I know this wasn't Larian's decision but I believe omitting alignment altogether would be a mistake. WoTC seems to have had it out for alignment since 4th ed where there was a great deal of backlash and criticism to the changes they made and they eventually backtracked, restoring the original axis. I am fine with it being downplayed but how would spells like detect alignment, protection from evil, and alignment restricted items work?

I think the argument for removing it is that not having alignment is somehow more realistic and allows more player freedom. My response to this is that in the real world good and evil are just social contructs but in a fantasy world, particularly the Forgotten Realms, they are real tangible, quantifiable forces. Fantasy evil isn't the same as real world evil. Of course, like everything else there are exceptions and good storytelling should always takes precedence over rules.

In short I believe the alignment axis is an important part of the game mechanically and lore wise and should be kept

Umm..I've only had 1 5E character so far, but from what I learned, ALignment is almost not a thing in 5E.
It's not Larian removing it, it's WoTC removing it, and Larian is not going to add it if it's not in the 5E rules, I don't think.

I hope this helps.




AMA answer compilation

I stand corrected

Wizards didn't tell them to take alignment out of the game. They told them to tone it down because 5e didn't emphasize alignment like the previous editions used to.


@1:45:15

Its taken me years to admit this, but alignment sucks and it actuallly handycaps the story telling, its too rigid, and most don't know gow to RP it well. So I'm okay if they leave it out.

I have mixed feelings on the alignment system like you have said it is rarely done well but a part of my also want them to keep the alignment system but really this is not up to Larian to do so if things go wrong we can blame Wizards for telling Larian to keep the alignment system out of Baldur's Gate 3

I really dislike alignment system - it makes characters so one dimensional. Being evil for the sake of being evil and reveling in "evilness" is such a played out trope (in reality chaotic evil most likely to play out as murder hobo and lawful good plays out as lawful stupid). I much prefer game of thrones type of morality - no one is really that bad, no one is really that good, they all have different conflicting goals and seek them in variety of means.

I really like Larians stance on this one.

The problem with that is DND started with alignment system when there was creating DND and pretty much every plane monsters deities and npcs have alignments I mean the whole reason why demons and devils are at war is because of there behaver if you take out the alignment system in DND you are going to have a hard time trying to explain why demons and devils don't work together to take on the higher planes in a great war

I am only vaguely familiar with DnD lore, most of it trough osmosis trough games. I've read the dark elf trilogy, but tbh writing felt very shallow just rushing from one plot point to another to show off how cool Drizzt is and it kind of put me off to wanting to read more. I don't know, maybe dnd writers wrote themselves into the corner with whole alignment system, but do we really need to double down on a mistake or maybe we can admit it, learn from it and try writing multidimensional characters with depth?

The dark elf trilogy books are really bad if you want lore on the drow you are better off with the war of the spider queen books there do a way better job on the drow and has way more depth than Drizzt books

>Alignment is bad for storytelling
wrong.
RPG stands for role playing game. Its about playing a role in the world, alighment helps to cement that role.
In a fantasy world, morality is absolute.
In my opinion people that disregard the moraltiy axis are a detriment to the game.

Only if you play one dimensional character, if you would like character have more depth it's a detriment.
Edit: also lack of alignment doesn't prevent you playing a single minded character.




That's not a rule, there is huge number of fantasy worlds with a more realistic version of morality, for example - game of thrones. Fantasy world having black/white type of morality usually speaks to the lack of skill and imagination of the writer, not some kind of limitation of fantasy genre.

Moral relativism isnt a character trait and not stickign to an alignment istn depth.
its the opposit of depth. it means your character has no principles. a character with no principles cannot have their principles challenged.
What you are saying is a very popular, but undercooked idea in roleplaying. it has come with the rise of 5 and Critical role and it doesnt understand the point of a roleplaying game.

What you discribe is the Moral equivalent of a Classless system. What it sounds like is that its a system that allows you to play outside of rigid forms and make your own character.
What it ends up beeing is a System wehre your character has no identity at all.

In my expirience only the most rigid class systems lets players act as a team.
Likewise, stringend rules of morality let players actually tackle moral issues.

Very few people are as good roleplayers that they can method act to the point of fully understanding the consequences of their actions in the world.
And even fewer players can suspend their disbelief so much that they feel actual empathy for fictional entities.
And even if one would be able to do that, its a game, not Improv theatre.
rules exist for a reason, because they need to be played out.

A paladin should have a strict code of laws that he must adhere to.


>Muh black and white moraltiy bad
Moral relativism is the most lazy writing possible and ironically Game of Thrones features some of the most stringend characters when it comesot their convitions, for every Cersei, theres a Stannis, who ends up with his convitions challenged.
The "morally gray" characters in game of thrones arent actually gry.
They are chaotic evil. At least if you go by Gygax definition of it (which isnt "i eat babies")

The idea that DnD Morality somehow means one dimensional cardboard characters is a meme perpetuated by people who havent an actual understanding of why Systems exist in a roleplaying game, and what the morality axis means to represent.
Thus comes the idea that a Lawfull good character is somehow less deep and basiclaly a rules lawyer, or that a Chaotic Evil character would constantly eat babies, kick the dog or kills NPCs.
Gygax for example talks about a Chaotic Evil character sparing evil NPCs and employing them, doing evil for the sake of a higher goal.
meanwhile a lawfull good character would execute them to prevent them from fallign to evil again.



TL;DR: You dont know what youre talking about.
Get off your high horse.

The reverse is also true.

Aligments aren't that bad in tabeltop, where you can discuss your reasoning for an action with the DM. But in a CRPG, the game cannot take any of that into account. This is especially true for classes like Paladins, who tend to fall unless they act like the most extreme Lawful Stupid 100% of the time.
Then there's also the subjective aspect of interpreting rules and what "Lawfull Good" means and how someone like that SHOULD act... and you end up with a clusterf****.

Furthermore, aligments are unnecessarily restrictive. That is largely due to people not understanding them and thinking they MUST act in a specific way, rather than it being a preference, a tendency, a goal.

And thirdly, humans are complex creatures. I don't mind some monsters/races being evil/good by nature, but I do mind humans being so stiff.


Lastly, I'll say your experience is lacking. Class systems being a requirement for teamwork is bollocks. In fact, I tend to like class-based systems lass and less, because of how rigid and bloated they end up being. D&D is actually a great example with so many classes, subclases, prestige classes with overlaps, silly abiltiies/power and brainless restrictions.

Did you know that there have been thousands of stories written where characters have a moral code and a role, without the entire framework of the universe bending to put a box around every single character? That's called "character". The box isn't needed to have characters which have a moral code (or lack thereof).

Worse yet are frameworks which put the box around every single race/species, so that an infant of that species, too young to have much of a mind of its own, is considered to be inside a box just for being a member of that species, so that Drow baby is Evil without having actually done anything.

The point of alignment in D&D is not to lock players in and say "You can't do this thing because that act is 3 points too chaotic for you", it's a framework to help players build their characters identity and keep it consistent. If they do not, that shifts their alignment. Alignment change is a thing in the game which can happen, so your "moral relativism" is already built in.

i am not lacking expirience, ive seen it happen.
you can recommend people GURPS all day long, youll end up with number crunching one man army characters in the vein of pathfinder or youll end up with gimmicks.

Restrictions breed creativity. Too much freedom ends up with everything beeing just the same.
Ive seen it happen. the most fun ive had in any system is when players have restrictive roles and clear parts to play.

And honestly, yes. characters SHOULD act in certain ways.
Thats where the dilemma part comes on.
Beeing good should be hard.
beeing good should be playing the game on hardmode. Beeing lawfull good doubly so, no bending the rules because its convenient.
I think Pathfinder Kingmaker actually does this exactly right.

Moral relativism is boring.
Any culture in the real world has rules on one hand and virtues on the other.
Thigns you ought and things you ought not to do.

Especialy in a setting like DnD where there literaly are Aspect outer planes for those concepts, it would be ridiculous not to consider what is right and what is wrong, even if the players, with a modern framework, might not agree.

Stabbey: And thats how especialy the Law / Chaos axis works anyway.
Its a framewor a character agrees to.
>Moral relativism is inbuilt
you just discribed the opposit.
Changing your alignment isnt moral relativism. Doing morally reprehensible things and justifying them for yourself and not getting an alignment change would be moral relativism.
Saying "But its good because".
>killing drow children
Goblin slayer has been quoted so much that its basically another kind of cringe, but realy the show isnt wrong.
Kill the goblin babies.
Not because goblins are "always chaotic evil", DnD hasnt done that for a while (besides demons obviously), they are mostly chaotic evil.
but mostly, they are goblins. Goblins do goblin things, having less goblins is generaly a pretty good thing for any Human.
Drow are another case entierly, they are a magical race created from a divine curse, nowhere else is it more justifiable.
a drow isnt nurtured by society to be Evil alone. They start Evil due to their nature, and their society makes em worse.
A Drow needs to consciously make the descision to be good.

