Just a couple things to offer people as a long-time DM and a huge fan of the Color Pie. 1.) Alignment is descriptive, NOT prescriptive. So when someone makes their character I tell them to put whatever they want as their alignment, but during the game, I will change that alignment based on their actions (I still use older spells and rules in my games so your alignment matters for some spells, magic items, and planar travel. ) 2.) When using the Color Pie I highly recommend going for 3 colors for your characters (as a DM NPCs can be 1 or 2 if they are not very important). The reason is that a real human will have elements of all 5 colors in them, there is no person that acts just one way, so 1 color is too few. In the same vein, 4 colors just means that there is one way that you aren't. Which is equally over-simplistic. That leaves 2 or 3. And the reason I prefer 3 to 2 is that with 3 you are forced to have conflict built into your character. Magic colors have Enemies and Allies, so the colors which are allies fit together with little or no strife. But with 3 you are guaranteed at least one enemy pair which should indicate a form of internal struggle in a character. For those who don't play magic, or don't remember the Enemy/Ally pairs (W=White, U=Blue, B=Black, R=Red, G=Green): Allies: WU UB BR RG GW Enemies: WB- Morality in conflict with amorality UR- Inaction in conflict with action BG- Death in conflict with life RW- Chaos in conflict with Law GU- Nature in conflict with Progress
Yup on that first point... Volo's Guide to Monsters states that Tabaxi tend to have chaotic alignments. But as I spent more time with my Tabaxi character he just stopped feeling chaotic to me... So I changed him from Chaotic Good to Neutral Good
To the second point - not really? Mono-color characters aren't less complex, they have conflicts that characters with more colors don't. Mono-green doesn't quite understand civilization and society and hates black characters who exploit nature. Green-Black-White character understands society as a kin circle and is okay with nature exploitation because that's a natural thing to do, parasites exist after all. That's more nuanced traits, but not more of them. Mono-color characters feel like they less mature and have yet to come to terms with the world, but that's an interesting character to play.
@@Jay-nh6um Relatively so, yeah. You can still just about play anything, in an early rotated standard, being Zendikar to Forgotten Realms. If we're talking full 8 set standard you're not looking at too much diversity beyond Monored, White Weenie, and the hell that is 3C Yorion
Wow perfect timing, I have started using the color pie as a replacement for the Alignment system since my first campaign returning to DnD and now working on a Ravnica campaign.
@@DiceTry For sure, one advice I can give that for anything related to good and evil in DnD, you can replace with colors. For example, there is Protection from Good and Evil which can be replaced with Protection from Color which you can choose a color and have advantage from harmful effects from characters of that color.
Yeah it would take some playing around with the established rules etc but I think there is something there that can work or keep the alignment chart and just use it as a secondary definition for your pc
I’d use both, colour pie for personality, and alignment chart for well, moral alignment and intentions. Neither is really a substitute for the other, but the colour pie just lets you define how your character will act better to your dm and other players.
@@Ghorda9 I like that approach since outside perspectives can more clearly define things like “that damnable Wizard outside of town just burnt down half the forest again!” While the Wizard sees nothing wrong with his actions since he’s trying to perfect his fire elemental spells for personal benefit. To the Wizard what he’s doing is pragmatic to train while to everyone else it is an evil act due to the disregard for nature, the ecosystem, and the safety of the nearby town. The Wizard would see his black alignment as him just being pragmatic but the citizenry rightfully see his evil actions.
Dovin isnt evil, he's lawful neutral he really care good or evil merely perfect law and order. Let's be real Lilli is not really monoblack at this point, that ship sailed when she sacrificed herself to stop bolas an antithetical act of black. And prior to that,while she was rightfully monoblack, she was evil willing to trick, use and betray whoever in a search for more power.
@@saddas1307 Agreed. At this point Liliana is more has some pieces of white within her, so she is incling towards Orzhov, just like how Jace also got some hints of red after what happened to him in Ixalan. And that's exactly why the MTG colors are much cooler: Characters can evolve in ways beyond "Good/Evil" and "Lawful/Chaotic". Within Orzhov you can have mostly evil people like Sorin, but at the same time good ones like Kaya. And this is simply one example among many.
@@saddas1307 I have always been curious whether Liliana has gotten shades of Blue, especially given her dealings with Jace and the fact that she became a professor of all things.
There is also another handy MtG color alignment guide on DMs Guild, including multicolor alignments and even extensive spell lists of which spells fit most closely to which colors if you want to select your magic in a way that reflects their alignment. It's called Spectrum of Magic.
I mean no offense with what I'm going to say. I feel like a decent number of people are missing the point of the alignment chart. It isn't meant to explain internal character motivation. Its purpose is to declare where a character's actions place them in the universal morality of the game setting where there is absolute good and absolute evil, and there are literal cosmic armies waging wars on either side of the conflict. Not to mention the conflict between law and chaos. The alignment chart is an external view of a character's actions, the color pie is a window into their internal motivations.
I think that the color pie very much helps with personality traits, ideals, and flaws, the things that define how a character would act more than their morals would, but it really can't replace alignment because the color pie, as presented in the video, has next to nothing to do with morals.
Agreed, in DnD alignment isn't a description of your character but of what your character works with and is aligned with. It helps determine where your character ends up upon death. Lawful Evil characters are prone to making deals with devils and having thier souls dragged down to fight in the 9 hells. Chaotic Evil characters end up fighting for dominance in a never ending rat race. Chaotic Good characters fight for freedom and the wild and Lawful Good characters fight to uphold order and civilisation, and thier respective planes represent what they fight for. Alignment is more about a place in the dnd universe than about personality.
Yeah I agree both would work to further define your character but I do think the color pie should come first as a basis, then add to it with the alignment chart.
Let me tell you: D&D alignments represents how White you are: both sides are key components of White. You can break down other colors this way and boom, you get a chunky 10-axis alignment radar chart.
Alignment is meant to be used in conjunction with personality, ideals, bonds, and flaws. If you do (which you should) you get the same effect as the colour pie.
The flavor texts on the bridge cycle in MH2 is perfect for 2 color DnD characters. The statements are broad yet give goals and how to achieve them. The path to ___ is forged in ___ gives a character great direction
A long time ago I ran into an alignment chart for the colors of magic and I wasn't entirely satisfied with it, but I wasn't sure why until recently. You're absolutely right, no color is good or evil or as two dimensional as the alignment chart makes morality. It was missing the dynamic nature of the color pie, and that was why it was so dissatisfying. Any of the colors or color pairings could define themselves as good and their enemies as evil, resulting in different variations of the alignment chart based on the perspective of the one that is labeled "the good one". The fact that it's only a matter of perspective is more realistic and sensible. Nobody seeks to be evil or defines themselves as evil, people are seen as evil from the perspective of others who disagree with the goals or methods of that person Great video btw. I'll have to watch this with a friend of mine who plays DnD and ask them what they think of it too
I am LOVING this concept! It really helps me flesh out "the WHY?!" that I usually struggle with. I keep finding myself drawn to "Blue" with "White & Black". Not so much red, and never green. Now I can take that concept to see what my types of classes would LOOK like
I thought this for a really long time, glad to see some make a video on it. The only problem is the existence of the outer planes as well as the few things that mechanically care about alignment.
Yeah, if you're playing in the default wheel of planes multiverse, the cosmology does require having a feel for the traditional alignments, so I wouldn't ditch it entirely I were playing an actual MTG setting. But both is good. I like both.
@@marlonyo this is what basically 4e did. Astra Sea contains Gods in general, and the nine hells. Elemental Chaos contains elemental stuff, including evil, and also I think the Abyss and demons, IIRC. Shadowfell exists as a general dead processing area, and the fey hang in the Feywild.
I’ve been doing this since I started playing DnD because I hate the alignment chart and always build characters with the color pie because it makes so much more sense to me.
I've already been planning on doing this for future games. I HATE the alignment chart because I think the way it directs games is not good, even though it's general idea isn't THAT bad. MTG's Color Pie just seems like an amazing tool for building a blueprint of a character, compared to the alignment chart.
keep in mind the alignment chart is a relic from when alignment actually really really mattered, your alignment wasn't necessarily the sum of your character by itself, it was the universal view of your character and it directly effected how things interacted with your character, after all there were abilities that specifically worked against creatures based on alignment such as paladins Smite Evil as well as Detect Good, Detect Evil, Detect Law, Detect Chaos, Protection from Good etc, etc etc. sadly the price of this was the stiff argument filled alignment chart that meant most plays tried to be something neutral so they could have a wider range of roll play options.
0:49 Are you sure about that? Seems like the stereotypical D&d just makes constantly murder hobos who are the basic shells of their classes to act like. XD
@@DiceTry Well at least for the ones who get popular with their D&d podcast shows like Adventure Zone and such. Bards man, they all act like one "Seduce Everything" trope. XD
@@MRDLT00 I mean, I have a player who is a member of a traveling circus, so not all of them. Not pictured: our table is not fond of oversexualization, as both of the DMs(I'm one of them) don't really know how to write a romance beyond "you get married" and both of us particularly hate the horny bard trope because it degrades a character so much it makes the CG half orc barbarian look beyond nuanced by comparison.
I plan on bringing this to my table actually. Really cool concept, and I look forward to seeing more from this channel. Doing a deep dive and am currently building out a little presentation for how to explain all this to my friends.
this was very interesting however i have to ask could you make a video showing us an example of how to do this your explanation was well done but an example might help out tremendously for anyone still struggling after this video.
I did think of making some sample characters to show in the video, but I wanted to keep the video consise. Perhaps that's a good idea for an article for my website
Thanks for this, I'm attempting to categorize all the GURPS spells and magic into the color pie so I can run and MTG game and your videos are being pretty helpful
Here's how I see the colour wheel in a manner based on the lands each colour uses: White/Plains: It takes many blades of grass to make a field. Blue/Islands: An island is not isolated for isolation sake, rather it is a part of the continent that chooses to explore further into the unknown. Black: To live in places that reek of death is to live with predators. To live with predators, one must become the apex. Red/Mountains: To have passion is to stand out. Though a mountain is sturdy in its form, those who try to cross over it may be met by loose rocks and falling boulders. Green/Forest: Though a sturdy tree can be made into a home for many creatures, a forest of sturdy trees can become a fortress for an army.
Your point at the beginning is why wotc tried to do away with it almost entirely in 4e, and why they introduced the character traits in 5e with bonds, beliefs, ideals, and flaws. They realized characters were and should be much more nuanced than some so gular alignment, even if the 9 alignment chart is pretty fun. I hope one d&d/6e moves even further away from the 9-alignment chart, but at the very least keeps the idea of it around (as the great wheel cosmology makes for some really fun and interesting planes based off the alignments). Also, do you have a source for that artwork at the very end? I adore it and would like to save it for some character and worldbuilding inspiration
I love this. The alignment chart always feels like it makes decisions for you. I love that the color pie gives you a way to JUSTIFY a decisions your character makes rather than just saying "you can't do that because you aren't evil"
My GM implemented this and I have to say after playing her game I'm hooked. I'm certainly gonna use it in my game, but only after learning about the color pie more and writing a doc to explain it to my players who don't play MTG.
