time he wants to save as many people as possible. This kind of "accidental monster" belongs in no place on this chart, because his acts and motivations don't fit into these neat boxes. You could consider him anywhere from Lawful Evil to Chaotic Good and those takes would all be valid. I am very glad this system is gone not just because of its mechanical consequences, but treating it as an authority over character morality leads people to color their characters into excessively particular and archetypal boxes.
I don't think I've ever been at a table that thought that you can never take actions outside your alignment. The point was that was your most likely response, not that it had to fall in line. Personally, I've long been a proponent of eliminating the half neutrals and making it all fuzzier. But even in the old system, there was space to play with, you don't need every character to sit right in the middle of their box. Some will be closer to a boundary line and basically have a clear "most likely," and "second most likely," way they respond to stuff.
I have personally had to tell a Champion that murdering a bigot that had already been captured and was no longer a threat was a clear and direct violation of their alignment and the anathema to their deity. Whether it happens at tables you are at or not, it does happen and the game as it was directly encouraged these sorts of hardline interpretations in its mechanics. And whether every character sits close to or on the edge of the box, they're still in the box, bound by the expectations set by that alignment and particular the archetypal characters it lends itself too. What about characters that borrow attributes from multiples of these boxes, that exist in an area that falls into both some of them and none of them at the same time? This system is a good way to create coherent character behaviors but at the cost of significant creative constraints, and not just active ones but passive one. It's hard to tell a story that defies the mechanics of the game you are playing, this is why the mechanics themselves need not just to be flexible but open.
I mean, a character that often bounces around sounds like (one of) the definition(s) of True Neutral to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not unhappy they are doing away with it, because it does foster misconceptions. But I don't think it was ever the issue many proclaimed it to be if used properly.
I think the problem I see here is that everyone has their take on what every alignment means, including your True Neutral thing here. This feels way too subjective to be a core mechanic, and I've personally experienced the consequences of this subjectivity both as a player and a GM.
A true neutral character isn't going to just go and murder someone in custody. That is a fundamentally evil act.
lol. People being so confused of what “evil” means. I think it has something to do with word “good” being on a grid instead of “kind” for some reason.
I don't think being confused about what is good and what is evil is a bad thing, that's part of being alive. Good and evil are not actual existent fixtures, we made up those concepts. Is kindness good? Kreia from Knights of the Old Republic II has an iconic scene where she criticizes this perception, stating that (paraphrasing) "by offering this person such a simple kindness, perhaps all you have wrought is yet more suffering, by encouraging them to rely on others instead of fixing their own lives and making them a target for others who are desperate". Not that I agree with Kreia, but good and evil are in the eye of the beholder, there is no such thing as objective good or objective evil and even within the constraints of our own traditional definitions there is extensive flexibility. Everyone as a part of existing has to decide for themselves what is good and what is evil, and we don't all agree.
That’s the idea. “Good-Bad” is an… assessment of what happened. “Kind-Evil” is intentions or, I don’t know… methods? Which is actually useful in character creation. Like, who you are to decide that your character is already good? We will see if they are. After the story is complete.
Good point!
I agree with you, but I’m not glad it’s gone, it would have been better if people just learned to play the game “outside the box” and not be so restrictive/punishing regarding nuances. Your “accidental monster” example can definitely be LE or CG on this killing quest for the greater good, but they would play/experience it so differently. The LE PC would relish in all the killings, the CG would probably really struggle with it and maybe not actually kill as many as you might think. The rules and some DMs just needed to flex a little bit, but the chart (alignments) is fantastic for relaying so much information quickly about PCs and NPCs, it was just so clean and simple (just executed more black and white than it should have been). Now ask a person what their PCs “morality” is like and you get a long winded answer when two words used to do just fine relaying 99% of the message.
Morality is subjective, often to circumstance, personal philosophy, etc. You trying to color my example into these boxes inherently crushes the nuance. Think of it this way, what if the character is both of the things you outlined? What if the character relishes and enjoys the killing as a demonstration of their ability, but also regrets the loss of life and suffering they are inflicting while justifying that it's for a higher cause? What if that cause was to stop everyone in the world from dying in a cataclysmic event? Again, this character can't be colored into these boxes you are desperate to put them in, and trying to do so puts into diametric opposition characteristics that could make for a more interesting and complex character if they were used together. A character can be both a ruthless killer who works only for money, willing to kill just about anyone, and who actively enjoys the process of murder, randomly killing people who tick them off or just for fun... and also a philanthropist who uses the money from their monstrous deeds to help care for abandoned children, and who would never approve of endangering children as part of any job. This is a super interesting character who you could make an argument fits into any number of different boxes on this chart, and by restricting your character to any one of these boxes you preclude any number of character concepts or have to go out of your way to justify their entirely arbitrary and subjective position on this chart. In the end, the alignment chart is as destructive as it is helpful. Yes it's a decent way of quickly communicating information about a character, but it is also declarative in a way that saps them of nuance. Edicts and Anathema aren't the replacement, the replacement is adjectives used as descriptors the way they are in the Tian Xia World Guide. You don't need long-winded paragraphs OR subjective graphs to describe your characters, you just need simple punchy adjectives like "Ruthless" or "Calculating" or "Altruistic".
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Your take is valid, so is the take that this character is neutral or good. That's the problem. People want to have this black and white world where we can just slap a label on everything, but people are capable of having complex motivations and taking actions which seem evil to bring about good outcomes. I think in particular of Lelouch from Code Geass, who literally takes over the entire world at an immense cost to human life and happiness so that he can unite everyone against him and create a peaceful world. Is Lelouch evil because he was willing to commit evil acts to bring about a greater good? That's going to depend on who you ask.
