Alignment in Dungeons and Dragons - when 3 is greater than 9. 

i love that Dungeon Crawl Classics went back to 3 alignments, especially since it really leans into those alignments in the way Elric stories do

The concept of Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic Alignment is drawn from Michael Moorcock's cosmology, where an ongoing cosmic battle between Law and Chaos is the driving force behind creation and the manifestation of reality. According to Moorcock, life and creation thrive when there is a constant struggle between Law and Chaos, often referred to as the Eternal Struggle. To maintain this balance, the forces of Law must be in equilibrium with the forces of Chaos. If Law prevails, everything remains constant with no change; if Chaos prevails, everything becomes formless and experiences constant flux. In Moorcock's perspective, he emphasizes that cosmic forces are solely concerned with Law and Chaos, dismissing Good and Evil as artificial ideals created by mortals to rationalize their actions. According to him, Law and Chaos are tangible and real, while Good and Evil exist only in the human imagination. As a noteworthy detail, Moorcock uses the eight-pointed star as the symbol of Chaos and the single arrow as the symbol of Law. This symbolism has also left its mark on the Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 universes.

I ultimately prefer the 9 pt system myself, but there's certainly merit in the pared back 3 pt system. Alignment causes problems often because there's such variation (whether it be personal, cultural etc) in what any given person will consider to be good and evil, and players will infuse their beliefs as an absolute, which of course will invariably differ from other players thus leading to debates. Nonetheless it's a great tool for players to step out of themselves and inhabit a character with a different moral and ethical perspective. Make choices based on the character's point of view, regardless of whether or not YOU would necessarily do the same. Those choices help build the ongoing narrative. It's a fun thing to watch blossom as those choices lead to new beats in the game.

As with all rules, take what you like and change what you don’t. The best advice I have heard about alignments is that should be treated like a compass, not a straight jacket. It is a way for you to show how you intend to play this character.

Im a fan of alignment being a guildline for roleplaying but i dont hate alignment as a hard part of the games mechanics.

I view each alignment as a box or range with some variation allowed in actions which are not strong enough to actually change their alignment. For instance, a chaotic character can do something which would be generally lawful but unless they do a series of such actions over some time they would still be chaotic.

Good stuff. Overcomplicating alignment was a mistake, I feel. The mythic, fairy tale-esque Three Hearts and Three Lions approach, where Law is synonymous with holy/"good" and Chaos with diabolic/"evil" is easy to understand and models a lot of heroic fantasy well. I find that the more teams you add to your cosmic football league, the tougher it is to get invested. You can easily tell great stories about good versus evil or law versus chaos or the light side versus the dark side, but it's tough to sell an audience on the epic struggle between Neutral Good and Lawful Neutral, you know? ;) Plus, it only encouraged the slide from alignment as who's side (if any) a character is on to alignment as a canned personality stereotype, ala sun signs or the Meyers-Briggs test or whatever. The latter interpretation is rather limiting and, well, lame in my opinion.

Plaing BECMI D&D with three alignments. I like it very much. Alignment is another game mechanic that must be dealt with during many challenges, which can make some challenges more difficult than others. It also acts as an effective filter for some classes. Some look down their nose at alignment, such as the author of RPG Design Patterns, Whitson John Kirk III who states "The primary consequence of the Alignment pattern is that it takes up valuable game real estate without giving much back. It complicates your game to attain a goal that could be better achieved in other ways." I think Whitson is projecting his own shortcomings as a DM onto his supposed unbiased look at RPG game mechanics.

I agree with you about the usefulness of the 9alignment system in terms of the setting. Ever since Planescape came under my radar, it occured to me how much of a toolbox the "meta setting" it was presented me with, and I have a hard time modeling cosmology on anything else, because I just love the great wheel so much. I also think actually playing with the 3 alignments works better in terms of a mechanic. So I've kinda just be inspired to think of the "other" 6 alignments in a way that is a nod to both Planescape and IRL organizing and/or politics. So a demon is chaotic evil, what is meant by that, well a demon will behave impulsively under a cosmically evil "spark" or "essence". It's often said that demons were purely chaotic, in the days of the Obyrith, because "Evil did not exist yet." I'm not sure the powers even thought of the concept of evil until Asmodeus betrayed them... Or something something Thasmudyan and the shard of ultimate evil (I cut off my lore with 3.5 lol) so "Evil" "Good" and the lawful.or chaotic strains of neutrality are more like factions than true alignments, members of the "Good" faction, say, have taken up a specific cause, but at the end of the day, Good or Evil are somewhat subjective for mortal beings, just like with IRL organizing someone may join a cause because they believe it in their heart, but as an individual their actions are sometimes at odds with the goals of the org. If we are speaking on a celestial, or demon, or even my favorite assholes, the yugoloth, then it becomes more of a alignment vs being a faction, circle against evil wouldn't even be the same level spell as circle against chaos, probably much higher because it really only works on outsiders with these traits, ie circle against evil would protect you from a demon, but not a mortal, no matter how vile they might be. Since all my PCs are mortals, or at least not extraplanar, this keeps them using the 3 alignment system, while allowing for some "alternate alignment systems" for entities beyond the mortal ken. Adds a little mystery and ambiguity to the 9alignment system, and cleans up the mess that actually using it always is. Or at least I hope so, lol.

