What's the point of alignments anyway? I mean really, what was the original intent behind them? Other than to give you a guideline on how you should behave as the character, they are rather useless. And I can think of better ways to describe character.
By offering said guidelines alignments help to give depth to character classes and hence make for more immersive role playing.
Since this thread has segued a bit into a discussion of alignments in general, I felt that I would post this chart, which I feel is one of the best alignment charts that I've come across:
Love it but I don't see Hal as Neutral Evil. He - or rather, it - was Lawful Neutral, simply trying his best to comply with conflicting orders. Or maybe he was Lawful Stupid in the extreme.
I see people falling into lawful = law trap. That's not what lawful means in this context. A lawful good paladin wouldn't murder children if it was made a law.
What's the point of alignments anyway? I mean really, what was the original intent behind them? Other than to give you a guideline on how you should behave as the character, they are rather useless. And I can think of better ways to describe character.
People forget the origins of Gary Gygax's D&D gaming system. He started out playing war games with miniature figures on hex boards with friends. Gradually, they started finding it more fun to do some roleplaying while they "fought" with their pieces on the board. So, the combat came first, the roleplaying came later.
The alignments originally were simply a way to divide miniature figure sets into factions so the players could have a war game with multiple players. It was just like the black and white pieces in chess, except that they needed more than two "sides".
The original company led by Gygax was TSR, which stood for "Tactical Strategic Resources". It was all about the hex-board wargames at first. All the roleplaying elements we associate with D&D, including the alignment system, grew out of that gradually.
Gygax himself refused to discuss or argue philosophy based on his system. He thought that that was missing the point, which was to play games, and he often grew irate with people who tried to draw him into philosophical arguments during his later years.
I'm not saying we shouldn't have fun discussing it, though. I enjoy these kinds of conversations as much as the next D&D fan. I'm just saying that I think it helps to ground the discussion and shed some light on matters to remember the history of the rules system, and that writing serious philosophy and ethics was not on the author's mind. He just wanted to provide a framework to create factions to make an interesting war and roleplaying game.
You're supposed to kill goblins, orcs, and bugbears because they're on "the other side" in the game.
Some good points here. Of course you don't need an alignment system. WFRP does just fine without it, for example.
But I'd like to point out in D&D there are the planes. Good and evil are actual things, so is law and chaos. When you die you become a petitioner that feeds one of the planes. Your alignment pretty much tells you what afterlife you are likely to have, and which powers that be for you the best.
If your character dies or goes plane hopping his or her alignment would really matter.
For D&D you really need an alignment because if this. The problem is that what is set in stone in the lore is really fluffy by real world standards. Hence the confusion and arguing.
@Grum I thought it was the god you worship that determines where you will spend your afterlife? And when you don't worship anyone, you are put into the Wall of the Faithless.
Also, the alignment system opens up some weird magical stuff that wouldn't otherwise be possible. Mythals that block the entry of evil critters, Helms of Opposite Alignment, and Know Alignment spells offer new possibilities for gameplay--alignment has practical as well as RP aspects.
@Grum I thought it was the god you worship that determines where you will spend your afterlife? And when you don't worship anyone, you are put into the Wall of the Faithless.
@Grum I thought it was the god you worship that determines where you will spend your afterlife? And when you don't worship anyone, you are put into the Wall of the Faithless.
if not, you go to the plane that marks you the best. Which is how demons can fight over unclaimed souls.
If you deny the gods completely it is the wall with you
I always saw TN as someone who didn't care for good and evil or law and chaos. Like, your average person imo is true neutral. They do laws when they benefit them and may ignore them when they stop befitting them. Not outwardly evil or good. Maybe they do some cruel acts and some good acts depending on their mood.
My understanding of TN in regards to druids is:- in times of evil, druids can swing to the good to return the balance, conversely if good has too much sway then they swing to the evil.
In regards to Jaheira in bg1 with the evil sweeping the land because of sarevok, she naturally swings towards the good to stop sarevok and bring the land back into balance. Normal for druids.
Faldorn is a shadow druid, which fight on the side of nature to stop the encroachment of civilisation on nature. Perfectly fine.