I love the angle of your channel so much. I'm definitely gonna be thinking about colour philosophy for my next character sheet, as well watching the rest of your videos
My buddies and I are trying to make a DnD & MtG crossover with focus on the tabletop RPG aspect, and this video definitely gave me some insight on how to do it especially with regards to classes. Thank you so much! EDIT: For clarification: we are trying to use actual magic cards such as equipment or common instant and Sorcery spells as ways of going through the game, not an actual dnd sheet. Your spells would be the colors of your class and the amount of mana available is based off your level, as examples
My group had just started discussing this very topic when all of a sudden we started seeing tiktoks and TH-cam videos also recommending it! Who knows, with all the cross-over content, maybe we might see a change in how alignment is handled
@cyotee doge maybe that's so. All I know is I've been really enjoying what WOTC has been putting out lately, and I plan to continue to enjoy it for a long time!
I myself prefer alignment, its loose enough that it feels more like a guideline. This kind of overspecifying makes me feel like my char cant step out of its zone one bit.
I feel the opposite. When myself and my group were using the alignment chart, it was very restrictive, with people telling each other “no your character wouldn’t do that, because you’re x alignment” or “your character is evil now, because you did that one thing”. It ended up being a trap - restricting choices our choices and self-expression. Worse, it barely helped guide what our characters would do in nuanced situations. Good and evil sometimes don’t mean anything, more of a window dressing than anything of substance. I now find thinking about what motivates a character far more useful than thinking about the alignment grid. Is a character motivated by devotion to a person or idea, or a quest to find knowledge, or to prove themselves, or survival - that sort of thing. It makes it very easy to intuit what a character would do in different situations. I just find it much more useful than the alignment system, and less restrictive. But that won’t be the case for everyone, and it’s totally valid for you to prefer alignment. I just find it interesting that we have totally opposite experiences with alignment 🙂
I actually think additional characterization schemes add to your pool of character choices. Let's say you got Lawful Good fighter with a background of a humble farmer who picked up the sword as war came to his doorstep. Let's also say we assign him mono Green for later. Many would argue that to be Lawful Good would extremely limit his pool of actions, as whatever he would do it would have to be both Lawful and Good. another way to look at it would be that whenever confronted with a problem he could ask himself: to be Lawful or to be Good, to strive for both or to attain neither. thus the two categories form 4 combinations. If we add Green now he could ask himself: should I do the Green Lawful thing or rather the Good? would the Green option help or should i do the Lawful thing? etc. Basically the more systems you have, the more systems you can consult for options and methods. it doesn't limit, it's just another way to divy up the world into understandable chunks.
@@liamcullen3035 This happened to me with 2 different groups in regards to alignment! It got to the point where I just declared my characters neutral since that is the most flexible alignment. I thought I was playing a fantasy game not a "You're good so you cant help your rogue steal the tome your group needs". B.S. The other time was when my cleric was going to hold a goblin hostage- all of a sudden I was an evil cleric.
OMG this is exactly what I've been looking for!!! I've spent years trying to design and implement a more comprehensive alignment system for my games because off the bat I realized that the nine alignments just didn't fit everything. I spent a long time and finally settled on a 25 alignment system because that was the best I could do within the limits of, good, evil, law, and chaos. It honestly never occurred to me to use anything else! It's going to take some massive reworking of my homebrews but I'm definitely going to do more research and implement this system. Although it is glaringly apparent to me that this system still needs to be constrained within the aspects of Good and evil. Off the top of my head I'm going to say the demons would, for the most part, be Er/b (Evil red/black) whereas devils would most likely be Eb/b (Evil blue/black). My God the possibilities! I have so much work to do now, thank you!!!
It is such a shame that only 100k people have seen this. I think this is a beautiful idea for a role-play system. I know so many people who are newer or inexperienced with the hobby. They typically get confused when it comes to acting out there character because they don't feel their PC falls within a 2-dimensional alignment system. The color pie even goes a step further than character and aids in the personality aspects of roleplay as well. The whole thing makes roleplay so fluent
For me I find three colours to be the best option as it helps develop a three dimensional character (pun not intended) Cause from watching your other videos, we see three pillars of who they are, then, we have two vacuums of what they're not Creating the ideals, bonds and flaws players are "supposed" to put on their sheets essentially
This is one of the best advices I have found on YT about DnD, both the video and the idea is spot on but has a small flaw. For someone who did play or knows about MTG a bit the understanding of "colors" seems very natural but for more casual or non MTG people the nuances of those colors and combinations can seem rather hard to grasp. Edit: Also colors have a more defined meaning to them, many characters are often a bit of all. A good of society can be motivated by personal gain from better society, a cold professional maybe struggling with emotions, only putting a mask when situation requires it. Also I am 50/50 on the idea of letting a color define actions rather the other way around. Player knows (or at least should) how the character should act and the alignment only describes it. When I make evil character I don't go, oh I am color black so I will take every opportunity to gain something over others. Sometimes I will sometimes I won't. Freedom to act (as long as it isn't completely absurd) seems more instinctive then looking at colors and using it as a go to action chart. Tho it may greatly help with roleplaying as it is true that clearly cut motivation makes you more focused on what you want and allow to rp smoothly towards that goal.
It's a very interesting idea. Especially since I always thought alignments were useless, but I thing the color pie will work better if you use hybrid color instead of pure color. Not only it gives more options, but I notice that the color elements are not mutually eclusive enough to just put a character in just one color.
Thanks Dicetry. I've been tinkering on how to bring the color pie to DnD in a meaningful way for weeks including replacing the alignment system and you beat me in an 11 minute video
Well I've been pondering this topic for a while. I just hope it gives you a bit of inspiration for your next campaign, be sure to let me know how it goes.
I really like the color first method. Need to try it sometime. I mostly got caught up on creating mechanics and deciding how much they should influence the game. I had decided to replace feats with color aligned feats that you choose every 4 levels according to your alignment.
This is a splendiferous idea. I'm a longtime fan & student of the Color Pie, not just in MtG but in using it IRL, and I strongly agree with your premise & with the efficacy of the Color Pie Philosophy in guiding character design & play.
Love this idea! I didn't know almost anything about Color Pie beforehand, but this video singlehandedly convinced me that it's a great tool for characterization. Not sure if it can replace Alignment, as others said, it has a slightly different purpose, but still, it's a great additional tool. I kinda want developers to try to implement something like this in future editions of D&D. It's not like they can't - both MTG and D&D belong to the same company, they already did plenty of crossovers between them.
I've been a D&D player for about a year (and DM for a few months) and I have never used the alignment matrix as more than a vague guideline. I encourage my own players to ignore it entirely. Instead, just think "What Would Your Character Do (based on their prior experiences and general attitude)?". You can always rationalize ex-post whether an action was Lawful Evil or whatever, but don't think about it in the moment.
I've been testing this out primarily as a DM and have found a way to try and use the color pie and the alignment chart hand in hand and found a way to use this for characters and settings. Mind you this is a very work in progress sort of build. So the color wheel I like to use for the general setting or background. For example a church may generally have a white or a white/black setting. Where they'd follow a moral system based on the small society they've formed. The one to two main colors of this society are the strongest morals for them and will be the foundation for other things. If it's a minor character you use those two colors and could give an alignment based off the DnD chart to base small quirks. If this is just a random encounter then keep them blank as they're probably going to be dead in the next hour or so and won't be sticking around. For any major characters I like to use the 1D6 method to give them a 3rd color to stand out. If it lands on one of the two previously chosen colors you can make them devoted to that moral or reroll. If it lands on a new color find a way to tie into the previous. (Ex. In a white/black society someone with blue mixed in may try and bend rules to get their way or may be a ruler of some form). Which while this could easily fall into an alignment it easily gives more to work with and personally helps when you need to crank out a dozen or so NPCs in preperation for certain situations.
I appreciate the idea, thought I find it almost more limiting than the alignment system so I don't think I will use it for a campaign that soon. I might try it for a oneshot tho.
Just want to say this video and the one on strixhaven made me completly buy into the mtg color pie as a new way to make and analyzise characters. I am spreading this new gospel to all my fellow players.
The thing with changing the alignment chart in D&D is, it's reflected by more than just roleplaying. So for this to work properly, you'll have to reinvent all of your outer Planes, and restructure several spells and items that are alignment-specific.
You have roughly the corners and center of the alignment chart to map to, and two colourcombos to fill out the rest. White is lawful good, red is chaotic good, blue is lawful evil, black is chaotic evil, green is true neutral. But I mean if you are using the planescape setting, you arw also using its mythology, so you just swallowed the alignment chart pill, and roll with its downsides. But you are not required by law to run DnD in Planescape.
I use this method for creating elder scrolls characters for skyrim and oblivion, and I really feel like you should take a look at the elder scrolls lore and veiw it through the lense of the color pie, you'll soon find an abundance of things to contemplate and gauge with the color pie.
This should work really well with the "Moral Intentions" Variant rule from the Pathfinder 2e Gamemastery Guide! With this rule, You replace Alignment with (typically 3) Statements about the Character's Intentions. (I will avenge my family, I will protect the natural world; I will achieve great wealth.). And Alignment based Damage, that usually would only affect Creatures of the opposite Alignment, harms anyone/thing that oppose whatever Intention was channeled for the effect that caused the Damage. Simply replacing the free form statements with the Colors could be a great way to use them in game.
On the flip side, the alignment chart can be treated as vague guide for the character, rather than a setting the character's drive in stone, leaving more of the character up to be determined in the game.
While mtg color is great for charcter design no question, the alignment chart is basically baked into dnd, you would have to homebrew your way out of it. I think it still has it's uses in character design in ways the color won't completely cover. Color would be better at developing characters' philosophies. Sure you can get your nihilisticish rouge to be described as Red/Black likely covering it as Chaotic Evil, but it can be Chaotic Good, or if you really push the limits of character design, get a Lawful one. Dnd alignment gets too much hate because of toxic conversations and misunderstanding of the chart. It ultimately just asks/answers two questions is your character good/evil and is your character driven by emotions/principals (whether they be literal law or some code). The colors can imply these, but not answer. Sure a pure Red is likely chaotic, but it could also be some libertarian using emotion as a fuel making them red while they actually are very principle driven.
There is not much in 5e that uses alignment, the only things I can think of are a couple magic items and that's about it. As for earlier editions, all you need to do to fix that is use both.
You're trying to fit the color pie into alignment and that's your first problem. The concept of good and evil is coherently vague and is up to interpretation, and each color has the ability to be both. I would describe that libertarian as a white/red character. He wants peace and order but knows that action must take place in order for that to happen. That tells you much more about his character then describing him as simply Lawful. The question, is he good or is he evil? It could be taken both ways. He could be an evil tyrant trying to take over the city or someone who is just passionate about protecting people. I think that using both in tandem is the best way to do things, using the color pie as a motivational core of a character and using alignment more as a societal barometer. My newest character I would describe as a red/white, lawful neutral character. He's passionate about protecting others cause he was helpless in the past and will jump in to protect someone who can't protect themselves, regardless of knowing their standings. He holds himself to the code that those who can't protect themselves must be protected. He would go out and kill a red dragon for terrorizing a village but would spare the youngling dragon and actively protect it and let it escape. Now lets talk about another lawful neutral character, but this one I would describe as a Green/Blue. He looks to better himself in what ways he can while also having a conviction to nature and upholding it's equilibrium. He would just as soon intervene if some village was trying to eradicate owl bears for eating their cattle as he would an orc army slash and burning the forest. These two characters are vastly different even though they share the same lawful neutral alignment.
This sounds like someone trying to fix something that isn't broken. Alignment is NOT personality. It's about what your character wants to do (Good vs Evil) and how they want to achieve it (Law vs Chaos). It has nothing to do with whether a character is calculating, rash, an optimist, a pessimist, self-centered, emotional, or any of those things you list as traits for each color. A Lawful Good paladin can be rash, a Chaotic Evil barbarian can be calculating, and a Neutral druid can be selfish.
