March 20, 2023 | Tome of Misunderstanding |
INTRODUCTION
Just today, in a work meeting, one of my colleagues and friends used the phrase “the tail wags the dog”, and informed all of us that this was one of his favorite phrases. I should probably ask him why he likes it so much to make for a more compelling blog post, but maybe I will, maybe I won’t. What does this phrase actually mean, and why am I bringing it up?
The original meaning of the phrase apparently dates back to the 1870’s, and refers to a smaller or unimportant entity controlling a bigger or more important entity. The phrase itself calls up the absurdity of such a situation, and I believe it is a caution against prioritizing the wrong entity in negotiations or business decisions.
In 1997, a movie (based on a book) came out titled “Wag the Dog”, which was about the president concocting a fictional war in order to distract from a personal scandal, which I am not going to describe because it could trigger some of you. If you are curious, the link to the Wikipedia page is here. The meaning of the phrase became more tightly associated with the film itself, and the idiom came to mean “to divert attention from something of greater importance to something of lesser importance.” I feel this really misses the point of the idiom, but I guess this shows the power of movies.
So, what does this have to do with alignment. As usual, my Seinfeld-esque intro is meant to stimulate you to make connections between disparate subjects in order to juice you up for the inspirational material that is coming in the next 2,000 words. So here we go.
ALIGNMENT HAS BEEN DEFINED ELSEWHERE
I’m not going to define alignment here, or talk about the history of alignment, because you probably have taken the trouble to find that out for yourself if you are here. I rarely consider myself a primary source for info, which could be bad for my click throughs, but is authentic to myself and this blog. I will give you a couple of links to people who have thought some of this through, but (I hope) not with the same informative spin that I am about to impart on this subject.
THE RULES
Ok ok, I lied. Here is a bit about Alignment. I couldn’t resist giving you my take on this.
Alignment is a qualitative descriptor for D&D, with very light mechanical implications, and much bigger and more significant thematic impact. Could you assign numbers to it and turn it into a mechanism? Of course. You can do whatever you want. But why would you do that? I am very big about examining the rules and extracting what we can from a “rules as written” interpretation, and then defining where the Dungeon Master has to step in and provide a ruling. It is interesting to see where Jeremy Crawford and his team feel that need to draw the line around what is a rule, and when to empower the DM. Anyway, the 5th edition books are full of nods to the history of Dungeons and Dragons with an attempt to preserve game elements that have been important to D&D as a brand and identity. Alignment is one example of that, and while D&D is capable of modularity and homebrewing, I don’t feel it is important or fun to turn alignment into a minigame.
Alignment occupies a few paragraphs in the Player’s Handbook. The definition is as follows (I paraphrased lightly here and there):
Alignment broadly describes a typical creature’s morality and attitudes towards society and order.
Player’s Handbook, 5th Edition, Dungeons and Dragons
If you are like me, an anthropomorphic spellbook, this is pretty straightforward. The passages describing each alignment are at most 2 sentences. They are not that hard to interpret, in my opinion. The caveats to alignment form the most interesting and important parts of the passage. Here’s they are:
Individuals might vary significantly from that typical behavior, and few people are perfectly and consistently faithful to the precepts of their alignment.
Player’s Handbook, 5th Edition, Dungeons and Dragons
My take on this is that people are not monoliths, and that humanoid behavior is complex and motivated by far more than single factors like “neutral good”. The more that a character’s behavior is informed by their goals, ideals, beliefs, etc, the more rich the gameplay experience is.
For many thinking creatures, alignment is a moral choice…[but] alignment is an essential part of the nature of celestials and fiends…. Most creatures that lack the capacity for rational thought do not have alignments—they are unaligned.
Player’s Handbook, 5th Edition, Dungeons and Dragons
So some monsters are considered dissimilar to humanoids in that they are programmed with a certain set of morals and ethics. They do not choose to be good are evil—the gods created them this way. Similarly, creatures that do not think rationally cannot have alignment. The theme in each extreme is that creatures that do not have agency also cannot choose their alignment in the same way that humanoids (or players) can.
Finally, the most significant sentences on alignment are in the throwaway section on Tika and Artemis:
In most games, evil adventurers cause problems in groups alongside others who don’t share their interests and objectives. Generally, evil alignments are for villains and monsters.
Player’s Handbook, 5th Edition, Dungeons and Dragons
This is a very clear caution that is located more or less outside of the formal rules space and functions as a guidepost. I think this does the importance of this guidance a disservice. It really should be highlighted “hey, if your character can cause disruption in the collaborative storytelling of a party generally cooperating to accomplish a shared goal, you probably shouldn’t play that character!” This should have bright lights around it! I do appreciate that the word “Generally” starts the recommendation off. I believe it is possible to play evil character in a way that honors the spirit of D&D, but it does require mature and experienced skillset.
