You’ve heard it said–maybe you yourself have said it:
“There’s no point to character alignments in D&D or any other roleplaying game. It’s an unnecessary hindrance to players!”
Or if you’re a proponent of alignments, you’ve seen the eye-rolls from players and other GMs. I mean, who really takes those kinds of rules seriously? Should alignments even exist in roleplaying games?
Well, I am taking those rules seriously, as I play my way through First Edition AD&D. And I’m not simply finding them tolerable, I’m actually really enjoying the rules on alignment.
As someone who played 4th Edition D&D consistently for about four years (and has even dabbled a bit in the last year, believe it or not), I’ve experienced the other side of alignments. In the 4e Essentials book, Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms, alignment is discussed in this way:
“A character’s alignment describes his or her moral stance. Many adventurers…are unaligned, which means they have no overriding moral stance. … Most people in the world, and plenty of adventurers, haven’t signed up to play on any team–they’re unaligned. Picking and adhering to an alignment represents a distinct choice.
If you choose an alignment for your character, you should pick either good or lawful good” (Mearls, Slavicsek, and Thompson, pg. 43).
As I’ve played 4th Edition, my experience has been that 4e alignment rules functionally led to no alignments at all. Which is fine! I just think it’s an unfortunate drift from their original function. So why were alignments originally written into D&D? And how can their rigorous use actually benefit our games?