Problems With Alignment

The problem that stems from the Dungeons and Dragons alignment system, besides some races being inherently evil, is mainly on the player side of things. And this is not a problem that is inherent in every player. And it is something that the Dungeon (Game) Master needs to be on the lookout for as well. But I haven’t said what the problem is yet.

The problem with alignment is when it is used as the only rule for how your player reacts. If you are a lawful good cleric and the party does something technically against the law, you report it. Because that is what your character would do. If you are a chaotic neutral rogue who loves the steal, you steal from your party. Because that is what your character would do.

It’s the idea that your character is only going to make decisions based off of their alignment. Everything else, that is out the window. And alignment is used to justify things when it hurts the fun of everyone at the table. I’m a chaotic neutral rogue, so of course I steal. Well, the lawful good cleric just reported you to the town guard.

Alignment Is A Guideline

So what good is alignment then? If you don’t use it to make your decisions does it really matter that much? I argue that alignment is a great guideline. And by that I mean that it doesn’t count for everything, but it does a little bit.

In terms of actual at the table play, the best use of alignment is when you as a player don’t know what to do. So instead of slowing down the game trying to figure out what the perfect decision is, use your alignment. Through the filter of being chaotic neutral or lawful good, what option would you most likely pick.

It is also a good guideline for simple things. In real life, basic decisions we generally don’t spend as much time on. For example, I don’t spend 40 minutes picking out an outfit for a relaxing Friday evening, which t-shirt doesn’t matter, I just grab and go. And what that is might be different for you, but we all have some we don’t think about much. The same is true for your Dungeons and Dragons character. Alignment might not influence that basic a decision much, but it’s a good lens.

Finally, it’s a good guideline to potentially eliminate some responses. While lawful good Cleric is unlikely ever to drop into chaotic evil behavior, or even lawful evil, they might dip into lawful neutral, or neutral good. Maybe, if the situation is right, chaotic good. But really the few directly around them. So someone who is chaotic will make neutral decisions but probably never decisions because of a purely lawful reasoning.

But It’s What My Character Would Do

That is going to be the pushback with players who lean heavily into their alignment at all times. And it is something, for the gaming group, and the fun at the table, that needs to be addressed. Every once and a while doing something detrimental because “it’s what my character would do” is acceptable, but barely.

So why don’t you want to do that? The big reason is that it impacts the fun at the table. When you turn the rogue in for stealing from a manner because you are lawful good, that hurts the fun. When you steal from your party and they don’t catch you, that hurts the party’s fun.

And how is this behavior improved? Firstly, I think talk with the player. If it is the only way that they end up playing, they might not be a good fit for your table. But they might not realize it. If they can’t change or won’t, that is another conversation, and a tougher one to have. But they might not be right for your table.

If they are willing to work to improve, come up with ways that they can that won’t change the character too much. The example of something like this would be, rogue, don’t steal from your party, steal, but not from the party. The party are theoretically your friends, or you need them for something. They should kick you out or turn you over to the authorities if you steal from them. Or the lawful good cleric, what reason would you have to not notice when the rogue steals from the noble?

Final Thoughts

I do think that most players for Dungeons and Dragons, or any RPG, play with alignment as a guideline. But I also believe it is a topic that needs to be talked about. Because, when it goes bad, it can ruin a game, and more so, it can ruin a game group. What we want, even if you play with alignments more as a rule, I would guess you want more people to play.

So using alignment as a guideline helps make sure that everyone has more fun. And if your rogue really needs to steal that painting off the wall, work with the player so that they have a reason their character doesn’t know. You steal the painting, your fun, and now they don’t feel conflicted about their character not reporting yours to the authorities.

How do you use alignment? Have you had any horror stories where it went wrong? Or any great stories about how players worked it out?

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In Sword & Sorcery, you control a character who is an ancient hero brought back in this time of need. You are exploring and different scenarios, getting options presented to you as to what to do, and making choices based on the sort of party that you have. During each scenario, you are fighting monsters, collecting soul points, getting money and other loot and hopefully leveling up your character. Then, as you win, you advance to more scenarios. All in all, the basics of what you’re doing in a game are pretty standard.

Sword & Sorcery does have some unique things, the biggest one being death in the game. When your character dies, you were an ancient soul that has been brought forward in time, so you become a ghost, instead of just being dead. You can do a few things as a ghost, but the main thing you can do and what you want to do, is get to your soul respawn point, respawn, and get back into the fight as fast as possible. Because, if your teammates go down as well, you’ll lose the scenario. This feels unique to me in the game because death isn’t the end. In Gloomhaven, it’s possible to have a character go down half way through a scenario, and while there is plenty of things that player can still help with in terms of running the encounter, you are done playing your character for that scenario. Sword & Sorcery handles that differently allowing you to hop back into the fight, but at a cost. To respawn, you have to use a soul point. And while that doesn’t seem like much of a cost, the soul points are what you use to level up as well, so you’re slowing down your leveling progression, and when you get knocked out and turned into ghost form and come back, you lose a level.