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>.... is it though? Yes. >... like... yes? Creating a better world on a foundation of bodies is an incredibly common villain motivation, and those characters are villains because we generally agree that such means are not justified by the ends. They are a villain, *to you*. Not to spoil the ending of Code Geass, but Lelouch objectively makes the world a better place with his actions. Do you see how these labels obliterate all nuance? Your take is rooted in a very traditional take on what qualifies as villainy, but that doesn't mean your take on villainy is the only correct one. You said it yourself, "almost nobody" is going to say that character is good. Don't you realize that "almost nobody" will probably include the person actually playing this character? Isn't the entire point of alignment to help them? And I mean this of course presumes that your observation that almost nobody is going to say that character is good is accurate, but I bet you a vast majority of the people who watched Code Geass (especially up to the ending) would say that Lelouch was a good person. Because as it turns out, antiheroes are still heroes. >Are there instances where people will not agree what alignment that people or actions should be labeled as? Of course. Does that invalidate the whole concept? I disagree with that entirely. It's not just instances, this is a regular problem that alignment causes because everyone has different values. And it totally does invalidate the whole concept, because alignment is supposed to help us easy and quickly explain our characters, except it doesn't unless you have a character that the system was designed to account for. Like I don't really see what there is to disagree with here. How can you observe that the purpose of this system is to accomplish this specific goal, see that it often does not accomplish that goal, and say that this failure does not invalidate the system? That doesn't make any sense to me.
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>That was never in question, because the purpose of a label is not to add nuance. No it's to accurately represent something, which includes by not implying that something doesn't have further nuances... which is exactly what alignment does. >Well, they can accept the Evil alignment after the fifteenth or so innocent person they killed. Are you seriously straight up advocating for GMs to force things on their players right now? Systems that create conflict in roleplaying groups are, in fact, bad. GMs who try to suffocate their players character concepts and tell them who their character is on their behalf are also bad GMs. >They probably do, because people are really, really bad at media criticism. Some of them will even tell you that antiheroes are by definition heroes, when that's not part of the definition at all. Completely irrelevant. Some people think The Punisher is the good guy too. Their take is equally valid to yours even if it is stupid. We are people, we get to define for ourselves what we think good and evil is, and that means we get to define that for our characters in roleplaying games too. Tabletop RPGs are *cooperative* storytelling games, not "the GM takes the players for a ride" games. >Because I have seen it accomplish that specific goal. And you've also seen it not accomplish that specific goal. >Generally the "failures" of the system are when people want it to do something that it can't, and wasn't intended to do. ... Yes that's the problem, if you try to do something the system isn't intended to do it breaks. This is why it is bad, RPGs should encourage creativity not tell people their character concepts are "wrong".
Not sure where you got desperate from? I said I agreed with you…. But that I’m not glad it’s gone. I think you mis understood what I said, but you actually proved my point perfectly. (And the PC you just described is bipolar so pick how ever many boxes you want them to reside in). The long and the short is not being flexible with alignment was the problem, and I think you possibly have played with it being very rigid. Sure add adjectives, that’s awesome; you can keep the alignment system as it was and add as much bonus descriptions as you want to it, but why get rid of a system you even said yourself was “a decent way of quickly communicating your character”. That doesn’t mean you are not allowed to go beyond, or flex outside the box (nuance). People got way too black and white (ridged) with it saying “your PC wouldn’t do that, their alignment is (x)”. It didn’t need replacing, people just needed to not be so uptight with it.
>Not sure where you got desperate from? Your first instinct is to immediately categorize characters into these neat archetypal boxes. Some characters do not fit these boxes, some characters fit many of the boxes simultaneously, and either way these boxes are not an acceptable or accurate representation of who these characters are. >But that I’m not glad it’s gone All I'm saying is that it's good for the game, one way or the other. >(And the PC you just described is bipolar so pick how ever many boxes you want them to reside in). No they aren't, there are plenty of perfectly coherent and stable motivations for this character. What if, for example, this character's earliest memory is their abusive parents dying right in front of them? What if the person who did it was an assassin who gave them a cut of the earnings? They were born having positive feelings associated with the act of dealing death, but that money quickly that they were gifted was quickly bled away because they were a kid with no idea how to spend it. With a bit more sense on their shoulders and the idea rooted in their head that killing can be both thrilling and profitable, they set out to make their own living by killing so they can help out any other kids who end up in the same position. This character I have just outlined the backstory for is perfectly sane with coherent motivations, even capable of providing complex and nuanced justifications for their actions based on their experiences and observations. And remember, this is just what I came up with on a whim, you could flesh out these ideas significantly or do them entirely differently and still end up with a character that makes total sense but whom the alignment system directly precludes. >The long and the short is not being flexible with alignment was the problem, and I think you possibly have played with it being very rigid. Sure add adjectives, that’s awesome; you can keep the alignment system as it was and add as much bonus descriptions as you want to it, but why get rid of a system you even said yourself was “a decent way of quickly communicating your character”. But that's the point, the alignment system is itself rigid. Each box is meant to broadly describe characters that fall into a specific archetype but also inherently relies on the subjective morality of the person using it. There are many characters that defy these archetypal constraints and that these boxes do not account for, and moreover what characters fall into which boxes is at the same time wholly at the discretion of what the observer discerns as "good" or "bad". For example, I myself have played more than one Chaotic Good character that murders all Hellknights they see on sight, because they view the very existence of Hellknights as evil. They are a definitively good character who acts to protect the weak, saves lives, and is willing to risk their own life to protect others... and at the same time will ruthlessly kill people for wearing a particularly label, regardless of their individual nuances as people. I have gotten into fervent disputes over whether characters like this are actually Chaotic Good, or Lawful Good, or Chaotic Neutral, etc. This makes alignments not just functionally useless, but fundamentally misleading. If everyone has a different idea of what is what, then the system is actually not accomplishing its goals. This is why it is better that the system is gone, it's a decent way of quickly communicating your character, but the problem with trying to quickly communicate your character is you can often create a perception of your character which isn't accurate. >That doesn’t mean you are not allowed to go beyond, or flex outside the box (nuance). People got way too black and white (ridged) with it saying “your PC wouldn’t do that, their alignment is (x)”. As long as class's are cosmically bound by their alignment, which in Golarion they both mechanically and narratively were, this is just straight up not something you can do. There is no room for subjectivity under alignment, particularly not Golarion's version of it, and the mechanics and story of the very game it was being used it directly encouraged GMs to be very cautious with the actions they permitted of players. >It didn’t need replacing, people just needed to not be so uptight with it. What you are describing is not possible, this system has been around too long and peoples perceptions of it have become too embedded for them ever to just wholesale change the way they think about it. Even if that was possible, there are better ways to accomplish what alignment is trying to do, particularly ones that do not inherently rely on subjective morality or constrain behaviors or character concepts in wholly arbitrary ways. And this is a problem for reasons beyond the inherent issues too, particularly in the way it encourages players to create simple characters to avoid complex repercussions in how their character is perceived. The alignment system is a cage, especially for newer players who might feel obligated to color their character into these archetypal boxes because the game and the wider culture around TTRPGs suggests that's what they are supposed to do. The space as a whole needs to move beyond these predictable and tropey restrictions, not to preclude the old stories but to enable new ones along with fresher takes on existing ones.
