I remember when I first sat down to try D&D for the first time, there was so much to take in. It all seemed interesting, and I struggled to keep it all in my head at the same time. The classes called to me, the feats beckoned to me, the table of weapons sang its siren song--but one thing struck a different tone for me. Classes and feats and tables are about combat and other abilities. But the two things that broke through the overwhelmingness of it all: the section on gods (I still remember all these years later that the pages for the gods in 3.5 could be found on pages 106-108 in the Players Handbook, so often did I reference it) and the section on alignment. The gods thing made immediate sense to me. Here was the first real taste in in-game fiction I saw, and it showed me this glimmer of hope that I wouldn't just be hack-and-slashing monsters, but also in a rich fantasy world. But the alignment fascination vexed me. What was so interesting about a 3x3 grid?
But it did stick with me. As I got more experienced with the game, I started seeing my characters and others' player characters and NPCs alike as a question of alignment. "Why did that NPC do that?" "What's going on with my party mate?" "What would my character do in this delicate situation?" These questions could be addressed with alignment. "That NPC is Lawful Good and wouldn't tolerate that behavior." "Their character is Chaotic Evil and can be unpredictable." "My character is pretty Neutral, so I guess this action is in character." It seemed to have answers, and more importantly, interesting answers, and more important than any of that--alignment added philosophy to the game. I had been cheered on by seeing the gods section because it meant fiction. But philosophy would mean engaging on a whole deeper level. And so I became, admittedly, a little obsessed. With friends, I would attribute alignments to literary characters and tv show characters and even occasionally bizarre people. I would make challenges as a DM that would stress my players' characters' alignments. I reveled in discovering the expanded 5x5 alignment chart because it was even more complex and interesting. Right?
To a degree in certain situations, yes, it absolutely does. I remember reading the graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons in grad school, and my friends and I assigned alignments to each main character; it required us to really think about the complex and sticky moralities of deliberately obtuse characters which we'd needed to learn inside and out. It was a good little exercise. And for beginner D&D players and especially younger D&D players, alignment is complex enough to yield some fun observations and help players roleplay. But for experienced adult players, alignment usually starts to get a little off the more you look at it. Allow me to use an example via one of my characters to show how alignment sometimes falls more flat than it does add interest and nuance. (And yes, I did write about how to understand D&D alignment in the past; I've reconsidered alignment's role in the game after some reading and conversations about the topic.)
My most recent player experience was with a character who turned out to be my favorite I've ever played: Asp, a clever con artist with a complicated past and little tying her down to any one place. By the time the campaign ended, that character had changed paths and became a healing-focused cleric just dying to help people. So I reasoned that she began with one alignment and changed alignments as we went. To start, I reasoned that she was Neutral, otherwise called True Neutral. My idea was that when it came to Good and Evil, she neither particularly enjoyed helping people nor did she go out of her way to hurt people--this is the alignment definition of Good and Evil. And with Law and Chaos, she was a fairly organized planner, but she also thrilled and succeeded by improvising when necessary; she was neither particularly Lawful or Chaotic. But I arrived at True Neutral by elimination. Was she really a neutral observer? Not really--she took action in others' affairs constantly. Did she take no stance on things? Not usually since her cons required firm positioning on matters. Did she advocate or fight for some middle path? Absolutely not--she was unconcerned with any agenda aside from a comfortable survival. So was she True Neutral? Not in any meaningful way.
And when Asp changed paths? She became a committed and daring healer who constantly helped others with problems besides sickness or injury. So she was Good, and that was pretty inarguable. Every action she took was intended to help people or to maintain good things for people. That's out-and-out focus on helping people, the alignment definition of Good. But the Law and Chaos axis was even more complicated now. Lawful indicates that a character lives by rules and order. My character lived by the code that helping others was always the best thing to do. That is a pretty Lawful behavior. She also had come to exist within the world of legal action rather than evading legal detection, and the comfort she found in living freely and without fear put her towards Lawful. Chaos, on the other hand, means that a character makes decisions not by a code, but what would be individually best in that particular situation. And as it turned out, she did always choose to help people, but that was the only rule she lived by. She still lied to and manipulated people she perceived to be evil. She made her choices about each individual situation based on the context, not a rule. She was still the improvising, unpredictable woman she'd always been. Those traits are all pretty Chaotic. So does that make her Neutral Good? But doesn't that obscure the fact that she lives by this heavy and important code and also thrives on disorder while really thinking through every situation? To me, she's not Lawful enough to be only Lawful, Chaotic enough to only Chaotic, or Neutral in any way that matters.