Now, you could say you can try to raise the drow children to be good.
but for a high level Paladin whose raiding a drow city, killing the drow kids is probably the more practicable appraoch.
Gygax would certainly agree that this is within the bounds of the alignment restriction.
Now if you DM the game , you can decide that this is evil and the paladin needs to take another action.

Just because "Evil" exists doesnt mean that Good character can kill the evil creatures withotu reproach, well, in modern DnD it doesnt apepar to be the case, in the olden days it certainly was.

This makes me think of the newest Dark Sun supplement we got, which discribes Slavery as beeing incompatible of a Good alignment, even enslavement of evil creatures. But it also isnt an inherently evil act in Athas so most slave owning characters are neutral.


To Summarize, id say alignment adds far more nuance than it takes away.
So do character classes to circle back to classes.

I don't think Detect Alignment is a spell anymore.

Protection from Evil has been changed to "Protection from Evil and Good" and grants its bonuses vs aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead.

Alignment restricted items seem rare, but do exist. For example, a Talisman of Pure Good states "A creature that is neither good nor evil in Alignment takes 6d6 radiant damage upon touching the talisman. An evil creature takes 8d6 radiant damage upon touching the talisman."

> the most fun ive had in any system is when players have restrictive roles and clear parts to play.

I think ultimately it's just us trying to justify our emotions. You have your fun doing that way, for me it's the opposite. For me alignments destroy choice, you make one choice at char selection screen and then stick to it trough the game. There is no real conflict, your solutions have been decided when you made char.

Edit:



But this is exactly my point - everything you are decribing is so 1 dimensional and shallow and is exactly as a consequence of alignment system.

I have not played a DnD 5E game so far, but I like what I see.
Alignment is there, so you can see if your actions are considered good/evil/lawful/chaotic by the game world, but you are not forced to act in a specific way.

I also think this is mostly a problem of computer games.
In PnP you can discuss why you consider an action good or evil.
The computer gives you options a,b and c and tells you a is good, b is evil and c is chaotic.
Sometimes this can produce problems:
- In PK some players complained that their paladin sometimes had to select lawful evil options in order to remain lawful, because selecting a good answer would move you towards neutral good.
I suggested to seperate both axes, so some options influence only the good/evil axis, some options influence only the law/chaos axis and an option influences both only if it absolutely fits to a specific alignment.
- Some players will complain why a specific option is considered good or bad.

I think it is good when players argue if an option is good or evil because it means they actually care about the stuff that happens.
Its just that computer games are not designed to create a philosophic discussion, they simply give you a limited amount of options to chose from.
The options are limited because everything that could happen has to be programmed by someone.

No it isnt one dimensional.
Theres already humans.
you already have the moral dilemma with humans.
If all fantasy races are like Humans, it doenst make it more deep, it just takes away one more thing in the world.

If you make drow into Humans, then you sitll have demons who are, by definition in any mythology, evil and killing them is of absoluteley no consequence.
Does that mean only creatures that do not have offspring are evil?
Do you not realize that this takes AWAY the dilemma of killing the goblin children?
this takes away a factor in the worldbuilding and in the moral dilemma of a lawfull good paladin.

>Arguing about it
tbh this is why i like to codify it.
A lot of old fantasy writers were christians and thus their worlds had a christian world view.
So it was very easy to say what is and isnt good or evil since big religions tend to have very clear instructions (well, christianity does contradict itself more than other major religions do,btu you get the point)

likewise, if you define what consittues good or evil, within the boundries of your setting, then you have a set of rules to follow.
And THEN your players might say "But i think killing goblin kids is bad"
and then you got drama, Because god disagrees wtih you.

that stuff is great roleplaying if you ask me. better than morally grey "I can do whatever i want"

What is their motivation? Oh they are evil because they are born this way and magic. For me it's incredibly shallow, it's laughable. Like can you make their motivations more shallow than that? Like they are just evil probably, without magic?
We won't agree on this, I am done, good luck.

"i dont like it".
Ok.

ivehad this debate many times before and it seems like people dont want a fantasy setting.
They want some game of thrones larp setting where everyone is a human.
In that case, why even bother with fantasy.

Why not get into historical reenactment? youre not getting any closer to it that way.

And of course your analysis is getting it wrong.
Your NATURE is not your MOTIVATION.
Your nature DRIVES your motivation.

With the drow, they are evil, in the sense of beeing selfish and ruthless.
This drives them to be scheming, power grubbing and distrustfull. It drive stheir schemes to amass wealth and influence, but beyond any reasonable moral expectaiton.
you get villains like this from Humans.
btu you dont get an entire society completley devoid of any sense of altruism.

The drow are hillarious because of how dysfuncitonal they are. You cannot portray this kind of ludicrous clown car of a society with humans.

If you did, it would seem to be downright insultign towards whatever ethnicity you portray them as.
The drow are a society that only works because of stringent ules and divine meddling, specifically because everyone in it, while having different goals, is trying to achieve those without any regard of one another.

How do you portray that without the caveat of them beeing evil?

Having the same "Local lord Gudmund wants to own the mill of Local Lord Godfrey and also his wife cheated on him with Local Prince Goderic and now there is war" just doesnt do it for me.
i enjoy myhtology.
Human struggles are a good backdrop, but if they become the entierty of the story, then why the fuck am i playing a video game.
Why am i not at work, struggling, humanly.

I agree that fantasy allows the entire race to be good or evil (though far more interesting when it is MOST of X race is Y alignment and not ALL of them). If this were the case, Drizzt, Jarlaxle, and Zaknafain would not have been written. They are only interesting because they are deviated from their race's normal identity.

Saying that your character in a roleplaying game has to figure out their moral code while the world around them has a predetermined moral code is not the same as saying that "everyone is a human."

I also disagree that there needs to be a super strict guideline of alignment upheld for characters. I think that it is enough to answer the question "are the actions I choose to take accepted by the strict alignments of my party and the society I am in?"

Edit: Even this has some problems if implemented poorly. I think BG1/2 did this a lackluster service with Reputation. There were too many small things that could raise your Reputation with too few options to lower it a small amount.

There are a lot of good arguments for both sides in this thread.

In my view in a tabletop setting you have your DM so ignoring alignment is easy and they can just tell you if your paladin screwed up too much and has fallen or if massacring that kobold tribe was for the greater good to protect the town and thus a good act or if it was just killing for killings sake and evil. This being a video game we don't have that luxury. We are going to have a list of specific dialog options to choose from rather than being able to say or do whatever we can think of.

While I am for having alignment I understand why people wouldn't want it. I remember playing Pathfinder Kingmaker (A great game) and having issues stuggling to stay Lawful Good, having to pick dialog options I didn't want to in order to keep my alignment. Thats not good. I also don't think alignment should be a restriction to your actions, but rather a general representation of you behavior. Let evil characters do good things that move them towards being good and let good characters do evil things that cause them to become evil but never say "Your character can't do such and such because they are good/neutral/evil". This results in a lot of chaotic neutral charcters that do things just because.

How I would work it is having something like an "intent" setting as something you select or possible tied to your class or personalality traits, ideals, bonds or flaws (which are all part of making a character in 5th ed). This way you could keep all the dialog options the same for the most part but be able to assign a different point value to your choices depending on your "intent" setting or other circumstances. So for example an Oath of the Ancients Paladin might go 3 points towards evil for massacring a tribe as its tenants align with mercy and forgiveness where as an Oath of Vengeance Palading might not change at all because one of their tenants is fight the greater evil.

Unfortunately nothing is going to be perfect with the lack of a DM but I can't think of a better way mechanically to implement stuff like a paladin falling or a hero giving in becomming corrupted by the promise of power or a cutthroat brigand redeeming himself and becoming part of the good fight. I also understand with this being so complicated why they would choose to omit alignment altogether and I wouldn't hold it against them (Even if its WotC decision or not). I think if it was done right it could add a lot though.

I agree with Xvim.
Its makes sense to say: "Most members of race x are good/evil/lawful/chaotic because the society they live in is as it is and this is considered good or evil by most other races or even themselves.
While alignment absolutely exists in the DnD universe. In this context it makes sense to say god x IS lawful good, he is not just a creature that many others consider nice. But I have never seen a good definition what is considered good or evil.
So while it is true saying: Character xyz IS chaotic neutral, its up to the player to interpret what this means.

honestly, some systems are good because its great to make fun of them.
PST was a great game, partly because it turned many fantasy "laws" upside down.
Hallo nice demons, evil angels, chatty skelletons and powerful rats.

Larian is known for a dark setting combined with insane humor.
A running gag in several games were talking skelletons that fall apart when you convince them that something like a talking skelleton cannot exist.
Maybe we meet a chaotic evil demon with a very strange opinion what chaotic evil means.

D&D games almost always ignore the Law and Chaos axis as well. They only focus on Good vs Evil.
I will give credit to Pathfinder: Kingmaker for that, however they didn't split them, so you were forced to choose opposing options. I'm glad to see that will be changed with Wrath of the Righteous.

