06/15/2024
Oh, alignment. How many times have we, the D&D faithful, lamented your failed ambition? Your near-useless, pseudo mechanics? Your inability to coral my “chaotic good” murder hobos?
To be fair, alignment factored more heavily into the game in earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons. We were encouraged to really hold players to their chosen alignments, and alignment rules actually had some real teeth. At least, for a while.
Over the years, alignment has deteriorated as a useful system in D&D. If you track the progression, it kind of seems like a planned obsolescence. It makes me wonder if the designers of 5E included it simply out of a sense of nostalgic obligation, or if they just couldn't come up with something better?
MY E9|4T ALIGNMENT SYSTEM
In the best case scenario, alignment would inform players how their characters might behave in any given situation. There would be useful information coded into each alignment that gives a player some clear direction about the tendencies of their character.
If nothing else, alignment needs to be less idealistic. We don't operate from absolutes – good/evil, law/chaos. Alignment should describe the way a character behaves as a function of who they are, rather than what they believe. I mean, ask yourself, how many people actually behave in accordance with their self-professed beliefs? Not many. We talk a big game, but psychology always wins.
I know that there is no shortage of homebrew alignment systems out there. They range from overlays of the existing alignment scale, but with better terminology, to systems that to use pseudo-psychological concepts. The difference with my alignment system is that it's based on two real and complete psychological models. It's a two-axis system that provides a player with usable information...
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