Outside of this, there are other problems with the presentation of alignment, starting with how alignment is recorded on the official character sheet.
THE CHARACTER SHEET
You may be thinking “what the heck…?” If you are, I forgive you. I ask myself that question about myself a lot. You may also be thinking “what did the beginning have with anything in this article?” I also get where you are coming from. Just trust me, it’s all going to come together, and your mind will be boggling.
In the 5th edition character sheet, Alignment is listed in the same section as 5 other elements: Class & Level, Background, Player Name, Race, Experience Points, and Alignment. Name is just off to the left. The section on Personality Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws are just below on the right.
The implication generated by grouping Alignment with Experience Points and Level is somewhat nonsensical. Background, Race, and Class are more compelling, because these are brief descriptors that have a very rich mine of quantitative and qualitative data that live in other sections of the PHB. But this is completely dissimilar to Alignment, where there is no rich mine of data. Alignment confers no additional skills or abilities, ability modifiers, subclasses. It’s just a descriptor.
The location of Alignment also implies that you choose it pretty early on in the process, along with the most critical choices you can make as a player. What decisions do you make that are more significant than Class and Race? And, as One D&D will demonstrate, Background? Alignment does not fit in here.
Moreover, it is not in the checklist of character creation as delineated in Chapter 1: Step-By-Step Characters. Alignment is listed within Step 4, after Step 1 Race, Step 2 Class, Step 3 Ability Scores. It is just before choosing your Step 5 Equipment.
As a very brief diversion back to a topic I mentioned earlier: could you create a minigame out of alignment with a tracker and therefore imply or create mechanisms that would change alignment on the character sheet? Yes, you could absolutely do that. Most items on the character sheet are mutable, with the exception of things that wouldn’t make thematic sense. I.e. how do you change someone’s background unless you are asking the DM to put your character through the retrospectoscope and change an element on a one time basis because you made a mistake. So, the question of changing alignment is left to the DM and her table.
WHAT DOES ALIGNMENT DO
You might at this point be asking yourself what I have conveniently subtitled this section so as to appease the SEO gods. I conducted a keyword search of the Dungeon Master’s Guide and the Player’s Handbook using the dndbeyond app on my ios device (since I couldn’t figure out how to do this on the web). Most of the use cases for alignment have to do with magic items that can only attune or use specific items if your character has the same alignment—examples include the Candle of Invocation, the Talisman of Pure Good. Some magic items will change your character’s alignment, like the Deck of Many Things. There are other use cases, but not that significant to this article, mostly thematic (like asking a hireling or NPC to take an action that is counter to their alignment). In the Player’s Handbook, Nystul’s Magic Aura can create deceptive alignments. Glyph of Warding can be set to trigger when a creature of a specific alignment walks up to it. The section on Monks asserts that monks are “almost always lawful in alignment”, but there is no consequence if they are not—perhaps a Drunken Master monk would prefer to be chaotic. Clerics are expected to be dedicated to a deity, but there are no requirements around alignment. The Paladin, the class that you might expect would be the most beholden to alignment, actually has an entirely different descriptor to follow, which is the Paladin’s Oath. These are individualized by subclass. While being evil and following a Devotion Paladin seems nonsensical, there is no mechanism strictly preventing a player from making this combination.
IF YOU CUT ME, DO I BLEED?
Ok, let’s ask some tough questions at this point. This seems like a good time.
Is an evil-aligned character capable of love?
Is a good-aligned character capable of murdering the innocent?
Is a lawful-aligned character capable of deceit?
Is a chaotic-aligned character capable of following orders?
What do you think? My answer is: yes of course, but it depends, doesn’t it? It depends on how interesting the player and the DM want to make the character. Interesting situations in RPGs stem from conflict. These can be conflicts between the characters and their enemies, characters within the same party (if well managed), and within the same character. If a lawful-aligned character is faced with a situation where she must choose whether or not to break the law or her word in order to take an action that would serve the greater good, I mean that’s pretty interesting!!! I think that is the intent of the alignment rules.
You know what is interesting for all the wrong reasons and is usually completely problematic? Conflicts between players (not the characters). You know what can cause these conflicts? It’s when players have their characters act in ways that diminish the fun and enjoyment of others at the table because they are trying to follow their character’s alignment. Like saying unilaterally “my character waits until her character falls asleep and then tries to steal from her.” That is what is known as a jerk move. And then to fall back on the defense that “it’s what my character would do”. Totally bogus! There are ways of managing this pre-emptively that I will recommend to you in just a little bit (for the impatient, click here).