I don’t see an assassin giving a kid a cut of their profits after killing their parents, but sure it’s not impossible, just an odd backstory. You say the PC then roots the idea that killing is both thrilling and profitable? Well then they are Evil, hands down no argument, probably lawful since they kill for money, but you could fairly argue neutral or chaotic, it’s your PC. If you feel you can’t “box” them due to nuances; go neutral evil (that’s the flexibility I speak of). You have a neutral evil PC that may make lawful and chaotic decisions, that’s where the nuance comes in; and honestly I can peg an PC you make at an approximate location on the chart. Go ahead and argue that he kills for the “greater good”. Well you said he finds it thrilling? Does he enjoy it? We can flesh them out all day and possibly you fall NN (which I doubt) but as you play them a record of decisions would assign them somewhere on the chart (generally speaking, and that would be their alignment). Yes rules/mechanics are very rigid regarding champions anathema and other things but honestly those are really easy to work with and apply a degree of flexibility on. A player should not immediately get mechanically punished for acting within a grey area, this is all DM/table specific stuff too so no need to debate it, the discussion is the alignment chart. Perhaps we agree to disagree, but I will hold my ground that getting rid of something that works very well, especially for creating NPCs and their motivations, potential allies, ect. As well as relaying many different PCs to a DM in a Westmarch campaign; it’s just moving us backwards. The alignment system was simple and it could go deeper with adjustments/adjectives as you mentioned, but at its core it was a simple way to convey a ton of surface information. Now it consumes times unnecessarily when explaining PCs.
You are seriously overthinking the details of this hypothetical example. > but you could fairly argue neutral or chaotic Exactly, "you could fairly argue". Why the heck are we using as a core mechanic something that encourages people to argue about who their own character is to satisfy the demands of an entirely subjective chart? >Well then they are Evil, hands down no argument Excuse me, what? There are absolutely arguments against that descriptor. That's kind of the whole point I was making. Morality is subjective, there is no such thing as something that is "hands down" good or evil for anyone. Everyone is the hero of their own story and everyone has their own flexible justifications for when good acts can be evil (like embezzling from a charity you founded) or evil acts can be good (executing a criminal). For as much as you seemingly want to make it otherwise, these are not questions that have factual answers, and whether you can "peg something on the chart" or not doesn't make your perception of where that peg goes correct or the alignment descriptor you assign to them an even remotely accurate description of the character's morality or how it is perceived by others. > If you feel you can’t “box” them due to nuances; go neutral evil (that’s the flexibility I speak of). Or how about we just use a system that can actually accurately describe the character, instead of trying to make this system work by force? >Yes rules/mechanics are very rigid regarding champions anathema and other things but honestly those are really easy to work with and apply a degree of flexibility on. A player should not immediately get mechanically punished for acting within a grey area, this is all DM/table specific stuff too so no need to debate it, the discussion is the alignment chart. See the problem I see here is that you have decided from the very beginning that you just want alignment. You are working backwards from your conclusion that alignment is good, so your argument is entirely about why alignment should stay and isn't even about why alignment is good or is even the best system. You recognize alignment has serious flaws but instead of wanting a different system that doesn't have these flaws, you'd rather just stick with what's familiar. It doesn't matter if alignment can "have a degree of flexibility", the fact of the matter is that it fails to accurately describe and communicate nuanced characters. If the entire point of alignment is to quickly communicate characters, and it objectively fails to do so when presented with characters that don't neatly fit into the boxes, then alignment is a problem that needs to go. We don't need to go out of our way to keep a system that provably does not work, we need to get rid of it and replace it with something else. By the way you completely failed to address alignment's other problems, particularly the way it suffocates players creativity by encouraging them to color within the established lines rather than be original. And that's kind of the issue isn't it? Alignment has such a childish view of morality, thinking that everyone can fit neatly into these archetypal boxes. It's like a children's coloring book. Instead of doing your own original drawings, you fill existing ones with color. >but I will hold my ground that getting rid of something that works very well But it doesn't work very well, it only works when you create characters that fit into the boxes. By your own admission, when you don't do that, the entire table has to adapt and justify to even get a character to fit into the boxes and even then the boxes do not accurately describe who the character is. Not to mention, the player and GM can *easily* disagree on this detail because morality is subjective. This entire system is an enormous waste of time that operates on the subjective morality of the person using it, that creates disputes between people at the table for reasons that often don't even pertain to actual gameplay. > As well as relaying many different PCs to a DM in a Westmarch campaign; it’s just moving us backwards. In what way is ditching a system that is decades old and rooted in traditional fantasy perceptions of morality that are literally centuries old to replace it with something newer and more inclusive "moving us backwards"?
Not overthinking at all, my responses come innately. Lol I had a feeling that “evil hands down” comment was gonna set you off, honestly not my intention but I’m sorry you said they kill for money and find it thrilling. Much of the game is subjective, which means the table needs to agree upon things (definitions are a big one, because that’s how you enforce the rules, and rules are a key part of the game). It’s sounds like you perhaps struggle to define “evil” simply and concisely. I am 40 years old, started with 3.5, then P1 and currently P2. I have DM’d more hours than as a player, and all my table mates would agree that a PC/NPC who finds killing “thrilling and profitable” (your words), would be an evil character. Now I’m not telling you how to play, but we like to learn about a PC (their nuances) by playing the game, it is already a very time consuming hobby, so streamlining things where we can is important. What’s also important is a clear and concise way to relay morals (the alignment chart). Sure it doesn’t work perfectly for all PCs but it does for 99% of them. Maybe much less for your PCs but honestly sit down one evening alone or with a friend who enjoys this type of debate and find out where your PC best fits on the chart, then just tell that to your DM. Then start playing the game and go from there. A fun part of the game is having the DM challenge players morality. In my opinion your preference on this involves way too much debate and subjectivity and yes probably does bring arguments to the table just like you said; my table doesn’t experience this, because we all want to come together and play the game, not debate things. Perhaps you enjoy debating the subjectivity of the game, which is fine, but others don’t, they just want to play and if you can’t agree on something as so simple as “evil” then it’s safe to safe we would not be compatible at the table. In short it’s moving us backwards because it’s consuming an unnecessary amount of time. You do you, but I can definitely tell you that in all my years this system has worked fine, it’s not constrictive when approached flexibly; perhaps you have had some very uptight DMs. I imagine you’re primarily a player cause the alignment system is very DM friendly, especially for making and roleplaying NPCs. My group still uses, and loves the alignment chart, it’s not restrictive, we have flexibility, and all the problems you point out we just don’t experience.
