Character alingment

Which alignment do you think usually makes for the most interesting characters?
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Lawful or neutral good. Lawful Evil could make a good character, but most who choose it are edgelords whowant the freedom to kill people while still having the backing of the king.

Lawful good.

Often can bring in some 'should I be lawful or good?' scenarios.

True Neutral and Neutral Good are my favorites.

Whatever alignment I feel like. Had some fun playing Chaotic Neutral a few times. Managed to sneak in a few Lawful Evil characters without getting the paladins knickers in a twist as well. Alignments are really only loose guidelines and do not really matter rules wise unless you're a paladin or something.

As a forever GM, I'd say Lawful Neutral makes for excellent NPCs and Villains. It's been a while since my last D&D game, so alignments don't really matter to me as actual game mechanics, but I still think that it's an interesting start to build goals and motivations on.

yeah i know alignments are a guide line i always loved chaotic good characters tho

I think all of them make interesting characters in their own right, but I really like the extremes.

The LG Paladin who sometimes struggles with what is legal and what is right.

The CG Roguish Robin Hood- type who toes the line between "Saviour of the People" and "Menace to Society". Occasionally slipping too far into extremism for the greater good (and dealing with the unfortunate repercussions)

The LE King who ultimately strives for the betterment of his people and shoulders the burdens of tyranny.

Any CE who isn't "LOL, I kill him, just because, and rape his wife". Maybe the unapologetic villain who loves being a bad guy so much, you cant help but love him. Think Handsome Jack.

ends justify the means LE are my favorite

IMO Lawful Neutral works best for anything, really. It forms a character with strong beliefs toward something, having a code.

And the question between self-interest, the code and what is good brings conflict to the character in places where most others do not have it.

Because in the end, every lawful neutral has a speckle of lawful good and lawful evil in them. True neutrals and chaotics can just do whatever they please, but Lawfuls, having strong ideals and unquestioned truths brings a lot of roleplay opportunities.

One could say the same about Lawful Goods, but basically they have a much more simpler way to look at things: Do that which is right. Lawful Neutrals don't have the same luxury; Doing the good thing might put the system to jeopardy.

This brings the interesting question of: "Would you testify against your friend in court?" that is actually a pretty good way to compare lawful characters to each other.

Can a Chaotic Evil be heroic without using it as a "face" for doing horrible stuff under the table or faking it till he unleashes some evil scheme? A legit heroic CE character?

whats the difference between true neutral and chaotic neutral.

They could conceivably derive inappropriate pleasure from murder and the like, and direct their attentions towards greater evil out of convenience or inconsistent scraps of religion and/or patriotism.

True neutral respects laws/a code but isn't completely bound by them. Really TN is one of the easiest to conceptualize since they're just regular people that follow local laws so long as they don't feel particularly strongly about them. CN on the other hand just goes with their gut all the way, fuck the police.

LG is most interesting so long as your character's worldview doesn't end up being a stupid game the party plays.

"You can't just bust into this orc lair, that's unlawful breaking and entering lololol."

"Just STFU seriously"

yeah dickhead parties ruin everything but the chaotics tho

None

I judge anyone who actually uses alignments and so does my entire group, and I'm thankful for it

But your king is a good alignment then. He is acting for the needs of his community, he is benefitting them in the end and is therefore acting selflessly.
I wouldnt say lawful good, but perhaps neutral good or chaotic good

I think alignments are cancer.

>He is acting for the needs of his community, he is benefitting them in the end and is therefore acting selflessly.
I have to have power, because I know best. I have to have the best food and the most money and the most comfort, so I can make the best decision. We have to kill the old and infirm, because they're holding everyone back. I have to implement cruel and unusual punishments, because it'll scare people straight.

Evil methods for the greater "good".

Or, if you're an American and actually don't mind any of the above:
I have to tax people, so we can build roads.

That is very possible, but i would reserve my judgement until i have more information about the setting and the character.

when i GM, i overthrow the aligment system altogether. i like when players are not restrained by morals

>i like when players are not restrained by morals
I dunno, man. Characters not being restrained by morals is one thing, but...

elaborate.. i had numerous occasions when player had lawful good because he was a paladin, but reeeeally wanted to shoplift something.

i think not being restricted just makes room for more plot twists

No alignment, because I make characters who are actual people, instead of robots who fit rigidly into one of nine categories.

I really don't get the appeal of lawful characters.
IDK. Maybe I'm biased because I tend to play punkish characters and were on verge of anachronistic faux pas of calling overly bossy types "fucking fascist" in fantasy setting
But jokes aside, I don't see the appeal, really.
And I find most of arguments in favour of them quite silly.
Like, LG being some sort of paragon and "standard, default hero". Which is pile of BS.
If you analyze both mythological/legendary heroes, at least in european background, they're mostly NG tilted towards CG, often at the verge of it also with moral grayness often pushing them towards neutral on good-evil axis, but that's other thing
European traditions prize individuality, defiance and right to defend oneself from tyranny and unjust laws.
Even D&D fluff writers recognized this fact, strangely enough since their usual incompetence, and thus two european pantheons described in the rulebooks, olympian and norse, are dominantly CG in alignment.
Only "lawful" european heroes are ones spawned after the adoption and christianity, and even among those representants of truly lawful character are rare and are mostly obvious products of Church's propaganda like Galahad, which only appears prominiently in version of arthurian myth compilled by bunch of monks.