[You might be saying, "But what about that 5x5 alignment chart? Maybe she'd Social Good or something." To which I say, if the characterization of this character shows her being very Lawful and very Chaotic but not Neutral, the 5x5 chart doesn't fix that. It's an averaging of moral positions, and that's not how we understand people.]
So if alignment is flawed, so what? Why should that matter? It's just a silly nine-option grid; we can't really believe that it describes human philosophy well. I've met plenty of people who really do see alignment as solid and unshakeable, and I say that as someone who myself fixated on alignment for a long time. And it's honestly a loss. Asp is a character I got to play after immersing myself in roleplaying tabletop games for more than half my life. I've gained a confidence that I can know my characters well enough to ignore the alignment chart instead of asking "What would a Chaotic Good character do here?" But if I'd still been a beginning player? Asp would have been a struggle to play. I'd have been trying to apply an alignment label to her that didn't fit, and that would lead me to make choices that weren't really her. And given how radically important Asp has become in my life, the thought of her being any less than she is would break my heart. I really do believe that players making roleplaying choices based on alignment are shortchanging themselves in this way. The alignment chart just isn't complex enough to give real philsophies to characters.
So what do we do? I'll be the first to acknowledge that alignment isn't useless. When a character is just a rough outline, still a sketch in your head, and you don't entirely know what motivates them or where they draw certain lines, alignment can be like the bumpers they put up at bowling alleys. Feel your character designing and brainstorming going into the gutter? What does alignment say about it? It's especially helpful for first-time roleplayers, but anybody can benefit from thinking about their character with a little conceptual help. So I'm not saying to throw out alignment because it doesn't need to be there--not at all. Most players really benefit from some guidelines about how the imaginary scenarios in the game relate to the real world, and something like alignment can achieve that. So here are four possible ways to get around alignment's narrowness and put some philosophical frameworks in the game. [Note: These are arranged from simplest to most difficult to manage, but all should be within reach of a veteran TTRPG player, and several should be accessible to a beginner.]
1. Look to the Class/Species/Beliefs You've Already Decided On
I recommend this as the most basic option because it tends to require the least high-power thinking possible, and I also note that this option is fairly meta--it requires you to use what you know about D&D clichés and then either embrace or subvert them. What I mean is this: you've already chosen some element of your character--maybe a class or a species or whatever appealed to you--so ask yourself what that detail might say about your character. If your character is a Barbarian, for instance, you imagine what a Barbarian would be like in the gameworld. A common cliché about Barbarians is that they're hulking, stupid, aggressive, and uncultured. So perhaps your Barbarian will be like that. They are violent, and they really don't know much about polite society. What does that tell us? It tells us that your Barbarian might be loud and brutish, perhaps intimidating on purpose, may have little idea of table manners. And those things tell us what matters to the Barbarian--they think physical strength is a virtue, they think power over others gives them the right to treat others however they like, they find polite society pointlessly convoluted and prefer to spend time in nature--things like this. You could end up with a stereotypical character, but they'll still be fun to play, and you'll have arrived at their philosophy without trying to shove them in a box they don't fit in.
There are other ways to approach the cliché, though. You could go the opposite route with your Barbarian and break all the stereotypes. Now your Barbarian is well-read and plays the violin. Although they're talented in combat, they hate fighting and don't want to start a fight. They've read the great philosophers and believe in the unity of all people brought together by one common cause. They've trained their combat prowess so that they can defend the common people and try to spread culture so others can become enlightened. Or you could take a middle road, and your Barbarian becomes a meeting of opposites. Now they love to intimidate and threaten people, using their physical strength to get what they want, but they're also incredibly well-respected in high society as a connoisseur of arts and writing. Their values are different now--they're really all about themselves, using their prowess on the battlefield and in intellectual arts to gain renown and power. So now the Barbarian is actually more selfish than ever (arguably), but they also buck the cliché with Barbarians.