But would a Lawful Good Paladin be ok with breaking into a mansion to steal an item the party needs to save a PC or a town? There are too many gray areas, in my opinion, that most PC's will be Neutral/Evil for character flexibility.
Just adding my copper piece to the pile: I like to play with alignment as an actual mechanic for these reasons. 1) The D&D world is one where good and evil actually exist as energies generated by the very fabric of the two outermost AND most destructive planes, ie positive and negative energy. This energy is used to power the magic within spells and items, and even people. Much of this magical energy is even under the conscious control of powerful otherworld entities. So as I like to see it both mechanically and narratively alignment can at least mean that certain spells and magic items wont work for you, or will. Think Excalibur, or wands in Harry Potter, or the Marauders Map 2) to me alignment is like one of the stats which defines your character, and brings with it limits, trade offs and opportunities. I think alignment even informs skills and feats. I am always reinded of one of the Three Musketeers movies where they found one of them and he was the town drunk who would alwas get his ass kicked in bar fights and only looked out for himself, i.e. was acting chaotic neutral, then when he renewed his vows and acted within his alignment of lawful good he went back to the bar and trounced everyboyd without breaking a sweat. 3) Not to mention that in the D&D world call em what you will gods, devils, demons and all manner of powerful entities literally watch over and meddle in huan affairs ALLTHETIME. Sure your character can make any moral choice they want but don't be surprised when a couple of planetars, or a pack of hell hounds show up. Sure you can violate your alignment or class restrictions, but dont be surprised when a bunch of modron's show up beat you up and take all your stuff because your upsettng the balance.
I've used the color pie for bit of inspiration specifically for the macguffin the players are trying to find five gems that act as keys for a great treasure found in places that represented the worst aspects of the colors I.E a corrupt theocracy for white, a classic gothic kingdom for black etc. I'm not a magic player myself but I've found the lore and concepts interesting.
I think people misinterpret the alignment system to be about personality and that is the major issue held with the system. Alignment is not about personality, it's not necessarily even about morality, it is about ideology and beliefs. Let me break it down a bit. A Good character is not necessarily a moral character, however it does mean they align themselves with an ideology or philosophy that values life. Inversely, Evil is one that does not value life, but that doesn't necessarily make them morally wrong. An Evil character should be able to still have attachments and capable of heroics just as any other. An Evil person can similar be nihilistic or caught in existentialism as their primary philosophy. Law and Chaos are not about the unfettered concepts of control and random shit. It's about Order, Civilization, and the value of society over the natural world and freedom of self. You can compare the ideas of Order and Chaos in a political sense, with Socialism as an ideology preferring a united society, with something like Anarchism or Libertarianism being about giving the individual more say in matters that include them. Those ideological stances do not define a personality, it is a representation however of what passion drives the character and what they believe in.
@@dylanmorris5352 Yes, and I know that all of their actions were not evil. If you think hitler has never done a good act in his life, you’re foolish. To be completely evil it means you will never do something good and have never done something good.
@@SikoBaby enter Saddam Hussein,who made a hobby off driving by weddings and forcing himself upon newly-wed women for the thrill of it Or Ted Bundy,who literally only killed people because it felt good People sometimes are evil for the sake of evil
@@lukelblitz3627 So do you think they’ve never performed a single act of kindness in their entire life? They made it through this world, solely by performing evil deeds? Traits are not static, people grow and shrink. Happy people weren’t happy their entire lives. Good people are not good their entire lives. Tall people were not tall their entire lives. It’s all on perspective, you can’t accurately judge Ted Bundy that’s a person you don’t even know them but if you were really able to dig into their lives I bet you could find at least one person that would say someone you say is “evil for the sake of evil” was a good person. Ted Bundy had a wife and a child, that loved him.
Welcome to the sultai clan. Here we use poison and dark magic to kill and reanimate our enemies. Use the power of nature to grow in raw strength and use our knowledge of the arcane to out maneuver or counter our enemies spells.
Or welcome to the golgari swarm if it's black and green. They are the farmers of ravnica who use corpses as fertilizer and as minions to help in the physical labor aspects of the job. They also are friends with the gorgons of the world for whatever reason...
Black: he made a pact with a Green Hag who taught him all about obtaining power through trickery and deceit Green: He grew up in the swamps and values nature (including the dark, gross, and smelly parts) Blue: He wants to know more and more about Magic and the world he was sheltered from.
Cool! My Archfey Warlock player would be closer to Blue with some Green. She focuses on enchantment and mind control skills, but is still tied with nature stuff
That's the sort of sentiment I've been hearing. It's and idea that seems to have been floating around for a while. I've even gotten comments from people telling me they use it in their games already. I think it's paring that really resonates with people.
Mardu Hoooooorde! I was kind of thinking I couldn't figure out how to apply this but then realized it would be a good way for me to define the extreme ends of their personalities. I have a tendency to make kind of grounded and reserved characters, so having something that lets me say, "Right, THIS is what they're like at their most extreme/stressed/desperate," might give me a better box to work within. HMmmmm! Ideas!
We're about to finish a long campaign and start a new one, so I analyzed my PC to make sure the new one was different even though they partially shared class (druid multiclass vs druid). My current PC is very white and blue, so I though of the color pie as I made my next character very black-red-green.
Very goo video about a topic I am very passionate about. I would add in a few points from my color pie understanding. You keep saying that the color pie defines "personality" but I think it actually defines "motivation" more. Why is your character adventuring? What drives their decisions? On the other hand, alignment is more about how a character's actions are judged. Which is why I think combing alignment and color pie might be a little counter-intuitive. The color White would see the alignment chart as a very good system for judging others while the color Black would see the alignment chart as a means to manipulate and control people as well as shaming people for doing what is best for them. One last important thing that I am surprised was not touched upon in the video which I think is especially good for introducing the color pie to people is the enemy color conflicts. Even if you don't plan to use the color pie straight-up directly I would still suggest asking the players how their character feels about each of these 5 conflicts and which side they lean towards. This is how I phrased it for my recent campaign. Community VS Individualism Intellect VS Impulse Choice VS Destiny Freedom VS Security Nature VS Nurture
If you want to learn more about the color pie then check out these playlists 3 Color Combinations --> th-cam.com/play/PLYRIFj7E0RZGLmR578Vcb3YucMqLYw7gF.html 2 Color Combinations --> th-cam.com/video/NXq5B_dvNOI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=jSvTwh4GD-mLxbG0 Mono Color --> th-cam.com/play/PLYRIFj7E0RZG27x73WXd2tcuBUk9BPUJB.html --> th-cam.com/play/PLYRIFj7E0RZHDBBDRwHpxPwR4V_8B5tWf.html
That chart they had for alignments with the color pie, I think it's because they try to assign good or evil when they should more so asign whether or not it is lawful or chaotic. White should represent anything that is lawful, Red should be chaotic, I think Black should be rebel...blue or green I can't decide which one should be neutral and which one should be social, any thoughts
Nice try Hasbro, but I gotta draw the line somewhere. Besides just use the Myers abs Briggs 16 personality types, more granular and also open to stepping out of type without breaking the whole paradigm. The nine alignments and even the color pie are still straight jackets for most players.
For people who still want to try and merge the MTG color pie with the alignment chart, the appendix of Plane Shift: Ixalan has examples of how colors and combinations can fit into an alignment. Alternatively, you can take the traits of the colors as a point of reference for the personality, ideals, and so on. Link: media.wizards.com/2018/downloads/magic/plane-shift_ixalan.pdf
i love the idea to forgo the alignment table for the colorpie the possabilitis of it all look so dynamic. i was actually working on a Mtg Rpg with a similar aproach 5 players each choosing a color and any race that can be found with that color in the mirrodin block. since we all are pretty huge mtg nerds it looked like a lot of fun playing out they nouances that can be done with it. i started them out as memnarchs creations, an attempt to create artificial plainswalkers so he could harvest theyr sparks once they obtained the 5 beacons and assimilated them into sparks. then they would have a fight with him and escaped after stealing a prototype of the weatherlight to ravnica. in which they would now have the chance to add another color and join the matching guild. for the basic gameplay i would let them choose some spells for theyr color but they would all start out with a variation of shock ie black would deal 1 dmg and heal himself for 1 as well, white could use his variation to either deal 2 dmg to an enemy or heal and ally for 2 etc. it started out nicely but reallife threw a big ass monkeywrench in the gears of it all.
I've thought about fitting characters to color, but not the other way around. I also love the idea of replacing the alignment chart with the color pie. I'll definitely be implementing it next time I run a campaign. One other aspect of Magic that I think stands as an extension to this concept is the idea of "Center color". All the cards in Magic have a color that true to their core, but a few times throughout Magic's history, there have been some Planeswalkers and Legendary creatures (the PCs of Magic's "campaigns") who gained a color depending on the set or situation in which they find themselves. The green-aligned Nissa gained blue when she entered the trial of the god of knowledge Kefnet on Amonkhet and interacted with the god in dreams and visions. When the red-aligned Sarkhan was driven mad by the Elder Dragon Nicol Bolas' voice in his head, he gained black. And when the archangel Avacyn was being corrupted by the presence of the eldrazi horrror Emrakeul on Innistrad, she gained red - as did the Lithomancer Nahiri who brought Emrakeul to Innistrad in the first place. To put all of that into general D&D terms, you could always start a character in a single color or even a dual color only to add another color at certain story beats just like multi-classing or taking a feat. It's like adding personality depth or flavor on top of the mechanical. A roleplay level-up if you will.
"...with morals that don't fit in static boxes like good and evil, or lawful and chaotic." I always assumed that was why the neutrals existed on both axes. XD As a kid, I loved the system when I found it in Baldur's Gate. It was the first time in my life I realized lawful doesn't always mean good, and knowing that Lawful Evil exists in the world (because it absolutely DOES) is a good life lesson in general. As is the reality that there are shades of gray and that my own propensity is Neutral to Chaotic Good.
I like this, thinking about it I can see the color of some of the characters I had made. A noble who had his rule pulled out from underneath him is going to prove himself by bending manipulating the laws of the places he goes to suit himself: Black/White. A delinquent from a mages college with skills of a sword uses base level magic and skill with weapons to spite master wizards: Blue/Red. A normal guy who lives a peaceful life who's town was visited by a lesser fae noble who used magic to charm him and put a magical amulet on that won't come off that gives him power: White/Green or maybe mono-green.
To add onto this, I think colorless would also feasibily fit into this type of character creation/description. It could represent the characters affinity for artifacts and the artificial (MtG pun absolutely intended), or it could show their "otherworldly-ness." It would probably be uncommon to see it show up, and MtG players might be weirded out by seeing a colorless-color pairing, but I think it would be valuable when it did get used. I think the most prominent examples would be artificers and warlocks- specifically great old one warlocks. Another example could be be a Green-Colorless Archfey. They clearly care about nature, but their thought processes/emotions are so alien to the setting that it's almost incomprehensible. It'd be like describing a color that doesn't exist, so it's colorless to others, like asking a human what infrared light looks like.
Just in case it wasn't known, the last seven pages of the Plane Shift Ixalan PDF are a brief write up of this concept and tables of personality traits and ideals tied to each of the five colors of mana.
@@josh___something Boros emphasizes whatever they may believe are the intentions of the laws which has a high chance of deviating and potentially being chaotic
So I have a question for you, do you think it’s worth it to differentiate dual-colors from mono when assigning them to a character? For example, is a Blue, Black, Green character different enough from a Blue/Black, Green character to warrant notation? Are dual color philosophies different enough from mono color philosophies to be seen as separate entities? Or should we just go Commander rules and list all colors present, if you catch my drift.