Jaheira in bg2 is still TN because as far as I am concerned she has a date with irenicus, for what he has done to herself and especially to Khalid. Otherwise I feel jaheria is basically TN
I have only came across Faldorn once in bg2 and am unsure of the back story concefning her so won't comment
Since this thread has segued a bit into a discussion of alignments in general, I felt that I would post this chart, which I feel is one of the best alignment charts that I've come across:
By offering said guidelines alignments help to give depth to character classes and hence make for more immersive role playing.
What's your idea on a better system?
Why do we need an alignment system at all? Most modern RPGs have dispensed with them, perhaps acknowledging that cramming people into one of nine categories is really dumb. The system is actually immersion-breaking because it's so divorced from reality.
By offering said guidelines alignments help to give depth to character classes and hence make for more immersive role playing.
What's your idea on a better system?
Why do we need an alignment system at all? Most modern RPGs have dispensed with them, perhaps acknowledging that cramming people into one of nine categories is really dumb. The system is actually immersion-breaking because it's so divorced from reality.
Spoken like a true NE manipulator hoping to avoid Detect Evil!
By offering said guidelines alignments help to give depth to character classes and hence make for more immersive role playing.
What's your idea on a better system?
Why do we need an alignment system at all? Most modern RPGs have dispensed with them, perhaps acknowledging that cramming people into one of nine categories is really dumb. The system is actually immersion-breaking because it's so divorced from reality.
Hence one of the reasons why we're all still playing and revamping games from the 1990's.
I didn't ever say you need alignments, just that they help to add some depth. Whether it makes me "dumb" or not I actually like this added flavour... It doesn't bother me that it's somewhat more restrictive than real life, after all we're in a game where alignments and worship of deities have real and tangible consequences.
And really if you want real life you just need to turn off the computer... Why look for it in a fantasy rpg then become critical when you don't find enough?
Alignment is nowhere on the list of reasons I still play BG. Note that both of its modern spiritual succesors - Dragon Age and Pillars of Eternity - do not have an alignment system. Shadowrun Dragonfall shows that you can confront a player with morally challenging decisions without having a crude alignment system.
And I'm not calling you dumb. But I've never been able to take a system that tries to reduce the complexities of human behaviour, ethics and morality into 9 convenient categories seriously.
I don't mind alignments in general but class/alignment restrictions or spell/alignment restrictions are the absolute worst. I can't remember if it was Pathfinder, 3.5, or 5e that stated good wizards would never use Animate Dead often. Me, being a necromancer of COURSE uses animate all of the time! Except all my actions lead me to be Chaotic Good most of the time at my best and Chaotic Neutral at my worst. Only issue is if I ever feel like playing a Cleric Necromancer (which I find more entertaining) I have to be Neutral or evil to cast animate dead. It has the evil descriptor and you can't cast spells opposite of your alignment. It creates a situation then where I'm playing a CN Cleric of a neutral death god but I HAVE to keep making sure I don't do too many good actions or turn Chaotic Good and lose my favorite spell /sigh.
Edit: Crap, I did an alignment rant. Which probably isn't helpful with the OP's topic. My bad >_>
On subject.
With Druids TN can mean the harsh death of winter or the life of spring. I think TN druids have alignments within alignments based on which aspects of nature they represent.
Alignment is nowhere on the list of reasons I still play BG. Note that both of its modern spiritual succesors - Dragon Age and Pillars of Eternity - do not have an alignment system. Shadowrun Dragonfall shows that you can confront a player with morally challenging decisions without having a crude alignment system.
And I'm not calling you dumb. But I've never been able to take a system that tries to reduce the complexities of human behaviour, ethics and morality into 9 convenient categories seriously.
Neither dragon age or pillars follow d&d rules though, which is unfortunate in my opinion.
Personally I don't see how alignments are too relevant in baldurs gate. Nothing stops anyone from acting outside of their alignments and the only classes which suffer are ones who receive divine powers for sticking to a code. If you want to ignore the system you pretty much can do already, bar perhaps playing 2 or 3 classes.