The process isn't entirely over at this point. We have some broad conceptual information about what matters to them. The downside of this approach is that it won't yield as complex a philosophy as some of the more complicated approaches, but this is also something that just about any player can do without practice or experience. You'll still be missing a direct statement about your character's philosophy. My best recommendation would be to then move onto the next option in the list, Five Values, using this step as brainstorming. But if you're new, developing a character quickly, or just trying something new out, this is a good place to start.
Briefly--I know it probably sounds like I'm positioning this method as nonideal, but it really just suits a purpose well. I recently got invited to play a one-shot over text message and told to roll a character. I said to myself, "I've never played a Druid, and I want to try." And so I went with a bunch of really straightforward stuff for Druids--my character, Daylight, is good with plants and animals, has keen senses, and regards herself as a protector of nature. This is direct information from the class info paired with the common cliché. But I wanted her to be really deranged--I thought it would be a fun twist. So I took the Haunted One background and made the rest of her personality and philosophy reflect her trauma, her paranoia, and her intentional hiding from society in nature. So while Daylight does play into the common Druid thing of loving and protecting nature, she also has this deep darkness in her that I don't really imagine with Druids. She's afraid. She's unable to control her social interactions after years of hiding away from everyone. She doesn't really trust anybody. In the one-shot so far, she's come off as capable but unpredictable and just kinda off. I got to that point for a quick improvised character using this method, and it took about ten minutes. It's not a bad method if you can use it right, and as I said, new players, quick characters, and experimenting with character creation are all excellent places to work from character design to philosophy.
2. Five Values
This is a relatively simple way to guide your character building and some roleplaying in early sessions with a character. Once you have a general concept (be that name, goal, fighting style, backstory, or whatever appeals to you), ask yourself what your character feels about the following five values.
a) Do you trust yourself to accomplish something more alone or with a team?
b) Once you have decided on a course of action, how do you react when it is blocked?
c) Would you go out of your way to help someone for nothing in return?
d) Do you regard tradition as something important or restrictive?
e) How much would you be willing to sacrifice to achieve your goals?
These five questions don't cover every philosophical stance that might come up, but take a close look at these questions. A gauges a character's individuality, and that's something that comes up in TTRPGs constantly--knowing if your character will go out of their way to work with others, or to avoid it, will matter, and it will also impact how much your character trusts others. B shows whether the character is principled, determined, or even obsessed with their own convictions; it also captures a little but of the Law-Chaos axis's concept of how much someone sticks to one idea versus being versatile. C does admittedly handle what alignment does with Good-Evil, but without the baggage--calling a character Evil or Good is very black-and-white and doesn't tell us much meaningfully about the character, but seeing if a character is considerate, selfless, or noble is a better position to brainstorm and roleplay from. D gets at one of the more interesting elements of Law-Chaos, tradition versus rebellion, which is a very important thing to have in a game that routinely has longstanding traditions; this iteration of it also allows players to see past the often confusing Law-Chaos association with laws of the land to this more important and interesting note about your character. And finally, E asks just how committed to their big goals your character is. We often create characters with these overarching, massive quest-sized goals like "restore the honor of my family" or similar things, but with Asp, I really went in with just the intention to make enough money to be comfortable and get some social power out of it if I could. For her, sacrificing for her goals would never serve her because her goal was comfort. I would know this about her while brainstorming if I used the Five Values, but alignment never would have revealed that to me with its focus on narrow philosophical issues.
It's important to note that these questions should take time to answer. Not only that, your answers may change as you keep brainstorming and playing. This is a simple method of cracking your character's philosophy, but it is not necessarily a quick one. Really give yourself time, and I promise that you'll have a better sense of your character's mind and philosophy than if you tried to pigeonhole your character idea into the alignment chart. So while it's a little abstract, that's actually a strength--philosophy is abstract.
3. Hypothetical Situations
This is an extension of Five Values in that we're going to take the idea of that type of question and make it more specific. Then, after we've considered a handful of hypotheticals, we'll be in a position to better understand our character. It's important to note that the biggest difference between Five Values and Hypothetical Situations is how you, the player, have already started to imagine them. Five Values is good for people with very little idea of who their character is, so the vagueness of those questions lets them answer in a way that immediately gives you the character's philosophy directly; your answer to those questions is the defining point of the philosophy. With Hypothetical Situations, you'll need some idea of the character's personality in at least a broad way, but you'll need to work to derive explicit values from them. I know that makes it sound like two disadvantages, but some people tend to work this way. I personally often have ideas for characters' personalities before I settle on a class or anything mechanical, so this method works well for me, and it may work well for you too.