List all colors present. I have many videos on the combinations but in essence every time a color is added it divides the whole. So yes a dual color is quite different from a mono. Hopefully that cleared things up I'm not 100% understanding the question. If anything watch my different videos on the colors and combination to really understand what the differences are
@@DiceTry I appreciate the reply! I guess to be more specific, my question is whether you think it’s possible for a character to fully embrace the philosophy of Green (without the touch of Blue or Black) while also believing in the philosophy of Blue/Black. In other words, if each color combination creates a separate choice than the individual mono colors, do you think a character can embrace a mono color (green) while also embracing a combo color (Black/blue)? Or do you think it’s inevitable that the black and blue would mingle with the green?
I think it's inevitable that some blue and black seep in. One thing I always say is that it's a matter of degrees. So perhaps it's just a touch of blue/black instead of an equal split
@@DiceTry Awesome. Thanks for the reply man. That was my thinking too, but I’d never pretend to have invested as much research time into this as you. Keep up the great work. I recently found your channel and it’s helping add a new level of definition to the characters, organizations and cultures of my settings. Thank you!
If you wanna go back to the source material, MTG, usually decks are labelled by all colors present but are almost never equally represented in the deck. Like a "Gruul"(Red-Green) deck that would have 80-20 split favoring green. Then there's also "splashing" for a color, where the deck is predominantly a single/two colors, with 1 or 2 cards that are the second/third. The naming convention around that would be something like "Mono-green splashing red" or plainly going with Gruul, still. tl:dr; There's precedent for both using all colors that describe a character, and for making the distinction.
While you make some good points, you don't make a good argument for replacing the alignment chart with the color pie; this is an argument for replacing the ideals, bonds, and flaws to make deeper characters with real motivations. As you said in the video, you can have the full range of alignments within each color and color combination. I like the idea, but it sounds like false equivalence. I'll still learn more about the colors, what they mean, and then try this method out though.
D&D Alignments represent two sides of White's core. Which means you can map out ten different alignments from the Pie like a radar chart. I think that's the better way to replace the traditional alignments. Also 3:44 - well said. Thank god. 6:30 - That's just one part of Blue. The other side is yearning to learn, change and improve - best exemplified by cards like Pongify.
I feel like the color pie breaks up the lawful-chaotic axis but leaves the good-evil axis untouched. Which is good, the lawful-chaotic axis was always confusing and jammed too many things into one package. From my understanding chaotic contained aspects of green, red, and black, and lawful contained white, blue, and some black. I'd be interesting to see a mtg color pie characterization of the outer planes as each one has a personality of its own and represents an aspect of law and chaos which might be better described by a color or two. Some examples could be Mechanus being very blue with aspects of green and white, The Abyss being red and black, and the Nine Hells being white and blue.
Green also is pretty lawful, with all its devotion to tradition. Generally, the only color that can't be lawful is Red, and even there can be exceptions depending on how exactly you defy "lawful". That's the problem with Alignment - it's super vague, has tons of interpretations, and actually brings very little to defy character. Color Pie is much more well-defined while still has a lot of room for possibilities even within a single color/combination, not to mention all 25 possible combinations.
7:42 "A green character is someone who wants to live a simple life." They take care not to trouble themselves with any enemies, like winning and losing. That would cause them to lose sleep at night.
I have two characters in two separate pathfinder games that I have been really getting into roleplaying lately and I'd like to try and put their color pie alignment here: My Armiger Galeo Cator (Armigers are an archetype of fighter that in the lore of Golarion are to Hellknights, a prestige class that focuses on order and combating chaotic aligned enemies, as squires are to knights) is White Black without question. He strongly believes in the Hellknight orders' mission to bring Order to the world at any means. He's had to set aside his queasiness about his companions (a half-orc cavalier who has tattooed symbols of all gods he's aware of, including a few demon lords, onto his body; a gnome Cleric of Cayden Caliean the Drunk god; and a ratfolk samurai) to ensure his quest will succeed. and then there's David Hastenborough, My Wizard on my DMs homebrew setting. He is Blue Red due to him being so extremely curious and outgoing when it comes to topics regarding magic. first session our party had to kill a Wyvern that escaped its captivity at the hands of the city leader's head alchemist when someone clearly sabotaged the cage it was held in. after killing the wyvern David got along with the Alchemist, Mulder, and were discussing research methodology to make sure such a situation never happened again. the sheer passion I put into the conversation makes David Hastenborough Blue red for sure.
I really like the idea of using the color pie chart for alignment, because it gives a ton of nuance to character motivation and action, and is not locked in a binary system, since each color represents both the positive and negative aspects of what they mean.
As a ravnica dnd DM, I fully endorse this method I wish they had included this as an alignment varriant rule in the book. Applied it to my NPCs. Helps differentiate generic Boros soldier #1 from generic Boros soldier #2 because soldier #1 is white/red while soldier #2 is mono red. Started making 3 colored characters for the 2 color guilds. The izzet tinkerer that is grixis colors takes his machinations further than other tinkerers of izzet
I did do a follow up article on my website showcasing some color first characters but perhaps I can think up a proper followup video. Bring up aspects I didn't cover
@@DiceTry I've read it, it's pretty good. Though it would be great to get a more in-depth thought process on how exactly you went from colors to characters, and not just character description.
I think you just answered your own question: A Neutral Evil character * Cares about themselves and their friends, but will hurt others to advance themselves and their friends * Is pragmatically ambivalent about whether or not to submit to others' authority, depending on the circumstance
Well that's because that's not Neutral Evil. Neutral characters have principles, but are not heavily tied by them. Evil vs. Good only really works on vague definitions or some religious like base. A good example of Neutral Evil is Darth Sidious. Sure he follows the Sith code and rule of two and all that, but he is not tied to them and will break them i.e. training Maul. Breaking Republic/Empire law doesn't make him Neutral as those are not his principles. As for his diagnosis of Evil, well no question there.
This is only half true. Malicious action is not uncommon. Isolated moments in almost any person's history has some moment where someone takes action explicitly to hurt someone or something else. Justification doesn't embody morality, it functions to allow action in spite of morality. Evil is absolutely evil, and is generally selfish and malicious. But it is entirely possible for a person to justify both maliciousness and selfishness in a moment because they believe that the result defines the morality, not the action itself. But ultimately, this is a defining human trait; no one is absolutely good or absolutely evil. Instead, people act in ways that are absolutely good or evil at any given moment because their motivation allows them to justify both. The failure of the alignment chart isn't in its accuracy, but in how people assume it is rigid; it's not. In this sense, the video makes sense; alignment describes the moral value of an action, while the color wheel informs the motivation that justifies a character taking a diversity of action that has a variance of morality, as in real life.
The main thing I use the color pie for is rangers. Favored Enemy is a good start but needs more. Favored Foe from Tasha's is lack luster at best. Hunters mark taking up the concentration slot causes rangers to ignore half their spell list. So rangers in my games get the deft explorer abilities from Tasha's, and they give up hunters mark, favored enemy and favored foe. In return they choose one of the colors, or colorless, at 1st, 6th, and 14th level. While in lands or when dealing with or tracking creatures tied to one of their favored colors they get advantage on all Int, Wis, and Dex checks and they deal 1d6 extra damage once or twice a turn when attacking creatures tied to their colors.
I don't play DnD, but I've heard about the alignment chart a lot, and whenever I see it, I think "man, this looks useless/oversimplified", because I'm used to the color pie. Basically, if I want to quickly summarize a character, for example to explain that character to another person, then using that character's colors will convey so much more information than using their alignment.
Rolled a green/red wood Elf ranger, someone who knew ultimately what his role was in life, and was fine with it. His name was Norric, and in his backstory, which I sort of left up to the dm, he was arrested for slaughtering the lord's son because the lord's son was a disgusting human who regularly invited young ladies back to his mansion. And Norric's daughter was his current eye candy. Party freed him from the dungeon after hearing his story, (main character died, Norric was my backup) and Norric became the father figure that two of the other characters needed to help them with their goals. He died in the final fight against one of Auril's cult leaders, but it was a fantastic campaign. There were times when I couldn't just stick Norric in the Lawful vs Chaotic/Good vs Evil frame, because there isn't a good way to slot a fatherly Folk Hero who kills tyrants, and secretly believes that he would make a great ruler himself into that nine square box.
"No one is completely good or evil."
My warlock, Killian the puppy slayer: I beg your pardon??
That sounds like a Mono-Black warlock that had a traumatic experience with dogs.
BUT IF YOU SLAY
Ohhhh say, something that would have grown into an issue
Like some hell hound that would devastate the country side
@@protolight1654 But what if I do it not out of the desire to save its potential victims, but just because I enjoy murdering puppies?
Think about all the legs you've protected from the involuntary humping.
@@tristanmitchell1242 Maybe with a side of Red.
Just a couple things to offer people as a long-time DM and a huge fan of the Color Pie.
1.) Alignment is descriptive, NOT prescriptive. So when someone makes their character I tell them to put whatever they want as their alignment, but during the game, I will change that alignment based on their actions (I still use older spells and rules in my games so your alignment matters for some spells, magic items, and planar travel. )
2.) When using the Color Pie I highly recommend going for 3 colors for your characters (as a DM NPCs can be 1 or 2 if they are not very important). The reason is that a real human will have elements of all 5 colors in them, there is no person that acts just one way, so 1 color is too few. In the same vein, 4 colors just means that there is one way that you aren't. Which is equally over-simplistic. That leaves 2 or 3. And the reason I prefer 3 to 2 is that with 3 you are forced to have conflict built into your character. Magic colors have Enemies and Allies, so the colors which are allies fit together with little or no strife. But with 3 you are guaranteed at least one enemy pair which should indicate a form of internal struggle in a character.
For those who don't play magic, or don't remember the Enemy/Ally pairs (W=White, U=Blue, B=Black, R=Red, G=Green):
Allies:
WU
UB
BR
RG
GW
Enemies:
WB- Morality in conflict with amorality
UR- Inaction in conflict with action
BG- Death in conflict with life
RW- Chaos in conflict with Law
GU- Nature in conflict with Progress
This is a great outline. Well said!
Great stuff, quick correction: UR is emotion versus logic.
BG is more accurately self-determination vs faith in destiny, and RW is more accurately freedom vs order, if Mark Rosewater is any authority.
Yup on that first point... Volo's Guide to Monsters states that Tabaxi tend to have chaotic alignments. But as I spent more time with my Tabaxi character he just stopped feeling chaotic to me... So I changed him from Chaotic Good to Neutral Good
To the second point - not really? Mono-color characters aren't less complex, they have conflicts that characters with more colors don't. Mono-green doesn't quite understand civilization and society and hates black characters who exploit nature. Green-Black-White character understands society as a kin circle and is okay with nature exploitation because that's a natural thing to do, parasites exist after all. That's more nuanced traits, but not more of them. Mono-color characters feel like they less mature and have yet to come to terms with the world, but that's an interesting character to play.
I so already do this to map out character's morals and motivations. Glad others see the color pie mapping into character building space!
Glad to hear people arealready using the color pie for their games I think it's such a great basis for characters
Well, considering Green gets everything I guess everyone should just be green to be safe.
Man, I remember back when green was the joke color.
Those were simpler times
Card draw? Check. Life gain? Check. Creatures? Check. Ramp? Check. Removal? Check. Yep, it's Green time.
@@DrNeonGaming Oh, but in the good ol' days... Sike, I'm surprised MTG is still fairly balanced and simple, unlike YuGiOh.