Because of this cultural context same goes for most of fantasy heroes, and not only fantasy ones. Typical adventure fiction protagonist of any genre is non-lawful.

cont

The best adventures are those that don't use alignment.

Even worse than LG is LE, though. Often praised as the best evil, is ultimately usually the most boring one. While it is truly easier to fit into non-evil party than NE or CE, its still annoying enough for the rest of the protagonist to want to kick his ass out of the party, no matter what he has to offer unless it's some kind of serious blackmail. Smartassery and smugness that are usually accompanied with LE character make it even worse. Literally, people say how LE is easy to integrate into a goodish guy, but from my experience, if I'm playing a good guy and you'll roll a LE, you're most likely begging for being PKed.

And for antagonists? LE is often portrayed as more "efficient" one. Yes, It might be true. But what does it mean? People use to say that because of this efficency he can be more of legitimate threat. Maybe. But there are many other ways of making a BBEG a legitimate threat. And taking the efficency angle, depending on skill of the DM, may also provide very varied results. Often it's just bland. If not worse and DM tries to portray his villain as "efficient genius" but fails at making it in a believable way so it boils down "so he is efficient and genius and his plans succeed because I'm the DM and I say so, even if those plans are in reality quite silly". And don't even get me started wih "baatezu bureaucracy" trope. It's shit. Shit.
Only way of doing LE antaginist with a near-guarantee of success is to make them not!nazis, because it's always satisfying to kick the shit out of bunch of authoritarian faggots.

That said, my fav alignment is CG, and I enjoy unpredictable, menacing CE antagonists the most.

I prefer horizontal, it's the easiest to apply and most people get along with it

Lawful Evil, because most edgelords go for chaotic and neutral is okay. And then lawful evil leads to interesting reactions because It most likely wouldn't betray the party without a very good reason.

Usually I play Neutral Good, since that's basically what I am in real life. I do play greed obsessed Lawful Neutral chars from time to time though.

One of the most fun characters I've ever had was a lawful evil "reformed" psychopath. He was basically a murderer who was mentally broken in an attempt to turn him into a law abiding citizen. He did become incapable of breaking laws, but would inevitably find creative and depraved ways to torture and murder while staying on the up and up.

Chaotic evil.
Call me an edgy 15 year old, but seriously if someone can pull off chaotic evil right it can be the most entertaining alignment. Never good to have a whole party but one every few adventures is great.

Best one I've seen was a cleric/artificer who was firmly against the gods after their family got killed in front of him (In the first session). After that he ground up his old holy symbol and desecrated the powder, kept doing the same thing to every other symbol he scavenged from a dead cleric/paladin. Ended up being played very weirdly, sort of like the Joker, Frankenstein, and Mr Torque. He made this whole troop of skeletons and with a corpse golem commander, and armed himself with all sort of anti magic gear and had a ton of bonuses against divine casters. Ended his arc by killing both a LG god and a NE one, then having his little pack of undead/monsters rip him apart for becoming effectively a god.
TL;DR The guy was weird, played weird, but was a blast to be around and demonstrated how CE could work masterfully.

Most fun I had was with LE

Aligments are horrible shit. Seriously, the only point I see in those are restrictions on your character's behavior.
I pick CN most of the time, because it offers greater sway in terms of motivation, yet it still feels like I'm working around some handicap.

I love those npcs, personally.

None. Alignment is shit.

NE villains are the best because they aren't faggy or stupid, they're just gonna kill ya

>dgelords whowant the freedom to kill people while still having the backing of the king.

Sooo...real life?

Lawful good necromancer, that seek knowledge of death and die at the end to full fill it

I personally like lawful or neutral good, or lawful neutral. Lawful neutral lately has been what I'm leaning towards.

I like the concept of an unwavering faithful vassal who sticks with their master to the end, and sometimes even beyond that. It can be a fun character to play as.

i like lawful evil, theres a wide variety of functional characters you can play depending on what aspect you focus on

Not a fan of DnD alignment systems. The homebrew system my group uses uses attitude as a loose guideline, which I best describe as a sliding scale between "a pretty swell dude" and "kind of a dick".

Personally, I tend more towards heroic and giving characters, if only to play a foil to the rest of my group who tends towards selfish dicks.

Most interesting characters don't need alignment, period!

i agree but that wasnt my question

Machiavellian Mercantile

What's so bad about that?