The problem I had with BECMI alignment is that while L/N/C was about behaviour rather than morality/spirituality, the truth was that every chaotic character you went up against (e.g. The Evil Cleric of the Keep on the Borderlands and the Master of Temple of Death) was always described as evil. So while the intent was to make L/N/C distinct from good/neutral/evil, it was always conflated. Similarly, if there were some penalties on alignment (where a lawful character couldn't use the sword of a chaotic creature, or a magical barrier of chaos, etc.) it always seemed to make a distinction by referring to evil or goodness alongside chaos and law.

Just started an OSE AF campaign with the three alignments. My ranger is neutral and our sorceress is chaotic. We usually tend towards good. However, we have had fun moments of role play over her poison use and just how to accomplish certain goals. The tic-tac-toe board of 9 alignments is a little limiting and pigeonholed.

Very thought provoking! As a kid when I began playing D&D in the mid- 80s, I never understood why AD&D needed to be different from D&D with regards to alignment. As I got older, i began to appeciate alignment archtypes, but I tend to view them as critical descriptors for everything other than the characters. Everyone I control as DM follows the dual-axis alignment scheme. My PCs are free to do what they want as guided by their conscience and dictated by circumstances. That Chaotic- Neutral npc is that way due to circumstances, and helps me to role-play him to advance the story in telling.

I like 2e's caveat that "alignment isn't a straight jacket." It can inform a player's decision, but it describes the actions a character has taken more than it prescribes what they must do. Ultimately, its a tag for where a character sits among the cosmic forces that govern their universe. I like both alignment systems, and I've ran a more post-modern type of game without it.

I love BECMI, and always had sinxe the late 80's. Now, I feel less alone watching your videos. .. Those are great explanations for simple facts and I love it .. Thanxx

I fluctuate between chaotic hungry and chaotic angry myself.

This is probably the best video I've seen on the 3 alignments. I'm glad you pointed out that lawful is often, but not always, good, and chaotic is often, but not always, evil. I'll add that it also states that justice is included in lawful. It's apples to oranges with the 9 alignment system, in that sense. It makes more sense to me, because I'd always get into arguments with players or with the DM about what, precisely, good and evil entail. We all have a vague sense of what those words mean, but different people at the table may have slightly different approaches to ethics, and that can lead to confusion. But nobody argues about lawful vs chaotic. If you believe in law, order, justice, loyalty, and some form of honesty, you're lawful. If you're opposed to that, you're chaotic. If you're in between, you're neutral. There's still room for a chaotic thief to side with the party against, say, the hordes of the Broken Lands, because they'd suffer along with everyone else if the humanoid invasion is successful. A chaotic character may simply be opposed to playing by any rules, but may have a good heart. Likewise, a lawful character might still be avaricious enough to want to be at the top of the hierarchy that enforces law, order, and justice on all and may do evil things to get there, rationalizing it as lawful. This begs the question: are Stefan Karameikos' efforts to unite Traladarans and Thyatians motivated by goodness or simply that he thinks it's the most efficient way to control his grand duchy? If we had a 9 alignment system, it would constrain him, as an NPC, to have certain motives and not others. As it is, he remains an ambiguous character, and I think that makes him more interesting.

Switched from 5E to Shadowdark - which also only uses 3 alignments and everyone prefers that much better. Great video explanation of how the alignment system changed and why sometimes less is more.

I like your emphasis on leaving room for moral ambiguity. I just see that usually the three alignment system causes confusion. Chaos gets kind of equated with evil and law with good. And then it gets tricky when it comes to rightful rebellion, robinhood-types, evil tyrants, civilization vs wilderness etc. I rather leave room for all these things to be meaningful as well as personalities that are merciful, cowardly, greedy etc. I like the idea of cosmic forces, so for me there's cosmic good and evil but most creatures of characters aren't fully dedicated to these. It makes those that are, such as paladins, unicorns, cult leaders, demons etc interesting.

This is a great video. I always viewed lawful, chaos, and neutrality as more fluid concepts than rigid archetypes. Which got reinforced and developed by reading Conan and Elric books. Both those characters act chaoticly, but neither is evil. To me, Elric so far in my reading, acts in a chaotic manner to save his civilization by shaking up the status quo as lawful traditions are eating his society alive. Cheers again for sharing.

Can't wait for your next video! I have GAZ 1 on order. I like your gazeteer videos too!

As always exactly what i need to keep my own creative engine rolling.

