The Alignment Issue
Everyone who agrees with you is right and everybody else is wrong.

Alignment definitions are frequently contested by players, gamemasters, and armies of frothing controversy addicts on social media, plunging discussions about what it means to be lawful into chaos. There are few aspects of an RPG that are approached as subjectively. But that’s to be expected. It’s about beliefs, and we all bring our own baggage to that debate. Unfortunately, with a similar result to that of a bag of holding encountering a portable hole.

Alignment doesn’t just deal with a character’s social and political beliefs. It deals with personal beliefs, discipline and self-control. A character’s actions may be contradictory to their beliefs, especially when things get personal. Even a devout cleric can sin. Contrary traits can balance each other out, or some behaviors may prove more dominant or defining. Characters’ personalities are not static; they are molded by experiences, with mood swings being triggered accordingly by events. An alignment choice can be a complex tangle of traits tugging a character in different directions. You can value freedom but respect the law. You can be a loner but still understand the value of community. You can believe strongly in the law and strive to do good for others, but still suffer from a lack of self-discipline and a quick temper.

Alignment can also be charted and tracked within each definition. ‘Lawful Good’ could mean strongly lawful tending toward good, or vice versa. It could be an equal measure of each, but tending strongly toward neutrality. Or it could mean an absolute saint.

A character’s age can also influence their alignment. A teenager is likely to value spontaneity, freedom to travel, and individuality. But the same character surviving to middle age is more likely to be concerned with the responsibilities of community, owning land or running a guild, safeguarding family, wealth, and holdings. In these cases, some long-term shifts from chaotic to lawful should be anticipated.

Dominant regional, racial and faction alignments can influence a campaign world, but they tend to be guidelines with plenty of atypical individuals within each. Even religions can have followers with widely varying approaches to their ethos. Clerics to the same neutral good deity could be lawful templars defending the realm, good healers, or chaotic missionaries driven by wanderlust.

If you are concerned that a player character is not adhering to their alignment, remind them what they chose, and gently ask them to justify their character’s actions. They may have a plausible argument or a perspective that you hadn’t considered. If they don’t, then warn them that they risk an alignment shift. Explain why you consider their character’s behavior to be strongly or consistently contrary to their chosen alignment, and give them several more chances to mend their murderhobo ways before sending them directly to chaotic evil without passing the inn and collecting two hundred gold coins.