Let’s go back to the rules for a moment. Remember, way back when, when I showed you that the rules said that for thinking creatures “alignment is a choice”, and also that “generally evil alignments are for villains and monsters”? This is Jeremy Crawford and his team being really smart and thoughtful. Nobody casts Continual Light, or ever picks it for their spell list. It exists because it helps to understand certain effects in the environment that the players/characters might encounter, and helps provide a “realistic” context for why the villains lair is lit up like a [idiom]. If you pick Unseen Servant, don’t you think you wasted a spell selection? But maybe you find the Villain using spell slots on Unseen Servant when you encounter him, just because he likes to bask in the infusion of magical servitude, and the fetching things, cleaning, mending, folding villain clothes, and especially the lighting fires, serving evil food, and pouring villainous wine. Evil exists in the game to serve as a foil for the protagonists.
Can you have an evil character in the party? Sure, of course. You can do whatever you want. Do you have to have a clear understanding and set of expectations about how this character is going to function in harmoniously in the party, and that any character-character conflict that comes up will be handled interestingly and in the service of furthering the story? Yes, you do. I can’t think of a ton of examples or situations where that has been successful. But I concede that it is possible.
THE CHARACTER OR THE PLAYER
So here’s the thing. When a player thinks about what his character will do when faced with a situation or opportunity, does the player think “my character sheet says he is neutral evil, so I will have him steal from his party members”? Does the tail wag the dog? Do you have your character do things because “Neutral Evil” is written in that spot on your character’s sheet? Or are you as the player in control of your character, and can you make choices to facilitate the fun of all at the table, and participate in a collaborative storytelling game? Would even a Neutral Evil character realize that stealing from a party that is in the middle of nowhere, faced by monsters that are capable of exterminating the group unless you function as a team, would be counterproductive to self-survival? And, if you have decided that your character’s flaw is “I can’t help stealing, even from people who are close to me in the worst possible situations”, that this is not compatible with anything sensible about your gameplay? These situations should be identified and addressed during character creation.
Here is my handy dandy step-by-step guide as to how to manage alignment in 5th edition D&D, which starts before you actually embark on the adventure:
The 6 Commandments About Managing Alignment at Your Table:
- Conduct a Session 0 in which you review alignment
- Do not determine or fill out Alignment until after Character Concept, Ideals, Bonds and Flaws are complete
- When creating bonds, create bonds with at least 2 other player characters in the game
- Do not allow evil player characters if you are an inexperienced DM or player
- Do not allow PVP actions
- Discuss if and how alignment could change
Some notes and exposition about the above material:
Session 0 is a great concept in general. For most human endeavors in which we are working or playing with other humans, setting expectations and ground rules at the outset sets us up for success. Use the guidelines in Tasha’s Cauldron, or other great resources around how to manage this. In Session 0, in addition to all the other stuff to go over, you need to talk about what alignment is, and how it will apply to your game. This can range anywhere from “we will not be using it” to “it will be a major focus and I have developed an entire homebrew mechanism that causes huge changes in gameplay depending on your alignment tracker”. A reasonable approach is to explain what it is after you go over the elements of Commandment 2, where it will then flow naturally from the discussion of who your character is.
If you aren’t familiar with a TTRPG called Apocalypse World, you are really missing out. There are a slew of Powered by the Apocalypse games that are derived from the original (similar to 3.5e and its derivatives). Without going into it too much, a game mechanism during character creation is to go around and explicitly discuss how well the characters know each other. The characters then get stat adjustments based on this decision-making. This has interesting ramifications in that game space that I won’t get into here, but you can executive a similar mechanism in your D&D game with the bonds descriptor.
Before getting to alignment, determine for yourself if you will allow evil player characters in your game. I encourage you to disallow them if you are early in your DM career, or if there are inexperienced players at the table. If you allow evil player characters, be explicit about why the evil character is in the party, and why she has decided to help the other characters. This must be a stable and enduring reason, or else will turn into conflict down the road.
Determine if you will allow player versus player harmful actions, and what the parameters will be if you do. I strongly encourage you to disallow player versus player harm, including combat, stealing, deceiving, targeting, isolating, insulting, with the one exception being a mutually agreed upon conflict for the purpose of advancing a story. One-off incidents such as a player being in a group of enemies that is targeted by the party sorcerer need to be discussed in the moment.
Finally, decide for yourself if Alignment can change. Talk about the possibility of changing alignment in your game, and generally what criteria would have to be met to make that happen. Is it DM fiat? What are the consequences? Is there a mechanism? In general, I would set the expectation that if you see your player making character decisions that begin to drift away from their ideals, bonds, goals, and alignment, you will pause and have an out of game discussion about where this is all going.
DOG WAGGING
In the beginning of the film Wag the Dog, there is a caption that goes:
Why does the dog wag its tail?
Because a dog is smarter than its tail.
If the tail were smarter, it would wag the dog.
When it comes to alignment, don’t let the tail wag the dog. Don’t let “Neutral Evil” ruin the game through poor player choices and lack of setting of expectations.