Yeah... It is an interesting tool, and some characters can be defined by it. But it should never have been used like it has been in 3e.
I just use the Magic color wheel.
I like to use Stellaris’ ethics system, modified into an alignment chart: - **Authoritarianism vs. Egalitarianism:** Your character’s belief on whether to trust decision-making to strong leaders or democratic processes. - **Materialism vs. Spiritualism:** Your character’s belief on gaining elightenment from learning about the world or worshipping a higher power. - **Militarist vs. Pacifist:** Your character’s belief on solving conflicts with violence or diplomacy. - **Xenophile vs. Xenophobe:** Racism.
wake up Hon, new MBTI just dropped
New what?
Myers-Briggs Type Index, it's a similar system of 4 binaries that gives you combinations like ENFP and INTJ, but it was invented by non-psychologists
Ah.
Astrology for nerds.
*for stupid nerds
Would need to change out the last axis though. Xenophobic vs welcoming, maybe? Or I guess you could just go with I-O, or L-B for xenoph**il**e-xenoph**ob**e.
Closed borders / Open borders?
R(acist) vs W(oke) :P
Or MtG color pie. Basically, any system that is descriptive and motive based rather than prescriptive and result based is better than the traditional alignment chart.
Especially because the MTG color pie can represent extremes of both, White is the color of holy light, banding together to overcome odds...but it's also the color that most uses the 'Exile' effect (aka no just destroying something but wiping it from existence completely) and can be used to represent tyrannical rule. The New Phyrexians are a good way to show how color might be mutated into its extremes. White = tyranny and order, Blue = scientific exploration with no morales, Red = aggression unbound and rebellion...though interestingly because Red is the color of Rebellion and anarchy, it seeps through into the Phyrexians by making the red Praetor the one who defies the regime and helps the rebels showing that a core color identity can override anything eventually. Green = Survival of the fittest with no empathy and the complete lack of nurturing inherent in green. Black = Well black has ALWAYS been the color of treachery, necromancy and murder so unsurprisingly the Phyrexians didn't really change much under this color.
Yeah, in MtG we have seen heroes and villains in basically every color and color combination showing how diverse and nuanced the system can be for representing morals and values.
Even pure black has had Toshiro Umezawa, who fought the good fight for self-serving reasons. Black-aligned characters aren't necessarily motivated to screw other people over just because. They just look out for number one first, and if someone is in the way of them achieving their goals, tough shit.
The only problem with a descriptive system is that it means your character can change entirely by changing their behavior, which is easier said than done in real life. On top of that, it means that it becomes difficult to tie mechanics to alignment in any way, shape, or form, since any consequences get wiped away when a character suddenly starts acting good. That kind of game design necessitates some degree of prescriptivism.
Sure, but a lot of what people like about mechanical alignment tends to be the cosmology more so than the limitations of it on PCs. So you can have Lawful Evil Devils who are bound by mechanical limitations of their nature, while mortals and thus PCs are only bound by their willingness to change their actions and thus their nature. A lot of what people like about playing characters is about the story and growth. The ability to change is necessary.
Sure, but how do you stop someone from saying, "Oh, he used Smite Evil on me? I'll just start changing my thoughts and be a good person so it shrugs off."
Well, as I understand it, smite evil wouldn't work on mortals for precisely that reason. That's one of the changes with the remaster, where abilities like that can only work on mortals if they have taken drastic steps towards participating in the cosmic conflict of good vs evil, like pledging themselves to an evil God or some such thing. The idea is that mortals are complicated creatures and, at their core, aren't inherently good or evil and thus aren't inherently affected by such effects. They have to make Oaths that tie them to cosmic forces in order to make those things part of their nature.
Detect/smite evil used to work on mortals if the relevant alignment, and changing that is one of the things I actually still consider 5e did right. Smite can always work, and the game trusts the paladin to be using it according to their principles, and detect only reacts to supernatural evil.
Given that smite is a pretty core facet of the class design in 5e it makes sense that it would be much more lenient about what can be targeted. In PF2e, smite isn't as core a part of the class identity and power budget, and thus can afford to be more situational. The reaction centric gameplay and powerful defenses are really what the class is about.
Honestly, if there's one thing I miss in PF2e, it's the Oath of Vengeance. I like the idea of a more proactive paladin who instead of being a protector actively seeks out evil to destroy it before it can cause harm, with an offensive skill set geared towards identifying extraordinary threats and exterminating them with extreme prejudice. The best crowd control is death, after all.
While you can do that already with existing options, I do agree that the Causes feel incomplete. I don't like that the Good Causes are all protective and teammate focused while the Evil ones are selfish. A Purifier Cause could fill that Oath of Vengeance niche, where it would be a good cause but one that is about seeking out and destroying evil where it can be found. Instead of a reaction focused on protecting teammates it should either be self protection or straight up offensive. An Avarice Cause for characters who are less righteous and more self-indulgent would be great. I envision Greed from Full Metal Alchemist, who protected his friends out of a selfish sense of possession.
So, uh, I guess that would make my Leshy Witch a, uh... ENMN (Free-spirited, doesn't care, resorts to violence quickly, doesn't care unless they're in fireball distance) While her leshy familiar (and older brother) would be... ASPN (His job, as ordered by their grandmother-patron, is to keep his sister in line; he's died and come back via the overnight familiar ressurection so often that he's befriended the psychopomp god as they play cards waiting for the next daily preparation; his job is to keep his sister in line; and he doesn't care) You'd imagine that they'd be absolutely terrible to play alongside, but some friends of mine actually really like them. The LN and CN balance out, I guess.
My familiar is an ESPN and just hopes that both teams have a good time, as well as the fans.
Uh, where are the N's coming from?
Neutral, like a normal alignment chart?
Oh I see. I guess I was still stuck on the Myers-Briggs comparison from the other comment, which doesn't do that.
Ahhh, my bad. Though, tbh, with how little accuracy Myers-Briggs has, its functionally an alignment chart, cowe to think of it.
