A eulogy for Alignment in CRPGs

[Gargaune]

For some time now, we've seen a steady crusade against Alignment and its restrictions in D&D (including on this very Codex, to our collective shame), which has culminated with WotC effectively deprecating the mechanic for all practical purposes in 5E, a significant loss for the system and especially in videogames, as BG3 will soon demonstrate. As a preliminary caveat, I'm concerned with dynamic/reactive Alignment here, not the hard prescriptive variant.

As a feature, Alignment added something rather special to the D&D ruleset in that it provided a tangible bridge between the narrative and mechanical aspects of a character's progression. It offered a framework that validated a PC's agency at the plot level with material repercussions, be they beneficial or undesirable, and narrowed the over-flogged "ludo-narrative gap" just a bit. Any reasonable person understands that boundaries are as important to a game as its affordances, and that "you can do anything" gets really old really fast. Reactive Alignment provided an expanded framework for a PC to have a character arc in, where supernatural creatures might be more predisposed towards characters of a like-minded persuasion, evil could be smitten, powerful artefacts might reject an unqualified wielder, holy men could fall and villains could find redemption - and all of these things weren't just waffle, they had hard, numerical consequences that went onto your character sheet.

Now, when you're playing around the table with this advanced, radiant AI called a DM (well, maybe not so advanced sometimes), there is of course room to have your experience contextualised ad hoc. Indeed, the DM could even just choose to bring Alignment back (I did), or they could simply make on-the-spot rulings as to whether your character is worthy of wielding Carsomyr or not. Basically, Decline may be mitigated by DM fiat.

But when it comes to videogames, there is no such salvation - the DM is hardcoded, and he's not taking your questions. And without the benefit of a systemic Alignment framework to (rudimentarilly) assess your moral quandries and dish out your "just" rewards, you're left with the pressing ennui of endless possibility, where every door is just as good as the rest, and the path to choose is the one which gives you one extra goblin's worth of XP. Perhaps I'm being overly dramatic, but it's undeniable that there will be less character feedback to your decisions. Ethical choices and consequences still exist, obviously, non-D&D games have them, but you're restricted to setpieces which need development resources to script and, of late, voice and animate - i.e. they cost money.

So shall we get concrete? The Paladin's the blatant choice to pick on. Once the jackbooted thug of a given church, a zealot granted divine power in service to his order, he had to comply with a strict code abstractly describing him as "Lawful Good" to exercise his abilities. The definition of Lawful Good didn't really matter so much, contrary to all the hand-wringing, what counted was that it was a burden to bear in play and that the class had a fictional background to anchor it in the world. And now? What is the Paladin now, other than a bloke bestowed Superman powers merely by virtue of "really, really believing in something, man!" As if Chaotic Neutral entropy is even something to value in the first place. Fuck off.

And we're left with a question - why? Why did Alignment have to be tossed to the wayside? Well, it's partly because hordes of Critical Role fans just couldn't put up with a DM's ruling: "But why is my Paladin getting Chaotic points for lying to the bad guys?! What do you mean I can't roll a Lawful Good soul-selling Warlock?!" And it's also because of a streaming parade of keyboard philosophers, plenty on this very forum, constantly decrying that a tic-tac-toe table of arbitrary moral references can't accurately describe the complexity of human psychology... The very same people who'll harp on about TB over RTwP will turn around, suddenly forget what the word "abstraction" means, and wail over how four superficial cardinal points on the Alignment chart aren't realistic. Bravo! It was never supposed to be, just how the Attack and Damage Rolls were never supposed to comprehensively model a warhammer slamming a breastplate (paging Dr. Sawyer, Dr. Sawyer to Penetration stat). They were merely meant as accessible abstractions for play, but someone's always gotta overthink shit.

And just like that, poof! It's gone. Right down that screaming dark asshole of Decline you call "personal creativity." Enjoy your vacuous power fantasy where your Chaotic Neutral half-Dragonborn-half-Goblin-half-Elf Paladin of Tyr / Shadow Thief multiclass wearing Human Flesh +5 will simulatenously be grand master of all seventeen-and-a-quarter Skyrim guilds.

 

[Lord_Potato]

So shall we get concrete? The Paladin's the blatant choice to pick on. Once the jackbooted thug of a given church, a zealot granted divine power in service to his order, he had to comply with a strict code abstractly describing him as "Lawful Good" to exercise his abilities. The definition of Lawful Good didn't really matter so much, contrary to all the hand-wringing, what counted was that it was a burden to bear in play and that the class had a fictional background to anchor it in the world. And now? What is the Paladin now,

Sorry, couldn't stop myself

 

[DraQ]

Alignment systems don't deserve an eulogy. They ought to be shot in front of a ditch.

 

[OSK]

Reputation > Alignment

 

[Poseidon00]

Fucking normies have been wrecking muh DnD since the end of 3rd edition.

 

[oldmanpaco]

What's the best alignment and why is it Neutral Evil?