In a D&D campaign, your alignment wouldn't dictate what you could or couldn't do; it would be a guideline for your character when you're deciding what to do or how to act, and if you used it well your DM might give you bonus points for good roleplaying. In later editions of D&D, alignment restrictions on spells, classes, and other mechanics-related things were stripped away. In 5e, anyone can be anything. There's not really anything stopping your Lawful Good cleric from choosing the Death domain, or your Chaotic Neutral paladin from taking the Oathbreaker archetype.
In Baldur's Gate, alignment is used to abstract story elements without requiring BioWare's writers (back in 1998) to write full character interactions for every character combination in your party. A modern D&D game might very well follow Dragon Age's example, even while keeping alignments intact.
(Alignment also restricts classes and spells and equipment usage, but that's a relic of 2e D&D rules.)
Comments
What's your idea on a better system?
Sorry for going off-topic!
The alignments originally were simply a way to divide miniature figure sets into factions so the players could have a war game with multiple players. It was just like the black and white pieces in chess, except that they needed more than two "sides".
The original company led by Gygax was TSR, which stood for "Tactical Strategic Resources". It was all about the hex-board wargames at first. All the roleplaying elements we associate with D&D, including the alignment system, grew out of that gradually.
Gygax himself refused to discuss or argue philosophy based on his system. He thought that that was missing the point, which was to play games, and he often grew irate with people who tried to draw him into philosophical arguments during his later years.
I'm not saying we shouldn't have fun discussing it, though. I enjoy these kinds of conversations as much as the next D&D fan. I'm just saying that I think it helps to ground the discussion and shed some light on matters to remember the history of the rules system, and that writing serious philosophy and ethics was not on the author's mind. He just wanted to provide a framework to create factions to make an interesting war and roleplaying game.
You're supposed to kill goblins, orcs, and bugbears because they're on "the other side" in the game.
But I'd like to point out in D&D there are the planes. Good and evil are actual things, so is law and chaos. When you die you become a petitioner that feeds one of the planes. Your alignment pretty much tells you what afterlife you are likely to have, and which powers that be for you the best.
If your character dies or goes plane hopping his or her alignment would really matter.
For D&D you really need an alignment because if this. The problem is that what is set in stone in the lore is really fluffy by real world standards. Hence the confusion and arguing.
If you deny the gods completely it is the wall with you
In regards to Jaheira in bg1 with the evil sweeping the land because of sarevok, she naturally swings towards the good to stop sarevok and bring the land back into balance. Normal for druids.
Faldorn is a shadow druid, which fight on the side of nature to stop the encroachment of civilisation on nature. Perfectly fine.
Jaheira in bg2 is still TN because as far as I am concerned she has a date with irenicus, for what he has done to herself and especially to Khalid. Otherwise I feel jaheria is basically TN
I have only came across Faldorn once in bg2 and am unsure of the back story concefning her so won't comment
I didn't ever say you need alignments, just that they help to add some depth. Whether it makes me "dumb" or not I actually like this added flavour... It doesn't bother me that it's somewhat more restrictive than real life, after all we're in a game where alignments and worship of deities have real and tangible consequences.
And I'm not calling you dumb. But I've never been able to take a system that tries to reduce the complexities of human behaviour, ethics and morality into 9 convenient categories seriously.
/sigh.
Edit: Crap, I did an alignment rant. Which probably isn't helpful with the OP's topic. My bad >_>
On subject.
With Druids TN can mean the harsh death of winter or the life of spring. I think TN druids have alignments within alignments based on which aspects of nature they represent.
Personally I don't see how alignments are too relevant in baldurs gate. Nothing stops anyone from acting outside of their alignments and the only classes which suffer are ones who receive divine powers for sticking to a code. If you want to ignore the system you pretty much can do already, bar perhaps playing 2 or 3 classes.
In Baldur's Gate, alignment is used to abstract story elements without requiring BioWare's writers (back in 1998) to write full character interactions for every character combination in your party. A modern D&D game might very well follow Dragon Age's example, even while keeping alignments intact.
(Alignment also restricts classes and spells and equipment usage, but that's a relic of 2e D&D rules.)
Is it strange that I actually like restrictive alignments? Think I'm gonna have to make a new thread on this...