I agree for the most part. Planescape Torment is my favorite story in a game and its themes of good, evil, law, chaos and the reprecussions of going against one's nature. I remember Fall-from-Grace and Nordom and how it explored how these beings that had their alignment intrinsic to their existence were tormented for going against their nature. I played Torment at an impressionable age at it absolutely stuck with me.

I am a huge Larian fan and am ecstatic they got the BG license, but DoS's story wasn't exactly its strong point. There were definitely good ideas (Like dwarves "burying" their dead up on tall platforms. I think that was a clever lore idea) but were I could give a pretty good synopsis of the story of The BG series I would struggle to do the same for the Divinity series. Although in fairness I was much younger when I played BG and things seem to have much more of an impact when you experience them younger and look back. BG dosen't hold a candle up to Torment in my mind however.

I guess I just find exploring the good/evil law/chaos themes compelling but its a matter of personal taste. The last game thats story really gripped me was Disco Elysium and I think I read somewhere that Larian reached out to them for imput so I am hopeful that we get a compelling story in BG3.

@7:00 You have it backward it was Larian who gave Disco Elysium input.

Xvim:
Wether or not Morality truly is set in stone or up to local custom is obviously up to the DM or the Published material.
Hving your own moral code NOT be good tho, which is what i meant when i said it isnt moral relativism, is quite interresting.
Coming to terms with that, or to express yourself as a fantasy villain.
You might actually go a bit biblical with this, especialy when it comes to freedom and authority in the face of gods. The NWN2 xpac comes to mind.

as for "some might be not evil": i think the important bit about this, and about makign a character like this, is that NOT beeing evil is a voluntary act.
Actually a struggle in itself. To defy ones own nature.

You are correct!

I was mislead by reading a reddit thread that stated the opposite. Serves me right for not checking myself. Thank you for correcting me.

Most evil people are perfectly convinced, that they are good.

I think it is okay, that people does not have alignment, I always found, that the alignment system in BG does not make sense, in many cases, at the end you only do what you want..

Unless you have a whole system organized, that changes your alignment, like in planescape torment. If you act evil your alignment changes to evil, if you make jokes, your alignment changes to chaotic,
but I think that would be overkill to implement.

You can go into debate on what is good or evil, or nature vs nurture, but it is irrelevant.
One mans hero is another mans monster and all that jazz. Personally, instead of some global, universal good/evil, I look at it more localized. Good for WHOM? Bad from WHOM?

Since it's fantasy, I'm fine with races being FULLY, 100% good/evil. Which is odd, since I'm usually all for moral greyness and I'm not fond of restrictions - honestly I prefer classless, aligment-less solutions.
But the trope of "evil race X, but you have a companion from that race that is good" is one of my most hated tropes.

Grey morality doesn't mean "doing whatever one wants". You can do whatever you want in regular D&D too.
It means things aren't clear cut. There isn't a 100%, god-approved, sealed and stamped in triplicate modus operandi.

Moral relativism is well and good in reality, but in the fantasy setting that it´s D&D the alignments are different, more than a moral choice they are also a law of nature, like physics or gravity. I mean, you can cast spells that target specifically one alignment.
In real life you cannot launch a missile that only blast alt-right people, communists, unfaithful husbands or law-abiding people and let the others unharmed; in D&D you can. So more than a thing that can change overnight it´s more durable, because changing alignment is a big deal in a world where "detect evil", protection from chaos or "holy word" exist. Not exactly set in stone, but less fluid than how in reality it could be.

I do not think it can relate.

Alignment as explained by WotC Mike Mearls interview with DnDBeyond Todd Kendrick

Actually in Game of Thrones the only characters who I didn't concider bad were John Snow, The little guy I forget, and the poor Courtesan who Jaffery murdered with a crossbow. The rest were shades of vile and I stopped watching when I realized I was starting to root for the White Walkers.

Tyrion. You knurr nothing, Urrmegaphallic Snurr.

That said, I don't remember the name of the call girl but I did find that scene particularly disturbing even with so much competition for graphic unpleasantness.

I think the alignment system is brilliant, and one of the core tenets of DnD. It would be a shame if it wasn't in the game. This COULD be the first Baldur's Gate game that does evil alignments right... Evil is self-serving, not outlandishly vile. Amusingly, I think many people actually play evil characters in games, who only wrongly believe themselves to be good. It's all about the rewards, rather than doing the right thing. If you could get an extra stat point by killing a random villager, most players would go for it in a heartbeat.

The problem is just that, almost always (certainly in both the Baldur's Gate games), doing the good thing also gives the best results, so there is no point in doing anything morally questionable. No (sane) evil character would do it!

First of all, thanks for the video from the DnD makers.

After some thinking I came to this conclusion:
Alignment is a good idea in theory, but there will be problems when you apply it to characters.
- If you have realistic or complex characters it is often very hard to put an alignment on them. A crazy psycho killer can be nice to his friends and family. A law and order fanatic can have some crazy hobbies. Many people (both in reality and games or movies) are quite inconsistent. Sometimes they act one way and sometimes completely different.
- It is possible to make a character that has a specific alignment and is believable, but its not easy. If you put any alignment to the extreme the result can be quite ridiculous. Its good for some chars, but you don´t want all of them that way.

I have the feeling that sometimes JRPGs are better in presenting archetypical characters for an alignment than DnD does.
Being completely nuts seems to be the minimum requirement to be a villain in such games. some examples:

Trails of cold Steel: Being chaotic evil without eating babies or randomly killing everyone just because


Virgo vs the Zodiac: I think that counts as lawful evil without having contracts to sell your soul

a crazy psycho killer is chaotic evil even when hes nice to his family.
a paladin who kills criminals still s lawfull good.

Not crossing the street at a designated crosswalk is a crime. Parking your cart in a way which blocks the street is a crime. A child shoplifting a tiny wooden toy horse is committing a crime.

In the world you and I live in, not all "crimes" are grounds for summary execution on the spot. The same goes for the world of D&D. You need to be very, very careful about what your paladin defines as a crime worthy of death. Without concern for justice, without concern for GOOD, your "paladin" is not lawful good in any way at all, but neutral (or evil). Under your definition, the "paladin" is the same as the crazy psycho killer.

No good DM would let a player at a tabletop game get away with a paladin summarily executing someone for stealing an apple and still claim to be lawful good.

I think this is where video games often fail: the difference between murder and picking up somebody else's property because you knocked it over (yeah, learnt that one the hard way in Oblivion!) isn't exactly nuanced but "criminal is criminal", and more often than not they get treated exactly the same way.

Someone else mentioned that any flavour of lawful is reduced to lawful stupid in such circumstances.

I was going to argue that an Oath of Vengeance paladin can do some pretty nasty stuff to uphold his tenets but I looked it up and there isn't any requirement in 5th edition that a paladin has to be good.

The biggest problem I see is that an action for any one character could shift them towards any alignment depending on their motivations. It's like the idea of going back in time to kill Hitler as a baby. Killing babies is evil but stopping Hitler is good. I psycopath that just likes to kill would be committing an evil act where as someone doing it to stop future suffering could argue that it's good (Although I think somethings should remain evil regardless of intent as it would leave a "stain on your soul"). When you have a thinking DM they can judge your actions a lot better than a static video game.

I still think in a video game setting the best option would be to have a selectable "intent". For example lets say you are given a quest to rescue a noble. Once you get the quest you could have an internal dialog with yourself and be presented with options like:

1. I have to do the right thing and rescue this person.

2. I am obligated the rescue those in distress even if I dislike them.

2. My purse is light, this could be a good pay day.

3. I have nothing better to do, might as well.

4. Nobles taste good.

After you make your selection any alignment shifts related to the quest could be adjusted appropriately. This isn't anywhere near perfect but it could prevent the issue of having to pick dialog choices to keep a particular alignment.

Given how the world is today, I think I might actually help Hitler. A prime example of the utter subjectivity of such notions.
A different place, a different time, a different circumstance - suddenly everything changes.

I would suggest perhaps exercising better judgement before making that sort of statement.

The same goes for anybody thinking of replying.

Edited to add:

if someone from the future shows up to kill a baby you probably bitchslap him.

@Tyr2000
And now we come to the old philosophic argument between deontologists and consequentalists:
Are the intentions or the consequences more importent when you decide what is good and evil?
People discuss this since over 2000 years, so we will not find a final answer here.

Regarding this game:
The GM ( or developer in case of a computer game) has the final word what is considered good or evil in this setting.
Some players will always disagree with this.
The best thing the devs can do is to design it in a way that most players find it at least OK (if not perfect) while making sure the others do not rage quit.

I certainly would and would find the idea abhorrent even with the benefit of foresight, as I suspect would most people.

On reflection, I realise I probably misinterpreted Ellderon's comment so if I have mistakenly assumed "edgelords be here" then I apologise.

This exactly. I'm not going to try to debate on real world good and evil, much more intelligent people than myself have attempted and continue to attempt to do so. The fact it has been continued to be debated throught human history leads me to personally believe it is completely subjective and there is no such thing as universal "good and evil" and it's really just what's "good and bad" for a particular person or group of people. Remember that a not small portion of society considered the very game we are talking about to be a direct link to Satanism, their absolute evil.

