The Question of Alignment

I agree! If you’re good, your actions say it. If your words say it, it’s probably a rationalization for doing something murderous or treacherous.

Honestly, that’s the common thread in my worst gaming experiences: that player who always used "I’m good" or "I’m right" both IC and OoC—even after GM clarification said otherwise—to justify an action that was certainly interesting… but not right or good by any stretch of the imagination.

For me, context is king. I suppose a lot of it comes down to influences and the history of the hobby's development, as has already been said.

In ye older days of the game mostly being about dungeoncrawling, you probably worked on a basic assumption of PC races being good and monster races being evil. This did away with any moral questions in order to facilitate the more "hack,slash and loot" core engine of the game, while also supporting the magic system of spells like "protection from evil", holy avenger swords and so on. Down the road, I'd roughly say when ad&d switched the paradigm from emergent gameplay into story focus and navigating a pre-made narrative, alignment became more complex, until it reached it's current Dnd status of not meaning much at all.

If you zoom out of the Dnd bubble, of course, there's other examples. Call of Cthulhu doesn't bother with alignment, because it doesn't need it. Runequest was in early with the allegiance to clan, family and gods instead of alignment. And if you're playing a grimdark game of grey morality like The Witcher, alignment is a hindrance, not a plus.

An interesting middle ground I've found is a Greek OSR inspired by 0e DND, which does away with alignment altogether. The thing is, this ties into two more mechanics I consider very important in this analysis: xp for gold (plus needing to blow said gold on carousing in order to level up) and doing away with gods/clerics. With just "magic user" who's got turn undead and healing as spells they can cast, with no gods being around to get actively involved or even organized religion, a big part of the morality question goes down the drain. Couple that with the above XP for gold and you end up with pure treasureseeker PCs and a society that won't bother to ask where you got the coin from, as long as you have it. Is it the best solution for alignment? No. Does it serve the mechanics and intended feel of the game? Absolutely.

So yeah, no one size fits all answer. Depends on the game and what you'd like to get out of the experience.

I really like this idea, expect for that bit. I feel like making alignment just another stat to balance devalues it. Makes me think of real life criminals who shell their blood money on new churches/temples and go to confessions to absolves themselves. "Forgive me Father for I have sinned. It's been a week since my last confession. Whacked two guys this Tuesday. Can you do the absolving quick today? I've got a game to catch." In the game that sort of good/bad acts balancing would just make everyone feel like a scumbag. "I can keep stealing as long as I do some charity later!" - type of thing.
Okay, so generally speaking, what does each alignment says about the player who wants to portray the character of said alignment? Just so i know, on the off chance that i play a system with alignment in place, what people think when i pick Chaotic Evil.
The whole table agrees? These are some scary individuals you're playing with.

When I make a character. It's typically just a cool idea that expands into something shaped like a person over time. Alignment always feels like a guess at what I think the character will be like in the game. It is often wrong. I don't think I would notice if games removed it entirely.

I rarely actively choose analignment but I usually play lawful/true neutral

Sounds more like Lawful Neutral or True Neutral.
I'd like to try that system for myself and my characters. I wonder what adjectives would get in the list and how will I manage with only two.
When you pick CE and have a detailed character background for that, I'd think "we got ourselves a psychokiller" and I'd be interested to see how that would be roleplayed. On the other hand, if you pick LG, I'd think "Hey, this one likes to follow orders and thinks he's a good guy". And like I said before, if an edgy alignment is just there without any background reason, then it's just a red flag.

I like this discussion and your thoughts and experiences. I have had almost all those experiences. I also thought I knew my position was right - finding out later how narrow minded I was then! Lol. I'm still bit stubborn...

One other factor to consider is the social and emotional maturity of the player. If you're 12 years old, let's say, then alignment can be helpful in some ways by providing a template for Charater personality/roleplay. It can also be disastrous if not handled well. If you're 40...ish, hehe, and have a fairly temperate disposition, and, let's be generous, 12 years of ttrpg experience, you will most likely use alignment in a decidedly different manner.

Using Robinhood again as an example compared to Elric, in the same situation, perhaps killing one of the King's guards. Are they both Chaotic? Are they both evil?

Here we see both sides of the alignment conundrum: too fundamental to be used to describe human nature (assuming we know what that looks like LOL) OR the influence of their allegiance to one of the 9 alignments or three or which ever one you use (the premise here is never absolute, but a tendency to respond to the world according to a nature either chosen by the player (in the case of alignment is a reflection of Character) or that influences the actions of a character (in the case that characters face moral dilemmas that challenge their worldview.)

Robin Hood would avoid killing if at all possible, but so would Elric, unless influenced by forces beyond his ability to control.

You can leave out alignment in your game. No one is gonna arrest you for it, and by the same token, there are myriad ways to use alignment and not all of them will look the same...

This is the beauty of this hobby!

[quote="S.F."]

I'd like to try that system for myself and my characters. I wonder what adjectives would get in the list and how will I manage with only two.

I've also tried it with a 5-point alignment and 4 descriptors (4 from the "good" list = good, 3 from good, 1 from "evil" is lawful, 2 from each is neutral, 3 from evil is chaotic, and 4 from evil is evil. You can swap chaotic and evil, and lawful and good around if you prefer chaos as the more terrible alignment. Or just keep as the original in my other post, simply use 4 and if there's a majority for the "good" ones, then you're good, etc.

We found it worked really well as a motivator for character development and roleplay.

It also makes a lot of sense for characters whose role requires divine support, such as priests, clerics and cultists. Suddenly, adherence to things like strictures and religious doctrine had real importance and relevance to the players.

We found it worked really well as a motivator for character development and roleplay.

It also makes a lot of sense for characters whose role requires divine support, such as priests, clerics and cultists. Suddenly, adherence to things like strictures and religious doctrine had real importance and relevance to the players.

In this revised role 'Alignment' also acts as another meta-currency, which helps players to craft their character's profile in the game and relationship with the rest of the world. So, players in my game can create a detailed character profile, which includes 'Alignment', 'Reputation' and 'Social Standing'.

That is a very interesting point. Looking back, the old D&D alignment system did matter more to me as a 12 y.o. new to the hobby. Then again, that stage of both my life and gaming career also coincided with the way the game was played back then, as DarK_RaideR reminds us:
FWIW, when I run a game these days I don't expect players to specify their PC's alignment at all. I pay more attention to bonds/ideals/flaws.