The Gaming Den

What do you need alignments for? If it's for D&D game elements like smite evil that's one thing, but if it's character description that's another. Getting people to write down a few quick notes about their character doesn't require alignments.

Even in D&D it's easy enough to set up divisions based on power source which don't require alignments as such. So, I repeat, what are alignments for?

Orca wrote:What do you need alignments for? If it's for D&D game elements like smite evil that's one thing, but if it's character description that's another. Getting people to write down a few quick notes about their character doesn't require alignments.

Even in D&D it's easy enough to set up divisions based on power source which don't require alignments as such. So, I repeat, what are alignments for?

Well alignment already is a power source in D&D, there's literal spells powered by good/evil besides stuff like Smite you just mentioned.

Besides that, alignments work as a religion/nation analogue that allows you to have a few clear "teams" as an easy justification for conflict/cooperation while allowing you to throw in all the individual gods you want along even godless characters from multiple countries/races/species.

So if you're playing team good it'll be frowned upon to go after other team good people but if somebody else detects as team evil, it's literally not only the gods but even the universe itself telling you that it's fine to murderstab them and take their stuff. You could try to talk to them too, but muderstab's just fine if you don't feel like talking.

Now sure some people seem to prefer games where there's no combat whatsoever because they'll try to diplo everything or games where it's everybody for themselves, but most players actually prefer to have both teams that their characters can trust in by default and other teams that can be murderstabbed on sight depending on said character's alignment.

Then some people may ask how exactly characters of opposing teams are expected to work together, and to that the simple answer is that the party characters are the chosen heroes of fate that can put aside their differences for some greater goal because obviously.

I'm pretty sure it's been mentioned a couple of times that alignments are roleplaying prompts, and in that capacity work best when wholly dissociated from any kind of game mechanics. When you're trying to teach someone how to roleplay, presenting them with a zombo.com style "no options means infinite options" sell isn't helpful at all. Having a short list of noticeably different alignments that can be combined with just about any class/race combo is useful.

It would be more meaningful to have alignment be like your "MtG color" than "good vs evil"

There are cosmic forces you've been born into, worked against, draw power from.

Chamomile wrote:I'm not sure why either of these things is supposed to be a particular selling point for an alignment system. It is entirely possible to make an alignment system in which all alignments are non-colors like "Buddhism" or "Legalism." Going with ROYGBV makes the list easy to remember but does you no favors in getting people to remember what the colors actually represent. In fact, if your red, green, and blue factions represent different things from what they do in Magic, you're actually worse off than if you used completely made up terms.

WotC decided to use colors in MtG because using colors is, along with pictograms, numbers and letters, well-established in the design of card game, as it allows easy visual recognition.

You can count on people not mistaking one color for another (to some extent). Compared to D&D alignment where the slightest attempt at poetic license can create confusion between chaos and evil, law and good, and neutral and almost everything.

Still, colors aren't entirely neutral references either. Initially, WotC followed some "common sense", at least for a western audience: blue is water, red is fire/lava, green is plant, black is disease and death, and white is purity. They started from those to extend each color in directions that made more or less sense, from the rather obvious red->fire->lava->volcano->mountain to black->death->decay->swamp and white->purity->err, city folk and flat land? So while using color may make the list easier to remember, you may have to address the possibility people will keep assuming every druid is green and every siren is blue.

Nath wrote: WotC decided to use colors in MtG because using colors is, along with pictograms, numbers and letters, well-established in the design of card game, as it allows easy visual recognition.

Sure, that's important to card games. It doesn't matter to roleplaying alignments. The iconography on your character sheets and NPC stat blocks isn't going to revolve around alignment so heavily as cards are, because they have no hook in the mechanics at all, rather than being the foundational mechanic of the game. You could assign RGB values to Legalism, Confucianism, and Taoism (or whatever) if you wanted, but there's no reason to avoid white or black when you're doing that, because the colors are just iconography associated with alignments, not the actual name of the alignment.

Compared to D&D alignment where the slightest attempt at poetic license can create confusion between chaos and evil, law and good, and neutral and almost everything.

As has been mentioned already, D&D alignments do not coherently describe anything. I would put it to you that being incoherent concepts is probably a stronger driver of confusion than lacking strong color associations.

Alignments could, or could not have mechanical purposes. But, I think if you had a well defined color wheel, having it be mechanical could be fun.

I could see a game where you had a 6 color alignment wheel ROYGBP and your color choice unlocked mechanical options for your class. Combine that with a 6 god pantheon.

Like, only Purple wizards could unlock some of the better teleportation powers.
Red Wizards get access to boosts to fire/damage spells.

So, your character might be described like Purple Halfling Knight or Red Goblin Wizard. And, that would actually mean something, and allow each class to play 6 different roles potentially baked right into the system.

If you're going to have a nine-alignment color wheel and you just want them to be political parties, use Light vs. Dark and Law vs. Chaos, rather than good vs. evil. The distinction between positive vs. negative energy and good vs. evil alignment energy is pretty weak in AD&D anyway.

Now, I don't find that satisfies by desire to have a game with Lawful Good Paladins in it, who because they are good do not murder orc babies, even if orcs are evil. I know that I'm not the only one trying to reconcile this particular bit of early 3rd millenium / 3rd edition mind caulk for sentimental reasons.

I'm going to edit the conduct list over time in the original post rather than iterating through replies.

You don't have to reconcile it if you just don't use alignments and instead have Paladins follow whatever edicts their particular faith has. You get your Paladins, they make mood sense and you still get your rp prompt without having to struggle to make alignments work.