In terms of the hypothetical questions themselves, my foremost recommendation is to use character questionnaires. Here are three that I really like along with some notes about each, bearing in mind your enjoyment of the list is the most important thing.
- 365 Character Questions for Writers and Roleplayers by Heather Grove - This is the questionnaire I recommend the most for this exercise. It's true that it has a great amount of questions, but I must say that the kinds of insights you'll have with it are exactly what this method is about. The questions are organized as a calendar, one question per day, and the whole year of questions does a great job of both shedding light on the humble details (Does your character typically remember her dreams?) and the very sweeping details (What are your character's beliefs about death and the afterlife?). Notably though, many are hypotheticals that are excellent for both philosophy and more general personality (Your character wakes up to find a poisonous spider on his pillow next to his head. What does he do?).
- The Mother of All Character Questionnaires by Roleplaying Tips - This massive list is not entirely focused on hypothetical situations, but many of the questions outright ask about your character's beliefs, morality, and preferences in life. That is not to say that there are no hypotheticals; most of the second half of this long list are questions which directly ask for opinions, positions, and tastes on various topics, which does the same as a hypothetical. It's worth noting that this questionnaire includes very big questions (Did you ever become disillusioned with a former hero?) and very small questions (Do you cook your own dinner?), and you'll note that both of these questions give some pretty interesting details on your character, how they live their life, and what matters to them.
- 100 Warm Up Questions by DND Speak - The questions here are less hypothetical situations and more detailed questions about your character, but they achieve the same goal. Many of these, though, are questions about your character's past and tastes, and these are essentially hypothetical situations posed in your character's past (What would you character have done in terms of their greatest mistake?) or hypotheticals that are very specific about feelings on things (What makes your character feel safe?) which could be answered in a variety of ways, all of which show some of your character's philosophy.
So once you've answered these questions, you'll already have a pretty good idea of your character's values. But those other details, too--the small notes about what their everyday life is like, the childhood memories, and the reactions in hypotheticals--they'll have formed the foundation for a real personality and philosophy. And from there, you'll be able to start making explicit statements about philosophy: since my character would do this in this situation and that in that situation, I can tell that they believe this and that. It's a more labor-intensive process, but it's intuitive for some of us, and the results are certainly more comprehensive than the alignment chart.
4. Magic: the Gathering Colors
This is actually the main idea that got me started on this article. I was reading on tumblr about Magic: the Gathering's take on alignment in a long thread with many contributors, and you can and should check out the source for a more comprehensive amount of detail than I can or am going to give. This is an idea that's new to me, but its obvious strengths make it something I really want to use and spread around. First, though, the basics. What's going on with M:tG alignment, and how is it different from D&D alignment?
Well, the chart layout is quite different. D&D alignment uses three rows of three, meaning there's an up-down axis and a left-right axis. With the M:tG layout, though, there are five axes instead since it's set up like a big star. Here's what it looks like drawn out (credit to the original thread), where the five colors all have axis relationships with two of the other colors:
There's a lot to take in about this alignment chart. One thing that will be immediately obvious is that it's far more complicated. That's a big strength! Morality and values are complicated things, so having a system that honors that is important. You might need a moment longer to recognize that there is no good vs. evil axis at all. In fact, the only vestige of the D&D alignment chart that remains in this one is the order vs. chaos axis between White and Red. In other words, even just at a base level, we've eliminated the overly simplistic measure of "good and evil," maintained the order vs. chaos axis for a number of reasons (including that these ideas are core to these colors in the game), and introduced four more axes to measure your character on. That is, to me, a huge improvement already.
Now, the thread goes into considerable details on how one might apply all this, especially via examples of how each color treats certain hypotheticals (see, they're very useful!). What I'd like to focus on instead is really breaking down this alignment chart and getting into how to really think of it for characterization use. We've got a pretty good understanding of order vs chaos--especially if you read my earlier primer on D&D alignment, which focuses on law vs. chaos--so let's just follow that around the circle and really get into it.