When i used to play 3.5e, we kinda had the unaligned that 5e has now, there was true neutral, but onstead of unaligned, we called it "neutral neutral" so N was middle standing and NN was more loose

Indy's guide grew up to be Doctor Octopus in Spiderman 2.

I like the Lamentations of the Flame Princess take on the Law-Neutral-Chaos alignment system in which it is less a personal code of ethics, but rather the character's place in the universe. For example, all clerics are lawful and all elves and magic users are chaotic. Since a cleric's power comes from faith in and/or worship of a deity, the cleric is necessarily part of an ordered cosmic hierarchy, and is therefore lawful. In contrast, magic is all about change and the breaking of natural laws, and so characters that use magic are necessarily agents of chaos, whether they want to be or not. What do you think of the Palladium alignment system?

I can appreciate how BX/BECMI/RC handled alignment more simply and streamlined despite being far more accustomed to AD&D's 1e-2e moral×ethical dual axis style. I got a number of 2e players try out Alternity, which generally ignores the concept altogether (more-or-less), but IMO, the system just helps to give the character a framework to operate within the game's milieau.

I like both systems. Each sets a tone for each campaign.

Thanks for the video, for me in the b/x/becmi era alignment represents which cosmic faction a character or monster sides with in your universe, and while that may flavour their actions it doesn't dictate or predict behaviour within any given context. I've also grown fond of having Chaotic, Balance, Lawful and unaligned, where the mass bulk of society really isn't all that bothered and do whatever seems most expedient at the time. I don't really like the western moral assignment to the 3 words, because lawfulness is close to authoritarianism, which is far more likely to be evil, then an anarchic chaotic approach. But I like the alignment to cosmic factions because then the alignment languages make sense and become interesting (I of course also add a limited written language because it's more interesting that way.) I just think it's more interesting that way. Overall though I got bored of alignment re moral compasses because it's regressive, and falls apart at the slightest probing.

I can understand favoring the 3 alignments system, and at some point alignment does make more things complicated than it should, but I like it a lot the 9 alignments still because is one of the marks of D&D and when used well it makes GREAT stories.

The Djinn and Efreet in BECMI showed the limitations of the mere law/chaos Moorcockian alignment axis, where the creature description had to point out that while chaotic, Djinn were not "bad guys", and Efreet tended toward selfishness and cruelty, despite being lawful. The worst part about BECMI and alignment were the Alignment Languages.

I prefer.... the PCs have a "campaign alignment"--a guideline of what type of adventures they want to go on. 3 options: good, neutral, or chaotic... or more properly labeled "heroes, mercenaries, villains." This informs the DM on which types of challenges to present to the players and generally what the PCs goals are and what kinds of actions they will take. For the NPCs and monsters, the 9-grid alignment system is useful. Drawing the distinctions between LG and LE helps the DM understand how the NPC/monster thinks in more detail.

I feel like 3 point alignment is good for players where as 9 point alignment is suited for NPCs. The more descriptive 9 point might make it easier for GMs to determine how certain NPCs will act in a given situation. PCs on the other hand are front and center playing their characters and should nominally have a good understanding of how the characters would behave within the bounds of personal ethics and morals.

3 alignment choices for D&D has seemed optimal to my way of thinking. The idea of teams in a cosmic struggle has merit. I like the implications order and factional struggle have for defining the fictional milieu. Dependable, law abiding and truthful seem admirable qualities. Self serving, law breaking and shifty, seem much less desirable. Neutrality gives one the option of vacillation between the two more consistent alignment positions. I use alignment in the D&D games I referee and believe in character actions that have consequences. Your Indiana Jones example of karmic justice is precisely the karmic tone I strive for in D&D. YMMV :) Cheers!

I think I prefer the 3 alignments, as there is more room to fiddle around. I did play some Pathfinder some years back, and my CG character turned CN after a discussion with the GM. We were deep in the jungle, and had just defeated a bunch of people who had deliberately led us into a trap to ambush, kill and loot us. After the combat, some of them were still alive, and the options were to drag them back to the nearest settlement for a trial, which would be a hassle. There was no question that they were guilty. So my character, a rugged individualist at home in the jungle by his lonesome, declared that it was time for 'jungle justice'. If we had left these guys live and walk, they would have tried to rob someone else, if only to survive. We had a mission, so delaying it in order to get these guys properly tried at court would cost us too much time. In the jungle, you do the hard choices, and my character killed the prisoners. While I can see the GM's perspective that murder is murder, it is situations like this that the line gets a bit more blurred.

Has anyone ever considered that the 'evil' side of the alignment square should be the NPC'S only domain: similar to insanity in CoC. This would leave only 6 options the choice between good and neutral being exemplified in your example. This leaves issues with many versions of the game, (undead, ASSASSINS, thieves,paladins) this becomes less of a problem with becmi system..... Anyone behaving way out of character, have their experience for those actions (reflecting the soul searching and inner turmoil) halved.