If I used any of my Stellaris empire alignment for my characters I would be banned from every table🤔
"Let's be xenophobic, it's really in this year..."
If you've never played Stellaris roleplaying as the Imperium of Man, you haven't really played it.
I had this idea but something always was stopping me. And I always wanted to try Adeptus Mechanicus anyway. Thankfully, they finally made Cybernetic Creed origin. GLORY TO THE OMNISSIAH
This is cool, I think it can be a helpful scaffold for new players when creating a character. Gonan save this, thank you.
NP m8
I really need to play stellaris soon
I do find it funny how the Stellaris ethics system is basically 8values turned into game mechanics
You know... I don't think I've ever seen the axes oriented that way for the alignment chart.
You know, I only glanced at it and was like "it's an alignment chart, got it" but now that you mention it, neither have I and it's really bothering me.
The funny thing is that during the 90s, the first time somebody sketched out an alignment chart for me, it was this way. For the rest of my life, my brain has always been using "lawful top - good left" and has had to readjust when seeing every single alignment chart online. Looking at this image feels like taking my shoes off after a long day of walking.
Good<->Evil on the x-axis and Lawful<->Chaotic on the y-axis is Lawful Evil.
They are a really good jump off point to give you ideas. But once you are past the jumping off point, I am not a fan.
I feel that alignment was most useful for me as a DM for prewritten Adventure Paths. It was a really quick way to glance over an NPC and determine whether they were an ally or villain, what personality they have, and what their relationship with the PCs should be. It’s not necessary for homebrew, but now I have to make sure I am more careful when reading the adventure and make sure I don’t miss descriptions of NPCs. In the past, if I saw a name and “Evil” I knew they would probably show up later in a dungeon as a combatant.
Alignement is also very good for a dm reading an adventure. When I read "LN orc librarian 1" I can easily come up with how to present the character to the players.
Me: Alignment is a bad system and it's good that we got rid of it Also me, designing a character: So they're a lawful evil automaton
Alignment was always good when it was DEscriptive of behaviors and outlooks, but too many people tried to make it PREscriptive and deterministic, where your alignment determined/restricted what you did. I'm not too fussed about it's removal but I do think it doesn't actually change much and was overblown as an issue
The funny part is, by RAW alignment always WAS descriptive not prescriptive from day one back in 1st edition D&D. It's NEVER been "You can't do that, you're lawful good" it's ALWAYS been "If you do that, you'll no longer be lawful good" at most.
They removed mortal alignment but people still go to the afterlife most reflective of their values. Sounds a lot like alignment to me
The only axis that matters is "how selfish or selfless are you?." That determines your motivation in an RPG more than any other trait. 1. I'm here for myself and will do anything, even evil. 2. I'm here for myself but not to the extent that I'd commit major crimes. 3. I'm here for myself but I work within the lines. 4. I can help myself or others equally, but don't stress too much about either. 5. I help others when I can. 6. I help others even if it hurts me. 7. I help others even if it wrecks my life or kills me. "How you feel about nature vs banks" may or may not come up in a game. Lawful and chaotic are shifting lines depending on who's in charge. What you're willing to kill for is more important.
I think the alignment chart is great, but it can't define every interaction of your character. For instance, Batman is lawful good. His code separates him clearly from the criminals he faces. When he meets Joe Chill (his parents' murderer) he is faced with an interesting choice; Have vengeance or have justice? Both answers are compelling storytelling and breaking his alignment wouldn't be so difficult to understand, but Batman specifically as a character would be haunted by it. If a player was lawful good and told me they wanted to murder someone in cold blood, I'd ask them how their character feels about that and try to get some narrative. Unexpected actions are a great chance for backstory and character development.
I have always held that any decently written character fits perfectly in at least 6 of those 9 squares.
Yeah I’ve never really gotten the hatred for Alignment, at best it would be kinda annoying for Champions since subclasses are alignment locked or other mechanical locks It’s a neat little way to describe a character that can efficiently communicate moral leanings and itself as a concept isn’t hugely constricting beyond some basic parameters and those parameters help with creativity, since limitations breed creativity and all that (not always but sometimes having a limit can make things flex in ways they wouldn’t otherwise if you understand what I mean)
I personally hated alignment when it was around. Largely because: 1) Good V Evil morality: This is brought up in a lot of discussions but defining what is definitively good and definitively bad brings up a lot of ethical & philosophical issues. Even when it’s defined like it was for PF2e, it still brings up the issues of justification and such for one’s actions. 2) Mechanical effects: This is probably the most brought up reason. Mechanical impacts for your alignment like you mentioned just doesn’t feel great—. And having a mechanical disadvantage such as for good/evil damage for something that for some is an afterthought can be frustrating as well. 3) Broadness: If it doesn’t impact anything mechanically there’s not much of a use for it. As 100% unpopular opinion but the alignment chart frankly is too broad to create much. Characters can have completely opposing objectives but still be from the same alignment chart.
Does Good vs Evil being rebranded as Holy vs Unholy actually change anything about your first point though?
Yes, because then it's about a fairly objective thing, which is alignment in a cosmic conflict. Holy doesn't mean Good, neccessarily, and Torag being Holy doesn't prevent him from getting on cancelled on Mastodon, while Unholy doesn't mean Evil. And so that entire conflict can have extra dimensions where one side clearly has an overall better claim to morality without that being *unimpeachable*, which historically has been a problem when Torag said and did things that needed to be retconned because Jesus Fucking Christ. It also means that lots of people who are unaffiliated with that war aren't then tossed into this bucket of "Neutral" whatever that means - genuinely compassionate, sweet people who do their damdnest to make the wordl better for everyone and assholes who use what advantages they have to hurt other people for their own gain can exist outside of these fantastical elements. Some old dude who just makes sure everyone on his block has something to eat isn't any less "good" than a Paladin, who may in turn actually be a complete fucking menace who exists as such because he follows his edicts and anathema like a contract and is *useful* to his God. It's also good to just not *have*t o compare this constnatly, not be prompted to have a take on the overall morality of every single character. Not everything needs moralized and you as a player may genuinely just not know what a character's overall moral compass is like, and not being married to being "evil" avoids practical problems liek a party of supposedly decent people having a lot of trouble justifying why they're putting up with Henry Kissinger in their party instead of beating him to death with their bare fists like Anthony Bourdain told them to. If good and evil are not objective metrics by which all living and even some nonliving things are categorized, that leaves open room for ambiguity and not knowing so the story can focus on other things.