Buuuuut in a fantasy world good and evil can be quantifiable forces. This can allow us explore these ideas in a new way, dramatize them to make an emotionally ingaging story and implement a ruleset around them. The creative talant at WoTC and Larian are the ultimate arbiters of what constitutes good and evil in BG3 and I'm not trying to suggest what they should consider each to be, rather to brainstorm about how it could implemented as a game.

I guess my arguing for the alignment axis to be in the game is the same reason the d&d ruleset exists in the first place, to add structure to storytelling and make a game out of it. I don't view alignment, structurally, as much different than hit points. If you can add a shield with damage resistance to mitigate hit point loss then why not use an "intent" to mitigate alignment shifts?

I'm not saying this is realistic but if we are quantifying other abstract concepts such as how much damage it takes to die, how much armor protects you, how much people like you, why not do it with alignment/morality as well?

Not putting in alignment is a cop out to dnd, anyone who says its not in there has not read the books. You are told to pick an alignment, every race is giving an alignment it leads towards, Every Diett, every monster. And the paladin code of devotion is text book lawful good. So stop saying theres i no alignment. How will they handle paladins breaking there oaths or they wont.

Funny how even in a forum about a CRPG game Godwin´s law still applies.

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1"

I like alignments. Its usually a starting off point whenever I create a new character: "Today I'm in the mood for a holier-than-thou Evil Smiter" and I build the persona around that. I dont know how true this is really, but it feels like alot of the time people just want to play a "wizard version" of themselves or a "fighter version" of themselves so then alignments become too rigid and narrow because our real selves are too nuanced to fit in a 3x3 Good or Evil matrix.

Surprisingly millions of babies are killed every year and as abhorrent as it is it's considered to be "lawful"

Which takes us back to our lawful character alignment topic.

I don't know where "lawful stupid" began and you, Vometia, are absolutely correct. It is stupid how you can pick up an item that belongs to someone else and automatically be considered a thief like in oblivion when trying to fix an area you may have accidentally blown up. In that case one would consider the fireball launched at a wall of alembics a crime rather than picking up an alembic and putting it back on the shelf. However, I digress. Being Lawful is simply that you believe in laws. Laws help to keep things in a state of order be it the laws of physics or the laws of man. For evil or for good it doesn't discriminate. If your Paladin is lawful good then they have a strong sense of both preserving order and protecting/helping people and society.

So if your Paladin were enacting executions all over the place for things like shoplifting this "would" be acceptable if that were the "law" in that location and crimes were all punishable by death. A Paladin who's greater good is preserving society would call this good. Now in a D&D world there's a chance you can convince such a Paladin that the system he's serving is evil though that DC would be strongly dependent on how well the laws are keeping the peace and happiness of the society.

I really don't think that Godwin's law applies here as I was using the "Go back in time and kill Hitler" thought experiment as an example of doing an "evil" act for a "good" goal rather than comparing an individual or idea to Hitler/Nazism to win an argument. Hitler, being almost universally associated with evil, just made for an easier example than writing "Evil person who is completely evil and devoid of any goodness". Plus I would think most people have encountered the go back in time and kill Hitler idea and are familiar with it and I was hoping it would not illicit a debate on the example itself but the ideas of doing evil for an ultimately good goal and how an act itself can be good or evil (or both) depending on the individual and their intent and how that would translate into in-game alignment. (Just to clarify I don't feel like you were attacking my ideas or anything like that and I hope you don't think I am doing it likewise. I just feel that Godwin's law is thrown out too often and used as a "You said Hitler, I win now, discussion over.")

As for alignment being in the game I'm just thinking of ways everybody could be happy or at least not upset about it. Player agency and experience are more important than including a system simply for the sake of it being there in the original ruleset and if they are unable to implement in a way that doesn't leave people shoehorned into choosing options for metagaming reasons I agree it should be left out. However I like concepts like Paladins falling and having to redeem themselves, alignment restricted items, detecting good/evil law/chaos (And particularly ways to prevent others from doing so), etc. and I don't see how we could see these things in the game without it being a static story element for a npc.

I think a dynamic point based alignment score could work if done correctly. I would even be content even if the didn't call it good/evil law/chaos (Although that would be my preferance). They could use a colored "aura" or "spirit" or maybe adjust the expression/appearance of your character sort of like how the force did in KOTOR (All be it to a much much more subtle degree, more like a sour expression or aggressive body language).

That´s fair, I concede your point.




Yeah, that was a game mechanics flaw that comes from the beginning of D&D, and I do not think it´s going to change since BG3 will use D&D5e rules and WoTC are closely advising the development of the game.

Also, if you touch the alignment axis you will have to create new spells. You will have protection from chaos but also "protection from moral relativism, communal", "Zone of grey moral ground", and besides holy and unholy word, you will have "Cultural and society-related accepted behavior word". =D

I'm not going to be too upset with its omission given the hurdles of implementing it in a way that wouldn't limit player agency. I will say however that the Forgotten Realms isn't a world with true moral relevance. Take this part of the Player's Handbook:

"Alignment is an essential part of the nature of
celestials and fiends. A devil does not choose to be
lawful evil, and it doesn't tend toward lawful evil, but
rather it is lawful evil in its essence. If it somehow
ceased to be lawful evil, it would cease to be a devil."

Good, Evil, Law, Chaos aren't as abstract concepts as they are in the real world. Implementing alignment would have to involve adding just enough moral relativism to keep it intersting while honouring canon lore


I'm not going to be too upset with its omission given the hurdles of implementing it in a way that wouldn't limit player agency. I will say however that the Forgotten Realms isn't a world with true moral relevance. Take this part of the Player's Handbook:

"Alignment is an essential part of the nature of
celestials and fiends. A devil does not choose to be
lawful evil, and it doesn't tend toward lawful evil, but
rather it is lawful evil in its essence. If it somehow
ceased to be lawful evil, it would cease to be a devil."

Good, Evil, Law, Chaos aren't as abstract concepts as they are in the real world. Implementing alignment would have to involve adding just enough moral relativism to keep it intersting while honouring canon lore which I fully admit may be better off not being addressed at all.

Or we just have a 10 hour prolouge with the player discussing Sartre's "Being and Nothingness" with a npc in front of a fireplace and then just standing still for the next 50 hours of gameplay due to the existential ramnifications of taking a single step.

GOTY 2020!

I agree alignments are essential when speaking about celestials and devils, which appear to be important elements in this game.

Alignment could be confining, but it was also defining and a vehicle of storytelling. Even the likes of Sauron seems less daunting and interesting when viewed through a prism of postmodern relativism. Only time will tell how this impacts storytelling in a setting that at its core was driven by the struggle between good and evil. Hopefully though, the writers avoid more contemporary tropes becoming a focal point.

I wasn't suggesting post modernism, but that alignment is so contraining that it kills naunce and reducing characters to one dimesionality.

repeating this lie doesnt make it true

alignment only seems one dimensional because that's how people are approaching it.

what is stupid is how evil is always some form of "f--- you, pay me" and good is always something "i'll save you!" sort of tropes. evil means self interested and discompassionate, it does't mean by default malevolent. good means selfless, but it doesn't mean benevolent by default either.

likewise, chaos doesn't mean complete and utter formless abandon, it is the opposite of "lawful" so is closer to anarchy. the stereotype of the frenetic madman as chaotic neutral is so stupid and reductive. someone who is neither good nor evil, not firmly anti establishment is not, by default, a lunatic.

A chaotic neutral guy can be a outcast, a crazy person or just a very individualistic guy. IMO order VS chaos leads to better stories than good vs evil.

The OP is right. Even though WotC nerfed alignment it needs to be in some form. Sorry Swen, the D&D secret sauce isn't in a potion bottle, it in the traditions and lore. Larian needs to be, at the very least, conscious of how alignment works in D&D. Faerun isn't Rivelon or Westeros . . .

Case in point -- we are starting out in a temple of Selune and traveling with priest of Shar. Great! So many role playing opportunities since Shar and Selune are immortal enemies. So if the temple is guarded by the undead -- and it looks like it is -- that needs to be explained because the neutral good clerics of the moon would never create undead to guard their temple. So what happened? Obviously, someone came along to desecrate the temple and the undead must be guarding something other than the remains of Selune's faithful.

If you take the alignment our of the mix the secret sauce loses it's potency. As WotC found with 4th edition.

Make way villainy!

"we are starting out in a temple of Selune and traveling with priest of Shar. Great!"


Yea...The priest of Shar has lots of enemies, and she seems a mess anyway..Oh and the Trickery Domain is sub-par, so she can sod off. (Evil and confused)

A vampire who may try to give me a hickey...no thank-you. (Evil)

A warlock who regrets his own decisions....sigh...just say no to self loathing drama...crossed his own line for power. (Evil and confused)

A Wizard who blows up his own peeps...naw...more drama. (Neutral and unreliable)

A Githyanki who doesn't hate herself or whine, but instead steps up to adversity...she's a winner! (Displays good qualities...although her race is traditionally or perhaps situationaly lawful evil)

I am hoping for some good archetypes when they add in the remaining npc choices...otherwise its hirelings and the Gith.