@@Jay-nh6um Relatively so, yeah. You can still just about play anything, in an early rotated standard, being Zendikar to Forgotten Realms. If we're talking full 8 set standard you're not looking at too much diversity beyond Monored, White Weenie, and the hell that is 3C Yorion
Wow perfect timing, I have started using the color pie as a replacement for the Alignment system since my first campaign returning to DnD and now working on a Ravnica campaign.
That's awesome! I do think if your playing mtg based campaigns it's the perfect time to use the color pie for your alignment
@@DiceTry For sure, one advice I can give that for anything related to good and evil in DnD, you can replace with colors.
For example, there is Protection from Good and Evil which can be replaced with Protection from Color which you can choose a color and have advantage from harmful effects from characters of that color.
Yeah it would take some playing around with the established rules etc but I think there is something there that can work or keep the alignment chart and just use it as a secondary definition for your pc
@@DiceTry That can work too as well, tho I cut the alignment chart entirely.
I’d use both, colour pie for personality, and alignment chart for well, moral alignment and intentions. Neither is really a substitute for the other, but the colour pie just lets you define how your character will act better to your dm and other players.
it might be better to use the colour pie for self reflection and the alignment chart as a way for other characters to view you.
@@Ghorda9 I like that approach since outside perspectives can more clearly define things like “that damnable Wizard outside of town just burnt down half the forest again!” While the Wizard sees nothing wrong with his actions since he’s trying to perfect his fire elemental spells for personal benefit. To the Wizard what he’s doing is pragmatic to train while to everyone else it is an evil act due to the disregard for nature, the ecosystem, and the safety of the nearby town. The Wizard would see his black alignment as him just being pragmatic but the citizenry rightfully see his evil actions.
Dovin baan: white blue-evil
Lilliana vess: monoblack-good…mostly
Closer to Mono-black neutral to good
Dovin isnt evil, he's lawful neutral he really care good or evil merely perfect law and order. Let's be real Lilli is not really monoblack at this point, that ship sailed when she sacrificed herself to stop bolas an antithetical act of black. And prior to that,while she was rightfully monoblack, she was evil willing to trick, use and betray whoever in a search for more power.
@@saddas1307 Agreed. At this point Liliana is more has some pieces of white within her, so she is incling towards Orzhov, just like how Jace also got some hints of red after what happened to him in Ixalan.
And that's exactly why the MTG colors are much cooler: Characters can evolve in ways beyond "Good/Evil" and "Lawful/Chaotic". Within Orzhov you can have mostly evil people like Sorin, but at the same time good ones like Kaya. And this is simply one example among many.
@@ionga maybe I missed something in his backstory, but I'm confused why you would label Sorin as "mostly evil". Could you explain?
@@saddas1307 I have always been curious whether Liliana has gotten shades of Blue, especially given her dealings with Jace and the fact that she became a professor of all things.
There is also another handy MtG color alignment guide on DMs Guild, including multicolor alignments and even extensive spell lists of which spells fit most closely to which colors if you want to select your magic in a way that reflects their alignment. It's called Spectrum of Magic.
I mean no offense with what I'm going to say.
I feel like a decent number of people are missing the point of the alignment chart. It isn't meant to explain internal character motivation. Its purpose is to declare where a character's actions place them in the universal morality of the game setting where there is absolute good and absolute evil, and there are literal cosmic armies waging wars on either side of the conflict. Not to mention the conflict between law and chaos.
The alignment chart is an external view of a character's actions, the color pie is a window into their internal motivations.
I think that the color pie very much helps with personality traits, ideals, and flaws, the things that define how a character would act more than their morals would, but it really can't replace alignment because the color pie, as presented in the video, has next to nothing to do with morals.
Sounds like both are useful
Agreed, in DnD alignment isn't a description of your character but of what your character works with and is aligned with. It helps determine where your character ends up upon death. Lawful Evil characters are prone to making deals with devils and having thier souls dragged down to fight in the 9 hells. Chaotic Evil characters end up fighting for dominance in a never ending rat race. Chaotic Good characters fight for freedom and the wild and Lawful Good characters fight to uphold order and civilisation, and thier respective planes represent what they fight for. Alignment is more about a place in the dnd universe than about personality.
True but no one uses it like that and the lack of concrete definition does nothing to help matters.
sounds like the alignment chart is setting dependent and can be tossed in the bin completely.
Why not both? More data points the merrier!
Yeah I agree both would work to further define your character but I do think the color pie should come first as a basis, then add to it with the alignment chart.
Let me tell you: D&D alignments represents how White you are: both sides are key components of White. You can break down other colors this way and boom, you get a chunky 10-axis alignment radar chart.
Let's build a 12 dimensional alignment chart then
Alignment is meant to be used in conjunction with personality, ideals, bonds, and flaws. If you do (which you should) you get the same effect as the colour pie.
I think the color pie is a bit better because it does bonds/flaws/ideals much quicker (plus it gives you a palette for character art ;])
To goblin lord: agreed
The flavor texts on the bridge cycle in MH2 is perfect for 2 color DnD characters. The statements are broad yet give goals and how to achieve them. The path to ___ is forged in ___ gives a character great direction
What's MH2?
A long time ago I ran into an alignment chart for the colors of magic and I wasn't entirely satisfied with it, but I wasn't sure why until recently. You're absolutely right, no color is good or evil or as two dimensional as the alignment chart makes morality. It was missing the dynamic nature of the color pie, and that was why it was so dissatisfying. Any of the colors or color pairings could define themselves as good and their enemies as evil, resulting in different variations of the alignment chart based on the perspective of the one that is labeled "the good one". The fact that it's only a matter of perspective is more realistic and sensible. Nobody seeks to be evil or defines themselves as evil, people are seen as evil from the perspective of others who disagree with the goals or methods of that person
Great video btw. I'll have to watch this with a friend of mine who plays DnD and ask them what they think of it too
Well said. Morality is perspective and each color really does think they know best
This is just lawful/chaotic with more steps
I am LOVING this concept!
It really helps me flesh out "the WHY?!" that I usually struggle with. I keep finding myself drawn to "Blue" with "White & Black". Not so much red, and never green. Now I can take that concept to see what my types of classes would LOOK like
Ive also thought about the two, not just in dnd, but in general
Everyone knows the dnd alignment chart, but the color pie is superior
I thought this for a really long time, glad to see some make a video on it. The only problem is the existence of the outer planes as well as the few things that mechanically care about alignment.
Yeah, if you're playing in the default wheel of planes multiverse, the cosmology does require having a feel for the traditional alignments, so I wouldn't ditch it entirely I were playing an actual MTG setting. But both is good. I like both.
Yyo could simplify it 16 was way too much any way celestia is an easy conversion to white, arborea to green , ect
@@marlonyo
this is what basically 4e did.
Astra Sea contains Gods in general, and the nine hells.
Elemental Chaos contains elemental stuff, including evil, and also I think the Abyss and demons, IIRC.
Shadowfell exists as a general dead processing area, and the fey hang in the Feywild.
I’ve been doing this since I started playing DnD because I hate the alignment chart and always build characters with the color pie because it makes so much more sense to me.
I've already been planning on doing this for future games. I HATE the alignment chart because I think the way it directs games is not good, even though it's general idea isn't THAT bad. MTG's Color Pie just seems like an amazing tool for building a blueprint of a character, compared to the alignment chart.
keep in mind the alignment chart is a relic from when alignment actually really really mattered, your alignment wasn't necessarily the sum of your character by itself, it was the universal view of your character and it directly effected how things interacted with your character, after all there were abilities that specifically worked against creatures based on alignment such as paladins Smite Evil as well as Detect Good, Detect Evil, Detect Law, Detect Chaos, Protection from Good etc, etc etc. sadly the price of this was the stiff argument filled alignment chart that meant most plays tried to be something neutral so they could have a wider range of roll play options.
0:49 Are you sure about that?
Seems like the stereotypical D&d just makes constantly murder hobos who are the basic shells of their classes to act like. XD
I actually laughed pretty hard at that. This is very true of some players
@@DiceTry Well at least for the ones who get popular with their D&d podcast shows like Adventure Zone and such.
Bards man, they all act like one "Seduce Everything" trope. XD
@@MRDLT00 I mean, I have a player who is a member of a traveling circus, so not all of them.
Not pictured: our table is not fond of oversexualization, as both of the DMs(I'm one of them) don't really know how to write a romance beyond "you get married" and both of us particularly hate the horny bard trope because it degrades a character so much it makes the CG half orc barbarian look beyond nuanced by comparison.
I think if you're a murder hobo and claim to be anything other than evil, you're not taking the roleplaying seriously.
@@KarmasAB123 I think that's what's happening a ton when these players play. It's less about the roleplaying, and more about the combat/lols. XD
I plan on bringing this to my table actually. Really cool concept, and I look forward to seeing more from this channel. Doing a deep dive and am currently building out a little presentation for how to explain all this to my friends.
It'll be a little tricky making alignment chart memes into colour pie memes, but I think it's possible with some effort
My lore bard would be Red-Blue Good.
He's motivated by his passion for learning and loyalty to friends and family.
this was very interesting however i have to ask could you make a video showing us an example of how to do this your explanation was well done but an example might help out tremendously for anyone still struggling after this video.
I did think of making some sample characters to show in the video, but I wanted to keep the video consise. Perhaps that's a good idea for an article for my website
@@DiceTryplease and thankyou
Thanks for this, I'm attempting to categorize all the GURPS spells and magic into the color pie so I can run and MTG game and your videos are being pretty helpful
Here's how I see the colour wheel in a manner based on the lands each colour uses:
White/Plains: It takes many blades of grass to make a field.
Blue/Islands: An island is not isolated for isolation sake, rather it is a part of the continent that chooses to explore further into the unknown.
Black: To live in places that reek of death is to live with predators. To live with predators, one must become the apex.
Red/Mountains: To have passion is to stand out. Though a mountain is sturdy in its form, those who try to cross over it may be met by loose rocks and falling boulders.
Green/Forest: Though a sturdy tree can be made into a home for many creatures, a forest of sturdy trees can become a fortress for an army.
Your point at the beginning is why wotc tried to do away with it almost entirely in 4e, and why they introduced the character traits in 5e with bonds, beliefs, ideals, and flaws. They realized characters were and should be much more nuanced than some so gular alignment, even if the 9 alignment chart is pretty fun.
I hope one d&d/6e moves even further away from the 9-alignment chart, but at the very least keeps the idea of it around (as the great wheel cosmology makes for some really fun and interesting planes based off the alignments).
Also, do you have a source for that artwork at the very end? I adore it and would like to save it for some character and worldbuilding inspiration
I love this. The alignment chart always feels like it makes decisions for you. I love that the color pie gives you a way to JUSTIFY a decisions your character makes rather than just saying "you can't do that because you aren't evil"
My GM implemented this and I have to say after playing her game I'm hooked. I'm certainly gonna use it in my game, but only after learning about the color pie more and writing a doc to explain it to my players who don't play MTG.
Okay. You've got me. I have been looking for something like this for a while and I'm quite pleased to have finally found it here.
I love the angle of your channel so much. I'm definitely gonna be thinking about colour philosophy for my next character sheet, as well watching the rest of your videos
My buddies and I are trying to make a DnD & MtG crossover with focus on the tabletop RPG aspect, and this video definitely gave me some insight on how to do it especially with regards to classes. Thank you so much!
EDIT: For clarification: we are trying to use actual magic cards such as equipment or common instant and Sorcery spells as ways of going through the game, not an actual dnd sheet. Your spells would be the colors of your class and the amount of mana available is based off your level, as examples
Hey, so is WotC.
