Remember Detect Good? How about Protection from Evil or Shield of Law? Of course you do; these are iconic spells from previous D&D editions in which alignments were forces unto themselves. 4th edition, though, has backed off from alignments as quasi-elements and towards a more mundane, psychological approach. Now while I don’t at all miss being smacked around with Chaos Hammer, the relegation of alignment to the same nearly pointless mechanical design space as hair and eye color leaves something to be desired. A character’s powers – especially skill and utility powers – describe the personality and preferences in a mechanical way. Sneaky, knowledgeable, rude, outlandish, even crazy characterizations can have their roleplay enhanced by mechanics. Why not have alignment supported with powers also?
What the alignments mean exactly always has been and probably always will be up for some debate. For the sake of clarity, I will be using the following statements to define the alignments, condensed from the PHB:
| Lawful Good | “I seek to help those in need according to a codified morality, such as civilized law, strict religious dogma or racial norms.” |
| Good | “I seek to help those in need according to my own internal moral compass.” |
| Unaligned | “I prefer good to evil but to be honest, morality is not my top priority.” |
| Evil | “In this world, you are either predator or prey. Guess which one I am?” |
| Chaotic Evil | “Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. We can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with; we just want to watch the world burn!” |
Now “good” and “evil” are pretty broad terms. How is a character good or evil specifically? In what ways does it manifest? Since we are talking about character personality, it might be useful to further focus each power using archetypes, in this case taken from the astrological signs. Two alignments* have been assigned to each archetype – and yes, I of all people know this is a vast oversimplification so don’t take it personally. In place of a skill or utility power, you may take one alignment power for an archetype to whom your alignment was assigned. Here are the first six:
Virgo – Virgo concerns itself primarily with loyalty and perfection. It can be Lawful Good, representing devotion to law, order and civilization or Unaligned, representing unerring focus on perfection of body, mind or skill.
Scorpio – Scorpio seeks out the most intense, transformational experiences it can with generally little regard for how others feel about it. It occupies both extremes of the alignment spectrum, Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil.
Cancer – Cancer seeks to protect the weak and foster the young. It is the only sign to whom only Good variants are assigned to represent its healing and enduring qualities. (It also makes any PC a decent Leader in a pinch!)
Taurus – Taurus is a bastion of strength. It enjoys planting itself wherever it pleases and creating comfort, daring anyone to try and move it. It can be Good in its facet as bringer of security or Evil when it is obnoxious just for it’s own sake.
Leo – Leo loves being the center of attention and the head honcho. Very few things make Leo happier than influencing others. It is Good when that influence is to the recipient’s benefit, or Chaotic Evil when Leo holds its victims on a puppeteer’s string.
Gemini – Gemini is the epitome of speed. Talk fast, think fast, run fast. Gemini moves so fast, in fact, that it often ends up in two places at once, confusing those around it. At its best, Unaligned Gemini outpaces its allies just so that it can show off the ace it’s kept up its sleeve. At its worst, Chaotic Evil Gemini will trick its allies in a moment of need to further its own advantage.
*Design Note: No sign has only Evil variants so that all powers could be accessed by a standard D&D party.
Ryven Cedrylle was introduced to 2nd edition D&D by his father at age 8 and has been hooked ever since. When not out somewhere with his nerd-loving wife, he spends an inordinate amount of time staring at small objects - primarily beakers, stars, books about religion and virtual gaming miniatures.
That’s pretty cool, actually. I like it. Good elaboration of the Alignment system.
If I had to use some alignment system, I’d use the one from B/X. It was basically a copy of Moorcock’s Law vs Chaos where neither was good for humanity’s survival. They were just two cosmic forces. IIRC in B/X it was implied that Lawfulness was “better”.
The spell Protection from Evil used to protect you from creatures of different alignment which I think is brilliantly elegant.
D&D’s good vs evil is always portrayed as some weird objective thing when in game it’s practically just the human view forged during evolution which might not have even happened in the fantasy setting.
The other problem with the absolute morality is that it’s never applied fully. E.g. if the gods are the final arbiters, wouldn’t they decide that seemingly innocent things could be Evil, like petting cats or wearing pants. Even with the basic Abrahamic telepathic gods you could commit thought crimes constantly.
To me the alignment system breaks my suspension of disbelief and the outsiders are usually (if not indifferent) destructive (“chaotic”) or preserving/protecting (“lawful”). Of course, that doesn’t prevent the characters and npcs from having religions and other superstitions of the game world.
p.s. Oh man, I don’t even know if this piece is even relevant to your text. It’s late is my excuse. I really enjoy reading your ideas in this blog and hearing them in podcasts. Good work.
From what I’ve seen, Lawful and Chaotic are somewhat related to how wide the views of the character are. A Chaotic creature may act in the moment, with no/few thoughts the consequences, and usually focus on themself. For example, most demons think of nothing but destroying all around them, with no reasoning or anything like that, dying shortly later. A Lawful creature may focus on the large scale of things, although may lose sight of the here and now. Eg, a Lawful Good paladin may be willing to sacrifice their lives for others because he sees all lives as of equal importance, and if sacrificing one saves many, the cost is well worth it. However, when he expects the same of others, he may lose sight of the fact that they see their lives as more important, the end result being that they think of him as uncaring and thinking the end justifies the means.
That’s my 2 cents.
(Also, being LG can be AWESOME at times, when you realise many of the little things that bother you -don’t matter.- To use an example off the top of my head, you could try to share out the last cookie/bit of coke/slice of cake exactly equally, possible getting into a petty argument, or you could let the other person have it all, not be bothered by it, AND make the other person happy. Everyone wins!)
OH YEAH, and as to Lawful characters tending to follow a ‘codified morality’ (and generally following the established ways of society), they would tend to think of it as being the result of combined input from a great many people over time, and that the combined experience of those people probably dwarfs their own.
Parents of teenagers have always wished that their kids would realise they went through exactly the same things. Then the teenagers grow up, become parents, realise their parents were right all along, and wish their teenagers would realise the same.
Ok, I really should stop now.