Community

Shadius wrote:

-snip-
Lastly; it has always annoyed me how alignment manages to creep into other rules. Things like Detect Alignment, Smite Alignment and Protection From Alignment have always smelled of WotC-approved metagaming to me.

I too have found it annoying. BUt I could understand if it was limited to outsiders and some undead. Maybe aberations.

It's partly fault of the 3rd Ed. PHBs. When you look into the 2nd Ed. PHB, you'll find alignment throughly and easily understabable explained.

Shadius wrote:

Lastly; it has always annoyed me how alignment manages to creep into other rules. Things like Detect Alignment, Smite Alignment and Protection From Alignment have always smelled of WotC-approved metagaming to me.

Actualy, Smite Evil has been around since the Paladin first joined D&D. Det. Evil and Prot from Evil , Since at least AD&D.

Which had nothing to do with WotC btw.

Alignment doesn't have to be a straight-jacket, but it usually works out to be one anyways. If you figure out your characters personality first, it's not impossible to pick an alignment that's the best fit, though the Law-Chaos scale is usually harder to narrow down than the Good-Evil one. Of course, you still have to deal with DMs that are going to say "you can't do that, it's against your alignment" even if it's part of the personality you worked out beforehand.

However, most of the time when people create characters they pick alignment first, whether to fit the requirements for a class, or to fit in with the rest of the party (cause that evil character you wanted to play is sure to last in a party with 3 lawful good characters ) and then try to make a personality based off alignment. That doesn't work. Picking a few chaotic character traits and a few good character traits for your chaotic good rogue is only going to result in a two-dimensional character.

If you build your character's personality in reverse like that, alignment is a straight-jacket, and as long as it's still the most practical way to play the class you want and fit in with the rest of the group, it's always going to be a major problem.

MatthiasKaiser wrote:

Fair enough. But that point, too, can be useful in making my argument stronger. Suppose, for a moment, we replace alignment in DnD with "conservative" and "liberal," and turn me into a DnD character. My views are strongly conservative on most issues. However, I feel strongly about individual rights. Suppose the DM puts me in a situation where an individual's rights are being ignored entirely. Naturally, due to my personal perspective on this issue, I attempt to defend him. How long and how vigorously can I struggle for this cause currently associated in America with the "liberal" side without the DM pointing out that I've been championing liberal ideals, while my character sheet says I'm conservative, and should really change my sheet to reflect my behavior?

Good example. Here's my take.

If you were a member of some conservative party, at what point would they say (as a party, not as some more extreme members might say) that you are no longer welcome as a member? This consideration could be used as a rule of thumb, there are no precise rules about this, so it would be done on a case by case basis. As for alignment, no one is perfectly consistent, and I'm sure (most) good gods wouldn't reject a soul into the afterlife for only a few evil acts in an otherwise good life. Nor would evil gods reject a soul who occassionally helped old ladies cross the street. What matters is whether you promote the overall agenda, whether of good or evil, conservatism or liberalism.

So, again, I don't think that there are (or should be) sharp lines demarcating one alignment from the next.

MatthiasKaiser wrote:

If you're not supposed to do what the words in the book say, what good are those words doing? My characters usually get warnings from my DMs that I'm pushing the boundaries of my alignment, and am about to take a shift. I can, when asked, explain how my character still fits overall into his alleged alignment, but I'm always asked, because DnD assumes that you're going to be acting within the guidelines of your chosen alignment, and I find those two-dimensional and constraining.

I guess I didn't say exactly what I meant. I'll give more detail then.

If you want a lawful barbarian tribe, don't use the barbarian class (which is horribly misnamed). Use fighters, warriors, rangers, or even the barbarian variant in Unearthed Aracana where he loses rage and gains ranger abilities (it doesn't say anything about alignment, but once rage is gone it's easy to remove the alignment restriction). On the other hand, members of the barbarian class can still be neutral, so they don't have to actively reject tradition. Perhaps the fact that they're a little more wild is due to a more primal connection with their ancestor spirits, or some such thing.

If you want a monk to rebel, maybe they do it because they feel that following tradition would undermine their personal path to enlightenment.

Shadius wrote:

I say; make the freakin' alignment rules optional or, at the very least, render their overall importance marginal.

While I like using alignment in some campaigns, I also like running campaigns that don't use it. So I'd support the making them optional. Or at least easily removeable (unlike in 3.x).

sooperspook wrote:

Actualy, Smite Evil has been around since the Paladin first joined D&D. Det. Evil and Prot from Evil , Since at least AD&D.

Which had nothing to do with WotC btw.

But in 2e, detect evil didn't necessarily reveal alignment. You only registered as evil if you were strongly aligned, or intending to perform evil. Likewise for detect good. WotC made alignment much more objective.