I've been pouring over the minutia of the BECMOI rule sets recently. As you say, it is anything but basic once you get into the weeds. Regarding alignment, I think the mechanical purpose of it seems only to be that it affects reactions with monsters. People often ask what the point of alignment is, and from a mechanical perspective, reaction rolls seem to be the only answer. Obviously there are non-mechanical reasons too. Not sure about the RC since I avoid it.

Another channel had a poll for his next video and one was an exploration of Evil Morty being “Neutral Evil” and I immediately chafed at this suggestion… because i think scaling back to three alignments is ultimately the difference between Rick and Morty. We see that this more nuanced view of morality crumbles in practice at inter-dimensional scales (ie: Ice Cream for everyone no matter how many legs or Trolley Car Spaghetti Night) basically every time.

I use alignment closer to how Dave Arneson did (he invented the LNC alignment, GG expanded it to the AD&D version), in that alignment is something I as the DM track and the players don't know about it. See the story of the very first dungeon crawl and what happened when they found a magic sword for how this works out in actual play. If a player wants to give themself an alignment as a guide to how they envision playing their character, I totally let them, and I take it as one data point in how I read their actions. No one can "violate" their alignment because #1 they don't even know what it is, and #2 that would just change my rating, not invoke some cosmic punishment. If I ever swapped to a planescape style setting I might do something different.

The solution for me was to retain the three alignments, Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic, these are the guideposts and moral compasses for characters, especially NPCs. But then treat Good, Neutral and Evil as a sliding scale of "Morality", moving in response to character actions not beliefs. So you get the 9 "alignments" but only as guidance and under player control, do bad things and you move towards Evil, act against alignment it shifts, giving consequences rather than shackles.

Saw an interesting thread on alignment from LuditeSam on twitter just before I saw this video pop up; it serves as more cosmological allegiance than personal ethics. I am more a fan of the Palladium alignment system if we are using it to determine a characters morals.

I feel that the Law/Chaos distinction has been far less understood than the good/evil one. But even good vs. Evil can sometimes feel like just picking teams. I'm not a big fan of most of the mechanical aspects of alignment, but if a player picks an alignment and allows their interpretation of that alignment to be an anchor for their character's behavior, I think it can be a good aid.

Maybe it's because I was an AD&D 2E baby, but I'll always prefer the nine alignment grid. That said, I've never agreed on it being a personality type or a cosmic allegiance. It should be a general outlook with room for hard choices to be made . Alignment Shift should result from a pattern of behavior, not a bad decision here and there (Paladins notwithstanding). Of course, we should also not forget that Good and Evil are not subjective in D&D. They, along with Law, Chaos and the spaces between are fundamental forces of the multiverse, as real as gravity and electromagnetism. EDIT: Alas, WOTC seems determined to get rid of Alignment in Not-6E. They truly have no idea what they are doing over there.

I believe the more complicated alignment system is great for experienced players who are interested in a very nuanced world/campaign and those who place a high value in role playing, but for most players, especially beginners, alignment is basically just lost on them. It might even reduce their interest because reminding them that their lawful good cleric wouldn't cast harmful spells on a guard just because he was rude breaks the spell of the game. If you have 3 or 4 experienced players who really want to engage in immersive play, then this can be the pinnacle of the game.

Alignment is useful for role playing direction for playing your character. It shouldn't be handcuffs for how you play your PC, but in general it should describe how that character acts. Also with the objective alignments of the outer planes and the nature of certain magic items and spells, it has real weight. It's one more dimension your PC can exist in and impact decisions and directions to take them.

Alignment doesn't really make much sense to have except in a setting where the forces of Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are literal, cosmic forces that have an actual physical effect on the world. Like Planescape! Wasn't the original concept of Alignment inspired by a novel where things like Angels and Devils were made of the stuff? I believe someone else also mentioned that they were probably also there to help describe creatures in the game at a time where some people might've never even heard of what a creature like an Orc even was unless they read through a good chunk of LotR. Without much room on the page for a more lengthy description, a simple classification system to help fill in the blanks of people's imagination for how a creature might act seems like a useful tool.

I like the 3 alignments system. In my experience, it lets players be a bit more flexible with their characters. It's hard to believe, but it gives the game a much more realistic feel. For example: the Thief can steal without breaking his Neutral-Good alignment. Rather, in BECMI he's just a Neutral thief that tries to act good, but isn't necessarily beholden to being good at every minute.

I use alignment as a tool to establish my player's characters ability to resist certain situations. It requires a much higher wisdom or charisma check to resist taking cursed magic items if you're chaotic or evil. , and the same if you're lawful or good ignoring the suffering of others. In one session my players were trying to take a nights rest outside of a ruins while inside an innocent woman was being tortured inside. The evil aligned characters slept like babies. The good ones found no rest.