If we follow White down towards Black, we see the group vs. individual axis. This is an important idea in terms of who a character is and how they act--so important, in fact, that my first question in the Five Values section is about that topic. How should we understand this beyond basic introvert/extrovert stereotypes? This is larger than a personal preference. In the world of M:tG, White is the color of empire and spreading the order of the other axis to expand groups. This is a cultural fact, so many White-aligned characters will have been raised with group-held power, and they are less likely to even think of working alone. Conversely, Black is the color of individual people and creatures, who for various reasons avoid trusting others (if others are also individualistic, they may not be trustworthy in a group; the other Black axis is exploitation, and avoiding exploitation means avoiding people; you can pursue your own goals more easily by yourself than when forced to cooperate with unlike-minded people). So this is again a culture fact. Truly, all these axes are culturally ingrained. So a through-and-through White character will be more comfortable in ordered and grouped situations because that's what their society values, and Black-aligned characters will likely feel more comfortable working alone if only because that's what they're used to. Note: groups can do morally "bad" things like spread fascism, and individuals can do morally "good" things when they align with the characters' desires. There really is no measurement of good or evil, nor are any axes better in one direction than the other.
Let's keep going. Black leads up to Green on the exploitation vs. preservation axis. Just to get right to it: yes, "exploitation" is not meant as a necessarily bad thing; more on that in a second. So Black values exploitation, meaning being willing to take something from a place or being rather than leave it as it is. Green wants to preserve things as they are, for better or worse--maybe it's the balance of nature or an isolationist tendency, but Green is strongly opposed to taking from someone or something. Characters aligned with Black live in a society that tends to take the most direct route possible, even if that mean putting others at a disadvantage; Green (which can grow anything it needs by itself) wants to preserve things as they are so that growth remains constant. (Don't judge the Black-aligned characters too hard--they live in harsh and dangerous swamps with no plenty to rely on.) And to again address "good vs. evil": leaving a sick and dying person or patch of land to die could be seen as heartless, but that's Green's preference, and interfering in a volatile situation that others find too unstable could mean a Black-aligned hero could be the only one helping someone (even if only for their own gain).
Green then leads over to Blue along the nature vs. nurture axis. Green's nature perspective argues that we are the way we are because it's in our nature to be that way, and what nature creates is in its best form. Blue instead believes that we are what we make ourselves into, and we are responsible for perfecting what nature created. [I'd like to note that in our real world today, we don't often explicitly discuss this issue, so it may seem like a small matter to make an axis of. However, nature vs. nurture is at the heart of a lot of big issues: why people's genders and sexualities are what they are, how people succeed in their careers or not, and many scientific questions too numerous to address all deal directly with this matter.] So while Green might look at its most marvelous figures and places as wonderful innately, Blue would say that its most important figures became that way through effort. Really think about how different societies would be if they chose the opposite ends of this spectrum as one of their most defining features. Green says you do what you're suited to do, and Blue says you earn your way into what you do; Green says honor what nature made, and Blue says change the world to fit your dreams; Green does not allow others to harm what exists now, and Blue cannot allow things to stay the same. It's easy to see how neither of these is more "moral" than the other--they just disagree on how the world works and how like should be lived.
As we follow the last axis to Red, we see reason vs. emotion. To me, this is a fairly loaded axis, by which I mean that people tend to see one of these as fundamentally better than the other, and usually, they prefer reason because it seems like the "right" answer. So I want to make a brief aside about why emotion is important too. We chase happiness. We avoid sadness. Bad feelings make us self-destructive, and good feelings validate the work we did to find them. Emotions rule our lives as much as reason can and should, so don't count Red out on this quite yet. Anyway, back to Blue and Red. In M:tG, Blue is focused on knowledge in many ways, even when it's forbidden knowledge; Red chases emotions, whether that means finding a positive feeling or being driven by irrationality. On that note, one can be emotional and knowledge-focused at the same time; they're less opposites in the way order and chaos are and more opposite sides of the same coin. So Blue is raising people in a culture of "know, don't feel," and Red is opting for "follow your feelings." Like nature vs. nurture, this one is clearly amoral.
Those are the axes; what about each color? White is order and groups, the power of unity and empire. Black is described as individualistic and exploitative, truly the home for lone opportunists. Green is preservation and nature, the isolationist who wants only to keep doing the same thing. Blue values nurture and reason, making it the force of understanding and shaping the world. And Red is emotion and chaos, often volatile and always following an inner compass. This is, you'll note, far more complex than measuring with the 3x3 alignment chart.
