A New Player’s Guide to the D&D Alignment System

Getting started on creating a character and their story

Cat Webling
SUPERJUMP
Published in
6 min readMar 9, 2021

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I adore Dungeons and Dragons. I’ve been playing for about two-and-a-half years now, and I can’t get enough of it.

But I definitely struggle with character creation. The paperwork throws me off — I love to tell a good story and create a believable person to portray, but I also look at the typical character sheet and want to scream. So, I focus on creating a story first and then working in the mechanics.

That’s where alignment comes in.

What is Alignment?

Alignment is what we call our characters’ main personality indicators. In D&D, these are described in terms of a three-by-three chart that labels your character as two of the following:

  • Lawful
  • Chaotic
  • Good
  • Evil
  • Neutral

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Cat Webling
SUPERJUMP

Hello! I’m Cat, a writer and editor based out of Kansas. I write about literature, theater, gaming, and freelancing. Personal work: catwebling.com.