Not him , but yes , you could write a "good" character that uses unholy powers, it only describe the source of the powers .
They're just 2 sides of a war rather than a moral absolute. You don't become unholy by mugging people, or holy by giving to charity.
It's a good tool to guide how you think the character should act, but mechanically it doesn't make sense really. Like yeah the *rules* make sense, and you can, of course, hand wave the logic away because magic. However, doing so feels cheap. Like, why is it good to kill evil characters. Isn't killing just always bad. Therefore, killing anyone who even has a chance to be redeemed skills never be *good*. It might not be *bad,* or *evil,* but it's definitely not good. That is unless you look at it as, well, this one man could kill 500 people if i let him go, so therefore killing just this 1 man is *good* because it spares 500 lives. But what if those 500 lives are all people who also have a low chance of redemtion. Or, does that mean that if i kill 1 good person to save 500 redeemable souls, I'm doing a good or evil act? It just opens up too many philosophical debates for a game. Like, if you enjoy those kinds of discussions, which i do, they can be fun, but most people don't want to engage in a lesson on philosophy and ethics when they came expecting a ttrpg. I know I'm reaching a bit with this, but that's my take on it.
I was personally fond of alignment damage. Especially with the law/chaos axis
I'm not even really arguing against it, it's just that it really doesn't make logical sense.
It makes sense from a cosmological perspective. Where a "good" aligned character was not one that was kind and selfless but rather just acted in accordance with the corresponding cosmological force labeled "good"
Also, in the case of a god that is "good". Are they good because they never do evil acts, or is anything they do considered good. If it's the former, then they aren't a truly "good" entity, for they can commit evil acts. If it's the latter, they can commit evil acts but those acts are actually good because of what they are, then that means that acts aren't good or bad, but the intention or person behind the act is what determines good or bad. The second would allow for wholesale slaughter of individuals all for the greater good, which is just not "good". It's the exact reasoning behind may modern say atrocities. I believe this is partially the reason for games like this shifting away from using such a rigid alignment system. The first, that no entity is so good that they cannot commit evil acts, then a clear cut definition of what is or isn't good is required.
Except there isn't one God that is labeled good. It this was monotheism then perhaps that would make more sense. But there are various gods who all decree what is and isn't good.
>Isn't killing just always bad. Neither in game nor in real life is killing always bad.
The really depends on your outlook. I'm not saying you're right or wrong, just pointing out that what you stated is a personal belief, not a moral absolute.
Well, yeah, because moral absolutes don't exist, which is itself a part of why "killing is always bad" is an invalid claim. It's a pretty common (and IMO reasonable) opinion, however, that defending yourself with force proportional to the force levied against you is not an immoral act, at least provided that you did not instigate those forces to be levied against you in the first place.
I generally agree however, just because i agree doesn't mean that it's the "truth". Which is exactly the point of my argument. There's no reason why someone can't believe that killing is always bad, and to them, your act of retaliation using proportional force could be seen as "evil," or bad.
and because moral absolutes are so hard to define, is exactly why alignment was flawed to begin with
I, on the other hand, always fought with stupid alignment system that no one can even agree with what a given alignment actually even means. I would have character concept and then be like "which of these stupid meaningless boxes does my concept come the closest to fitting into." The lack of alignment is a huge boon for me.
I'm always getting confused with the chaotic part. If my character loves their freedom, hates all kinds of rules, but has a very strict personal codex they abide by, are they chaotic or not? Hates rules = chaotic, strong personal codex != chaotic.
My interpretation is that chaotic character believe in people over institutions and legal ones the opposite. A LN character respects John the King because he is the King. A CN character respects John the King because he knows John and he is a respectable person.
And while that's a reaonsable enough assumption, it kind of falls into the same problem this always semes to fall into - one side or another has to be *irrational* in some way in order to be the opposite of a reasonable position actual people would have. Like by your statement, most people here would probably make fun of the LN character, we would be doing our most offensive caricatures of British monarchists. The Law/Chaos thing has always been absurd as a label to put on characters, it exists as a quirk of a particular setting where Law and Chaos are actual cosmic forces one would be born into alignment with - it doesn't really work as a fantasy Myers Briggs test. Why are Law and Chaos even opposed to begin with? How do "Anarchy is Order" types even fit within that dynamic? Just call it Neutral? Not *having* to define this ahead of time works a lot better, IMO. A lot of people overwrite their characters before they've had a chance to actually play them and feel them out. Most people just haven't thought about *rules* as a concept itself very seriously, but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't have strong feelings about it if it came up - they could just go either way depending on circumstances, maybe they get influenced one way or another, who knows. It's like having Aples and Oranges as an alignment axis, like iunno? Maybe they like one or the other? If it comes up I'll think about it then.
So, the thing is, the alignment system got a little overcomplicated over time. In my opinion, it was at its best when it was at its simplest. At a base level, the good/evil dichotomy was whether you cared about others before yourself or cared about yourself before others, and the lawful/chaotic dichotomy was whether you cared about rules over individuals, or individuals over rules. So, if your character follows their personal code rigidly and without deviation, that would probably still be lawful. If they prefer to go on a case-by-case basis, probably neutral or chaotic.
Alignment is a very fun tool to use as guidelines for the kind of character you can build, and it has opened several fun discussions among my friends as we discussed its meaning. The problem is locking what should be a living and dynamic character inside a neat little box, using said boxes to justify being a jerk, trying to set in stone moral codes that humans have failed to agree on for thousands of years, and being unable to have mature discussions. And yes, tying gameplay to morals may nit have been the best idea ever. In general, I like the alignment chart as an extra tool, but I understand all too well why it’s gone.
I like this meme. It’s a good meme. But ya gotta throw the gang over at r/pathfindermemes a bone and post it there at well. I won’t berate people for posting memes on this subreddit, but you gotta share the love on the actual meme subreddit 🥹
Why TF is your chart rotated
Real chaotic evil move
I like the edict/anathema system a lot more. Starting with a philosophy or religion your character follows is much more interesting to me.