When i decide to have mechanical alignments that matter, i use a sliding scale system that tracks characters as they move up and down. There is a gray zone betwixt any axis where the player understands they are potentially moving the wrong way before they suffer consequences. (I always have clear rules for what will cause alignment to shift and the players have access. That being said, i normally don't bother. If a person violates the ethos/pact they serve for power, they will have an appropriate in game consequence and they will be warned before an egregious action is finalized in game. That being said, i normally dont use them as

I like and use alignment in my games. It is IMO another tool in a storytellers arsenal and can help focus an otherwise chaotic tale. One thing I believe is that even a lawful good character can do things that aren't the kindest thing but would still fit their morale code. As example, we are running Keep on the Borderlands and just ran into a torture room. There are several evil humanoids that have been captured and are being tortured by other humanoids. My characters backstory has memories of the hordes of humanoids, gnolls and goblins, that raided his home and killed villagers. The character is LG but to him letting these monsters go would be putting a knife to an innocent in the future so he voted that the party should kill the prisoners. The chaotic characters of the group were outraged and thought that was evil and not only should we release them but we should give them some ofnthe weapons we found so the evil humanoids could defend themselves. I was out voted and the party released the prisoners and equiped them. The irony that the chaotic characters until that point had no problem killing monsters in their sleep or cheating merchants "because it was funny" but drew the line when the bad guys were evil to other bad guys was bizarre.

I love these videos. Occasionally I’m reminded of stuff I’ve forgotten. Such as alignment only being lawful, neutral, and chaotic. Thanks for another great video.

I am wondering if Warhammer and DnD were operating on their fantasy philosophies when they adopted alignment. Former being dark fantasy (even more heroic leaning Fantasy doesn’t have rigid good vs evil, like Lawful can be tyrannical and Wood Elves are Neutral and “Chaotic” yet not nice people…like killing people travelling in woods and manipulating local people to do their biddings) while latter went with heroic fantasies. Also Moorcock-Discworld fantasy of Warhammer vs Tolkien-Conan fantasy background of DnD

I think there is a place for both. The 3 alignments are good for sword and sorcery based campaigns, so Conan-esque or any ancient setting (Rome, Greece etc). While for more medieval (Christian) based campaigns using D&D (like Greyhawk) the 9 alignments make sense as good and evil make sense and a Christian-centric game. YMMV.

Alignment as fundamental forces that drive the universe make extraplanar entities (i.e. gods) more understandable to the players, and add a ton of depth to clerics and their various faiths. Also, shout out to DCC, Black Sword Hack and Matt Colville’s videos on alignment as very useful sources.

Alignment has always been the carrot and stick that motivates players to adventure. A good DM simply works the character's background and interests into the plot of the story. It was in a dragon magazine that I discovered a priority system. That priority system encouraged me to insist on Alignment in my game. Plus I introduce quite a few creatures that can detect Alignment. It's only through the reactions of NPCs or action consequences that Alignment makes a difference.

I liked the way Michael Moorcock did Law, Chaos and the Balance. Law and Chaos can be bad if carried to extremes.

I tell my players they can write whatever they want for alignment on their sheet. I am the judge of what their alignment is, and at the end of the campaign I tell them what I thought they played their character as.

I like the Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic thing, but then I am all about Moorcock and the Eternal Champion.... Chaotic is just very flexible, Law is you are set in your ways .....Neutral you can be one or the other..... but you tend to stick to a consistent pattern.

Alignment had caused more player fights at my table than any other aspect of the game. That said, from my perspective from behind the DM screen, this was usually caused by each player's personal point of view, and it is truly incredible just how deeply ingrained many beliefs are in people without them even realizing it. We all believe that we ourselves are the good guys, and every normalized thing that we do is completely justified, but whenever anyone challenges this assertion about our own identities... I do believe in Good and Evil. I've seen real people commit acts of sheer cruelty out of nothing but the belief that they could get away with it. I've seen people manipulated into acting against their own beliefs, and I've seen otherwise caring individuals turn into zealots over the mere notion that they would be perceived as less than perfect. At my table, I worked in a House Rule that everyone starts out Neutral and has to earn the Good/Evil/Chaotic/Lawful as they play. There is wiggle room, of course, and certain situations where I just let them start as a Paladin or something, but true Virtue or Wickedness is a rare thing indeed. On that note, would you rather visit Las Vegas or Boulder Colorado? (No reason.)

Great video as always. I feel less is always more. I only use it as a general guidance as life is full of greys. I would say each alignment is what their default is barring special circumstances, just like in your example with the thief. You also make a good point with usually in regards to good and evil, as to me devils and dragons would also typically be lawful. (of course they might trick you, but typically they have some sort of code)

I personally never understood alignments, because I thought they were not a very good guide on a character's moral code. I like how 5E does the personality traits (I like Onyx Path's Pugmire's version even better). That being said, if ther ehad to be alignments, then Law, Neutral, and Chaotic are acceptable (which is what my current favorite OSR game, Shadowdark, uses). Great video on this subject!