See...they don't need tags. Evil is as evil does.

So in the original BG series there were a bouquet of characters from all alignments and even some like Viconia DeVir who seemed to react to the character's decisions a bit.

Some hated Minsk...I enjoyed him (at least for a time). But that was the thing...its personal opinion.

Jaheira and the Paladin left me cold when I killed Drtzzt for the second time (the first time was cuz I refused to help him, and the second time he didn't like my dialog either...both times he attacked my good action character). That was great drama! loved it...and the turnip eating rogue, the amazing Mazzy, Viconia, and my main toon whooped them again using a lot of positioning (hit and run) tactics.

I ended up with the Good...Mazzy, the Bad...Viconia, and the Ugly...Jan Jansen. They were all loyal, dependable, self confident, and interesting.


There were sooo many options and I tried most all of them during several play-throughs for at least a little while. They all interacted with each other, which encouraged mixing it up.

Now having 2 of my six NPCs walk out on me at the beginning of one of my toughest fights illustrates well the alignment system at its best. The characters followed their convictions and while I was almost tempted to reload, it was a much more satisfying victory and development as is...and then there were four.

The game seems to be missing a strong Good (not selfish and having conviction) but not too goodie-two shoes characters like Mazzy, or any good for that matter. Lae'zel seems to be a good answer for Viconia as she hails from a race that would be considered evil, yet I can easily see us working in the same team.

The alignment system is a roleplaying tool not a gameplay mechanic. But the only way to add the alignment system to a computer game would be as a game mechanic. (or as a decorative choice in the character creator that doesn't actually do anything I suppose, but then why bother?)

The game will have good, neutral and evil choices, chaotic and lawful choices. Is it so bad that we will decide for ourselves which is which just like we would at the table instead of have them marked by an awkard dialogue mechanic? It will have characters written to have their own beliefs and opinions and they will react to your choices, thats better isn't it? And those few characters who are alien entitites capable of only having one unchanging alignment (fiends, celestiels etc) will no doubt be written that way if and when they show up.

So why is it a problem that they are only writing the moralty of people instead of creating some limited video game mechanic? Every video game mechanic alignment system I've ever played has sucked. Making you choose whatever choice has the correct alignment system symbol on it to not miss out on rewards or roleplay properly and choose the "wrong" choice by choosing what you think your character would actually do.

Better to just let you role play freely, make the consequences story ones not mechancal ones, like a real roleplaying game.

Of course if a paladin violates their tennents or a cleric pisses off their god thats a different story. That's a story consequence that has a mechanical consequence aswell - You can have trigger reactions for that just like the companions react to your decisions and I hope they don't ignore that possibility.

But adding an extra system to the dialogue system for alignment when you can just decide your alignment and roleplay it yourself through choices seems alot of programmeing time for nothing but annoyance.

Would it be so bad to improve upon the dialogue so that it weren't so awkward?

It's both. Protection from evil works because evil is a real force. Holy weapons do extra damage to demons because goodness is a real force that can be captured inside a holy avenger. To hold a holy avenger you need to adhere to a moral code. You need to be both lawful and good.

Selune grants me real powers to smite her enemies as long as I act in way she approves. Selune doesn't care if I disobey the law, neither does she judge me if I obey orders I disagree with. But she does care I do things like create zombies, make deals with devils or sell the slaves down the river for some extra gold.

And I like this. This is D&D. My BG2 chaotic good conjurer was never completely comfortable with forcing elementals to do her bidding but she always put the vampires in their graves, freed the slaves and slew the dragons.

I also liked DOS2. I helped Sebille murder the master *and* the mother tree. I don't know if those decisions were Chaotic Neutral, Chaotic Evil or even Chaotic good but a lot of good people died as part of that effort. But I don't want to play another game in Rivelon. Or Eora. Or Westeros. Or any place with a moral muddle. I want play in Faerun where gods are real, where evil is real and the lore that makes D&D, ya know, D&D is faithfully implemented.

The vampire spawn is jaded. Not having tons of empathy after hundreds or even thousands of years of existence doesn't automatically make one a slavering rabid monster--he clearly hates his old master, to whom he was enslaved, and for all we know it's because of what he was forced to do to people. He also seems to be trying not to murder everyone around him with his bloodlust. This isn't 100% hardcore rules stickler territory; "delve into an epic adventure that subverts the binary morality found in many RPGs" doesn't sound like all vampire spawns must be 100% infant-devouring evil. He could easily be neutral. He may even harbor some guilt over what he's directly responsible for, or harbor a secret desire for heroism that we haven't seen yet.

The cleric of Shar may be neutral as well; she seems bitter, cagey, and severely untrusting, not confused or pointlessly cruel. The warlock may be a good person who made a terrible deal for compelling reasons for all we know. The wizard--same deal, he may have done the best he could in a terrible situation; liking power doesn't automatically make one evil and maybe he took in that Netherese destruction orb in an attempt to neutralize it and save people. The Githyanki seems about as good as a baatezu, not even neutral, let good far alone. You kinda repeatedly shanked your own argument until it was deceased there. Clearly it's not so obvious, at least before we've played the game and gotten to know the characters thoroughly.

Nevertheless, I agree with the idea that tags aren't needed. This is a perfect example of the fact that alignment is at least somewhat subjective and usually poorly enforced. Thinking as a character rather than trying to conform to rigid alignment standards makes so much more sense. In real life, people's alignment may vary from issue to issue thanks to cognitive dissonance or just nuanced views. The more restrictive one is, the more potential there is for frustration or annoyance or sheer disagreement on the part of the player. It's not constructive or fun for players to think about how they disagree with the developers rather than being drawn into the game world.

Feeling annoyed at alignment shifts that don't make sense is always going to take the player out of the experience. It's incredibly anti-immersive and even fourth wall breaking. If alignment is implemented in this game, I'd hope for it to be very forgiving on all ambiguous situations where you may have murdered that guy because you noticed a strong clue that he was the one keeping people in his basement, and harsher in clear and obvious cases like if you throw the neighborhood children in your oven like in Hansel and Gretel.



I agree. The only hard alignment choices I want to see are really clear-cut violation of tenets of one's god or cases which are truly obvious, objective, basically a majority of smart players will agree beyond a reasonable doubt to be evil/good actions.

The most fair way to implement it would probably be conversations inside of your own head where you couldn't be lying to keep someone happy or piss them off; where you think to yourself about why you killed that guy and select "for the funsies because I hated his stupid face" (evil) or "because I needed his money to survive" (neutral) or "because I saw his murderbasement but knew as the Duke's son he would never be brought to justice." (good.) If you're a cleric, talking to your god like that might even make some sense.

I don't want it to feel like there are no consequences, I do want to feel like good and evil exist, but I don't want there to be some gimmicky mechanic that feels like your mom slapping your hand as you reach into the cookie jar. The player should be an active participant in the story, able to evolve their character without undue judgment.

Alignment is and should be a Gameplay mechanic.
DnD isnt a highschool drama play, its a game

The problem is how this mechanic is implemented into a computer game.
Many games encourage the player (as in giving rewards) for selecting some options. The player will chose options that give the best gameplay reward, no matter if it makes sense for that character.
Some examples:
- In some games you get the maximum bonus when you are either as good as possible or as bad as possible but a small or no bonus if you are in between. You feel forced to select one side in the beginning and then always chose the option of this side to maximize the bonus.
- In BG1+2 you automatically max out reputation by finishing quests. I do not remember quests that you could in an evil way were you get the full exp for finishing the quest and you lose reputation for finishing the quest. Its a long time since I played so I am not 100% sure. I could never play those games with evil chars in my party because I always end up with max reputation.
- In P:K some players complained that they had to select lawful evil options for their paladin in order to remain lawful. Selecting the good option would have made them neutral good and they lose their paladin abilities.
- There are tons of examples where players say: " I have to select alignment x because in this dungeon I find a great armor that can only be used by alignment x." or " Ability A of class B works great in combination with ability C from class D, but class B must be evil and class D must be chaotic so I have to select a chaotic evil char." and so on.

Maybe its possible to create real roleplaying were players do stuff that makes sense for their char in PnP.
But in a computer game everything that can happen is progammed and some options (including alignment options) will be better game mechanics wise than others.
Many players know situations were they find a great item but nobody in the party could use them.

So far I have not seen a computer game were alignment matters for the personality of the character and it is not just a requirement for some items and classes but it does not matter otherwise.

In the Pathfinder kingmaker game, they have a different approach with the alignment. You can only say and take some choices if you are of a particular alignment, if not you do not even have the choice to do so.
i.e) If you are not neutral (something) you cannot take a neutral stance in the kobold-mite war and you have to choose a side, if you are not chaotic you cannot pose your "holy" useless gauntlets as a holy relic for the kobolds, if you are not evil(something) some characters in the game do not join your ranks...

