Why I hate alignment (and what I use instead)

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:00]I am not a fan of alignment in D and D.

[00:00:02]I know, brave, controversial. No one has ever complained about alignment before.

[00:00:06]I'll be accepting my trophy in the form of comments telling me that I just don't understand it. Now, I don't think alignment is completely useless. I think it's a helpful tool for dungeon masters, especially when you need to make quick decisions about a monster or a faction or an NPC who didn't exist until your player said, "You there, boy." in a crowded marketplace. But when it comes to player characters, that's when I think alignment is at best unhelpful and at worst actively harmful. And I'm not just talking about when the words, "It's what my character would do," leave a player's mouth and I have to get out my sword. I know this isn't exactly an unpopular opinion, but it is one that people tend to get kind of heated about, so I don't really talk about it much.

[00:00:41]But recently, I got a chance to read The Psychgeist of Pop Culture: Dungeons and Dragons, which is a collection of essays that look at Dn D through a psychological lens. And in one of these essays, two people with PhDs basically said, "Hey, Jenny, you're correct and also very smart." The authors also have a suggestion for a new better way to handle morality in Dn D, and it's super easy to use. But the wild part is you don't actually need a brand new system because it turns out Dn D already had a system for morality that worked way better than alignment. They just got rid of it and you can bring it back. I've always had beef with alignment for three main reasons. I think it's oversimplified. I think it's subjective.

[00:01:18]And ultimately, I think it's just kind of useless as a role-play tool. Let me explain what I mean. First up, it's oversimplified. If you're already typing an angry comment, I am begging you to let me reach the end of my thought. I promise I'm getting there. Or don't, I guess. Engagement is engagement. Real people are complicated, and there may be no area in which we are more complicated than our principles. We all hold countless beliefs. Some strong and some weak, some subconscious, and some we chose. Sometimes even beliefs that conflict with each other. Maybe you value kindness and you also value honesty and then your friend gets a terrible haircut. The kindness value and the honesty value are at each other's throats right now. Not to mention that we don't always act in accordance with our values. I don't know about you, but my strongly held belief that most people are doing their best and deserve grace is aspirational. Tends to go out the window the minute somebody cuts me off in traffic. Oh, come on. This is such a straw man argument. Alignment was never meant to be some kind of behavioral straight jacket. The books literally say that. That's true. D and D rule books have repeatedly specified that alignment is meant to describe the way your character generally acts, not force them into behaving a certain way all the time. But I would argue that if the community keeps misunderstanding this tool despite your clarification for literal decades, maybe that's a sign that the tool is not communicating its purpose well. If you redesign your bathroom with a bunch of abstract, hyper modern fixtures, and eventually you have to tape a sign over the sink that says, "This is a sink. Do not poop in it." At some point, you got to stop blaming the guests and start questioning the sink design. You know, the alignment table might make for fun memes, but good, evil, and neutral are not even close to nuanced enough to describe something as messy and contradictory as human belief systems. And using those terms as game mechanics encourages that kind of two-dimensional interpretation. The two moral philosophers who wrote this essay agree with me. Well, kind of. They're actually saying a way smarter version of this. But we'll get to that in a moment because first it's time for the most lawful evil part of any YouTube video, the sponsorship. Don't worry, I've done my best to shift that firmly to chaotic.

[00:03:14]Hey, what's up? I heard you want to join my adventuring party. I'm going to be real with you. I don't think you can hack it. But the pilot specifically told me to stay off the bridge for at least an hour, and I've run out of other people to bother, so we might as well talk. What makes you think you're ready to chart your own cosmic destiny in the world of Neon Odyssey?

[00:03:31]You're kidding. You don't know Legends of Aventress's new space opera inspired trilogy for 5.5B. It's three whole books, dude. They need over 1400 pages for the same reason my hair is so big to hold all the adventure. I'm talking flying your own starf fighter, meeting aliens, learning technomcy, a whole system for combat in space. It's got everything. Over 250 monsters, 52 subasses, even a new class called the machinist, and 42 new species, of course. Like me, I'm a globlin. My emotions are straight up magic. Not just for me, but for my lucky party members, too. Watch this.

[00:04:02]Now people will like you more. You're welcome. If you think you've got what it takes to traverse a galaxy inspired by sci-fi and retro video games and pop culture nostalgia, go join nearly 30,000 backers on Kickstarter at the link in the description. If you pledge to a physical tier now, you get a free set of retro vice sharpedged resin dice.

