Everyone can rattle all nine off the top of their heads. But what do each of the alignments actually mean? Ross and Darryl can’t agree, so how can the gaming community? And do we even need alignments anymore? In this episode, your hosts Ross Watson and Darryl Mott Jr. go it alone as they discuss one of the biggest flamewar igniting topics in gaming – Alignment!
Our Sponsors
Spirit Store – Your year-round source for costumes, props, and decor!
Ross Watson
Darryl Mott Jr.
Gamer’s Tavern Episode Zero (my apologies for the shitty audio quality)
What We’ve Been Playing
Shadowrun 4th Edition (Darryl and Ross)
Blood Bowl Video Game (Ross)
Arduin Grimoir (Ross)
Accursed (Ross)
Savage Worlds (Ross)
Champions (Ross)
Cards Against Humanity (Darryl)
Tavern Tales
Counter Monkey – The Squirtgun Wars
Alignment
Image Copyright Brian Patterson, used with permission
Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition
Star Wars (Wizards of the Coast)
Gamer’s Tavern Episode 23: Super Hero Games, or FASERIP is SFW
Gamer’s Tavern Episode 20: Forgotten Realms, or Thay Was Cool Until I Blew It Up
Alignment story from 7chan/Reddit
2 thoughts on “Episode 28: Alignment, or Ross and Darryl Disagree a Lot Again”
This might be the most rational debate I’ve heard on Alignment. It’s such a nebulous quality that in order to relate to it, you almost have to use examples. I recall many ( usually when sitting around having a beer or three after a gaming session ) talks about how we see Alignment and everyone had a differing view. I enjoyed this one quite a bit, thanks Guys.
I don’t know if anyone actually reads these comments anymore, but here is how/what my old DND group decided on our view of alignments, and why I think you had so much trouble defining NG and NE.
Playing mainly in planescape we needed to have a clear consensus around the table of what alignment ment for us, I think that it’s a good talk to have before playing a game that uses it.
We scrapped the idea of the “true” neutral, and made 95% of the population fit into the neutral category. The last 5% are the edge cases that neatly fit round the edge of neutral. Adventurers often fit into these 5%.
Instead of starting in the corners where people normally start (LG) I would recommend going NG, NE, LN, CN. I suggest this because people usually trap themselves in overthinking that Paladins must be the ultimate good guy, and that leaves no space for NE, that’s what happened in the podcast episode as well.
NG – true altruism, your standard good guy. Being good to others, saving the day.
NE – true selfishness, your standard bad guy. Me and my group of bandits/adventurers/family is all that matters.
LN – agenda! You serve an agenda (could be an ideal, a philosophy, a religion etc) and put it above everything else. Community over individual needs.
CN – personal freedom! If everyone is self sufficient, everyone will have a nice life.
individuals over community.
The corners, the extremists.
LG – altruism, with an agenda. Harmonium is the example we use instead of Paladins. Be good, follow the good law….or else!
CG – altruistic freedom! Be free, but ensure that your strive for freedom doesn’t hurt others, punish those who abuse their freedom.
LE – selfish agenda. Follow MY law/religion/ideal or be crushed.
CE – true freedom without thought for consequences, if I get rich/ahead it’s great…sucks to not be me.
This was how we did it, and of course that won’t fit every table 🙂
The most important thing about this is that we decided on this, so everyone was on the same page.