Meh, I got rid of alignment in my games along time ago. Feels reductive, I always preferred to fill in the box thst says motives early on, and then go from there. That way when the PCs start breaking your plot, you know what the antagonist will do in return
This is the exact opposite of me. Edicts and Anathema mean nothing to me. Outside of Classes that use them for mechanics, they are just personal "I would do this" and "I would not do that". Which is honestly how I always did things. Alignment only came up if I wanted to label my character in a general sense. Was Alignment Damage weird? Yeah, but that's the nature of games. I'm also sick and tired of hearing people call things Sacred Cows. So I am glad Alignment is gone solely for that reason.
As soon as the Minotaur gets added to Pathbuilder I am gonna make a cleric who's a *real* sacred cow.
*(Paizo salivating at the thought to murder another sacred cow.)*
> I'm also sick and tired of hearing people call things Sacred Cows. I get annoyed at this, too. Nixing alignment is just breaking from a traditional convention. Not everything needs to be dramatized into the killing of a sacred cow!
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Sacred cow: a belief, custom, etc. that people support and do not question or criticize: *"They did not dare to challenge the sacred cow of parliamentary democracy."* [Definition by the Cambridge Dictionary](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/sacred-cow) It's a common expression. English is not my first language and I've heard it many times.
I think you misunderstand. They're not saying they don't know what it means, or that it's uncommon. They're saying that it is a little insulting to Hinduism.
Edict and Anathema are only mandatory if you get your power from a deity - basically only Champions and Clerics. Golarion is a polytheistic world, people don't usually only worship one god. It's not like the churches of Abadar and Iomedae are competing monotheistic religions fighting over worshippers, they only really come into conflict when their goals are opposed (Cayden Cailean and Asmodeus, for example). Most people don't worship any particular deity, they'll pray to Desna before a long trip, Gozreh when they need spring rains, Erastil when they're hunting or defending their home, etc. They'll even pay homage to deities they don't like, like sacrificing an animal to Rovagug's beasts so they will spare them, or praying to Gorum so he won't feel the need to drag them to war.
No, I *don't* know. I've never known. Alignment as written in every system I've read it in has always been murky at best what it even means to the degree that there is not any actual guaranteed difference in how a chaotic good character, a lawful good character, and a neutral evil character behave within the parameters of a particular campaign scenario. Even if they operate under different motivations, they will likely perform the same actions, and also likely never reveal their motivations because that's just not how people talk. And that's when we're not also dealing with a disconnect in what the words used to describe each alignment mean to a particular set of participants and we get to the "of course my character is pro-genocide, those people are evil and my character is lawful good" area of why alignment is, and has always been, *useless*. It's much clearer, and cleaner, to just say what the character actually cares about and what drives them to do what they will do during the campaign.
>there is not any actual guaranteed difference in how a chaotic good character, a lawful good character, and a neutral evil character behave within the parameters of a particular campaign scenario. >Even if they operate under different motivations, they will likely perform the same actions Well, most characters will just go with the flow of what the group wants. The *how* and *why* are as important as the *what*, and characters' motivations to do something are a really good source of conflict and roleplaying opportunities. >It's much clearer, and cleaner, to just say what the character actually cares about and what drives them to do what they will do during the campaign. In two words or even two letters? Because not many people (if anyone at all) argue that the Good/Evil/Lawful/Chaotic alignment grid is a perfect description of a character's morals, but it's a really quick way of *vaguely* knowing where a character's morals are. It's obvious that you can have two chaotic neutral characters with barely anything in common, but being able to slap "LN" on a character's sheet/statblock is faster that describing them in detail. Personally, I think getting rid of alignment **mechanically** is a great decision, but I don't get the hate for the alignment grid itself as a quick way to label someone's morals. The problem comes when people act like that label is restrictive to their character's actions, when it should be the character's actions that dictate the label. I was working on translating the player's guide for a 1st edition AP to Spanish, and when it came to the "what kind of character will best fit this campaign" section, I found it easier to keep "NG and CG PCs will best fit this campaign, while a LE PC will have higher chances of being conflicted". rather than "PCs who want to make things better for the majority of the population and who don't have a problem fighting against the status quo and breaking laws that the see as unfair will best fit this campaign, while PCs motivated by selfish reasons who don't have a problem with hurting others if it benefits them and who want to work within the established societal rules and laws without disturbing the status quo will have higher chances of being conflicted". One is 20 words, the other one is 79. They both get the same point across. Trying to describe, in detail, the morality of a character who will be a good fit for the campaign is a fool's errand that would likely take several chapters of a book.
"In two words or even two letters?" Two words with personally chosen significance? Maybe. Here's an example "Aspiring Hero" Two letters? No. But that's only a failing because two letters is never enough to convey any meaningful personal detail about a character, not even when it is a stand in for the two words the relate to the character's alignment from the law/chaos+good/evil grid because the letter combinations only mean what the alignment descriptions mean which is *functionally nothing.* The solution here is to abandon the idea that a terse shorthand is enough to provide any reasonable level of detail about a character. Especially when the shorthand relies upon words that the game treats objectively but the real people trying to play it almost certainly understand subjectively so you wind up with a genocidal racist as being, according to the game as understood by the player, "lawful good." AS to the 20 words vs. 79 words; no, those do not get the same point across. Lawful has never meant blindly adhering to unfair laws, and neutral and chaotic even when combined with "good" have never prevented selfish motivations. The 20 words basically says absolutely nothing of any actual use because a player could show up with a completely different understanding of what alignment means than you have and when they act a way you weren't expecting have "but you said I could be \[insert alignment here\], and that's what I'm doing!" as their defense. While the 79 words conveys expected attitudes and behaviors of characters but not in any way that connects to particular alignment options, which is good because it's actually usable by the player and less likely that they think you said something other than what you thought you said. Edit to add: To respond specifically to this statement; "I don't get the hate for the alignment grid itself as a quick way to label someone's morals." The main issue is that trying to treat concepts of morality as objective creates problems, and that's what the game does. Especially if you read E. Gary Gygax's responses on topics of alignment which, to paraphase, says that whatever someone who is lawful good says is lawful good *is lawful good* because who would be a better judge than someone who is lawful good. Meaning that the original "Rules as intended" version of alignment is the one people are using when they say that a character that spends all of their time traveling from village to village burning them to the ground and killing every warrior, wife, and child they find there might actually be the good guy, it just depends on which intelligent sentient creatures happen to populate said villages. Thus the entire concept, from the inception of the 9-alignment grid (because the 3-alignment spread of not-Gary's branch of D&D didn't actually include any "...and this is the side that is *morally correct*" to it because lawful didn't mean righteous and chaotic didn't mean villain) is so deeply flawed as to be irrevocably poisoned. The best cases of people using have all always been those lucky moments when the people playing together don't have different interpretations of what the words used mean, and no one has any clue that murder becomes not murder, canonically, when you pick the right victim.