I used alignments in my old 2nd edition campaign, but I don't think we ever let it restrict us at all. When one character joined an evil dragon I think I might have changed his alignment to neutral evil, but there were no hard in-game penalties. I think the only time it would come up is if there was some magic or divine being that could detect your alignment, but the average interaction was always just played at face value without any alignment considerations.

I hate alignment to no end when it's used prescriptively, but it's fine when used descriptively. Don't tell me a copper dragon can't be evil, tell me your copper dragon IS evil. Don't tell me your paladin would never do that because they're good, don't have your paladin do that when they are confronted with the situation.

Different editions have treated use of alignment differently and treated the specifics of alignment differently. Sometimes it represents the view of the character in different ways, depending on the edition. Sometimes it's used as a game mechanic with some roleplay effects on the character. That is, a character can't behave in a certain way, or is penalized for behaving in a certain way regardless of the situation. Sometimes it represents a cosmic alliance. It's such a mess now that I can't use it.

Pendragon definitely has the best alignment system (opposed personality traits), but it becomes a core system rather than a bit tacked on. As a BECMI person since '83, the 3 alignments are codified into my D&D imagination. AD&D's 9 not-so-much. I do like the idea of a good and evil tracker, a bit more like Pendragon; however, I think it should stand separate from the law and chaos dynamic - which (for me) has more to do with the gods and the chaos of unbound arcane magic drawn from the maelstrom of creation. Good vs. evil, I like for the purity of a soul and a system of penance and pilgrimage in a pseudo-medieval milieu. Whatever anyone does with alignment, if it's going to be in the game, it really needs to mean something.

I consider alignment to be an archaic mechanic that is kept for tradition's sake. However, if you must, 3 alignments is the way to go. The 9 just create conflict. No one can agree on hiw to define them.

I want a third dimension to alignment…. Commitment to morality. An old school Paladin is autistically lawful and good. A selfish villain is similarly committed to the opposite. And is actually a genuine sociopath… But plenty of good people do bad things, plenty of people who like freedom will obey laws. Some will flaunt law despite being good people…. I would like to know how committed a person is, before the fact, to their morals. It’s genuinely OK to state that evil monsters are entirely selfish but they will respect the tribe hierarchies because that’s their best chance for power, etc etc. Interestingly, this helps understand the Star Wars universe a lot. Plenty of Jedi aren’t really nice people. Their commitment to balance is not always a positive thing. That’s going to help us see alignment in action, a lot.

I've always preferred the idea of Alignment as your faction rather than your personality or moral code. Yes, Lawful people are usually orderly and good natured, but that doesn't mean a quick witted rogue with sticky fingers couldn't also decide that he was going to side with the forces of Cosmic Law. His skills could be put to use serving Law.

Satipo: "Alignment is not a privilege, it's a gift. And you use it for the good of mankind. Adios senor."

I prefer the 5 alignments intruduced by Warhammer role play if I'm not wrong, with the distinction between good and lawful and between evil and chaotic

I myself love to use Alignment to influence who my characters are. however that is not the case with my fellow players :P

funny thing is, I played an Asmodeus acolyte in Descent into Avernus... and my in game argument for the morality of the nine hells was the "Good and Evil are moral constructs which impede an ordered cosmos."

As with all things D&D, it really comes down to the table and the players. Any system is good if it fits what you want. I've always seen alignment as a roleplay aid rather than a restriction. There's a actually a lot of wiggle room within the alignments depending on how strictly you interpret them. Case in point, my favorite character ever was a lawful good knight, Sir Karus THE BOLD. With the DM's permission beforehand and care to not tick off the party I was joining, I made him a sudo Judge Dredd kind of character. As far as Sir. Karus was concerned, he was judge, jury, and executioner, and anything he could see was part of his jurisdiction. The party were all some combination of neutral, chaotic, and good. They were worried how a LG Knight could ever fit in. I explained it wouldn't be an issue for Sir. Karus to join them. He was his own little soverign nation anywhere he went. They still didn't really get it until our first session. We went to a foreign city state where slavery was legal. They were all set to ignore it to get the job done, and they assumed I'd have to because it was legal and I was lawful. Nope, as soon as Sir. Karus found out there was slave trading, I absolutely massacred my way through the slave pen workers, even the ones who tried to surrender. Slave trading was punishable by death as far as Sir Karus was concerned, and I had caught them all red handed. Eventually we stormed the palace and tower of the ruling wizard of the land (who the party was after for information anyway). After some questions, we stripped him of his stuff, cast an antimagic zone on him so he couldn't cast anything, and I threw him off his tower after passing judgment. The whole time they kept asking me and the DM, "What's Karus' alignment again? Isn't killing people who surrender evil and against your knight's code? Isn't throwing a guy off a tower to his death evil? Isn't all this stuff you just did against the law and therefore chaotic?" That was the point. Sir. Karus was LG, but as far as he was concerned, his homeland's laws applied everywhere he went because they were right and true, and he was there to enforce them by the sword if necessary. I didn't murder surrendering or defeated people, I dispensed justice by executing captured criminals in a manner befitting their crimes after a short trial conducted by me according to the power vested in me by my Leige. Part of that was the fact that basically anything in my sight counted as my territory to enforce the law. I was basically a one man crusade. They asked, "Aren't you basically invading every place you go then? Don't you have to officially declare war or something to do that?" I responded, "It would be tactically unwise to forewarn my enemy I'm coming. I'm secretly invading everwhere I go, so secretly that sometimes I'm gone before they even knew we were at war if I was just passing through and didn't see anything I had to deal with." I didn't pull too many shenanigans after that as I and the DM had already made the point. Lawful (good) wasn't a straight jacket unless you wanted it to be. One of those players now really enjoys playing the paladin class (in 3.5).

