How to Use and Think about Alignment in D&D

Welcome back to How to be a Better DM. I'm your host today, Justin Lewis. And

today, I wanna talk to you about an aspect of D&D that is one part storytelling,

one part game mechanic, and overall just an interesting facet of the game. Namely,

alignment. We've all heard the famous phrase of, it's what my character would do.

Naturally, when someone says that, they're usually trying to justify something

stupid, evil, weird, or just wrong that they've done. Sometimes they'll cite their

alignment as the main driver of their choice making process. And for some reason

that never really sat well with me. So today I wanted to talk about a couple ways

to think about alignment and hopefully help you determine that you need to choose

the way you're going to look at alignment in your game because it can.

because it can radically change how your characters act and how you act towards

your characters. First of all, what is alignment? Before we get into how to use

alignment in your games, let's first figure out what alignment is. And even defining

it is gonna be a little bit difficult because how you define it also impacts how

you play with it. So I'm gonna try to define it and explain it in a way that's

agnostic of the way you choose to play with it. Let me first start by saying

that alignment is an optional mechanic of the game. Nowhere. does it say in any rule

book or game module that you need to have alignment. Only certain items have

requirements about alignment and that's simply for the purpose of attunement. As a

DM, if you wanted to, you could simply choose to disregard all of that. So if you

feel that alignment just gums up the system and makes things harder to play, then

great, just don't use it. Alignment's not necessary, though in my opinion, it does

make things a lot more fun. So in its most basic form, alignment describes your

character's position relative to order and chaos, and relative to good and evil. I

won't go too much more in depth quite yet, because I don't want to affect how you

think about alignment before I explain the ways that you can use it in your game.

In the first edition of D&D, or really when it was just an add-on to the game Chainmail,

there was really only the choice between lawful, neutral, and chaotic. It was much simpler,

but then as things progressed, as they often do, D&D evolved to have the chaotic

and lawful spectrum as well as the evil and good spectrum. But what purpose does

alignment serve? In reality, alignment, just like everything else in the game, only

helps move the story along. You can take any mechanic out and still move the story

along, so really, alignment is just a plot device, in the sense that it's supposed

to, theoretically, impact how your character develops, and the choices they make,

really how the plot progresses. In practice though, that becomes very messy. You

start asking questions about morality, right and wrong, and to be honest, the whole

discussion becomes very philosophical with you as the DM, being the judge. So, let

me introduce you to my quandary and how I came to think about alignment. In my

current campaign, my wife's character found himself stuck in his own mindscape. He

had essentially been banished there by a being called Dreamtaker, who I've talked

about on this podcast many times before. And while in that mindscape, the character,

Ransom, encountered an evil little NPC that inhabits part of his mind named Matik.

And, spoiler alert, Matik is supposed to symbolize the potential every being has

to do evil. It's the potential to become the worst version of ourselves. And

as such, you can't really get rid of him because he's gonna always be there,

he's gonna always try and make you do terrible, terrible things, and that's just

it. So, in this maze, Ransom had become very lost because obviously the mindscape is

a maze, right? The mindscape is a maze. So, in this maze, Ransom had become very

lost because obviously the mindscape is a maze, right? The mindscape is a maze.

So, in this maze, Ransom had become very lost because obviously the mindscape is

a maze, right? The mindscape is a maze.

So in this mindscape, Ransom had become very lost because obviously the mindscape is

a maze. And this evil Matique appeared and offered Ransom a map to the maze in exchange

for quote unquote his innocence. Frustrated with the maze and wanting to get out, Ransom

took the deal and escaped the mind maze but naturally exchanged his innocence

and therefore lost his innocence. And as soon as ransom left the maze, I informed

my wife that her character was now chaotic evil. She was not happy about that.

And since then, she's been asking me about ways she can get her quote unquote

innocence back. But really her question is about whether or not she can change her

alignment. Fast forward a few weeks, different situation. My brother-in-law, Drew,

is in town. And he and his wife want to join us for one of our D&D sessions. As

chance would have it, that same night my brother-in-law, Ethan, who does have a character

in our campaign, couldn't make it, he couldn't play. So, Drew decided to play

Ethan's character, Necro, and Drew's wife played an NPC. While playing, Drew decided

to split Necro from the party and investigate a dockyard. At the dockyard, Drew

had Necro pick a fight with and murder a dockworker. Ethan came back. just at that

moment and with despair saw what was happening with his character. Now this wasn't

the first time Necro has murdered someone but this time was different in that

there wasn't any extenuating circumstances. Necro had just murdered a random person in

cold blood. And I told Ethan that his alignment had shifted towards evil. He

was upset naturally as his character had been trying to make certain strides forward

to be good. So with both of these stories in mind and the desire for these two

players to have their characters to be good, I had an interesting thought come

across my mind. I wondered, is alignment prescriptive or descriptive? Does your alignment

tell you how your character should act or how they have acted in the past? Just

because Ethan's alignment is now evil, does that mean he can't do anything good? And

does that mean someone who is good, they can't do anything evil? And I've come

to the conclusion that you need to make that decision because when you explain

this to your player, you can let them make choices moving forward with that in mind.

So let's look at the three options that this kind of conundrum opens up to you.