You might be thinking, "Yeah, that's neat, but how do you actually make a description of your character? Aren't the five colors you described less than the nine options in the D&D alignment chart?" I haven't mentioned one crucial detail: you can pick more than one color, blending the values. I'll explain this a bit more and then give an example. So we're trying to make a color-based alignment for a character. We ask ourselves how strong our character's feelings and values are along each axis. Some spectrums will be somewhere in the middle, but some are likely to have extreme answers from your character. Let's say we have a character who revels in the idea of shaping oneself who also wants to shape the world with those who agree with them. That would make this character a candidate for a White-Blue perspective, valuing the order of imposing one's will on an imperfect world through sheer determination and know-how. This might also help to reveal that this character will have strong disagreements with Green- or especially Red-aligned people. And if you're only just building this character (like this guide is intended for), you now have plenty of deeper values to delve into when it comes to Blue and White lore from the M:tG world if you so choose. Even if you don't, a White-Blue perspective would put your character down for positions on four out of the five axes. You could even choose up to three colors if that fits your character, giving them a position on all five of the axes. That is inarguably more complex, interesting, and useful than a "Lawful Neutral" alignment, which could be argued to be the closest D&D's alignment system can get.
The promised example with another appearance from my character Asp. She began as a con artist and became a healer, and in D&D's alignment system, she was Neutral and then Chaotic Good. (Neither feels right still.) So let's give her a color alignment instead. In terms of groups versus individuality, she's pretty strongly aligned with individuality. In all of my time writing about her and playing with her, she's always most comfortable working alone, whether because she couldn't trust others before or because she doesn't want others taking dangerous risks afterward. In terms of exploitation vs. preservation, she did have a strong position towards exploitation before when conning people, and as a healer, she is constantly intervening with the natural order to preserve life--she leans strongly toward exploitation. With nature vs. nurture, it's absolutely clear to me that she's about nurture 100% of the way. She taught herself to con, and she changed who she was later on--that's absolutely a nurture preference. With reason and emotion, she again has a strong leaning--she's a feeler. As a con, she had to live on tiny social cues and best guess rather than reasoning things out, and as a healer, she needs to connect to her interior emotional space to connect to her goddess, so strong leaning to emotion. And finally, order vs. chaos. As a con, she had rules to protect herself but thrived on improvisation and experimentation; as a healer, lives by a code by worships a chaotic goddess and still is that quick thinker she was before. But in either case, she'd want others to be able to live however they please--so a bit of a learning toward chaos. Let's review and give Asp an alignment:
Individuality, exploitation, nurture, emotion, and chaos. If we glance at the alignment chart, it turns out that Asp is a very Black-Red character with a touch of Blue. Now I want to really drill this point home: Asp ends up a passionate, selfless, and pretty legendary healer. She's a heroine to basically everyone who knows her, and one of the novels I wrote about her includes a journey around the world fixing the wrongs she made as a con artist. That is an unambiguously heroic and moral person . . . who also happens to be Black-Red, which an incomplete understanding of would make her sound like a villain. But it measures her values on a more complex scale! She's ambitious and cunning and emotional and wild--that's reflected by Black-Red. None of that is covered by "Chaotic Good." And in case you missed it in that last paragraph, Asp's color alignment didn't change at all between her being a con artist and a healer. This system actually got her personality across with these axes of values, and I find that incredibly impressive. So again, for more detail on the M:tG lore and hypotheticals, check out the thread that inspired me, but for now, I'm sold on this method, and I hope you give it a try.
Honorable Mention: Write About Your Character
This option is kind of so out there for a lot of people that I didn't include this as a main method for characterization, but it's worth mentioning after how beneficial it's been for me. It's more or less an extrapolation of the hypothetical question scenario, except you are making the hypotheticals, and you're taking the time to go into narrative detail rather than give a direct answer. Obviously, this is a big investment of time and effort. But let me refer back to Asp one more time; I wrote a few short stories about her which turned into a novel which turned into four novels, and I can promise I know her mind and values inside and out in a way that "Chaotic Good" would never approach. For more details on this, you can check out how using writing helped develop this character.