[00:04:18]They're almost as colorful as me, but there's just one week left, so you'd better hurry. Oh, I can help with that.

[00:04:25]Plus 10 ft to your speed. Man, I'm good.

[00:04:28]And so you're back from outer space.

[00:04:31]The essay is called The Critical Failure of Alignment as Morality: Reflections on Virtue and the Psychology of Roleplay.

[00:04:38]As we all know, an essay's insightfulness is directly proportionate to the length of its title. So, you know, this one's going to be good. The authors, Dr. James M. Okapel and Dr. David J. Pearlman introduced the idea of thin and thick moral concepts. Stick with me here. It's going to sound a little complicated at first, but it's actually pretty straightforward.

[00:04:54]According to philosophers, there are three features that information can have. First, descriptive, which means a statement that is true or false. For example, Jenny is holding a sword. True.

[00:05:04]A statement can also be evaluative, which basically means it's an opinion about something's worth or importance, a value judgment. For example, Jenny looks cool. I mean, I know what I think, but that doesn't make it true. Finally, statements can be prescriptive. This is an instruction, something that tells you what to do. For example, you should think Jenny looks cool. It's only natural. When a moral concept is thin, it only has one of these three features.

[00:05:26]It just doesn't give us much information. Jenny is holding a sword.

[00:05:30]Okay. And is she threatening you? Is she showing off? Is she giving you a gift?

[00:05:35]Did you catch her in the act of decapitating someone? We just don't know. Meanwhile, a thick concept is one that includes multiple of these features or even all three. Calling someone generous is evaluative because we consider generosity to be a positive trait. But it's also descriptive because we know what generous means. Someone who shares unselfishly. That is one thick moral concept. Okapal and Pearlman argue that alignment is a thin concept. Saying the paladin is good carries almost no meaning because it's just evaluative.

[00:06:04]What makes them good? How good are they?

[00:06:06]What does a good person do? Alignment doesn't contain any information on that.

[00:06:11]It doesn't describe what goodness is and it doesn't prescribe how to be good.

[00:06:15]Lawful and chaotic are the same except instead of being evaluative, they're just descriptive. It just means they either do or don't follow a set of rules. Okay, what rules? The laws of this kingdom. The rules of the game Hungry Hungry Hippos. How should we know? Reading this was very eye opening for me because I've always felt like alignment is subjective. And this really made it clear why it feels that way. We can't even agree on what good and evil mean in real life. So, how the heck are we supposed to agree on it at the D and D table? Is killing a villain evil because killing is evil, or is it good because it prevents future harm? Is it evil to let the villain live knowing they'll do future harm? If you could travel back in time to 1889, would you, you know, and what does lawful even mean? Does it mean obeying the law, respecting authority, having a personal code, filing your taxes on time? Those are all very different things, and I only do a few of them. No, I still haven't filed my taxes. I got an extension, though. Does that count? The alignment system creates the illusion that these categories are objective and universal, but they really aren't. What I consider good and what you consider good are not necessarily aligned. In order to make sure we're talking about the same things, we need thicker concepts. We're probably communicating way more clearly if we both imagine what it means to be cooperative or loyal or self-disciplined. And of course, we can take words like that and apply them to our characters. We can say, "My paladin is lawful good and that's why she's courageous and just." But at that point, it's not the lawful good that's doing the heavy lifting. It's the list of thicker concepts that you've associated with it. And not everyone you're playing with will think of the same concepts when they hear lawful good. This is why, in my opinion, alignment isn't actually helpful as a roleplay tool because it doesn't actually tell you what to do.

[00:07:55]And in that case, what is it for? I am not saying players should get a list of instructions for role- playinging their character or something. Step one, create a layered realistic character with long-term goals. Step two, ignore all that. adopt a bunch of awakened badgers and open a yoga studio. But what I am saying is that this is supposed to be a tool, right? Something players can use to motivate their roleplay. If my lawful good character is obeying some unknown, undefined law, and there's no actual definition of what it means to be good, then what information is lawful good actually giving me? In the essay, Okapo and Pearlman give a few examples from real D and D games they've played in, describing morally complex decisions and why alignment did nothing to guide those choices. One example really stuck with me because I feel like I've been in this kind of situation so many times. So, a demon is kidnapping children and sorry, I should have said in games. I've been in this situation so many times in games. So, the party captures the demon and then debates whether to bring it back to town for questioning, risking it escaping on the way or kill it immediately to prevent further harm, even if that means losing any information it might have. The authors note that both of these acts are good, but they are also mutually exclusive.