I prefer the 7 alignment system of Palladium, if i'm going to use alignment! 2 good, 2 self serving and 3 evil! The problem with the D&D alignment is that they aren't defined, and open to the DM's discretion, Killing orc babies can be good or evil, depending on how the DM feels about it! Another DM may feel the opposite!

I track alignment through the actions of the players. Movements between the nine alignments are too gradual to matter often (unless of course magic is involved).I believe its use is important for certain spells to work (ex. Protection From Evil) as well as certain cosmic rules within my own setting.

Overall I prefer to not generalize alignment, even by saying one is “frequently” good or bad. There’s just too much ambiguity to say that. The tyrant kings who torment the weak and the poor, the revolutionaries who bring freedom to the people. I definitely prefer the 3 alignment system overall (though the 9 system could work if people used it better, but that is apparently too much to ask I guess)

That pesky Alfred Molina and his convenient surrender to chaos.

I mostly use the dual-axis alignment, because it is more detailed and allows for more variability. If used correctly, it's not that big of a "cage" as many may think. If it has a problem, though, is that 3 out of 9 of the alignments are virtually unplayable. CN is basically unpredictable, incapable of sticking to a course of action or accepting discipline and not bound by a morale. NE is just too egotistic and cruel to work in a group, if not forced to somehow, and even then it is always at risk of turning on his comrades to follow its own interests, being not bound by ethics. And CE is mostly insane, not really fit to live in any kind of society, anarchic and destructive to the core. In D&D the alignment is more than just behavior of a character, though. It's a universal force. The Planescape setting you cited is a direct result of that and the various aligned magics and creatures are a clear evidence too. Your choice of alignment would define your place in the multiverse, not just a piece of yourself. In some older editions there are even creatures literally born out of their own alignment, enough to get the corresponding subtype(s) and being vulnerable only to weapons and effects aligned to the opposite alignment. That's really more than just some philosophical classification.

Simple is definitely better,trying to explain why a Dalek e.g is lawful evil and Robin Hood is Chaotic good was always a pain in the fundament

I like 5. Good, Evil, Chaotic, Lawful, and Neutral. The corners are BS.

9/10 people (and PCs) are Neutral by either metric. Strict adherence to either end of the spectrum is a form of madness

I use a 5 point alignment system where alignments are basically faiths. Lawful characters worship the gods, good or evil, you ask the good gods to protect you, and placate the evil gods so they leave you alone. Majority of demi-humans tend to be lawful. Chaotic characters worship the Primordials, anathema to the gods and life itself, Chaotic characters usually seek to bring about radical change regardless of the cost. Evil intelligent creatures like Beholders or Efreet tend to be chaotic. Stability aligned characters follow the example of The Avatar, an exemplar of 8 virtues that instructs people how to live rightly regardless of the presence of gods (very much based on the Ultima series). Humans are the overwhelming majority of Stability aligned characters, though anyone can follow the Avatar's example. Change aligned characters are animists, they believe the world is full of spirits, and give those spirits due deference, a cohort of Great Spirits act as mediators between the mortal and spirit realms. Humans and Humanoids tend to be Change aligned. Neutral characters either don't believe in a higher power, don't believe worshiping a higher power will bring them any benefit, or believe the higher powers are contemptible and not deserving of worship. Your alignment has nothing to do with your moral fiber, or personal character, and is simply how you are aligned to these faiths. Neutral characters tend to be loners, often they were once of another alignment but changed after some major event shook their faith.

Well in the world where that guy made it out of the caves, he went on to swap that accent for an American one and became Doc Oc.

