Why I Changed Dungeons and Dragon’s Alignment System
The alignment system in Dungeons and Dragons is a topic of hot debate. Some people swear to its function, while others don’t want to be restricted by the system altogether. For most discussions it’s a segue to issues of abstractions that are present in the current 5th edition of the role playing game. It’s under such high criticism because it tries to abstract morality, and frankly, it does it poorly.
What Is Alignment In Dungeons And Dragons And Why Should I Care?
The concept of alignment stems from the eternal battle between good and evil, order and chaos. This epic conflict has inspired most, if not all, high fantasy stories ever written. The evil Sauron, foiled by the good natured Hobbits. Great stories require great drama, thus a game that revolves around story telling needs a system to invoke drama. A system that helps to create said drama. The alignment system allows you to easily label characters as good or evil, so you are able to invoke conflict and drama into your stories.
Labeling means restricting. It’s not untrue that the alignment system forces your character into a certain direction that will be limiting your options. The lawful good paladin cannot kill another entity it swore to protect. But what if that being is evil ? The paladin wants to cleanse the world from all evil, so killing such a creature is justified. It makes for a great black and white view on the world, but as we all know, the world is more of a grayscale and the current alignment system does not play well with these shades of grey.
Why Should The Alignment System Change?
We already discussed the system is too black or white for it to function in any realistic setting. It’s great for one dimensional characters where everything is good or evil. But what if evil is a subjective term? When is something considered evil? These moral dilemmas drive great stories and the current alignment system doesn’t really support them well. Why though? Why doesn’t it support these greyish areas of morality? Well… because people are dicks and they tend to call out every situation they think is a violation of the alignment rule.
Whenever a lawful good paladin that swears to protect all of the people in the lands kills a murderer, it might seem okay, but what if he murdered out of passion and frankly made a great case? What if the person he murdered tortured him mentally for years and years, what if that person did outrageous things that weren’t technically illegal but pushed the man over the edge? It’s hard to label him good or evil. Every situation has different perspectives. If the paladin decides to spare the human, there will always be a player that calls out “huh? Aren’t you lawful good?”. Every time it happens at my table I conjure up a blank stare… “here comes the discussion”. The same arguments about what’s good or evil, what’s lawful or chaotic.
I learned from experience that an alignment system should support your character, it should guide you towards making the correct decision, but most of the time it only guides you towards an argument that nobody is able to win, because the concepts are just too subjective.
What’s Good? What’s Evil?
Recently I was listening to a podcast called Dungeon Master of None (great show with tips and inspiration for every DM). In one of their episodes, they discussed a culture where bravery was a virtue and cowardice was considered evil. It lingered with me, because I found the concept intriguing. An act considered evil, is not necessarily considered evil everywhere throughout your setting. I realised it opens up a lot of worldbuilding options. It was only after a while I remembered that Wizards of the Coast actually already introduced something similar with the Drow. The dark elves are considered evil due to their cruel ways, but to them, this is just the way the world works. There is no intentional evil in their ways. It’s just based on their laws and traditions. So I started asking what’s considered evil?
You can still define this concept in your world. But you should by now start to realise that it’s a vague concept and is not really supporting a character’s progression or backstory. It does not offer a real tangible handle for starting players to decide how a character should react, how to play the role. Neither does it help any party members trying to understand the character. If you were to ask your players how they perceive being lawful, chaotic, good, or evil, you would get totally different and very surprising answers.
A New Interpretation
Now that we discussed what alignment is and especially what hole it tries to fill, we can try to design a new system that feels familiar to seasoned players, yet intuitive to newer players.
First of all, good, evil, lawful, and chaotic should still exist in your world from a story point of view, but characters should not be labeled with these heavy concepts. Alternatively, they could be categorised as Rational, Emotional, Altruistic, and Egocentric.
Rational
A rational character acts based on a certain logic. You can’t really call it lawful, because the logic could be a belief that only exists in the mind of a player. However, the character will react the same way when presented with a similar situation… he deducts how he should react based on facts and personal rules. He might value the law and use it in his process, but he could easily have a inexplicable hatred towards something based on his backstory. Either way he is still rational, calculated.
Emotional
An emotional character acts with his gut. He might check the facts, but embraces the randomness of life, which sometimes causes things to be somewhat different every time. He acts based of emotions that are hard for him to suppress, control, or express. An emotional character might go into an unexplainable frenzy based on just a small hunch.
Altruistic
When being altruistic you place others before you. If presented with a choice that could have a negative impact on you or another entity, you tend forget about yourself. A barbarian might be altruistic because he feels pride over protecting creatures with lesser strength.
Egocentric
A character that is egocentric thinks mostly about himself. It does not mean that he won’t do anything to help other people, he will, but only if it also helps himself. He values his life just a little more than someone else’s. This might not be out of an evil nature, but more out of self preservation.
Benefits And Shortcomings
Is this new system perfect? I highly doubt it. I haven’t play tested it for over 30 years, so I can’t really say. However I can say that first experiments and gentle introductions were well received. I might write another post in a few years how the system doesn’t help at all, or how it revolutionised my games. Either way, these are some of what I consider benefits:
- The categories aren’t morally loaded as the current ones, this means that new players won’t start murder hoboing just because the character sheet says evil.
- The categories are relatable. It’s easier to understand how someone reacts when acting emotionally or logically.
- The categories give players a tool to progress their character, it feels easier to transition from an egocentric to an altruistic character, or the other way around. It supports players to build their character.
- Characters created with this system are more likely to transcend from 1- to 3-dimensional characters.
- The categories integrate well with backstories.
Shortcomings:
- The system does not solve arguments and discussion, it’s possible that over time the discussions about alignments might shift from good-evil to rational-emotional and nothing has really changed.
- Players that are being dicks still have the possibility to say “but that’s how my character would react because I am …”. There’s only one true solution to dick-ish behaviour and that’s banishment (j.k. just talk to your players and address the issue).
Conclusion
Are you fed up with the current alignment system? Are you getting scared every time someone brings it up? You can always give this categorisation a try, and if you do, try to hit me up. I’m active on the worldanvil discord (as Baelin Bristlechest), which I highly recommend to every worldbuilder out there, even when you aren’t using their tool. It’s a community filled with wonderful people.
Don’t forget to keep on worldbuilding.