Your alignment also changes often when you say and do something, so there is a possibility that your overall alignment changes from the one you have from the start. I kinda like that approach because you still have the mechanics that affect the combat ( spells, holy/unholy weapons, etc) but you also feel that your alignment means something in the world and adds replayability because you can take a different road in the next run.

I don't play games with brain eating squid men and psychic neanderthals who ride dragons looking for a mirror of reality. Yeah, in the real world eeevol doesn't exist. Chose an evil actor in the world of politics and chances are they would tell you their actions are actually good -- they are carrying out the commands of god, protecting the people of their nation or their people, ensuring stability in the region . . .

But to hades with the real world, it kinda sucks.

In this world two sisters, light and dark, were in perfect harmony until the light sister decided to create the sun and bring life to the world. Shar's sister betrayed her and she has waged an eons old battle to right this ancient wrong, to destroy all life on earth and to return the world to perfect, perpetual darkness. Shar, the god of darkness, became the first evil from which all other evil was born those who follows her do so for their own reasons but Shar's aims are evil, her powers are evil and her followers further that evil or lose their powers.

Sure there is "sheer disagreement on the part of the player" but that's part of the fun. People like to debate D&D rules, if they didn't care they wouldn't be motivated to debate. Larian has already made its own world without alignment but they put that side to play in Faerun. And people are going to be annoyed if you don't have alignment -- when 4th edition removed alignment from the game people were furious.

Again, without alignment it's not D&D. Sure, I'd play a Westeros game where motivations mirrored the real world. But D&D was based on Tolkein and Moorcock and alignment matters in those worlds and in Faerun. Take good and evil out of Tolkein and you've lost the story. Eliminate Law and Chaos from Elric's world and nothing makes sense. Take alignment out of Faerun and . . .

But people liked that. In fact people liked BG so much that companies competed for the right to make a sequel.

And yeah, in the EEs there are fully developed evil quests. The half orcs story begins by slaughtering wedding party. The vampire thief starts with you luring an innocent to her lair so she can feed.

People didn't like those stories as much as they liked the originals.

people didnt hate the EE for those reasons.
And people didnt love BG for that. those are coincidences

D&D is a collaborative story telling game.

It absolutely is high school drama.

Quote: "Clearly it's not so obvious, at least before we've played the game and gotten to know the characters thoroughly."

Fair point...all the characters seem well thought out and it will come down to preference.


Now,I am not sure why WOTC is shying away from alignment, but they can't ignore their own lore.


Quote: "we are starting out in a temple of Selune and traveling with priest of Shar. Great!"

This is a huge oversight, as Selune and Shar fought bitterly in the Godswar...in fact a good portion of the pantheon took sides. Shar and Cyric murdered Mystra causing the Spellplague that resulted in unnatural disasters that reshaped Faerun (death and destruction on a world scale).


Ok the others (beside Shadowheart) are probably not "evil" (just not a good fit) and can sit at my campfire. I will probably do their personal missions but they won't make my main party list. I will use the fighter...and lets see...I need a Druid (hopefully they make a voiced one of those) and either a pally or I will get a life cleric hireling.

The priestess of Shar is still on her own...In the end it will be the player who has to implement the alignment system.

Good points.

Yep. It will be up to us to play alignment but I want the decisions to matter in some manner. Viconia was in most of my parties and by the end of the game she had shifted her alignment from neutral evil to neutral. Sarevok was in nearly all of my ToB parties and he started Chaotic Evil and became Chaotic Good. And, if you were playing with the semi official ascension mod that really mattered in the final battle because evil Sarevok would turn on you.

It was fun. I felt like decisions I was making mattered in some way. So I'm totally fine with party of mixed alignments -- Korgan and Mazzy had some good interactions in BG2. So I do wonder what will happen to shadowheart if she accepts help from a Selunite . . .

And if it doesn't matter then someone has messed up

Sigh. Okay, let me dig into this if I truly must.

Real-world politician evil in the guise of good is in fact a perfect template for the politicians in D&D. Most politicians do think they are good while being at best neutral and at worst evil, but they drift back and forth between the two, and motives exist. "What? The peasants are fine, let them eat cake, I really need more gold though just to be safe! I deserve it, really." Meanwhile, peasants are starving. The politicians don't see this happening but they are allowing it. If I kill those politicians, is that an evil act? Or is it more evil to let innocent people starve while sociopaths giggle over their gourmet pheasant? What good does it do to argue about labels when the player is making decisions like that? Isn't the decision and its consequences more important than some label?

Evil creatures are a different ballpark because they will have alien motives. I'm talking about developers judging humanoid characters, not baatezu. Eeeevool can exist in this universe without it being applied to the player's actions when it isn't warranted--though it's pretty boring and stupid to be evil just for the evulz. Even vampires at least have unnatural hunger and a lust for domination as a means to satisfy that hunger regularly as motives, which makes sense, but isn't it more interesting if they're on the borderline between neutral and evil, or maybe even want to be good but keep screwing up? That whole tortured struggle is the basis for why Vampire: the Masquerade is so popular. And why should a god like Shar be less complex in her motivations than most adult humanoids? "Waaah, my sister was mean to me, stupid planet, everything should be dark." Congratulations, you're the deity of edgelord. It's far from the most interesting thing about Shar, even. Why not mention the Shadow Weave or something?

There's more to D&D than alignments, just as there is with Tolkien and such as well. Other things are more interesting. Mind flayers are more interesting. The Great Old One is more interesting. Hell, even Bhaal is more interesting--murder carries with it ideas of war and adrenaline, that is understandable. Him being the "Lord of Murder" says a lot without even mentioning that he's evil, you can figure it out easily. Then you've got Lolth, who was ambitious and treacherous; the want for power and to step out of someone else's shadow is understandable. Shar's kind of the worst. From everything I've seen of her, she's just the edgelord deity. She's less interesting precisely because of what can be reduced to sheer alignment. So you're kind of making my point right there.

Here's the thing. All of what you said about alignment does not require alignment tags. Clerics can be held to the tenets of their god without those tenets being labeled. The stuff with Sarevok and Viconia doesn't need alignment tags. That feedback can exist without the words "Chaotic Good" or whatever else. Personal journeys can be personal journeys. A dark character can come back to the light without ever being labeled "Chaotic Evil" or "Lawful Good". Astarion could re-develop his empathy and it's a pretty cheap reward if all it amounts to is two words on his character sheet changing--the cool part is not the words. The cool part is the character development. The cool part can exist without restrictive labels.

If it must exist at all, alignment should be clear. It should be easy for the player to know what they're doing and make deliberate choices for that reason. It shouldn't be as it has been in numerous games before, where the wording is ambiguous garbage and you have to roll your eyes and reload because someone decided that you killing a person who was very obviously going to go slaughter a town full of people was an evil action, as opposed to just letting that person go cut lots of throats. I got alignment points in NWN2 for telling the soldiers that I won't let them kill Neeshka in cold blood--what if my character is calculating and did it because they think Neeshka's hot and want her to be indebted to them? Then it's actually kind of neutral at best, maybe even evil. You can come up with more examples than that, but it's so easy to do it very wrong and interfere with roleplay.

Altruism and cruelty exist. But thinking about why someone is altruistic or cruel forces writers to evaluate characters in a more sophisticated manner than "okay, these guys are uh... evil and crazy, boxes ticked, Chaotic Evil, done." Viconia's cultural and religious propensity is far more meaty AND sympathetic. There's a reason why other evil characters were bit parts while she's a love interest/companion. Flat alignment is dull, and if it's not flat you don't need to spell it out so hard.

Writers at times depict insanity/evil in stupid ways. It's far more interesting and authentic when they know what disorders exist or they've studied serial killers and use those as inspiration. DA2 did this, for one example. None of the interesting possibilities required him to have an alignment spelled out anywhere. The outcomes were also more interesting because I didn't have to worry about getting alignment points. I wasn't taken out of the experience by thinking "oh, the developers decided I'm evil for killing this guy who murders elven children but will always get off scot free because his father has government power and continually covers up for him" or "oh, me bringing him in is lawful? Even though I know the law won't be followed because of who his dad is and he's about to break the law even more? Huh..." I was simply allowed to make the choice for myself, like an adult, rather than be chastised or judged for choosing one way or the other based on the character I was roleplaying at the time. I could just roleplay instead and judge for myself.

So what it boils down to is--I'm not against alignment as a framework under the hood. Yes, there should be consequences, yes, there should be character development, yes, there should be tenets. Hell, I would even go so far as to say I kind of believe in good and evil myself. What I'm against is jarring judgments of morality that don't reflect common sense and aren't nuanced, which take away from the experience, and I'd rather have no alignment than alignment that is stupid unsophisticated nonsense as I've seen in most games. Alignment limits options for developers as well as players.

I find stupid alignment arguments which never come to an end being forced on my escapism to be exactly what sucks about the real world, and to Hades with THAT.

You don't have to take good and evil or law and chaos out of Faerun. You can just take arbitrary judgments on the part of the developer out and make morality more nuanced. You can at least stick to delineating clear cases of those things and let the player worry about everything in between.