The leveling is also interesting in this game. It’s interesting because it’s not a standard leveling. Characters don’t level up based on XP that is gained, there isn’t a divided amount of anything that gets you closer at a regular rate. You have a group pool of soul points, and you don’t get soul points all that fast. You also have to keep a reserve of soul points because if someone goes down and you have none, they are extremely limited in what they can do until they can get back into the fight. Leveling up is also not a cheap affair. You are spending soul points equal to the level squared that you are going up to. So at level 2 it’s 4 soul points, at level 3 it’s 9 soul points, at level 5 it’s 25 soul points. The game hands them out fairly often, but that’s a lot of soul points to get up to the higher levels.

Another part of the game that I really enjoy, is the character creation/skills aspect of the game. Each character has two sides, a lawful side and a chaotic side. When you start the game, you, as a party, decides if you are going to be lawful or chaotic. That is going to give you a different unique character power than if you have played lawful. It also gives you the opportunity to get different abilities. And when you pick abilities, you have a large variety to pick from. So how you build up a character over time is going to be different than someone else might. Because of that, you really do get a good variety in the game and it adds back in some replayability, even if you know what is going to happen in the scenarios. And, depending on if you are lawful or chaotic, you are locked out of picking some abilities which limits your choices some in an interesting way.

They also have some cool rules for characters and monsters in the same area. If there are more heroes than monsters in the area, you have majority, if you have have twice as many you dominate the area, and just for that, you get an extra hit. But it isn’t just for you, it’s also for the monsters, so if you get swarmed or split up, it’s possible that you’ll be taking extra damage. It’s a nice way to make the majority feel like it means something, but it also means that you can get piled on quickly if you aren’t careful. This is one area that strategy is added into the game where it isn’t just the die rolls.

The game has a massive rule book, however, and like a lot of dungeon crawlers, that can be a deterrent from people getting into the game. I don’t think that the rules are all that complex, however, once you’re used to them. Most of what you need to know is explained on the cards for your abilities, and resolved by die rolls. So, once you know how to interpret those rolls, it goes fast. I feel like that’s fairly common for larger dungeon crawlers where they need to cover the edge cases, but most of those things will be fairly rare so the focus of the game is actually pretty straight forward.

One downside to the game is that it’s a bit fiddly. I bought a ton of small plastic bags and that helps keep things sorted. But the game itself does not come with those, which means that it would be a lot of work finding stuff. I think that a tackle box or a cross stitch thread box would work nicely as well. I feel like this is a common issue with a lot of dungeon crawlers. Without an organizer or organization strategy for Gloomhaven, it would have the same issue as well. Also, because of the size of the maps and the amount of tokens, you need a fairly large table to play the game easily. Once you’re into the game you know what you need and it’s easier to keep track of, but set-up can be a lot, thankfully tear down is a lot faster which is to be expected.

I also will say that right now I’m playing the game two player, each of us running a single character. I think that we’re going to consider going to two players each. The reason for that was that we’ve had good luck. The friend seems to roll defense like no ones business, so their character has never been in danger and is often the one focused on. And I’ve had a lot of luck doing large amounts of damage so it’s been fairly easy. I don’t know how much more difficult it will be controlling two characters each or what that will do to the length of play, but we’re hoping it bumps up the difficulty a bit. It should because you flip an encounter card after every heroes activation, so theoretically characters will get hit more. We also have two magic users, so we are limited in what we can use for equipment and want to get more variety.

I have enjoyed this game a lot thus far. I don’t think that it’s as good as Gloomhaven, but it’s a lot of fun. The story has been enjoyable, and I like the fact that when you’re knocked out, you really aren’t knocked out of the scenario. I wish it felt a bit harder or had a good way to scale the difficulty. But there are unique aspects to the game and I’m excited for playing more of it. There are also a lot of interesting characters to play and way more than I will probably ever get to, plus expansions. This is definitely not a game for those who don’t like the luck of the dice though.

Overall Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: B+
Casual Grade: C-

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When you think about it, most adventurers don’t have the law in mind when they are doing good, and they don’t do good because they are altruistic. They are going to do it for fame and glory and hopefully some money along the way. And, that is pretty chaotic. They are also going to sometimes do what they think is right, sometimes that the law or a deity says is right, but they are going to do the good thing, but it just might not be in the expected way.

