Character Alignment

[Ben Rostoker]

It's the alignment of the players that can cause disruptions in a game not the alignment of the characters.

Anyone ever had a whole party of Evil characters on quests to raid innocent villages and slay the noble King and his Heroes?

[zergrusheddie]

We always had to be real careful with how we did Alignment. We created a few House Rules:

1. "Lawfully Good, not Lawfully Stupid!" This means that, even though Alan plays a Paladin, he does not need to charge the Lich with his Masterwork Longsword at level 2. {This rule was put in because my naked level 1 Paladin was killed in the first 20 minutes of a new campaign because we entered a city where "You see a troll attacking a little girl." We simple said that Laurence Truheart walked off into the sunset, never to be seen again as I rolled up a level 1 Fighter.}

2. "Neutral with Chaotic tendancies." The Judge may be a Neutral person when in the courtroom, but he is highly Lawful when it comes to sentences. {A Neutral Good Thief may kill, quickly and painlessly mind you, the enemy captive for fear that he would escape and inform his allies. Providing it is not constant, it should not be heavily punished}

3. "To save yourself." If the police man sees someone breaking into someone's home he won't, hopefully, fire into the crowd as the thief tried to escape. However, if the thief has a gun, the cop is protecting himself. Same with a Paladin. {"Mike, your Lawful Good Cleric is killed by the starving peasant" "What the hell are you talking about? I would fight back!" "Well, that wouldn't be Lawfully Good to kill the peasants of the city...." "I either die, or never cast a cure spell again?" "That would be a fair assessment"

4. "Don't Hang the Code!" Ever see Pirates of the Caribbean? They are Chaotic Neutral {do what they can to help #1} but they always follow the Code. A Lawful Neutral character can break any law of a city, providing they maintain they're own Codes. This makes dealing with 'Pirates' easier than dealing with the Constable; the Pirate will follow his word where as the Constable his following the Law. It also makes dealing with Devil's much more enticing...

[Ben Rostoker]

We always had to be real careful with how we did Alignment. We created a few House Rules:

1. "Lawfully Good, not Lawfully Stupid!" This means that, even though Alan plays a Paladin, he does not need to charge the Lich with his Masterwork Longsword at level 2. {This rule was put in because my naked level 1 Paladin was killed in the first 20 minutes of a new campaign because we entered a city where "You see a troll attacking a little girl." We simple said that Laurence Truheart walked off into the sunset, never to be seen again as I rolled up a level 1 Fighter.}

2. "Neutral with Chaotic tendancies." The Judge may be a Neutral person when in the courtroom, but he is highly Lawful when it comes to sentences. {A Neutral Good Thief may kill, quickly and painlessly mind you, the enemy captive for fear that he would escape and inform his allies. Providing it is not constant, it should not be heavily punished}

3. "To save yourself." If the police man sees someone breaking into someone's home he won't, hopefully, fire into the crowd as the thief tried to escape. However, if the thief has a gun, the cop is protecting himself. Same with a Paladin. {"Mike, your Lawful Good Cleric is killed by the starving peasant" "What the hell are you talking about? I would fight back!" "Well, that wouldn't be Lawfully Good to kill the peasants of the city...." "I either die, or never cast a cure spell again?" "That would be a fair assessment"

4. "Don't Hang the Code!" Ever see Pirates of the Caribbean? They are Chaotic Neutral {do what they can to help #1} but they always follow the Code. A Lawful Neutral character can break any law of a city, providing they maintain they're own Codes. This makes dealing with 'Pirates' easier than dealing with the Constable; the Pirate will follow his word where as the Constable his following the Law. It also makes dealing with Devil's much more enticing...

I like where your went with these rules. I'd use them if I DMed. Thanks.

[zergrusheddie]

I like where your went with these rules. I'd use them if I DMed. Thanks.

Thanks. They became House Rules because of the examples I gave. Also, it helps define what an Alignment is.

Alignment doesn't cover someone 100% of the time. Take James Bond; he often does whatever he wants like seduce a truckload of women {Chaotic Neutral}, does some very bad things to further is career like kill people {Law Evil}, but he is devoted to helping his country making him Neutral Good. Where do we put him? Well, he is Neutral Good {does his best for his job} with Chaotic tendancies {like breaking the chain of command to do the 'right thing'}.

Also, it can get rid of a huge pain of "Well, a Chaotic Neutral shouldn't try and help the random person in the street without knowledge of a reward." But, it is still possible to keep people within their Alignment: as a DM, I would not let a LG character have Evil tendancies.

[Thriondel Half-Elven]

As a DM i allow any alignment. just as long as it doesn't contrast greatly with the alognment of another pc.

and as a player (3e) i am almost always chaotic good

[Oedipussy Rex]

It's the alignment of the players that can cause disruptions in a game not the alignment of the characters.

Ain't that the truth. I've "played" too many games with players who were Chaotic Asshole.

[Ben Rostoker]

Ain't that the truth. I've "played" too many games with players who were Chaotic Asshole.

lol I like that name. They should add it to the 5E official rules so you can know to immediately quit playing with whoever decides to use it. ;p

[Oedipussy Rex]

lol I like that name. They should add it to the 5E official rules so you can know to immediately quit playing with whoever decides to use it. ;p

"Just playing my alignment."

[tesral]

Again with the Alignment thing. And once again the thread proves my point. The main thing you get from alignment is arguments about alignment.

I don't use alignment, I banished it from the game. No nine points of moral ambiguity for my players. You need more than that to define a character.

I'll be honest. I'm not a big fan of alignments. Its not a criticism against people who use them. They are simply not to my taste.

My biggest problem with the alignment system is actually not with the almost comically over-simplified alignments themselves. Its with the spells that follow from it -- detect evil, protection from evil, etc.

The fact that a manipulative lawyer or a clergy who has turned from his faith because of temptation somehow "smells" of evil greatly irks me. The fact that one class can sense this evil at will at first level only adds to the irk. I don't want the PCs to be sure who is really evil. The only solution is to give every villian I want to hide some alignment concealing magic item or spell and that quickly gets tedious and frustrating.

Generally, I ditch alignments. If I keep them, I completely detooth them mechanically. How then will you know who is good and who is evil? By their works ye shall know them.

Wholeheartedly again here. Not only is alignment itself a poor system the systems attached to alignment are poorer systems.

"Dude, we checked your car's alignment, it's chaotic evil."

[Oedipussy Rex]

"Dude, we checked your car's alignment, it's chaotic evil."

I used to have that car. I'd go through a pair of tires every 6 months.

[DMMike]

As DM, which alignments to you allow (and disallow) from your campaigns?

Alignment's easy for me now: all PCs are neutral. Because even the baddest of the bad have some good. But to answer the spirit of the question: I don't allow alignments that prevent everyone from having fun. Which tends to be the lower right corner of NE, CE, and CN.

As a player, what are your favorite alignments?

Lawful evil is fun, since it ends up being evil enough to tolerate, but still gets on the good people's nerves. Chaotic Good elves are fun too, because you can't count on them to do anything, but you know it'll be a good thing, whatever it is.