[00:09:01]You can't do both. So, in this case, knowing that your character's alignment is good doesn't give you any guidance.

[00:09:06]The character who ends up taking action is the paladin who beheads the demon not because of his alignment, but because of his oath to destroy evil whenever he encounters it. That oath is thick, dude.

[00:09:16]Not every character is going to take an oath, but Okapal and Pearlman introduce another thing players could use as a guide for their character's moral choices, virtues and vices. Virtues are positive character traits that make someone likely to act in certain ways.

[00:09:29]hope, justice, temperance. Just think of what a Puritan would have named a baby in the 16th century. And vices are basically the dark mirror version.

[00:09:38]Pride, greed, recklessness, you know, the fun ones. The important thing is that these are all thick moral concepts.

[00:09:44]They actually contain meaningful information about how a person sees the world and what kind of actions they're likely to take. That means they can function as touchstones for roleplay.

[00:09:53]Instead of asking what a lawful good character would do in this situation, you can ask what a merciful character would do or a responsible character or an impulsive character. Like, let's go back to the demon example. A character with the virtue of compassion might argue that the children's safety matters more than gathering information, so the demon should die. A character driven by excellence might argue for bringing the demon back alive, because it's the option with the greatest potential accomplishment, protecting the children and getting information if all goes well. Meanwhile, a character with the vice of pride might argue for keeping the demon alive because failure is something that happens to other people, which is exactly the kind of confidence that usually gets somebody possessed.

[00:10:30]All of these characters might be good aligned, but with these specific virtues and vices, they all have clear guidance for their roleplay, and the conversation they have about what to do next is way more interesting. You can look up virtues and vices for helpful lists, or even add the keywords moral development if you want to avoid ending up on any church mailing lists. If you're looking for a more in-world reference list, the authors suggest looking at the domains of Dn D gods, although some are more useful than others. Freedom, great.

[00:10:56]Balance, awesome. Moon, a little less helpful. Now, if all this is sounding familiar, it's probably because just two short years ago, fifth edition had a standard mechanic that was very similar to this. It was even printed on character sheets. I'm talking, of course, about ideals, bonds, and flaws.

[00:11:11]And then in 5.5, they removed them from the handbook and the character sheet entirely, which I was immediately upset about. And they've also completely cut the rolling tables for traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws. Those sections are removed from the character sheet, too.

[00:11:24]Now, it just has a tiny box called personality, and backstory. I don't think I like that. I'm not going to die on that hill. Maybe I'll use this new system for a few games and realize that the change is for the better. It's not.

[00:11:36]I was right. It sucks. The 2024 players handbook says that a creature's alignment broadly describes its ethical attitudes and ideals. But as we have hopefully established over the last 10 or 15 business minutes, alignment does not actually do that very effectively.

[00:11:51]Ideals, bonds, and flaws, on the other hand, are thick moral concepts that contain usable information. An ideal tells you what your character values. A bond tells you what relationships or commitments matter to them, and a flaw tells you what weakness they may fall prey to. You can even map virtues onto ideals and vices onto flaws to ensure that you're making choices for those features that are complex enough to be useful. If I'm trying to roleplay a character and make decisions moment to moment, chaotic good does nothing for me. But knowing what my character values and why, that actually gives me direction. That's what I need in order to play a distinct character instead of just making whatever decision feels correct or convenient for me as a player and then retroactively justifying it as being in character. I am not saying alignment is worthless. I think there are plenty of reasonable arguments for how it has value in the game. But as a practical roleplay tool, yeah, I'm sorry. I think it's worthless. And if you disagree, you're going to have to go find two PhDs to back you up because right now you're outnumbered. If you want more pop psychology about D and D, you should really check out this book edited by Dr. Jared N. Kilmer and Dr. Nina Higs and Sweeney. There's a great essay called The Devil You Know, all about playing evil characters that I really enjoyed. I got to read the book early because they asked me to blur it, which made me feel extremely important.

[00:13:01]They've chosen to put this book in the creative comments, so you can read it for free at the link in the description, as well as the rest of the Psychgeist of Pop Culture series, which covers everything from Warhammer to Bluey to Stardew Valley. But if you do want a print copy, or to support a bunch of people who are both academic nerds and Dn D nerds, there's also a link to where you can get the paperback. Anyway, guess I should go do my taxes.