This also makes it easier on the DM, because I know that I can throw out a plot hook where someone is clearly bad, but I don’t know what you are going to do. That’s going to make it more fun for me as I don’t know what is going to happen. That randomness might bug some DM’s, but as they DM more, it makes it easier as you go along. It also keeps it feeling fresh, because the players working in a somewhat random way means that I can’t fully plan for it, and I can’t fully predict what they are going to do.

And, again, I think that this idea of rewards and treasure, those are things that as the players we think about, but also, that then trickles into our characters as we divide loot and try and mechanically make our character as awesome as possible. Now, that might not seem like it’s good, but in your normal campaign, the bad guy is probably very bad, and the good guys are probably pretty good. The characters that we’re playing are those in the middle who are good, but aren’t just good for good sake and are willing to get their hands dirty taking down those who are bad.

As for what class works well, I think that the answer is any. Cleric and Paladin might lean more lawful, but there is no reason that they can’t be chaotic. The ones that jump out the most that do easily slide into this category are going to be your sorcerer, warlock, and rogue. All of them, seem to have class features that would make them more chaotic. But, like I said, this should be the default for adventurers in a good game, and you should explain your way off of it in your back story, if you want to be a different alignment. It is very similar for an evil game with the Lawful Evil alignment should be the default for an adventurer there.

I think that we all have a decent idea of what good is now, from the previous two articles, and the chaotic piece means that your motivations aren’t law or altruism. I don’t know that I have a ton more to say about this. So short article today.

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The issue with true neutral is that it doesn’t give you something to grasp onto. With evil and good, you know those concepts, and between law and chaos, you know what those are as well. Neutral is the position is between those, but it doesn’t give you that easy thing to grab onto. The best starting point that I can come up with is talking about the druid.

The reason for the druid is that as someone who gets their powers from nature, nature isn’t inherently good or evil. It has some chaos, but it also has an order placed on it from the food chain and survival of the fittest, but these aren’t laws with how humans place rules and order around themselves. So someone who is fully devoted to nature could find themselves in this middle ground where they don’t cling too strongly to anything, but they just see life, death, and survival as the cycle of things. This cycle is neither good or bad, but it is needed for the land to survive.

This is where you can get into issues with role playing in an adventuring group but also why you join an adventuring group. Some outside force is working on your land, whether it be a grove or the whole world. So the true neutral character would look at this one of two ways. Either, it wouldn’t get them to do anything, because it’s the natural order of things and survival of the fittest. If you develop a character like that, you aren’t really playing in the spirit of Dungeons and Dragons and need to come up with a reason why your character would care, or roll up a new character.

But that same thing can also be your hook into adventure. Some outside force is working to destroy the land, whether it be your grove or the whole world. Because it’s an outside force, that means that it isn’t a natural force. Your character now has a reason to go out adventuring to stop bad things from happening. Because it isn’t going to be survival of the fittest, it’s just going to be destruction and not from the natural order and chaos of things, but because someone has a plan to destroy it. This true neutral characters mindset wouldn’t be, in this case, to judge the person as bad, but instead to judge their actions as outside of the balance of things.

This is the tension of the true neutral character. There’s a chance for them to be apathetic in what is happening in the game. So as a player, you need to really find those reasons, either because of the threat, or some other reason, that you’re out adventuring. For me, the easiest way that I’d do this would be to add in some relationship with another character or NPC that is a very strong bond for your character. By doing this, you’re going to always have a reason to go adventuring. And it give the DM something that they know they can motivate your character with as well. I personally like the idea of it being another player character that you’re connected to, because then it gives the true neutral character more of a reason to follow along and and adventure.

So, what classes work, again, I’ll start out with the disclaimer that really any D&D class is going to work for any alignment, you might have a few things that just make less sense. The ones that are going to have the strongest ties to True Neutral, I would say, would be Monk and Druid. However, another class that I think works well is a very tribal Barbarian. They are going to see everything as survival and not have the attachment to things that the more “civialized” characters might. Death, trials, and troubles are just going to be the natural way of things and neither good or bad. Harder to work in are going to be your Cleric and Paladin who naturally leaning towards more lawful or good.

Probably a wild card one that I think would be interesting would a rogue. Generally, you think of them as chaotic, but what about an assassin rogue who just does their job and they get money, but they dispatch the target with out any passion for it and they don’t judge whether the target is good or evil, they just take the job given. You can even give them a loose code, but not hard rules that they follow to keep them from being lawful It would be easy to stray into either chaotic or lawful with this character (as well as good or evil), but that could basically be the rule for the character. They will take any job (somewhat chaotic), but they need their payment and their details before they’ll take it (somewhat lawful), to keep them balanced in a neutral area.