I would use both, like having a neutral good naya aligned character
I agree I think they work good beside each other just not on top of each other. That way you can further define your character
My group had just started discussing this very topic when all of a sudden we started seeing tiktoks and TH-cam videos also recommending it! Who knows, with all the cross-over content, maybe we might see a change in how alignment is handled
Especially with all of the mtg settings that we have been getting lately I figured it just made sense.
@cyotee doge maybe that's so. All I know is I've been really enjoying what WOTC has been putting out lately, and I plan to continue to enjoy it for a long time!
@cyotee doge I mean, D&D is apparently a super bland game already
I myself prefer alignment, its loose enough that it feels more like a guideline. This kind of overspecifying makes me feel like my char cant step out of its zone one bit.
I feel the opposite. When myself and my group were using the alignment chart, it was very restrictive, with people telling each other “no your character wouldn’t do that, because you’re x alignment” or “your character is evil now, because you did that one thing”. It ended up being a trap - restricting choices our choices and self-expression. Worse, it barely helped guide what our characters would do in nuanced situations. Good and evil sometimes don’t mean anything, more of a window dressing than anything of substance.
I now find thinking about what motivates a character far more useful than thinking about the alignment grid. Is a character motivated by devotion to a person or idea, or a quest to find knowledge, or to prove themselves, or survival - that sort of thing. It makes it very easy to intuit what a character would do in different situations. I just find it much more useful than the alignment system, and less restrictive.
But that won’t be the case for everyone, and it’s totally valid for you to prefer alignment. I just find it interesting that we have totally opposite experiences with alignment 🙂
I actually think additional characterization schemes add to your pool of character choices. Let's say you got Lawful Good fighter with a background of a humble farmer who picked up the sword as war came to his doorstep. Let's also say we assign him mono Green for later.
Many would argue that to be Lawful Good would extremely limit his pool of actions, as whatever he would do it would have to be both Lawful and Good. another way to look at it would be that whenever confronted with a problem he could ask himself: to be Lawful or to be Good, to strive for both or to attain neither. thus the two categories form 4 combinations.
If we add Green now he could ask himself: should I do the Green Lawful thing or rather the Good? would the Green option help or should i do the Lawful thing? etc.
Basically the more systems you have, the more systems you can consult for options and methods. it doesn't limit, it's just another way to divy up the world into understandable chunks.
@@liamcullen3035 This happened to me with 2 different groups in regards to alignment! It got to the point where I just declared my characters neutral since that is the most flexible alignment. I thought I was playing a fantasy game not a "You're good so you cant help your rogue steal the tome your group needs". B.S. The other time was when my cleric was going to hold a goblin hostage- all of a sudden I was an evil cleric.
As a long-time M:tG player, this is something I do to help work out any character I'm thinking of for an RPG
OMG this is exactly what I've been looking for!!! I've spent years trying to design and implement a more comprehensive alignment system for my games because off the bat I realized that the nine alignments just didn't fit everything. I spent a long time and finally settled on a 25 alignment system because that was the best I could do within the limits of, good, evil, law, and chaos. It honestly never occurred to me to use anything else! It's going to take some massive reworking of my homebrews but I'm definitely going to do more research and implement this system. Although it is glaringly apparent to me that this system still needs to be constrained within the aspects of Good and evil. Off the top of my head I'm going to say the demons would, for the most part, be Er/b (Evil red/black) whereas devils would most likely be Eb/b (Evil blue/black). My God the possibilities! I have so much work to do now, thank you!!!
It is such a shame that only 100k people have seen this. I think this is a beautiful idea for a role-play system. I know so many people who are newer or inexperienced with the hobby. They typically get confused when it comes to acting out there character because they don't feel their PC falls within a 2-dimensional alignment system. The color pie even goes a step further than character and aids in the personality aspects of roleplay as well.
The whole thing makes roleplay so fluent
Using the Guilds from Ravnica is a great way to make faction motivations.
For me I find three colours to be the best option as it helps develop a three dimensional character (pun not intended)
Cause from watching your other videos, we see three pillars of who they are, then, we have two vacuums of what they're not
Creating the ideals, bonds and flaws players are "supposed" to put on their sheets essentially
This is one of the best advices I have found on YT about DnD, both the video and the idea is spot on but has a small flaw. For someone who did play or knows about MTG a bit the understanding of "colors" seems very natural but for more casual or non MTG people the nuances of those colors and combinations can seem rather hard to grasp.
Edit: Also colors have a more defined meaning to them, many characters are often a bit of all. A good of society can be motivated by personal gain from better society, a cold professional maybe struggling with emotions, only putting a mask when situation requires it.
Also I am 50/50 on the idea of letting a color define actions rather the other way around. Player knows (or at least should) how the character should act and the alignment only describes it. When I make evil character I don't go, oh I am color black so I will take every opportunity to gain something over others. Sometimes I will sometimes I won't. Freedom to act (as long as it isn't completely absurd) seems more instinctive then looking at colors and using it as a go to action chart. Tho it may greatly help with roleplaying as it is true that clearly cut motivation makes you more focused on what you want and allow to rp smoothly towards that goal.
WoooW, this is amazing! I need to do this, with my group at the end we never give a damn about the alignments, so this is pretty good!
It's a very interesting idea. Especially since I always thought alignments were useless, but I thing the color pie will work better if you use hybrid color instead of pure color. Not only it gives more options, but I notice that the color elements are not mutually eclusive enough to just put a character in just one color.
Thanks Dicetry. I've been tinkering on how to bring the color pie to DnD in a meaningful way for weeks including replacing the alignment system and you beat me in an 11 minute video
Well I've been pondering this topic for a while. I just hope it gives you a bit of inspiration for your next campaign, be sure to let me know how it goes.
I really like the color first method. Need to try it sometime. I mostly got caught up on creating mechanics and deciding how much they should influence the game. I had decided to replace feats with color aligned feats that you choose every 4 levels according to your alignment.
This is a splendiferous idea. I'm a longtime fan & student of the Color Pie, not just in MtG but in using it IRL, and I strongly agree with your premise & with the efficacy of the Color Pie Philosophy in guiding character design & play.
Love this idea! I didn't know almost anything about Color Pie beforehand, but this video singlehandedly convinced me that it's a great tool for characterization. Not sure if it can replace Alignment, as others said, it has a slightly different purpose, but still, it's a great additional tool.
I kinda want developers to try to implement something like this in future editions of D&D. It's not like they can't - both MTG and D&D belong to the same company, they already did plenty of crossovers between them.
I run games for my HS students, and I use the color pie over alignment because it is so much simpler. Great video!
I've been a D&D player for about a year (and DM for a few months) and I have never used the alignment matrix as more than a vague guideline. I encourage my own players to ignore it entirely.
Instead, just think "What Would Your Character Do (based on their prior experiences and general attitude)?".
You can always rationalize ex-post whether an action was Lawful Evil or whatever, but don't think about it in the moment.
I've been testing this out primarily as a DM and have found a way to try and use the color pie and the alignment chart hand in hand and found a way to use this for characters and settings. Mind you this is a very work in progress sort of build.
So the color wheel I like to use for the general setting or background. For example a church may generally have a white or a white/black setting. Where they'd follow a moral system based on the small society they've formed. The one to two main colors of this society are the strongest morals for them and will be the foundation for other things. If it's a minor character you use those two colors and could give an alignment based off the DnD chart to base small quirks. If this is just a random encounter then keep them blank as they're probably going to be dead in the next hour or so and won't be sticking around. For any major characters I like to use the 1D6 method to give them a 3rd color to stand out. If it lands on one of the two previously chosen colors you can make them devoted to that moral or reroll. If it lands on a new color find a way to tie into the previous. (Ex. In a white/black society someone with blue mixed in may try and bend rules to get their way or may be a ruler of some form).
Which while this could easily fall into an alignment it easily gives more to work with and personally helps when you need to crank out a dozen or so NPCs in preperation for certain situations.
I appreciate the idea, thought I find it almost more limiting than the alignment system so I don't think I will use it for a campaign that soon.
I might try it for a oneshot tho.
Just want to say this video and the one on strixhaven made me completly buy into the mtg color pie as a new way to make and analyzise characters.
I am spreading this new gospel to all my fellow players.
The thing with changing the alignment chart in D&D is, it's reflected by more than just roleplaying. So for this to work properly, you'll have to reinvent all of your outer Planes, and restructure several spells and items that are alignment-specific.
You have roughly the corners and center of the alignment chart to map to, and two colourcombos to fill out the rest.
White is lawful good, red is chaotic good, blue is lawful evil, black is chaotic evil, green is true neutral.
But I mean if you are using the planescape setting, you arw also using its mythology, so you just swallowed the alignment chart pill, and roll with its downsides.
But you are not required by law to run DnD in Planescape.
Interesting. I like that "Color first" idea. May use it sometime.
But the whole color pie? Oh you bet I'm using that in every character starting now.
Damn good idea and explanation, really makes the process of making a character a lot more fun in my opinion!
I use this method for creating elder scrolls characters for skyrim and oblivion, and I really feel like you should take a look at the elder scrolls lore and veiw it through the lense of the color pie, you'll soon find an abundance of things to contemplate and gauge with the color pie.
This should work really well with the "Moral Intentions" Variant rule from the Pathfinder 2e Gamemastery Guide!
With this rule, You replace Alignment with (typically 3) Statements about the Character's Intentions.
(I will avenge my family,
I will protect the natural world; I will achieve great wealth.).
And Alignment based Damage, that usually would only affect Creatures of the opposite Alignment,
harms anyone/thing that oppose whatever Intention was channeled for the effect that caused the Damage.
Simply replacing the free form statements with the Colors could be a great way to use them in game.
I'm going to use this for my ixilan inspired campaign
On the flip side, the alignment chart can be treated as vague guide for the character, rather than a setting the character's drive in stone, leaving more of the character up to be determined in the game.
While mtg color is great for charcter design no question, the alignment chart is basically baked into dnd, you would have to homebrew your way out of it. I think it still has it's uses in character design in ways the color won't completely cover. Color would be better at developing characters' philosophies. Sure you can get your nihilisticish rouge to be described as Red/Black likely covering it as Chaotic Evil, but it can be Chaotic Good, or if you really push the limits of character design, get a Lawful one.
Dnd alignment gets too much hate because of toxic conversations and misunderstanding of the chart. It ultimately just asks/answers two questions is your character good/evil and is your character driven by emotions/principals (whether they be literal law or some code). The colors can imply these, but not answer. Sure a pure Red is likely chaotic, but it could also be some libertarian using emotion as a fuel making them red while they actually are very principle driven.
There is not much in 5e that uses alignment, the only things I can think of are a couple magic items and that's about it. As for earlier editions, all you need to do to fix that is use both.
You're trying to fit the color pie into alignment and that's your first problem. The concept of good and evil is coherently vague and is up to interpretation, and each color has the ability to be both. I would describe that libertarian as a white/red character. He wants peace and order but knows that action must take place in order for that to happen. That tells you much more about his character then describing him as simply Lawful. The question, is he good or is he evil? It could be taken both ways. He could be an evil tyrant trying to take over the city or someone who is just passionate about protecting people. I think that using both in tandem is the best way to do things, using the color pie as a motivational core of a character and using alignment more as a societal barometer. My newest character I would describe as a red/white, lawful neutral character. He's passionate about protecting others cause he was helpless in the past and will jump in to protect someone who can't protect themselves, regardless of knowing their standings. He holds himself to the code that those who can't protect themselves must be protected. He would go out and kill a red dragon for terrorizing a village but would spare the youngling dragon and actively protect it and let it escape. Now lets talk about another lawful neutral character, but this one I would describe as a Green/Blue. He looks to better himself in what ways he can while also having a conviction to nature and upholding it's equilibrium. He would just as soon intervene if some village was trying to eradicate owl bears for eating their cattle as he would an orc army slash and burning the forest. These two characters are vastly different even though they share the same lawful neutral alignment.
