Alignment:Optional

If you have gamed for any length of time, you have probably had to explain the concept of a role playing to a new gamer. Sometimes that is difficult when the only table-top games they were familiar with were probably things like Monopoly, or Risk. When I was fist introduced to the RPG concept, I caught on fairly quickly. I was already a sci-fi nerd and had been making up my own characters and mentally injecting them into my favorite comic books, novels, and TV shows for years. But there was one concept that gave me pause: alignments. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand the concept; I disputed the very idea of alignments as being contradictory to the general concept of role playing.

My first gaming experience was with Traveler, which had no alignment system. So, when I rolled my first AD&D character, I asked more than one question about alignments. It seemed contradictory to tell a player to assume a roll, and then tell that player how he must play that role. Locking him into a given behavior pattern, before he had time to develop a concept of how that character should act, and thereby forcing him onto a path he may not otherwise have taken.

I understand the need for structure in a game; that is what the rules are for, but alignments (with the exceptions the cleric and paladin classes) actually play a very small role once the game begins. There may be a magic item that will only work for a particular alignment, and there are some alignment restrictions on certain spells, but the game could go on just fine without them.

The rules governing what alignments can associate with others really serve no useful purpose. What they do is taint any campaign from the start, by effectively telling the players what characters they can create in order not to conflict with the alignments of other characters in the group. So you wind up with players that are playing their second choices for characters and perhaps becoming disillusioned with the game from the beginning.

Clerics and paladins derive their abilities from a patron deity. If you know the code and doctrines of that deity, then you know the code cleric and paladin characters must abide by. That makes alignment sort of a moot point. Both classes are essentially warrior-priests. They fight to defend their church and the interests of their deities while trying to spread their faiths. Alignments really aren’t needed.

A friend of mine and I were talking about this issue, and came to the conclusion that the paladin class was superfluous. Simply remove the edged weapon restriction from the cleric class, play a cleric character with a more militaristic attitude, and you effectively have a paladin for the purpose of role-playing. What differentiates paladins from other classes is religious zeal, not the type of dice used to determine hit points, or the charts used in combat, The dedicated paladin class (which I am actually very fond of, and have played extensively) is governed by his alignment to the point that he can become disruptive to a group. So entrenched in their particular concept of right and wrong and what is, and is not lawful (in light of the lawful good alignment), they tend to insist the rest of the group adhere to the same standard. This can lead to squabbling among players, and stall the game while the DM tries to play peacemaker. This really can’t be blamed on the player handling the paladin, because he is interpreting what it says about the lawful good alignment in the game rules.

Eliminate alignment from the equation and the player has some room to play the paladin as being more reasonable and practical. I know some hard core purists out there will balk at the idea of eliminating alignments, and that’s fine. It’s your game. But, if you have players who know what they’re doing, you might want to consider making alignments optional.