True Neutral is definitely a tricky one for me to try and explain. It’s also going to be a trickier one to try and play, and in my experience is generally just a stopping off point for characters as they go to another alignment. It’s a decent spot to start a campaign for that reason as you figure out the character’s ticks and traits that will allow you to set-up their alignment.

Have you played a true neutral character? Did you find it easy to play or did you have to put a lot of work into it?

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I think, the best way that I can describe neutral is that you’re going to do the best option in a given situation based off of the other part of your alignment. So a neutral good character is going to do what they perceive as the best option after they’ve thought about it. Neutral is going to lean away from the impulsive that you can get with both Chaotic and Lawful alignments. In the case of a neutral good character, if they are in a just land, they are going to appear fairly lawful, because the laws are just. However, they aren’t basing their decision off of the law being there, they are basing off of what they believe to be good in the given situation.

This is going to create a more introspective character, which is going to be better for a character who is less combat focused. The martial classes like fighter and barbarian aren’t going to be the best fits. And as normal, classes like rogue and warlock which can have a more chaotic bent to them, don’t fit the easiest. With that said, any class can be any alignment. I think the two classes that I would lean towards playing Neutral Good would be Druid and Monk.

For me, both the Druid and the Monk classes are those more focused on the long view of things. The druid is surrounded by nature which is going to do what is good for it, and when looking at how long a tree can live and how unchanging mountains are, a druid will take a longer view and more of a loo at what is good. And they are not just going to look at the good for the people living in the land, but also of the land itself. A monk has meditation and that calm and martial arts sort of feeling for their play style. While they can go out with a rush of action and hit you a lot, it seems more like their traditions are built around the discipline of learning those skills versus using them, so again it fits with that long view of figuring out what is good before taking any action.

Let’s look a little bit back at some of them that are less ideal? How could you make a fighter into a lawful good character? I think that it is not that difficult because you would have the jaded soldier who thought that the laws of the land were good, but then saw violence done in the name of those laws against those who were only guilty of not being from that land. While they understand that the sword can be a tool of justice, they weigh it out to determine if using the sword is going to be the just option and the good option or if there is another way. And while they might not themselves know how to do the other option or at least do it well, they can know that the sword is not the right option. The rogue is also fairly easy, because they can have a Robin Hood sort of mindset. They will only ever steal from someone that they know is evil. And they will only do so to improve the state of the common folk who are being oppressed, and not for their own riches.

Now, you still need to tie those things into why you’d go adventuring. Even the monk and druid. Generally you have to threaten something that they think is good. For a druid that might be their grove. For a fighter that might be a people that they see as innocents. If I were to play a neutral good character that would be the direction that I’d lean into it anyways. I’m sure that there are other ways to play a neutral good character that I haven’t mentioned yet.

If you have some interesting ideas for playing a neutral good character, leave them in the comments below. If you have played one, let me know how you did that, and what the story of your character was.

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Lawful Neutral is pretty straight forward. You don’t have that particular bent towards good or evil. Instead, you are going to take things more at face value and make a judgement on it based off of more the cultural norm. You also don’t feel the need to jump out there on some righteous quest. You’re really getting your desire to adventure more from the lawful side of things, which I’ll get to. Being neutral doesn’t mean that you’re going not have opinions on things. Thinking more about it as a drive or focus, you aren’t going to be driven to do something good, because you are a character who has focused their life on being good, or the opposite for evil.

But I think the lawful aspect is really what is going to drive this character to adventure. They are going to be very tied to following the laws of the land. While a lawful good person might make a judgement on laws of the land that they don’t consider to be just, a lawful neutral might realize that it isn’t just, but it’s the law of the land so they are going to uphold it. For that reason, when something bad comes to the land, like a large raid of bandits, and evil wizard who wants to take over and is breaking the rules of the land, this character is going to get up in arms about that.

Now, this doesn’t mean that if the laws of the land are all unjust and in favor of a tyrant that they going to go along with them. The laws of the land do generally need to be just. The lawful neutral character is going to consider what is for the greater good in this situation. They are going to try and depose a tyrant to set-up a just ruler and someone who will put in rules that they can follow, and they might even see themselves as that person. I think that’s something that might trip up a lawful neutral player. If a law is unjust and only helps the few, they probably won’t uphold it or see it as a fair law. Though, if there’s only a law like that, they’ll see the whole system as the greater good, it’s when that starts to be the focus of the system that the lawful neutral character will attempt to depose or to change the system.