 

[Thac0]

Christ on a stick, I like blaming Critical Role for every little inconvenience in modern tabletop rpgs aswell, but don't you think you blew a fuse when you make Critical Role responsible for the end of alignment systems?
The timeline does not match up at all, CR is so new it's still wet and alignment is getting shat on for ages.

I can tolerate old school tic-tac-toe alignment, sometimes it's even done well like in PS:T.

I like those new experimental alignments that occasionally pop up. Disco Elysium aligning you between Fascist/Communist/Capitalist/Boomer and Rockstar/Cultist/Depressed/Serious was neat.
Tides Idea of aligning you on the Tides was good in theory but botched pretty hard in execution. At no point in the game could I tell you which virtues where aligned with which Tide, or how many even exist.

 

[Gregz]

Alignment is a role-playing tool than never translated well from PnP to computers.

 

[Shitty Kitty]

Alignment systems don't deserve an eulogy. They ought to be shot in front of a ditch.

a-fucking-men

Alignment is a role-playing tool than never translated well from PnP to computers.

alignment as an RP tool is largely dependent on a DM that isn't a complete retard and it usually still ends up being overly reductive and clumsy

CRPGs don't really have a DM proper, they have a programmer/designer/writer/whatever who decides in advance what something is and since there's pretty much no such thing as a CRPG that doesn't just railroad you through a series of gates instead of thinking on the fly, tossing interesting quandaries in a player's path, and allowing players to explain IC or OOC their reasoning if necessary...

 

[Marat]

D&D Alignment system, I've always felt, is an insult to reason and dignity of man. It doesn't make any fucking sense and I do mean ANY. Forgeting the fact that most people, including very prominent and influencial figures in history, go through life without making much of any philosophical deliberation or adhering strictly to any system of value and that their perception of the world centers on them and their immediate surrounding, the specific alignments are absolutely stupid and the "neutral" case is the most pronounced example. What the fuck is a "Lawful Neutral"? Morality is found in obeying the law? What? If a law is made that anyone outside of his home must hit himself in the head with a frying pan every five minutes will our LN hero do it because he considers it moral? Will it weight on his conscience if he doesn't do it? Laws flow from morality, not the other way around. And what about Chaotic Neutral? Why can't a CN decide, in his randomness, to obey the law, all obedient-like? Wouldn't that move him toward Lawful on an axis? How could this decision alter his personality or moral values?

I could probably go on and on, but I don't want to ramble incoherently and I can already feel the structure of my post disintegrating. In any case: the system is silly as shit and I'm glad to see it gone.

 

[Poseidon00]

I could probably go on and on

Please don't.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Reputation > Alignment

Alignment in original Dungeons & Dragons indicated faction affiliation and therefore was not far removed from a reputation system.

 

[Ismaul]

For some time now, we've seen a steady crusade against Alignment and its restrictions in D&D (including on this very Codex, to our collective shame), which has culminated with WotC effectively deprecating the mechanic for all practical purposes in 5E, a significant loss for the system and especially in videogames, as BG3 will soon demonstrate. As a preliminary caveat, I'm concerned with dynamic/reactive Alignment here, not the hard prescriptive variant.

AFAIK, opposition to Alignment on the Codex was about what you call the "prescriptive" variant (and I agree with that). You don't want alignment to be a straightjacket; it's just indicative of your average tendencies, not something all your actions must conform to.

I don't recall any strong opposition to the Alignment system as I just described. If there was any, it was more about replacing it with another morality system that fit more with the game being run, or that was more granular. Maybe some where against the bookkeeping a morality system might bring (if you're anal about it), especially for PCs, and prefered to handwave it on the go.

I think that was the extent of it. It's nowhere near the current SJW opposition to it, that rejects alignment because it ascribes morality to fictional beings that some identify with real beings that might get offended for it.

 

[Poseidon00]

I always liked alignment. Fuck your opinions on what *should* be chaotic or lawful, good or evil, these are objective, measurable forces and there isn't any arguing with them. These are merely the names by which we understand these forces, we did not invent them and they aren't byproducts of our imagination like moderntards think actual morality is.

 

[Ghulgothas]

Leaving matters of alignment determination for an unfeeling computer to determine is perfect precisely because it factors out the self-serving rationalizations and justifications people default to. Though it's a mistake to treat something as fickle and ethereal as your internal Locus of Alignment as you would something like Reputation system. There's a difference between your characters internalized nature and how everyone else perceives your character based on their actions.

 

[Marat]

good or evil, these are objective, measurable forces and there isn't any arguing with them

Should I tell him, or will someone else?

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Alignment is crutches for weak players to allow some consistency to their characters roleplay.
But it's a double edged sword, which creates stupid narrative sometimes.

they had hard, numerical consequences that went onto your character sheet.

You think that having numbers associated with everything is a good thing, "just because".
Therefore you're a simulationist.
Then you should concede that morality is not bound to any numbers in real life.
And so alignment is unnecessary.

suddenly forget what the word "abstraction" means

In the framework of P&P, presence of alignment is as much of an abstraction as the absence of alignment.

holy men could fall and villains could find redemption

They still can.



