Alignment was a way for Dungeons & Dragons to incorporate the ideas of detecting and protecting from evil and such things, as well as a shorthand guide to how to play monsters. It has never been of great importance overall but has become a part of the D&D furniture to the degree that it gets put on T-shirts.

But how can you really make use of it? You can make alignments matter by making them a little more specific about the behaviors they should result in. And you might go further and make the alignment of the gods result in edicts that their followers are expected to fulfill.

Alignments Alone

The traditional way of defining alignments is to list the beliefs of each. You could go so far as to create a kind of zodiac of personality traits and behaviors for each alignment, but such things are complex and hard to follow. You could try to do it simply, but it becomes quite vague, tho perhaps still useful.

• Lawful-good folk keep bargains, help others, right wrongs, and bow to rules.
• Neutral-good folk help others and keep their bargains unless very inconvenient.
• Chaotic-good folk help others and respect power and influence more than rules.
• Lawful-neutral folk are selfish but help the weak yet keep the law without pity.
• True-neutral folk are selfish but help the weak and keep bargains unless onerous.
• Chaotic-neutral folk are selfish but not cruel; they follow the strong and charming.
• Lawful-evil folk keep bargains but find ways to cruelly twist them to their benefit.
• Neutral-evil folk yield to the law when necessary but cruelly prey on the weak.
• Chaotic-evil folk cruelly prey on others but bow to the strong and charismatic.

You can then say that every creature type or humanoid race is most commonly of its given alignment but individuals commonly vary one degree to either side in both measures. Rarely, they will vary two degrees (two degree one way or one degree both ways)

Therefore, if elves are most commonly chaotic-good, individuals may sometimes be neutral-good or chaotic-neutral–or even occasionally true neutral, but only very rare individuals would be lawful or evil.

The Gods

Alignments need to predict behavior, so behavior can be measured against it. The way to do that is to associate them with the gods, who can do the measuring. After all, if the gods are real and reward faithful adherents, then everybody should worship some god or other, if not all of them.

Note, however, that you don’t need one god for every alignment. These are just examples of how a god of each alignment could differ.

• Penitus, lawful-good god of justice, who rewards righteous punishment
• Twylin, neutral-good goddess of redemption, who rewards redress of wrongs
• Uron, chaotic-good god of selflessness, who demands evil idols be destroyed
• Ofenia, lawful-neutral goddess of death, who seeks order
• Veander, true-neutral god of balance, who seeks harmony in tension
• Skettis, chaotic-neutral trickster goddess, who rewards cleverness
• Go’az, lawful-evil goddess of competition, who rewards deception
• Nuktir, neutral-evil god of war, who rewards triumph at any cost
• Askolai, chaotic-evil goddess of strength, who demands the sacrifice of the weak

These gods have opinions and goals. Their adherents have something to work toward. You could even remove the alignments and just let players choose who their character follows based on what the sort of character they want to play.

As mentioned above, there’s no reason to have precisely one god for each alignment. There could be many or few and the gods can appear to different creatures. (The evil god can appear to lizardfolk as a lizardfolk being and orcs as an orcish being.)

Faction Alignments

If you don’t want to use gods (or saints & demons), you could do something similar with factions and let the heroes join the faction they prefer and try to further its goals against factions they oppose.

• Knightly Order of the Sword (LG), who help others and right wrongs
• Brotherhood of the Wild (NG), who destroy monsters and protect nature
• Selvin Ring (CG), who smash evil wherever they find it, even in the halls of power
• Arcane Order of Mistularum (LN), who uphold the law and help the weak
• Sun-and-Moon Brotherhood (N), who help the weak and protect nature
• Wisemen Society (CN), who work as spies and envoys to enrich themselves
• Knightly Order of the Eagle (LE), who seek glory in battle and triumph in intrigue
• Pit of Vipers (NE), who are a gang of kidnappers, smugglers, and ruthless thieves
• Band of Curaie (CE), who pillage and plunder when not cutting each others’ throats

Of course, you don’t have to have precisely nine or stop at nine. Just remember that lawful factions should be organized around rules; neutral ones organized around unwritten principles; and chaotic ones organized around power and influence. A chaotic-good faction might be full of jostling for power, and a chaotic-neutral or evil one full of vicious internal intrigue.