So, what classes work well for a lawful neutral character? A fighter, especially with soldier background would make a lot of sense in that role. They are trained to follow orders and follow the rules in place and they know the consequences if order isn’t followed. A wizard would make a lot of sense as well with their magic coming from study. I do think that almost any of the classes can be lawful neutral, something like warlock or rogue lean away from that, but I think that all of them do make sense. The warlock would see the rules of their patron as being part of the rules of the land that doen’t have to be good or evil in those rules being given for the power. For the rogue, I think of the government sanctioned assassin who is dealing with NPC’s who are too hard to get to in a completely normal legal method, so the rogue has been sanctioned to be a part of the legal system when someone is too well protected to get to otherwise. I always like to find ways to play against type that way. I said for lawful good that Paladin and Cleric were in their sweet spot there, but they can be lawful neutral as well, I think following a deity of justice that helps uphold the laws of the land would make a lot of sense.

As a DM, I think that you can use a lawful neutral characters alignment to ask them questions about how much they will follow the rules of the land. If something seems like it is fair and just and legal, are they going to do this? It isn’t an alignment though that I see getting a ton of play. Mainly because it doesn’t allow you to be a murder hobo because you’d have to deal with yourself as a character who oversteps your bounds. However, this is something that you can make into a role playing point as well if you want, as a DM.

Have you played a lawful neutral character? What traits did you lean into? Have you played against type with your class?

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If you’re lawful that means that there are some set of rules that you follow and you want to follow them closely or perfectly if you can. In the case of a lawful good character, you’re going to most likely be following the rules of someone or something that is known to be good as well. This can be the laws of the land, but it’s more often the rules of a good deity, since humans, elves, dwarves, etc are all fallible creatures. That means that sometimes you might not even follow the laws of the land if you believe that they aren’t just.

The good piece just means that you’re not going to do something that’s evil. It seems pretty simple that way. But to go along with that, it doesn’t mean that you don’t do anything. If there’s something that seems like it’s for a righteous and just cause, you’re going to do that or at least be inclined towards that quest line. Good also means that you might not want to be a party to when the other PC’s from the adventuring party are doing something questionable. We’ll touch on some of that earlier, but a lawful good character might see how something can be useful, but wouldn’t ever take part in it themselves because they won’t do something that isn’t either ideally good and lawful. An example of this might be torturing a goblin to figure out what the giant goblin horde is up to. While it might be a goo thing because it would save a lot of people and the goblin is an evil creature, and even the rules of the land might allow for torture, it’s possible and probable that a good character wouldn’t want to be party to that. But they might also understand why other player characters would be, and leave so that they can do what they need to.

Now, when playing a lawful good character there is a chance it could fall into what is called lawful stupid. This is most commonly a trait for paladin or clerics where players lean too heavily into the lawful and good tropes. It’s going to be the case where a paladin sees someone stealing something, and because stealing isn’t lawful or good, run them through with your sword. The king insults you, that isn’t good, run him through with your sword. It’s the simple reaction to everything that can be scene as not lawful, but in particular not good. If it’s not good, that means death. But that doesn’t seem all that lawful or good in and of itself. Killing someone for stealing because it’s evil is an extreme reaction, which really doesn’t keep you in the camp of good. Capturing them and taking them to the city guard, now that makes a lot more sense. Less violent example of something similar though is a lawful good character who refuses to go into an inn because they serve alcohol and drinking is a sin. Even though they just saw the bad guy run into there.

But beyond the reaction of violence for an insult, lawful stupid can also mean that a character is too trusting and naive. Just because you are good and lawful doesn’t mean that you think everyone else is going to be. This can be equally as harmful as it’ll cause strife in the party when the lawful good character just asks someone a question who is clearly hiding something but doesn’t disbelieve them. Especially if you’re dealing with the face of the party or a split party for some reason so that you’re going to be missing information that you would otherwise want to have readily available for the party.

So how do you avoid this as a characterization for your PC? I think it’s just adding in some dimension to your character. I talk in the first article of the series who your alignment isn’t how you only run your character. It’s a framework for developing a well rounded character and for not spending too long while making a decision. If you find it taking too long, just make that decision based off of the alignment for your character. I gave an example for the thieves stealing bread. But for the Kings insult maybe you don’t trust them more. For the Inn and you don’t approve of drinking, you don’t have to have your PC drink. Being suspicious of people isn’t anything that goes against lawful good either. It allows you to have a more developed character if you don’t just treat them purely as in the tropes.

But let’s talk about why a lawful good character would go adventuring.