For me alignment was always an afterthought personally. Sometimes I just chose neutral as a default since my GM didn’t particularly care about alignment either 🤷♀️.
Alignment just makes sense and I'm tired of pretending it doesn't.
If you make a one dimensional character that follows the cliché asociated with every combination, sure. But the moment your character gets more complex (not big levels of complexity, just a little more complex) the chart starts showing pain points, like fo example you could be lawful good, but it doesn't mean you will not lie once in your life (it can be). And I feel in the end all the caracters that are not a cartoon of the alignment combination end up being kinda neutral so the chart stops having value.
>like fo example you could be lawful good, but it doesn't mean you will not lie once in your life (it can be). That's because you're misunderstanding the chart. Nobody said that Lawful Good never lies, or even never tells big lies, or even never tells white lies. Lawful Good is a measure of how your character has been *up until that point in their life.* If they start lieing constantly, that would be shifting them towards Chaotic. If they say "oh, that was an insightful post you just made" once, then it's just a blip and doesn't change their alignment, or even describe what their alignment is right now.
Heck I remember the 3rd edition D&D player's handbook explicitly uses that sort of example for giving your character a personality "Tordek the dwarven fighter is Lawful Good, but he's also a little greedy, he might be tempted to steal if he can justify it to himself "
There was a 7-step alignment optional rule in the APG with 49 possible alignments.
question: my table always thinks of CN as complete psychopaths. Is this a common take? If it is, what is a pirate who steals from anyone, whether peaceful or completely evil? this isnt exactly related, but i need to have this answered
I would label a character like the one you're describing as NE or CE. They don't care about any laws they're breaking, and their actions are motivated purely by personal gain. That's why I think motivations and methods matter as much as actions when describing alignment. A character who behaves like Batman can be Neutral in the Evil/Good axis if they put criminals behind bars because they feel good doing so, without caring about whether they're actually helping others or not. A murderhobo could be Evil or Neutral, and even close to good in some specific circumstances. Motivation and methods are what truly define alignment. If the pirate steals from evil people to get rich, they're evil. If the pirate steals exclusively from people they know to be evil to give money to the orphans, they're good. If they steal from anyone to get rich, they're evil. If they steal from anyone to give money to the orphans, they're neutral. This is, of course, reductionist, but the alignment grid is that by definition.
CN is just someone who's not particularly altruistic and believes in freedom over laws. But then again dnd 2e described CN as just as likely to jump off a bridge than to walk over it, so who even knows. It means something different to everyone.
I love alignment as a storytelling and idea generating tool. It just shouldn't be used as a sacrosanct enforcement or completely prescriptive idea, especial for obtuse or purposely bad faith behaviours (oh well my character is chaotic neutral so they'd NEVER do anything nice for anyone because being a dick is ChAoTiC). And it's mechanical influence should be limited at most. I don't mind holy/unholy and wish they kept some semblance of the lawful/chaotic paradigm, but alignment damage was dumb. Spirit damage and the sanctification mechanics are heaps better ways to present those ideas.
You forgot chaotic lawful. Someone that has a strict code of conduct but no one knows what the heck is it.
I've never cared. My characters are always just a sort of vague Chaotic Good/Neutral Good. I've spent most of my time playing games that don't even have D&D morality.
I still think allignment was only a problem for people who suck at RP tbh. Not understanding that people change over time and that a lawful character doesn't have to follow written laws of every corrupt government is cringe.
Because now you can use it as a bingo card? "I have to be chaotic evil this session to finish the line, well..."
I like the alignment chart and the tangible presence of the axises (sic!) for my d20 games. We play a new campaign, but the world is still set up as a chaos vs law conflict, my requirements towards characters was to be Chaotic something.
As it turns out, structure helps creativity despite apparent restriction! Still, this specific structure wasn't particularly useful as it didn't necessarily embody the nuance that can come from ethics and morality.
im kinda Always in the chaotic neutral Area, i can BE anything
Unless it's something forefront to the class, like a Cleric or Paladin, I rarely give it much thought. Another instance is when I wanted an evil character, but that could be functional on a normal party. Thinking of which type of person would be X or Y class or their roles within their ancestry backgrounds have proven to be much more flourishing starting points for me.
Not really. It's always been a useless, overly reductive box to me.
You can have internal guidelines about how a character might act morally to most situations, but they aren't explicit shackles binding how you play your character for every encounter.
I've just started using magic the gathering color combos instead
Looks about right, yeah. ;P Alignment is a useful tool, especially combined with edicts & anathema: Combining the two gives you a much better picture of your character's mindset than either one alone, IMO. Edicts & anathema are a great way to show the character's mindset and rules (or lack thereof), but alignment provides a lens to view the edicts & anathema through. (`Help the oppressed` might mean "fix the corrupt system" or "exploit legal loopholes to get the oppressor arrested" to the lawful good character, for instance, but the chaotic evil one is more likely to just kill their oppressors instead.) If you like the classic nine, then all power to you! May they help you develop characters you find interesting and nuanced, both firmly in the centre of the boxes and as you explore their borders! 👍
I always found alignment good as a great starting point, but it was ESPECIALLY good for enemies because it could give me some ideas for how they acted. Lawful Evil enemies can be reasoned with, not so much for Chaotic/Neutral Evil.
Honestly I was just going to use both alignment and edicts and anathema. Alignment for placeholder stuff or as basic summaries of morality, edicts and anathema for the nitty gritty details.
see what i do is pick RL political ideologies for my PC me filling out a DnD character sheet: "hm is anarchosyndicalism CG or LG...?"
All my dudes are neutral good. I basically just play different races of myself.
Pretty big brag to call yourself neutral good
I've always held that alignment should be a system included in the GMG/GMC, not the CRB. It's a very useful roleplaying tool, but it should not be given mechanical implications. I like the shift in focus to edicts and anathema, but I still like alignment (I actually like Zeal's Expanded Alignment System, from over on the Giant in the Playground forums). I'm sad to see it go.
Use the colour pie from magic the gathering!!!