Really to me the biggest problem with the lawful, neutral, and chaotic system is that game designers had a habit of making every single monstrous humanoid chaotic as a sudo evil alienment, while the human/elvish/dwarvish civilizations where lawful, and I don't need to point out the problem with that approach implies, because it is very obvious plays into certain racist sentiments. Now with a dual axis system all those chaotic will became various forms of evil instead, which is not great but it is still better since now we are not implying that everyone of a different race besides the major ones is uncivilized and all the negative cognitives that brings just by the tri alignment system simply existing as it is.

Alignment comes up from time to time. We have the player who wants to reek bloody vengeance because of the actions of the opponents, but he's playing a lawful good cleric, so has to just complain. And then we have the players who don't like the concept of good and evil, they also don't like the idea of the dark vs light side of the Force :D I'm often forced to point out to them that in game there are mechanics which clearly indicate that good and evil are concrete things, not just points of view. Evil aligned weapons, protection from good spells, detect evil spells, etc. We've been mostly playing 3.5 games, but a few weeks ago we were missing players and I spun up a B/X game because I could get characters created quickly and start play in a session normally allocated to the other game. 4 players, 2 loved the ease, simplicity and nostalgia. One declared it the worse RPG he'd ever played and refused to ever participate again. His "farmer" is now a retainer in the party and one of the 4 (out of 8) original characters still alive as the players fight through Horror on the Hill. My son, who has tried 3.5 and 5e with little enthusiasm, has also joined the B/X game and he's a huge fan of the system. Only version he'll play, though he's expressed interest in trying AD&D.

The 3 alignment system makes the most sense in regards to freedom of expression...especially the version Mr. Gygax copied it from. The Cosmic Alignment is not original to D&D or even Chainmail, having first appeared in Michael Moorcock's works, or which Elric of Melniborne was one of the listed inspirations for D&D. The 3 alignment system comes from there, just implemented differently. Law wasn't good, it was Conservative. Law hated change, to the point that Worlds ruled by Law would eventually decay into unchanging, lifeless deserts. Chaos was not good, it is Radical. It wants change, it wants change now, it wants change yesterday, it wants change tomorrow. In the event something changes, it needs to be changed again. Champions of Chaos have a tendency to mutate into constantly-changing flesh masses (see Warhammer's Chaos Spawn for an example of what I mean). Worlds ruled entirely by Chaos turn into ever-shifting hellscapes which is also stagnant, for change without permanence is ultimately meaningless. So what is Good then? Where do most folks fall since they're between those two extremes? That's Neutrality. Neutral believes there must be balance, where things change if they need to, and they stick around if they're good. It is admittedly easy to see where Mr. Gygax got the notion that Law was good and Chaos Evil, the Elric series does feature a time of Chaos Ascendant, and thus Champions of Neutrality like Elric are working with the forces of Law.

I like the 3-degree alignment and the 5-degree alignment from Holmes. I don't like the 9-point AD&D version.

Since BECMI isn’t really all that basic, would it perhaps be more acceptable to refer to it as “standard” dungeons and dragons? 😁

3....the way it was meant to be. The 9 alignments is the worst thing about Holmes.

If you at least somewhat understand how people behave, you'll know that no one acts consistently all the time, but instead just tend to act in a certain way most of the time, but in extreme situations, we are all prone to act in what most people would agree to describe as "out of character".

Thanks for another great video! Like most gamers I prefer the three-axis, nine-alignment system of AD&D.

I very much do not like the interpritation that lawful=good & chaotic=evil. To me Tyranny is lawful, & freedom is chaotic.

I prefer no alignment system at all. Too many years, too many arguments. If there's nothing there to point to in order to justify actions taken, those actions have to be considered in a broader sense on their own.

In my experiences, players on the 9 point system pick CG or CN and never look at the alignment again. It's a waste of character creation time and literally only interfaces with spells in-game (since alignment languages are weird and no one used them as far as my experiences go) and even then, only rarely unless you build your campaign around it.

I think any moral system that references good and evil even obliquely is going to run into problems unless there is a general cultural consensus of players. People often contrast lawful and chaotic or civilizational and savage but its not clear that savage is always wrong in a world with climate change mass industrialization etc. Even discounting those factors we have ideas like the noble savage and tensions between coastal liberal elites and rural populations who live a comparatively disordered life. So it seems like an insufficient metric that defaults back to good and evil implicitly, but what is good and what is evil? Without answering that the entire thing is an exercise in futility.

I generally like the 9 alignments. The law v chaos axis felt like propaganda. Civilization is the bastion of law in a chaotic land, you must battle the chaos. But that chaos could be native creatures living peacefully and the law can be colonial imperialism. Looping freedom fighters in with demons and paladins in with tyrants didn't sit well with me.

Beautiful work. You might want to take a look at Mr. Welch @Mr_Welch, An old school Grognard talking about Mystara and the old school actual play solo games, Tale Of The Manticore @taleofthemanticore, Solo Dungeon Crawler @SoloDungeonCrawler and Legend of the Bones @legendofthebones2667. Precious old school gamers and content creators.