@@bestaround3323 The entire cosmology is built around the alignment system...
DnD is not Planescape. it is a medieval high fantasy themed role playing system. Planescape is only a setting utilizing that system.
This sounds like someone trying to fix something that isn't broken. Alignment is NOT personality. It's about what your character wants to do (Good vs Evil) and how they want to achieve it (Law vs Chaos). It has nothing to do with whether a character is calculating, rash, an optimist, a pessimist, self-centered, emotional, or any of those things you list as traits for each color.
A Lawful Good paladin can be rash, a Chaotic Evil barbarian can be calculating, and a Neutral druid can be selfish.
But would a Lawful Good Paladin be ok with breaking into a mansion to steal an item the party needs to save a PC or a town? There are too many gray areas, in my opinion, that most PC's will be Neutral/Evil for character flexibility.
Very cool seeing Aunty Donna, they are some funny guys.
Big agree. When I was planning this video their video on board games came to mind right away
Just adding my copper piece to the pile: I like to play with alignment as an actual mechanic for these reasons. 1) The D&D world is one where good and evil actually exist as energies generated by the very fabric of the two outermost AND most destructive planes, ie positive and negative energy. This energy is used to power the magic within spells and items, and even people. Much of this magical energy is even under the conscious control of powerful otherworld entities. So as I like to see it both mechanically and narratively alignment can at least mean that certain spells and magic items wont work for you, or will. Think Excalibur, or wands in Harry Potter, or the Marauders Map 2) to me alignment is like one of the stats which defines your character, and brings with it limits, trade offs and opportunities. I think alignment even informs skills and feats. I am always reinded of one of the Three Musketeers movies where they found one of them and he was the town drunk who would alwas get his ass kicked in bar fights and only looked out for himself, i.e. was acting chaotic neutral, then when he renewed his vows and acted within his alignment of lawful good he went back to the bar and trounced everyboyd without breaking a sweat. 3) Not to mention that in the D&D world call em what you will gods, devils, demons and all manner of powerful entities literally watch over and meddle in huan affairs ALLTHETIME. Sure your character can make any moral choice they want but don't be surprised when a couple of planetars, or a pack of hell hounds show up. Sure you can violate your alignment or class restrictions, but dont be surprised when a bunch of modron's show up beat you up and take all your stuff because your upsettng the balance.
I've used the color pie for bit of inspiration specifically for the macguffin the players are trying to find five gems that act as keys for a great treasure found in places that represented the worst aspects of the colors I.E a corrupt theocracy for white, a classic gothic kingdom for black etc.
I'm not a magic player myself but I've found the lore and concepts interesting.
I find myself thinking of my own personality and that of others in the context of the colour pie as well. It is a wonderful invention in MTG.
I think people misinterpret the alignment system to be about personality and that is the major issue held with the system. Alignment is not about personality, it's not necessarily even about morality, it is about ideology and beliefs.
Let me break it down a bit. A Good character is not necessarily a moral character, however it does mean they align themselves with an ideology or philosophy that values life. Inversely, Evil is one that does not value life, but that doesn't necessarily make them morally wrong. An Evil character should be able to still have attachments and capable of heroics just as any other. An Evil person can similar be nihilistic or caught in existentialism as their primary philosophy.
Law and Chaos are not about the unfettered concepts of control and random shit. It's about Order, Civilization, and the value of society over the natural world and freedom of self. You can compare the ideas of Order and Chaos in a political sense, with Socialism as an ideology preferring a united society, with something like Anarchism or Libertarianism being about giving the individual more say in matters that include them.
Those ideological stances do not define a personality, it is a representation however of what passion drives the character and what they believe in.
"no one is completely evil"
......
Incorrect.
Incorrect…. How?
@@SikoBaby Well, take a look at some if the most evil and despicable people that have ever lived, and you'll see how.
@@dylanmorris5352 Yes, and I know that all of their actions were not evil. If you think hitler has never done a good act in his life, you’re foolish. To be completely evil it means you will never do something good and have never done something good.
@@SikoBaby enter Saddam Hussein,who made a hobby off driving by weddings and forcing himself upon newly-wed women for the thrill of it
Or Ted Bundy,who literally only killed people because it felt good
People sometimes are evil for the sake of evil
@@lukelblitz3627 So do you think they’ve never performed a single act of kindness in their entire life? They made it through this world, solely by performing evil deeds? Traits are not static, people grow and shrink. Happy people weren’t happy their entire lives. Good people are not good their entire lives. Tall people were not tall their entire lives. It’s all on perspective, you can’t accurately judge Ted Bundy that’s a person you don’t even know them but if you were really able to dig into their lives I bet you could find at least one person that would say someone you say is “evil for the sake of evil” was a good person. Ted Bundy had a wife and a child, that loved him.
Pretty sure the Archfey Warlock I’m playing now is mostly Black with Some Green. Maybe Blue
Welcome to the sultai clan. Here we use poison and dark magic to kill and reanimate our enemies. Use the power of nature to grow in raw strength and use our knowledge of the arcane to out maneuver or counter our enemies spells.
Or welcome to the golgari swarm if it's black and green. They are the farmers of ravnica who use corpses as fertilizer and as minions to help in the physical labor aspects of the job. They also are friends with the gorgons of the world for whatever reason...
@@Draco9909 *cough cough* witherbloom *cough*
Black: he made a pact with a Green Hag who taught him all about obtaining power through trickery and deceit
Green: He grew up in the swamps and values nature (including the dark, gross, and smelly parts)
Blue: He wants to know more and more about Magic and the world he was sheltered from.
Cool! My Archfey Warlock player would be closer to Blue with some Green. She focuses on enchantment and mind control skills, but is still tied with nature stuff
There was a thread on this...four or five years ago? on a forum I was a part of, and it got very interesting. Nice to see the idea again.
That's the sort of sentiment I've been hearing. It's and idea that seems to have been floating around for a while. I've even gotten comments from people telling me they use it in their games already. I think it's paring that really resonates with people.
Mardu Hoooooorde!
I was kind of thinking I couldn't figure out how to apply this but then realized it would be a good way for me to define the extreme ends of their personalities. I have a tendency to make kind of grounded and reserved characters, so having something that lets me say, "Right, THIS is what they're like at their most extreme/stressed/desperate," might give me a better box to work within. HMmmmm! Ideas!
We're about to finish a long campaign and start a new one, so I analyzed my PC to make sure the new one was different even though they partially shared class (druid multiclass vs druid). My current PC is very white and blue, so I though of the color pie as I made my next character very black-red-green.
JUND POG
Very goo video about a topic I am very passionate about. I would add in a few points from my color pie understanding. You keep saying that the color pie defines "personality" but I think it actually defines "motivation" more. Why is your character adventuring? What drives their decisions? On the other hand, alignment is more about how a character's actions are judged. Which is why I think combing alignment and color pie might be a little counter-intuitive. The color White would see the alignment chart as a very good system for judging others while the color Black would see the alignment chart as a means to manipulate and control people as well as shaming people for doing what is best for them.
One last important thing that I am surprised was not touched upon in the video which I think is especially good for introducing the color pie to people is the enemy color conflicts. Even if you don't plan to use the color pie straight-up directly I would still suggest asking the players how their character feels about each of these 5 conflicts and which side they lean towards. This is how I phrased it for my recent campaign.
Community VS Individualism
Intellect VS Impulse
Choice VS Destiny
Freedom VS Security
Nature VS Nurture
If you want to learn more about the color pie then check out these playlists
3 Color Combinations --> th-cam.com/play/PLYRIFj7E0RZGLmR578Vcb3YucMqLYw7gF.html
2 Color Combinations --> th-cam.com/video/NXq5B_dvNOI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=jSvTwh4GD-mLxbG0
Mono Color --> th-cam.com/play/PLYRIFj7E0RZG27x73WXd2tcuBUk9BPUJB.html
--> th-cam.com/play/PLYRIFj7E0RZHDBBDRwHpxPwR4V_8B5tWf.html
That chart they had for alignments with the color pie, I think it's because they try to assign good or evil when they should more so asign whether or not it is lawful or chaotic. White should represent anything that is lawful, Red should be chaotic, I think Black should be rebel...blue or green I can't decide which one should be neutral and which one should be social, any thoughts
Nice try Hasbro, but I gotta draw the line somewhere.
Besides just use the Myers abs Briggs 16 personality types, more granular and also open to stepping out of type without breaking the whole paradigm. The nine alignments and even the color pie are still straight jackets for most players.
The color pie is also how I worldbuild with DnD. I'm always thinking 'Who is my Azorius' or 'What faction represents red?'
For people who still want to try and merge the MTG color pie with the alignment chart, the appendix of Plane Shift: Ixalan has examples of how colors and combinations can fit into an alignment. Alternatively, you can take the traits of the colors as a point of reference for the personality, ideals, and so on.
Link: media.wizards.com/2018/downloads/magic/plane-shift_ixalan.pdf
Where do the symbols use for the shards at 3:52 come from?
One of my discord members posted it but you can also find it on Google by searching colorpie alignment chart
www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/6jc3bs/alara_shard_symbols/ this is a link I found that's not just a pinterest post
I 100% agree with this. Thanks for articulating it.
I will begin using this immediately for my NPCs as a DM
i love the idea to forgo the alignment table for the colorpie the possabilitis of it all look so dynamic. i was actually working on a Mtg Rpg with a similar aproach 5 players each choosing a color and any race that can be found with that color in the mirrodin block. since we all are pretty huge mtg nerds it looked like a lot of fun playing out they nouances that can be done with it. i started them out as memnarchs creations, an attempt to create artificial plainswalkers so he could harvest theyr sparks once they obtained the 5 beacons and assimilated them into sparks. then they would have a fight with him and escaped after stealing a prototype of the weatherlight to ravnica. in which they would now have the chance to add another color and join the matching guild. for the basic gameplay i would let them choose some spells for theyr color but they would all start out with a variation of shock ie black would deal 1 dmg and heal himself for 1 as well, white could use his variation to either deal 2 dmg to an enemy or heal and ally for 2 etc. it started out nicely but reallife threw a big ass monkeywrench in the gears of it all.
I've thought about fitting characters to color, but not the other way around. I also love the idea of replacing the alignment chart with the color pie. I'll definitely be implementing it next time I run a campaign.
One other aspect of Magic that I think stands as an extension to this concept is the idea of "Center color". All the cards in Magic have a color that true to their core, but a few times throughout Magic's history, there have been some Planeswalkers and Legendary creatures (the PCs of Magic's "campaigns") who gained a color depending on the set or situation in which they find themselves. The green-aligned Nissa gained blue when she entered the trial of the god of knowledge Kefnet on Amonkhet and interacted with the god in dreams and visions. When the red-aligned Sarkhan was driven mad by the Elder Dragon Nicol Bolas' voice in his head, he gained black. And when the archangel Avacyn was being corrupted by the presence of the eldrazi horrror Emrakeul on Innistrad, she gained red - as did the Lithomancer Nahiri who brought Emrakeul to Innistrad in the first place.