I actually think that this one is pretty easy to come up with reasons for going out. You can go with the story where something really bad is going to happen, that will motivate a lawful good character to go out and stop it. The adventure might also be something that a good character gives to the player characters. But if you’re playing a heroic campaign, it’s most likely that you’ll have quest givers that are good or that will want something good done. Now, it can be interesting as a DM to subvert that sometimes. Maybe you’re “good” quest giver has given out a quest that on the surface seems good, but is actually something the actually evil quest giver needs done to complete their plan. Or maybe the actual quest itself isn’t good when you get down into it. I will say, don’t do that all the time though, or your players will never trust you again, and yes, I mean players, not player characters.

So what classes work for lawful good?

The two people will think of right away are Paladin and Cleric. Both of them are tied to a deity of your choice, so it would be easy to pick lawful good ones and a lot of the deities are. But I think that there are some other interesting options, you can even play against type with something like a rogue. A rogue assassin who only kills evil people who are above the normal law, that makes a lot of sense for a lawful good character. Warlock is probably the trickiest as your patron almost has to be lawful good. Something like Hexblade might work. Final question for classes would be if a necromancer wizard would work, and I think that it could possibly. It is a little bit trickier, because you have the lawful good wanting to raise not good undead, I think most of them are evil, and that might be a conflict for you depending on how you play it. But there are necromancy options that aren’t just raising the dead which might work.

So, now that we’ve delved into this alignment. Would you want to play a character with a lawful good alignment? If you have, how have you avoided the lawful stupid trope?

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So, let’s start, what is alignment?

Alignment is the moral touchstone for your character that has been laid out in Dungeons and Dragons and used some in other role playing systems to give you a better idea how to play your character. There are two axis for alignment, from good to evil and from lawful to chaotic, with neutral between both pairs, so you end up with nine different alignments.

When you create your character, you select one of these nine different alignments for your character. You can use that alignment as a filter to make the decisions for your character. And it’s possible during the game that your alignment will change, but that will be up to you and possibly your Dungeon Master if that happens. In most cases, going up from Neutral to Good or Evil to Neutral will be informed more by your Dungeon Master, but if you have a character that falls from Good to Neutral that’s something that can come from either direction.

How do you pick an alignment?

I personally think that it ties into what you want to do for your backstory a lot. The story you will create will help inform if you are a law abiding character or a character who is out to cause trouble. Your class can also determine some of that as well, though there are both Paladin and Cleric sub classes that allow you to play a fallen or evil version of both classes. However, normally both will align with Good or at least Neutral and generally both will lean more lawful while someone like a Rogue would be more chaotic.

If you don’t have an idea for a backstory, the Dungeons and Dragons backgrounds can help you pick out your alignment as some of the items that you roll, personality traits, flaws, bonds, and ideals will help inform that decision and give suggestions base off of which one you pick from the list or randomly roll.

But what does alignment really mean?

This is where alignment is controversial. Some people use it as a crutch for their character to be a jerk. Something like a Chaotic Neutral Rogue stealing from party members would be an example of this. It might annoy everyone at the table, but if they can’t roll a high enough perception to catch her as she stealth’s and steals, there’s nothing that the players can do. Or the dumb Barbarian who gets bored as a Chaotic Neutral character and randomly picks fights, and then in the presence of the king decides to pick a fight. Players at time will say something along the lines of “It’s what my character would do because I’m chaotic neutral.” But really it’s more about wanting to play that jerk character and have the spotlight. The same can be the case for the Lawful Good Paladin who won’t go into the tavern because they don’t drink, who will stab anyone if they do anything wrong, but then will also refuse to go along with any plan that might be a little bit morally grey. Or it would be the true neutral druid, so neutral on both the lawful and chaotic scale as well as the good and evil scale, who then refuses to get involved in anything and won’t latch onto they are neutral and just at peace with the world.

But that’s the extreme. When alignment works well, you use it to inform some decisions and a touchstone for your character in the long run. That means that your Chaotic Neutral rogue might not steal from the party, though borrowing something from someone they don’t like and forgetting to return it, that’s a possibility. Or a Paladin might look the other way when the rogue does steal a bunch of money, and even take a share that they then donate to the church. But those are all fairly specific examples still, I think more generally, alignment is what you use when you aren’t sure which of two options or more that your character would take. Instead of agonizing over a long time, if you can’t come to a fast decision, you look at see which options aligns most closely with your alignment. Using it that way, you can have a fully developed character, as even in real life, some people might be lawful good when it comes to one area and chaotic neutral in another area of their life. So don’t let your alignment stop you from playing like you want.

So what’s coming next in this series on alignment?

We’re going to go through the nine different spots on the alignment matrix. I’m going to do an article on each one of those so you can get a better idea of what they mean and how you can use them in your role playing.