OP, all your arguments are essentially "it was good before and I liked it, reeeee why you change it".

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

Reputation > Alignment

Alignment in original Dungeons & Dragons indicated faction affiliation and therefore was not far removed from a reputation system.

I agree with what you want to say, but it's not that simple. It comes from two main sources: battle of the five armies in the Hobbits (faction affiliation) and from Moorcock/Poul Anderson (i.e. Law & Chaos as metaphysical category of cosmic organisation).

But in any cases, it had nothing to do with good and evil and I feel it's one of the worst design by Gygax.

 

[Goose]

I agree with you, I really enjoy the alignment system, it can add a lot to the setting. It doesn't belong in every game but it belongs in D&D. It's decline in popularity has nothing to do with Critical Role or any other gaming geeks.

It's purely the fault of these post-modernist, hipster fags who love things like Game of Thrones.

 

[Funposter]

It's purely the fault of these post-modernist, hipster fags who love things like Game of Thrones.

i blame kotor 2

 

[Metronome]

Reputation > Alignment

Alignment is your "reputation" with the creator of the game.

 

[Gargaune]

Christ on a stick, I like blaming Critical Role for every little inconvenience in modern tabletop rpgs aswell, but don't you think you blew a fuse when you make Critical Role responsible for the end of alignment systems?
The timeline does not match up at all, CR is so new it's still wet and alignment is getting shat on for ages.

Plump, ripe fruit typically bends the bough under its weight, therefore low hanging fruit is usually quite tasty!

AFAIK, opposition to Alignment on the Codex was about what you call the "prescriptive" variant (and I agree with that). You don't want alignment to be a straightjacket; it's just indicative of your average tendencies, not something all your actions must conform to.

I don't recall any strong opposition to the Alignment system as I just described. If there was any, it was more about replacing it with another morality system that fit more with the game being run, or that was more granular. Maybe some where against the bookkeeping a morality system might bring (if you're anal about it), especially for PCs, and prefered to handwave it on the go.

Eh, I'm not going to start scouring the forums for examples, but my impression's been that Alignment as a mechanic catches flak quite regularly, to the point where some are glad to see the back of it altogether even if it's not replaced with a "better" implementation. And the issue is that usually any discussion on Alignment devolves into debating the variables of the implementation rather than the core concept. Such as this thread, which is already flirting with discussing individual alignment definitions, rather than the features of the general abstraction.

When I was running my tabletop campaign I reworked those cardinal points into what I thought would be largely workable for my group, with some indulgence, but I purposefully didn't bring it up in here because it would obfuscate the point - and that's that the Alignment mechanic is a valuable asset to CRPGs especially, even as we're all bound to disagree with particular interpretations.

You think that having numbers associated with everything is a good thing, "just because".
Therefore you're a simulationist.
Then you should concede that morality is not bound to any numbers in real life.
And so alignment is unnecessary.

No, my overarching argument is that Alignment creates systemic material consequences for moral choices, you have systems-driven interplay between narrative roleplay and class, equipment and combat components in videogames. I've already explained that you can create similar (and arguably more impactful) effects "by hand", as RPGs without alignment typically do, but these setpieces incur a linear development cost and will therefore be far fewer and farther in between.

What's the best alignment and why is it Neutral Evil?

Because gold is best?

 

[Serious_Business]

I agree with the overall point ; somehow a lot of writing that tries to go into the "grey zone" manages to be more tedious than the DnD alignment system - which is actually not as simple as you'd think, as distinguishing good from law, evil from chaos, already is a huge step forward in moral thinking (I say this as a trained philosopher, which of course doesn't mean I am not a keyboard philosopher as well). Chaos producing law, or law producing chaos, is the basis of complexity in social thought ; what is really simple about a alignment system is the notion that individuals are governed by intention or principle - where in fact they are mostly ruled by circumstances and group morality (which is really nothing else than morality by definition : there is no morals without a group, a tradition). The DnD alignment system isn't so much rooted in socio-psychological factors, but in metaphysical ones - it connects the player to the greater powers of the universe, which override any kind of socio-historic forces. That is coherent, and it's what fantasy builds on since Tolkien : a mythical world where things are by definition simple. It's within this simplicity that complexity may emerge, such as in Torment : as always you need limits to subvert ; if you simply get rid of the limits, it's often not enough to be creative. In order to get rid of an alignement system, one has to essentially make a world where there are no greater powers ; Pillars tried this superficially, but failed miserably in the end, because its narrative is about nothing but gods and metaphysics. Much of this has to do with video game tropes - having to stop a bad guy, saving the world, etc ; in the end the potential with an alignement system was and still is the possibility to subvert these tropes - you can be the bad guy, you can destroy the world - these options may sound silly, but they still allow the player some kind of freedom, freedom from the tropes.

 

[Funposter]

What's the best alignment and why is it Neutral Evil?

 

[Shitty Kitty]

TN is definitely boring as fuck but NG can be played surprisingly well.