And yes, there is a, sorry, a, and yes, there is a secret third option. Descriptive.

If you choose to let the alignment be descriptive, then it is more of a description

of all their past deeds. It has little bearing on what they will do in the future,

and instead is more of a reputational aspect. It's more of a label based on all their

previous actions. If you choose to play this method, then I would adopt certain

measures that somewhat in the old game Knights of the Old Republic, you can find.

For example, For example, in that game, when you press pause...

You see your character standing there with sort of a spectrum, a gauge, showing how

far they are into the light or dark sides of the Force. When they are in the light

side of the Force, the character that you see there standing stands tall. Their posture

is open and brave, and they're surrounded by light, and they seem to have an aura of

good about them. If they are deep in the dark side, then their eyes have darkened,

and their face is covered by a permanent scowl. and all around them they're surrounded

by darkness. If you use the descriptive method of alignment, then I would adopt similar

attributes maybe, and if they make their way to being chaotic evil, for example,

then people start to perceive and mistrust them. They see something in their

eyes that indicates a chaotic or evil nature. Any persuasion checks that would rely

on trust or goodwill would receive disadvantage. And on the other hand, any checks

involving deception or intimidation would probably get some sort of advantage.

Obviously, assuming that the people they're trying to intimidate or persuade are

neutral or good. On the flip side, if your character is lawful good, then they

should naturally be liked and trusted by people who are common folk, right? People

within cities, for the most part. Of course, this is simplifying things, but

you get the idea. The alignment becomes a list of all the bad things they've done or

the good things and over time people would naturally get a sense of those things

just by being around them. You know that kind of sixth sense that you sometimes

get around people about their character and gut senses of I should trust this person

or I don't like this person. That's exactly what I'm talking about. And in this

method if someone wanted to change their alignment then they would have to consciously

act. over a long period of time to slowly change their alignment, essentially

filling up their past with deeds that are good over evil to slowly shift the balance

towards neutral and then towards good. So that's the descriptive method. Prescriptive.

The prescriptive method of alignment is less about what you've done and more about

what you aspire to be. The distinction is slight, but... the big difference is that

a character can choose their alignment in an instant. Changing alignment would likely

require some large emotional experience, but it could theoretically happen. And from

that moment, despite shortcomings, the character would try to live up to a certain

ideal lifestyle. From a DM's perspective, you could reward strenuous attempts with advantage

or inspiration and give quote-unquote de-inspiration for actions that go against

the alignment. And how this might look in play is, let's take Necro, for example.

Necro has an alignment of evil, chaotic evil, just because of his past actions and

whatnot. Let's say I adopt the prescriptive method.

Ahem.

Let's say I adopt the prescriptive method. I can tell Necro, I can say, hey, you

can claim that your alliance, you can claim that your alignment is lawful good.

But every time you don't live up to that, you will have periods of moral guilt,

right? So let's say he kills another person. I would say for like the next week,

he would have lots of guilt and 50-50 chance that on every role he has, he has disadvantage.

Now, that's a lot of roles, so I don't know if I'd do it exactly that way, but you

get the idea. He has these aspirations, and when he doesn't live up to them, he would

essentially have cognitive dissonance, and that would hamper his ability to do everything

else. The combo. As you've no doubt guessed by now, the third option is the combination

of the two. And really, this is closer to how we live in real life. We are partly

our past and partly our aspirations for the future and together, those combined

to make the present. And if you can handle it, try to combine both of these methods

to create a current alignment that correctly reflects the cumulative effect of

all the decisions of the past and present, and at the same time, it allows the

character to aspire for different ways of life and try to make their way to that

point. For example, you could almost separate their alignment into previous alignment

and future alignment, right? So everything they've done in the past has physical effects

on their person. So if they've done evil things, then they become a darkened and

seedy character. But if they have alignment for the future, every time they do

something good, they could get bits of inspiration. I suppose you could also cut

it down into if you want to change your alignment, you have to essentially get

a certain number of alignment points in this or that direction. I would maybe implement.

that as a test with my players, but it would be somewhat difficult. And why shouldn't

it be? We're only talking about the concept of good and evil, and how to act rightly

in a difficult world. So as you go out and play your sessions with your players,

I'd encourage you to bring in more and more moral quandaries and questions. Thinking

of right and wrong, and best and worst decisions, is at the very nature of human existence.

So your players will likely enjoy being pushed to think about what they really

should do, and what effect it should have on their characters. And that particularly

is probably the most important aspect of alignment. What effect do their choices

have on their characters? I would wager you should reward choices that fill in,

align, hence the word alignment, choices that fill in, no. I would reward choices that

align with their long-term vision of themselves. And if they don't have a long-term

vision of themselves, then maybe you could add some more moral quandaries and give

their player, or give their character...

Something to think about.

I think your characters, your players rather, will enjoy the opportunity to have

these mental exercises and try and do somewhat similar things in their own lives.

And in that way D&D becomes more than just a game. It becomes practice for living

a better life. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. It was obviously a little

different and hopefully you enjoyed it.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode. It was a little different and a lot more philosophical.

And I'm confident that thinking about alignment will make your games more interesting

and your players will be more invested. We'll be back next week for another great episode,

but until then, let's go ahead and roll initiative.