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One of the most common pitfalls, though, with playing an Outlander is placing them outside of society. That is really more the role of a hermit, while an outlander generally has some connection back to the world, and while their being on the fringes of the world, they are going to know how to interact with the normal society better than a hermit would. As I talked about in the hermit background, having a lone ranger character is far from ideal for a game that is a cooperative storytelling game where players are all part of a group. So when building an outlander, think of why they would be connected into the party, what they might want from the party, or why they would change from being a homesteader to being an adventurer.

The Outlander background also gets the skills of survival and athletics, which make a lot of sense. You have to be strong and smart at survival to live on your own or with very few around you out in the worlds of Dungeons and Dragons. The amount of random encounters and monsters that are roaming around would require you to be knowledgeable  on survival. One interesting thing that the outlander gets is a language of the players choice. This goes against the loan wolf idea, this background gives a nice tie in to some other race that isn’t your own. Why would your High-Elf outlander known dwarven? Why would your halfling guide know undercommon? There’s a story that is built in for you, in some ways, with the language.

So what are some different backstories for the Outlander background?

There is much disappointment in life. Mine was not an exception to that, my parents were killed when I was young, my aunt who took me in soon abandoned me, and I was an outcast in the small town that I grew up in. Things became better when a traveling missionary came through the town preaching about their deity. They took me along with them and gave me a spot to live. All of this happened before I was ten years old. Now a lot of time has passed and it is my turn to spread the word. Things have gone well for the most part, but now I’ve started to hear rumors of issues coming out of my order. That there are those who are subverting it and turning it against everything I was taught. I’ve tried to reach my old teacher to find out more information, but I haven’t been able to get a hold of them. I know that they were off looking for a relic, and their party hasn’t been heard of now in two months. I’m worried that the issues in the order might have set them up for failure, and I need help finding them.

Class: Cleric
Alignment: Neutral Good

A lot of kids see a man putting out a fire, a woman arresting a criminal, or a doctor saving a life and they decide to go into one of those noble professions. I’m less interested in those professions. What peeked my interest as just a small one, was seeing a dragonborn being dragged out of the inn across the street from my parents house. “Savan” was really friendly with us kids and very helpful in the inn and around town. What we didn’t know was that he was actually a pirate known as Estevan Clawfist who was one of the most brutal pirates of all time, and that the crown wanted to capture him. The idea of a double life intrigued me, and he towering half-Goliath who had caught him became someone I idolized. That was the only childish game that I wanted to play, I was the bounty hunter and my friends would be criminals who I brought in. It led to some scuffed knees and a black eye or two, but my desire to become a bounty hunter never changed. When I grew older, I found out how to be one, it was a less glamorous life than it had seemed as a child, but I love the work. Now I have a large bounty, but this gang might be too much for me to bring in by myself.

Class: Fighter/Rogue
Alignment: Lawful Neutral

I was raised as part of a nomadic tribe. We wandered around and were friends with dwarves, humans, and elves alike. Our business was our own until one day a conquering force came in and subjugated us. We were forced to go live in a town and many of the older people just seemed to stop caring and did nothing. Our situation had become dire when I decided to run away. I knew that I could avoid the soldiers and live like I was meant to live roaming in the wilds. I became a guide to smugglers who were helping my people as well as a small uprising against the conquering forces. Some day I hope that what I will do will help my people be able to wander again. Then the soldiers found out where the smugglers were going, and I was on the run again. I’ve found a group to catch on with and now I hope to convince them to help me make a difference.

Class: Ranger/Druid
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

The rich spend money on stupid things. I saw that while growing up. Our village was in the middle of nowhere, but notables would still show up every summer to hunt in our forests. It was good business for the town, otherwise the only other option would have been to move. I met a lot of interesting folks and I saw how they lived and I wanted to live like that. I’d sneak off into the woods while I wasn’t helping at my parents armory and pretend to be a great hunter. On one of those excursions where I had been gone for a few days, it wasn’t that odd for me and it annoyed my parents, I came across a valley that I didn’t know was there. It wasn’t on the normal hunting route or, when I came back into town and looked, on the maps. I’d find somewhere new to hunt, and I quickly went back there again and again. I mapped it out in my head and studied the creatures in there. There were so many exciting creatures there, and as I listened to what the rich were talking about, I realized that I had found a way to make my fortune. I convinced one rich person to hire myself as a guide for a new hunting grounds, and soon my fame spread and I was making good money, but then other hunting guides found my spot. I got mad and left town with my money and realized how quickly money spent. Now I’m on the search for the new best hunting spot so that I can make my money back again.

Class: Rogue/Ranger
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Have you used the Outlander background before? If so, what was your characters story?