One of my favorite quests in a tabletop D&D game was when my party was presented with a group of goblins supposedly slaughtering the townsfolk. In fact, they were just defending themselves against attacks by the local soldiers intending to drive them out of their home, and all that was left were women, children, and the elderly because all the young adults had died trying to defend the cave they were sheltering in, their home, from being plundered. That very challenging of flat creature alignment expectations is what made the quest interesting and made it rewarding. A quest about evol goblinz being evol and then we kill them bc alignment=evol? Flat. Boring. The very subversion of expectation is why we had fun with that quest. If that DM had been a strict "goblins are evil creatures so they're evil, you cast detect evil, they are evil" type? Pure boredom. Yet if alignment hadn't existed as a structure and goblins were just considered evil by reputation, that quest is intact. It's fine. Strict alignment enforcement kills that quest. Soft alignment enforcement doesn't. No alignment doesn't harm it whatsoever, not even a little bit.

Alignment as a strict framework rather than a lax and forgiving guideline is a barrier to fun and to good writing and I will maintain that until my dying breath. You can disagree with me but I type 100wpm and I've been annoyed about this topic for about the past 20 years.

TL;DR: Labels are for cans, yo.

Total agreement to wynne

Yes, good/evil law/chaos exist in the DnD universe, but it is very hard to put an alignment label on each possible action that makes sense.
I agree with Vic that P:K was one of the better implementations of alignment, but there were still some times where I was confused why action a was considered as alignment b.

There are games that show interesting good/evil law/chaos stuff without having an alignment system.
The Witcher series is fantastic. There is lots of bad stuff happening and your actions have consequences, but the game does not put a good/evil label on it.
It is a world full of murder, incest, racism, torture and so on and every group is plotting against other groups.
Do you help a racist king who is burning heretics alive to fight criminals in order to establish law and order or do you help criminals to fight the king in order to end public executions, racism and high taxes and the criminals can finally sell drugs weapons and slaves without being stopped by the guards.
The game does not judge your actions by calling them good/evil law/chaos, it simply shows you the consequences of your actions and the player has to decide himself if it was the right choice.

I am playing Trails of cold Steel 3 at the moment.
One thing I like about the series is that your enemies are shown as people, not just monsters.
By DnD standarts your main char is lawful good and most of your enemies are evil. But sometimes your enemies are shown as having feelings, friends, motivations and conflicts just like every other person too.
I think its good when you can say to an enemy: "Listen, I know what you want to do, I can understand your motivation and from your point of view it makes some sense. But I still have to stop you because your actions cause harm to others or because my government has given me the order to stop you."

I like it when games can create some empathy for evil characters. You do not need to like them, it should only be shown that evil people are people too and they can have a motivation or a background that makes some sense, not just some freaks who kill and torture everyone just because evil.

I am soooo very sorry to make you discuss something on the internet, especially about a topic as important as this one. But for all your reluctance to reply you've put forth a truly impressive treatise. It's well written, thoughtful and clever -- it's everything but correct.

I don't think you can use alignment to understand the actions of real world people. The alignment girds people came up for Game of Thrones really demonstrated the shortcomings of the system. This is where I think we differ: You prefer when moral decisions in video games have the same complexities of moral decisions in real life. If I do horrible thing X but do it for a good reasons are my actions 'good'? Is the virtue of thing inherent in the act or the intent? Is 'goodness' about commitment to duty or proper application of a moral calculus? Other ways of thinking seem cartoonishly simple. But I like the cartoon, I like the D&D fantasy because it has elements that are not present in life.



Faerun's evil lords are not like the wall street banksters who cut off health insurance during a crisis. The bankster would tell you that without him the employees would have nothing at all and by pursing his individual interest he is serving the public interest. His actions, in long run, are a good because they create employment and give us products and services. Lord Darkheart is different -- he wants to stay in power, Shar will give him the power he needs to keep the serfs in line. Yes, by helping Shar he's bringing the world one step closer to destruction but he's not going to see that day and, besides, in Faerun you need to worship a god or you are transformed into brick in the afterlife. So why not Shar? She's more powerful that the others. These aren't things that real world political actors consider in their calculations.



Two things you lose when you substitute real world morality for fantasy morality. First, you lose the traditions that make a D&D game a D&D game and two, you lose the fantasy metaphysics that make fantasy games interesting. You are left with a simpler, two dimensional world. In D&D chaos is not acting crazy at party or making erratic life decisions (although a chaotic neutral character might do those things). Chaos is a metaphysical force.

If you are are in the plane of Limbo and you touch chaos your fingers will turn into tentacles, your fingernails into flowers and rabbits will make off with your pants. The Githzeri are an exception. They live a life of intense, monkish discipline so they can shape chaos. They can actually walk on top of the pure stuff of chaos by channeling the force of law. And this idea -- the two tribes of the Gith -- goes back to Gygax and his love of Moorcock. The realms of pure chaos are places of unbelievable beauty, creativity and of unspeakable atrocities. The realms of pure law are grey deserts where nothing is possible. The material world is the concrete expression of this cosmic battle. Oerth is middle ground and a battle ground between these forces and people aid one side or the other when they make decisions. Every lawful act strengthens the hand of law and moves us closer to a world without possibility, every chaotic act moves us closer to world without assurances.



The shadow weave was awesome and unfortunately gone from the world of 5th ed. Which is too bad because it's a great example, thanks for bringing it up. The shadow weave was a cancer on the weave. Every time someone accessed the shadow weave the blight on the weave grew and the shadow within the caster grew. Eventually the shadow weave caster would lose their ability to cast from the weave itself. Shar is both more complex and less so. Less complex because she is a demiurge, she is part of the primal force that gave birth to the world. She seeks to destroy because she is destruction. She wants to extinguish light because she is dark itself. She is like Darkness from the movie Legend. (dunno if you can post youtube so I'm holding off)

Which is to say that eeevol, the world of D&D is a corruption of the good. Which is what Tolkein believed and what D&D was based upon. Can you be a good orc in the world of middle earth? No. Orcs are elves that were corrupted by Morgoth. A good orc is an elf.

And yeah, people disagree with Tolkein's theology (and he was pretty explicit in saying it was theology). Again GRR Martin took aim at Tolkein: https://www.themarysue.com/aragorn-orc-genocide/

But in in Tolkein's world orc genocide is good. Evil is a corrupting force in the world and the elimination of that corruption is a good act. It's like cleaning up the world's spiritual pollution.

Of course this conflicts with your view and my view of what is good in real world. But nearly everything my murder hobo avatars do conflicts with my view of what is good in the real world. If I see someone walking around with a big back back and half a dozen weapons on their belt I'm calling the cops.

We have plenty of games without alignment -- Witcher, DOS2, PoE. They're fine but they aren't Baldurs Gate.

D&D is about alignment and alignment was a major part of the BG plot. Can you resist the evil inside? You, the Bhaalspawn, have an evil force inside of you, if you use it you become more powerful but you will eventually lose yourself. That's the plot, it makes much less sense if evil isn't a thing that sticks to souls.




You could just agree with me and the argument would be settled. Just sayin'




Hard to argue with that. But I would say that it's pretty hard to distinguish annoyance from interest Something about this topic captures your interest and makes your fingers move so quickly.

agree wth killer rabit, thanks for bringing up moorcock, sicne thats very much one of the sources of the law vs chaos axix (not just in DnD, also in warhammer and elderscrolls for that matter)

And yeah, about your escapism.
you know what isnt escapism for me? moral relativism.

i think a world wehre morality is real is pretty good escapism for me.
Makes me forget that in the real wolrd, moral relativists exist that come up with excuses for inexcuseable stuff

For me, DnD is a rule set, nothing more, nothing less.
BG3 will have some form of alignment because it is a DnD game.

Personally I do not like the alignment system.
You have to put every intelligent creature into one of 9 boxes, from lawful good to chaotic evil.
I think of fantasy stories as a mirror of the real world.
A fantasy story shows a conflict and the player (in case of a video game) can chose what this story means for the real world, or if it means anything at all.
In a fantasy story the conflict is often simplified or taken to the extreme in order to make a point.

Personally I do not like the Tolkien way.
Saying that orcs are evil and killing them is good makes as much sense as saying nazis are evil so its OK if I kill somebody just because he says something racist or he believes in a conspiracy theory that illuminati mind control us with chemtrails and they try to replace the population.
I am an individualist and consequentalist, so I believe it is only OK to punish a creature when this creature has caused harm to others. Killing others is only OK if you defend the life of yourself or others, else you are nothing but a murderer. Being evil is not a crime by itself.