To put all of that into general D&D terms, you could always start a character in a single color or even a dual color only to add another color at certain story beats just like multi-classing or taking a feat. It's like adding personality depth or flavor on top of the mechanical. A roleplay level-up if you will.
I've been using the Color Pie as an alignment system in D&D for a while now.
"...with morals that don't fit in static boxes like good and evil, or lawful and chaotic."
I always assumed that was why the neutrals existed on both axes. XD As a kid, I loved the system when I found it in Baldur's Gate. It was the first time in my life I realized lawful doesn't always mean good, and knowing that Lawful Evil exists in the world (because it absolutely DOES) is a good life lesson in general. As is the reality that there are shades of gray and that my own propensity is Neutral to Chaotic Good.
I like this, thinking about it I can see the color of some of the characters I had made. A noble who had his rule pulled out from underneath him is going to prove himself by bending manipulating the laws of the places he goes to suit himself: Black/White. A delinquent from a mages college with skills of a sword uses base level magic and skill with weapons to spite master wizards: Blue/Red. A normal guy who lives a peaceful life who's town was visited by a lesser fae noble who used magic to charm him and put a magical amulet on that won't come off that gives him power: White/Green or maybe mono-green.
To add onto this, I think colorless would also feasibily fit into this type of character creation/description. It could represent the characters affinity for artifacts and the artificial (MtG pun absolutely intended), or it could show their "otherworldly-ness." It would probably be uncommon to see it show up, and MtG players might be weirded out by seeing a colorless-color pairing, but I think it would be valuable when it did get used. I think the most prominent examples would be artificers and warlocks- specifically great old one warlocks. Another example could be be a Green-Colorless Archfey. They clearly care about nature, but their thought processes/emotions are so alien to the setting that it's almost incomprehensible. It'd be like describing a color that doesn't exist, so it's colorless to others, like asking a human what infrared light looks like.
Just in case it wasn't known, the last seven pages of the Plane Shift Ixalan PDF are a brief write up of this concept and tables of personality traits and ideals tied to each of the five colors of mana.
I skipped that 5x5 as soon as I saw Boros listed as anything BUT Lawful.
Boros could go anywhere depending on the amount of red or white
@@PUNishment777 Boros, the guild? Literally the law, so it should probably be lawful. Boros individuals? There's room for nuance.
@@josh___something well I mean feel militarism the other important part you want to be connected to
@@josh___something Boros emphasizes whatever they may believe are the intentions of the laws which has a high chance of deviating and potentially being chaotic
So I have a question for you, do you think it’s worth it to differentiate dual-colors from mono when assigning them to a character? For example, is a Blue, Black, Green character different enough from a Blue/Black, Green character to warrant notation? Are dual color philosophies different enough from mono color philosophies to be seen as separate entities? Or should we just go Commander rules and list all colors present, if you catch my drift.
List all colors present. I have many videos on the combinations but in essence every time a color is added it divides the whole. So yes a dual color is quite different from a mono. Hopefully that cleared things up I'm not 100% understanding the question. If anything watch my different videos on the colors and combination to really understand what the differences are
@@DiceTry I appreciate the reply! I guess to be more specific, my question is whether you think it’s possible for a character to fully embrace the philosophy of Green (without the touch of Blue or Black) while also believing in the philosophy of Blue/Black. In other words, if each color combination creates a separate choice than the individual mono colors, do you think a character can embrace a mono color (green) while also embracing a combo color (Black/blue)? Or do you think it’s inevitable that the black and blue would mingle with the green?
I think it's inevitable that some blue and black seep in. One thing I always say is that it's a matter of degrees. So perhaps it's just a touch of blue/black instead of an equal split
@@DiceTry Awesome. Thanks for the reply man. That was my thinking too, but I’d never pretend to have invested as much research time into this as you. Keep up the great work. I recently found your channel and it’s helping add a new level of definition to the characters, organizations and cultures of my settings. Thank you!
If you wanna go back to the source material, MTG, usually decks are labelled by all colors present but are almost never equally represented in the deck. Like a "Gruul"(Red-Green) deck that would have 80-20 split favoring green.
Then there's also "splashing" for a color, where the deck is predominantly a single/two colors, with 1 or 2 cards that are the second/third. The naming convention around that would be something like "Mono-green splashing red" or plainly going with Gruul, still.
tl:dr; There's precedent for both using all colors that describe a character, and for making the distinction.
While you make some good points, you don't make a good argument for replacing the alignment chart with the color pie; this is an argument for replacing the ideals, bonds, and flaws to make deeper characters with real motivations. As you said in the video, you can have the full range of alignments within each color and color combination. I like the idea, but it sounds like false equivalence. I'll still learn more about the colors, what they mean, and then try this method out though.
D&D Alignments represent two sides of White's core. Which means you can map out ten different alignments from the Pie like a radar chart. I think that's the better way to replace the traditional alignments.
Also 3:44 - well said. Thank god.
6:30 - That's just one part of Blue. The other side is yearning to learn, change and improve - best exemplified by cards like Pongify.
I feel like the color pie breaks up the lawful-chaotic axis but leaves the good-evil axis untouched. Which is good, the lawful-chaotic axis was always confusing and jammed too many things into one package. From my understanding chaotic contained aspects of green, red, and black, and lawful contained white, blue, and some black. I'd be interesting to see a mtg color pie characterization of the outer planes as each one has a personality of its own and represents an aspect of law and chaos which might be better described by a color or two. Some examples could be Mechanus being very blue with aspects of green and white, The Abyss being red and black, and the Nine Hells being white and blue.
Green also is pretty lawful, with all its devotion to tradition. Generally, the only color that can't be lawful is Red, and even there can be exceptions depending on how exactly you defy "lawful".
That's the problem with Alignment - it's super vague, has tons of interpretations, and actually brings very little to defy character. Color Pie is much more well-defined while still has a lot of room for possibilities even within a single color/combination, not to mention all 25 possible combinations.
7:42 "A green character is someone who wants to live a simple life." They take care not to trouble themselves with any enemies, like winning and losing. That would cause them to lose sleep at night.
I have two characters in two separate pathfinder games that I have been really getting into roleplaying lately and I'd like to try and put their color pie alignment here: My Armiger Galeo Cator (Armigers are an archetype of fighter that in the lore of Golarion are to Hellknights, a prestige class that focuses on order and combating chaotic aligned enemies, as squires are to knights) is White Black without question. He strongly believes in the Hellknight orders' mission to bring Order to the world at any means. He's had to set aside his queasiness about his companions (a half-orc cavalier who has tattooed symbols of all gods he's aware of, including a few demon lords, onto his body; a gnome Cleric of Cayden Caliean the Drunk god; and a ratfolk samurai) to ensure his quest will succeed. and then there's David Hastenborough, My Wizard on my DMs homebrew setting. He is Blue Red due to him being so extremely curious and outgoing when it comes to topics regarding magic. first session our party had to kill a Wyvern that escaped its captivity at the hands of the city leader's head alchemist when someone clearly sabotaged the cage it was held in. after killing the wyvern David got along with the Alchemist, Mulder, and were discussing research methodology to make sure such a situation never happened again. the sheer passion I put into the conversation makes David Hastenborough Blue red for sure.
I really like the idea of using the color pie chart for alignment, because it gives a ton of nuance to character motivation and action, and is not locked in a binary system, since each color represents both the positive and negative aspects of what they mean.
As a ravnica dnd DM, I fully endorse this method
I wish they had included this as an alignment varriant rule in the book. Applied it to my NPCs. Helps differentiate generic Boros soldier #1 from generic Boros soldier #2 because soldier #1 is white/red while soldier #2 is mono red. Started making 3 colored characters for the 2 color guilds. The izzet tinkerer that is grixis colors takes his machinations further than other tinkerers of izzet
I'd love to see a deeper discussion on this topic!
I did do a follow up article on my website showcasing some color first characters but perhaps I can think up a proper followup video. Bring up aspects I didn't cover
@@DiceTry I've read it, it's pretty good. Though it would be great to get a more in-depth thought process on how exactly you went from colors to characters, and not just character description.
Neutral Evil doesn't make sense to me. No one actively tries to be evil. Selfish, sure, but no one is motivated by causing harm in general.
Agreed even villains convince themselves that they are doing the right thing. It's all a matter of perspective
I think you just answered your own question: A Neutral Evil character
* Cares about themselves and their friends, but will hurt others to advance themselves and their friends
* Is pragmatically ambivalent about whether or not to submit to others' authority, depending on the circumstance
Neutral just means "not the other two"
Well that's because that's not Neutral Evil. Neutral characters have principles, but are not heavily tied by them. Evil vs. Good only really works on vague definitions or some religious like base. A good example of Neutral Evil is Darth Sidious. Sure he follows the Sith code and rule of two and all that, but he is not tied to them and will break them i.e. training Maul. Breaking Republic/Empire law doesn't make him Neutral as those are not his principles.
As for his diagnosis of Evil, well no question there.
This is only half true. Malicious action is not uncommon. Isolated moments in almost any person's history has some moment where someone takes action explicitly to hurt someone or something else. Justification doesn't embody morality, it functions to allow action in spite of morality. Evil is absolutely evil, and is generally selfish and malicious. But it is entirely possible for a person to justify both maliciousness and selfishness in a moment because they believe that the result defines the morality, not the action itself. But ultimately, this is a defining human trait; no one is absolutely good or absolutely evil. Instead, people act in ways that are absolutely good or evil at any given moment because their motivation allows them to justify both. The failure of the alignment chart isn't in its accuracy, but in how people assume it is rigid; it's not. In this sense, the video makes sense; alignment describes the moral value of an action, while the color wheel informs the motivation that justifies a character taking a diversity of action that has a variance of morality, as in real life.
The main thing I use the color pie for is rangers. Favored Enemy is a good start but needs more. Favored Foe from Tasha's is lack luster at best. Hunters mark taking up the concentration slot causes rangers to ignore half their spell list.
So rangers in my games get the deft explorer abilities from Tasha's, and they give up hunters mark, favored enemy and favored foe. In return they choose one of the colors, or colorless, at 1st, 6th, and 14th level. While in lands or when dealing with or tracking creatures tied to one of their favored colors they get advantage on all Int, Wis, and Dex checks and they deal 1d6 extra damage once or twice a turn when attacking creatures tied to their colors.
ive been doing this for years and its so much better shorthand to say "im a White/Red Fey pact warlock" than "i guess im chaotic good then"
I don't play DnD, but I've heard about the alignment chart a lot, and whenever I see it, I think "man, this looks useless/oversimplified", because I'm used to the color pie.
Basically, if I want to quickly summarize a character, for example to explain that character to another person, then using that character's colors will convey so much more information than using their alignment.
Rolled a green/red wood Elf ranger, someone who knew ultimately what his role was in life, and was fine with it. His name was Norric, and in his backstory, which I sort of left up to the dm, he was arrested for slaughtering the lord's son because the lord's son was a disgusting human who regularly invited young ladies back to his mansion. And Norric's daughter was his current eye candy.
Party freed him from the dungeon after hearing his story, (main character died, Norric was my backup) and Norric became the father figure that two of the other characters needed to help them with their goals. He died in the final fight against one of Auril's cult leaders, but it was a fantastic campaign. There were times when I couldn't just stick Norric in the Lawful vs Chaotic/Good vs Evil frame, because there isn't a good way to slot a fatherly Folk Hero who kills tyrants, and secretly believes that he would make a great ruler himself into that nine square box.
I created a magic card for my Pathfinder 2e Goblin Angel. Boros, of course. Red for goblins, white for (good) Angels.