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The Guild Artisan is an adventurer that has had a profession. They are or have been part of the cartographers guild, the blacksmith guild, or any other skilled trade that they might choose. This doesn’t include things like being a wilderness guild as the artisan guilds all focus on some sort of end product. Even if you are just doing calligraphy work, the people who are commissioning the work.

This background is also one of the few backgrounds that encourages you to have down time. Technically, to stay in good standing with the guild, you need to be paying in your guild dues, which aren’t cheap, and while you might make that back in your adventuring, you’re probably better off actually using your guild skill in some down time to use your trade and make more money that way. Because you are paying your dues, you end up getting the benefit of having connections in a lot of spots and a spot to stay with your guild. This is pretty standard for every class, they always have a spot to rest your head if you are willing to look for it, but with the Guild Artisan there is a chance that it can be taken away from you.

So how could you make interesting characters with this?

In your small coastal town you had a nice little shop. You wrote up the papers for the various shipping merchants that came through and kept track of the payments and which ships had come in. Life was peaceful until a new crew came into town. You got suspicious when their manifests for their shipments didn’t seem to match-up with what you would see in the warehouses. You decided that it was in your best interest to keep an eye on what they were doing and you started snooping around, however, they caught you looking at something you shouldn’t be. They gave you an option, act like nothing happened and help them create forged documents or swim with the fishes. You didn’t want to help them, but that was better than being killed, so you decided to help them. They brought you aboard their ship and you spent the next six years of your life sailing with them and creating documents for them as well and creating their actual business documents. Once they started to trust you, you were able to pick up some skills with the sword and when they had drunk too much at port one time, you took the Captain hostage and brought him to the guards. That got you your freedom, but now you have a black mark on your name. If you can crack a legendary code that hangs in the head quarters of your guild, you might be able to get back in their good graces and make a real living again. Fortunately you have a clue.

Class: Rogue – Swashbuckler
Alignment: Neutral Good

Ting, ting, ting, that was your life for a long time. You were known as one of the best armor makers in your clan, and in the city of Shinholm. You had grown to be quite well known and you had a ton of money, a nice house, and a happy life. Things were going well for you. Then one day the guards knocked down your door and dragged you out into the street. A grieving widow stood in the street and was screaming how you had killed her husband and it was your fault because of your shoddy armor that he had died.There was a trial, but the man had been a popular up and coming noble and while you could tell that the armor he had died in was a forgery of your own, you quickly realized that there were other things going on behind the scenes and that fact didn’t matter. You resigned yourself to your fate, and realized that the gods were looking down on you still when you weren’t hanged like you had suspected but instead were sent to fight on the front lines. There you made a name for yourself when you improved your shoddy armor and you got noticed by an Elven lord. However, you wanted to get back into the good graces of your own lands, you have a shot if you can catch the person who forged your armor as  you’ve started to see forgeries floating around in the elven lords lands now. You just need help since you can be the muscle, but the finer details should be left to someone else.

Class: Fighter
Alignment: Lawful Neutral

Your leather work was known throughout the lands, the quality of the work that you did was always some of the best. But you had a secret, you didn’t love the work that you did, you just were good at it. Instead of making things with the leather and exotic hides that were brought in, you preferred to get those hides yourself. One day a woman came in looking to sell you some hides and with a story of a mythical beast whose hide would make the greatest leather armor ever. You became obsessed with this and looked up everything you could about it. Now you have a clue as to where this beast might be, but you know you need to hone your hunting skills before you’ll be able to take it on.

Class: Ranger
Alignment: Any

Filthy, stinking, rich, that is your goal in life, to become filthy stinking rich. You’ve done a pretty good job of getting some wealth, but it isn’t enough. You want more, and while your beer and wines are getting better, you needed to learn how to make even better wine and beer. There was a monastery up on the Higlanch Mountain range that was known for the greatest beers in the world, and that was your goal, to study under them, take what you learned, and then get filthy stinking rich. However, it wouldn’t be that easy, the monks only take in the best, and they can tell that you’re there for the money. They give you a way to prove yourself, and they expect you to train in their ways while you do. Now you’re using the rest of your money to get others to help you complete these quests from the monk, so that you can focus on your training and not end up dead, before you get, you know, filthy stinking rich.

Class: Monk
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
I debated for half a second if this character was evil, but I don’t think they are. They are certainly not good, but they are mainly focused on their single goal. But they aren’t trying to steal the recipe of the beer from the monks, they are just trying to find an easier way for themselves to get the recipe by having other people do the work for them. I feel like they would be the proud leader type of the group while not actually being able to lead.

Have you played a Guild Artisan before? What sort of trade did you have in your background, and did it come up in the game?

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