As for DnD I like the games most that turn everything upside down.
PST is fantastic, you have nice demons, evil angels and chatty undead, all of this to discuss the question "What can change the nature of man?".
KotoR2 is fantastic. Kreia critizises you no matter what you do and she tells you not to believe her.
Thank you Chris Avellone.
Disco Elysium (not connected to DnD at all) is a great successor. Your main char is not a hero, but the ultimate catastrophy of a human (drunk, stoned, no memory, no money and a head full of insane ideas)

If I have to make a game the moral stuff would be similar to the witcher series.
There are tough choices and significant consequences, but the game does not put a label (good, evil, law, chaos) on them.
Radovid may be lawful evil by DnD standarts, but putting the lawful evil tag on him would not change anything.
In every DnD game the were options where I have asked myself why is this tagged good or evil and sometimes I disagreed with the tags of the game.
In the witcher series every result of my actions made sense in the game world, there was no need to tag them good or evil.

why does "X race is always chaotic evil" get ocnflated with Alignments in general ALL the time.

No. Beeing evil is a choice, but some cultures ae inherently evil, so those characters need to choose to be good.
Morality is always a choice

As stated before several times in the thread, in real life you have moral ambiguity, mostly subject to a particular society or religious belief in particular and it´s part an individual choice, of course, but in D&D you need tags because mechanically there are a lot of spells, abilities and weapon damages that target a particular alignment. Also the creatures in the bestiary are catalogued within their particular alignment.

As @Killer Rabbit pointed out, in D&D the alignment axis are laws of nature, like gravity. In real life, you cannot launch a missile that targets only cheating husbands, serial killers or selfless philanthropists and left anyone else unscathed, but in Faerun you can.
From a game mechanics perspective, it´s interesting because it allows you to target yet another specific attribute of a creature, and that gives you much more options.

So unless you want chaotic/lawful weapons, protection from evil/good/chaos/law, holy/unholy word, etc etc to lose their reason-to-be; you need those tags because it´s a game with rules. The connotations of what that rules meant while roleplaying or what those alignments meant are, like many other things in D&D, subject to interpretation.

If you want to create another game that has different rules and use grey-zone morals that would be an interesting setting (Most TT games and fantasy books go in that direction the past years, including 5e. The alignment axis has very little relevance in comparison with past versions); but if you want a game that follows the rules of D&D 5e you need the alignment tags the same as you need the HP points, base attack or save spells of the creatures.

Yep, alignment is really one of the key pillars of DnD; whether or not it is likeable or realistic or easy to implement in a computer game, it is embedded in the rules ( at least, the old rules that I knew). Bioware did away with it for their DragonAge games, but then immediately needed to replace those "binary" worldviews ( law/chaos, good/evil ) with their own binary worldviews ( templar/mage, human/non-human ), which are far from nuanced, and possibly more annoying than the more abstract concepts of good and evil.

That said, I generally prefer rules sets that are less inclined to push choices on your character the way DnD does; In many respects I enjoyed Runequest more.

The biggest thing I'd like to see is a change in dialogue where evil is always this violent "fuck you" kind of person.

You can absolutely be a pleasant individual and by wholly evil.

Hannibal Lecter, for example. "I find discourteousy to be unspeakable ugly."

Jon Irenucus was absolutely evil, and a complete bastard, but he also wasn't just a "fuck you rawr violence!" evil either. He was cold, calculating, and probably really good at dinner conversation.

The issue with alignment has ALWAYS been with writing and portrayal in media, and not with the mechanics of the system.

I always found the way the "evil" road portrayed in games like Tyranny, Kotor-kotor2 and Ps:T much more fun to play than the usual "Me destroy everything because I´m a bastard" way, indeed.
It´s all about power, not blind destruction.

"Direct action is not always the best way. It is a far greater victory to make another see through your eyes than to close theirs forever."

"Be careful of charity and kindness, lest you do more harm with open hands then a clenched fist."

"If you seek to aid everyone that suffers in the galaxy, you will only weaken yourself and weaken them. It is the internal struggles, when fought and won on their own, that yield the strongest rewards. You stole that struggle from them, cheapened it. If you care for others, then dispense with pity and sacrifice and recognize the value in letting them fight their own battles. And when they triumph, they will be even stronger for the victory." -Kreia

The conversation has taken interesting turns. I really like the "key pillars of DnD" phrasing, wish I'd thought of it. Hey Larian, listen to _Vic_ And, yeah, like @qhristoff I prefer Irenicus to Sarevok. In DOS2 I liked Ryker and the doctor. Polite, refined and eeevool.

I debated with myself whether or not to reply to this statement because I wouldn't want to bury @_Vic_ point. This isn't about real world morality but the moral system of a game. It would be nice if we could just throw a holy hand grenade and be done with evil but, well, that only happens in video games.

But I do think people find this topic so interesting because it invites us to think about real world morality. I found the alignment grid in 5th grade and it probably influenced my ethical thinking. So on this point



I think there is some real world value in understanding how different video game morality is from the muddle of real life. So you're right to say that we shouldn't apply this sort of thinking to real people. The mistake comes when someone starts talking about a group of people as if they are orcs. Orcs are evil. Orcs should be stabbed. With knives. Again and again. But our world doesn't have orcs and it's wrong to make anyone into an orc.

There is a great foreword to the Director's Cut edition of the JTHM collection (Jhonen Vasquez's first comic, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac), that discusses the importance of having orcs to stab, which I think is a very important point to make:

There´s a fundamental difference between sublimate the violent natural impulses we all have into harmless behaviours, like sports or works of fiction; and create a scapegoat of a particular minority, treating all their individuals as a mass that share the same traits (usually undesirable ones), like Orcs, and find reasons to justify the killing, maiming, pillaging, despising, etcetera so that doing very bad things to them makes you good because they are "Evil"
You know the saying, "if you kill a killer, the number of killers in the world remains the same"

That is why I do not particularly care about that kind of black-white morals even tho it could make a useful tool for worldbuilding. Saves you a lot of time.

"if you kill a killer, the number of killers in the world remains the same"

I like that one.



I like both. I like Star Wars with its the light and dark sides of the force and I like the Watchmen. The original idea and its dismantling.

You're right, there is a fundamental difference between fantasy and reality. I was only trying to say that I do find it interesting to understand the mechanisms we use in fantasy to make killing acceptable. Thinking back to the original Star Wars. We, the audience, cheer when the heroes shoot storm trooper after storm trooper. Why doesn't all this killing make the heroes villains? 1. We don't see the faces of the storm troopers 2. We have already seen the storm troopers kill people with faces 3. We think the other side initiated the violence 4. There is no other alternative available 5. The names and imagery invoke the nazis which is the closest thing we have to evil in the modern world. 6. The heroes are fully fleshed out with love interests, financial concerns etc

And I think we can use lists like this to understand why people support killing in the real world.

On the trend to move away from eeevol towards "grey" morality in fantasy I'm finding that as Tolkein's orcish evil is eliminated it's replaced with an equivalent. So now we've had one too many good orc stories, can we really believe that orcs are inherently evil? I mean how many people played orcs in WoW? So I'm seeing demons show up more often in fantasy because we can still believe that demons are inherently evil. And then, of course, writers will want to do the same thing with demons that they did with orcs -- the demons will become humanized. And then, slowly, they will become less interesting. Demons will become eventually just another visual template, demons characters have red skin, horns and fire resistance but are otherwise human. And then we will need to find a replacement for demons. Cue the corruptors. Or the void tainted. Or the deathlings.

And that's why I think there should be some fantasy settings that sets the standard. And does it really well -- the Lord of the Rings movies reminded us of how great Tolkein really was. In D&D, the demi human gods created followers, the monster gods created slaves. Gruumsh, the orc god, enslaved the souls of those he created to win his battle with Corellon and Gruumsh's slaves are all that is not good and all that is not elvish. Elves are refined, orcs are crude. Elves are lithe, orcs are stocky. Elves only kill when they must, orcs are born to do battle.

And of course this can be done with a sense of irony / humor / absurdity. "make way evil, hero coming through"!

The point is really that evil and good are just concepts. But in the game these concepts are used as actual mechanics for universal behaviour in the same way that our real world has physics to do the same thing.

Alignment is a metaphysical force in Forgotten Realms.

It is disheartening that Wizards is the one pushing to get rid of it.

Orcs are not a minority.

Thanks

I think that Kreia is one of the best written and most interesting evil characters in gaming history.
She also has a backstory so it makes sense why she acts this way.
I want to add that her alignment is hidden from the player in this game.


If game devs can make evil characters that are at least half as interesting as her it would be fantastic.

I think she is a good example of what it means to be evil.
Being evil means you have goals and you do whatever is needed to reach these goals while caring little about how this effects others.
Being evil does not mean you intentionally seek to harm others or to destroy stuff.
Evil characters can be very efficient and rational.
Good characters have also goals and they can be just as rational, they just consider how their actions influence others and they might accept not reaching some of their goals or taking a more difficult way to achieve it if the direct way would cause too much harm to others.
The law/chaos part is about how they try to reach their goals.
A completely selfless good char who wants to help everyone for the sake of goodness is just as dumb as an evil char who kills and destroys everything because evil.

Well, if you kill more than one killer, the number of killers get smaller.
Make the world a better place: Become a mass murderer! Just make sure most of your victims are killers.

You´ve got it:

"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill dozens and you´re a hero. Kill hundreds of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god" -> Every evil guy in almost every RPG, ever

I can't believe you're quoting Batman as some sort of trump card about alignment.